Looking at today’s culture through the lens of mythology, James Bennett sees a split between heaven and earth. For millennia humanity strove for intellectual ascent but now, Bennett, a practicing psychotherapist, states, to restore global health we must turn our attention downwards: to the Underworld:

• Each Archetype of the Underworld is a consciousness of our physical bodies, our material substance and the Earth.

• Heaven and hell represent the polarized intellect and body. The darkness of the underworld symbolizes its obscurity to intellect when opposed.

• Intellect’s repudiation of the physical realm causes unconscious worship of the Great Mother in her dark aspect.

• The mythological stories of journeys through hades were written as guides to those in recovery from trauma or addiction: people who were “going through hell”.

• The meanings of the myths will only come to us through intuition: “Allow the stories, pictures and images to sit with you and speak to you, to spark your own connections and open doors for you in unexpected meaningful ways.”

Author James Bennett is a practicing psychotherapist.