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Transformational Narrative:
Night Sea Journey
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NIGHT SEA JOURNEY
LEFT EYE reflects on Frobenius and the Night Sea Journey—a predecessor of Individuation and the Hero’s Journey. The story he identified was that of the hero through night—in the belly of a whale.
According to the pioneering comparativist, there are eight stages, which, according to Jung, culminated in a triumph of consciousness. First, the hero is swallowed. This mimes sunset —into the sea. Then, once the hero / whale / sun have passed through the pillars of midnight—beyond the nadir of darkness—new light sparks. Fire is stolen. The whale’s journey is then to sunrise—returned as a flame of consciousness.
DATABASES


![Night sea journey. An archetypal motif in mythology, psychologically associated with depression and the loss of energy characteristic of neurosis.
The night sea journey is a kind of descensus ad inferos--a descent into Hades and a journey to the land of ghosts somewhere beyond this world, beyond consciousness, hence an immersion in the unconscious.[“The Psychology of the Transference,”CW16, par. 455.]
Mythologically, the night sea journey motif usually involves being swallowed by a dragon or sea monster. It is also represented by imprisonment or crucifixion, dismemberment or abduction, experiences traditionally weathered by sun-gods and heroes: Gilgamesh, Osiris, Christ, Dante, Odysseus, Aeneas. In the language of the mystics it is the dark night of the soul.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d57c23_bc8f38115543407b8e3525cf34d05247~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_21,h_15,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/1200px-Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_svg.png)


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