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Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts #6
Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women
This is a highly original and provocative book about women's freedom and the need for an inner, female authority in a masculine-oriented society. Combining ancient texts and modern dreams, the author, a practising therapist, presents a way of feminine initiation. Sumertian Goddess of Heaven and Earth, journeys into the underworld to Ereshkigal, her dark "sister", and returns. So modern women must descend from their old role-determind behavior into the depths of their instinct and image patterns, to find anew the Great Goddess and restore her values to modern culture. Men too will be interested in this book, both for its revelations of women's essential nature and for its implications in terms of their own inner journey.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
77 people are currently reading
1731 people want to read
About the author
Sylvia Brinton Perera
15 books35 followersSylvia Brinton Perera, M.A., is a Jungian analyst who lives, practices, teaches, and writes in New York and Vermont and lectures worldwide. Originally trained as an art historian, she earned her M.A. in psychology and graduated from the Jung Institute of New York. Her publications include Descent to the Goddess; The Scapegoat Complex; Dreams, A Portal to the Source (with E. Christopher Whitmont); Celtic Queen Maeve and Addiction and The Irish Bull God: Image of the Multiform and Integral Masculine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
July 13, 2025
This is one of the most important books written about the meaning of the Feminine and the importance of making the inner journey of descent in order to mature and individuate as a human being. Perera utilizes the myth of Innana/Ishtar's descent to visit her dark sister, Ereshkigal, to situate her discussion of the need for women (and I would hold, men) to be initiated into the Mystery of the Feminine, which in Jungian terms is the unconscious. While there are many other such discussions, such as in the works of Marie-Louise von Franz, Marion Woodman, June Singer, Esther Harding and Helen M. Luke and others, this volume is brief and very much to the point. Perera writes with a compact clarity of style and holds the reader fascinated in her discussion of one of the most necessary steps in one's Individuation process.
It is in the deepest, darkest depths of our unconscious where we find the purest gold, the hidden treasure of the essence of whom we are meant to be. I recommend this book very highly, especially for those who are involved in women's studies, the study of the Feminine, or are in therapy themselves. It is not for self-help counseling, it is for serious students/explorers of the Soul.
It is in the deepest, darkest depths of our unconscious where we find the purest gold, the hidden treasure of the essence of whom we are meant to be. I recommend this book very highly, especially for those who are involved in women's studies, the study of the Feminine, or are in therapy themselves. It is not for self-help counseling, it is for serious students/explorers of the Soul.
May 22, 2021
Extremely thick text. No unnecessary word used; and those chosen to be written - every one of them carries the weight and falls in place.
I would say this book is not for a random lay person to read. One has to have some experience or previous exposure to the Jungian analysis of the fairy tales or myths. Otherwise, most likely the reading will end up in disappointment as a result of misunderstanding and lack of knowledge to follow the concept.
I would say this book is not for a random lay person to read. One has to have some experience or previous exposure to the Jungian analysis of the fairy tales or myths. Otherwise, most likely the reading will end up in disappointment as a result of misunderstanding and lack of knowledge to follow the concept.
February 12, 2009
This book was my introduction to "The Descent of Inanna" -- and while I now would have a somewhat different perspective than Perera takes, it's still an excellent tool for opening up an ancient text for modern relevance.
August 8, 2022
All those enchanted by "Women who run with the wolves" will fall in love with this book, smaller in scope and length but as fascinating and trailblazing. Focused on one specific myth revolving around Sumerian goddess Inanna and her descent to the underworld and its queen Ereshkigal, as described in the poem "Descent of Inanna" and in Sumerian (later Akkadian) mythology at large, the book analyses each step of the myth from a Jungian perspective. Adding elements from her own experience with patients, Perera weaves a tale meant to empower women and help them face both their fears and powers, hopefully attaining a better understanding of life and balance in the relationship with themselves and others. The style sometimes may be confusing, and the combination of myth analysis and psychoanalysis perhaps excessive or not as seamless as in Pinkola Estés' book (which, coming decades later, owes much of its structure to Perera's work), but overall Descent to the Goddess is an illuminating read.
February 21, 2022
This was an interesting exploration of the Inanna-Ereshkigal myth, and had a lot of psychological insight up unto a point. The problem with examinations of the feminine is that they are exploratory. For so many years the feminine has been hidden by projections of the male anima and of the mother, and we are only beginning to delineate the actual thing. So this is a great exploration that provides answers only up unto a point, and then the explanations become hazy.
Still well worth reading.
Still well worth reading.
May 19, 2023
I keep reading books like this and being like "WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS BEFORE", then realizing what a niche it is, but still, grateful and trying to integrate
July 23, 2024
Very intresting book about jungian psychoanalysis which takes into account women perspectives in patriarchal occidental societies using a very old myth we can better understand the main tensions and problematics lots of "integrated" women endure in these societies.
One of the very few mythic story and oldest written one about the initiatic journey of a woman in a psychological and spiritual way to aim for wholeness.
One of the very few mythic story and oldest written one about the initiatic journey of a woman in a psychological and spiritual way to aim for wholeness.
August 13, 2024
Like with the source material for other katabases, the descent has a high degree of lucidity that then begins to degrade immediately at the threshold, ending as always in a highly suspect psychic narrative of the ascent. The mythopoeic dreamer’s dissatisfaction is clear in the necessitated re-descents of the lyses.
Notes
Descends to see funeral of Gugalanna, Bull of Heaven, maybe Enlil (sky-father) who rapes the feminine to separate above from below, the depotentiated ancestral father whose animus ideal/imperative that provided identity is freed.
She descends, dressed for a marriage, but offers herself in sacrifice, witness to the death of fertility, the voluntary immolation on which continual creation depends.
Descent requires divestment, shedding of clothes and old identity. Later, initiates into Inanna’s temple underwent similar process, initiated on the ‘cross of the impersonal phallus of any man’ - sexuality as an aspect of their service to the goddess.
Her 7 layers of garments lost at successive thresholds correspond to the chakras, starting with crown’s uniting of opposites, down to naked muladhara where potential life sleeps and is restored.
7 gates (one gatekeeper, Neti), planetary positions with which Venus Ishtar moves into conjunction.
Ninshubur, queen of the East, executive handmaid or vizier, given instructions for rescue. The still-conscious part of self that stays above ground, prevents psychotic episode and total loss of soul, allowing it to persist in its journey. Profound, egoless obedience, dresses like a beggar. Told to go first to Enlil (all-father), then Nanna-Sin (own father - the moon), then to Enki, all parental archetypes who reject the individual - one who goes to the Great Dwelling stays there.
Nanna, lights the night, measures time, underworld judge during the dark moon, impetuously marries Ningal (thin, wifely anima) without asking her father Enki for consent. Father of kings of Ur, but moves in his own rhythms unconnected to children.
Utu, sun-god, brother of Inanna, is close to her. Influences choice of herdsman husband Dummuz over farmer.
Female heroes of puer fathers, facade of self-sufficiency, proving self worthy of father’s praise, split off sensuousness, capture men without tenderness, focused on seeking father’s attention.
Enki, lord of the earth (like Poseidon), generative, creative, empathetic male, water and wisdom, lives deep in the abyss. Aquarius, but more generally equated with Capricorn, traversing depths and heights, true complement of Cancer (Great Mother) - thus sharing bond with Ninhursag and Ereshkigal.
Like Mercurius, includes opposites, no abstract boundedness to principle of law. Crestes ‘me’, ordering principles, but not static - culture-bringer not preserver of status quo. Svadisthana chakra - healing static ills of 1st C and of power-bound 3rd. Releases inertia and rigidity of underworld. Flow of life’s energies.
Uncaring of rules/precedents, he is called upon by the high-principled patriarchal gods to unstick them, source of rescue, conquering the chaos they fear, mediating between world of father and feminine.
Earth, Ereshkigal, embodied stuff, energy of matter, meat of Inanna, silt of Enki’s riverbeds, clay to build and write and create race of humans. Enki removes fingernail dirt, the autonomous psyche, despised slag of life’s processes (not performative like the superergo’s preference) - creating kalatur and kurgarra, sexless devotees (consciousness as empathy/mirroring rather than separating/cutting/discrimination/adversary).
Humble, nonheroic creatures that simply fly through the doors cracks, the attitude necessary for the blessing of the Dark Goddess. Express the suffering of existence that Ereshkigal now feels, for consciousness has come into her realm and with it consciousness of pain.
Woe, oh my inside. Woe, you who sigh our queen, oh your inside. Woe, oh my outside. Woe, you who sigh our queen, oh your outside. Border between outside,inside, I and Other, final most mysterious gate of E’s house, the gate of birth and the gate of death. The horizon.
Individual with too rigid boundary (deprivation, negative judgments) or too open (suffociating infantilization) lack of capacity to define inside vs outside, and flow across.
Enki, patron of therapists, restructuring of psychic inertia using whatever is at hand (hidden under fingernail) - turning towards an affect and intensifying it to find vectors, pain as valid part of life process (no scapegoating, adversarial)
Ereshkigal can destroy or create, depending on the attitude brought to her, producing her essence, the water of life, from tomb to womb, the unconscious suffers and brings forth life. The fertility of the bull of heaven that had died is reborn. Not always willing service, sometimes heroic courage (Gretel pushes dark goddess into the oven of transformation), sometimes endured or avoided. For proud, active, Inanna, it is submission, sacrifice, passivity that is demanded.
Inanna ascends with eyes of death to choose her own scapegoat, demonic return of the repressed power shadow. No mortal can endure the face of the goddess and survive unscathed. Makes the same descent she endured.
Dumuzi, Abel, faithful son of Enki, the elan vital of new life in nature, vegetable and animal (thus barley can produce beer), deified as king and consort, but mortal husband of goddess whose death is necessary for renewal. He does not grovel, unconcerned for her plight when she returns, unlike Ninshubur and her own two sons who are spared the demons. He is unconscious of the goddess except in her Aphroditic aspect.
From him, unafraid and not servile, she gains the respect of confrontation. Transpersonal energies need human partner for equal dignity, not mirroring.
Dumuzi betrays his need to descend, to integrate the anima. Wrenched from god-like state, aware of time’s limit, of death. Appeals to Utu, transmutes to a snake, gains serpent wisdom, nothing in the Great Round dies.
Utu, like Enki, is outside the patriarchal Logos, not adversary but complement of the feminine.
Inanna rejoices and mourns as her own process, eternal round of consorts, until Gilgamesh defies his role, spurns her offer of hierogamos, puts institution of kingship on a new basis. Inanna, like E, is an archetypal energy pattern, each generation is altered by contact with the bipolar goddess, needing to create a life-sustaining balance, flowing equilibrium.
3rd Lysis: Geshtinanna, Dumuzi’s sister, tablet–knowing scribe who knows the meaning words, dreams, offers self as sacrifice. Name means vine of heaven, force of autumn-harvested grape and spring-fermented wine, like Dumuzi is spring-harvested grain and autumn-fermented beer. Each spend 6 months in the underworld. Earthly rooted-stock sister of Gemini pair. Caring in a way Inanna cannot be, seeing life’s fragile patterns in her human wisdom, willing to share burden. Without the defensiveness of daughters of fathers, for whom any self-sacrifice for masculine needs payment for self and gratification.
Ends the cycle of scapegoating, willingly confronts the underworld, offers to serve E and I. Forerunner of Dionysus, a new kind of individuating ego, celebrates and acquiesces in the transformation processes of life and death, ever-changing balance between personal and transpersonal, dares to encounter the shadow.
Notes
Descends to see funeral of Gugalanna, Bull of Heaven, maybe Enlil (sky-father) who rapes the feminine to separate above from below, the depotentiated ancestral father whose animus ideal/imperative that provided identity is freed.
She descends, dressed for a marriage, but offers herself in sacrifice, witness to the death of fertility, the voluntary immolation on which continual creation depends.
Descent requires divestment, shedding of clothes and old identity. Later, initiates into Inanna’s temple underwent similar process, initiated on the ‘cross of the impersonal phallus of any man’ - sexuality as an aspect of their service to the goddess.
Her 7 layers of garments lost at successive thresholds correspond to the chakras, starting with crown’s uniting of opposites, down to naked muladhara where potential life sleeps and is restored.
7 gates (one gatekeeper, Neti), planetary positions with which Venus Ishtar moves into conjunction.
Ninshubur, queen of the East, executive handmaid or vizier, given instructions for rescue. The still-conscious part of self that stays above ground, prevents psychotic episode and total loss of soul, allowing it to persist in its journey. Profound, egoless obedience, dresses like a beggar. Told to go first to Enlil (all-father), then Nanna-Sin (own father - the moon), then to Enki, all parental archetypes who reject the individual - one who goes to the Great Dwelling stays there.
Nanna, lights the night, measures time, underworld judge during the dark moon, impetuously marries Ningal (thin, wifely anima) without asking her father Enki for consent. Father of kings of Ur, but moves in his own rhythms unconnected to children.
Utu, sun-god, brother of Inanna, is close to her. Influences choice of herdsman husband Dummuz over farmer.
Female heroes of puer fathers, facade of self-sufficiency, proving self worthy of father’s praise, split off sensuousness, capture men without tenderness, focused on seeking father’s attention.
Enki, lord of the earth (like Poseidon), generative, creative, empathetic male, water and wisdom, lives deep in the abyss. Aquarius, but more generally equated with Capricorn, traversing depths and heights, true complement of Cancer (Great Mother) - thus sharing bond with Ninhursag and Ereshkigal.
Like Mercurius, includes opposites, no abstract boundedness to principle of law. Crestes ‘me’, ordering principles, but not static - culture-bringer not preserver of status quo. Svadisthana chakra - healing static ills of 1st C and of power-bound 3rd. Releases inertia and rigidity of underworld. Flow of life’s energies.
Uncaring of rules/precedents, he is called upon by the high-principled patriarchal gods to unstick them, source of rescue, conquering the chaos they fear, mediating between world of father and feminine.
Earth, Ereshkigal, embodied stuff, energy of matter, meat of Inanna, silt of Enki’s riverbeds, clay to build and write and create race of humans. Enki removes fingernail dirt, the autonomous psyche, despised slag of life’s processes (not performative like the superergo’s preference) - creating kalatur and kurgarra, sexless devotees (consciousness as empathy/mirroring rather than separating/cutting/discrimination/adversary).
Humble, nonheroic creatures that simply fly through the doors cracks, the attitude necessary for the blessing of the Dark Goddess. Express the suffering of existence that Ereshkigal now feels, for consciousness has come into her realm and with it consciousness of pain.
Woe, oh my inside. Woe, you who sigh our queen, oh your inside. Woe, oh my outside. Woe, you who sigh our queen, oh your outside. Border between outside,inside, I and Other, final most mysterious gate of E’s house, the gate of birth and the gate of death. The horizon.
Individual with too rigid boundary (deprivation, negative judgments) or too open (suffociating infantilization) lack of capacity to define inside vs outside, and flow across.
Enki, patron of therapists, restructuring of psychic inertia using whatever is at hand (hidden under fingernail) - turning towards an affect and intensifying it to find vectors, pain as valid part of life process (no scapegoating, adversarial)
Ereshkigal can destroy or create, depending on the attitude brought to her, producing her essence, the water of life, from tomb to womb, the unconscious suffers and brings forth life. The fertility of the bull of heaven that had died is reborn. Not always willing service, sometimes heroic courage (Gretel pushes dark goddess into the oven of transformation), sometimes endured or avoided. For proud, active, Inanna, it is submission, sacrifice, passivity that is demanded.
Inanna ascends with eyes of death to choose her own scapegoat, demonic return of the repressed power shadow. No mortal can endure the face of the goddess and survive unscathed. Makes the same descent she endured.
Dumuzi, Abel, faithful son of Enki, the elan vital of new life in nature, vegetable and animal (thus barley can produce beer), deified as king and consort, but mortal husband of goddess whose death is necessary for renewal. He does not grovel, unconcerned for her plight when she returns, unlike Ninshubur and her own two sons who are spared the demons. He is unconscious of the goddess except in her Aphroditic aspect.
From him, unafraid and not servile, she gains the respect of confrontation. Transpersonal energies need human partner for equal dignity, not mirroring.
Dumuzi betrays his need to descend, to integrate the anima. Wrenched from god-like state, aware of time’s limit, of death. Appeals to Utu, transmutes to a snake, gains serpent wisdom, nothing in the Great Round dies.
Utu, like Enki, is outside the patriarchal Logos, not adversary but complement of the feminine.
Inanna rejoices and mourns as her own process, eternal round of consorts, until Gilgamesh defies his role, spurns her offer of hierogamos, puts institution of kingship on a new basis. Inanna, like E, is an archetypal energy pattern, each generation is altered by contact with the bipolar goddess, needing to create a life-sustaining balance, flowing equilibrium.
3rd Lysis: Geshtinanna, Dumuzi’s sister, tablet–knowing scribe who knows the meaning words, dreams, offers self as sacrifice. Name means vine of heaven, force of autumn-harvested grape and spring-fermented wine, like Dumuzi is spring-harvested grain and autumn-fermented beer. Each spend 6 months in the underworld. Earthly rooted-stock sister of Gemini pair. Caring in a way Inanna cannot be, seeing life’s fragile patterns in her human wisdom, willing to share burden. Without the defensiveness of daughters of fathers, for whom any self-sacrifice for masculine needs payment for self and gratification.
Ends the cycle of scapegoating, willingly confronts the underworld, offers to serve E and I. Forerunner of Dionysus, a new kind of individuating ego, celebrates and acquiesces in the transformation processes of life and death, ever-changing balance between personal and transpersonal, dares to encounter the shadow.
August 28, 2021
One of the classic Jungian texts, using the Sumerian myth of Inanna’s descent to the underworld to the dark goddess, Ereshkigal to talk about a woman’s rejection of patriarchy and initiation into the feminine. Complex and rich.
October 3, 2010
Gets to the bottom of Ianna's descent mythology (!) and how that applies to contemporary human psychology.
April 30, 2015
The myth is interesting. The rest of the book is not worth the read.
February 17, 2017
Death and rebirth, duality of wholeness.
January 16, 2025
Have been fascinated by the myth of Inanna and Ereshkigal for a long time now. This is such a profound, life changing book. A must read for every woman of our generation, born and bred with masculine values - go and conquer the world outside. But we still find something missing. The descent into oneself - to the Goddess, the feminine core is a journey we all willingly or unwillingly must take, in order to find wholeness and peace. Inanna and Ereshkigal are two sides of the coin, each complimenting the other. Inanna brings consciousness to Ereshkigal's pain of rejection of feminine values and Ereshkigal gives Inanna wisdom and the eye of death - ability to look at the harsh truth, unflinchingly. The result is balance of feminine and masculine values as portrayed by Geshtinanna and Dumuzi's conscious individuation journeys. It is the woman who leads the man to grow and begin his journey of self reflection within. Strengthens my belief that women's prime task in the world is to do her inner work. Only this way she can contribute the most and lead to a better world.
December 7, 2023
I'm glad I read this because the myth itself is super interesting. I didn't love the author's writing style. If you have a base level understanding of Jung's psychology/terminology, you don't usually have to be an therapist to be able to read and enjoy these "Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts" books. I've read tons of them for fun. I'd be curious to know how readable this was to a professional, because I found myself having to re-read sentences constantly...and I don't think it was because the concepts were too challenging, but more-so due to the unnecessarily complicated and jumbled way Brinton Perera phrases her sentences. I almost gave up a couple times and it's a shame because I think with a great editor, this could reach more people.
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January 24, 2024Temat jest dla mnie bardzo interesujący, odradzanie się kobiecości, podróże do wewnątrz, cykliczność, ale książka kompletnie mnie przerosła. Większość rzeczy nie zrozumiałam, odbiły się ode mnie bez echa poruszeń emocjonalnych czy intelektualnych. Znużyłam się do cna mimo początkowej determinacji...Nie twierdzę, że książka jest zła per se, ale na pewno wymaga dojrzałego czytelnika, który z niejednego jungowskiego pieca chleb jadł. Mam poczucie, że tam są ważne rzeczy ale dla mnie niedostępne, chętnie bym przeczytała jej opracowanie, uproszczenie. Nie daje gwiazdek bo "don't judge what you don't understand".
May 17, 2024
Het afdalen de onderwereld in als vrouw, een Jungiaanse benadering van interne processen bij zware momenten van crisis die absoluut noodzakelijk zijn. Dieper doorgronden van de archetypische overdracht in zo'n alles vernietigend sterven van oude zelven. Hier zicht op het waarom, en een begrijpen van de bedoeling.
July 15, 2022
Trochu ťažké na čítanie a na pochopenie vďaka použitia jazyku (na rozdiel od napr Marion Woodman), ale zato plne vhladov.
September 12, 2023
Świetnie przedstawiona analiza Jungowska, sumeryjskiego mitu Innany i Ereszkigal.
August 25, 2024
A dense little book. But wow, what a road map to understanding the archetype of Inanna and Underworld journey
Want to read
March 24, 2025Very interesting so far but lots of glib, vacuous and flippant comments about the patriarchy that are putting me off it. Will try push through.
May 10, 2012
What I like about the books in the series 'Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts' is also what I find makes them not an easy read. They are filled to the brim with the symbolic, with imagery, one has to read each word with care and then all over again to grasp the meaning. Being interested in Jungian Psychology also helps as it has a language of it's own.
Descent to the Goddess is no exception to this rule. With the myth of the descent of the goddess Inanna to the underworld as vehicle Sylvia Brinton Perera analyses woman's need for an inner female authority in a masculine oriented society. Having finished reading it doesn't mean I've finished with it I expect. There's more to come.
Descent to the Goddess is no exception to this rule. With the myth of the descent of the goddess Inanna to the underworld as vehicle Sylvia Brinton Perera analyses woman's need for an inner female authority in a masculine oriented society. Having finished reading it doesn't mean I've finished with it I expect. There's more to come.
October 24, 2013
Interesting interpretation and deep analysis of Inanna's myth by a Jungian Analyst. I can't say I was particularly captivated by the author's interpretation of the Goddess descent in general, but she does raise some fascinating points in regards to a woman's journey into the underworld (unconscious) when she has lived under patriarchal values all her life, its relation to depression and anxiety, and how it can transform us from a psychological point of view. I also found the author's analogy between certain aspects of the myth and the role of the psychotherapist extremely valuable for me as a therapist.
July 12, 2016
This book is an interesting artifact of the 1980's feminist period. I lived through that time as an activist, so I had a nostalgic response. The author leads women in repressed relationships with men to their own agency using the myth of Innana/Ishtar in a Jungian framework of analysis. It still works as a metaphor, but the psychological framework seems dated in light of the strides made in brain science and the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy. This book is not for the casual reader.
March 2, 2014
I got some new material out of it, but I felt like the writer was really hammering her points home in the final few chapters. The same myth is covered in the Heroine's Journey (In fact, I still want to go check to see if this was a resource for Murdock's chapter about descent). It felt very much like it was written for a Jungian psychotherapist by a Jungian psychotherapist, and not for a layperson.
December 26, 2012
This was horrible. It is indeed a Jungian book, not only by Jungian Analysts, but I suspect mostly FOR Jungian analysts. It is in no way useful for a layman with even an enthusiastic interest in archetypes. And I cannot for the life of me find the way of initiation in there. At least not on any practical, concrete level. No steps to take etc. It's "just" an indepth analysis of a myth.
January 4, 2009
Non-pathologizing take on women's identity development and the pain therein.
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June 14, 2010breaking down many notions I had of femininity and darkness
December 18, 2014
Read this years ago, and came across it today as I was weeding (!!!) my bookshelves.
August 19, 2015
Mythic reflections of the deep feminine psyche...a must read for women who have been called by their inner-wilderness to explore the forgotten essence of their dark feminine power.
November 27, 2016
Esoteric and earthy.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews