Regenerating Magdalene: Psyche’s Quest for the Archetypal Bride

Abstract

Focusing on the capacity of feminist mythology as cultural and psychological change agent, “Regenerating Magdalene: Psyche’s Quest for the Archetypal Bride” examines the history of the lost and degraded archetypal feminine of Western cultures as embodied in Mary Magdalene, whose resurgence via scholarship and the arts, is trending. Scholars in many disciplines have addressed facets of her revival, including her role as “apostle to the apostles,” her relationship with Jesus, and the redemption of her character and sexuality. Rather than certainties, Mary Magdalene offers potentialities and invites curiosity. As a middle Eastern woman embedded within a complex web of gendered religious “history” and mythology, she is also located within a dynamic and enigmatic mystery linking ancient Mediterranean goddesses, including Inanna, Isis, and Ariadne, with a partnership lineage relevant for our times.

Mystery invites a quest. The void created by this lost and misrepresented archetypal feminine as a sovereign and powerful presence has left Western cultures with a corrupt, wounded, and incomplete masculinist paradigm longing for wholeness. We are all traumatized under patriarchy; healing from trauma and the resultant addictions and dis-ease depends upon a more complex, generative model. Moving from suffering and codependent management toward creativity, Magdalenian consciousness renews via grief tending, detection within the imaginal realm, and creative bricolage.

Animating feminist scholarship interdisciplinarily, particularly within religious and Jungian studies, Magdalene’s presence and popularity is further amplified via covert appearances in literary fiction, memoir, and cinematic expression. Utilizing literary and film studies, Jungian psychology, feminist studies, archaeomythology, and religious studies to examine the cultural and personal phenomenon of Magdalenian renewal, this study explores how remythologizing bridal regeneration—as well as remapping the neglected Wasteland landscape—revitalizes the relationship between psyche and culture. Tracking how the exilic Bride returns bearing regenerative gifts, this post-Jungian feminist inquiry queers notions of wholeness, amplifies feminist revisions of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s” journey, and analyses the necessary regenerative steps for both interdependent individuation—as the integration of the unconscious—and cultural revitalization.