Villa of Mysteries

A Jungian reading of the celebrated frescoes in the Villa of Mysteries at Pompeii, which depict, scene by scene, a woman’s initiation into the Dionysian mysteries. Kay Bradway, a founding member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, walks through each scene of the mural, from the reading of the ritual and the sacred meal to the unveiling, the flagellation, and the initiate’s transformation. She draws on Linda Fierz-David’s classic Jungian interpretation, as well as Kerényi and Eliade, to explore the frescoes as an image of the death and rebirth at the heart of a woman’s psychological initiation, presided over by Dionysus and Ariadne.