Olympian Pantheon

The Olympian pantheon is the classical canon of the twelve great gods who reigned, in Greek religion, from the peak of Mount Olympus: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and — variously — Dionysus or Hestia. The canon is the result of a long process of religious-political consolidation; the figure of twelve is Hesiodic and Homeric rather than originally cultic, and the particular gods assigned to the twelve vary across sources.

For depth psychology the Olympian pantheon is the canonical Western figure of the polytheistic psyche: the thesis that the soul is not simply monotheistic in its structure but populated by plural powers, each with its own domain, each demanding its own recognition, each capable of inflicting its characteristic pathology when denied. Hillman‘s Re-Visioning Psychology reads the Olympians as the canonical figures of archetypal polytheism. The pantheon stands over and against the chthonic powers of the older earth-strata and against the Titans whom the Olympians defeated and relegated to Tartarus. See polytheistic-psychology.

Relationships

• polytheistic-psychology
• titans-as-pre-olympian-stratum
• theogony