Anubis occupies a distinctive, if seldom systematically theorized, position within the depth-psychology corpus. He appears most consistently as a psychopomp figure: the jackal-headed Egyptian god who guides souls through the underworld, weighs the heart of the dead, and presides over the reconstitution of the dismembered Osiris. Jung cites him in this reconstitutive role in Symbols of Transformation, where the jackal-headed deity assists Isis in gathering the scattered limbs of Osiris—a motif Jung reads against the background of the libido’s capacity for regeneration through dissolution. Von Franz, in her lectures on alchemy, treats the image of Anubis anointing the mummy of Osiris as a visual correlate of the alchemical opus: the preparation of the dead for resurrection mirrors the nigredo and its subsequent transmutation. Hillman, characteristically, anchors Anubis in the animal underworld, reading the jackal’s affinity for the tomb as evidence that the dog-family broadly serves as psychopompos across cultures. In Tarot commentary—Nichols, Pollack, Banzhaf—Anubis appears on the Wheel of Fortune as the integrative, ascending force opposite the disintegrative Typhon, marking his psychological valence as the death-knowledge that enables renewal. Campbell treats him more iconographically, as part of the Egyptian mythopoetic system. The central tension in the corpus is whether Anubis is primarily a symbol of transformation (von Franz, Jung) or a guide to the genuine underworld in its own right (Hillman).
In ancient Egypt, where this animal nightly prowled among the tombs, the god of the dead was Anubis, the jackal, and, this deity … is closely associated with decay and decomposition.
Hillman grounds Anubis in the zoological and chthonic reality of the jackal, arguing that the god’s association with death and decomposition places him at the center of a cross-cultural pattern linking the dog family to underworld sovereignty.
, Animal Presences, 2008thesis
Isis collected the pieces together again with the help of the jackal-headed Anubis. Here the dogs and jackals, devourers of corpses by night, assist in the reconstitution or reproduction of Osiris.
Jung identifies Anubis as the agent of reconstitution in the Osiris myth, reading the necrophagous nature of the jackal as the psychic mechanism by which dissolution is transformed into regeneration.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis
Anubis anointing the mummy of Osiris, with Isis giving directions.
Von Franz presents the image of Anubis anointing the mummy as a visual emblem linking Egyptian funerary ritual to the alchemical preparation of matter for transformation and rebirth.
, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, 1980thesis
the jackal-headed man going up is Anubis, guide to the dead souls, and therefore giver of new life. Now, according to some legends Anubis is Set’s son, and so we see that only death can bring new life.
Pollack interprets Anubis on the Wheel of Fortune as the psychologically positive, ascending force whose role as psychopomp reveals that new life is inseparable from the acceptance of death.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980thesis
The golden creature rising on our right is usually connected with Anubis, the dog-faced god of Egypt who weighed the souls of the dead. He is thought of as a positive, integrative factor.
Nichols reads the ascending figure on the Wheel of Fortune as Anubis in his integrative, soul-weighing aspect, positioning him as the constructive counterweight to the disintegrative Typhon.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
an Egyptian priest, assuming the mask of the jackal-god Anubis preparing the body of Osiris for rebirth.
Campbell notes the ritual practice of the Egyptian priest donning the Anubis mask during mummification, underscoring Anubis’s function as the human-enacted psychopomp in the drama of Osirian rebirth.
, The Mythic Image, 1974supporting
Anubis Anointing Osiris. From E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris, II, Dover, New York, 1973, p. 48.
Von Franz’s inclusion of the Anubis-anointing-Osiris plate as a key illustration establishes the image as a central icon in her mapping of Egyptian funerary symbolism onto the alchemical opus.
, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, 1980supporting
Anubis, Egyptian god, xvi (fig. 18)
Campbell indexes Anubis alongside Apuat as an Egyptian deity figuring in the hero’s underworld passage, situating him within the monomythic schema of death and return.
, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015supporting
Anubis, 269
Jung’s index entry in Mysterium Coniunctionis places Anubis within the symbolic network of alchemical and mythological figures without extended elaboration, indicating his presence in the broader opus of transformation.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955aside
It corresponds to the guide of souls, about which the books of death in the various cultures report. And since angels are the guides of souls in our Christian-Western tradition, the card shows an angel.
Banzhaf implicitly evokes the Anubis archetype by describing the psychopomp function in the Tarot’s underworld cards, comparing the cross-cultural soul-guide figure to the Christian angel of the Temperance trump.
, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero, 2000aside