Midday

Empousa appears on earth at midday because that was the time when sacrifice was offered to the dead… She approaches the offerings to the creatures of the lower world because she herself is one of their number.

Rohde establishes midday as the ritually sanctioned hour for chthonic sacrifice in ancient Greek practice, making it the moment when underworld beings — including Empousa and the Seivenes — legitimately cross to the upper world.

Rohde, Erwin, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1894thesis

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Does the sun hatch blue midday specters around you?… The blue midday shadows of the dead! Alas, there is your humanity, Oh Philemon, you are a teacher and friend of the dead.

Jung’s Red Book presents ‘blue midday specters’ as the shadows of humanity that arise paradoxically at the hour of greatest solar brightness, associating Philemon’s midday with communion with the dead rather than triumphant solar consciousness.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009thesis

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4 yang: Increasing shade, seeing stars at midday. Meeting the hidden master is auspicious… there is also that which increases obscurity. Again, this is like seeing stars at midday.

The Taoist I Ching employs ‘seeing stars at midday’ as an emblem of the paradox in which maximal active strength paradoxically increases inner darkness, counseling yielding and the meeting of the concealed adept as the antidote.

Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis

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Increasing shade, seeing stars at midday. Meeting the hidden master is auspicious… true practitioners of Tao adopt a plain appearance even though they carry a treasure; many of them conceal themselves in humble situations.

Liu I-ming’s commentary confirms that midday — far from signifying transparent clarity — symbolizes the crisis-point of one-sided illumination, which can only be resolved through encounter with the concealed, humble practitioner of Tao.

Liu I-ming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting

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the chthonic character of the Seivenes… is shown by the fact that they too appear like Empousa at midday and oppress sleepers, etc., according to the popular demonology.

Rohde extends the midday–chthonic connection from Empousa to the Seivenes, reinforcing the pattern by which noontime becomes the recognized hour of demonic, underworld oppression in Greek popular belief.

Rohde, Erwin, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1894aside

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μεσημβρία [f.] ‘midday, noon’, as a direction ‘south’… Denominative verb μεσημβριάζω ‘to pass the meridian, culminate’, of sun and stars.

Beekes traces the Greek etymology of midday to a compound meaning ‘middle of the day’ and documents its extension to the cardinal direction south, establishing the linguistic and cosmological ground for depth psychology’s symbolic appropriation of the term.

Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting

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