The Seba library treats Wraith in 7 passages, across 7 authors (including Aurobindo, Sri, Hillman, James, David B. Claus).
what was then mistaken for the soul was a subconscious formation, a subphysical impression-mould or shadow-form of the being or else a wraith or ghost of the personality
Aurobindo argues that early Greek and other traditions confused the true psyche with post-mortem formations — wraiths or shadow-forms — that are subphysical residues of personality rather than the immortal soul.
, The Life Divine, 1939thesis
Then in dreams she reveals herself as psychotic, a wraith with queer eyes, an ‘inmate’ of my nightly asylum. Union with anima also means union with my psychosis, my fear of madness
Hillman identifies the anima’s most threatening and authentic depth as a wraith-figure in dreams, equating full union with her with confrontation of one’s own psychosis.
, Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion, 1985thesis
In Homer psyche signifies both the ‘life’ that is lost at death and ‘shade’ or ‘wraith’, as in the description of death in battle
Claus establishes the philological foundation: Homeric psyche is semantically dual, denoting both the life-force extinguished at death and the wraith or shade that persists after it.
, Toward the Soul: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Psyche before Plato, 1981thesis
there it was used in its original context, namely that of Achilles’ wraith in Hades, lamenting to the live Odysseus that he would do anything to return to the light of the sun
Hobbs reads Plato’s citation of Achilles’ wraith as a deliberate irony: the shade that covets life exemplifies the delusion that the phenomenal world is more than eidolic shadow-painting.
, Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good, 2000supporting
The poet alone can tell us that this was not Aeneas himself but only a wraith resembling him. Nor does anyone see Athena with Diomedes.
Otto demonstrates that in Homeric theology the wraith is a divine substitution visible only to the narrator, distinguishing the phenomenal appearance from the deeper divine or heroic reality.
, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, 1929supporting
the wraith of Orion, set next to him in the narrative, continues to hunt. True, Tityus, Sisyphus, and Tantalus are punished
Adkins notes that Homeric wraiths in Hades perpetuate their earthly functions without moral transformation, illustrating the pre-Platonic absence of a doctrine of post-mortem reward or punishment based on inner virtue.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960supporting
this crushed carbon and oxygen we are, floating wraith-like through history, is ‘immortal diamond.’
Hollis invokes the wraith metaphor in a Hopkinsian register to contrast the ephemerality of individual consciousness against the constancy of the Self that survives it.
, Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path, 2001aside