Psychopomp

Psychopomp (pronounced sahy-koh-pomp)

In mythology and religion, a spirit, deity, person etc., who guides the spirits or souls of the dead to the other world or after-life.

1835: From the Latin psȳchopompus, from Ancient Greek ψῡχοπομπός (psūkhopompós or psȳchopompós) (conductor (guide) of souls), the construct being ψῡχή (psūkhḗ) (the soul, mind, spirit) + πομπός (pompós) (guide, conductor, escort, messenger). Psyche was from the Latin psychē, from the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul).  The modern word psychology was from the French psychologie, from the Latin psychologia, the construct being the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul) +-λογία (-logía) (study of).  Pomp was from the Middle English, from the Old French pompe, from the Latin pompa (pomp), from the Ancient Greek πομπή (pompḗ) (a sending, a solemn procession, pomp”), from πέμπω (pémpō) (I send), from pempein (to send, dispatch, guide, accompany) of unknown origin.  Etymologists note the verb has no etymology drawn from Indo-European traditions and nor does it display the characteristics of loanwords or a pre-Greek vocabulary.  In Classical Latin the nominative was psȳchopompus, the genitive psȳchopompī, the dative psȳchopompō, the accusative psȳchopompum, the ablative psȳchopompō & the vocative psȳchopompe.  Psychopomp is a noun.  The noun plural is psychopomps.

Psychopomps were entities (variously spirits, angels, creatures, birds or even people) in a number of cultures and religions whose role was to guide the souls or spirits of the newly dead from Earth to the afterlife.  Wholly non-judgmental, they impartially took the soul in hand and lead them to the hereafter where, according to tradition, what awaited was perhaps a final judgment but sometimes not.  In both sacred and pagan art, psychopomps have been depicted in (often ethereal) human form, as winged angels, animals such as horses and, very often as winged creatures, most famously ravens or vultures, the birds often in large flocks, massed above and circling, awaiting the death of the dying.  To classicists, the word is most associated with Hermes or Charon but by far the psychopomp which resonates most in popular culture is the Grim Reaper.

Psychopomps of note

La barca de Caront (Charon's boat (circa 1932)) oil on canvas by José Benlliure y Gil (1855 - 1937), Museu de Belles Arts de València.

Although famous in Greek mythology as a pschopomp, Χάρων (Charon, written sometimes as Kharon) was more mercenary than most.  Known as the ferryman of Hades who carries the souls of just deceased who had received the rites of burial, across the river Acheron (pain) (in later accounts, the river Styx (hate)) that divided the world of the living from that of the dead.  Traditionally, Charon’s fee was a single coin (an obolus or danake) which the family left on the lips of the corpse and in some of the myths (there are many variations in Greek mythology), those whose families had not a coin to leave or who were denied funereal rites were condemned to wander the “shores of the river for a hundred winters”.  In the manner of modern container shipping, Charon also carried cargo on his return voyages, the catabasis mytheme recording that heroes (including Sisyphusm, Heracles, Dionysus, Hermes, Odysseus, Orpheus, Theseus & Psyche) were brought back across the river from the underworld in Charon’s boat (although what he charged is not recorded).

Beyond ecumenical, Azrael, the Angel of Death, appears in both Jewish and Christian mythology but in Islamic mythology he uniquely assumes the role of a psychopomp, said to take straight to Allah, every soul directly upon death.  Unlike some traditions in which a role in the timing of someone’s demise is delegated to the pyschopomp, in Islamic theology, only Allah is said to know and decide the precise moment when someone is supposed to die so Azrael has no power of life and death; he is but the cab or the rank, the taxi driver who can never refuse a fare.  In the world of the living, some have tried to help Azrael: there was once a Berber chieftain who instructed his mean to shave their heads, leaving a single tuft of hair so that when their time came, Azrael would have something to which to grab.

Two versions of Valkyrie (1864 (left) & 1869 (right)) by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831–1892), oil on canvas, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo.

In Norse mythology there were other psychopomps (Frejya and Odin would sometimes act as psychopomps) but the most famous were the Valkyries, the beautiful maidens who circled high in sky above battlefields, choosing which soldiers would live and which would die.  Half the dead would be taken to Fólkvangr (Freyja's afterlife) and half the Valkyries would take to Valhalla, where they would become einherjar (single fighters) and await the onset of Ragnarök, the climactic “twilight of the gods”.  On the rare occasions when peace reigned and no battles were being fought on Midgard, (the Old Norse name for the soil on which humans dwell), the Valkyries attended the einherjar in the banquet hall of Valhalla, serving them mead (an alcoholic beverage, often described as “fermented honey water” and made by fermenting honey mixed with water, hops and various fruits & spices).  Seen often accompanied by ravens and sometimes connected with swans and especially horses, thanks to innumerable painters of the romantic era and Richard Wagner (1813-1883), (whose Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre (the second of the four musical dramas of his Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung (1870)), is probably is best-known fragment), an aura surrounds the Valkyries but if one digs into the Norse myths, they emerge as not always wholly virtuous, sometimes behaving rather like the mean girls of the age.

Late Period Solid-cast copper alloy figure of Anubis, British Museum, London.

Anubis (νουβις in the Ancient Greek, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian and romanized as Anoup) was an Egyptian psychopomp but also assigned a variety of roles under different ruling dynasties including a protector of graves, the god of death & the afterlife, mummification and embalming.  Depicted usually as a man with a canine head (thought sometimes during the First Dynasty as the beast alone).  Anubis' female counterpart was Anput and his daughter was the serpent goddess Kebechet.  In his role as a psychopomp, the jackal-headed god was tasked with guiding souls to Duat, the Egyptian underworld, where they would be judged according to the goodliness done during their earthly existence.  The Egyptians (usually) believed the heart was the repository of the soul so Anubis weighted the organ against a single feather representing truth.  Were the heart lighter than the feather, their journey continued but if too heavily laden with sin, Anubis would cast it to Ammit, a demon known as the “Devourer of the Dead” who would consume it.

The versatile, multi-tasking Hermes was the Greek god of commerce, thieves (and there’s some overlap there) and athletes.  However, he was also the messenger of the gods and thus the fleet-footed Hermes was able to travel between worlds, explaining why he was also the god of border crossings.  Uniquely, Hermes was the only Olympian god able to visit Heaven, Earth, and Hades something he never tired of mentioning to the other, realm-bound gods, and another of his tasks was to lead the souls of the dead to the entrance of Hades, where they awaited the boat of Charon to pick them up. Among the best remembered of Hermes’ charges were the suitors of Odysseus’ wife Penelope, all of whom were killed when the hero finally returned from Troy.

Coming & going, dressed for the occasion.  Lindsay Lohan in Grim Reaper mode fulfilling a court-mandated community service order at LA County Morgue, October 2011.

In the modern age it’s the Grim-Reaper who is the archetypal psychopomp.  Depicted since the fifteenth century as a scythe-carrying skeleton (the enveloping black cloak soon became de rigueur), his (there have in the West been some depictions of the reaper as female (although well-known elsewhere) but a male identity is usually at least implied although, at the artistic level, most imagery is genderless which must be right because, having no soul, the reaper is unworldly) mode of operation varies depending on the source.  Some say he selects the souls to harvest by tapping his victim on the shoulder, a notice to quit the world, while others insist he merely gathers the souls of the departed.  In English, the Grim Reaper was first (at p 11) mentioned in The Circle of Human Life (1847, 113 pp) by Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck (1799–1877), a slim volume published in Edinburgh (by Myles Macphail book-binding) which discussed the stages in the life of a good Christian.

 “There are many who suppose that a clear and certain foreknowledge of the day of their death would exert a very powerful influence upon their mind. In this opinion, however, there must be some deception.  All know full well that life cannot last above seventy, or at the most eighty years.  If we reach that term without meeting the grim reaper with his scythe, there or there about, meet him we surely shall.  Death being thus the most certain of all certain events, why not begin at once the work of preparation for it?”

Not all mythology was written with the intricate plots and tales of the Greek.  In Etruscan mythology, Charun was with good cause known as the “Demon of Death” and often appeared with Vanth, a goddess of the underworld.  His role in death and the harvesting of souls was a efficient but not subtle.  When someone was deemed ready to die, Charun would appear before them and smash their skull with his great hammer until they were dead.  He and Vanth would then take the soul to the underworld; those souls declared evil or unworthy, Charun would punish by taking up his hammer, repeatedly striking them for all eternity.