An archetype is "a universal and recurring image, pattern, or motif representing a typical human experience“ (Jung). Archetypes can evoke themes that a vast majority of people can relate to.

Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale A femme fatale (pronounced /ˌfɛm fəˈtæl/ or /ˌfɛm fəˈtɑːl/) is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations.

Example:

• Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden who was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. As punishment, Athena transformed her hair into serpents and gave her a countenance that could turn men to stone.

• In Jewish folklore, when God created Adam, he was lonely, so God created Lilith from the same dust from which Adam was molded. But they quarrelled; Adam wished to rule over Lilith. But Lilith was also proud and willful, claiming equality with Adam because she was created from the same dust. She left Adam and fled the Garden. God sent three angels in pursuit of Lilith. They caught her and ordered her to return to Adam. She refused, and said that she would henceforth weaken and kill little children and infants.

• The angels overpowered her, and she promised that if the mother hung an amulet over the baby bearing the names of the three angels, she would stay away from that home. So they let her go, and God created Eve to be Adam's mate [created from Adam's rib, so that she couldn't claim equality]. And ever since, Lilith flies around the world, howling her hatred of mankind through the night, and vowing vengeance because of the shabby treatment she had received from Adam.

Philosophy:

The idea of the femme fatale is closely bound up with cultural attitudes about the use of feminine wiles to deceive, mislead, or seduce.

Resurrection

A resurrection deity or a dying-and-rising deity is a god who is born, suffers death or a death-like experience, passes through a phase in the underworld among the dead, and is subsequently reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense.

Example:

• Osiris was killed by his brother Seth who wanted Osiris' throne. His wife Isis briefly brought Osiris back to life by use of a spell. This spell gave her time to become pregnant by Osiris before he again died. Isis later gave birth to Horus. Since Horus was born after Osiris' resurrection, Horus was a symbol for new beginnings. This combination, Osiris-Horus, was therefore a life-death-rebirth deity.

• Orpheus, Krishna, Jesus, Odin, Ishtar, Persephone, etc.

Philosophy:

All myths are echoes of rituals, and that all rituals have as their primordial purpose the manipulation of natural phenomena by means of sympathetic magic. They may derive from primitive rites intended to renew the fertility of withered land and crops. They also showed the desire to win over the death and the dark.

Virgin Birth

All were believed to have:

• Been male.

• Had a god for a father.

• Human virgin for a mother.

• Had birth announced by a heavenly display/celestial music

• Been born about DEC-25.

• Had an attempt on their life by a tyrant

• Met with a violent death, but then rose again from the dead.

Almost all were believed to have:

• Been visited by "wise men" during infancy.

• Fasted for 40 days as an adult.

Example:

• In Tibet, Indra was born of a virgin. He ascended into heaven after death.

• In Persia, the god Mithra was born of a virgin on DEC-25. Zoroaster was also born of a virgin.

• In India, the god Krishna was born of the virgin Devaki. Virgin births were claimed for many Egyptian pharaohs, Greek emperors and for Alexander the Great of Greece.

Meaning:

• The God enter the world like anyone else so that he could be a genuine human. But if he was born of both a human Father and Mother there could have been no authentic claim to be deity, he would be no different than any of us. Therefore, he had to have no relation to human parentage.