The Gorgon
Medusa
The face that turns to stone.
The Gorgon: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Medusa’s gaze turns whoever meets it to stone. Erich Neumann counted the Gorgon among the faces of the Terrible Mother, the devouring and petrifying aspect of the unconscious that the hero cannot face directly; Perseus kills her by looking at her only in the mirror of his shield. Freud wrote a short paper on her head.
The Gorgon: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Perseus and the mirror-shield, Pegasus and Chrysaor born from her blood, the Gorgon’s head on Athena’s aegis, the Gorgon faces on Greek temples to ward off evil.
From the Sources
Bulfinch tells that Medusa became so frightful that no living thing could look at her without being turned to stone, and that her cavern was surrounded by the stony figures of men and animals.
“She became a cruel monster of so frightful an aspect that no living thing could behold her without being turned into stone. All around the cavern where she dwelt might be seen the stony figures of men and animals which had chanced to catch a glimpse of her and had been petrified with the sight.”
Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, Legends of Charlemagne, The Age of Fable, 'Perseus and Medusa'. Complete in one volume, Project Gutenberg eBook #4928. The text, read in part
Hesiod places the Gorgons beyond Ocean towards Night, and says that of the three, Sthenno, Euryale and Medusa, Medusa alone was mortal and suffered a woeful fate.
“…the Gorgons who dwell beyond glorious Ocean in the frontier land towards Night where are the clear-voiced Hesperides, Sthenno, and Euryale, and Medusa who suffered a woeful fate: she was mortal, but the two were undying and grew not old.”
Hesiod, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, Theogony, ll. 270-294. Translator: Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Project Gutenberg eBook #348). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- Erich Neumann, The Great Mother (1955)
- Sigmund Freud, “Medusa’s Head” (1922, published 1940)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Monsters and Hybrids
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Gorgon.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/gorgon.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Goat: Lust, vitality, and the one who bears the sins. Gold: The incorruptible: not the common gold. The Grail: The vessel found by the one who asks the right question.