The Spider
The weaver at the centre of the web.
The Spider: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The spider sits at the centre of the web it has spun, and so is both a weaver of fate and a devourer. Erich Neumann counted it among the figures of the Terrible Mother, who binds and ensnares; others read the web itself as a mandala spun from within.
In the Upanishads the world comes from Brahman as the web from the spider, and the Navajo and Hopi Spider Woman taught weaving and thought the world into being: the spider at the centre of the web is the creator as well as the trap. Jung noted the spider among the images of the mandala his patients drew, the web radiating from a centre.
Erich Neumann counted the spider with the net and the snare among the symbols of the Terrible Mother, who binds what she has borne; the dream-spider, in analytic experience, is often this fear of being caught and sucked dry.
The Spider: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Arachne, who wove against Athena, Spider Grandmother of the Hopi and Navajo, Anansi the trickster, the web of fate. Arachne turned into a spider by Athena; Anansi, who bought the stories from the sky god; the spider that saved Muhammad in the cave by weaving across its mouth; Louise Bourgeois’s Maman.
From the Sources
Ovid describes the end of Arachne's transformation: her fingers become legs, her belly takes the rest of her, and out of it she gives forth a thread and, as a spider, works at her web as before.
“Her slender fingers cleave to her sides as legs; her belly takes possession of the rest of her; but out of this she gives forth a thread; and as a spider, she works at her web as formerly.”
Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Vol. I, Books I-VII, Book VI, Fable I (Arachne). Literally translated with notes and explanations by Henry T. Riley, M.A.; with an introduction by Edward Brooks, Jr.; Copyright, 1899, by David McKay; Press of Sherman & Co., Philadelphia. The text, read in part
Bulfinch retells the story: Arachne, transformed into a spider by Minerva, spins her thread out of her own body, often hanging by it in the attitude in which the goddess touched her.
“All the rest of her is body, out of which she spins her thread, often hanging suspended by it, in the same attitude as when Minerva touched her and transformed her into a spider.”
Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, Legends of Charlemagne, The Age of Fable, Chapter XIV, "Minerva--Niobe". Complete in one volume, Project Gutenberg eBook #4928. 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)
- Mundaka Upanishad I.1.7
- Erich Neumann, The Great Mother (1955)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Small Creatures
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Spider.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/spider.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Sphere: Wholeness in three dimensions, with no beginning and no end. The Sphinx: The riddle that must be answered. The Spine: The axis of the body, climbed by the serpent power. The Spiral: Returning to the same place, a little higher.