Hades – The king of the Underworld

Greek mythology

Hades was the brother of Zeus and after winning against the Titan’s he draw the realm of the Underworld as his territory of kingdom. Hades was both the name of the underworld and the king of it in mythology. There are not many stories about him. The most important is kidnapping Persephone. When Hades come up from the underworld he was always wearing his helmet that made him invisible.

It is very important that the Greeks did not associated evil with Hades or the underworld. They feared it because of its depths and the unknown that was waiting for them in the underworld. But they also knew that all the treasures that can be reached can be found in the underworld. Pluto the origin of the Roman name of Hades, is coming from the Greek word Pluto which means “The Wealthy”. There were lot of different names used for Hades as people were afraid to use his name.

We have a planet named after Pluto. It was first identified as a planet than degraded to a dwarf planet. It is a trans Neptunian object, in the Kuiper belt. Astronomers discovered Pluto in 1930 only.

Pluto in astrology:

We connect our deepest things to Pluto in astrology.

• Transformation and rebirth
• Since this is the furthest planet currently from the Sun it represents the most suppressed parts of the human unconscious
• It’s most important function to give power and strength to the life goals
• Its position in the chart shows us where we have to go through crisis in our life to be able to reborn from it. The cosmic placement show how easily we are able to change or transform our life.
• It is always searching for the deepest meaning in everything. It is not afraid to face the unknown and learn from it.

Hades (Pluto) in psychology

In relation to Hades we are talking about two different types of origin. In one hand archetypical patterns and personality traits. On the other hand the realm itself (Hades-the underworld) as an archetype.

Let’s go through first the archetypical patterns:

• The hermit: the person who is withdrawn from the world and lives in isolation. When a Hades man can not have an acceptable answer to the question “What is your profession?”, he will find himself without position, wealth. He will almost lose his personality and becomes invisible.
• Pluto the archetype of wealth: The man who had a taste from the outside world and realized that he is more attracted by the richness and subjectivity of his own inner world is lonely in a different way. In this case the rejection of the outer world is coming from the fact that the person is reacting to other people and things in a different, unique way. This type of Hades can be the inexhaustible source of creativity. Mainly through visual arts.
• The good adviser: because of the subjective knowledge he is possessing he really can be a wise adviser. Before we are planning to make a high-profile decision it is advisable to look inside us. As we are the ultimate judge on how this might affect our life.
• The invisible man: Hades is ruling our most inner world. In the meantime he is not expressing the inside world through words or emotions. If this archetype is dominant it can stay fully invisible for the society.
• The ‘Zeus’ of the Underworld; the ruler: he is also a patriarchal figure like Zeus and Poseidon. As he also secured his rulership in his own realm. One major difference is that Hades never had children.
• The girl kidnapper archetype: Hades is the shadow archetype of the father. He can be cruel and can he exploits the girl’s vulnerable position.
• The imaginary lover: he can be a lover who is completely invisible for the world only exists in a woman’s imagination. It happens that a woman is imagining a relationship to herself if she has a vivid imagination. Just like when a child comes up with an imaginary friend. On the other hand the man who lives like a hermit can come up with an imaginary lover which he most probably bases on a previous relationship.

Hades the realm archetype.

• The archetype of depression: depressed people feel themselves isolated from everything that had meaning in their lives. They are emotionally empty inside. Just like Persephone felt when she was kidnapped and taken to the underworld.
• The shadow world: the shadow contains our parts that we can not accept or we feel it is too shameful if other people know about. This usually is some kind of positive potential that we can reach only if we descend to our own underworld. This is the richness of Hades.
• The realm of the death: in this sense Hades assumes that we have a soul that lives after our death
• The individual and the collective unconscious: everything that we ever forgot is the part of the individual unconscious. We have some memories that can be recalled with a little work while the hurtful ones we burry down deep.

How Hades comes out in every day life in different life stages

Child and adolescent

The introverted kids like Hades are not really impressing their own ambience. He can not express his will, and reacts to people and things based on how it effects him, not based on expectations. The child prefers to follow the events from a distance. He is shy as a child later people see him as serious and deliberate. He is not getting much praise because of this he develops a low self esteem.

Teenager and young adult

He doesn’t understand how other people know what is the current trends. Usually misses the best parties and doesn’t care about fashion. He finds himself the most entertaining. He might have 1-2 friends but he really doesn’t want to have more.

In the world of work and adulthood

He can have a good connection to the world if he finds a job that he has an inner drive to do. He doesn’t have much ambition or good communication skills. Whatever he does he takes it seriously. A lot of time he is able to do some monotonous work as for him the real life is inside your own soul. He has to develop other gods in himself, like Hermes to become successful.

He is not really successful with women. Flirting and dating is not his territory. He can be influenced by his own subjective experience by a completely strange woman. Most of the time he choses to live alone. If he finds a woman who accepts and loves him he will get married as he is striving for stability and a certain order in his own life.

He can become a humorless patriarchal father type who is not there for his children emotionally. If he was loved as a child he can become a loving father but even then he is not able to express his love towards his children.

He is most comfortable inside his own inner world.