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The above types are far from exhausting all the statistical regularities in this respect. The figure of the Kore that interests us here belongs, when observed in a man, to the anima type; and when observed in a woman to the type of supraordinate personality. It is an essential characteristic of psychic figures that they are duplex or at least capable of duplication; at all events they are bipolar and oscillate between their positive and negative meanings. Thus the “supraordinate” personality can appear in a despicable and distorted form, like for instance Mephistopheles, who is really more positive as a personality than the vapid and unthinking careerist Faust. Another negative figure is the Tom Thumb or Tom Dumb of the folktales. The figure corresponding to the Kore in a woman is generally a double one, i.e., a mother and a maiden, which is to say that she appears now as the one, now as the other. From this I would conclude, for a start, that in the formation of the Demeter-Kore myth the feminine influence so far outweighed the masculine that the latter had practically no significance. The man’s role in the Demeter myth is really only that of seducer or conqueror.


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