Ariadne's Clue

" Like all psychobiological capacities, symbol formation has an adaptive function: it promotes our grasp on reality. It enables us not just to adapt passively to reality but to master it, to adjust reality to our needs" 
(Stevens 16).

"All our archetypal patterns of thought, feelings, symbolism, and behavior are present and expressed in us because of the contribution they made to the fitness of past generations" (Stevens 28).

"What is inherited is not archetypal image of snake per se, but an archetypal predisposition to perceive danger in a configuration of snakelike characteristics---something long, sinuous, and slithery, with fangs, and forked and flicking tongue" (Stevens 31).


"That a symbol signifies, in Jung's phrase, 'something more and other than itself which eludes our present knowledge' is what endows it with fascination and power" (Stevens 13).