Psychopomp

As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog. Sarameias, the Vedic counterpart of Hermes and Odin, sometimes appears invested with canine attributes; and countless other examples go to show that by the early Aryan mind the howling wind was conceived as a great dog or wolf.

It is generally assumed that the sun goddess functions in the Shapash hymn as psychopomp, transporter of the dead to and from their netherly abode.

These intermediaries take various forms: the psychopomps of the Neo platonists, the angelic beings of ritual magic, the spirit guides of theosophy, the aliens of modern Ufologists, and the neopagan gods which are a feature of late twentieth-century alternative thought.

For most of us, Dr Wilder Penrose was our amiable Prospero, the psychopomp who steered our darkest dreams towards the daylight.

Characteristically, the shaman is a healer, a psychopomp (someone who guides the souls of the dead to their home in the afterlife), and more generally a mediator between her or his community and the world of spirits (most often animal spirits and the spirits of the forces of nature).

This is an allusion to Hermes as the guide of souls, the psychopomp; an important element of Hermes' nature that receives only this scant mention in the Hymn. To understand Hermes as psychopomp we must get to the root of the Hermes of life and death.