Theodor Reik's Ritual Analysis

The Minotaur in the center of the labyrinth represents Theseus’ demons or questions needing to be answered. Once he had wrestled with his demons, he could then retrace his steps and come forward with a new understanding of life. In Theodor Reik’s book Ritual: Psycho-Analytic Studies, he looks at the aboriginal peoples of Australia. In their culture, the youths are put through a test prior to their initiation into adult society. A monster, represented by a gluttonous creature that demands young people to satisfy its cravings, symbolically kills the youths.21 This is similar in that the tributes from Athens were also subject to a monstrous creature that had an appetite for children. So, in essence the Minotaur represents all people’s demons they

The labyrinth represents the journey every person is forced to make. In our lives we are required to make decisions, sometimes they lead to forks in the road making us choose whether we want to go left or right. We have to pick our path on blind faith hoping in the end we choose the right one. On our paths we are also presented with obstacles needing to be overcome; in the end, they teach us important life lessons. These paths we take in life are similar to traveling through a labyrinth, because we don’t really know where they will lead us and we might not always choose the right one. “During adolescence our infantile identifications reflected in self-representations are subjected to scrutiny and change, while new identifications and valuations come into being”.29 Eventually, these new identifications will lead us to clarity and newfound conclusions about ourselves, allowing us to grow and change as

What is interesting is that Minos was conceived of a human/bull union. His mother is Europa, the daughter of the king of Tyre.30 One day Europa was in a field with her maidens picking flowers. All the while Zeus was watching her from afar, admiring her beauty. He came up with the idea to turn himself into a bull and seduce her. He appeared to her as a beautiful white bull in the middle of the field; he was calm and gentle. As Europa approached the bull, he seized her and carried her across the sea to the island of Crete. He took her into the cave on Mount Ida where his grandmother had hidden him away from his father Cronus. They mated and she gave birth to three sons, one of them being Minos.31 Zeus left and Europa married the king of Crete; so it was only natural that Minos be in line for the throne. In this way we can look at Minos as a monstrous creature as well. He was conceived of a bull and human union; he sacrifices children to the Minotaur as food. Any person that kills fourteen children year after year, without thinking twice about it is a monster. It was accustomed for Minos to go the cave on Mount Ida every nine years to meet with his father Zeus. They would discuss the way the government should be run, as well as what laws should be put into place.32 This could also be another reason that so many ritual objects were