Evans Lansing Smith, Ph.D. Mythological Studies Program Pacifica Graduate Institute 249 Lambert Road Carpinteria, CA 93013 esmith@pacifica.edu Doorways, Divestiture, and the Eye of Wrath: Tracking an Archetype (Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts. 2.1 (Summer 1999): 11-28.) “Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy; thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness” (Psalm 30: 12). “As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and then puts on one that is new” (Bhagavad Gita 2:22) “the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed” (Hebrews 1: 1) “clothed in glory, that is the Self” (Chandogya Upanishad) The image cluster composed of doorways and divestiture is one of the most enduring and interesting in mythology, literature, painting, film, and architecture. We can trace its transmission and transformation from the Sumerian “Descent of Inanna” of 1750 B.C. to Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. In nearly every instance, the iconography of doorways has to do with the rhythms of incarnation and transfiguration, which can be approached from a variety of theoretical perspectives. The oldest mythological occurrence of the iconography linking doorways and divestiture comes from the Sumero-Akkadian account of “The Descent of Inanna,” first