Nekyia

Counselling With Coaching · Aug 27, 2026 · 3m

NEKYIA I wanted to make something for one instrument alone. The name came from Book 11 of the Odyssey, which has been called the Nekyia for as long as people have been reading it. A nekyia is the rite of calling up the dead and asking them things. It isn't a katabasis. A katabasis is a descent, a going down into the underworld with your body. In a nekyia nothing descends. You stay where you are, at the edge of the world, and you dig a pit, and you make your offering, and you wait to see what rises. None of the dead can speak until they have drunk. Jung borrowed the word later for the descent…