Who is Salome? About our name.

Salome is a female, Hebrew name derived from the word Shalom: Peace

There are several namesakes for The Salome Institute within mythology and the field of depth psychology:

Salome from Carl Jung's Red Book
Arguably the most central figure in Jung's visions that would come to make up the Red Book, Salome was initially a terrifying figure to him. Jung came to understand that Salome was his own sister, his Soul. She was his pleasure, his Eros that had gone so neglected throughout his adult life; she was the quality of life that balanced his intellectual pursuits and thinking function. By reengaging with Salome, Jung was able to come back to life in the external world. The revivification of his life that came from this resurrection of Salome serves as the basis of our understanding of what our world needs now.

Salome of the Bible. There are actually two. The most culturally known Salome is never mentioned in the Bible but is blamed for the beheading of St. John the Baptist and is considered widely to be a temptress or whore. She is the namesake for Jung's Salome in The Red Book. As Jung came to understand about his own soul figure, the historical reputation of this Salome requires serious reexamination and revision.

From an alternate historical reading, Salome was a young woman without power of her own, dancing on demand for an all-powerful King. On the instruction of Salome's mother (herself socially powerless), Salome asked the King for the head of John the Baptist. Blinded by his lasciviousness, the king acted irrationally, ordering the murder of a beloved prophet. After allowing his sexual desire to override his responsibility as King, and not being able to admit his own wrongdoing, he blamed the woman who used his own weakness against him.

The historical depiction of a king's command of a young, socially powerless, and trapped woman to dance like a marionette is a classic shift of blame in patriarchal consciousness that must be rectified. We hope at the Salome Institute to redeem the image and history of this story of Salome. Her reputation has been tarnished for far too long.

Saint Salome - the only Salome who was named in the Bible was present at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. This is Saint Salome. In the Roman Catholic tradition, she is one of the Three Marys who were present at the resurrection of Jesus. Varying accounts also name her as the sister or cousin of Mother Mary, and place her at the birth of Jesus, providing his first bath along with a midwife.

While some accounts also name her as the mother of two of the Apostles of Jesus, James and John, in the non-canonical Greek Gospel of Egyptians and Gospel of Thomas, she appears as a disciple of Jesus herself. These Gnostic texts suggest that she was unmarried and did not have children.

Salome asks Jesus: "How long will people die?" Jesus responds: "So long as women bear children." Later Jesus says to Salome: "I have come to destroy the works of the female." To this Salome replies, "Then I have done well in not bringing forth." These Gnostic works explore the feminine and masculine, with Jesus teaching the potential for oneness beyond duality. In the Gospel of Thomas, Salome asks Jesus: "Who are you, man?" Jesus replies, "I am he who exists from the undivided." 

Lou Andreas Salome  -  an esteemed psychoanalyst, intellectual, author, and pioneer whose work and life has not received the attention it deserves. She was also a close companion and collaborator of Rilke, Freud, and Nietzsche. 

Salome Wilhelm - author and researcher, wife of Chinese translator and scholar Richard Wilhelm and mother of scholar Helmut Wilhelm. Very little is known about her life and contributions, though she penned a biography of her husband and contributed to his work.