Invisibility and Sexual Violence in Indo-European Mythology

Is invisibility in the eye or in the mind? Is it a force for good or for evil? And does it work equally well for men and for women? These are questions to which we might seek answers in the mythologies of ancient Greece and India, medieval Germany, and 20th and 21st century America. Many of these texts seem to regard invisibility as a subjective mental state, subject to suggestion and the projection of ideas, while others think of it as a more physical, scientific phenomenon, residing in the eye and subject to chemical or electric forces or the projection of rays of light. The two views combine when myths treat invisibility as the projection of a false or absent self from the mind and/or eyes of the magician into the mind and/or eyes of the beholder. In both cases, invisibility often shades off into masquerade and shapeshifting, as shadows, doubles, reflections, or camouflage hide the one true self from the observer or confuse the object of the gaze with the background or with another person.