Psychopomp in the context of "Lekythos"

Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.

In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as "the divine trickster", about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account.

Pushan (Sanskrit: पूषन्, IAST: Pūṣan) is a Hindu Vedic solar deity and one of the Adityas. He is the god of meeting. Pushan is responsible for marriages, journeys, roads, and the feeding of cattle. He was a psychopomp (soul guide), conducting souls to the other world. He protected travelers from bandits and wild beasts, and protected men from being exploited by other men. He was a supportive guide, a "good" god, leading his adherents towards rich pastures and wealth.

Personifications of death are found in many religions and mythologies. In more modern stories, a character known as the Grim Reaper (usually depicted as a berobed skeleton wielding a scythe) causes the victim's death by coming to collect that person's soul. Other beliefs hold that the spectre of death is only a psychopomp, a benevolent figure who serves to gently sever the last ties between the soul and the body, and to guide the deceased to the afterlife, without having any control over when or how the victim dies. Death is most often personified in male form, although in certain cultures death is perceived as female (for instance, Marzanna in Slavic mythology, or Santa Muerte in Mexico). Death is also portrayed as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Most claims of its appearance occur in states of near-death.

In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (/ˈkɛərɒn, -ən/ KAIR-on, -⁠ən; Ancient Greek: Χάρων Ancient Greek pronunciation: [kʰá.rɔːn]) is a psychopomp God, the ferryman of the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the worlds of the living and the dead. Archaeology confirms that, in some burials, low-value coins known generically as Charon's obols were placed in, on, or near the mouth of the deceased, or next to the cremation urn containing the ashes. This has been taken to confirm that at least some aspects of Charon's mytheme are reflected in some Greek and Roman funeral practices, or else the coins function as a viaticum for the soul's journey. In Virgil's epic poem, Aeneid, the dead who could not pay the fee, and those who had received no funeral rites, had to wander the near shores of the Styx for one hundred years before they were allowed to cross the river. Charon also ferried the living mortals Heracles and Aeneas to the underworld and back again.

Anubis (/əˈnjuːbɪs/ ; Ancient Greek: Ἄνουβις), also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian (Coptic: ⲁⲛⲟⲩⲡ, romanized: Anoup), is the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the underworld in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head.

Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3100 – c. 2890 BC), Anubis was also an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the "Weighing of the Heart", in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead. Anubis is one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods in the Egyptian pantheon; however, few major myths involved him.

A liminal deity is a god or goddess in mythology who presides over thresholds, gates, or doorways; "a crosser of boundaries". In Hindu traditions, liminal deities are also associated with tirthas, or holy crossing places, which function as spiritual thresholds in physical geography. These sites—often river fords, pilgrimage crossings, or transitional boundary zones—are linked to multiple gods and serve as sacred locations where the earthly and divine realms intersect. These gods are believed to oversee a state of transition of some kind; such as, the old to the new, the unconscious to the conscious state, the familiar to the unknown.

Types of liminal deities include dying-and-rising deities, various agricultural deities, psychopomps and those who descend into the underworld: crossing the threshold between life and death. Vegetation deities mimic the annual dying and returning of plant life, making them seasonally cyclical liminal deities in contrast to the one-time journey typical of the dying-and-rising myth. Anthropologist Victor Turner expanded the modern theoretical understanding of liminality by emphasizing the role of shamans, guides, and ritual specialists who facilitate transitions between states of being. These ritual figures occupy liminal positions themselves and mirror mythological deities who guide individuals across cosmic or social thresholds.

In Gallo-Roman religion, Epona was a protector of horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules. She was particularly a goddess of fertility, as shown by her attributes of a patera, cornucopia, ears of grain, and the presence of foals in some sculptures. She and her horses might also have been leaders of the soul in the after-life ride, with later literary parallels in Rhiannon of the Mabinogion. The worship of Epona, "the sole Celtic divinity ultimately worshipped in Rome itself", as the patroness of cavalry, was widespread in the Roman Empire between the first and third centuries AD; this is unusual for a Celtic deity, most of whom were associated with specific localities.

In Welsh mythology, Arawn (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈarau̯n]) was the king of the otherworld realm of Annwn who appears prominently in the first branch of the Mabinogi, and alluded to in the fourth. In later tradition, the role of the king of Annwn was largely attributed to the Welsh psychopomp, Gwyn ap Nudd - meaning "white" (i.e. 'winter') a possible kenning for his true name. However, Arawn's memory is retained in a traditional saying found in an old Cardigan folktale:

The name Arawn is derived from that of the biblical prophet Aaron.