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adventures of one Lucius, who
experiments in magic and is accidentally turned into an
ass. In this guise he hears and sees many unusual
things, until escaping from his predicament in a rather
unexpected way. . |
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Apuleius
Lucius Apuleius Platonicus
(c. AD
123/125-c.
AD
180),
is remembered most for his bawdy
picaresque
Latin
novel the Metamorphoses, otherwise known as
The Golden Ass or, in Latin, the Aureus
Asinus (where the Latin word aureus - golden
- connoted an element of blessed luckiness. This is the same
colonia where
Saint Augustine later received part of his early
education, and, though located well away from the
Romanized coast, is today the site of some pristine
Roman ruins. Apuleius was an
initiate in several cults or mysteries, including the
Dionysian mysteries.[1]
He was a priest of Aesculapius[2]
and, according to Augustine,[3]
sacerdos provinciae Africae (i.e. priest of the
province of Carthage).
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Plutarch was
claimed as a relative on his mother's side by Apuleius
although some speculate it may have been a way to show
his admiration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and the
Transcendentalists were greatly influenced by the
Moralia so much that Emerson called the Lives "a
bible for heroes" in his glowing introduction to the
Moralia |
| a precursor to the literary genre of
the episodic
picaresque novel, in which
Quevedo,
Rabelais,
Boccaccio,
Cervantes,
Voltaire,
Defoe and many others have followed |
| Within this
frame story are found multiple
digressions, the longest among them being the
well-known tale of
Cupid and Psyche |
| Apuleius'
Apology of 158/9 AD |
| In
1517,
Niccolò Machiavelli wrote
his own version of the story, as a terza rima poem.
In the 20th century,
T. E. Lawrence carried a small copy of the "Golden
Ass" in his saddlebags all through the
Arab Revolt. It was Lawrence who first introduced
the book to his friend
Robert Graves, who later translated the work.
In April 1999 the
Canadian Opera Company produced an operatic version
of the "Golden Ass", the libretto for which was written
by celebrated Canadian author
Robertson Davies. |
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Marie-Louise von Franz |
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As Eros’ physical attributes in later
Greek myth develop, little agreement is found on his
parentage. Some say he is born to Uranus, the starry
heavens, and Gaea, mother earth. He is also portrayed as
the son of Artemis, the moon goddess, and Hermes, the
trickster. He claims Iris, guardian of the rainbow and
Zephyrs, god of the north wind, as parents. In
Phoenician Mythology of the first millennium BC, he is
the son of Chronas and Ashtart. |
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The White Goddess
essay upon the nature of poetic
myth-making by author and poet
Robert Graves. First published in 1948. Graves
argues that "true" or "pure" poetry is inextricably
linked with the ancient cult-ritual of his proposed
White Goddess and of her son. no historical evidence
that the "White Goddess" as he describes her ever
figured in any actual belief system. However given that
the worship of the Goddess, as defined by Graves, took
place in pre-literate and
pre-historical times the lack of such evidence is
not in itself evidence of lack. Graves concluded, in the
second and expanded edition, that the monotheistic god
of
Judaism and its successors were the cause of the
White Goddess's downfall, and thus the source of much of
the modern world's woe. |
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John_Keats [31
October 1795 – 23 February 1821] Keats believed that
great people (especially
poets) have the ability to accept that not
everything can be resolved. Keats was a
Romantic and believed that the truths found in the
imagination access holy authority. Such authority cannot
otherwise be understood |
Temple_of_
Isis_at_Pompeii |
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translated
by Edward John Kenney - 1998
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translated by Jack Lindsay -1962 |
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"Apuleius, the celebrated author is
undoubtedly the greatest of the ancient Latin
Platonists. He is not to be classed among the chief of
the disciples of Plato, yet he will always maintain a
very distinguished rank among those who have delivered
to us the more accessible parts of that philosophy with
consummate eloquence. The most important parts of the
Metamorphosis, I feel, are the fable of Cupid and
Psyche, and the eleventh book, in which Apuleius gives
an account of his being initiated in the mysteries of
Isis and Osiris. I call these the most important parts,
because in the former, it appears to me, the very
ancient dogma of the pre-existence of the human soul,
its lapse from the intelligible world to the earth, and
its return from thence to its pristine state of
felicity, are most accurately and beautifully
adumbrated."
Thomas Taylor |
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Cybele vs Isis |
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Also born in North Africa is
the influential Christian writer St Augustine,, who wrote about
Lucias Apuleius as well a great rival of both the Catholic
church and Isis, the Mother of the Gods the Mager Mater
who was adopted officially by the Romans,
Cybele:
“When I was a young man I
used to go to … spectacles put on in honour of gods and
goddesses – in honour of the Heavenly Virgin, and of Berecynthia
[a title of Cybele], mother of all. On the yearly festival of
Berecynthia's washing, actors sang, in front of her litter …
they performed [rites] in the presence of the Mother of the Gods
before an immense audience of spectators of both sexes … And the
name of the ceremony is ‘the fercula’, which might suggest the
giving of a dinner-party.”
(The City of God, 11, 4)
The Roman annual New Year
concluded with the Hilaria Carnival Parade on the Sunday
following the Spring Equinox, just like
Easter. It honored
Cybele |
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State vs. Soul |
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Isis & Cybele
cults pursuit of salvation of the individual
Soul Undermines the State |
Greek and Roman society was based on the concept of
the subordination of individual to the state and perpetuation of the society. If one
shrank from supreme sacrifice then it never occurred to anyone
that they acted other than for base reasons.
Oriental religion taught the reverse of this doctrine. It
inculcated the communion of the "Soul" with God and its eternal
salvation as the only objects of existence, and in comparison
with the prosperity and even the existence of the state was
insignificant. Inevitably belief system draws the individual
away from public service
and to greater focus on their own personal salvation through
initiation into an enlightened group bound by some special
secret, often involving the promise of an afterlife, a
recompense for present miseries in the next world. This appealed
greatly to the powerless classes such as women and dispossessed
such as slaves.The misapplication of
the mystery doctrines in the oriental
religions is said to have created serious consequences for the ordering of
society. The ties of the family were weakened and political body of the
state made less relevant. The goddess cults of Isis and Cybele
had deities with prominent sex lives which can be as revolting
to some as it is compelling to others.
This was the fear of the Roman Senators who in
181 BC had previously sought to ban Bacchus as a mystery cult
controlled by priests outside the ruling class. The real fear of
a society o relapsing into its individual
elements and thereby into barbarism. Roman civilization is only
possible through the active cooperation of the individual and
the subordination of the interests of the individual to that of
the common good
The story of sex becoming divorced from
cosmology and becomes permissively recreational, resulting in a
backlash from the real and perceived fear of a corrosive
effect on society at large is also a lesson to be learned from
the 1960's and the era of flower power and hippies before this
generation passes from its chance to further affect history as
the dawn of a new age.
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 Book II
The Golden Ass:
Following a memorable Carnaval like romp through the temptations
of the flesh, the author makes a heartfelt cry to unite behind
the love of a compassionate goddess whose name is not important
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The
famous novel the Golden Ass was written in Latin in the second century AD
by Lucius Apuleius. It tells the story of the journey of the hero Lucius through
Thessaly, the land of witchcraft. His curiosity leads to his
accidental transformation into an ass, and he finds himself
trapped in a world of ever increasing moral depravity.
|
the Golden Ass
is the only surviving novel in Latin |
The bawdy and hilarious work,
among the most influential of all literary works,
finishes with a strong entreaty to embrace the worship of Isis
as the path for salvation for your soul.
It is a tale of the
transformation and initiation of a young man into ass providing
a well-lit stage for the drama of the struggle of the individual
to understand the choices faced as they try to make intelligible
the crazy world that turns out to be not so different from our
own. Using many older stories, Apuleius created a
completely new book with a inner message for the soul. This masterpiece of Latin literature can also argue of
being the world's first novel, it is the only work of fiction in
Latin to have survived in its entirety.
Lucius Apuleius was one of the
main representatives of North African Platonism during the
second century (AD). He wrote works ranging from philosophy and
medicine to poetry and rhetoric. |
The
Life of Lucius Apuleius
 |
 Luisius claimed to be related on his mother's side to
the Greek philosopher/historian Plutarch and despite it not being
his first language was a master of Latin prose capable of play
with the rhythm and rhyme of the language which continues to
inspire new translations of his most influential tale.
Platonic philosopher and rhetorician,
was born at Madaura in Numidia about A.D. 125. As the son of one
of the principal officials, he received an excellent education,
first at Carthage and subsequently at Athens. After leaving
Athens he undertook a long course of travel, especially in the
East, principally with the view of obtaining initiation into
religious mysteries. Having practised for some time as an
advocate at Rome, he returned to Africa.
On a journey to
Alexandria he fell sick at Oea (Tripoli), where he made the
acquaintance of a rich widow, Aemilia Pudentilla, whom he
subsequently married. The members of her family disapproved of
the marriage, and indicted Apuleius on a charge of having gained
her affections by magical arts. He easily established his
innocence, and his spirited, highly entertaining, but
inordinately long defence (Apologia or De Magia) before the
proconsul Claudius Maximus is our principal authority for his
biography.
From allusions in his subsequent writings, and the
mention of him by St Augustine, we gather that the remainder of
his prosperous life was devoted to literature and philosophy. At
Carthage he was elected provincial priest of the imperial cult,
in which capacity he occupied a prominent position in the
provincial council, had the duty of collecting and managing the
funds for the temples of the cult, and the superintendence of
the games in the amphitheatre. He lectured on philosophy and
rhetoric, like the Greek sophists, apparently with success,
since statues were erected in his honour at Carthage and
elsewhere. The year of his death is not known.
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Cupid
and Psyche |
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a story about a
the development of mature consciousness |
 Apuleius
might have created this myth of
Metamorphoses for it was first found in his book.
Since then it has often been the subject of artists, poets and
others as it takes on the soul complexities of sex and
spirituality.The account of Cupid and
Psyche is presented in The Golden Ass as an "old wive's
tale" told by an old woman to comfort a young woman who has been
abducted by a band of robbers and is being held for ransom. |
A certain king
and queen had three daughters. The goddess Venus, jealous and envious of the
beauty of a youngest daughter a woman named Psyche, and asked her son, Cupid, to
use his golden arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the
most vile creature on earth. Cupid agreed but then fell in love
with Psyche on his own.
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Psyche, a late addition
to Olympian divinities, was a beautiful young girl whose
name in Greek means "Soul." |
 |
When all continued to admire and praise Psyche's beauty but none
desired her as a wife, Psyche's parents consulted an oracle,
which told them to leave Psyche on the nearest mountain, for her
beauty was so great that she was meant for a god. So it was
done. But then Zephyrus, the west wind, carried Psyche away to a
fair valley and a magnificent palace where she was attended by
invisible servants until night fell and in the darkness of night
the promised bridegroom arrived and the marriage was
consummated. Cupid visited her every night to sleep with her,
but demanded that she never light any lamps, since he did not
want her to know who he was.
Cupid even allowed Zephyrus to take Psyche back to her sisters
and bring all three down to the palace during the day, but
warning that Psyche should not listen to any argument that she
should not try to discover his true form. The two jealous
sisters told Psyche, then pregnant with Cupid's child, that
rumor was that she had married a great and terrible serpent who
would devour her and her unborn child when her time came for it
to be fed. They urged Psyche to conceal a knife and oil lamp in
the bedchamber, to wait till her husband was asleep, and then to
light the lamp and slay him at once if it was as they said.
Psyche sadly followed their advice. In the light of the lamp
Psyche recognized the fair form on the bed as the god Cupid
himself, and cursing her folly, attempted to kill herself with
the knife she had intended to use on him. However, she dropped
the knife, and
 her spirits were raised as she gazed on the
beautiful young god. She curiously examined his golden arrows,
and accidentally pricked herself with them, and was consumed
with desire for her husband. She began to kiss him, but as she
did, a drop of oil fell from Psyche's lamp and onto Cupid's
chest and he awoke. He flew away, but she caught his ankle and
was carried with him until her muscles gave out, and she fell to
the ground, sick at heart.
The god Pan, who was nearby, advised Psyche to seek to regain
Cupid's love through service.
Psyche then found herself in the city where one of her jealous,
elder sisters lived. She told her what had happened, then
tricked her sister into believing that Cupid had chosen her as a
wife instead. She later met the other sister and deceived her
likewise. Each returned to the top of the peak and jumped down
eagerly, but Zephyrus did not bear them and they fell to their
deaths at the base of the mountain.
 |
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When Venus (Aphrodite)
learned of her beauty, she was unnerved by the
competition and instructed her son Cupid (Amor) to make
Psyche fall in love with an ugly monster. |
 |
Psyche searched far and wide for her lover, finally stumbling
into a temple to Ceres where all was in slovenly disarray. As
Psyche was sorting and clearing, Ceres appeared, but refused any
help but advice, saying Psyche must call directly on Venus, the
jealous shrew that caused all the problems in the first place.
Psyche next called on Juno in her temple, but Juno, superior as
always, said the same. So Psyche found a temple to Venus and
entered it. Venus ordered Psyche to separate all the grains in a
large basket of mixed kinds before nightfall. An ant took pity
on Psyche and with its ant companions separated the grains for
her.
Venus was outraged at her success and told her
to go to a field where golden sheep grazed and get some golden
wool. A river-god told Psyche that the sheep were vicious and
strong and would kill her, but if she waited until noontime, the
sheep would go to the shade on the other side of the field and
sleep; she could pick the wool that stuck to the branches and
bark of the trees. Venus next asked for water from the Styx and
Cocytus flowing from a cleft that was impossible for a mortal to
attain and was also guarded by great serpents. This time an
eagle performed the task for Psyche. Venus, outraged at Psyche's
survival, claimed that the stress of caring for her son, made
depressed and ill as a result of Psyche's unfaithfulness, had
caused her to lose some of her beauty. Psyche was to go to the
Underworld and ask Persephone, the queen of the
 Underworld, for
a bit of her beauty in a box that Venus gave to Psyche. Psyche
decided that the quickest way to the Underworld would be to
throw herself off some high place and die and so she climbed to
the top of a tower. But the tower itself spoke to her and told
her the route through Tanaerum that would allow her to enter the
Underworld alive and return again, as well as telling her how to
get by Cerberus by throwing him a sop and Charon by paying him
an obol, how to avoid other dangers on the way there and back,
and most importantly to eat of no food whatsoever; for otherwise
she would dwell forever in the Underworld. Psyche followed the
orders explicitly and ate nothing while beneath the earth.
However when Psyche had got out of the Underworld, she decided
to open the box and take a little bit of the beauty for herself.
Inside, she could see no beauty; instead an infernal sleep arose
from the box and overcame her. Cupid, who had forgiven Psyche,
flew to her, wiped the sleep from her face, put it back in the
box, and sent her back on her way. Then Cupid flew to Mount
Olympus and begged
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Mercury
Offering the Cup of Immortality to Psyche |
Jove to aid them. Jove called a full and
formal council of the gods, and declared it was his will that
Cupid might marry Psyche. Jove then had Psyche fetched to Mount
Olympus, and Mercury gave her a drink made from Ambrosia, granting her
immortality. Although some say their daughter was named Bliss,
and some say she was named Delight (in Roman mythology she was
named Volupta, which can mean either), the meaning of the name
was intended to be joyful.
Begrudgingly, Venus, and Psyche
forgave each other.
Cupidinis et nascitur illis
maturo partu filia, quam Voluptatem nominamus. |
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Interpreting the dream for the
collective conscious
|
The term "psyche" now more
commonly refers to the mind in its subconscious aspect rather
than to the soul. In psychology, some experts regard her story
as indicative of female psychic development, whereas others
interpret Psyche as representing the anima a female
image of the male soul. The ambiguity is one of the powerful
elements that make the story resonate with many artists and
seekers through the ages.
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"Now
begins the age
of
human love" |
|
 "Psyche’s
act ends the mythical age
in the archetypal world, the age in which the
relation between the sexes depended only on the
superior power of the gods, who held men
at their mercy. Now begins the age of human
love, in which the human psyche consciously
takes the fateful decision on itself. And this
brings us to the background of our myth, namely
the conflict between Psyche, the "new Aphrodite"
and Aphrodite as the Great Mother". |
| (Amor and Psyche: The Psychic
Development of the Feminine. by ERICH NEUMANN
New York: 1956: p. 146) |
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Cupid could not reveal his
divine nature, so he visited Psyche in darkness. She shines a
light into the mystery of love too impulsively, only to watch it
vanish. This is an attempt to expand her
consciousness before she is ready for it.
Psyche’s repeated decisions to kill herself in
order to end her despair at the prospect of completing her
seemingly impossible tasks symbolically express the depression
which frequently accompanies psychological development.
The integration of sexuality with the highest
aspirations of consciousness. Nothing less than a spiritual
rebirth is required to bring together these seemingly opposite
aspects of the human being. Psyche’s journey to the underworld
dramatically portrays the powerful experience of rebirth which
precedes and helps to bring about this hard-won integration
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The USES of ENCHANTMENT |
| Bettelheim
interprets the tale as a symbolic portrait of the
fullest possible human development:
"Not physical man, but
spiritual man must be reborn to become ready for the
marriage of sexuality with wisdom . . . wedding of the
two aspects of man requires a rebirth" (
p. 293 ) |
The labors of Psyche
educate and enlighten bringing eventual liberation into her
divine aspect. The allegory fuses the ancient rebirth initiation
rites of the mystery cults and Platonic idealism. The
story assures the young that their fear of
sex as something beastly is not unique to them and that sexual
anxiety, which is often implanted by others, frequently turns
out to be unfounded |
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Golden Ass of Apuleius:
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The Liberation of the Feminine in Man |
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Marie-Louise von
Franz |
 "Today
there is much discussion of the liberation of women," writes
Marie-Louise von Franz, "but it is sometimes overlooked that
this can only succeed if there is a change in men as well.
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Speaking to us in
the dream language of the soul using archetypal symbol
and story |
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"why
should one not treat the stories here as if they were
dreams within the story?... Apuleius gives form to a
deep process of evolution of historical dimension: the
coming back of the feminine principle into the
patriarchal Western world. This slow comeback of the
feminine principle intermittently surfaced in the Middle
Ages, but it is only today that it seems to have broken
through into the collective consciousness." |
" The
Golden Ass is the modern description of the
development of a man's anima or feminine unconscious
personality. Today there is much discussion of the liberation of
women, but it is sometimes overlooked that this can only succeed
if there is a change in men as well. Just as women have to
overcome the patriarchal tyrant in their own souls, men have to
liberate and differentiate their inner femininity. Only then
will a better relationship of the sexes be possible."
It is this timely theme that Dr. von Franz explores
in her psychological study of a classic work of the second
century, The Golden Ass by Apuleius of Madaura. |
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Marie-Louise von Franz, Ph.D. (1915-1998), worked
closely with Jung from 1934 until his death in 1961.
An expert on fairy tales and considered the brilliant queen of
Jungian psychology
for much of her prolific career.
Within the Jungian community she is best known for her studies
of the psychological significance of fairytales and of alchemy.
She translated many books from Latin for her mentor, C.J. Jung.
However her deepest and most difficult work is concerned with
the archetypal aspects of the natural numbers and how they
create synchronicity. |
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JUST IN
TIME?: The reemergence of the female principle after 4000
years of repression |
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"Happily, we now have a full
translation of the text, the work of Mr. Robert Graves, who,
under the spell of his Triple Goddess, has lately been
retranslating the classics. One of his first tributes to her was
a fine rendering of The Golden Ass: then
Lucan's Pharsalia; then the Greek Myths, a collation aimed at
rearranging the hierarchy of Olympus to afford his Goddess (the
female principle) a central position at the expense of the male.
(Beware Apollo's wrath, Graves: the 'godling' is more than front
man for the 'Ninefold Muse-Goddess.')
--Gore
Vidal
 Robert Graves concluded, in his most
important book,
The White Goddess, that the monotheistic
god of Judaism and its successors were the cause of the
White Goddess's downfall, and thus the source of much of
the modern world's woe.
An iconoclastic and controversial
warrior of the zeitgeist, Graves concluded that
the Mother-Goddess had been ousted by thirteenth-century
B.C. invaders of what is now Greece. These invaders
installed in her place the Olympian gods. The legacy of
this momentous shift in spiritual power is Western
civilization as we know it, with its (in Graves’s view)
undue emphasis on rationality and order, and distrust of
magic and myths—indeed, all forms of “poetic unreason.”
The White Goddess book with its subtitle "A
Historical Grammar of Poetic Myths" and contention that
the most important manifestation of the goddess to
understand is that of the Triple Goddess was the first
widely read book on the prehistory of the goddess. First
published in 1948, soon after the atomic age arrived, it
preceded the great outpouring of 20th century
goddess literature now with us.
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Newest translation
emphasizing word rhythm:
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 Joel
Relihan uses alliteration and assonance, rhythm and rhyme, the
occasional archaism, the rare neologism, and devices of
punctuation and typography, to create a sparkling, luxurious,
and readable translation that reproduces something of the
linguistic and comic effects of the original Latin.
Published September 2007 |
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RIDING ON A DONKEY
|
 To walk on palms was the sign of triumph, as
in Apuleius' description of Isis: "On her divine feet were
slippers of palm leaves, the emblem of victory." Lucius Apuleius,
The Golden Ass, 170According to the gospel story, at the height of his popularity
Jesus rides into Jerusalem while crowds sing his praises and lay
branches in his path.’2’ Traditionally the crowd is said to have
waved palm leaves. The palm was symbolic in the Mysteries.’
Plato writes of “the palm of wisdom of Dionysus.”’ The great
festival of the Mystery godman Attis began with the “Entry of
the Reed-Bearers,” which was followed by the “Entry of the
Tree,” an evergreen pine upon which was tied an effigy of the
godman.”” One modern scholar remarks:
"It is impossible to ignore the associations with Jesus’ entry
into Jerusalem surrounded by palm-bearers, and his bearing of
the cross or tree which became his chief symbol."
The gospels relate that Jesus goes out of his way to make sure
he is mounted on a donkey. In vase representations, Dionysus is
also often pictured astride a donkey, which carries him to meet
his passion.’ The playwright Aristophanes writes of “the ass who
carried the Mysteries.”’
 When the crowd
of pilgrims at Athens walked the Sacred Way to Eleusis to
celebrate the Mysteries, a donkey carried a basket containing
the sacred paraphernalia, which would be used to create the idol
of Dionysus, while the crowds shouted the praises of Dionysus
and waved bundles of branches.’ In this way, like Jesus entering
Jerusalem, Dionysus rode in triumph to his death.
The mythical motif of “riding on a donkey” is often taken as a
sign of humility. It also has a more mystical meaning, however.
To the ancients the donkey typified lust, cruelty, and
wickedness. ft symbolically represented the lower “animal” self,
which must be overcome and subdued by an initiate of the
Mysteries. Lucius Apuleius wrote a story called The Golden Ass,
which was an allegorical tale of initiation. In it Lucius is
transformed into a donkey through his own foolisbness and
endures many adventures, which represent stages
 of initiation.
At his final initiation he is transformed back into a human
being. This story is symbolic of the initiate being overcome by
his lower nature and then, through initiation into the
Mysteries, rediscovering his true identity.
The Egyptian goddess Isis tells Lucius that the donkey is the
most hateful to her of all beasts.””~ This is because it is
sacred to the god Set, who in Egyptian mythology is the murderer
of Osiris.’’ Plutarch recorded an Egyptian festival in which
donkeys were triumphantly pushed over cliffs in vengeance for
Osiris’ murder. Set is symbolic of the initiate’s lower self,
which slays the spiritual Higher Self (Osiris) and must be
metaphorically put to death for the spiritual Self to be reborn.
The donkey was also a common symbol of the lower “animal” nature
in the Greek Mysteries of Dionysus. A vase painting represents a
ridiculous donkey with an erect phallus dancing among the
disciples of Dionysus.’ A design on a wine pitcher shows
donkeys having sex.‘ In another design a pilgrim is shown
stopping to pull the tail of a donkey.’”
A favorite representation of afterlife
sufferings in the Underworld was the figure of a man condemned
to forever plait a rope that his donkey continually eats away,
symbolic of the lower self constantly trying to eat away the
spiritual achievements of the Higher Self. The figure of the
godman riding in triumph on a donkey symbolized that he was
master of his lower "animal" nature [source
] |
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Roots to
the
Summer of Love |
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Emerson, Thoreau
& Whitman: the first to combine the sacred of the East &
West |
"But the 1960s spiritual awakening, as
a program of rebellious liberalization, more resembled
Transcendentalism (1835-60),
 |
|
Camille
Paglia
addresses the
need for a new cannon for higher education |
which was influenced by
British Romanticism and German idealism. Its leading
figure, Ralph Waldo Emerson, had been a Unitarian
minister (descended from a line of clerics) but resigned
his post because he could not accept the doctrine of
transubstantiation in the Eucharist. More generally,
Emerson was repelled by the passionlessness and rote
formulas of genteel churchgoing. ... Emerson transferred
his family's religious vocation to the Romantic cult of
nature, a pagan pantheism. His holistic vision of
nature, like that of his friend Henry David Thoreau,
prefigures 1960s ecology: indeed, Thoreau's Walden
(1854), a journal of his experiment in monastic living
in the woods near Boston, became a canonical text for
the sixties counterculture.
The most intriguing of the parallels between New England
Transcendentalism and 1960s thought is Emerson's
interest in Asian literature-mainly Hindu sacred texts
(the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads) and Confucius'
maxims. India's religious literature had been unknown to
the West until the first European translation of the
Bhagavad Gita appeared in 1785, when Sanskrit studies
had just begun.
The titles Emerson gave to his poems "Brahma" and "Maya"
were inexplicable to most readers at the time. (Brahma
is the Hindu creator god; Maya is the veil of illusion.)
"Brahma," first published in 1857, was the butt of so
many satirical lampoons that Emerson's publisher begged
him, to no avail, to drop it from the 1876 edition of
his selected poems. In his seminal essays (1836-41),
Emerson refers to God as the "Over-Soul," a translation
of the Sanskrit word, atman, meaning "supreme and
universal soul." Emerson's "Over-Soul" would be
reinterpreted by Friedrich Nietzsche as the Übermensch,
which translators often misleadingly render in English
as "Superman." |
|
"At
this time of foreboding about the future of Western culture, it
is crucial to identify and preserve our finest artifacts. Canons
are always in flux, but canon formation is a critic's
obligation...It is critical that we reinforce the spiritual
values of Western art, however we define them. In the
Greco-Roman line, beauty and aesthetic pleasure are spiritual
too.
Joni Mitchell's Woodstock is organized in nesting triads:
its 9 stanzas fall into 3 parts, each climaxing in a 1-stanza
refrain. |
I came upon a
child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgurs farm
I'm going to join in a rock n roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe its the time of man
I don't know who l am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden |
|
"The entire power of Woodstock is that what is imagined in it
was not achieved. Woodstock the festival has become a haunting
memory. Mitchell's final notes hand, quaver, and fade. Cold
reality trumps over art's beautiful dreams." |
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|
The Last Book |
|
Lucius calls for
divine aid, and is answered by the goddess Isis |
In the last book, the style abruptly changes.
Driven to desperation, Lucius calls for divine aid, and is
answered by the goddess Isis. Eager to be initiated into the
mystery cult of Isis, abstains from forbidden foods, bathes and
purifies himself. Then the secrets of the cult's books are
explained to him and further secrets revealed, before going
through the process of initiation which involves a trial by the
elements in a journey to the underworld. Lucius is then
initiated asked to seek initiation into the cult of Osiris in
Rome, and eventually initiated into the pastophoroi, a group of
priests that serves Isis and Osiris.
The humorous prose of the earlier books is exchanged for an
equally powerful, sometimes quasi-poetic, style that draws upon
Lucius' religious experiences. |
Mythic stories make up a kind of collective
dream that we all have together. If we want to understand our
dreams, in many respects, we can look at these stories and study
them.
---Jonathan
Young @ FolkStory.com |
|
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INITIATION |
|
 |
|
"The keys of hell and
the
guarantee of salvation
were in the hands of
the goddess, and the initiation ceremony itself a kind of
voluntary death and salvation through divine grace."
|
 |
Roman lamp,
circa 100-300CE,
seemingly showing a scene from the Golden Ass or
Λουκιος η Ονος.
owned/sold by
Phoenicia Holyland Antiques
|
|
Egyptian Truth:
The celestial powers known by thought alone, are called the
gods, and they preside over the world |
|
Which is it! |
|
The
Metamorphoses |
| or |
| The Golden
Ass |
|
| The latter name, The
Metamorphoses, is found in the extant manuscripts, but
Augustine, who studied some two centuries later at Madauros (as
well as at Carthage), says that Apuleius called his work
Asinus aureus or The Golden Ass |
| |
|
Neoplatonic perspective |
| These ideas can be understood from a
Neoplatonic perspective which distinguished normal sexual
pleasure (associated with Venus) from passionate love
(associated with Eros), which is considered a kind of divine
madness or ecstasy; the latter is literally enthusiasm,
which comes from entheos, "possessed," that is, having
a god (theos) inside. The
Nous, the Intellectual/ Spiritual Principle, emanates from
the One, but is directed back toward it, in an eternal cyclic
living flow, by love (eros) of the Good (which is the
One). In Neoplatonic philosophy the Nous (Mind) is seen as
feminine and is identified with Wisdom (Sophia),
In Christian Neoplatonism Nous is often identified with the Holy
Spirit (traditionally feminine) or with the Virgin Mary (in
which case the One is identified with the Trinity).
The Neoplatonic tradition as developed and systemized by
Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus was a form of transcendentalism
in direct opposition to the gathering Christian hegemony.
Neoplatonic allegory develops the spiritual gloss in epic poetry
while working to preserve the cultural authority of the epic as
a literary adjunct to moral philosophy and theology. The
Neoplatonic reading preserves the faith in the power of the
symbols or archetypes by keeping their real mystic meanings a
secret except for the interpretive communities trained to expect
the metaphysical allegorical meanings.
Key to the doctrine of Neo-Platonism, was Plotinus' idea that
the universe was not created ex nihilo as the Church
insisted, but that both the cosmos and man were emanations, or "overflowings"
of the Divine substance. Analogically, Man, the "Microcosm" has
a "lower soul" anima secunda connected to the material
world and a "higher soul" intellectus or mens that
is connected to and even participates in the Divine Mind,
intellectus divinus.
For many of the Neoplatonists, the very vision of
God was the contemplation of divine beauty in a state of erotic
trance. This mystical vision was complete when, although still
in this life, one received the Kabbalistic "mors oscli"
or "kiss of death" from the Venus Celeste source of all
beauty and wisdom. The Neo-Platonic,
Hermetic definition. "God is an infinite circle whose center is
everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere."
which is symbolically represented by the circular mandala
with a bindu point at the center. The other view as
stated here from Vatican I, is that,
"God is other than the world in being and essence, and above all else,
that could possibly be considered to be, ineffably superior."
This is central to the three great monotheistic belief systems
of the last 4000 years or Jews, Moslems and Christians.
Proponents of Monotheism, have tempered the concept of divine
immanence by positing the parallel doctrine of divine
Transcendence such that God is considered omnipresent and active
in human affairs as creator, sustainer, judge, and redeemer, but
is also considered elevated above and distinguished from the
universe. |
|
Magic |
|
 |
| Magic played an important role in Egyptian religion, often
providing a way to avoid or control misfortune. Magical spells
might include versions of myths. All gods had secret, divine
names that carried magical powers. One spell told the story of
how Isis discovered the secret name of Ra, which she then used
to increase her own magical skills. Many spells were used to
treat the bites of snakes and scorpions, generally regarded as
symbols of the forces of chaos. The god Thoth, a patron of
wisdom, was closely connected with magic.
Gnosis, or knowledge,
as understood in Gnostic religious systems, thus does not refer
to rational understanding of natural or supernatural reality,
but involves an awareness through illumination, intuition,
initiation or induced trance that the human spirit is
consubstantial with the divine ground of being. |
|
 |
|
ODE TO
PSYCHE
by John Keats |
O Goddess!
hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conched ear:
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
The winged boy I knew;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
His Psyche true!
O latest born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,
Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
Nor altar heap'd with flowers;
Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan
Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain-swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.
O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retir'd
From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swinged censer teeming;
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees
Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,
With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!
|
| Keats [above] alludes to Psyche being the last deity
admitted to Olympus by virtue of her first appearing early in
the 2nd century AD |
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