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FRAGMENTATION OF BEING and the Path Beyond the Void by Kent D. Palmer

copyright 2004 All Rights Reserved. Not for Distribution.


FRAGMENT 41 THE LOST PATTERN OF BEING

Now we approach the crux of the argument of this series of essays. One might suppose that having taken the search for the origins of Being back to its prehistory in which it was fragmented into separate roots, as in Old English, one had gone as far as possible. However, in this essay the intent is to go back even further in order to discern the lost pattern which forms the source of Being as a fragmented set of pieces. We do this in order to understand first the pattern of Prehistoric Being, and to also understand the pattern of Fragmented Being and how these two patterns fit together. By understanding how the patterns fit together, we will have gone a long way toward understanding who we, as the descendents of the Indo-Europeans, actually are in ourselves. We have looked into the pieces of the cracked mirror of Being, but have not yet recognized ourselves. In order to do this it is necessary to undertake a further study of mythology. But not the mythology of the Greeks which is diluted by semitic influences. Instead, we want to go back to the mythology of the Vedas -- the oldest purely Indo-European texts. The oldest of these is the Rg Veda. In the Rg Veda, the structure of the gods is quite different from what we are used to because of the obsession with Greek origins indulged in by Western culture. The true undiluted origin has been the subject of a fine study by Jeanne Miller called The Vision Of Cosmic Order In The Vedas which concentrates on the concept of RTA within the Vedas. Another fascinating study is Antonio T. de Nicolas' Four Dimensional Man: Meditations Through The Rg Veda.

The study of the Rg Veda is a vast enterprise which we will not attempt. Too many other fine studies by qualified scholars exist. Instead, we are interested in a particular point which has been explicated by Dumazil, which is the connection between the Northern European mythology and the structure of the gods presented in the Vedas. This essay will outline Dumazil's findings. However, first a clarification must be made. Europeans tend to use the word "gods" indiscriminately for any supernatural being. The Greek gods are always the prototype for whatever gods are discovered in other cultures. This, of course, is a bias because the Greek gods are what are called in Islamic parlance "jinn" -- the invisible duals of men. We have brought out the fact that jinn are not the only invisible intelligent creatures in the universe. There are also Angels. Now when the Europeans discover some supernatural beings posited by other cultures, they assume they are the same as the Greek gods. In the case of the Vedas, this interpretation is blatantly false. The devas in the Vedas are clearly angelic creatures rather than jinn. They uphold the RTA at all costs. They are made of light. Devas are distinguished clearly from the Asuras to whom the jinn are more closely akin. The use of these terms change over time. Asura comes to eventually mean demon, as opposed to the Deva which are definitely Angelic. In Zoroastrianism, exactly the opposite evolution occurs so that the Asura remains the angelic and the deva comes to mean demon. Originally both terms apparently applied to both Jinn and Angels. One linguistic community kept one term for the angel, while the other kept the other term. Whatever the terminology, which has caused much confusion, we can tell who we are dealing with by looking at the actions of the being under question. If the being has to support and maintain cosmic harmony and cannot go against that, then it is an Angel. Jinn, like men, have free choice in the matter and can cause, either consciously or unconsciously, deviations from cosmic harmony. We need to learn to recognize angelic forces when we see them manifested, and not confuse them with the work of the jinn which, like the actions of the Greek gods, can be immoral and unjust.

Another important point not normally recognized by scholars in this area is that just because a particular non-human being occupies the same structural position in the mythology, does not mean it is the same being. In point of fact, although the Vedic and Northern European mythic structures are parallel in one case, we are apparently dealing with angels, while in Northern Europe, these have been replaced by Jinn. This, even though the structure of Northern European myth might be the same as those expressed in the Vedas, the type of non-human creature we are dealing with is of the same type as live on Mount Olympus. We can tell that from their deeds which are sometimes unjust or immoral. Angels cannot be unjust or immoral and have sexual relations with men or jinn. Angels are, by definition, pure and only carry out the commands of God.

The fact that the Vedas deal with angels as well as jinn clearly distinguishing them, but putting angels first indicates their extreme age which must ultimately predate the slavery of men to jinn within the mythopoeitic era. The Vedas are, in fact, not mythic. They are hymns to various angels and other beings. In them, we see the struggle between the religion that worships angels and the religion that worships jinn. Basically, the lines are drawn between the worshipers of Varuna and Mithra on the one hand, and the worshipers of Indra on the other hand. The worshipers of Indra introduce the concept of God sacrificing himself to create the universe, which is clearly a perverse mythology that is unique to the Indo-Europeans. It is the first image of self-grounding transcendence as being equivalent to the Abyss. In the Vedas, the followers of Indra are dominant, but certain hymns emphasize the other position which places Mithra and Varuna apart from and dominating over the Jinn. Zoroastrianism is the result of that struggle where Zoroaster was a prophet who came to finally distinguish between these two realms of beings and indicate the primacy of monotheism. The angels are converted into concepts like "the good mind" and the worshipers of the jinn are characterized as the people of the lie. Many times, the Vedas exhibit confusion about the characteristics of the beings they praise, because of the fact that there is a struggle for supremacy going on within the Vedas between the followers and Indra and the older religion that made Mithra-Varuna supreme. However, for the most part, the pattern is clear. Prior to the mythopoetic, perhaps the jinn themselves were fascinated with the angels so that men and jinn together offered praise for these majestic creatures. From Quran it is clear, as in the case with the Angels Harut and Marut that came down to Babylon to teach magic, as a test, that at times angels brought something other than prophecy to men and jinn. Angels could teach magical practices directly if so ordered. They would always preface their teaching with a warning to those who might be led astray by the powers of magic. It is very possible that Mitra-Varuna were an angelic pair teaching magic and other hidden arts, like Harut and Marut taught the Babylonians, if not the very same angels. There is little trace of the legacy of Harut and Marut in Babalonian myths or documents. If, however, we hypothesize that these angels actually came to the Sumarians and that somehow their influence went beyond Sumaria to the Kur in and beyond the northern mountains, then it is possible to see in Varuna and Mithra the shadow of the influence of Harut and Marut, or perhaps some other pair of Angels like them. There is no doubt that Varuna is closely associated with powerful magic. We would expect Angels to bring knowledge concerning cosmic harmony which they involuntarily uphold. However, as has been indicated, the knowledge of cosmic harmony may be turned into its opposite. We have already hypothesized that the Indo-Europeans had a wisdom concerning cosmic harmony which indeed turned into its opposite. Here, the speculation is that this wisdom came in a teaching from Angels like or the same as Harut and Marut. It came as a potent magic which could be used to separate husband and wife as is said in the Quran. Husband and wife is a holon -- a union of opposite kinds of a kind. This magic must allow those who use it to wrongly break up the holons of the opposites instead of attaining and promulgating cosmic harmony. Perhaps it even eventually degrades by misuse into the dynamic clinging of the equestrian horsemen who seek global domination.

Why would God, the monotheistic God of Zoroaster called the Wise Lord of the Semites, called originally El, and then later YHWH, and later the God of the Muslims called ALLAH, send angels to teach magic like this? Magic which can destroy the non-nihilistic distinction created by marriage. The actual Quranic passage goes like this:

In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate.

When a Messenger from God has come to them confirming what was with them, a party of them that were given the scripture reject the Book of God behind their backs, as though they did not know, [Quran: 2-101; Al-Tabari page 474]

and they follow what the satans recited during Solomon's reign. Solomon did not disbelieve, but the satans disbelieved, teaching the people sorcery, and that which was sent down to the two angels in Babil, Harut and Marut; they did not teach any man without saying: "We are but a trial; do not disbelieve." From them they learned how they might sunder a man from his wife, yet they did not hurt any man thereby, save with God's knowledge, and they learned what hurt them, and did not profit them, knowing well that whoever buys it shall have no share in the world to come; evil then was that they sold themselves for, if they had but known. [Quran: 2-102; Al-Tabari page 475-6]

Yet had they believed, and been God-fearing, a recompense from God had been better, if they had but known. [Quran: 2-103; Al-Tabari page 492]

Al-Tabari has the following to say:

QUESTION: Is it admissible that God sends down sorcery, or that His angels teach it to people?

REPLY: God sent down both good and evil, and explained all this to His servants and revealed it to His Messengers, commanding them to teach His creatures and acquaint them with what He has made lawful for them and what unlawful, like adultery, theft, and the other sins which He has informed them of and forbidden them to commit. Sorcery is one of these sins which He has told them about, and forbidden them to practice.

There is no sin in knowing about sorcery, just as there is no sin in knowing how to make wind, sculpt idols, <or make> stringed instruments and games, the sin is in making them and setting them up. Likewise, there is no sin in knowing about sorcery, the sin is in practicing it, and in harming with it someone whom it is not lawful to harm.

Thus there is no evil in God's sending it down to the two angels, nor in their teaching those to whom they taught it, for they . . . taught them with God's knowledge . . . after telling them that they were a trial, and after forbidding sorcery, its practice, and unbelief, to them. The sin is if someone learned it from them and practiced it, for God has forbidden its practice . . .1

So the reason that God would send down such knowledge with angels is to show men what is forbidden. But in that very showing, there is the potential of misuse. The showing allows men to see the potentials in existence, and that very knowledge of the potentials deepens men's knowledge. So God teaches men through his angels about all aspects of existence, even the negative aspects because it allows men to see the deep wisdom with which God created the world. However, knowledge can always be abused, and this is exactly what happened. Since the time that Harut and Marut came down to Babil, there has always been those who would deliberately do evil and practice the magic they taught. As the Vedas show, the Angels always uphold the Rta. Some of the Jinn are always practicing magic and attempting to upset the cosmic balance. The angels must then overcorrect for this interference and go beyond what the jinn have done to restore the cosmic harmony. Thus, the angels must understand the magic practiced by the jinn to its core. That understanding is what the angels gave to men. When men understand the magic practiced by the jinn, and also practiced by the magicians of Pharaoh in Egypt also reported in the Quran, then they have the knowledge they need to avoid that magic themselves. However, there are always some who use the knowledge for other ends and fall into evil practices rather than deriving good from that knowledge. They reap their own destruction by doing injustice and harming others in this world. For that they must make recompense in the next world.

It is unclear where "Babil" is, but it is normally considered to refer to Babylon. This is because there was a strong magical tradition among the Babalonians inherited from the Sumarians. No one knows, though, when the angels came to Babil, and so we may easily speculate that it was in the time of the Sumarians. If we hypothesize that the angels came and taught a large number of people about the nature of magic at that time, then we can hypothesize that some people understood it and used the knowledge to disentangle themselves from the misuse of magic by the jinn. Others probably ignored the warning and started practicing this magic themselves for the temporary gain it affords. If we speculate that those others were the Kur who were the enemy of the Sumarians to the north, then it is possible to understand the deep enmity between these two groups. This might explain why the word KUR means also "hades." It is those people who consigned themselves to hades for the practice of magic in this world. If we further speculate that these KUR were, in fact, the ancestors of the KURGAN peoples (the similarity of names here is a coincidence), then it is possible to understand why the wild and riotous Centaurs who break all laws do have wise men among them. Those wise men are those that understand what the magic tells us about the structure of existence -- that it allows the possibility of magic, rather than just using the magic outright, because ultimately dynamic clinging is derived from of this very magic. Dynamic clinging is a form of magic to the extent that it produces the illusion of holding without holding. This illusion allows one to use the dynamic nature of the RTA against itself. In the final analysis, RTA is not violated, but the appearance of violation occurs. This is like the example of the soliton wave. It appears to violate entropy, but we know that it can only do that because channels have been created and that globally the laws of thermodynamics are upheld even though there appears to be local violations. Magic, as taught by Harut and Marut, are like this kind of local violation. The illusions created by magic are warpages in the intersubjective views of the world which affect the way any particular individual sees things. By everyone acting as if they are real, they become "designated as real" and function as if they were real causing havoc.

Now specifically, Harut and Marut teach the nature of magic used by the jinn. In this, they are really teaching the difference between the jinn and angels which is a non-nihilistic distinction because it distinguishes between two unseen creatures. Jinn may go against the RTA, whereas Angels may not. Even in teaching the magic of the jinn to men, the Angels are upholding the RTA because those men who know are less likely to fall into the trap of thinking the designated as real is actually real. These Angels are reducing the gullibility of men. This non-nihilistic distinction between Angels and jinn is produced by teaching men how to do a particular piece of magic which can separate men from women by breaking the marriage vows. We have already recognized that the marriage vows are a non-nihilistic distinction. Just looking at a man or woman you do not know whether or not they are married. It is an unseen distinction. But it is a distinction right at the heart of human life. So the Angels teach men how to break this non-nihilistic distinction using magic. That magic manipulates the intersubjective mutual views in such a way that the men and women imagine things about each other and come to be hateful to one another. This is done so that men might have other women who are not their wives, and wives might desire other men who are not their husbands. Thus, it is always done by a third party desiring to break up the relation between husband and wife because of their desire for one or the other. This is the most terrible form of magic because it attacks the heart of human society. It destroys the non-nihilistic distinction upon which that all human life is founded. Thus, the ability to distinguish between two invisible kinds of being is predicated on the knowledge of how to destroy the non-nihilistic link between the two kinds of a kind of visible being. The accommodation between man and woman that allows them to live together "as one," "each being a garment to each," is a profound mystery. It is outwardly done by just a declaration of marriage to witnesses. Thus, we know that because there must be witnesses, that it is a modification of the intersubjective fabric of society. Likewise, the magic that makes things appear as different than they are to many people is a disturbance of this same intersubjective fabric. These two modifications to the intersubjective cohort's world are someway directly related. Marriage binds and Magic splits asunder. The names of Mithra and Varuna refer to the "keeper of contracts" and the "binder." If you do not keep the contracts which you agree to then you will be bound by Varuna. Marriage is, of course, a contract. Magic is also a contract. If I do this thing, then such and such will occur. Words and actions are done to bring about wished-for effects. In the case of marriage, the contract binds men and women together, who have decided to share their lives, and which separates them from all others they are not married to. The binding of marriage is valid in both this world and the next world. It is for all time and even after time. It causes others to look upon the pair as belonging together, as being the Same. In the case of magic, there is a contract which binds the subject of desire to the desirer, but which amounts to a sundering because whatever is gained by magic in this world is lost in the next world, along with everything else. In magic, there is the appearance of gaining things that would otherwise not be available.

In marriage, there is the actual gaining of the aspects or "ard" the things one may truly have and enjoy, as distinct from "dunya," the aspects of this world that one may never have no matter how much one strives for them. The wives, children and food one actually eats, or clothes one actually wears, or shelter one actually lives in are all "ard" or earth. The women one has not married, children one has not lived with, the food one has beyond what one can actually eat, the clothes one has beyond what one can actually wear, and the houses one has beyond what one can actually inhabit is all "dunya." It is like the grapes that Tantilis attempts to grab but recede each time he reaches toward them. All these illusory desires that cause us to be malcontent, and causes so much striving in this world, are like the illusions produced by magic. They are not real in the sense that no matter how much one possesses, there is only so much a person can actually use. Consumer society encourages us to consume rather than use. Conspicuous consumption attempts to possess more than one needs or could ever use. Amelia Marcos had 5000 pairs of shoes. Even if she wore a pair of shoes every day, the truth is that 5000 pairs of shoes are way beyond what anyone needs or could reasonably use. Those shoes signify her being utterly caught up in Dunya. They stand for the millions in the Philippines who are shoeless. They stand for injustice on a grand scale, fostered by the colonial powers who support corruption around the world.

Magic exploits the aspect of the world which is expressed by the term Dunya. It is the aspect of the world that causes clinging and craving to become an endless cycle. It is also the aspect of the world that makes consciousness to appear to have at its center -- what Sartre calls Nothingness. It is the evanescence of experience. When you look into it deeply, you realize that even those things you consume or use, you do not actually get because the experience of consuming or getting is so fleeting, and no trace of that consumption remains. In fact, the only thing in this world that you can consume and it stays with you, is knowledge. In fact, knowledge matures over time under the influence of experience. Everything else vanishes -- the pleasures of sex, the quality time spent with children, the food one eats, the experience of being within one's house; all the things vanish and are fleeting experiences which leave no trace in this world, only leaving a trace in the next world when they appear in their meanings during the process of retribution. It is this constant vanishing of things which one cannot grasp and keep hold of that Sartre calls Nothingness. Now even though all things except knowledge vanish in this way, there is dictated by the human form a difference between the things you can actually experience directly and those which, even if you had, you could not consume or make use of. When you add to this the knowledge of retribution in the next world, one sees that only so much of that which one could possibly have in this world is fated for one, and that if one takes more than that, one is actually stealing it from someone else who one will have to pay retribution to in the next world. So the ard is that portion of the world what one may have and enjoy without paying retribution, or which is also within the amount that one may actually experience directly.

Now marriage limits the number of women that a man may have and hold. In Islam, that is four wives, and in many other religions that is one wife. This is the number that one may have without paying retribution. The fact that Islam allows four wives contains a great secret about the nature of the human being and existence in general, which is that heavenly causes have four possible interfaces with earthly aspects of existence. But be that as it may, it also says something about the social and cultural milieu. Marriage limits relations among partners in society. It provides the structure which limits the interactions of the kinds of a kind which are men and women. It provides a basis of trust that is necessary for social relations to avoid becoming a war of the all against the all for sexual advantages. This war of the all against the all immediately surfaces in the higher utopia as Anaxamander describes it in the Assembly Women. In order to get a balanced economy of desire, the young people had to make love with the old before the young. This balancing of forces of desire reminds us of the balancing of powers of kingdoms among the Dorians and among the kings of Atlantis. When there is a war of all against the all, for instance for sexual favors, then the foundations of society are destroyed. Marriage attempts to stand against this ephemeron of turmoil and unending trouble by positing a non-nihilistic distinction that limits sexual license and allows the true parents of each child to be known. This allows lineages to occur which establish continuity through time across generations.

The limits that a person may experience without retribution are set by marriage bonds. Magic attempts to break these bonds and allow illicit affairs to occur between men and women who were bonded to others. Magic only exists because people become caught up in Dunya, desiring more than is rightfully (in tune with cosmic, including social harmony) theirs. Magic promises to deliver that which Dunya makes look desirable. So magic is wrong because it creates the illusion that what is Dunya can become Ard. In fact, it destroys the person who practices magic because it makes them lose any contact with the endlesstime reality, becoming totally caught up in the illusions of the in-time realm. They destroy the foundations of the in-time realm in the realm of endlesstime. The purpose of Islam, and any other of the true prophetic religions, is to teach people to live their lives in-time as if they were already in the endlesstime realm where retribution is occurring. Indeed, retribution is only interpenetration of all things. It is a fire for those who have done injustice, in the in-time realm. But for those without the taint of injustice it is experienced as a garden of delights. Thus, the heavy emphasis on the difference between the Fire and the Garden in the Quran. If you live your life as if retribution is already occurring, then you will avoid its dangers in the next world. For truly this world and the next world are the Same. Experience of the next world in the midst of this world is called enlightenment by the Buddhists. Experience of this world in the midst of the next world is called torture or delight, depending on the nature of the retribution for a particular deed of a specific individual. We experience interpenetration as a fire when we are not purified of our wrong actions.

Of course, all this is merely speculation based on motifs taken from Islam. But it sets the stage for our consideration of the key features of Indo-European mythology. It allows us to make a clear distinction between non-human intelligent creatures that may be seen to exist if we took off the blinders of the UNI-verse and saw the pluriverse, all the knowable worlds. Humans have a great range of possible experience. When we reduce this range to only what is based on the practico-inert, then all the other experiences become schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is the rest of the range of human experience called madness. Just like the West attempts to take the holoidal and make it Conceptual Being, discarding the rest of Primordial Being, so to it attempts to take the practico-inert and make it the measure for human experience. This indeed is the separation made in the metaphysical era between the Apeiron (the meta-principle) and the physical. The nihilistic distinction between the Conceptual Being as Holoidal and the practico-inert as the dark "substance" underlying everything allowed to be causal within the uni-verse, creates the abyss between too dark and too light that every nihilistic distinction reduces to in the end. When we look at the reports of these non-human intelligent creatures exiled from our world, it is best to know with whom we are dealing. Without this distinction in the unseen, we tend to lump all the so called "gods" together, and therefore fail to notice the differences between them based on their actions.

The key structure of relations between Indo-European supernatural beings is as follows:

FIGURE 85

This is a composite picture based on Dumezil's presentation2. The Northern European "gods" are jinn. In the Vedas, Mithra and Varuna appear to be angels along with, perhaps, some of the other deities that cannot help upholding the Rta. These also correspond to the five sons in the Mahabharata, all married to one wife, who are early projections of the same signifiers onto men. In fact, the realization that these signifiers appear as men, jinn, and angels, should alert our suspicions that the signifiers themselves have meaning beyond their projection on any kind of creature. Dumezil hits upon something of the world in The Destiny Of The King. The fivefold division revealed here between the sons all married to the same woman as in the Maharabatu, is deeper than merely between creatures of the same kind. The creatures (men, jinn or angels) are merely standing in for a deeper set of signifiers. We need to attempt to understand the nature of these deeper signifiers that present us with a complete pattern -- the lost pattern of Being.

The threefold division of Indo-European society promoted by Dumezil and Benveniste is, in fact, more complex in its detailed construction. We will revere to the signifiers via their associated Vedic representation, or alternatively by the names of the Germanic jinn which are associated with these same signifiers. The so called overall three part structure, in fact, originally had four parts. Beneviste identified four classes in Iran: Priest, Warrior, Cultivator and Artisan. It was generally assumed by Dumezil that Cultivator and Artisans were originally the same class differentiated. All these are set over against outcasts which are differentiated from the three other functions in the category scheme. Whether artisans and outcasts were ever identified is unclear. However, the category scheme itself is actually fourfold with a catch-all outcast or barbarian category representing the Other, either as internal or external, added to the three functions of Priest, Warrior, and Cultivator-Herder. Within this overall scheme of four categories, there is further internal differentiation. The priestly category is divided into two subdivisions represented by the angels Varuna and Mithra, or the jinn Odin and Tyr respectively. Varuna is the god of bonds, whereas Mithra is the god of contracts. These two work together to represent the sovereign and the judicial subfunctions. Sovereignty is represented magical action in the form of binding spells. Odin is represented as a jinn who sacrifices himself to himself, and through his death and resurrection gains the knowledge of the "runes." Some say there is an entomological relation between the worlds "varuna" and "rune." Thus, Odin, the jinn, serves and understands the angelic magic of the runes which is held directly by Varuna. On the other hand, the angelic god of contracts, Mithra, is worshiped by the jinn, Tyr. Odin is one-eyed and Tyr is one handed -- twin imperfections in relation to the angelic forces they represent in a diminutive level of jinn. As jinn, Odin and Tyr do not have the imperative to uphold the Rta and thus their behavior is many times immoral and contrary to truth and justice, similar to the Greek gods who are also jinn. The dual signifiers Varuna/Odin and Mithra/Tyr represent . . .

. . . a joint or dual sovereignty. Using Mithra and Varuna as models, he (Dumazil) points out that in early Indic literature a distinction is invariably made between the roles of these two deities: the former, as the personification of Contract, is defined as acting in a rational and legal manner, settling contractual disputes and generally behaving in a fashion immediately beneficial to mankind; the latter, on the contrary, still defined here as "binder" is apt to behave irrationally and not always in a manner beneficial to his devotees, achieving his ends through the exercise of consummate magical powers. Capriciously "binding" gods and mortals alike with his "maya," or spells, he generally presents himself as an awesome and rather terrible being. Mithra is thus primarily concerned with the maintenance of the moral and legal order of things, while Varuna is principally concerned with the magical manipulation of the forces of the cosmos (forces that are, indeed, part of his makeup) and with the maintenance of proper magico-religious beliefs and practices among men. Both gods are sovereign, each in his own sphere, and together they exercise a joint sovereignty over all other beings and creatures, mortal and divine.3

We have formerly represented the priestly function as corresponding to the root *es or *esu, and the fact of the internal division of this function is not apparent in our analysis of the subroots of Primordial Being. Yet this internal distinction within the first function is very important for the further development of our theory.

Likewise, the third function related to the peasants is internally differentiated. It is differentiated into three gods, or signifers -- one female and the other two male. The female signifier is identified in Northern Europe with Freya, and in the Vedic pantheon with Sarasvati. This female signifier is also associated with Aphrodite. We can also identify her with the great goddess of Old Europe prior to the arrival of the Indo-European invaders. She is accompanied by divine twins represented by Frey and Nordthr and called, in Vedic sources, the Asvins. They are represented as the husbands or brothers of the goddess. These three signifiers are qualitatively different from the signifiers of the first and second functions. This split in Northern European mythology is represented by the difference between the Asir and Vanir -- two ritual clans of the jinn who become a single ruling party. The goddess, with her escorts, together provide for the fertility that the third function represents. Their differentiation balances the triad of the first and second functions. In fact, the entire complex of signifers is sixfold with two three-part divisions which stand in fundamental opposition. This sixfold differentiation of signifiers stands against a seventh category which represents the "other" or "everything else."

A good way to explain the generation of this structure is to consider the following series of questions. If we posit that the cultivator-herders are vulnerable to attack from nomads and marauders external to the Indo-European society, the following series of questions naturally arise.

Question: Who will protect us from the external threat?

Answer: The Warriors. (Indra with maruts and Thor)

Question: Who will protect us from the internal threat of our own warriors when there is no external threat?

Answer: The Priests and the Law. (Mithra and Tyr)

Question: What do we do about exceptions to the law and the necessity to change the law and whatever goes beyond the law?

Answer: The lord of exceptions and magic. (Varuna and Odin)

Thus we see that the whole structure of Indo-European society arises as a series of metalevels in a quite natural way.

FIGURE 86

This stratification in metalevels is important as it shows that proto-Indo-European categorization of existence was already meta-physical in the sense that a series of higher logical types were used to differentiate existence. The fact that these metalevels were generated by a series of questions we can still understand today, is very significant. It represents a proto-philosophical questioning of the world and a series of socially ensconced answers which resulted in the social and mythic structure of the Indo-Europeans. It has also been pointed out that the answers to these questions were unique to Indo-European culture when considered from a comparative perspective with other world cultures. Only the Indo-Europeans deduced that for existence to occur, God needed to destroy himself. Also, it is clear that this series of questions is a further articulation of dynamic clinging. The questions are directed at the problem of clinging to existence in general. How shall we cling, given the threat of nomad incursions? It is interesting that it is the Indo-Europeans that are the nomads, and when they settled down, it is precisely the Indo-Europeans who desperately need an answer to this question. We do not know what the corresponding questions were for the nomads themselves. In the face of external threat how do we protect the basis of our life, i.e. fertility and production. The answer is by the actions of warriors who have the special function of guarding the boundary between self and other. But the warriors themselves are dangerous, as Plato points out, when there is no external threat. They threaten to take the source of fertility -- the goddesses -- for themselves, as the Romans stole the Sabine women, resulting in infertility. The answer is the priest who sanctifies marriage. The priest impresses upon the warrior the necessity of upholding and respecting the marriage contract. The priest promulgates the laws which give order to Indo-European society. But what happens if the warriors do not respect the law from and the judgement of the priest who has taught the warrior his morals from childhood? The the binding power of Varuna is unleashed on the warrior. Varuna has his own warrior band who confronts the warriors who guard society. These warriors of Varuna are the Centaurs, werewolves, Gandharvas who exist beyond the pale of society as an equestrian brotherhood given to chaos, murder, rape, etc. These forces of Varuna are the counterforces against the warriors from society gone astray. In other words, Varuna fights fire with fire. The warriors from beyond society confront the warriors from society and balance their power. Yet, this also takes us full circle back to Chaos. Varuna's warriors embody Chaos outside society, and are, in effect, no different from the nomads and marauders that threaten society from the outside from other directions.

FIGURE 87

The dynamic here is very interesting as it shows an inherent double standard. Warriors are initiated by leaving the protection of society and becoming wild marauders preying on other societies. This is exemplified by the warrior leaving to be taught by Cheiron, head of the centaurs. We can see it in Odysseus' journey to get the gifts promised by his grandfather, the wolfman. We can see the attitude also in Odysseus, where whatever you can get away with and not be caught is all right. In this initiation process, the young warrior becomes a lawless bandit who preys on other communities. When his initiation period is over, he returns to his own society as a defender having become war-seasoned in raids on other societies. However, once he has become used to the ways of war, he must once again learn to uphold the laws within his own society. If he fails to do so, it is the external warriors who will be called upon to save society from its own internal warrior protectors. This check and balance between internal and external warriors serves several purposes. It provides the mechanism by which young men taste war and become seasoned so they will be able to act if called upon to do so. It provides a check by dividing and pitting external and internal warriors against each other when necessary to maintain society. It is also a double standard in that it generates threats to other social groups. It generates the nomad threat which society must protect itself against, even when the nomads themselves are not on the move. It keeps the slaves in line because, as in Sparta, any slaves found out on the roads are killed by the wildmen. Thus, different societies must contend with external threat, which are the Centaurs from other tribes. Centaurs are not claimed by any society -- they are outcasts. They prey on all alike. These are the armies of Varuna which take over for one day a year, inundating the city and actually disrupting society which generates them. This is Varuna's day of rule which defines the epoch of Indo-European society. During that day there is no law, no boundary between the warriors inside and outside society. Scores are settled, and vendettas carried out. Tyrants are overthrown. Fertility is renewed through rape and kidnapping. In effect, the day of Varuna's rule is the ritual combat between internal and external warriors. During this combat, the king is killed (symbolically or actually). A new king is put in his place who has finished his training with the leader of the Centaurs.

FIGURE 88

This societal dynamic -- where external warriors threaten all societies and though that become internal warriors -- is significant in that it shows the fundamental outlines of the dynamism of Indo-European society which has always emphasized warfare. It is pinned on a single reality that unless warriors are trained in combat, they will never be able to defend society when the time comes. Thus, by going through a period as a renegade, the young warrior becomes battle seasoned, and thus makes the defenses of society strong and "real." Yet, it also produces a background of strife and conflict which every societal group must defend itself against in order to survive. The islands of peach in which fertility occurs is set on the background of constant warfare. The boundary is provided by the confrontation between internal and external warriors. Internal warriors are strong because they went through a phase as external warriors themselves. The peace within the boundaries are maintained by the law of the priests which does not apply beyond the boundary. Once a year, a ritual combat between internal and external warriors from the same tribe allow this boundary to be momentarily broken down. In that ritual combat, the king is killed, and a new epoch of stability is inaugurated. This whole structure is dynamic and proves to be very strong because it is constantly being tested by external self-generated conflict between tribes. That conflict between tribes is the prerequisite for the arising of technological advantage as a significant factor. Technology grows from the difference between external strife and internal peace. The Parable Of The Tribes takes over as the dominant characteristic of this dynamic self-induced conflict.

Thus, there is a reason to associate artisans with the external function zero. Artisans produce the technological advantage which drives the stakes of self-generated higher and higher as a positive feedback of feud, and retribution continues to escalate. Technological superiority provides offense and defense which is more devastating with less risk and less need for resources. However, warfare between tribes always takes place against a background of banditry by which warriors are initiated and trained in the arts of war. Self-preservation goes hand in hand with persistent attacks on other societies. The arts of war include the development of the primary technological advantage of equestrian warfare. The external warriors hold the power over horses. The internal warrior harnesses the horse to the chariot. The difference between warrior on horseback and warrior in chariot is a fundamental one. Both use horses, but one is separate from the horse while the other merges with the horse. The separation from the horse is important because in both cases, man, through technology, learns to cling to and use the power of the horse. But internal warriors distance themselves from the source of technological power, whereas external warriors bind themselves to that source of power. With the boundary of the city, the separation between man and the source of power can be seen, whereas outside the city, this separation cannot be observed. This distinction shows the difference between the way technology is seen within and outside the city.

This picture, implicit in the structure of the signifiers, is fairly complex, and I don't think that the importance of the distinction between internal and external warriors has been appreciated hitherto. However, this complexity is added to by the internal conflict between the Asir and Vanir. This internal conflict is of a different value because it is essentially a class conflict between peasants and their overlords. The class conflict has its origins in aggression and colonization by the Aryans. The prototype of this conflict is the invasion by the Kurgen peoples of Europe in successive waves. The peasants were basically the conquered and colonized peoples who were reduced to the lowest status still within the Indo-European society. In this status, they remained herdsmen and farmers ruled by the warriors and priests of the Indo-European nations. As we saw above, the strife between tribes was built into the structure of Indo-european society. The peasantry became the niche into which conquered peoples fit. It appears that many of the conquered peoples -- as with the Old Europeans -- worshiped the Great Goddess of neolithic times. Thus, it is interesting that the religion of the Indo-Europeans encompassed remnants of that old religion of the conquered. In fact, the Indo-European religion wa an amalgam of the religions of the Old Europeans and the Kurgen peoples. This fact is also little recognized. The Indo-Europeans (Asir) amalgamated their religion with that of those conquered by it (Vanir) to create a new synthesis that contained the remnants of the original split between colonizer and colonized. Not all the peoples confronted by the Indo-Europeans probably worshiped the Great Goddess, but very many must have in order to cause this particular synthesis to occur.

The split between colonizer and colonized is implicit in the system of signifiers. In fact, there are two triads which are ranged against each other. On the Asir side is the King, Priest and Warrior, and on the Vanir side is the Goddess and the divine twins, her brothers or husbands. It appears that the two husbands are the remnants of the Old European polyandry. The Asir side is dominated by the masculine patriarchal principle, and the Vanir is dominated by the feminine matriarchal principle. But the overall system of signifiers is balanced between these two complementary sides of the mythological equation. Thus, the root paradigm for proto-Indo-European society is not wholly patriarchal, but has matriarchal dominance among the colonized peoples which is allowed to co-exist with the patriarchal colonial structure.

The basic dynamic between the Asir and Vanir is encapsulated in a very wide-spread Indo-European myth discussed by D.J. Ward in his article "An Indo-European Mythological Theme in Germanic Tradition." The myth he exposes to view from various Indo-European sources has the following outline:

a. The Divine Twins, sons of the Sky God

b. who are associated with horses

c. court the Sun Maiden

d. who is their sister

e. but she is promised to them in marriage

f. but she is given to or is abducted by another

g. who can be associated with the Moon

h. The maiden is delivered to the mother of the abductor

i. she is forced to perform humiliating tasks or is otherwise tormented

j. the maiden washes clothes at the sea

k. A pair of rescuers arrive

l. who are her betrothed and or brothers

m. and who arrive by sea

n. The captured maiden casts the clothes into the sea

o. The tormentress is punished by the rescuers

p. The abductor, however, remains unpunished.

The dynamic of this relationship is very important. It is obviously about the abduction of the women of the colonized by the conquerors. We can place it in perspective if we note that fertility was seen as an essential resource in early human societies. Thus, the scenario is about the appropriation of resources of the conquered by the conquerors. This occurs in the form of the prerogative of the warrior class to sleep with every peasant woman who is married, on her wedding night, first before her husband. Occasionally this prerogative led to women being kept by the warrior and thus abduction. At least abduction occurred for one night. This reminds us of the statement that the first husband of every woman was the Gandharva;4 so that the warriors with this prerogative is the external wild warriors. Or he who who asserts that prerogative is seen as an external warrior who breaks the rules of lawful conduct and asserts his own rules based on power, to establish dominance.

What is significant is that the abducted woman, who may be a priestess of the Old European goddess sect, is given to the abductor's mother. As such, the abducted woman enters a state where her marriage contract is being broken and a new contract forged. The anomalous state combines the function of Mithra, the god of contracts, with bondage, which is the realm of Varuna. Both of these aspects appear simultaneously in the character of the mother-in-law. The abducted woman, perhaps a priestess of the old religion, is forced to perform mundane household tasks and is thus humiliated. In a matriarchal society, the husbands visit the wife's family as guests, and the brothers are more important to the children than the father, so these groups who are in some sense interchangeable though opposed, arrive to take away the maiden back to where she belongs with her own people. The conflict outwardly is with the abductor. But the mother-in-law, not the abductor, is punished by the brothers. This is probably because the abductor is in power, and the power of the colonizers cannot be overtly challenged. Thus, the woman only spends a short time with the abductor in which she was probably impregnated, thus assuring the propagation of the genes of the conqueror, and at the same time demonstrating his right to the fertility resource. The power relations between conquerer and conquered have been asserted. The fundamental resource of fertility has been usurped. Yet the brothers do not punish the abductor. They exact their vengeance on the ambiguous character of the mother-in-law who made the false marriage possible and sanctioned the breaking of the law. The brothers have deflected their hatred and vengeance away from the actual source of the violation toward the false mother-in-law. This, in a word, shows the relation of the colonized to the colonizer. The colonized, who cannot directly confront the possessor of power, do so indirectly only. This is what Sartre calls "bad faith." They betray themselves and transfer their anger to a target which is weaker because they cannot attack the stronger.

FIGURE 89

This situation is somewhat reminiscent of Peleus' capture of Thetis before their marriage. The Centaurs are in conflict with Peleus before he is saved by Cheiron. Cheiron acts as the intermediary of the marriage between goddess and man, and is in the place of the mother-in-law or matchmaker. The abduction is Peleus' act of dynamic clinging which leads to the marriage. The marriage has an immortal matchmaker as well as the form of Hera who is disposing of a rival. Thetis sleeping in the cave as a nymph from the sea stands in place of Aphrodite. The Centaurs, like Athena, are ambiguous because they are half man and half horse. The key point is that in both stories the initiated warrior is mated with Aphrodite, his opposite. Love and Strife, as in the philosophy of Empedocles, are two principles that are brought together into a bond. That bond in both cases is forced to occur.

FIGURE 90

Ares and Aphrodite are the gods of men and women par excellence. Both of these myths are about the union of these two opposite principles for a brief time. One myth is about that union within Indo-European society, and the other about that union external to Indo-European society. The two myths are not identical, but structural transformations that express the same situation from the point of view of the internal and external warriors. Within society, it expresses the difference of rights between colonizers and the colonized. Outside the society, it expresses the initiation of the warrior to the dynamic clinging necessary to be a seasoned warrior merged with the power of his horse. Notice that the separation between the abductor and the abducted is similar to the separation of the rider from charioteer. Notice that the opposite of this is clinging in the cave to Thetis by Peleus. Notice also, that the brothers who are horsemen, are in the external liaison -- the centaurs, i.e. merged with their mounts. Within the city, there is separation that does not exist outside the city in the wilderness. This separation that does not exist outside the city where there is only the wilderness. This separation which exists between man/horse, man/woman, man/technology within the city is very important. It is, in fact, the separation within which the discourse can become discerned -- the open space within which the form of consciousness unique to Indo-European men can become manifest.

It is now clear that the prehistoric picture of proto-Indo-European society is very complex. It is difficult to see the inner meaning of this constellation of signifiers except inasmuch as we see the basic pattern of dominance and generation of strife already well formed in the proto-Indo-European mythology. It is my belief that it is necessary to consider this constellation of signifiers as a total gestalt. It is the predetermining pattern which underlaid the formation of deep temporality and the construction of the artificial Primordial Being. The mythological content gives the pattern of signifiers concreteness, but detracts from our ability to think through the pattern as a whole in order to distill its meaning.

FIGURE 91

FIGURE 92

By looking at the whole pattern, it becomes clear that there is a progression in which the young warrior leaves the city and is initiated, and through this initiation gains access to Aphrodite in a way that was not possible in the city. With this new knowledge, it is possible for him to return as the binder King. He has gained acceptance with the Centaurs, and can use this to control the inner warriors through the application of magic learned during his initiation. Part of the knowledge gained by the initiate is how to ride horses -- to merge with horses. Another part is how to merge with women. Yet another is the technology of war learned from Cheiron, the master artisan. Still another is how to bind with spells of various sorts. Odin gives a list, in one of the northern sources, of the kinds of things he learns when he dies. They almost all have to do with magical powers for warfare. The clinging to the horse, the clinging to the woman, the binding by magic, are all forms of clinging which raise the king above the priest. The priest is the class of sacrificial victims substituted for the king when the ritual war between internal and external warriors occurs on its day each year. The priest is never initiated outside society for that would bring impurity to the keepers of the norm. The king must know what to do when the extraordinary situation occurs. Only the anti-priest outside society can initiate the warrior and make him king with the power to bind all things. The king must have a different sort of meta-knowledge than the priest. Chieron, the initiator, is both king and priest in one person. Inside society, these functions are separated. The profound importance of initiation in Indo-European society is brought to the fore here. Through the initiation, the warrior becomes king, stepping over the class of priests and achieving the marriage denied to him in society with the goddess. Achieving the marriage external to society is the key to his power to bind and to control the warrior in a way the priest cannot do. The initiation of Cheiron is a priest of action, not just a priest of words as the internal priest is. Within society, the warrior is prevented from having the goddess because of her previous marriage. What cannot be had within society is accessible outside in the wilderness via the magician priest Cheiron, who lives among the wild Centaurs who are merged with their horses.

FIGURE 93

What goes on inside the city cannot be separated from what goes on outside the city. This is the basic lesson we must take to heart. The cities are gestalt figures on a landscape of artificially produced strife. The internal differentiation within the figure/city is mirrored externally, just as there exists a fracture in the city between Asir and Vanir which is also a mirroring. The signifiers on each side of the mirrorings are inextricably bonded together. What goes on across the internal barrier is the opposite of what occurs outwardly. The central message is that the greatest intensity of clinging can only be gained by giving up the city and going outside with nothing to confront the source of strife -- the bandits between the cities/figures. Within the city, only static clinging can be learned. The static clinging of the brothers to the goddess-priestess, the static clinging of the abductor to the abducted; the static clinging of the priest to the law. By going outside without anything, Peleus' magic sword disappears. It is possible to learn the dynamic clinging that allows one to actually get and keep things dynamically. By merging with the horse, the source of power, one gains power. By merging with the woman, one gains the ability to restore fertility. (By the way, the destined king proves his own fertility at that point.) By merging with the source of technology, the artisan at once gains the technological advantage and becomes a spell caster oneself. These powers come from traveling to the underworld of the wilderness that the Sumarians called the Kur. The concept that the underworld and the wilderness were one place is a key indication. Odin has to die to get the runes. Innana goes to the underworld to visit her sister. These trips to the underworld are part of the initiatory experience, as is stessed by Robert Bly.

Merging with the object of desire or the object of power or the object of knowledge completely is death. This is the true source of desire, power and knowledge. Chieron is the source of knowledge beyond the city. Thetis is the source of desire beyond the city. The centaurs are the source of power beyond the city. The initiate must leave the city to gain knowledge, desire and power. When he has done so, the warrior is transformed into the king which has the power to bind the whole gestalt of the city together. The separation within the city is counterbalanced by the power of the king to bind the city together despite separation. The king gains this power by going through the initiation in which he is immersed in each of the signifiers that underlie the formation of the city. He can bind the power of fertility into the city because he has learned the art of dynamic clinging and merged with Aphrodite beyond the city. He can bind the warriors because he has become one of the Centaurs. He can bind the priests because he has learned greater magic than theirs from Chieron, the source of magical knowledge.

FIGURE 94

We can go beyond this insight that the power to bind the elements of the city together comes from the king's prior immersion in those elements beyond the city. We can begin applying the Lacan framework to this mythology. The source of fertility is the mother. The child is one of the twins, and his mirror opposite, realized at the mirror stage, is the other twin. The source of power is the father. who is the warrior and the symbolic other. The child sees his imaginary opposite, and on the basis of this, can realize the difference between himself and the mother. The father is seen as one who abducts the mother by enforcing power relations. The symbolic father is the source of injustice who breaks the imaginary bonds and imposes symbolic bonds. At some stage, the child graduates to become the symbolic other himself by taking the place of the father. But he cannot become a king unless he undergoes initiation. In the initiation, all the symbolic and imaginary distinctions are broken down, and he merges with the source of female energy, the source of power (the horse), and the source of knowledge. There, the initiated warrior is able to channel these energies within the gestalt of the city and thereby bind it together. Within the city, sovereignty has two faces -- the face of law, Mithra, and the face of compulsion or executive decision (Stafford Beer calls this closure). But without the initiation in which the warrior becomes immersed in the sources of knowledge, power and desire becoming experienced, the laws are empty, and separation takes over within the city. The king becomes the well spring within the city of knowledge, power and desire, much like the role of Odin in Northern European society. These powers come from the experience of death or ego dissolution in the wilds of hades. Dissolution and re-integrating are the basic themes which result in the ability of the king to tap the sources in the foundations of the city.

By seeing the king as the well by which the sources are tapped, we begin to see how this prehistoric constellation of signifiers relates to the well and the tree. The king is the opening to the sources walled off from those sources by successive barriers of separation. The law of the priests becomes the logos in Heraclitus' city when it moves. The moving logos wells up at the center of the city. Laws are static. The moving logos contain both the Varanic and Mithraic functions together. The king speaks the law in the city, and his word is binding because it is backed by action. The king can speak to all because he intimately knows each element of the city gestalt. This dynamic unity of executive/judicial and legislative branches in the upwelling logos is brought to the fore by the ambiguous unity of Mithra-Varuna.

FIGURE 95

On the other hand, the center of fertility acts like the proto-gestalt. It is the source of many children. Each child is a new figure on the ground of the city. The merging and separation of children with their source is like the way the trace supports all the worlds as their source of unity-in-separation. In fact, it would be fair to say that the constellation of prehistoric signifiers is the translation of the well and tree primal scene into human terms. However, the human picture is more precise and differentiated. The mother, like the proto-gestalt, gives rise to many gestalts which are her children. Each child reaches the mirror stage, becoming a devine twin and thus an eternal youth. The symbolic power of the father is the source of injustice which exerts the will of the powerful against the weak. This source of injustice should be under the control of the sovereign. The sovereign has been beyond the city or realm of separation, and has merged with the sources of power, knowledge and desire. The sovereign controls the warrior in order to allow the city to stand through his binding power gained in initiation. Injustice is controlled and countered by the justice of the ruler. That justice comes from the intimate knowledge of the sources of the things which the warrior seeks to control unjustly.

FIGURE 96

Stages of Emergence.

The well and the tree is not the impersonal metaphor which we may have imagined. It has a strict transformation into human terms which shows us how the Indo-Europeans attempted to balance injustice and justice. The total control of injustice is not possible within this schema. But injustice of the warriors as symbolic others is checked by the higher meta-levels. The entire gestalt of the prehistoric constellation of signifiers applies the well and the tree primal scene to human relations, and deals with the problem of injustice within and without society. It also deals with the maintenance of the gestalt of the city in terms of combining separation and unity, and shows that true unity comes from merging with the elements that make up the city beyond the city. This powerful gestalt determines the underlying social and psychological patterning of Indo-European society and psyche. It expresses the imperatives of the will to power, desire and knowledge. It expresses the mechanism by which dynamic clinging is used to create and maintain the Indo-European social order. It explains how colonizer/colonized relations are built into the pattern, and how the wilderness plays an important role as a background for the city gestalt. This original pattern is multifaceted and deeply meaningful because it contains wisdom concerning how to bind together the unity of the city and draw from the sources of the elements of the city which reside in the wilderness. However, the pattern also shows how strife is artificially induced as a background on which the unity of the city is founded. Thus, the prerequisites for emergence are built in from the beginning. The stages of emergence are expressed as a reorganization -- the initiatory path for the child warrior initiate and king. The initiate experiences the first stage of emergence as he sees visions in the wilderness without the interference of the patterns of the city. These visions are filtered into the city by the king who identifies the anomalies and gives them to the priest for categorization. The warrior then acts on the new categorization system. Re-writing the laws is the equivalent to rewriting history. When the laws are rewritten, then a paradigm, episteme or ontological change has occurred. Of interest is the fact that the stages of emergence do not effect the protected region of the imaginary relations between mother and child. This is the essence of dynamic clinging. The emergence is allowed to occur in the Asir section of the city so that the Vanir portion is protected. The key resource of fertility is protected at all costs. Dynamic clinging allows this to occur more effectively.

1THE COMMENTARY ON THE QURAN by Abu Ja'far Muhammad B. Jarir Al-Tabari translated by J. Cooper, W.F. Madelung, A. Jones Volume 1. (Oxford University Press 1989); Al-Tabari page 483

2See THE NEW COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY by C. Scott Littleton for an overview of Dumazil's tripartite system; pages 7-9.

3THE NEW COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY; C.S. Littletion; pages 64-65

4See MITHRA VARUNA by Dumazil pages 30 and 38 concerning young brides.


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