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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.
Zeus had 23 children recounted in the major myths. These fall into four groups. There are the four children by Hera that are legitimate: Ares, Eris, Hephaestus and Hebe. There are 13 children who are conceptual in nature, i.e. four Seasons, three Fates, three Charities and three Muses. There are the four illegitimate children by goddesses who have personalities, i.e. Apollo, Artimis, Persephone and Hermes. Finally, there are the two children born directly from Zeus who are opposites: Dionysus and Athena. Zeus had one more child than his grandfather Uranus. It is clear that the 13 conceptual children play the same role as the Hundred Handed Ones, Cyclopses and Furies or Uranus' children. These beings are there as background material or scenery against which the gods who have defied personality may act. Zeus has ten children with defined personalities. Two of these are unique in that they were born directly from Zeus himself: Dionysus and Athena. The other eight are split into groups of four legitimate and illegitimate. These eight may be seen as filling in the balance of the ratio and corresponding to the trigrams of Primordial Being
TABLE 42
god
sex
trigram
ARES
male
ephemeron
ERIS
female
eventity
HEPHAESTUS
male
essence
HEBE
female
holon
APOLLO
male
holoid
ARTIMIS
female
integra
HERMES
male
novum
PERSEPHONE
female
epoch
It is possible to see the relations between the eightfold structure of Primordial Being and the children of Zeus. Ares obviously represents the Ephemeron because he represents war. On the other hand Apollo represents the Holoidal as the apotheosis of Rta/Arte/Asa, i.e. cosmic order and justice in the world. The tension between Apollo and Ares is represented by the other gods and goddesses from these central eight. Of these, the clearest identification is the relation between Hermes and the novum, and the relation between Persephone (kore) and the epoch. Hermes is the bringer of messages from Zeus, and so is the medium of revelation. Hermes brings not only news, but new things which he delivers to mankind. Persephone (kore) represents the cycle of the seasons which is the most basic epoch which humans encounter. Thus, Hermes and Persephone clearly represent the concepts of novum and epoch as immortal embodiments. The other four gods and goddesses are more difficult to give one-to-one associations to the eightfold structure of Primordial Being. We may consider then another approach to the relation between the two primary axes, i.e. the order vs. chaos axis and the discontinuous time (newness) vs. cyclical time axis. Of interest is the fact that Hephaestus is seen as the major mediator between these two axis. Hephaestus corresponds to Kwr al Hthis from Ugarit mythology. He is the god of technology or Craft in the Old English sense that emphasizes power. This technology mediates the relation between order/chaos and time as punctuated or cyclical. In the case of Hephaestus, the god is seen as a divine smith and master of the essential technologies of war. In Ugaritic myth, as Kw al Hthis, he is seen as the builder of houses for the gods. The crucial point is that concern with technology is built into this view of the eightfold of Primordial Being.
It is not necessary to force the fit between the concepts of the eightfold and the personalities of the gods. In fact, we may learn more from the incongruity than from forcing a close fit. The loose fit already pointed out shows a relation exists between these gods and the major components of the eightfold. It is easy to accept that this is another probably deeper view of the same phenomena which indicates the central flaw in the Western worldview. It is a more complex archetypal representation which is enhanced by the added dimension of Dionysus and Athena's axis of nihilistic opposites which grows out of the central hub.
These children of Zeus were not prevented from manifesting as were the children of Uranus and Kronos. This is the key point. Alalu, or Elioun, creates the primordial unity. That unity is originally Earth only and arises from Chaos. It emits its opposite, Heaven, who is its male counterpart. This emission of Uranus is a parthenogenetic act. That is, the primordial definition of the female as a source which spontaneously gives rise to everything, even her husband/brother, whose first act is to stop parthenogenesis. A double bind is created in which intercourse continues to produce offspring who are bottled up. Transgression of the boundary between opposites is bound up with prevented birth. Finally, Kronos breaks the impasse, but only by going to the opposite extreme -- eating his children. Produced by the castration of Uranus are the Titans who stand out against the six imperfect creations, and also the Furies, who express cosmic rage at the separation of Heaven and Earth. The Titans are the balanced ones in whom Indo-European society finds its perfect expression. Here the 12 unseen sources are represented akin to the fountains from which the tribes of Israel drank. Yet this wholeness of the society/individual must also be broken, which is done by Zeus who releases his brothers and sisters from inside Kronos. These two insides -- inside the female and inside the male -- are very important to our unfolding understanding of Indo-European initiation. The children of Uranus are the insides of the female, while the children of Kronos are the insides of the male.
When the first emergent event occurs, the insides of the female (Gaia) is revealed, and the novum of Aphrodite comes into the world. When the second emergent event occurs, the insides of the male (Kronos) is revealed, and the novum of Delphi comes into the world. This twofold interval of unfolding allows the children of Zeus to manifest unhindered. Here, in the eightfold of Primordial Being, becomes embodied by immortals. This archetypal embodiment is far deeper in meaning than the conceptual trigrams. It allows us to appreciate the inner dimension of the tantric sexual practices of the Greeks. Ritualized sex in initiation ceremonies beyond the city and perhaps on reentry into the city were designed to bring these structures hidden within the male and female of Indo-European society.
Robert Bly gave some insight into this issue when he spoke of the association of male with Heaven, and female with Earth, as endemic to our society. He postulated that by males learning to associate themselves with Earth, and females learning to associate themselves with Heaven, we could solve some of our psycho-ecological problems. In the Greek case, the association of Earth with the female, and Heaven with the male, is clear and obvious. Page Dubois explores this association in her book Sowing The Body. The woman's body is the field plowed by the male. This is the original metaphor which undergoes transformations from field to furrow to stone to oven to tablet. However, the key here is the original parthenogenesis of the female which gives rise to the male. Note though, that the reverse situation, where the female is associated with Heaven and the male is associated with Earth, occurs in the nihilistic opposites of Athena (Queen of Heaven) and Dionysus who binds Olympus, Hades and Poseidon's realm. Thus, the opposites Bly calls us to embrace are already represented as anomalies which spring parthenogenetically from Zeus. Note also that Dionysus gives the golden urn to Theitis, whereas Athena (with Cheiron and Hephaestus) gives the ashen staff to Peleus. Thus, the culmination of initiation somehow accomplishes the reversal of opposites which Bly would have us promote as the solution of our psycho-ecological impasse.
We may clearly, then, trace out in the initiation ceremonies, whose shapes we have been attempting to see more clearly, how this transformational process via tantric sexual rites was structured. The female undergoes a transformation from young girl or immature wife in the confines of the city to Dionysian reveler in the wilderness. This is a transformation from woman as earth to be plowed into woman as heavenly inspired Aphrodite. The young man is take from the city to meet this woman and be initiated. In that initiation, there is an inward an outward aspect. Outwardly, the young man learns to ride the wild horses, but inwardly he learns to be ridden and become earth for the ascent of the female. Thus, in the initiation, the male and female change places, both metaphorically and probably physically in terms of sexual position. The rider is ridden. In that coupling, the golden urn and the sacred spear appear by the reversal of sexual roles. It is the spear, not the sword of Peleus, that is given in initiation. The sword would symbolize dominance. Peleus already had his sword from the gods before he met Cheiron. He earns his spear. The spear is ashen. It is a tree which grows from the earth. The sword, being metal, has a whole different nature from the spear. The male who embraces the earth is given the gift from Athena -- his mate, the queen of Heaven. The female who embraces Heaven is given the gift from Dionysus -- her mate, the master of the Earth who unites the realms of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. For a moment, the conflict of these male realms cease. The woman, as Aphrodite, binds together the functions of Demeter, Hestia and Hera. The free sexuality of the woman is liberated as suddenly she is "on top" both figuratively and literally. Aphrodite arises from the ocean -- not the Earth. It is the deeper identification of woman with the ocean which unites the functions of the earthly woman, i.e. Hera, Hestia and Demeter. Dionysus, the extreme of male energy (Yang Splendor), flees to the ocean and is sheltered there by Theitis. The extreme of female energy, Athena (Closed Yin), shuns sexual encounters, like she shuns the affections of Hephaestus. Notice that his seed, when wiped from her thigh, falls on the Earth and gives rise to Erihthonias. The mediation between the extremes of Aprhodite who accepts all and Athena who shuns all, is Hera -- the wife. It is between these three that Eris threw the golden apple which was the cause of the Trojan War. It said "to the most beautiful" and Peleus did not know to whom to give the golden apple. Aphrodite and Athena are extreme images of womanhood to which Hera, the plowed field of Zeus, stands as the medium or norm. Aphrodite represents woman as the Sea who is hidden in the image of woman as Earth. Athena represents woman as Heaven, the unapproachable. Notice the relation here between these and the three male sons of Kronos.
TABLE 43
SKY
Zeus
Athena
EARTH
Hades
Hera
SEA
Poseidon
Aphrodite
The golden apple represents their unity which is also their point of division. As Dionysus unites the realms of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, so the golden apple causes the unity among the images of womanhood.
In the initiation ceremony, woman is led by Dionysus, the uniter of manhood, into the wilderness. There she gives up her role as Earth to man and becomes simultaneously deeper and more distant. Assuming the role of Aphrodite, she accepts all. No boundaries exist on the sea. The furrows of the ships vanish as they are created. The sea accepts all, and this is the essence of woman's freed sexuality. However, in the initiation, she also becomes woman as Heaven to man's Earth. The Heaven is very similar to the Sea. It is formless too, but in a way that does not engulf. The woman moves from the position of prostitute to the position of lord. She rides the man as the man rides the horse. The image of this is the naked woman on the horse. The man vanishes. Lady Godiva exists for a moment of ethereal ecstasy in which woman transcends (as Athena) and engulfs (as Aphrodite). Similarly, the man transcends his horse and is engulfed and transcended by his sacred lover. This is the Hirogamous or sacred marriage. Probably not what you might have expected. In the sacred marriage, the female aspect of man is enlivened, and the male nature within every woman is given free reign. Male and female energies move toward balance through the experience of extremes.
After this sacred marriage, both male and female are ready to reenter the city renewed. The wade out into the ocean to purify themselves as the mysteries of Demeter start accepting those initiated back into the further initiation of the city. For the man, going into the sea is the engulfment by the feminine; coming out of the sea is his parthenogenetic arising. For the woman, going into the sea is identifying with her primary element at the deepest core of her nature. Coming out of the sea is the return to the role of Earth for the celestial man. Why, we ask, is the ear of corn such a rich symbol for those returning from the initiation in the wilderness? It is because it is the golden phallus sheaved in the feminine shuck with golden hair. It represents the unity of male and female energies. When the ashen spear of Athena is merged with the golden urn of Dionysus, then the ear of corn appears with it s immense fertility -- perhaps 700 to one. Every kernel of the are of corn could produce another plant. The corn is only significant to those who have learned about the reversal of sexual roles and their balance. Each must be able to take the role of the other. The male must be able to vanish instead of becoming lost in the white terror and striking out in violence irrationally. Only by vanishing does the male develop sympathy for the role of the female within the city who is always an invisible silent presence spoken about by man. The woman, on the other hand, experiences herself, for the first time and last time, as an autonomous being without the need for men -- an Amazon. Those who do not return remain Amazons. Beyond the city the experiences of man and woman are opposites of each other and opposite of their expected roles within the city. By moving to their opposites beyond the city, men and women experience themselves in a completely different way. This leads to the reunification within the city where the ear of corn represents the unity of sexuality and production of the golden child.
With this comprehension of the tantric sexual rites at the root of the Western (Indo-European) worldview, it is possible to return to the myth of Perseus at the point where Medusa's head is won. The Medusa's head causes men to freeze. They experience the white terror of vanishing within the woman or under her transcendent image. The Medusa's head ends up on Athena's shield. Medusa made love to Poseidon within Athena's Temple. For that she was made into a monster who turned men to stone. In other words, she acted like Aphrodite in the sanctuary of Athena. These two female energies cannot mix except in the initiation in the wilderness. Only there do the male initiates return from their vanished states where they are engulfed and overcome -- their male egos crushed. The Medusa is trapped in mid-transformation and does not flow as Theitis did between forms. Yet, the Medusa represents the transformation of the female because of the horror it instills in the male when the woman acts as "man," riding him instead of being plowed Earth, and yet accepting him as the sea. When Theitis moves between water and fire, we can see her change from Aphrodite's energy to that of the Marshall Athena. This transformation in the female freezes the male, making him vanish as an ego because he can no longer control that which is fluid in the changing and becoming of the feminine persona. The two images are of the Medusa and of the Chimera. One has the head of a lion and the tail of a snake, while the other has the head of a snake (and perhaps the tail of a lion).
From killing the Medusa, Perseus goes to rescue Andromeda. Andromeda is in chains and about to be sacrificed to a monster. Perseus moves immediately to the woman bound and helpless from the woman who makes men helpless. Andromeda is the picture of the woman within the city. She is bound and rendered helpless. The frozen man is the most feared thing, but the frozen woman is sought out because for the man who has undergone the initiation she is safe -- available for plowing and writing, like a clean tablet. But Perseus frees Andromeda. Who is the monster who threatens her? It is Perseus himself as uninitiated. As an initiate, he has learned what it is like to be totally helpless. So instead of destroying her, he frees her, and they marry. They are ready for reentry into the city and the rites of Demeter.
TABLE 44
PERSEUS MYTH
ELEMENTS OF INDOEUROPEAN INITIATION RITE
Medusa
Aphrodite
Pegasus
Horse Taming
Helmet, Shield, Sickle, Wallet, Sandals
Cheiron's magical gifts
Chrysaor, Sword, Falcon
Initiated Warrior
Andromeda
Female Exchange
Vanishing of male ego, Sacrifice of Dionysus, Getting a horse for bridal gift, Taking of Medusa's head
Sacrifice
Arising of Pegasus and Chrysaor, the sexual initiation
Control Point
The main reason for exploring the myths of Perseus and Belaphron in such depth was to show that all the aspects of the Indo-European initiation rite were represented in this myth, and so too, finally tie off our argument concerning of the genesis of the Western worldview. These points deserve a recap before moving on. In the process of exploring this mythic complex it has become clearer how the Indo-European initiation ceremony -- obscured by the mists of time -- plays a generating role for the worldview as a whole. Ultimately we have uncovered a set of tantric sexual practices which, by manipulating role reversals, gave added power to Indo-European society. This outcome is quite unexpected. It shows the magical foundations of the Western worldview in the manipulation of opposites to achieve the semblance of artificial inward male unity. It shows that the normal feminist position that women are only dominated is not quite true, because hidden beyond the city, womanhood is allowed to flourish in unexpected ways. In the Indo-European tantrism, the woman plays a vital and dominant role which is hidden from view. Indo-European men and women cooperate to produce the effects of magical manipulation of themselves as opposites which gives their society a special sacred power. The fact that this power flows from a fundamental distortion of reality should not obscure the fact that it is a cooperative venture in which the fundamental male dominance is eclipsed by female dominance for a short but crucial time. Indo-European society could not be what it is without the role played by women in the tantric initiation ceremony. In that ceremony, women become more basic than Earth -- the sea and sky -- and they become truly transcendent over man, and switching places becomes identified with the Heaven as he becomes identified with the Earth and disappears into it in one ego-crushing moment -- the white terror realized. This unification of man and woman in opposite roles is the opposite of the magic of separation of husband and wife brought by the angels Harut and Marut. Unification out of wedlock comes from the destruction of marriage by Dionysus. Dionysus frees the women, and Athena represents the women as independent and autonomous creatures. These independent creatures engulf the man like the sea, as Aphrodite. In engulfing him, they transcend him, realizing their intrinsic and hidden dominance. When man returns from the sea, he realizes the meaning of the golden corn within its shuck. That fertility is realized as the golden child, the offspring of the reversed roles in the wilderness. Men and women return to marriage within the city transformed by the separation of the wilderness and the unification outside wedlock.
For the male, this initiation leads to ego annihilation in the crude sense that his high position in the city has been reversed so he finds himself enveloped by and transcended by the female. He is the ridden rider that disappears into the earth. He is like the saddle between the naked woman and the riding horse. He learns to ride the bucking bronco, and in that, is given up to the action of the other. To ride, he must flow with the bucking of the wild horse. He becomes lost in the action of the animal other. In his sexual initiation, he is ridden by the prostitute who transcends him, becoming the Heaven to his Earth. In this, he identifies with the animal he has ridden and vanishes into the Earth. As such, he becomes a sown man like the Spartoi of the dragon's teeth. He becomes a warrior who springs from the earth of his abasement. The sexual initiation becomes the control point from which the power of this potent sexual magic issues. It is the point of reversal of normal sexual roles after the separation of man from wife. It is a form of sacrifice of the male which, in some cases, may have been a real sacrifice of the young male initiate in order to achieve artificial inward male unity.
In the reversal, the inward structure of male and female is revealed and made permanent. The woman breaks away from her role as plowed field. She emanates the male who then stopps her up with continuous intercourse which she experiences as an oppression. Parthenogenesis gives way to the imperfect creation of the incestuous relation between brother and sister. Uranus attempts to make that incestuous progeny more perfect by prolonging gestation. Gaia is oppressed and gets Kronos to castrate Uranus. From her womb spills the 12 Titans and the Furies. Pandora's box is opened. The lid of the box falls into the sea and becomes Aphrodite. Woman, freed from the oppression of the plow, is transformed into woman as the sea. The woman of the sea does not hold the furrows made by the male. The marks vanish as they are made in her surface.
The story of Gaia and Uranus recounts the transformation of woman from the confines of the city to the wilderness initiation. Uranus disappears into the Abyss of Tartarus as Kronos appears from the earth like the Spartoi -- a man of earth. Within Kronos, the man of earth, appears the sixfold structure of his children. This structure defines the roles of woman within the city in terms of Demeter, Hestia and Hera. Aphrodite unites these three aspects of civilized womanhood. Aprhodite is a free flowing external female unity of totally unconstrained exchange. Within the city there is wife exchange, but it is constrained to define the roles of Hera, Hestia and Demeter. The sixfold structure also defines outward male separation as the rivalries between Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. Only Dionysus can unite these realms because he is the one who has plunged into the Sea seeking safety in its overwhelming of him. Within Kronos is the structure of the city, a prototype which unites outward female unity of wife exchange with inward male separation of power rivalries. When Kronos, the man of earth, swallows the stone, it causes him to throw up and out all his eaten children so that the city may manifest. The Delphi stone is the first distinction in the world from which all other boundary stones are measured but which is itself not a boundary stone. The original unity of society signified by the Titan differentiates into the social structures of the Indo-European city. Within the city unimpeded manifestation can occur for not the inward structure of both the male and the female have fully manifest. The structure of manifestation within the city is represented by the legitimate, illegitimate and parthenogenetic children of Zeus. In that manifestation, there is a constant tension and movement between the ephemeron and holoidal states. The ephemeron is represented by Ares and Eris. The holoidal manifests the Rta/Asa/Arte in the form of Apollo and Artemis. Within this constant tension, which reiterates the tension between imperfect creation and over-gestated creation of the Titans, there is the constant coming into being of the novel (novum) which causes cycles of adaptation in the whole city. This process is represented by Hermes, the bringer of new things, and Persephone (Kore) that represents seasonal cycles. In this process of coerced renewal, technology plays a key role represented by Hephaestus. His female counterpart Hebe, represents eternal youth who does not yet know death. Hebe is the youth before initiation, whereas Persephone represents the knowledge of death and regeneration that comes with initiation. This eightfold structure of gods is the foundational template for its linguistic equivalent the eightfold structure of Primordial Being. From the functioning of this structure for free manifestation appears the nihilistic artificially extreme opposites of Dionysus and Athena. These nihilistic opposites grow out of the functioning of the eightfold flaw as a natural byproduct, destroying meaning faster than it can be artificially produced.
The tantric sexual initiation is the control point where opposites are reversed. From it, the model of female exchange and internal male separation arises to form the constraints of the city. Within the city, the eightfold form of manifestation within those constraints appears. From its working, appears the nihilistic opposites of Dionysus and Athena. Dionysus is the sacrificed god who unites the realms of Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, and thus allows the city to artificially grasp inward male unity. This is a deep and odious magic which subverts both males and females which stand at the roots of the Western worldview. Only by understanding it can we recognize how it shapes social practices today and attempt to avoid its necessity that distorts our view of reality.
Seeing how all these elements interlock in the myth of Perseus and Belaphron is the first step in understanding this miasm. Perseus frees the horse Pegasus, and Belephron uses it to destroy the Chimaera. The two myths work together because Pegasus is the symbol of dynamic clinging. The flying horse represents the ultimate in dynamic clinging. Belaphron uses dynamic clinging to subdue the opposite manifestation of Medusa. Once dynamic clinging is understood and controlled, it gives its owner a significant advantage in the world. The Western worldview has shown its superiority in this respect and just how great the advantage is. The Parable Of The Tribes postulates that a simple technological advantage leads to technological competition. What it does not address is how that technological advantage was created in the first place. Our analysis of Indo-European and especially Greek myth shows that the technological advantage is part of a greater complex of social structures and ideas which work together to produce the underlying form of Western advantage based on dynamic clinging. It is this underlying form with which we must come to terms in ourselves and globally.
Returning to detailed analysis of the Perseus myth, we see that when Perseus kills Medusa, he takes over her power to turn things to stone. Her head becomes a sort of ultimate weapon. As with nuclear power and weapons in the West, the balance of power becomes very lopsided through big advances in technological innovation. The Medusa's head in some way represents the achievement of this lopsided technological advantage. The technological advantage is possible because of the magical tools that Perseus wields which protect him and render him invincible. The helmet of invisibility and the winged feet give him the advantage of distance. One is reminded of the stealth fighter. Winged feet and invisibility are still important technologically. The shield is also a mirror. Indirect looking at the enemy has given rise to satellites today. Special weapons, such as Cruise missiles, take the place of the adamantine sword, but they strike no less effectively at the enemy. The wallet reminds us of special suits worn by those who deal with radioactive or biologically active materials. The special magical tools used by Perseus still ring true as the technological accoutrements of the warrior. As such, they embody the structure of the Indo-European society as it is embodied by its warriors.
When Perseus kills the Medusa, he frees Pegasus and Chrysaor. These represent the spirit of dynamic clinging and the spirit of the warrior. To kill her, Perseus must avoid her gaze. In that gaze, there is a deadly transmission that is broken by the mirror's reflective surface. It has already been said that what is reflected is Perseus himself. Perseus is both the Medusa and the monster who threatens Andromeda. In Perseus' conquest, he confronts what is monestrous in himself. First it is he who suggests going after the head of Medusa. He sees this as the limit of the possible, and he makes a "beot" that he can accomplish this all but impossible feat. The "best" challenges fate. As he prepares for the encounter with the Medusa, he gathers his magical arsenal. He must become as terrible as his query in order to accomplish the mission. The taking on of the magical technology, piece by piece, amounts to Perseus becoming the equal of his enemy. When he looks into the mirror of the shield, he sees the inward reality which goes with the outward accoutrements of the warrior. The warrior inwardly must confront the white terror which will turn him into stone or earth. He fears becoming frozen (like women passive) and so instead freezes others. Medusa represents the nightmare vision of the Athena/Aphrodite experience of enveloping and transcendent womanhood. Perseus confronts the nightmare and kills it, transforming womanhood into the vision of Andromeda chained to the rock. The nightmare vision of unleashed womanhood is transformed into the vision of woman as slave. Now Perseus is the monster arising from the sea sent by Poseidon. Perseus, arising from submersion in the sea, is a monster of uncontrolled manhood who destroys the woman rendered helpless for him to write on -- he writes too violently and destroys her. Perseus can overcome this uncontrolled warrior because of his initiation. He knows what it is like to fear the transcendent enveloping female, and thus tempers his own reckless male energies. Perseus frees Andromeda, and they marry each other knowing the other inwardly.
Cepheus and Cassiopeia is the remaining house descendent from Baal. Cassiopeia bragged that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the Nerids. So Poseidon was persuaded to send floods and a sea monster for revenge. When Perseus sees the plight of Andromeda, he offers to save her on the condition she becomes his wife. The parents and daughter agree, and the deed is done. It is interesting that it is said that the monster is killed not with the head, but with the sickle, and that the monster was confused by the shadow of Perseus on the water. It is important to focus on these two uses of reflection. In the case of Medusa, it is her reflection in the shield that allows Perseus to identify her while he remains protected. In the case of the sea monster, it is again a reflection (its own shadow) that causes it to strike out in the wrong direction. In this case, the monster is looking into the mirror of the sea and makes a mistaken identification. In this way, we see that the reflection of Medusa stands opposite and against the reflection of the sea monster. They represent male and female primal energies unleashed by the tantric sexual ritual of initiation. The mirror of the sea/shield stands between them. The male primal energy goes after the reflection, and thus is vulnerable to attack. The female primal energy is rendered harmless by the reflection and is also rendered vulnerable to attack. These reciprocal vulnerabilities of the male and female primal energies allow them to be manipulated and subdued by the one who controls the mirror. This puts Perseus in the position of the sophist who controls the medium of reflection. Perseus has subjectivity forged through his encounter with the primal male and female energies in the initiation process. Perseus achieves this by negotiating the mirror stage which Lacan speaks of in child development. But the mirror stage assumes the forging of the mirror. That mirror is forged as a cultural product embedded in our worldview. The mirror itself is the interspace between the opposites. In Indo-European culture, it is used to create the illusion of subjectivity -- a particular magical usage which is not the only possibility. This particular usage is culturally determined.
After Andromeda, is saved the parents almost immediately renege on their promise, but not before Perseus has sacrificed to Hermes, Athena and Zeus who all helped him. Here the axis of innovation and the axis of nihilistic opposites and the center of the eightfold flaw are emphasized. Perseus marries Andromeda. But then Agenor, king Bellus' twin, interrupts the ceremony and claims Andromeda for himself. Agenor's appearance brings us full cycle. Having lost Europa, he claims Andromeda. He attempts to abduct the source of outward female unity which he had lost, but is defeated by the ultimate weapon -- the Medusa's head. Perseus then returns to the King Ploydaetes and turns him to stone, saving his mother, Danae. Perseus and Megapentes exchange kingdoms, and balance is regained in the land. The conflict between Proteus and Acrisuus is finally resolved through the heroic acts of Perseus and Belaphron undertaken on behalf of each of their houses. These heroic adventures represent the move from the nihilistic situation of the war between brothers to a resolution and wholeness through the adventure which leads them to confront the archetypes within Indo-European society and within themselves. These adventures make explicit the meaning of Indo-European tantric initiation rites when read against the structure of the family of the gods itself. The echoes of the mythic and primordial scene of initiation echoes and reverberates in these myths. It is but for us to place the pieces in juxtaposition and read their inner relations which reveal the great depth and significance of this transformative rite which stands behind all the transformations of Western society as the ultimate prototype hidden in our gender relations. Having gone to the limit with our interpretation, it is finally possible to begin turning a way to seek away out of the labyrinth created by the embroidery of the flaw over the centuries.
However, there is a another topic that must be breached in order to set our investigation in perspective. This is a brief look at Mithrism and the role it plays in Western history. Mithrism was the religion of the Roman soldiers and was the rival of Christianity. When Christianity triumphed in becoming the state religion, it did its best to wipe out all traces of Mithrism from the Earth as it has done with so many other things that did not fit its totalitarian picture of the world. Mithrism is the great secret of Western civilization. And we will end this chapter by showing the relation between our exploration of Perseus' mythic complex and this mystery religion.
First it must be realized that the religion of Jesus is quite different from that created by Paul. It turns out that Paul was from Tarsus, and that was the Mithraic stronghold in that time. It seems all the changes introduced by Paul into the teaching of Jesus to produce the monstrosity of Christianity derive from Mithraic sources. This is especially true of the militaristic language and the anti-feminism of the early church. It appears that there are so many similarities between Mithrism and Christianity that they were considered generally to be basically the same religion. The Mithrists, however, were great warriors. The Romans could not beat them, and in fact, at one point lost the whole Mediterranean Sea to their control. As they captured these amazing fighters, they say that it was their religion that made them so invincible so the Roman army adopted their religion and eventually defeated the Mithrists. Whereever Roman soldiers were stationed, there where Mithraems (the churches of the Mithrists).
When Constantine ruled, he said Christianity and Mithrism to be identical to his worship of the "unconquerable sun." When he killed his wife and son, he asked the Mithrists to be forgiven and purified for the deed. They said it was too awful. He went to the Christians, his second choice, and asked the same thing. They said, "Sure, no problem." The Christians saw their chance to get their religion to be unbanned. Thus, the Christian church gained precedence over the Mithrists which could not later be reversed by Justinian though he tried. Unfortunately, he died too young in battle. In the reforms instituted by Constantine, Mithrism and Christianity became even more closely related and indistinguishable. Christianity today is a hodge podge of the original teachings of Jesus, modified as convenient, and the various pagan elements, most pronounced of which are the Mithraic elements. This explains the internal contradictions in Christianity which advocates meekness for the oppressed while it gleefully wields the sword of Mithrism for its own imperialistic ends.
Without giving a full blown exegesis on Mithrism here, I would like to suggest that this Greek mystery religion was perhaps the last bastion of the Indo-European initiation rites. It has roots in Persia and in Babalon as well as Greece. It was a male only society which gave initiations in a series of stages. In these initiations it fully exposed nad supported the warrior's needs. As such, its symbolism could very well be elucidated by their relation to the tantric initiation rites -- here moved into the city and divorced from women, but with the structure preserved.
The central god of Mithrism is Mithra, the ancient Indo-European god, who through a Zoroastrian filter, becomes the leader of the forces of light against the forces of darkness. The central scene of Mithrism is the sacrifice of the cosmic bull in a cave by Mithra. This scene is always portrayed on the wall of the Mithraem. The features of this scene are normally given Astrological interpretation. However, here we will give them another sketched interpretation in relation to the Indo-European initiation rites that have been at least partially uncovered. The sacrifice of the bull by Mithra is the primal act which gives fecundity to the world. It is clearly a self-sacrifice similar to that of Odin or the destruction of the cosmic whole in the form of Purusha. This sacrifice of the male principle as occurs in the initiation rites occurs within a cave -- within the earth. The scene of sacrifice is flanked by the twin Discouri (Capate and Caputates) who hold torches in opposite positions. These represent clearly the nihilistic opposites. An even clearer connection is made by the appearance separately of an unknown god who has a lion's head and snakes wrapped around its body. Howard M. Jackson in The Lion Becomes Man gives an in-depth exploration of this figure in the ancient world. He traces it to a god called Mios in a border town which must defend the delta in Egypt. Some association was made between this god and Yahweh as the gnostics saw him as the evil god of the Old Testament. No matter what origin is attributed, we can see in Mios the very image of the lion headed and snake body of Theitis in mid transformation. In a very simple interpretation, we see a symbolic reduction of the initiation into dynamic clinging objectified and symbolized in the Mithraic religion which embroiders the ancient Indo-European rites of initiation into a full-blown mystery cult.
It is left to the reader to explore all the nuances of this association between Mithrism and the rites of initiation. But we see all of the major elements in place because the lion-headed and snake-bodied god stands in the place of Varuna (the initiated one), while Mithra does the cosmic sacrifice, and the members act as the warrior Indra. The Discouri stand guard over the sacrifice. All that is missing is the female element that has been shut out in this reification of the dynamic initiation process turned into a symbolic system instead of a lived process.
However, it is important that we discuss briefly the book of David Ulansey called The Origins Of The Mithraic Mysteries. In that book, he makes real the connection between Mithra and Perseus. In so doing, he draws tighter the net of interpretation which sees Mithrism as the final vestige of the Indo-European initiation as the cultural event. But perhaps more importantly, he gives an interpretation of who Mithra represented to the Stoic creators of this mystery religion in Tarsus. It seems that 60 years before the first traces of Mithrism appeared the Precession of the Equinoxes which was discovered by the ancients. Mithra was seen as the god above all other gods who had the power to move the fixed stars and thus the whole cosmos. This is very apt for our interpretation because the key to the Indo-European worldview is its ability to transform itself. Even the fixed stars are made to move by the Mithraic principle underlying the Western worldview. Several statues of Mithra revolving the Zodiac exist to support that theory. Thus, Mithrism was in some ways the first meta-religion. It was a religion whose god ushered in the great cycles of the world as each zodiacal age turned over the last. So that Mithrism as well as hiding within Christianity as its dark secret also perfectly symbolizes the essence of the Western worldview which is ever changing through the inauguration of new epochs through the generation of emergent novelty.
Mithra was also born from a rock. So Mithrism contains a memory of the windegg of the closed autopoietic system. Mithra is a manifestation of this closed system. Mithra consorts with Helios who represents the positive fourfold. Mithra moves between light and darkness and leads the forces of light against the darkness. Mithra, by killing the cosmic bull, allows the universe to manifest. He is the one who controls manifestation, opening up the difference between the light and the dark as nihilistic opposites in conflict.
In this way, nihilism can be seen to have two forms. One is a passive form which just creates empty dialectics between false choices that causes the inattentive to become confused and lost. However, by applying dynamic clinging in an aggressive way, there is also an active form of nihilism exemplified by Western society from its Indo-European roots. This active form of nihilism seeks out and actively works to destroy meaning. I call this the Mithraic energy of our Western "civilization" which fuels its global conquest. It is hidden within Christianity and is completely embedded in our society and culture. It is the source of the active double binds we project on the world and our own destructive behavior. Like Mithrism, it is hidden to us because we do not know ourselves well enough. Yet it is written across the world in the atrocities we commit while claiming to do good.
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