must not be confused with a merely symbolical or even allegorical
interpretation of myths. This is not intended. The images forming the
contents of a myth are not invented symbols of abstract truths, but
actual soul-experiences of the initiate. He experiences the images
with his spiritual organs of perception, just as the normal man
experiences the images of physical things with his eyes and ears. But
as an image is nothing in itself if it is not aroused in the
perception by an outer object, so the mythical image is nothing unless
it is excited by real facts of the spiritual world. Only in regard to
the physical world, man is at first outside the exciting causes,
whereas he can only experience the images of myths when he is within
the corresponding spiritual occurrences. In order, however, to be
within them, he must have gone through initiation. Then the spiritual
occurrences within which he is perceiving are, as it were, illustrated
by the myth-images. Any one who cannot take the mythical element as
such illustration of real spiritual occurrences, has not yet attained
to the understanding of it. For the spiritual events themselves are
supersensible, and images which are reminiscent of the physical world
are not themselves of a spiritual nature, but only an illustration of
spiritual things. One who lives merely in the images lives in a dream.
Only one who has got to the point of feeling the spiritual element in
the image as he feels in the sense-world a rose through the image of
a rose, really lives in spiritual perceptions. This is the reason why
the images of myths cannot have only one meaning. On account of their
illustrative character, the same myths may express several spiritual
facts. It is not therefore a contradiction when interpreters of myths
sometimes connect a myth with one spiritual fact and sometimes with
another.
From this standpoint, we are able to find a thread to conduct us
through the labyrinth of Greek myths. Let us consider the legend of
Heracles. The twelve labours imposed upon Heracles appear in a higher
light when we remember that before the last and most difficult one, he
is initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. He is commissioned by King
Eurystheus of Mycenæ to bring the hell-hound Cerberus from the
infernal regions and take it back there again. In order to undertake
the descent into hell, Heracles had to be initiated. The Mysteries
conducted man through the death of perishable things, therefore into
the nether-world, and by initiation they rescued his eternal part from
perishing. As a Mystic, he could vanquish death. Heracles having
become a Mystic overcomes the dangers of the nether-world. This
justifies us in interpreting his other ordeals as stages in the inner
development of the soul. He overcomes the Nemæan lion and brings him
to Mycenæ. This means that he becomes master of purely physical force
in man; he tames it. Afterwards he slays the nine-headed Hydra. He
overcomes it with firebrands and dips his arrows in its gall, so that
they become deadly. This means that he overcomes lower knowledge, that
which comes through the senses. He does this through the fire of the
spirit, and from what he has gained through the lower knowledge, he
draws the power to look at lower things in the light which belongs to
spiritual sight. Heracles captures the hind of Artemis, goddess of
hunting: everything which free nature offers to the human soul,
Heracles conquers and subdues. The other labours may be interpreted in
the same way. We cannot here trace out every detail, and only wish to
describe how the general sense of the myth points to inner
development.
A similar interpretation is possible of the expedition of the
Argonauts. Phrixus and his sister Helle, children of a Boeotian king,
suffered many things from their step-mother. The gods sent them a ram
with a golden fleece, which flew away with them. When they came to the
straits between Europe and Asia, Helle was drowned. Hence the strait
is called the Hellespont. Phrixus came to the King of Colchis, on the
east shore of the Black Sea. He sacrificed the ram to the gods, and
gave its fleece to King Æetes. The king had it hung up in a grove and
guarded by a terrible dragon. The Greek hero Jason undertook to fetch
the fleece from Colchis, in company with other heroes, Heracles,
Theseus, and Orpheus. Heavy tasks were laid upon Jason by Æetes for
the obtaining of the treasure, but Medea, the king's daughter, who was
versed in magic, aided him. He subdued two fire-breathing bulls. He
ploughed a field and sowed in it dragon's teeth from which armed men
grew up out of the earth. By Medea's advice he threw a stone into
their midst, whereupon they killed each other. Jason lulls the dragon
to sleep with a charm of Medea's and is then able to win the fleece.
He returns with it to Greece, Medea accompanying him as his wife. The
king pursues the fugitives. In order to detain him, Medea slays her
little brother Absyrtus, and scatters his limbs in the sea. Æetes
stays to collect them, and the pair are able to reach Jason's home
with the fleece.
Each of these facts requires a deep elucidation. The fleece is
something belonging to man, and infinitely precious to him. It is
something from which he was separated in times of yore, and for the
recovery of which he has to overcome terrible forces. It is thus with
the eternal in the human soul. It belongs to man, but man is separated
from it by his lower nature. Only by overcoming the latter, and
lulling it to sleep, can he recover the eternal. This becomes possible
when his own consciousness (Medea) comes to his aid with its magic
power. Medea is to Jason what Diotima was to Socrates, a teacher of
love (_cf._ p. 88). Man's own wisdom has the magic power necessary for
attaining the divine after having overcome the transitory. From the
lower nature there can only arise a lower human principle, the armed
men who are overcome by spiritual force, the counsel of Medea. Even
when man has found the eternal, the fleece, he is not yet safe. He has
to sacrifice part of his consciousness (Absyrtus). This is exacted by
the physical world, which we can only apprehend as a multiple
(dismembered) world. We might go still deeper into the description of
the spiritual events lying behind the images, but it is only intended
here to indicate the principle of the formation of myths.
Of special interest, when interpreted in this way, is the legend of
Prometheus. He and his brother Epimetheus are sons of the Titan
Iapetus. The Titans are the offspring of the oldest generation of
gods, Uranus (Heaven) and Gæa (Earth). Kronos, the youngest of the
Titans, dethroned his father and seized upon the government of the
world. In return, he was overpowered, with the other Titans, by his
son Zeus, who became the chief of the gods. In the struggle with the
Titans, Prometheus was on the side of Zeus. By his advice, Zeus
banished the Titans to the nether-world. But in Prometheus there
still lived the Titan spirit, he was only half a friend to Zeus. When
the latter wished to exterminate men on account of their arrogance,
Prometheus espoused their cause, taught them numbers, writing, and
everything else which leads to culture, especially the use of fire.
This aroused the wrath of Zeus against Prometheus. Hephaistos, the son
of Zeus, was commissioned to make a female form of great beauty, whom
the gods adorned with every possible gift. She was called Pandora, the
all-gifted one. Hermes, messenger of the gods, brought her to
Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. She brought him a casket, as a
present from the gods. Epimetheus accepted the present, although
Prometheus had warned him against receiving any gift from the gods.
When the casket was opened, every possible human evil flew out of it.
Hope alone remained, and this because Pandora quickly closed the box.
Hope has therefore been left to man, as a doubtful gift of the gods.
By order of Zeus, Prometheus was chained to a rock on the Caucasus, on
account of his relation to man. An eagle perpetually gnaws his liver,
which is as often renewed. He has to pass his life in agonising
loneliness till one of the gods voluntarily sacrifices himself,
_i.e._, devotes himself to death. The tormented Prometheus bears his
sufferings steadfastly. It had been told him that Zeus would be
dethroned by the son of a mortal unless Zeus consented to wed this
mortal woman. It was important for Zeus to know this secret. He sent
the messenger Hermes to Prometheus, in order to learn something about
it. Prometheus refused to say anything. The legend of Heracles is
connected with that of Prometheus. In the course of his wanderings
Heracles comes to the Caucasus. He slays the eagle which was devouring
the liver of Prometheus. The centaur Chiron, who cannot die, although
suffering from an incurable wound, sacrifices himself for Prometheus,
who is thereupon reconciled with the gods.
The Titans are the force of will, proceeding as nature (Kronos) from
the original universal spirit (Uranus). Here we have to think not
merely of will-forces in an abstract form, but of actual will-beings.
Prometheus is one of them, and this describes his nature. But he is
not altogether a Titan. In a certain sense he is on the side of Zeus,
the Spirit, who enters upon the rulership of the world after the
unbridled force of nature (Kronos) has been subdued. Prometheus is
thus the representative of those worlds which have given man the
progressive element, half nature-force, half spiritual force, man's
will. The will points on the one side towards good, on the other,
towards evil. Its fate is decided according as it leans to the
spiritual or the perishable. This fate is that of man himself. He is
chained to the perishable, the eagle gnaws him, he has to suffer. He
can only reach the highest by seeking his destiny in solitude. He has
a secret which is that the divine (Zeus) must marry a mortal (human
consciousness bound up with the physical body), in order to beget a
son, human wisdom (the Logos) which will deliver the deity. By this
means consciousness becomes immortal. He must not betray this secret
till a Mystic (Heracles) comes to him, and annihilates the power which
was perpetually threatening him with death. A being half animal, half
human, a centaur, is obliged to sacrifice itself to redeem man. The
centaur is man himself, half animal, half spiritual. He must die in
order that the purely spiritual man may be delivered. That which is
disdained by Prometheus, human will, is accepted by Epimetheus, reason
or prudence. But the gifts offered to Epimetheus are only troubles and
sorrows, for reason clings to the transitory and perishable. And only
one thing is left--the hope that even out of the perishable the
eternal may some day be born.
The thread running through the legends of the Argonauts, Heracles and
Prometheus, is continued in Homer's _Odyssey_. Here we find ourselves
compelled to use our own method of interpretation. But on closer
consideration of everything which has to be taken into account, even
the sturdiest doubter must lose all scruples about such an
interpretation. In the first place, it is a startling fact that it is
also related of Odysseus that he descended into the nether-world.
Whatever we may think about the author of the _Odyssey_ in other
respects, it is impossible to imagine his representing a mortal
descending to the infernal regions, without his bringing him into
connection with what the journey into the nether-world meant to the
Greeks. It meant the conquest of the perishable and the awakening of
the eternal in the soul. It must therefore be conceded that Odysseus
accomplished this, and thereby his experiences and those of Heracles
acquire a deeper significance. They become a delineation of the
non-sensuous, of the soul's progress of development. Hence the
narrative in the _Odyssey_ is different from what is demanded by a
history of outer events. The hero makes voyages in enchanted ships.
Actual geographical distances are dealt with in most arbitrary
fashion. It is not in the least a question of what is physically real.
This becomes comprehensible, if the physically real events are only
related for the sake of illustrating the development of a soul.
Moreover the poet himself at the opening of the book says that it
deals with a search for the soul:
"O Muse, sing to me of the man full of resource, who wandered very
much after he had destroyed the sacred city of Troy, and saw the
cities of many men, and learned their manners. Many griefs also in his
mind did he suffer on the sea, although seeking to preserve his own
soul, and the return of his companions."
We have before us a man seeking for the soul, for the divine, and his
wanderings during this search are narrated. He comes to the land of
the Cyclopes. These are uncouth giants, with only one eye and that in
the centre of the forehead. The most terrible, Polyphemus, devours
several of Odysseus' companions. Odysseus himself escapes by blinding
the Cyclopes. Here we have to do with the first stage of life's
pilgrimage. Physical force or the lower nature has to be overcome. It
devours any one who does not take away its power, who does not blind
it. Odysseus next comes to the island of the enchantress Circe. She
changes some of his companions into grunting pigs. She also is subdued
by Odysseus. Circe is the lower mind-force, which cleaves to the
transitory. If misused, it may thrust men down even deeper into
bestiality. Odysseus has to overcome it. Then he is able to descend
into the nether-world. He becomes a Mystic. Now he is exposed to the
dangers which beset the Mystic on his progress from the lower to the
higher degrees of initiation. He comes to the Sirens, who lure the
passer-by to death by sweet magic sounds. These are the forms of the
lower imagination, which are at first pursued by one who has freed
himself from the power of the senses. He has got so far that his
spirit acts freely, but is not initiated. He pursues illusions, from
the power of which he must break loose. Odysseus has to accomplish the
awful passage between Scylla and Charybdis. The Mystic, at the
beginning of the path wavers between spirit and sensuousness. He
cannot yet grasp the full value of spirit, yet sensuousness has
already lost its former attraction. All Odysseus' companions perish in
a shipwreck; he alone escapes and comes to the nymph Calypso, who
receives him kindly and takes care of him for seven years. At length,
by order of Zeus, she dismisses him to his home. The Mystic has
arrived at a stage at which all his fellow-aspirants fail; he alone,
Odysseus, is worthy. He enjoys for a time, which is defined by the
mystically symbolic number seven, the rest of gradual initiation.
Before Odysseus arrives at his home, he comes to the isle of the
Phæaces, where he meets with a hospitable reception. The king's
daughter gives him sympathy, and the king, Alcinous, entertains and
honours him. Once more does Odysseus approach the world and its joys,
and the spirit which is attached to the world, Nausicaa, awakes within
him. But he finds the way home, to the divine. At first nothing good
awaits him at home. His wife, Penelope, is surrounded by numerous
suitors. Each one she promises to marry, when she has finished weaving
a certain piece of work. She avoids keeping her promise by undoing
every night what she has woven by day. Odysseus is obliged to vanquish
the suitors before he can be reunited to his wife in peace. The
goddess Athene changes him into a beggar so that he may not be
recognised at his entrance; and thus he overcomes the suitors.
Odysseus is seeking his own deeper consciousness, the divine powers of
the soul. He wishes to be united with them. Before the Mystic can find
them, he must overcome everything which sues for the favour of that
consciousness. The band of suitors spring from the world of lower
reality, from perishable nature. The logic directed against them is a
spinning which is always undone again after it has been spun. Wisdom
(the goddess Athene) is the sure guide to the deepest powers of the
soul. It changes man into a beggar, _i.e._, it divests him of
everything of a transitory nature.
* * * * *
The Eleusinian festivals, which were celebrated in Greece in honour of
Demeter and Dionysos, were steeped in the wisdom of the Mysteries. A
sacred road led from Athens to Eleusis. It was bordered with
mysterious signs, intended to bring the soul into an exalted mood. In
Eleusis were mysterious temples, served by families of priests. The
dignity and the wisdom which was bound up with it were inherited in
these families from generation to generation. (Instructive information
about the organisation of these sanctuaries will be found in Karl
Bötticher's _Ergänzungen zu den letzten Untersuchungen auf der
Akropolis in Athen_, Philologus, Supplement, vol. iii, part 3.) The
wisdom, which qualified for the priesthood, was the wisdom of the
Greek Mysteries. The festivals, which were celebrated twice a year,
represented the great world-drama of the destiny of the divine in the
world, and of that of the human soul. The lesser Mysteries took place
in February, the greater in September. Initiations were connected with
the festivals. The symbolical presentation of the cosmic and human
drama formed the final act of the initiations of the Mystics, which
took place here.
The Eleusinian temples had been erected in honour of the goddess
Demeter. She was a daughter of Kronos. She had given to Zeus a
daughter, Persephone, before his marriage with Hera. Persephone, while
playing, was carried away by Hades (Pluto), the god of the infernal
regions. Demeter wandered far and wide over the earth, seeking her
with lamentations. Sitting on a stone in Eleusis, she was found by the
daughters of Keleus, ruler of the place; in the form of an old woman
she entered the service of his family, as nurse to the queen's son.
She wished to endow this boy with immortality, and for this purpose
hid him in fire every night. When his mother discovered this, she wept
and lamented. After that the bestowal of immortality was impossible.
Demeter left the house. Keleus then built a temple. The grief of
Demeter for Persephone was limitless. She spread sterility over the
earth. The gods had to appease her, to prevent a great catastrophe.
Then Zeus induced Hades (Pluto) to release Persephone into the upper
world, but before letting her go, he gave her a pomegranate to eat.
This obliged her to return periodically to the nether-world for
evermore. Henceforward she spent a third of the year there, and
two-thirds in the world above. Demeter was appeased and returned to
Olympus; but at Eleusis, the place of her suffering, she founded the
cult which should keep her fate in remembrance.
It is not difficult to discover the meaning of the myth of Demeter and
Persephone. It is the soul which lives alternately above and below.
The immortality of the soul and its perpetually recurring
transformation by birth and death are thus symbolised. The soul
originates from the immortal--Demeter. But it is led astray by the
transitory, and even prevailed upon to share its destiny. It has
partaken of the fruits in the nether-world, the human soul is
satisfied with the transitory, therefore it cannot permanently live in
the heights of the divine. It has always to return to the realm of the
perishable. Demeter is the representative of the essence from which
human consciousness arose; but we must think of it as the
consciousness which was able to come into being through the spiritual
forces of the earth. Thus Demeter is the primordial essence of the
earth, and the endowment of the earth with the seed-forces of the
produce of the fields through her, points to a still deeper side of
her being. This being wishes to give man immortality. She hides her
nursling in fire by night. But man cannot bear the pure force of fire
(the spirit). Demeter is obliged to abandon the idea. She is only able
to found a temple service, through which man is able to participate in
the divine as far as this is possible.
The Eleusinian festivals were an eloquent confession of the belief in
the immortality of the human soul. This confession found symbolic
expression in the Persephone myth. Together with Demeter and
Persephone Dionysos was commemorated in Eleusis. As Demeter was
honoured as the divine creatress of the eternal in man, so in Dionysos
was honoured the ever-changing divine in the world. The divine poured
into the world and torn to pieces in order to be spiritually reborn
(_cf._ p. 90) had to be honoured together with Demeter. (A brilliant
description of the spirit of the Eleusinian Mysteries is found in
Edouard Schuré's book, _Sanctuaires d'Orient_. Paris, 1898.)
VI
THE MYSTERY WISDOM OF EGYPT
When leaving thy body behind thee, thou soarest into the ether,
Then thou becomest a god, immortal, not subject to death.
In this utterance of Empedocles (_cf._ p. 55) is epitomised what the
ancient Egyptians thought about the eternal element in man and its
connection with the divine. The proof of this may be found in the
so-called _Book of the Dead_, which has been deciphered by the
diligence of nineteenth-century investigators (_cf._ Lepsius, _Das
Totenbuch der alten Ägypter_, Berlin, 1842). It is "the greatest
continuous literary work which has come down to us from ancient
Egypt." All kinds of instructions and prayers are contained in it,
which were put into the tomb of each deceased person to serve as a
guide when he was released from his mortal tenement. The most intimate
ideas of the Egyptians about the Eternal and the origin of the world
are contained in this work. These ideas point to a conception of the
gods similar to that of Greek mysticism.
Osiris gradually became the favourite and most universally recognised
of the various deities worshipped in different parts of Egypt. In him
were comprised the ideas about the other divinities. Whatever the
majority of the Egyptian people may have thought about Osiris, the
_Book of the Dead_ indicates that the priestly wisdom saw in him a
being that might be found in the human soul itself. Everything said
about death and the dead shows this plainly. While the body is given
to earth, and kept by it, the eternal part of man enters upon the path
to the primordial eternal. It comes before the tribunal of Osiris, and
the forty-two judges of the dead. The fate of the eternal part of man
depends on the verdict of these judges. If the soul has confessed its
sins and been deemed reconciled to eternal justice, invisible powers
approach it and say: "The Osiris N. has been purified in the pool
which is south of the field of Hotep and north of the field of
Locusts, where the gods of verdure purify themselves at the fourth
hour of the night and the eighth hour of the day with the image of the
heart of the gods, passing from night to day." Thus, within the
eternal cosmic order, the eternal part of man is addressed as an
Osiris. After the name Osiris comes the deceased person's own name.
And the one who is being united with the eternal cosmic order also
calls himself "Osiris." "I am the Osiris N. Growing under the blossoms
of the fig-tree is the name of the Osiris N." Man therefore becomes an
Osiris. Being Osiris is only a perfect stage in human development. It
seems obvious that even the Osiris who is a judge within the eternal
cosmic order is nothing else but a perfect man. Between being human
and divine, there is a difference in degree and number. The mystic
view of the mystery of "number" underlies this. Osiris as a cosmic
being is One, yet on this account he exists undivided in each human
soul. Each person is an Osiris, yet the One Osiris must be
represented as a separate being. Man is in course of development; at
the end of his evolutionary career, he becomes divine. In taking this
view, we must speak of divinity, or becoming divine, rather than of a
separate divine being, complete in himself.
It cannot be doubted but that according to this view only he can
really enter upon the Osiris existence, who has reached the portals of
the eternal cosmic order as an Osiris. Thus, the highest life which
man can lead must consist in his changing himself into Osiris. Even
during mortal life, a true man will live as a perfect Osiris as far as
he can. He becomes perfect when he lives as an Osiris, when he passes
through the experiences of Osiris. In this way, we see the deeper
significance of the Osiris myth. It becomes the ideal of the man who
wishes to awaken the eternal within him.
Osiris is torn to pieces and killed by Typhon. The fragments of his
body are preserved and cared for by his consort, Isis. After his death
he let a ray of his own light fall upon her, and she bore him Horus.
This Horus takes up the earthly tasks of Osiris. He is the second
Osiris, still imperfect, but progressing towards the true Osiris.