johnthebaptist4

In the Odyssey, the hero is freed only by the arrival of Hermes -- Mercurius in alchemy � at Ogygia. Hermes is the messenger and intercessor of divinity, and the bridge between the opposites. As is the case with Odysseus� imprisonment on Ogygia, Porphyry�s Cave of the Nymphs is an environ of extraordinary fecundity for the investigation of inner worlds, a proving ground prior to transformation � assuming, of course, that once one goes in, one is able to get out. Such an incarceration suggests an intense period of sexuality, libido, and/or interaction with unconscious contents. For Odysseus, and all heroic applicants, it�s where souls are made � and unmade. Duality begins, and ends, in the Cave of the Nymphs.

Once Odysseus escapes from the Nymphs, from unconscious enthrallment to the infantilism of entertaining opposites, he is at last able to return to his homeland, to Ithaca, the Edenic land beyond the opposites. He finally comes home to his full Self, in the depth-psychological sense. At the close of the Odyssey, Athena, the "Sister" or positive feminine, warns Odysseus and his family that the time of strife -- that the creative antagonism of the opposites -- is now past, and not to return to it. Thus, Athena acts as feminine psychopomp, what depth psychologists would call an integrated anima. Together with Hermes, they join forces in the quaternio which brings the hero through the field of opposites and out the other side, into an inheritance which marries, and transcends, the warring dualities. This accomplished, the hero is warned not to return to the field of the opposites, to earthly matter, for the pull of warring duality is dramatic and strong there.

Granted, it sounds like a load of mytho-mumbo-jumbo. Until one has walked the frozen coals. Then it begins to look like the foundation stone of human incarnation and experience.

Like every male initiate, Odysseus begins his journey a linear-minded, proud, rational and practical warrior, and ends it a whole (holy) man, suspended between the opposites, inheritor and conqueror of the cross. He completes his odyssey no longer addicted to sex and blood � in a word, he becomes ensouled, and the world no longer has him by the balls. Instead, he carries his soul in his balls, and all Creation in his heart.

His journey has been one of transformation in the underworld, of traveling through Goethe�s realm of the Mothers, the collective feminine, and his own personal unconscious, and unconsciousness. His guide is Athena, Queen of Heaven, who has a thousand names, lately anima. Odysseus works his way home through more and more realistic, and less and less romanticized, forms of his anima projections. His anima evolves from romantic, weak illusion, into a resplendent, fully realized bride of matter, sacralized by the blood of his heroism.

The final coniunctio is formed here not from the personal aspects of Penelope and Odysseus, but from the developed anima of the hero with the developed animus of Penelope (her side of the tale is not told � The Odyssey describes masculine psycho-spiritual evolution; the collective feminine travels its own paths). Jung calls this the �royal game,� and it is elaborately, and superbly, illustrated in medieval alchemy. This process currently is being undertaken by Western men, particularly American men in the last half of the twentieth century and beginning of the new millennium.

Heracles, who the Romans called Hercules, likewise had to overcome the Nymphs as his penultimate labor. He was bound to his labors, and fate, by the spite and vengeance of Hera, archetype of Roman matrons. Hera represents the same middle aspect of the Nymph-Matron-Crone trinity as Herodias in the betrayal of John the Baptist. In the case of Hercules, the false ruler is not Herod Antipas, but Eurystheus. But they are both Toxic Kings, bogus representatives of masculinity.

In his eleventh labor, Hercules had to steal �apples� guarded by Nymphs called the Hesperides. It is recollected that the Salem witch trials originated with the uncoerced testimony of a group of adolescent girls, indulging in a goof whose roots rest in ancient and massive psycho-sexual repression. The masculine hero recognizes the Nymph as one of the most powerful beings on the planet, crackling with danger. The more a culture infantilizes and empowers the Nymph -- Grrrl Power -- the more lethal she becomes, and the deeper masculinity sinks into cultural prison. American culture exalts, infantilizes, and empowers young girls, placing them in a condition of extended, and artificial, innocence, while simultaneously tempting masculinity with them at every turn. This provides the Empowered Witch and her foxes with enormous, fully deniable power over the masculine. This power is used simultaneously to entice, shame, punish, and scapegoat the masculine. Because this power is both unearned and unconscious, cultural elements wielding it can deny its very existence. Thus the Crone pulling strings remains virtually � though not entirely -- invisible.

After overcoming his trial at the hands of the Nymphs, Heracles completes his final labor, the journey to Hades, the underworld, Tartarus -- the realm of the Mothers, and of sol niger, the inner sun. His portal to the underworld is the cavern at Taenarum, one of the Nymphs� �Caves.� Orpheus, yet another solar (masculine) hero also descended to the nether world there.