| Part eleven of sixteen |
| New Kid in Town: from Spiro T. Agnew to Philosopher Kings |
| Simultaneously, nigredo is our base instinct of reptilian selfishness, will-to-power, vengeance, and violence � along with the kicker, the paradoxical mystery of libido, Hemingway's "good destruction." The Lower World is the realm of the senses, the maternal, chthonic swamp, a subterranean lake sweet and horrific, bubbling with sexual fluids, its gravity thick as oatmeal. The Philosopher King at this stage is only a princeling, gazing up Jacob�s Ladder. He will experience a period of pain and adjustment when �forced into the presence of the sun.� Descent is like living undersea, and gazing upward through the brine at a dim, hazy light on the surface far above. As one rises, the bends come on. Descent and ascent have physical, psychological and mytho/spiritual implications. They stretch consciousness. As wounding is the principle of love, pain is the principle of knowledge. Up on the Roof I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea [i.e., had passed through both ascent and descent experiences, experienced the transcendent Father and Mother] � for they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. [1 Cor. 10:1-4, RSV] When new information is �dragged� from unconsciousness into consciousness, it hurts. Consciousness is painful. One must simply drive through it, like a Harley through a hailstorm, and eventually darkness and pain pass, and the son comes out again. When the cage is first opened the light hurts like hell. That same light later heals. Plato suggests that the soul�s nigredo, its harrowing of Hades, lasts one thousand years. That�s a nice round figure, but time is tricksy down there. At any rate, both alchemy and depth psychology confirm that this stage of the �individuation process� is long and arduous. Eventually the princeling rises like Glinda�s Bubble from the heart of darkness, from the subterranean realm of the Mothers, and heads up and out, breaking the sub-lunary �prison� and learning to �navigate� in the Upper World: He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day. Here Plato again alludes to out-of-body travel in the ascent tradition first developed by shamans. Abilities in the Upper Worlds grow gradually. Experiences cohere at length. The analytical/egoic portion of oneself, so carefully sharpened and buttressed in youth, becomes of limited use. One must re-learn from infancy. When Plato says he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day he refers to the inner vision of the Philosopher King, his ability to penetrate what is hidden. Not only can the King see the sparks of the eternal occulted in everyday matter � he can free those sparks. This line trysts with reversal, with the �overturning� motif so characteristic of solar kingship, conjuring images of coniunctio. Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. Plato�s sun is gendered male. The Sun is the intermediate Creator, and Guardian, of visible matter in the solar system. He is primarily a Father, though he has an occult feminine core, as the Earth has an inner, masculine �sun,� sol niger. Three stages mark ascent phenomena in the male, involving interaction with increasingly powerful � and removed -- manifestations of the masculine: 1) awareness of both the angelic and shadow natures of one�s genetic father 2) experience of the external, intermediate Father (the Sun) 3) experience of the transpersonal Father, who is also the hidden, inner Father (sol niger) The trajectory of the Western esoteric tradition for the masculine is eightfold: -- the birth of the Son from the Mother -- the growth of the Son under the Mother -- the division from the Mother (the birth of consciousness, history, and the West, and the inception of ascent experience or �sky magic�) -- the maturation and sacrifice of the Son -- the descent of the Son to sol niger and the Fallen -- the ascent of the Son -- the merging with the transpersonal Father -- the re-descent to matter, Earth, and Mother in coniunctio. The East, of course, also has a valid heroic/occult tradition, including a brother of Western alchemy. The Eastern tradition likewise branches from Paleo-shamanism. |