CHAPTER XII
As the Giants now stand revealed as the true subject of
the first three verses of the Theogony, perhaps we should
consider further then these various assortments of spear
wielding Giants: these Titans, these Kyklopes, these
Hekatoncheires, these serpent-footed ones- the Dragons that
sprang up from the earth like mountains after falling from
the sky as stones. That the Giants sprang up like mountains
on the face of the earth betrays first of all their phallic
origin, i.e., that they were born from the burning drops of
blood that fell like fiery stones from the starry sky, from
the severed phallus that is Ouranos. But it betrays something
more as well. The linkage of mountains and stones as
metaphors for the Giants is crucial, for it is no ordinary
mountain that serves as home to the Giants; instead, the
mystery of the Giants is closely related to another mystery
of the ancient world- the pyramids. It has often been
observed that the pyramids resemble mountains, and it is
indeed those magical mountains of stone that the poet
associates with the Giants. As we shall see, the tales of the
Daktyloi, Kabeiroi, etc., are only more obscure versions of
the same story, with the Giants simply being born from the
fingers of the Great Mother digging into the Mountain.
We have seen that the "power and skill" of the Kyklopes
"is shown in their works", while the power of the
Hekatoncheires "is shown in their huge forms". As I have
already intimated, however, the divine power of the serpent
race, their wondrous strength and skill, is revealed in the
"huge forms" of "their works"- the pyramids; for it is not
necessarily the Giants themselves who are of immense size, it
is what they built: the man-made mountains of stone that
tower above the earth- only they are not man-made. Nor is a
mountain actually the best metaphor for them- a termite mound
might be closer to the truth. The story of the Giants-
brilliant pebbles that fell from the phallus of Heaven and
landed here long ago, a landing accompanied by the roaring of
the earth, the shaking of the heavens, and the raging of the
sea, to spring forth from the earth like mountains, spear-
wielding warriors, is also the story of those who raised up
mountains of stone upon the earth- the pyramids, and of the
being they raised up from the stones of the earth- man.
It is a story of Dionysian wisdom, that what is best for
man is never to have been at all. It is the story of the
Beekeper and the bees, of those who write on "your tombstone,
I thank you for dinner". Despite the common claim that the
Greek gods are the most anthropomorphic of deities, it will
be remembered that they did not eat the food of men: ambrosia
and nectar gathered from flowers provided their nourishment.
Ichor, not blood, runs in their veins. One should contemplate
as well the often horrified reaction of those who perceive
the true form of the gods, whether it is the representations
of the Cretan snake maidens provided by Campbell, Aglauros
opening up the chest of Athene, Semele perceiving the true
form of Zeus, or even Anchises when, after his tryst with
Aphrodite- loveliest of goddesses, she revealed herself to
him in her true form.
Of her love for Anchises it is said that, having forced
all other deities to succumb to her power, she in turn was
"compelled by Zeus to fall in love with the herdsman
Anchises", who "pastured his cattle on the heights of Mount
Ida, and was as beautiful as the immortals". Aphrodite flew
to her temple in Cyprus; there the Graces, the young Nymphs,
bathed her and annointed her with the "oil of the immortals".
Now "in beautiful raiment and adorned with gold she returned
swiftly to Troy, to Mount Ida, to the mother of wild beasts".
When she came to the mountain wild animals followed in her
wake- lions and leopards and bears and wolves. She laughed at
the sight of the beasts and enchanted them so that they all
lay down together in love, there on the forest floor; and,
proceeding on to search for Anchises, she found him alone,
"walking to and fro and playing on a lute": for the mating
ritual of the Dragons is always accompanied by music. When
Anchises looked up from his music:
Aphrodite stood before him in the form of a
beautiful, tender mortal maiden. Anchises beheld
her and was astonished at her beauty, her stature,
her splendid clothing. She wore a robe whose
redness was more dazzling than fire; her breasts
shone marvellously, as if they were bathed in
moonlight. Love seized upon Anchises and he spoke
to the goddess. He hailed her as an immortal,
promised her an altar and sacrifices.... Thereupon
the goddess lied to him, telling him that she was a
mortal maiden, a Phrygian princess who could speak
Trojan. Hermes had carried her off, so she said,
from the choir of Artemis, in which she had been
dancing with... nymphs, and had carried her to
Mount Ida through the air from Phrygia.... These
words of the goddess provoked Anchises to still
greater love. 'If you are a mortal maiden... then
neither god nor man shall hold me back from
you!'... so the herdsman cried, and seized
Aphrodite's hand. She followed him to his bed,
repeatedly turning back as if she sought to retreat
and casting down her lovely eyes. On soft sheets
lay hides of bears and lions that Anchises himself
had made his prey. He took off his bride's
adornments, loosened her girdle and uncovered her.
In accordance with the will of the gods the mortal
lay with the immortal goddess, without knowing what
he did. Not until the hour when the other herdsmen
were due to return did Aphrodite awaken her
sleeping lover and show herself to him in her true
form and beauty. Anchises was dismayed when he saw
her lovely eyes. He turned away from her, covered
his face and begged her to save him. For no mortal
man remains in good health for all the rest of his
life, when he has slept with a goddess.
It is further told that Aphrodite prophesied the
utmost good for the son whom she conceived of
Anchises, and for his descendants. The son was
Aineias.... Anchises was not to reveal to anyone
that she was the mother of the son, whom the nymphs
would bring to him as if the child belonged to one
of themselves. If he did so, Zeus's lightning would
strike him. It is reported that Anchises was later
lamed by a lightning stroke. But there was also a
tale that he was punished with blindness for having
seen the goddess naked. Bees stung out his eyes.
Of course, it was not exactly bees that blinded him: it
was the brilliance of her eyes, or, more accurately, her eye:
an eye that shines with the brilliance of star-fire. Because
the sight of her eye can steal the sight from the eyes of
man, Aphrodite is also called Antiope- the "anti-eye". She is
the Queen of the giant Golden Bees who guarded the maternal
cave of the Divine Child Zeus, only they are no more bees
than the ants in the tale of the conversation between Indra
and the Divine Child Krishna were simple ants. Kerenyi knows-
he will not speak. He deliberately refrains from adding the
final thread to the tapestry, refuses to play the final note
of the symphony. As his name makes clear, it was not his role
to make confession: only to elicit one. As for the Giants,
those bright stones that fell from heaven, much to the
astonishment of a still half-bestial mankind, the cataclysm
that accompanied that event, perhaps the most fateful event
in the history of the planet, the landing of the bright
stones from heaven, the plunging of Ouranos into the sea, is
repeated in the tale of the battle between the Gods and the
Titans, wherein the poet describes the effect of those rocks
flung from the mighty hands of the Hekatoncheires- the
landing of the stones from Heaven that brought the
Hekatoncheires to this world. It is accompanied by the
flashing lightning of Zeus as he descends from the heavens
with the Thunderbolt. Only, of course, it is not Zeus
descending from the heavens, but the Thunderbolt itself.
The Thunderbolt is not the lightning of the storm, it is
the lightning that comes from the stars, as is revealed first
of all by the name of one of the Kyklopes, the Giants who
forged the Thunderbolt. His name is Steropes, which is
normally translated simply as "Lightning", in order that it
will better match the name Brontes, which means "Thunder".
As we have seen, however, the name Steropes, translated
literally, means "Star-eyes". In order to perceive the true
form of that alien being, the Thunderbolt, the mere sight of
which drives men to madness or even death, nothing more is
needed than a glance at the picture of Zervan Akarana-
"Boundless Time"- he who bears upon his chest the
Thunderbolt, and all will be revealed at last. That
Thunderbolt is the alien itself; it is Ourania, the goddess
who emerged from the phallus that fell from the stars. It
looks like no creature of this earth, but it has been here
longer than man. It is small in size, but mighty in power. It
is one of the serpent race; it is the phallus within the
basket; it is the serpent with the child in the chest; it is
the serpent child in the box; and, though "I wanna be no
Saboteur", there is, I must confess, "at least one of me
inside your ranks, in your factory or school". It is the true
form of the gods, the face behind the mask, the secret that
drives men to madness. Now you, too, may sit up in the lonely
hours of the night:
... waiting for our friends to come
like spiders down ropes to free-fall.
It will be recalled that in the cave of Odysseus there
were two entrances: one was for mortals, the other was for
the gods; no mortal could fit through that entrance. No,
indeed not; humankind is far too large to pass through the
faery gate. They are small in stature but mighty in deeds.
The Irish dubbed them "the Little People": they are the
Mountain Kings. Even today, in folk music, the memory is
still preserved of an encounter between a mortal man and one
of these strange faery creatures. The song is called "The
Wee-Wee Man":
Twas down by Carter Haugh I was
Between the water and the Haugh
There I met with a wee-wee man
and he was the least that ever I saw
His legs were scarce a finger's length
and thick as a thimble was his knee
between his eyes a pea couldn't go
between his shoulders inches three.
His beard was long and white as a swan
his robe was neither green nor grey
he clapped his hands, down came the mist
and he sang and he sent it clean away.
He's lifted up a stone six feet in height
and flicked it farther than I could see
and though I'd been a giant tall
I'd never have lifted it to my knee.
Wee-wee man, thou art strong
tell me where thy dwelling be
It's down beneath yon bonny green bower
though you must come with me and see.
Refrain
We rode up and we sped on
until we came to a bonny green hall
the room was made of the beaten gold
and purest crystal was the floor.
There were pipers playing on every stair
and ladies dancing in glittering green
He clapped his hands, down came the mist
and the man and the hall no more was seen.
Like Giapetto, it is the Toymaker: like Strabonius, it
is the puppet master. The intertwined serpents of the double-
helixical DNA molecule wind around the body of Zervan
Akarana: the caudeceus, with the same intertwining serpents,
leans against a tombstone at his feet. On that tombstone is
written the name of Heracles. Before the caudeceus a rock
stands next to a piece of fruit- they represent the male and
the female, the Father and the Maid: the stone that falls
from heaven and the fruit of that stone. In his right hand,
he holds the Key to the Labyrinth, in his left hand is the
scepter of power, the rod of the serpent race. Hammer and
tongs, the instruments of the Kabeiroi, are also at his feet.
Finally, the four twisting legs of the Thunderbolt form a
swastika- the two intertwining serpents, the X gamete and the
Y gamete that come together to form the zygote. The picture
graphically portrays the serpent's control over man's genetic
structure- they are the Puppet Masters, and the strings with
which they manipulate mankind are the chromosomes
themselves.There is no escape from them: how will you run from
yourself? How will you escape from that which is built into
your own genetic structure? From something which is not
outside you, but within? Do you begin to sense the true
meaning of fear? Of why it is that the Thunderbolt
illumination leads to madness? And when you gaze upon her,
can you not tell that she is a lover- and a dancer? How she
can whirl on those legs! I promised that I would show you the
faery girdle worn by Aphrodite herself, the goddess of love,
the girdle worn by Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons. I did
not speak falsely: there it is- encircling her slender waist.
It will not be found in a Mycaenean tomb.
This was the girdle that Heracles was sent to fetch;
this was the creature that Solomon meant when he said "Go to
the ant, my friend, consider her ways and be made wise";
these were the creatures that the Divine Child Krishna
pointed out to Indra in the tale of the Parade of Ants; this
is the wisdom that smites with an axe the tree of worldly
vanity; this is the true secret that is seldom revealed even
to sages and saints: now I reveal it to everyone. What could
possibly move me to commit an act of such terrible folly? As
I have said, I have a confession to make, and in order for
you to understand that confession I must now bring to light
that which has remained hidden for thousands of years; for
only in this way can I open the doors to the cell wherein my
brother sits, looking out his window at the gallows pole. But
today:
I received a message from my brother
across the water
he sat laughing as he wrote
the end's in sight.
So I said good-by
to all my friends and
packed my hopes inside a matchbox
cause I know it's time to fly.
Listen again to the clash of the Titans and the
Hekatoncheires, to the sound of their arrival on this world,
the landing of the stones that fell from the stars, and
consider whether the thunder and lightning of the storm are a
sufficient explanation for the poet's description of the
Thunderbolt's effect, or whether what is in truth being
described is the earthward plunge of that phallus itself, the
Thunderbolt of the serpents. For now:
Zeus no longer restrained his strength, but
immediately now/ his
breast was filled with the spirit of might, now he
was showing/
all of his force, down from Heaven and Olympos he
came/
striding, rapidly hurling continous lightning, his
bolts were/
closely following one after the other out of his
strong hand/
thunderous and flaming, causing an awesome fire to
arise as/
thickly as they fell. The life giving earth was
everywhere crying/
burning with fire, vast forests were howling aloud
earth was everywhere boiling, as were the streams
of Okeanos/
and the exhaustless sea. The hot blast beset the
Chthonian/
Titans below, the immense fire reaching into
darkness divine,/
and the brilliantly shining glare produced by the
flashing/
bolt and the lightning blinded their eyes in spite
of their/
might,
and an amazing heat possessed chaos. If one had
actually/
seen this event or actually heard it, it would have
seemed just/
like what one would expect should the earth and the
broad/
sky above come
crashing together, for such a great deafening noise
would/
arise if
earth were fallen upon by sky from on high
falling down/
such was the noise that arose from this clash of
immortals in/
combat.
It would be naive to think that effects such as these
could possibly be explained by even the mother of all
thunderstorms. Indeed, so spectacular are the effects
described by Hesiod that, in the 1950's, they led Velikovsky
to construct a brilliantly imaginative theory that the
carnage was the result of a near collision between earth and
a large comet, or even the planet Venus: a theory that has
been fairly well demolished in the years since. Nonetheless,
comets do play a role- if not quite the one Velikovsky had in
mind- in the life cycle of the Thunderbolt, the magical being
that is also called the Phoenix, a bird which is consumed by
fire and then rises up from its own ashes. The first clue to
the true meaning of the passage given above from Hesiod can
be found in the line "his breast was filled with the spirit
of might". One look at the breast of Zervan Akarana will
reveal the true nature of "that spirit of might", for the
Thunderbolt represents not only the phallus that fell from
the sky, it represents also the beings who emerged from that
phallus: the Kabeiroi, the qabirim- "the mighty", the megaloi
theoi- "the mighty gods". The Thunderbolt is the Kratos- "the
Strong One"; it is the Dionysos Kradios, the phallus in the
liknon, the face behind the mask. They are the Aristaoi, the
best of gods, because they are the Asteroi- the gods that
come from the stars. Like the Beekeper Aristaios, they are
the Keepers of the Hive; like Nomios, they are the Tenders of
the Flock, but the flock they tend is mankind.
As we toy with the genetics of other species, so they,
with a good deal more precision, manipulate ours. One may
think of the phallus as the ship in which they came to this
world. Then again, it is possible that they do not need ships
to travel through space; that the thunderbolt they plunged to
earth in is their own body. So, at least, Alan Nourse (whose
genius remains unknown to the world because he wrote only for
children) suggested when he wrote of the Spacers, as he
called those alien beings. They are Dragons who sit invisible
on the shoulders of the chosen, "and pull the strings that
change the faces of men". Above the shoulder of the Tahitian
beauty in Gaugin's famous painting is a picture of that
Golden Daimon.
Zervan Akarana is called "boundless time" because he is
the Lord of Time: he is the Titan, he is Tyan, he is the Big
Man- Allahu Akbar! The figure on his chest gives the
impression it is whirling: it is a Korybant. The body is
serpent, or insect-like, save that the body segments appear
to run in a spiral down the body, rather than horizontally,
as is the case with earth-born insects. The mouth looks made
for a diet gathered from flowers, a diet of ambrosia and
nectar. It seems to have only one eye. It would not be hard
to believe that something besides blood flows through that
body. They may appear repulsive, even hideous, man's worst
nightmare, and yet, look again at those legs: can you not see
the flashing feet of a faery sprite?
It is not unknown for one of the Nymphs to lie with a
mortal man- much to that man's peril. Nietzsche lay with her
one night in a brothel: she never left him again but remained
upon his shoulder forevermore. I found her one night in
Amsterdam, in the red light district. I had been searching
for her all night long without success, up and down the
canals, and was just on the verge of giving up for the
evening and returning to my room when I saw her standing in
the window- white blouse, black boots, a riding crop in her
hand- "a Hunting Girl". Now she sits upon my shoulder, and
when I ask her when she will leave, she whispers comfortingly
in my ear: "Nevermore". Thus is revealed the true form of the
Dragon race, whose hands hold the key to our genetic makeup.
We are the result of their breeding project, and we can be
replaced. Whereas man can only influence, along carefully
prescribed lines, already existing species, the Dragons have
the ability to create entirely new ones, as is demonstrated
in the mythic text itself; for, after the destruction, have
we not seen how the earth brought forth some creatures that
were old and familiar, and others that were completely new?
From the dust they made us, and to dust they can return us
and raise up a new breed of men: yes, from the very stones of
the earth.
Hesiod's account of the battle between the Titans and
the Hekatoncheires is simply the poet's dramatic description
of the piece of sky that fell to earth: the phallus that, as
it fell, scattered brilliantly flashing drops of blood upon
the earth. It is the description, by a non-technological
civilization, of the landing of a craft (if craft it was)
from the stars. Zeus, the Thunderbolt, is described as coming
down from the heavens with a roar like thunder. He is
described as "rapidly hurling continous lightning, his bolts
were closely following one after the other out of his strong
hand": a valiant attempt at describing the trail of fire that
emerged from those falling stones in their swift descent, the
incredible heat they gave off as they plunged to earth. To
the men of that time it must indeed have seemed as if a piece
of the sky had fallen burning to earth, and threatened to set
the world ablaze. In a sense, it did. In a completely
different sense, it will do so again. This is the cataclysmic
event Chicken Little was trying to warn people about when he
cried out that "the sky is falling, the sky is falling". It
is what Led Zeppelin meant when they said:
Hey Mr. Brakeman, won't you ring your bell
I read you loud and clear.
Hey Mr. Fireman, won't you ring your bell?
Tell the people they got to fly away from here.
Thus even the Final Battle in the War between the Gods and
the Titans is revealed, once again, as a metaphor for the
birth of the Giants. It is the story of the coming of the
Dragons to earth.
The name Dragon means "to see", or "one who sees". It is
therefore synonymous with the English words witch and wizard,
both derived from the word witness, which also means "to
see", or "one who sees". To fully understand the wonders
the Dragons performed upon the earth through their wizardry,
we must reveal, for the first time outside of cult, the true
riddle of the Sphinx, that celebrated granddaughter of
Phorkys and Keto. Not the childhood version of the riddle,
the version one finds in all other accounts of Oidipos and
the Sphinx, but the true riddle as it was told in cult, the
riddle within the riddle, a riddle that has not even been
asked, let alone answered, since before the time of Christ.
Taking into account the proximity of the Sphinx to the
pyramids, it must first be realized that the riddle posed by
the Sphinx is intimately bound up with the riddle that
puzzled the ancient world as much as it does the modern: the
riddle of the pyramids- a riddle guarded by the Sphinx. What
is the origin of the pyramids? Who built them, how were they
built, and, most importantly, why were they built? For over
two thousand years the solution to the riddle of the
pyramid's existence has lain concealed, if one can call
concealed that which is plain to all who have ears, precisely
where one would expect to find it- in the question the Sphinx
posed to Oidipos. In other words, the true answer is
contained in the question, the public version of the riddle,
but it is concealed there in childish form in order to guard
it from the eyes of those the world calls the wise: and
perhaps, even more, to allow for the eventual development of
wisdom. As it was publicly told, the Sphinx asked Oidipos, a
man who walked with a severe limp, the following question:
What walks on four legs in the morning
two legs in the afternoon, and three legs
in the evening?
The answer as it is normally given, of course, is man;
for man walks on four legs when an infant, two legs when in
the prime of his life, and then, finally, leaning on a cane,
he limps into old age on three legs. So the myth has always
been told, and who does not remember being disappointed at
the simplicity of this absurd childhood riddle? A chestnut
Bilbo Baggins would have called it, when he won the Ring of
Power from Gollum in the Goblin Cave beneath the Misty
Mountains; yet the solution to this riddle won Oidipos not
only the crown of Thebes and the hand of its Queen, the Great
Mother herself (this time under the name of Iokaste, i.e.,
Akaste- an Okeanid, i.e., Io- the Nymph) but also the
reputation as the wisest man of his time! Were they truly,
then, such dolts in the ancient world? But wait, it is not so
easy, nor so simple, nor so absurd as all that, and Oidipos
well-deserved his reputation as the wisest man of his time;
for, as I have said, the childhood riddle conceals the true
riddle.
We have been asked: What goes on four legs, on three
legs, and on two legs, but the true riddle is the one
question left unasked- what goes on one leg? The answer, of
course, which Oidipos readily supplied, so shocking the
Sphinx that she committed suicide on the spot, is the
serpent-footed giants, the Kabeiroi, the megaloi theoi, the
"mighty gods", the Fathers and Teachers of men, the Tenders
of the Flock, the Beekeepers, the Mothers. It is the
Thunderbolt on the chest of Zervan Akarana: it walks on four
legs or, if it chooses, it can stand and go forth on two
legs. Late in life the phallus emerges- the third leg, like a
cane. That phallus is the serpent: it travels on one foot.
They are the blessed gods whose base is Ouranos, the starry
sky, as the base of the Olympian gods is earth, for the
Olympians are simply a reflection of man- an earthbound
being. Or, combining the two lines in order to render more
precisely their hermeneutical meaning, as the base upon the
earth of the blessed gods, the true gods, is the phallus
fallen from the starry sky: that phallus whose name here on
earth is Olympos. That is not its true name, however, for
that was revealed only in cult. Soon it will be revealed to
all. To put it still another way, it was the one-footed
serpent folk that fell from the sky in shining stones who
raised the pyramids- speartip shaped mountains upon the
surface of the earth. That was the answer that drove the
Sphinx to her death; for she was the guardian of the secret
to the pyramids. How did Oidipos know the answer to the
riddle that baffled the entire ancient world, and the modern
world also? As noted before, he walked with a limp.
Before we continue with our tale of the Giants, a word
now about Olympos itself, their base upon the earth. The
Greek conception of Mt. Olympos as the abode of the gods is
derived from the Hindu myth we have spoken so much of
already: the Parade of the Ants. In that story it was said
that after the Final Battle, the battle in which Indra, armed
with the Vajra- the Thunderbolt, slew the dragon that had
been crouching on the mountain peaks, consuming the mana of
the world, "the Titans were retreating to the Underworld; the
gods were returning to the summit of the central mountain on
earth, there to reign from on high". That mountain- Olympos,
the central mountain on the face of the earth, is the most
sacred mountain in the world, the model of all other sacred
mountains. It is indeed the abode of the gods, their shrine,
their mountain hall- it is the Magic Mountain itself, but it
is not a mountain in the literal sense of the word; nor is it
even a word, at least, not properly speaking: that is why no
etymology exists for the name of the most sacred mountain in
Greece. It is, in short, not a word but an anagram for
another word; and that word is Omphalos, the mountain of
stone that marks the navel- the exact center point of the
world, like the boss or spike in the middle of a shield:
. The word Olympos does, however, in the suffix pos,
which means lame, provide us with a clue as to the name of
the lame-footed hero who solved the mystery of its location-
Oidipos. The word boss, it might be noted, is the Greek word
for cow, which is what Kadmos followed- at the instruction of
the oracle at Delphi- in order to find the proper site upon
which to raise the walls of Thebes.
The reason the relationship between Olympos and the
Omphalos has not been previously understood is because the
Greeks described the omphalos as a stone placed at the center
of the world, that center being Delphi, and portrayed it as a
conical shaped stone upon which the gods themselves sat. It
is indeed a stone at the center of the world; but, the
chauvinism of the Greeks to the contrary, the center of the
world is not at Delphi; it is at Ghiza, in the Valley of
Kings, and the Omphalos, the Nest of the Serpent Nymphs, the
true Olympos, the Magic Mountain, is indeed the Great Pyramid
itself: the pyramid of the great Egyptian King Cheops. The
pyramid, the Magic Mountain, was the true location of the
Garden of the Hesperides, the Garden of Evening, the Garden
of the Serpent Nymphs. There are three main pyramids in the
Valley of Kings: they are the fabled halls of the mountain
kings- Pallas, Asterios, and Perses. We have already
identified Perses with Kadmos, the father of the Kabeirian
Nymphs. As the similarity in names between Agaue and Aglauros
makes clear, the Kabeirian Nymphs are the Kekropian Nymphs;
thus identifying Kadmos with Kekrops, whose name was clearly
not only a pun on Kerkops, "the tailed one", but also on the
name of the great Cheops himself. To say it again, the term
Greek mythology is a complete misnomer. The original shape of
that Nest, of which even the Great Pyramid itself is perhaps
only a man made copy, may well have been conical in nature-
more like a termite mound.
It is also true that the gods did indeed sit upon the
omphalos, or, more accurately, sprawl upon it in their
lovemaking, as is clearly portrayed in the Month of May from
Les Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry. Follow the two
terrier-like dogs that emerge from out of the bushes in the
lower right hand corner to the small hillock in the lower
left hand corner. That hillock is the pyramid itself with the
cave entrance clearly visible: the bushes growing on either
side of that hillock are actually the embracing lovers
themselves. The forehoof of the grey horse, with that knowing
laugh on his face, is poised above the two lovers on the
mound; the fore-hoof of the white horse is poised between the
two dogs, the male gazing inquisitively at the uplifted
hindquarters of the bitch before him. The bushes in the right
hand corner resolve into a minaiture elfin woodland: the
trees in those woods bear a suspicious resemblance to Nymphs,
while a "small, elflike character"- a "Jack-in-the-Green",
watches over the scene with delight. If we step back for a
moment, however, and consider those same woods in their
entirety, they metamorphosize into a dragon, its jaws gaping
wide, snapping at the heels of the two rutting dogs.
In this context, it should be remarked that om is a
symbol of the Hindu trinity; that oma is a fleshy
excrescence: it means to make or produce flesh. Oma is also,
of course, the word for mother, and from Mt. Olympos-
, i.e., the omphalos- , the navel of the
world, it may be imagined that an umbilical cord also
stretches. The location of the world's navel is revealed in
the Greek letter , which is similar to the Greek letter ,
the pyramid, except that the bottom line has disappeared:
meaning it is no longer closed off to the Underworld. In
addition, a small curved line has been added to the top,
meaning the umbilical cord is now attached. In other words,
the children are now present in the pyramid, having broken
through from their Underworld confinement: for if there is a
navel and an umbilical cord, there must also be a child
receiving its nourishment through that cord. Thus the word
Omphalos, a holy word, also contains a pun: it is the phallus
from which the rain, a Golden Shower, the mana, comes pouring
down. It is the phallus which contained the semen of the
gods, and after it was severed from the father it was in the
possession of the Mother- Oma. At the castration of the
Father, a Golden Shower fell upon the earth of the faery
kingdom. In that world, unlike our shadow realm, the omphalos
is a true image of the sun, a helikon: she turns to gold when
kissed by the light of the sun, and then the golden honey,
the mana, the fruit of all love as money is the root of all
evil, is shared by one and all. What need to eat the other
beings of that fair kingdom when the mana that pours from the
sacrifice of the Father satisfies all hunger?
Other words closely related to omphalos include omasun-
a bullocks tripe, or paunch; it is the third stomach of a
ruminant animal, such as a cow. The omanide is the name of a
family of spiders. This is not, by the way, simply an idle
etymological discourse: it is hoped that from a close
analysis of key sacred words, a pattern will begin to emerge.
To continue, the word ombrant, or umber, is in decorative art
a shade or shadow without an outline. Omber, or ombre
(literally, "man") is a game of cards in which three ranks
have been removed from the deck. An omadhaun is a fool, a
simpleton, a madman; it is also the name of an album by
Michael Oldfield, best-known as the composer of Tubular
Bells- the theme music for the Excorcist. Although I abhor
anecdotal information as much as any scholar, as I was
sitting by the Big Dipper one day, getting high with Captain
Beyond, a man came up to us claiming to have been the thief
on the cross who recognized Christ. He claimed also to have
shot a cop while running dope back from Mexico in '64; thus
causing him to eventually wind up in a jail cell alongside
Charles Manson. Just released, he said Manson had sent him to
tell us we should pay especial attention to the music of
Michael Oldfield, Jethro Tull, and Rick Wakeman's Journey to
the Center of the Earth.
The word ombrometer provides us with a clue to the
original meaning of om, for ombros, , means rainstorm,
- rain, and -storm, similar in sound both to Brontes-
"Thunder", and also to Briareos- "the Strong One", who is
most often portrayed as a many-tentacled squid. There is even
a squid called Ommastrephes: Omma means eye, while strephes
means "turn"- a whirling eye. An ommatidium is the radial
segment of the compound eye of an arthropod. Omnivora, of
course, means all-devouring, while Omophagus (omus, -raw
plus phagus, -eat) means eater of raw flesh and is also
one of the titles given to Dionysos. Omos, or , means
shoulder: in entemology it is the epimeron of the prothorax
in the coleoptera- the butterfly. An omostegite is the part
of the carapace of a crustacean which covers the thorax. It
is a combination of two words: omos, or - shoulder;, and
stegos, or - roof. Thus there is a subtle pun involved
in the story of Tantalus and the notorious banquet he served
up for the gods.
Men dislike each other because they are strangers to one
another, but what is truly alien remains unknown to them. You
can, however, catch a glimpse of it over your shoulder if you
are quick enough: for that which is alien to you is also
closest to you. I do not speak in riddles, for the location
of the Dragon is revealed in myth; most clearly in the tale
of Tantalus and the Feast of the Gods. Tantalus, who was said
to be a friend of the Gods and privy to their secrets,
invited them to his hall for a banquet. There he served them
the body of his son, Pelops. The gods perceived his
wickedness, and did not touch the food, but Demeter alone,
still distraught over Persephone's disappearance, ate one
piece of the meat that was offered- the shoulder. Tantalus's
great crime lay, not in slaying Pelops, who was, after all,
just a man, and whom the gods casually restored to life. The
true horror for the Gods lay in the piece of meat served up
to Demeter- the shoulder; for it meant that one of the humans
had penetrated the secret of their existence: our shoulder is
their roof.
Tantalus had taken advantage of his knowledge of the
Gods, knowledge won by pretending friendship, and
deliberately killed one of their children while it was locked
within its mortal chrysalis- its human host, at the shoulder:
the home of the Puppet Masters within the human body. The
gods easily restored the life of Pelops, a mere mortal. They
were unable to replace his shoulder, for it was in truth the
Thunderbolt which had been consumed: they could not bring the
child back from the maw of the mother into which it had
untimely disappeared. Though they gave Pelops a new shoulder,
one made of ivory, it no longer contained a Thunderbolt: no
longer harbored a soul inside. What must he do to win back
his old shoulder, his soul- the dragon who metamorphosizes
into a butterfly? He must learn of a love other than love of
self.
As punishment for his terrible deed, Tantalus was
confined to the Underworld, where the fruits of knowledge,
whose taste he knew so well, were hung just beyond his reach.
The punishment was a just one- it fit the crime. Hospitality,
of course, was the most honored law among the ancient Greeks;
even today no more hospitable people exists in the world than
will be found in that land. And why should man resent serving
as host to another species? Especially when man only exists
because that other species brought him into existence
specifically to serve as their hosts? And gave us in exchange
the rest of the earth, to be our home as we are theirs? As
all the earth is at our service, so are we at theirs. Or have
you not heard that "everybody's gotta' serve somebody"? You
heard, but you did not like what you heard; and so, hating
the message, you resented the messenger as well.
Joseph Campbell once remarked that the "following
Mesopatamian rite for the replacement of the head of a temple
kettledrum... speaks for both the import of the bull and the
function of art in the rites of the ancient world". I hope
that, within the present context, it will suggest something
more:
The eligibility of the bull was strictly defined:
it had to be unmarked by a goad, to have no white
tufts, to have whole horns and hoofs, and to be
black as pitch. It was then brought to what was
called the mummu house and set on a reed mat with
its legs tied with a goat hair rope. After the
offering of a sheep, the ritual of "washing the
mouth" was performed by whispering an incantation
into the bull's ear through a reed and then
sprinkling him with cedar resin. He was then
purified symbolically in some way with a brazier
and torch. Around him a circle of flour was made
and, after further recitation by the priest, he was
killed with a knife. The heart was burned with
cedar, cypress, and a special kind of flour in
front of the kettledrum. The tendon was removed
from the left shoulder for some reason not
specified, and the animal was skinned. The body was
then wrapped in a red cloth and buried facing west.
Elaborate instructions were then given for the
preperation of the hide, which would eventually
serve as the new drumhead.
What was it that so offended the Gods at the Banquet of
Tantalus? It was not that Tantalus served them Pelops on a
plate: it was that he neglected to remove the tendon before
butchering his son. It should not be difficult now to see in
the details of this sacrifice the story of the sacrificial
death of the Divine Child, be he called Dionysos, or Perses,
or even Isaac, son of Abraham. As the Virgin Mary conceived
the child Jesus from the wind blowing through her ear, so
does the bull become the vehicle for the restoration of the
son. The heart is removed and burned, the body wrapped in a
shroud and buried, in imitation of Perses' fate and the fate
of Jesus; but the left tendon is preserved. It is the true
phallus of Dionysos, the Dionysos Kradios, the phallus in the
liknon, the serpent in the basket, the Thunderbolt sleeping
in the cocoon of the body: the Dragon that will one day
emerge as a Butterfly, if only we prove worthy of once again
serving as hosts. Again, although many humans may resent
finding themselves serving as host to an alien species,
humanity has itself displayed towards the rest of the animal
kingdom, a kingdom of which they are neither the ruler nor
the creator but only the steward, the same will to power. It
would seem, therefore, that man would be the last being on
earth to complain of ill-treatment at the hands of another
species; indeed, a fair-minded observer might consider it the
simple workings of Karma.
To resume our etymological discussion, an omotocia means
to bring something forth while it is still raw; it is a
miscarriage, an abortion. Omphacite is a wine made from
unripe grapes. It is also a leek green mineral related to
pyroxene (pyr, - fire, plus xenos, - stranger) so
called because it is thought to be a "stranger" among the
igneous rocks. The word for stranger in Greek, of course,
begins with , the sign of the spiralling serpents, the
Korybants- the Whirlers. An omophorium is the garment in the
Greek church which corresponds to the Latin Pallium, which we
have met before when unfolding the etymology of the name
Pallas. The "forget-me-nots" belong to the Omphalodes, while
to the omphalae belong climbing shrubs like hognut and
pignut; thus associating them with the boar, the Mother
Goddess. Nor should it be forgotten, in regard to the Giants-
Orion and Ouranos, the Nymph Ourania, and also the Mountains,
called in the Greek, interestingly enough, Urea- the
colorless crystal compound found in the urine of mammals
(particularly, as we shall see, the lynx) that the omentum is
the membrane enclosing the bowels. Nor should it be forgotten
that omus, , in addition to meaning "raw", or "cruel", is
also the name of a Tiger beetle, while ompok is the native
name for an elongated fish of the South Pacific.
Omphalos, of course, with which we began this analysis,
is literally the navel, a protrusion from the surface of the
earth. As mentioned earlier, it is like the boss on a shield-
. In Egyptian the sign of the earth is . In
Chinese it is . The Greeks did not lie when they said
the Omphalos was at Delphi, for in Greek, in the alphabet
given to the Greeks by the Phoenician Kadmos, Delphi is
. Finally, and it will be thought long past time for
that finally, the Omega, the great O, is the last letter of
the Greek alphabet; figuratively, it stands for the last of
anything; thus its shape- , like the lyre when it has been
hung upon the wall and the song is ended. But before the song
is truly over, mention must be made of the singer- Homer, or
omer, the great poet of Greece, for an omer is a handful of
grain, a sheaf equal to 1/10 of an ephah. Homer is therefore
revealed as a Daktyl, and to Shakespeare's plaintive cry of
"Omero, Omero, wherefore art thou Omero?" we may now rest
assured that he walks upon the flowery meadows of Elysium,
awaiting the day when the Sun will once again be married to
the Moon, and the spirit of man returned to the world of
light.
Turning now to the word pyramid, we see that it, too,
has no real etymology, for it also is not a word per se, but
rather a complicated play on words. In Greek the word is
pyramis, . It is said to be perhaps derived from the
Egyptian pir-em-us- "slanting edge of the pyramid". It is
also said that "some have imagined a connection with the
Greek word - fire, as if it were named for its
resemblance to a tapering candle flame". It is indeed, of
course, as the prefix alone would seem to render
indisputable, derived from - fire, and it is related also
to the word pyre. It is not merely a physical fire which is
meant, but also the fire of the Mysteries, the fire called
Hephaistos, the fire that was rescued from Olympos and
returned to mankind by the great Titan- Prometheus, i.e.,
pyramis, i.e., pyre-metis, fire counsel, one who sparks fires
with his mind, as Charles Manson, in his mind's eye, "lights
fires in your cities".
It was said of Hephaistos that once, in an attempt to
force Hera to acknowlede him as her son, he gifted her with
an ornate throne which, when she sat upon it, immediately
lifted her up into the air and held her fast. Ares attempted
to bring Hephaistos back to Olympos by force to free her, but
he was driven away by the flames of Hephaistos, here called
Daedalus; thus revealing "the original identity of the divine
master-craftsman with Daidalos of Athens". Finally, it was
Dionysos who fetched Hephaistos from his Underworld forge to
Olympos: getting him drunk and placing him on the back of his
beloved ass. Thus Prometheus, who stole the sacred fire from
Olympos and returned it to the world of men, is identified
with Dionysos, who retrieved that same sacred fire from the
Underworld and returned it to Olympos; meaning that Nietzsche
was correct when he identified Prometheus as but another of
the many masks worn upon the Greek stage by Dionysos.
What has been constantly missed by serious scholars,
many of them far more erudite than myself, who have
previously attempted to establish through the etymologies the
correct relationships between the various Greek divinities,
is that the relationship between the names of the various
characters in the myths often has less to do with logic, with
the normal rules which govern the ways in which the
pronunciation of words changes over time, and more to do with
a keen sense of humor that finds an almost childlike sense of
delight in the rhythms and sounds of the words themselves;
thus Olympos- Omphalos, and Prometheus- Pyramis.
We have seen that an omasun is a stomach, that omus
means raw or cruel, that Omos is a shoulder, and that there
is a tale of a famous shoulder which was eaten by the Mother
of the Gods, when the sacrifice was switched and the
Thunderbolt died rather than the man. The connection with
eating, and with the stomach, is rather curious. To answer
that curiousity, we must consider also the words grouped
around the term pylon, which means gate, or gateway.
Pyloridea (Pylorus- gatekeeper, plus idea- form) is the
Keeper of the Way. It is also the ninth family of bivalve
mollusks, characterized by gaping shells with deep pallial
emargination; but why should a family of bivalve mollusks be
considered to bear the form of the Gatekeeper? The word
Pyloridean itself is defined as "gaping", like a bivalve
mollusk. But Chaos itself can be defined as a "yawning gap";
and, according to Hesiod, it was from Chaos that Gaia herself
emerged. The word Pylorus not only means gatekeeper; it is
also the lower orifice of communication between the stomach
and the intestine. This in an attempt to elucidate the true
function of that gateway to the stars, and to begin to
explain what "your wise men don't know"- what it means "to be
Thick as a Brick". And perhaps, in the process, to unveil the
Salamander herself:
Salamander-
born in the sun-kissed flame.
Who was it lit your candle-
Branded you with your name?
I see you walk by my window
in your Kensington haze.
Salamander, burn for me; and I'll burn
for you.
The Salamander is the "Bad-eyed and Loveless" Nymph herself:
She's a warm fart
at Christmas.
She's a breath of champagne
on a sparkling night.
Other intriguing words are grouped around the pyramid.
Besides the pyre itself, there is the pyramidella: it is a
gastropod spiraled like the figure on the chest of Zervan
Akarana. There is the pyrene, which is the stone of a fruit,
as of a peach or a date. Then there is the stone called
pyrite, a flint, a mineral from which fire can be coaxed. And
again there is a strange metal, a metal called pyrallolite
(pyr-"fire", plus lithos- "stone"). It is a heat altered form
of pyroxene, that stranger among igneous rocks.
The word pyramid is also related to the Greek word for
tower, pyrgos- . Another closely related word is the
name Pegasus, derived from pege- spring; so called because he
came into existence at the fountain of Okeanos. In addition,
there is the word pais, or paid- child. And what kind of
children might spring forth from the pyramid? There is the
pyrochroidae- fire color beetles; and also the pyrameis, a
genus of butterfly belonging to the family Nymphalidea-
"having the form of nymphs". And the pyralid, a species of
moths with slender bodies and long legs. They are said to be:
a heterogenous family of moths of uncertain
character and limits. They serve as the final
resting place for genera which cannot be classified
with other families.
The pyralis is a genus of moths typical of the pyralidea,
having a conspicous proboscis. It is also the name of
a legendary winged insect said to live on fire; thus
identifying it with the legend of the Phoenix bird, a
development which should hardly be found surprising at this
point. As I have tried to stress, the Greeks received their
alphabet from Kadmos, the Phoenician.
And what type of behavior might we expect to see from
these creatures when they emerge from the maternal cave,
from the pyramid? Perhaps the word pyrrhic may provide a clue:
it is a kind of wardance accompanied by a flute. That flute is,
of course, their own shrill piping, emitted as they embark on
their mating flight. But if you want a picture of this fabled
beast, then consider the Pegaside: "they are a family of
fishes of strange forms, typified by the genus Pegasus",
which is also, of course, the name of a constellation. They
have at times been classified with other groups of fish, but
"they have been also regarded as representing a peculiar sub-
order or even order". These strange looking creatures are
also "known as flying sea horses".
Before we finish, or come to the Omega, it should be
noted as well that, since Pylorus means gate-keeper, or gate-
watcher, it can be identified with Kerberos, who is the
Gatekeeper in Hades, and also with Hermes, who, as
Psychopompos, escorted the souls of the dead to the
broadwayed Underworld, and so also with Kadmos, whose name
is itself derived, most probably, from the Sanskrit Kadi- judge,
meaning that he is a judge of the dead, like Minos and
Rhadamanthus. Pylorus can also be identified with Orthos,
another hound of hell, and with Charon, the ferryman across
the River Styx- although once he was something more. What
that something was will eventually be revealed; suffice it to
say for now that- even in the Underworld- Charon sometimes
rode a horse. Taken altogether, a most curious, not to say
ominous collection of words indeed!
I have said that the role of the Giants in the
construction of the pyramids has remained unknown since
Oidipos, perhaps it has simply remained concealed? The most
famous representation of the pyramids is, after all, the
symbol of the Freemasons, which is also the Great Seal of the
United States, and familiar to everyone from its presence on
our dollar bill, our money- our mana. There is, as is well
known, only one eye above that pyramid. As is also well
known, the Giant Kyklopes, those mighty builders of old, the
original Masons, also possessed only one eye. Perhaps now the
true meaning of the Freemason's logo on the back of the
dollar bill, the logo surrounding the pyramid above which a
mysterious one-eyed creature hovers- the logo reading Annuit
Coeptus, Novus Ordo Seclorum- "Our Efforts are Crowned with
Success, New World Order", is at last rendered transparent?
In the background behind the pyramid on the Great Seal
is a landscape bearing an eerie resemblance to the one Da
Vinci placed behind the Mona Lisa, who is herself painted in
the form of a pyramid: the pyramid within the cave within the
highest mountain on earth. In that painting Leonardo has
portrayed himself as the earth goddess, the Mother, now
reborn as the Maid, transfigured, with that mysterious smile
on her face- the smile of one who has learned to leave the
pebble in the hand of the Master. The foreground vegetation
is reminescent of that in Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks,
where the hand of the Mother, the Madonna, is poised above
the head of the Son like the hand of the Harpy- the Snatcher.
She is the Great Mother. On the Great Seal of the United
States, two serpent-like, apparently earth-born beings, adopt
the classical posture of adoration, genuflecting to the being
above the pyramid, their hands raised up like puppets on a
string: the exact same position adopted by the leaf above the
head of Botticelli's Venus.
They are bold, the aliens. They are Thunderbolts. Their
true shape drives men to madness, but an image of it can be
glimpsed on the back of the dollar bill, in the spider's web.
Those who have read Robert E. Howard's the Tower of the
Elephant will, perhaps, be the quickest to spot it. Since
whatever further knowledge the Freemasons may possess on
the identity of the one-eyed Giant hovering above the pyramid
is held in cult and doomed to remain there, consider instead the
following song by John Fogerty:
He take the thunder from the mountain
He take the lightning from the sky
He bring a strong man to his begging knees
He make the young girl's mama cry.
You gotta' hidey, hidey, hide
You got to jump and run again
The Old Man
is down the road.
He got the voice that speak in riddles
He got the eyes black as coal
He got a suitcase covered with rattlesnake hide
and he stands right in the road...
Or consider again a song we have heard before but which may
now resonate "in a different key", now that we have been to
the hall of the Wee-Wee Man and seen "pipers playing on every
stair". The pipes they play upon are their own bodies, the
same pipes that burst forth as serpents from the Gorgon's
head and inspired the creation of the flute; another word
whose etymology has heretofore remained unknown, for it, too,
is a word that comes from:
Where the real mountain men are kings
and the sound of THAT Piper counts for everything.
Perhaps you are now beginning to get an inkling of just
who "THAT Piper" might be? My friends, it is not that you are
just now entering the "Twilight Zone", you have always lived
in that Zone, only you did not know it before; you sought in
every way you could to hide the truth from yourself. That
truth was well-hidden indeed, right beneath your shoulder.
"Where will you run to now, Indra?" asked a mysterious voice
from the sky, after he had slain the dragon Vritra. Where
will you run to when the beast you wish to escape is within
you; when it is your very soul and you are its chrysalis?
This is the nightmare that has always remained veiled from
the eyes of men, though revealed to a few, those few who
could be trusted to keep silent. But there is always one
among those chosen few who betrays that trust. Now you know
why the Greek word psyche means both butterfly and soul: and
why the butterfly is a symbol of death- it emerges at the
death of the host. This is the meaning hidden within the
famous Buddhist koan of the man who fell asleep and dreamed
he was a butterfly, only to awaken and wonder whether he was,
in truth, a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
From the union of heaven and earth, as is well known to
the Chinese, came "the ten thousand things... the phenomena
of nature". I know of no greater day for a Western scholar
than the day when, after a weary lifetime spent wandering
through the dry desert that is called knowledge in the West,
a desert with only scattered oases where the lonely traveller
may rest, he comes at last, tired and thirsty, to the
fountain of wisdom that is the ideogramatic language of
China: its delicate calligraphy which nonetheless contains
within its graceful lines the supple power of the serpent.
There in that Eastern garden the wandering pilgrim finds
refreshment at last: at last his long thirst is quenched. In
the East the Wicked Old Witch died long ago, beneath the
barrage of Monchyaus and the other centaurs. She died in the
land of the Monchyauns; and so all the East dances to the
Wizard's Mysteries. But the Wicked Witch of the West still
lives. I can baptize her with water, but there is one who has
come before me who will baptize her with the fires of heaven.
For untold years the ten thousand have been whispering, but
it seems in all that time there has been "nobody listening".
Here is their song:
We have no home but that of the windy mountain
follow the sun till the day is done and the
moon's on fire/
We had a king, touched our eyes with
healing.
And so, "what do you do now, my blue-eyed son? And what
do you do now, my darling young one?" As for me, "I'm going
back out 'fore the rain starts a' falling, and reflect it
from the mountains so all folks can see it".
CHAPTER XIII
While you take a moment to ponder that question, it
might be useful to review what we have learned so far; for we
have spoken much of what has never been spoken of before: the
masters of mankind. As we have been able to put together from
the Orphic stories and from tales of the Daktyloi, prior even
to the beginning of the Theogony (and scarcely alluded to by
the poet in its opening verse- in the metaphor of the snowy
peaks of Mt. Olympos) the ejaculating phallus of Aither- the
sky, i.e., Akmon, was castrated by his son, Akmonides. That
phallus, Ouranos himself, "shedding semen", plunged from the
starry sky to earth, landing in the sea. After that phallus
landed here, after the drops of blood- bright, fiery red
stones which fell from that phallus as if dripping from a
wounded sky- were sown in the womb of the Mother, mountains
sprang up on the surface of the earth. The name of those
mountains in Greek is Urea, i.e., Urion, i.e., Orion.
To say it still once more, at the very beginning of the
Theogony, ostensibly before the birth of any Titan, God, or
Giant, thepoet tells the tale of how the Giants, the true gods of
mankind, came into the world. That tale is told in the form
of a metaphor, and told before the castration of Ouranos even
takes place, though it was that castration which supposedly
made possible the birth of not only the Giants but the
Olympian Gods as well; for both the Giants and the Gods are
said to be children of the Titans. Beneath the metaphor of
the drops of blood that fell from the sky like burning stones
and the mountains or Giants that sprang up therefrom upon the
earth, lies the true story which, beneath the subtle
counterfeit, tells of the Dragons' arrival on our world and
the mountains of stone they raised here. In sum, the myth
tells us that a phallus fell from the sky; those who emerged
from that phallus, or from the stones, fiercely glowing, that
were thrown from the phallus before it plunged into the sea,
raised up mountains on the surface of the earth: mountains
that became their nests. One of those mountains, the greatest
of them all, became the Omphalos- Mt. Olympos, the hall of
the mountain kings.
And perhaps along the way we have acquired an insight
into the life-cycle of this alien species? A life-cycle that
is far from human? For we are still at the birth of Ouranos-
the castration of Akmon; and it must be wondered how Ouranos
could have have castrated his father if that castrated
phallus is itself Ouranos, the son of Akmon, and if it was
that castration which brought about his birth? In addition,
if that pattern holds true for the following generations of
Giants, i.e., if the birth of the Son is made possible only
by the castration of the Father, then how can the Son be
responsible for that castration in any case? How could Kronos
have castrated Ouranos- the act which supposedly brought the
Giants into existence? How could Zeus in turn have castrated
Kronos? And if it is not the Son who castrates the Father,
then who does wield the knife? Clearly, as is suggested in
the Oresteia by Klytaimnestra's ritual-like slaughter of
Agamemnon, that castration can only have been accomplished
bythe Nymph- much to the perplexity of the Greeks, who clearly
misinterpreted the old tales, unable to understand, from
their limited human perspective, the role of the female in
the life cycle of the Dragon. It is a role more like unto the
praying mantis than the daughters of men, and man has always
preferred to recast the gods in his own image, rather than
face the shocking truth.
That the Giants who emerge from the stones that fell to
earth are also portrayed as carrying spears is itself a
metaphor for the spear tip shape of the pyramids, for the
pyramids rise from the earth like the tip of a spear.
In addition to being an instrument of war, the spear tip
is a particularly effective metaphor for the pyramids
because, just as the spear tip must be forged, so the
pyramids are not natural mountains: they are what we would
normally call man made, only it was not man who made them.
They are Magic Mountains. It was, of course, from the Dragon
that man first learned the arts of metallurgy, as it was the
Dragon who first taught the agricultural arts to Agraulos-
mother of the Kekropian Nymphs.
The Giants, in all their various manifestations, in the
telling and retelling of their stories, are always a metaphor
for the builders of the pyramids, for the serpent footed
ones, the Dragons, the bright ones, the beings of light, the
masters of song, the mighty gods. It is a story which is
repeated in the Theban Saga, in the cycle of myths revolving
around Troy, and in the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts. It
can be seen most clearly, perhaps, in the tales of Kadmos,
Europa, and Dionysos, or in the story of Prometheus, but it
is also apparent in the tales of more obscure characters such
as Amphion and Zethos- the Dios Kouroi who raised the walls
of Thebes. Or, more precisely, it was Amphion who raised
those walls through the music of his lyre; thus providing us
with a clue, not only to the method used to raise those
pyramids, but also to the identity of the mysterious Amphion.
In Greek the word for God is theo, while thea means "to
view": the theatre is therefore the site where one may
witness the Mysteries of the God- his Passion Play. As
Kerenyi pointed out, the name Theia is "a word for precisely
that quality by virtue of which the gods were gods"; the
literal meaning of Theia is, therefore, "the Divine". That
quality which renders them divine is, of course, that they
can see; for the gods are the "seeing ones"- the Dragons, the
Mountain Wizards. Another word for divine in Greek is Dia;
which also means "heavenly". In addition, it means "day" and
"bright" and "shining" and "light of the sky" or "light of
the stars". It is the brightness of the upper atmosphere, the
light of Aither- the twilight glow that entered the world
prior to the light of the sun or the moon. It is the
brightness of their eyes, which shine with star-fire. It will
be remembered also that the gods are often referred to in the
Odyssey as beings of light. The word Dia has another meaning
as well; it means song, as in melody- "honey-song", or
tragedy- "goat-song". Thus for the Greeks it could be said
that music, God, and light were all the same and required
only one word. In Greek, the word Dia is spelled ; thus
the Greek word for song, God, and light begins with a
pyramid. It could not be any plainer: unless, of course, I
were also to point out that in Greek the word theo begins
with the letter ; the serpent at the center of the world-
the true god of mankind. It is the Thunderbolt.
In Greek the word dia is a preposition; it means
"through... during, across, over, by, etc.". The word
diabaterial, a sacrifice made "before crossing the border or
a river", is composed of two words: dia- "across", and
bateria- "go". It means, in short, to pass "beyond the
borders of a place"; thus Dionysos, who was also called
Orthos, the hound of Geryon, is the Guardian at the Gateway
to the Underworld: in the form of a dog he stands between
this world and the next. From the Greek diabolos is derived
the English word devil. Thus do the gods of the past become
the demons of today. Modern man may consider demons to be
evil spirits, but to the Greeks a daimon was "a god or
goddess... a tutelary deity", or, as Socrates well knew, "a
genius". The word dia also means two, as does the word deuce.
The anachronistic spelling of deuce is deus, which is Deus,
or God, while the adverb deucedly, or deusedly, means
devilish; thus rendering the entire matter so deucedly
confusing it would take a daimon to unravel it.
Thebes, of course, was not only the name of the city in
Greece founded by Kadmos, it was also the name of a great
city located in Upper Egypt. Thebes is said to have received
its name "from the extensive use of opium in Egypt"; for
opium, curiously enough, is the root meaning of the word
Thebes- it is a faery city surrounded by poppy fields. In
ancient times, the poppy was also called the Lotus blossom:
within the pyramid called Thebes lay the Land of the Lotus
Eaters. Although Thebes was originally called Kadmeia, the
name of the city was changed to Thebes in honor of the Nymph
Thebe, whose weakness was that same poppy. In the story of
Persephone, that flower was called a narcissus when it sprang
up, "a radiant wonder... to seduce the Maiden with the
rosebud countenance". She is that Rosebud- her name was the
last word that fell from the lips of Citizen Kane: they rode
downhill together; thus Orson Welles portrayed her as a sled.
It is said in a Hymn that:
All who beheld the flower, both gods and men, were
astonished. A hundred blossoms sprouted from its
root, sweet fragrance spread around it, the heavens
smiled and the earth and the salty flood of the
sea. With both hands the astonished maiden reached
out for this jewel.
As the Maiden reached out to pick that flower:
... the earth opened, a chasm appeared in the
Nysaen Fields, and from it sprang the Lord of the
Underworld with his many steeds, the god with many
names. He set the struggling maiden on his golden
chariot and carried her off despite her wails.
As Persephone, in picking flowers, became the flower
picked, so she herself was the precious jewel snatched that
day: now it may be truly said that the Jewel is in the Lotus-
om mani padme hum. It was not, of course, the true death that
Persephone experienced that day; nor did grim Hades- the "god
with many names"- really carry her off to the Underworld. The
dark world she sees around her is merely a reflection of her
own dark spirit; it is a hell of her own devising. Hades did
not kill his beloved, he merely got her stoned in order to
cure her of her narcissism; so that she might at last find a
love other than love of self.
As Kerenyi pointed out, the syllable delph- , is
associated with dolphins; it means a sea animal with a womb.
It is also the name of the most sacred Oracle in Greece,
Delphi, and of the Dragon slain there by the arrows of
Apollo- the Dragon called Delphyne. In case it is still not
clear, Delphi- or , is where the former larvae emerge as
sexually mature nymphs. Mating flights are not a part of the
human life cycle; there is no need for man to create such
stories, and yet, as we shall see, they are a staple of the
Greek myths. As mentioned earlier, in stories of the Giants,
or even in pictures of them, it is often difficult to tell
whether the lower body is intended to represent that of a
serpent, a dragon, or a dolphin. Apollo gained his priests by
leaping onto a ship as a huge dolphin, and then sailing it,
along with its crew, to Delphi. After being kidnapped by
pirates, Dionysos forced the crew to leap into the sea,
transforming them into dolphins. Only the helmsman, who had
recognized the god in the form of a man and urged the others
to free him, remained aboard. He became the acolyte of
Dionysos. That the word means music partially explains
how the pyramids were built- they were raised up by music, as
the lyre of Amphion raised the walls of Thebes: a story that
is simply a repetition, in saga form, of the raising of the
pyramids by the Giants, in this case the Dios Kouroi-
, Amphion and Zethos.
The raising of the pyramids by the music of the Dragons
is the secret which lies concealed behind that famous myth of
the contest between the Pieredes, daughters of Pieros and
Euhippe, and the Muses: a contest won, it will be recalled,
by the Muses. It was their victory in that contest, it will
also be recalled, that inspired Athene to engage in her own
disastrous agon with Arachne. Pireus claimed his daughters,
the Pieredes, were the real Muses; and they challenged the
Muses of Helikon to a contest. Their singing did not impress
the judges, the lovely Nymphs of the Mountain. When the Muses
began to sing, however, Mt. Helikon itself, an image or icon
of the Mountain of the Sun, i.e., the Great Pyramid, "grew up
to the sky with sheer delight at the song"- or , "until
Pegasus, by order of Poseidon, "stamped upon the top of the
mountain to stop its spectacular growth". It will be
remembered that Poseidon is often substituted for Phorkys,
the Father of Pegasus by the ravished Maid, Medousa. Rose
called the preceeding myth "an example of the
rubbish which an Alexandrian produced when he tried to
improve upon a myth". Rose called the preceeding myth rubbish
because, like everyone else (only somewhat more stridently
than most) he took the term mountain literally, failing to
understand that the Alexandrian has only tried to reveal,
through metaphor, the myth's esoteric meaning: that the
serpent people raised the pyramids with their music- their
piping. That music is their language; it requires no
instruments, for it pours forth from their own pipe-shaped
bodies. That is the true origin of the faery music, still
heard in songs such as the Wee-Wee Man.
When Pegasus stamped his foot on the top of the
Mountain- the Helikon, the pyramid was completed, the music
ceased, and a spring gushed forth from that pyramid. It was
not exactly water that leaped up from that spring at the top
of Mt. Helikon, the spring called Hippokrene in honor of
Pegasus and his mother, the Medousa, who, as Euhippe (i.e.,
Eurybia, i.e., Okypete) was the mother by Pieros (i.e.,
Iapetos) of the true Muses, not the false ones who only
appear later, after the true Muses have grown wings and taken
off for their mating flight, their larval period over.
Instead, the water that flowed from the pyramid was the water
referred to in the myth of Indra, the Parade of the Ants- the
Great Waters, the Mana of the world. And the question must
then be asked: did the water flow out, or did the poet simply
tell it that way, blending it with the mountain imagery, in
order to conceal the real truth- that it flowed in? It is
said in the Parade of the Ants that the Titans hoarded the
mana- the water of life. It is also said, in the myth of
Indra and the Great Dragon Vritra, that the Dragons hoarded
the great waters until Indra, i.e., Zeus, slew it with the
Thunderbolt: after which he ran for his life, from fear of
the Mother. Even our English words for Mountain and Mother,
it might be mentioned, still carry the mark of the pyramid,
only you have looked at these letters so long you no longer
see the picture they present: you perceive the letter, but
not the spirit behind the letter- a grievous error, and one
that could never occur in Chinese.
So then, in retrospect, we have seen that the first
verse of the Theogony, in which we are told of the emergence
of the primal powers of the universe, tells us also of the
birth of the Giants through the metaphor of the snowy peaks
of Mt. Olympos- the ejaculating phallus called Ouranos, and
the peaks that spring up therefrom- the Giants. That the
mountain peaks are a metaphor for the Titans, whose name
means "Day", is confirmed by the presence of Hemera, whose
name also means "Day". The second verse, listing the next
generation- Heaven and Sea from Earth, also tells of the
birth of the Giants, for it, too, contains a veiled, if it
can be so called, metaphor of the Giants: for again, featured
prominently between Heaven and Sea (Ouranos and Pontus)
comes the birth of Mountain- the home on earth of the Giants
and their lovely companions, the Nymphs. That Mountain is the
omphalos, the pyramid. It should be kept in mind that there
are two definitions for the word Nymph. It is, on the one
hand, "a semi-divine maiden living in the sea or woods". On
the other hand, it is "a young insect that resembles its
parents in form". It will be recalled that the name of one of
the Graiai, the "Old Women" from whom Perseus learned the way
to the Medousa, was Pemphredo, which is the name of a species
of wasp. Finally, after the appearance of the high mountains,
the abode of the Nymphs, we have the birth of the Giants
proper, but in a multitude of forms- Kyklopes,
Hekatoncheires, Titans, and the children of Pontus- the Sea
Giants.
The first generation of Giants- Ouranos and Ourania,
bring forth the Nymph. The Father and the Maid are wed and
bring forth the next generation of Giants- Perses, Helios,
etc., and the Titans, i.e., Krios, for there is in truth only
one Son. The Son of that union, by whatever name he is
called, and the former Nymph who is now the Mother,
(Aphrodite, Eurybia) are wed in turn: it is the marriage of
Perses and Asterie, of Krios and Eurybia. And now a new
Daughter, a new Nymph, is born, Persephone, who unites with
her Father, the Son of the old Mother. It is the marriage of
Persephone and Perses; now Dionysos is born. He in turn
unites with the Mother, Persephone, to bring forth the new
Daughter, the Nymph called Ariadne, and now the myth is over;
or, actually, it has just begun, for now we are back at the
beginning of the cycle, the mythic cycle, and the new Maid
will become the Mother through her union with the Father.
Together they will produce a new Son- Telemachos, a Son who
was once only a distant goal but whose day is rapidly drawing
nearer. That is the life cycle of our incestous creators, the
Dragons- the serpent race. That is the mystery unlocked by
the key to the genealogies, the key held by Zervan Akarana-
"Lord of Boundless Time". Soon I will give you that key: that
key which unlocks the meaning of life itself, the key that
will release you at last from the Labyrinth of the material
world.
The first verse of the Theogony is therefore read
correctly as a tale of the arrival on earth of Ouranos and
Ourania, the Son and his Mother. In addition to being his
Mother, she is, of course, the Daughter of his Father. Their
coming is symbolized by the snowy peaks of Olympos,
representing both the castrated phallus of Akmon, and the new
Son, Akmonides- Ouranos himself. That sacred Mountain is the
home of his bride, Ourania, who can only be Gaia, emerging
from the sea as Aphrodite. And indeed in the second verse
Mountain is born from the earth: that Mountain is the
pyramid, the nest of the serpent children- Pandora's box. The
connection between Mountain and Ouranos is made clear by the
name of Mountain in Greek- Urea, for urea is the crystalline
complex found in the urine of mammals. It is the Golden
Shower that pours down upon the earth as mana, the mana from
which Orion was born, and Perses also: the Golden Shower from
which the pyramids arose at the song of the Muses. The first
two verses of the Theogony therefore constitute simply a
foreshadowing, or a metaphor, of the third generation that
arises in the Theogony- the Giants, i.e., the Titans,
Kyklopes, Hekatoncheires and the Sea Giants. All these
births, however, occur after the castration of Ouranos has
taken place (as previously explained) for all these Giants,
if indeed they are not merely one set of Giants by a variety
of different names (as the one set is itself one Giant by
three different names) emerge from the drops of blood that
hit the earth, while from the phallus that plunged to the sea
Aphrodite emerged.
Unmentioned in the Theogony, the story of the birth of
the Kabeiroi, Daktyloi, etc., from the fingers of Rhea
digging into the earth, is itself simply a metaphor for the
drops of blood that fell to earth like stones from the
castrated phallus of the sky, striking the earth and emerging
as Giants. It is, once again, a repetition of the birth of
the Giants. Whereas in the previous version, after the
castration of Ouranos, stones, i.e., drops of blood, struck
the earth to emerge as Giants, now it is the fingers of the
Great Mother which dig into the earth. From the union of her
fingers with the Mountain, Giants arise, or perhaps in this
case dwarves. It is only a repetition of the earlier myth,
while at the same time it contains a subtle reference to the
serpent race, for they are finger-shaped, and it is from
these "fingers" whirling their way into the ground that the
Giants emerged, after their underground larval stage was
finished; thus explaining the puzzling emphasis on fingers in
paintings ranging from Durer's 1498 self-portriat to Da
Vinci's Mona Lisa, and from Gaugin's Two Tahitian Beauties to
Renoir's Two Sisters on the Terrace.
The name Daktyloi also contains a veiled reference to
their true size; for it will be remembered that in the Wee-
Wee Man their legs are described as being "scarce a finger's
length", while between their "shoulders inches three": their
"shoulders" representing in this case the measurement along
the vertical axis of the body, not the width of the segment
directly behind the head, for it will also be remembered that
between their "eyes, a pea couldn't go". Of course, a pea is
a fairly large object to place between the eyes of such a
small creature. Therefore, in addition to their small size,
the line regarding their eyes acquires even more meaning if
these alien beings have in fact only one eye. Clearly, the
stones falling from the sky that buried themselves in the
ground and reemerged as Giants, are transformed in the story
of the Daktyloi into the fingers of the Great Mother digging
into the Holy Mountain and the Kouretes or Korybants who
emerge from that Mountain at the birth of the Divine Child.
Indeed, it must have seemed more reasonable to later
interpreters of the myth to credit Gaia with the birth of the
Giants, the serpents, for they did indeed arise from her, but
by doing so the celestial origin of the Daktyloi, Kabeiroi,
etc., that they are the Giants born from the drops of blood
that fell from the stars and struck the earth at the
castration of Ouranos, was also disguised, and perhaps
deliberately so. It is their celestial origin which explains
why the "blesed gods" were always portrayed as winged beings,
dressed in black robes of deepest night, sparkling with
brightly shining stars. Modern man has never taken seriously
enough the winged status of the ancient gods: it was not an
embillishment.
The story of how the Giants arrived on our world, the
story of the Fathers of Mankind, is repeated again and again
throughout the myths. The stories of Prometheus bringing fire
to the stones Deucalion and Pyrrha threw behind them, of
Kadmos sowing dragon's teeth and then throwing a stone
amongst the warriors that sprang up therefrom at Thebes, and
of Jason performing the exact same act- with the exact same
teeth- at Colchis, are but different versions of the same
myth; for there is in truth only one myth. Different names
and different places, disguised sometimes as the creation of
mankind or even, in saga form, of local populations, but no
matter whether stones or dragon teeth are employed as the
metaphor, it remains, nonetheless, the same story with the
same faces; for the figures of saga, from the Theban Cycle to
the Cycle of Troy, are simply local forms of the myths of the
Giants, the serpent race- the Dragons.
And so it appears that the rain of stones, the drops of
blood from the castrated phallus of heaven, the sowing of the
Dragon's teeth and the emergence therefrom of the Giants- the
children of the Dragon- upon the face of the earth, is the
true story within the story of the Greek myths in general,
and the Theogony in particular. The central importance of the
mountain born, mountain rearing Giants and their companions,
the beautiful Ash-Nymphs of the mountains, is confirmed by
the opening lines to the Theogony, the invocation to the
Muses. Also demonstrated is the central role of music:
Let us now begin our singing with the Helikonian
Muses/
who are frequenters of Helikon, a mountain high and
holy/
as they dance around some spring's dark water on
soft feet/
and around the sacred altar of the Mighty Son of
Kronos./
The Theogony begins with music, the singing of the
Nymphs, the song that caused Mt. Helikon to grow until
Pegasus stamped his feet and caused a spring to gush forth.
Mt. Helikon is the Great Pyramid itself, raised by the song
of the Nymphs- it is the "mountain high and holy"; it is the
"sacred altar of the Mighty Son of Kronos". When the pyramid
was raised, the singing stopped and a spring burst forth. It
was not a spring of mountain water. The dark waters that
poured forth from the top of the pyramid were the cosmic
waters of life, the mana: a Golden Shower that ushered in the
Golden Age upon the Earth. Or were those other tales true,
and was that water dark because it flowed in the other
direction, along the umbilical cord into the pyramid, the
"sacred altar of the Mighty Son of Kronos", there to feed the
children of the Dragon? Are they pedagogues, or interstellar
parasites? And if they are interstellar parasites whose lives
are predicated on the principle of will to power and complete
disregard for the needs of other species, would man, the
child of the Dragon, of all living creatures on earth, have
any cause for complaint? After all, man has predicated his
own life, and his conduct towards all other species on the
planet, on that same principle of will to power: that is why
the Dragon is also called Dike- "Justice", which in Egyptian
is rendered as "Ma'at". There is also one amongst you, a poor
man, a small man, not one of the mighty or powerful (or so,
at least, it would appear, but appearances at the banquet can
be deceiving) who has come here in search of justice. He has
yet to find it. It is to be hoped he finds it soon.
It will, I hope, come as no surprise at this point to
learn that the name of Pegasus, most magical of horses, is
itself a clever pun, derived from pais or paid- "child", and
pege-"spring", for he is the child of that spring from which
all things come. In other words, he came into existence at
the fountain of Okeanos. The Ocean that surrounds the earth
(not Pontus- the raging sea, but Okeanos, engirdling Ocean)
is the sea of stars. That is where Pegasus emerged after he
had been eaten by the Mother: eaten and then excreted.
Pegasus knew what your wise men do not know: he knew what it
meant "to be Thick as a Brick". And again, there is a
connection with stone, for peganite is the hydrous phosphate
of aluminum, occuring in crystalline crusts of a green color,
while peganonai means to be stiff or solid, which is what
happened to those who encountered the Medousa- the Mother of
Pegasus. That Atlas was turned to stone by the Mask of the
Medousa when Bellerophon flew past the Titan, mounted on
Pegasus, identifies Atlas as the Father of Eurybia- the
Medousa, for the Father is always immobilized by the Nymph
before she kills him, as Agamemnon was immobilized by
Klytaimnestra when she dressed him in ceremonial robes,
preparing him for the sacrifice. Pegasus, the new Son, bore
upon his back the mask of the Medousa, the aegis, which in
Greek means "conductor", or "guide"; thus Pegasus is also a
pedagogue- a teacher of children: a teacher of the Way- .
Bellerophon's name means "voice of war": he is Ares, who
was also called Enyalios. Under that name he was the husband
of Enyo, one of the three Graiai and the goddess of war; her
Latin name is Bellona. Bellerophon, Perseus, Perses, and
Ares, are simply different names for the same god.
Bellerophon, the son of Perseus, flew through the sky on the
back of Pegasus, a winged horse, though he could ride him
only with the assistance of Athene, who provided him with a
magic bridle. Perseus himself wore winged sandals in his
battle with the Medousa, the Mother, and also in his battle
with the sea monster when he won the hand of the Nymph
Andromeda- "ruler of men", the mother of Bellerophon.
Bellerophon, of course, did not ride a winged horse, nor did
Perseus possess a pair of winged sandals: their wings are
their own, as is also the case with Hermes, who not only
possessed a pair of winged sandals but made a huge pair of
misshapen sandals to disguise his tracks when he stole the
cattle of the Sun. One of those sandals fell off his foot
when, as Jason, he rescued cow-faced Hera from the Underworld
and carried her back across the river that separates the land
of the living from the land of the dead.
The story of the Giant's arrival on earth is the story
of the Dragon race- the wise serpents who came down from the
stars and taught man agriculture, gave him the plow, mutated
the wild grasses into wheat, and controlled the rainfall;
thus making possible the birth of human civilization. They
are the intertwining serpents responsible for the very
structure of man's genetic code; their story is repeated
throughout the Theogony and, indeed, throughout the entire
range of the Greek Mythos. From the Mountains to the Titans
to the Giants to their children, taking us from the coming of
Ouranos to the raising of the pyramid (the building of the
nest, or hive) the mountain cave wherein the Divine Child was
born, the king who brought honey to mankind and "touched our
eyes with healing", is all one story: the story of the
Dragons- Giants who walked the earth in days of old. Moving
from the third generation of Giants, the "snowy peaks of Mt.
Olympos", i.e., Ouranos, through the fourth generation- the
"high mountains", i.e., the Nymphs within the Nest, the fifth
generation- the Titans, Kyklopes, Hekatoncheires and the Sea
Giants, along with their descendants of the sixth generation-
Perses, Asterios, Pallas, (the Giants proper) into the
seventh generation- Persephone, the eighth generation-
Dionysos, and, finally, Ariadne in the ninth generation,
takes us through the entire mythic cycle. It is the story of
that alien race, and reveals within its structure the life-
cycle of their species: the life cycle of the Dragon.
Even Zeus, whom I have largely ignored so far in order
to emphasize the importance of the Giants to a hermeneutical
understanding of the Greek myths, is himself transformed into
a Giant. For although he was brought into the Mediterranean
region by the Aryans, he clearly did not overcome the ancient
gods but was simply subsumed into the cult of the Cretan
Divine Child as yet another name for the Kouros. Not only was
he present in Crete as early as 1500 B.C., he was already
addressed in inscriptions of that time as "Dictaen Zeus": a
title which explicitly associates his birth with the fingers
of the Great Mother, the Daktyloi, the Drakuloi- the falling
stones that buried themselves in the earth and reemerged as
Giants to raise mountains on the earth- pyramids. Perhaps the
true story behind that most puzzling of all births in the
annals of Greek Mythology- the birth of Athene, the duaghter
of Metis, from the head of Zeus, will also now be rendered
clear; she was born when the hammer struck the pyramid: that
hammer which strikes like a tuning fork, a hammer wielded by
her father- Prometheus. The tale that she was born from Zeus
as he lay beside a mountain peak on the shore of the River
Triton was not intended to still further disguise the strange
manner of her birth, as Kerenyi maintained, but to clarify
it.
After the appearance of Dionysos and Ariadne, the mythic
cycle is simply repeated again and again in saga form,
involving a bewildering multitude of characters; but in truth
that cycle comes to a close with the union between Dionysos
and Ariadne. After that union there are no new stories, only
repetitions of the old ones. The following chart clearly
reveals the incestous life-cycle of the Dragons: the life-
cycle that provides the foundation for the mythos which lies
concealed at the heart of the world's great religions:
A. Keto + Phorkys= Eurybia
B. Phorkys + Eurybia= Perses
C. Eurybia + Perses= Persephone
D. Perses + Persephone= Dionysos
E. Persephone + Dionysos= Ariadne
F. Dionysos + Ariadne
With Dionysos and Ariadne we come to the new mating pair. He
flies off to the stars, while she remains waiting for him
within the maternal cave: when he returns the cycle will
begin again. That day is swiftly approaching. The story can
now be repeated in a variety of locales, using a variety of
different names to disguise the divine origin of the
characters involved, or simply to disguise the nature of the
relationships between characters: as Eurybia is normally
called Asterie in Row C, in order to conceal her incestous
relationship with her Son, Perses, just as she is called the
Medousa in Row B in order to disguise her incestous
relationship with her Father, Phorkys. Although carefully
concealed by the ancient authors of the myths, the life-cycle
of the Dragon is still discernible at the heart of the
myths surrounding Thebes, from its construction to its
downfall, and likewise for Troy; for both cities, though
real, historical cities, are also metaphors for the pyramids
and those who built them. Thus the walls of Thebes were
raised by music- , while the walls of Troy were built by
the gods- , as it was the gods who raised the pyramids
with their music.
The life cycle of the Dragons, the mating ritual at the
heart of the myths, stretches out into eternity, as do the
myths themselves, rising from their own ashes and repeating
themselves again and again: always different permutations of
the pattern but the pattern itself, the pattern that
determines the permutations, does not change. That same
pattern can be traced throughout the entire course of the
Greek Mythos. There are no new characters after Dionysos and
Ariadne leave the surface of the earth- he for the stormy sea
of stars, she for the shelter of the maternal cave- "there to
sleep, perchance to dream": leaving mankind to await the day
of their reunion, when a Golden Shower will fall from the
moon once again, to bring forth Giants upon the earth and
begin the cycle anew. The story beneath the myths is the
story of the Giants and their beautiful, if dangerous
companions: the lovely Nymphs who, in their charming mountain
retreat, await the coming of those Giants. It is the story of
the serpent folk, their arrival on this world, the effects of
that arrival, and their eventual departure. And now they have
returned, though the Mothers have never been far from man;
even now they "orbit the earth"- spinning overhead "on the
dark side of the Moon". But before we return to our own time,
we must continue our journey through the Labyrinth of the
Greek myths, in quest of the key that will eventually allow
us to emerge from that Labyrinth back into the light. We must
pluck that key from the hand of Zervan Akarana himself.
With Dionysos and Ariadne, the new mating pair, taking
wing and leaving the earth behind, she for the mountain hall
of high Olympos, he for the Great Ocean of the Stars (leaving
the world, and his daughter- the Mother of the next cycle, to
await the day when, like the Salmon King, he returns to spawn
and begin the cycle of myth anew) we have come to the end of
the previous cycle and stand on the threshold of a new one.
In order to discover how that new cycle will begin, we must
turn back and discover how the previous one started. We have
used the Greek alphabet itself, the structure of the letters,
to acquire a deeper insight into the hermeneutical meaning of
the Greek myths, the pyramids, the Dragons, and the
relationship between the myths and the Dragons. It is said
that these letters, the Greek alphabet itself- a surprisingly
ideogramatic alphabet- were given to the Greeks by Kadmos,
the father of Dionysos. Kadmos came to Greece from Phoenicia,
the land of the Phoenix, and the legend of the Phoenix bird
may well be applicable to the return of the new mating pair,
to the coming day of Ragnarok. It will be remembered that
there is a mythical insect called the pyralis that lives on
fire. It is said that the Phoenix bird is consumed by fire
and then rises from its own ashes. It may well be that the
Dragons require an intense heat in which to incubate their
young. How do they produce enough heat to provide a proper
breeding place for their young- beings who live on fire?
It will be recalled that when Jupiter was about to
destroy the human race with his thunderbolts, he hesitated
and chose to drown the world by flood instead; for fear that
"so many fiery bolts" might set fire to the upper atmosphere
and "send the whole vault of heaven up in flames". It is said
that "he remembered, too, one of fate's decrees, that a time
would come when sea and earth and the dome of the sky would
blaze up, and the massive structure of the universe collapse
in ruins". We now know that the dinosaurs, along with almost
every other living creature on earth, were destroyed when a
comet struck our planet. It was not, as was originally
thought, a long, cold, dark winter which killed the
dinosaurs. As we also now know, both from the geological
record and from the impact of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on
Jupiter, the impact of the comet created an enormous cloud of
vaporized rock, heated to a super high temperature. That
cloud of vaporized rock first encircled the globe, then fell
back to earth in a rain of fire, a golden shower, setting the
entire earth ablaze. In the span of a few hours time, almost
all life on earth was extinguished by a vapor of burning
rock. The breeding ground of the Phoenix was now prepared.
They need the heat to be born. Thus you were warned:
Get out of the heat.
When the rats are running
and the boys are gunning
for heads on a tin plate---
you can hear the footfall
softly in the back yard.
And the black jack is called
face up on the last card.
You'd better call your witness
in your dirty business.
Trop tard sera le cri.
Better run while you can---
better set the tall sail.
Better make deep cover
before the boys have you nailed....
Now can you feel the pressure?
Have you got the measure
of being a wanted man?
Cold drink in your hand-
hot sweat on your brow
And there's no understanding
going to help you now.
Grab your credit cards-
cash in on your resources.
Take your passport from the drawer,
don't stop to change the horses.
Notify all parties
of an earlier vacation.
No use trying to board the train
after it's left the station.
Get out of the heat.
They will throw a meteor at the earth; it will start a
blaze that will consume the world- "too late will be the
cry". From the ashes the Phoenix will rise and begin the
cycle anew. That is the true "hard rain" that's "a gonna'
fall"- "softly in the back yard". Then the chosen will "slip
into the shade, and sip their lemonade"- the Golden Mana. But
no need to join those who would only "run and hide their
heads, they might as well be dead, when the rain comes- I
don't mind". The explosions on Jupiter occured quite
recently. It would be purely speculative to assume that these
explosions represent anything more than the random
movements of particles in the solar system. On the other hand,
the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter may very well be a
sign that the Dragon has returned to the solar system to spawn,
for the last half of the name of that comet, Levy-9, is a pun
on one of the old names for the Dragon- Leviathan; and surely
you recall the story of the Shoemaker and the Elves? As
should by obvious by now, the Dragons relish nothing so much
as a good pun, but those puns inevitably have a bite to them.
Robert Heinlein, the late Grandmaster of science fiction
(which this book is more and more beginning to resemble) not
only wrote that masterpiece of alien invasion, The Puppet
Masters, in which small, finger-shaped, multi-legged,
arthropodic, wormlike, nightmare things from outer space
lodge themselves in the bodies of various key human leaders
in much the same manner as the Thunderbolt is lodged in the
chest of the Vajra Dharu- Zervan Akarana, he also wrote
another science fiction classic entitled the Moon is a Harsh
Mistres. In that novel, the colonists on the moon (the penal
colony for the world of the future, as Australia was for
England) constructed a catapult and threw stones down upon
the earth. As we are informed by Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis,
the hero of the novel (along with Valentine Michael Smith of
Stranger in a Strange Land fame, now incarnated as a computer
named Mike but still a formidable solipsist) "the location of
that catapult is the most closely guarded secret on Luna". It
is one secret that will not be revealed herein, for it is one
secret the Mothers did not choose to entrust me with,
knowing, as they did, that I would betray that trust along
with all others.
Manuel Garcia, it should be mentioned, had an artificial
left arm, allowing for the attachment of a variety of hands:
he is a Daktyl, one of the hundred-handers. Manuel, of
course, means hand: he is also called Manny, or Man. Robert
Heinlein well deserved his title; he was one of the knowers:
not for nothing did Charles Manson himself name one of his
children after Valentine Michael Smith- Heinlein was Manson's
Jubal Harshaw. The story of the Dragons is not just a story,
it is the reality we live in; indeed, it is only because of
that story, the myth of the Dragons, that we have any reality
at all. Considering the vast gulf that stretches between man
and the Dragon, surely the differences which divide the races
of men must seem petty in comparison? Have I succeeded in
giving you, at long last, a reason to stand shoulder to
shoulder with each other? If I have, then do not be afraid to
stand shoulder to shoulder with the Dragon also; for just as
"there's a beast upon my shoulder, and a fiend upon my back",
so there is also "an angel on my shoulder, in my hands a
sword of gold".
A word about the Dragon Fathers: their love is strong
enough that they are willing to die for it. A word about the
Nymphs: their love is strong enough that they are willing to
kill for it. Love is paramount for them. now they are
returning. they will come to us with a bright face or a dark
face, with the mana or the fire. How can they reveal
themselves openly to us, who are so different from us, whose
very appearance terrifies us and fills our worst nightmares,
if we cannot even learn to love one another, who are all
children of the same parents? If we wish to take our rightful
place among the stars and join the community of planets, if
we do not wish to remain a pariah world forever- the
monstrous child hidden within the box, we must learn to love,
not only one another, an art we have so far sadly failed to
master, we must also learn to love our enemy- the Dragon, as
ourselves: the day is coming when man and the Dragon must
again become as one.
As devotees of Star Trek are aware, the Prime Directive
forbids interference with native cultures, but in truth it is
only open interference that is prohibited. For thousands of
years they have been trying, behind the scenes, to teach the
Way to an ignorant mankind. If we cannot learn that lesson,
then, as Ovid and Robert Heinlein tried to warn you, the Old
Ones will destroy the human race and raise up a new stock of
men. From the ashes and the dust they made us, and can raise
us up again; yes, from the very stones we walk upon. Let no
man, therefore, look upon himself as above any other, for all
men are as far beneath the Dragons as the cattle are beneath
us, as the Dragons themselves are beneath what we call the
Way, or Love: the Divine Child Krishna who spoke so kindly
and patiently to Indra, Lord of the Thunderbolts. For even
the Dragons, the Thunderbolts, the Ants in the Palace of
Indra, are servants of Love; therefore man must become, like
the Dragon, a steward to the Earth and to all the living
things that dwell there. Only then will we burst forth from
the chrysalis that now confines us and spread wide our
butterfly wings for the stars:
Oh, we are mirrors in the sun
and we brightly shine
we go singing and dancing
in perfect time.
There is nothing in the world
that we can't do.
Just let the light of love
come shining through.
Returning to the Theogony, it must now be clear that we
do not have to reach even its first verse to know of the
essential role that will be played therein by the Giants and
the Nymphs: to know of their descent from the stars and the
pyramids they raised when they arrived on our world; it is
revealed already in the invocation to the Muses. That the
Theogony begins with an invocation to the Muses, the Nymphs
of Mt. Helikon, is no accident, no empty piece of ritual; nor
is that invocation simply a bit of pretty poetry placed
thoughtlessly at the beginning to the most profound religious
text the Greeks possessed. Instead, it is a vital clue as to
the manner in which that sacred book is meant to be read, for
by introducing them first and foremost, it throws into bold
relief the book's two main characters: the Mountains, or
Giants who emerged therefrom, and their charming companions,
the Muses- the Nymphs of the Mountain, the Serpent Nymphs
who sing and play in the Garden within the Mountain, the Garden
of the Evening where grows the Tree which harbors in its
branches the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil: that
fruit which falls from the tree of Perses. What is the fruit of that
Tree? Dying for love of another- or killing for love
of another. That was the fruit the Father forbid her to eat:
the fruit that, above all others, he desired her to eat. Am I
understood? He forbid it precisely so she would desire it,
for if he had offered it to her openly she would have refused
it out of fear.
That Garden is said to have been located by Mt. Atlas,
which has been misidentified with the Mt. Atlas to the West,
in Morocco, which was named after the true Mt. Atlas-
the Titan himself. Atlas stood guard over the Garden of the
Hesperides until Bellerophon flew past him on Pegasus and
turned him into a mountain of stone- the Great Pyramid.
Atlas still stood watch over that sacred garden, however, for
the Garden of the Hesperides, where the fruit of immortality
is found- the Golden Apples of the Sun (and the fruit of
death- the Silver Apples of the Moon) the magic fruit guarded
by the Serpent Ladon (i.e., Leviathan) lay inside the Great
Pyramid itself. There the Dragons, in their larval stage,
were fed upon the "dark waters", the mana (now dark instead
of golden, because it is being absorbed from the world- not
given to it) through the umbilical cord that was connected to
the omphalos- the navel of the world. Beneath that navel,
within the womb, was the nest of the Dragons, their base upon
the earth: the Hall of Olympos. There lived the Muses, whose
songs remind us of things "long ago forgotten", for they hold
in their heart the living memory of the race. Some of the old
folk tunes, it is said, were not born of this earth; they
came from the stars, as the one-legged flutist:
Came down from the sky
to cry you a song.
What lies behind folk music's enduring power, a power
which, in the hands of a Master such as Bob Dylan, can still
move the world? In it is contained the remnants of faery
music: the music of those kings, sometimes tiny, sometimes
huge, who reside within the hall of the Magic Mountain- the
hall of the serpent folk. That Magic Mountain is, literally,
the Great Pyramid itself, and now the gates which for so long
barred man's entrance to the sacred garden within have
tumbled at last. We stand face to face with the return of the
King: the day is fast approaching when we must account to him
for our actions as stewards of the earth. Will he come to
heal our world- or destroy it? Or will the healing lie in the
destruction of the material world itself? He is here now, a
man small in stature but mighty in deeds: his women did not
lie when they called him "the strongest man in the world". He
is the Kratos; he is the Dragon; he is Dionysos; he is Jesus;
he is Charles Manson; and placing him in prison may not have
been the wisest course for man to pursue.
You cannot confine your demons forever; the day is
coming when you must liberate them, confront them, and by so
doing turn your dragons into butterflies. I, too, once fell
asleep and dreamed I was a butterfly, wrapped within a golden
chrysalis. Not long ago I awoke from my dream, and ever since
I have wondered which is my true self: the man or the butterfly?
Or are we truly the two in one- the butterly
within me and I its chrysalis? You may think I'm crazy, but
others, too, have shared that dream, as is well attested to
by the following song:
My analyst told me
that I was right out of my head.
The way he described it
he said I'd be better dead
than live.
I didn't listen to his jive
I knew all along
that he was all wrong
and I knew that he thought
I was crazy but I'm not-
oh no.
My analyst told me
that I was right out of my head.
He said I need treatment
but I'm not that easily led.
He said I was the type
that was most inclined
when out of his sight
to be out of my mind
and he thought I was nuts
no more ifs or ands or buts.
They say as a child
I appeared a little bit wild
with all my crazy ideas
but I knew what was happening
I knew I was a genius.
What's so strange when you know
that you're a wizard at three?
I knew that this was meant to be.
Now I heard little children
were supposed to sleep tight
that's why I got into
the vodka one night.
My parents got frantic
didn't know what to do
but I saw some crazy things
before I came to, now
Do you think I was crazy?
I may have been only three
but I was swinging....
They all laughed at Edison
and also at Einstein.
So why should I feel sorry
if they just couldn't understand
the idiomatic logic
that went on in my head....
Oh they used to laugh at me
when I refused to ride
on all those double-decker buses
because there was no driver on the top.
"What? No driver on the top?"
"Man, the chick is twisted, crazy.... you hear?
Flip city!"
My analyst told me
that I was right out of my head.
But I said, "Dear Doctor,
I think that it's you instead.
Because I have got a thing
that's unique and new
to prove that I'll have the
last laugh on you
cause instead of one head
I've got two.
And you know two heads
are better than one.
Pegasus, it will be recalled, emerged from the body of
the Medousa only after her head was cut off by her Son,
Perses. When the pyramid had reached its proper height,
Pegasus stamped his feet, the music stopped, the pyramid
ceased to grow, and a spring burst forth from the top of the
pyramid- a Golden Shower, the Hippocrene. Only this time it
was not a Golden Shower, but a dark spring, for on this
occasion the sacrifice was not performed in the normal
manner; the Golden Mana did not flow out to be shared by the
world at the death of the Lion of the Sun, the marriage of
the Sun and the Moon; instead it flowed in, and the mana was
absorbed by the Great Dragon. The mana has not yet been
returned to the world: that is why there is no magic.
But what has happened here? How did we end up; "Living
in the Material World"? How was the sacrifice switched and
who could have done such a thing? Most importantly, why was
it done? To answer these questions, we must understand the
ancient sacrificial ritual that fed the world: a sacrificial
rite that was also a mating ritual, a fertility rite for the
world, only it was not just a ritual- it actually worked; for
the death of the Father provided the world with the mana:
that mana is his own golden blood. Although the true Muses
may have abandoned the earth long ago, the echoes of that
sacrificial rite can still be heard in the music they left
behind- folk music. We have seen already how the name and
story of Perses was preserved in the well known folk song
Scarborough Fair. There is another plant, barley, which
sounds much like parsley, and a drink made from barley was
the first drink that passed the lips of Demeter after the
disappearance of her Daughter, when she came at last in her
grief to Eleusis and initiated mankind into the Mysteries,
Mysteries which were an imitation of the marriage ritual of
the Dragons. In the following folk song, with its rustic
charm, echoes of that ritual, and even, through the mention
of barley, its relationship with Perses, the son of the
Medousa, may still be heard::
First the Farmer sows his seed
then he stands and takes his ease
stamps his feet and claps his hands
and turns around to view the land
waiting for the Partner.
Oats and beans and barley grows
as you and I and everyone knows
oats and beans and barley grows
as you and I and everyone knows
waiting for the partner.
In sowing his seed, the farmer is, of course, shedding
semen- "ourein". He is the ejaculating phallus Ouranos; he
may also be called Iapetos, for the name Iapetos means
"thrower of stones": those stones are the Dragon seed called
in saga the teeth of the Dragon. The song refers to the
sowing of the seed that led to the birth of Dragons from the
womb of the earth- the birth of the Mountain born Giants.
Next the farmer "stamps his feet and claps his hands": the
stamping feet of Pegasus- the clap of thunder that presages
the male's release of the Golden Shower, the flow of mana
that recreated the Faery Kingdom at the end of each cycle,
the Golden Mana that formed the mountain called in the Greek
Urea. It will be remembered, of course, that after the wee-
wee man "clapped his hands, down came the mist". And now,
after shedding his seed, the stones that fell from the
castrated phallus of Akmon, he waits for the partner that
will come from the stones, from the pyramid that arose from
those stones. Of course, that partner is already there; it is
she who performed that castration; but, as is often the case
even in the myths, the actual castration is eliminated in
order that it will fit within a human framework; thus
disguising its true origin.
It is true, as nearly every marginalized and many
serious thinkers on the pyramids have long suspected, that
the pyramids were a vital, indeed the vital part of an energy
system. But the pyramids did not generate energy, or gather
it for transmission elsewhere, as nearly all these thinkers
have suggested. Instead, the pyramids were the receptacles of
the world's energy- the mana of the world, the mana upon
which the Dragon was raised, its nectar and ambrosia. For
within the pyramids were the children of the Dragons, the
children of the sky-god, confined within that underground
chamber like Oinopion, or Eurystheus, or the Daktyl Ares.
They are the serpent children confined within the chest, and
all who have opened this forbidden box have gone mad with
terror; for it is man's worst nightmare come true. This is
the true core of the tragic world view expressed in the
Dionysian wisdom of Silenus, and it is, in all truth, a
tragedy born from music:
Living mountains going to shake that town-
Big mother calling you from underground.
She don't want trouble, she don't need no fuss
but she's wounded, old and she's treacherous.
Here we must keep in mind that other meaning of the word
omphalos, or Olympos, the home of the gods: it is not only
the centerpoint of the world, it is, literally, the world's
navel, the navel from which the lotus blossom blooms, and to
that navel is attached an umbilical cord, as in the Greek
letter . For mankind the pyramids are a tomb, but for the
Dragons they are a tomb and a birthplace. They emerge from
their Underground lair when their larval stage is over, and
on jeweled wings they take to the air to mate. But before
they sprout wings and emerge from the earth, while they are
still in larval form, within the pyramid or beneath it, the
children of the Dragons require sustenance. That sustenance
reached them through the umbilical cord that was,
metaphorically speaking, attached to the Omphalos, as is
shown in the name of its location- Delphi, or . First
there is the pyramid, then the serpent, then the pyramid with
the umbilical cord attached- the children of the Dragon
concealed within, where the womb of the earth, the
Underworld, has now been opened. Then, sprouting wings, the
Nymph leaves the pyramid and takes to the air, calling the
Old One from the Sea, like a moth to the flame:
The leaded window opened
to move the dancing candle flame
And the first Moths of summer
suicidal came
And a new breeze chattered
in its May-bud tenderness
Sending water-lilies sailing
as she turned to get undressed.
And the long night awakened
and we soared on powdered wings
Circling our tomorrows
in the wary month of Spring
Chasing shadows slipping
in a magic lantern slide
Creatures of the candle
on a night-light-ride
Dipping and weaving- flutter
through the golden needle's eye
in our haystack madness, butterfly-stroking
on a Spring-tide high
Life's too long (as the Lemming said)
as the candle burned and the Moths were wed
And we'll all burn together as the wick grows
higher/
before the candle's dead
The leaded window opened
to move the dancing candle flame
And the first moths of summer
suicidal came
to join in worship
of the light that never dies
in a moment's reflection
of two Moths spinning in her eyes.
Thus is revealed the true meaning of the oracle of Delphi,
guarded by Delphyne the Dragon, i.e., the Sphinx, and unread
by man for over two thousand years. Who is the Sphinx? She is
the Phix, "the Strangler", so called because she is the
sphincter that the male had to traverse in order to come out
the other side- "Thick as a Brick".
The mating ritual of the Dragon took place millenia ago,
in the dim and distant past; could the children of the
Dragon still lie buried beneath the omphalos? Eos, the
goddess of the dawn (who, as we shall see, may also be
identified with Aphrodite and Demeter) won from Zeus the gift
of immortality for her lover Tithonus. Unfortunately, she
forgot to ask Zeus to give him eternal youth as well, and so
he continued to age, growing smaller and smaller, until Eos
finally locked him within a chamber. From that chamber
Tithonus (i.e., the Titan) eventually reemerged as a cicada,
a creature that lies dormant beneath the ground for seventeen
years, quite a long span of time for an earthborn creature.
Other beings might surpass it. Bacteria, for example, were
recently removed from the stomach of an extinct bee and
revived after lying dormant in that stomach, wrapped in a
chrysalis of golden amber, for forty million years.
Although I must insist I am far from being in search of
the sensational, it would be remiss of me not to point out a
possible explanation for the massive increases in UFO
sightings in the last half of the 20th century. It may well
be that the Dragons, for so we must call them, remain dormant
within an egg or a chrysalis of some kind, for what seems to
us a long time indeed; but how can we judge the probable
length of intervals in the life cycle of an alien species
that our ancestors called the immortals- those who do not
die? Of course, as we have just seen in the myth of Eos and
Tithonus, it is really only the female Dragon, the Goddess,
who is truly immortal, who remains "forever young": the male
Dragon must experiences death and rebirth. It may well be
that another generation of Dragons will hatch one day from
their nest within the womb of the earth, beneath the
omphalos, and that the adults are returning for this event.
Our use of nuclear weapons and our destruction of the
environment (assuming that destruction is not a
transformation carried out on behalf of and according to the
direction of the Dragons themselves- a sort of terraforming
process in reverse, a process in which we are the self-
destructive, ultimately self-eliminating, terraforming
agents) may have caused them some concern for the well-being
of their underground children, which would also explain their
apparent preoccupation with the world's military forces. It
may very well be their work, therefore, which has brought
about the sudden, dramatic, and completely unexpected end to
the cold war, exactly as Charles Manson implied, way back in
the spring of 1985.
The other possibility is that they have, as part of
their breeding cycle, simply returned to our world to spawn,
as the salmon, the king of fish, returns to the stream of its
birth: in this case the spring that poured forth from the
hooves of Pegasus. By happy coincidence, Ian Anderson, the
one-legged flutist of Jethro Tull, in addition to being a
rock star (a rather curious term itself given the context of
our present discussion) is also a salmon farmer. The return
of the Dragons would also explain both the attempts by the
American military to launch a space defense system, and their
complete inability to succeed in those attempts. This might
also be the place to remark on the oddity that our own space
program seems to have come to a grinding halt after our first
few trips to the moon; and space, the "final frontier",
remains just that, an unexplored frontier. If earth is indeed
the spawning ground of the Dragons, if their birth from the
pyramids was not a one time event but part of a regularly
established life cycle, then man may once again awake to find
that the sky above him is falling. The Dragon lies beneath
your shoulder at all times, until at the end of time it will
emerge from the chrysalis that is your body (or, at least,
what you firmly believe is your body) and then at last you
will behold the "pretty things" that are the aliens
themselves. It is the last sight you will ever see.
That is man's worst nightmare. I have not raised that
nightmare in order to dispel it, for it cannot be dispelled:
it is true. Instead, I wish only to metamorphosize it. Much
has been said herein of metaphors. The myths are, as I have
tried to represent them, a metaphor. It has been my task to
rework the mythos into a fresh metaphor, one more appropriate
to modern times- for the Dragon lives always "inside each and
every one of you", as does the butterfly also. It is our
self, our ego, our will to power, and in order to preserve
our world from destruction, that is the enemy which must be
overcome. It is no less fierce a demon than the image I have
conjured up, and it is equally capable of the most
destructive feats- of destroying you; for it is you, and you,
my friend, and I also, are that Dragon:
It's inside
It's in the back
the front
no, it's in the back
no, it's in the front
no, it's in the back
they shoved it in the back
they put it in the back
all the love get in the back boy
And they called it your subconscious
Remember Freud?
And the front is your computer
And I call him
old ego is a too much thing
old ego is a too much thing
He'll make you fool yourself
you think your somebody else
look out for all the trouble he brings
It'll make you
jump on the bandwagon and fight
and you can't stand not to be right
it'll make you lie, make you cheat
just so you won't be beat
It'll make you get on out of town
you get afraid you're gonna'
act like a clown
and you get mad when somebody puts you down
your heart's a pumpin' and your paranoias
jumpin'
look out ego is a too much thing.
When everything seems going so fine
old ego gets itself all in a bind
your certainty turns to doubt
then you start flippin' out
then you ease on out of your mind.
Such an enemy cannot be fought with hatred; nor can it
be overcome so long as even a trace of ressentiment remains
in the heart. The Dragon can only be conquered by love, for
only love can turn the Dragon into a Butterfly- that is the
true magic. That Great Dragon, the Great Trickster, he who
"lives inside each and every one of you", the ego, the will
to power, the soul of man in his present form, has incarnated
himself today in the person of Charles Manson. But Manson, as
he himself has told you, is nothing but a reflection of
yourself: as you perceive him, so you are. He has presented
himself as a mirror to man (as he presented the world itself
as a mirror to man, for it is nothing but the spirit of man
in visual form- visual language as Berkeley called it) in
order that man might first perceive himself clearly; and
then, upon perceiving that self, that ego, that will to
power, overcome it by choosing the will to love instead. Just
thereby man will achieve at last the final metamorphosis: the
metamorphosis that gives wings to the soul- the metamorphosis
that will allow man to achieve the perfection of being that has
forever eluded him. The first step in achieving that goal would be
the release of Charles Manson from prison, thereby signalling man's
recognition that the actions of the son ofman, contrary to man's
actions, were all performed out oflove: that is the deed that will win us
our freedom from thebelly of the Leviathan.
Before we go on to discuss the famous daughters of
Kadmos- the Kabeirian Nymphs, and their renowned sons-
Melikertes, Aktaeon, Pentheus, and the glorious Dionysos,
mention should first be made of that most obscure scion of
the line of Kadmos- Polydoras. Polydoras remains obscure
because Kadmos originally had no son by Harmonia; he was only
added later, by scholars, to provide a useful genealogical
link through the male line, as I myself have used him in my
own genealogical charts. He was purely an invention of the
scholars, and was also called by them, as an inside joke,
Pinakos, or "writing tablet boy". He was not, therefore, a
real boy; but he became one in the hands of the master story-
teller, Coletto. He is Pinocchio- the son of Giapetto, the
puppet maker. Although he began life as an actor, in
servitude to the puppet-master Strabonious, through love he
acquired a soul and became at last a real boy.
The Titan Prometheus is normally considered the son of
the Titan Iapetos, who remains one of the most mysterious
figures in all of Greek mythology, with a face that has
heretofore remained hidden in the deepest shadows of Night.
In an attempt to bring his face to the light for the first
time (the face of God Himself) we turn once again to the two
keys that unlock the most closely guarded secrets of the
Greek mythos- the genealogies of the gods and the
etymologiesof their names. Even here, as we attempt to open the bronze
doors of Hell and free the Father of the Devil Himself, those
keys will not fail us. Although Prometheus is almost
universally acknowledged as the son of Iapetos, there is one
account remaining to us in which he is called the son, not of
Iapetos, but of Ouranos. Rather than viewing these two myths
as conflicting versions of the same story, in which at least
one, if not both versions, is sure to be in error (and no way
of establishing with any real certainty which of the two
versions is correct, for popularity is no guarantee of
veracity, and the possibility always existed that both the
known versions might be incorrect, and another, still
unknown version the correct one) perhaps we can make better
progress if we assume that both versions are indeed correct
and proceed instead to use the etymologies of the two names
in order to determine whether Iapetos and Ouranos may indeed
be the same God under two different names.
The reader will by now be well-acquainted with the
literal meaning of the name Ouranos (it has been essential to
my re-interpretation of the Theogony) that it means "shedding
semen". Ouranos is the phallus which fell from the sky as if
castrated, scattering drops of blood upon the face of the
earth: stones that struck the earth and brought forth the
Mountain halls of the Nymphs and the spear wielding Giants;
just as the fingers of the Great Mother dug into the Mountain
at the birth of the Divine Child and brought forth the
Kouretes, Korybants, Kabeiroi, Daktyloi, and so on. In the
same vein, the Spartoi arose at Thebes when the ground was
sown with Dragon's teeth, just as the spear wielding warriors
sprang up at Kolchis when Jason sowed the fields there with
the same teeth. Deucalion, too, the son of Prometheus,
recreated the human race by throwing behind him the stones of
the earth, stones that were animated only by the fire of
Prometheus, for Gaia alone could not breathe life into them,
could not animate them: could not, in short, give them a
soul. I have said that the name Iapetos means "throwing
stones"; actually, it is not quite so simple as that. There
is, in fact, no etymology for the name Iapetos, for it is not
a word but a carefully devised play on two words: a word play
capable nonetheless of yielding profound insights into the
identity of this most mysterious of deities. The name Iapetos
is derived from the word Iapteos, which means to "send or
drive on, throw". It also means to mock someone, to assail
them with words, with sharp-pointed jests. Iapteos is
therefore associated with the Latin word for satiric jests-
jacere (from which we derive such words as jocular) which is
itself derived from the word javelin- a small throwing spear,
the pointed barb that strikes to the heart.
By changing the ending of Iapteos to Iapetos, the
authors of the myth, while retaining the original meaning of
the word, were also able to give it the additional meaning of
throwing stones- petros, , leaving out the R so it
would not be too obvious. Taken literally, therefore, the
name Iapetos (or Iapetros) means "being of stone"; for in
Greek the suffix ia means "being". That Iapetos is a "being
of stone" identifies him with Atlas, who is called his son in
the traditional genealogies. Atlas, as we know, was turned to
stone by the mask of the Medousa- the mask of the Mother. It
is, by the way, no coincidence that as the , the first
letter in the Greek word for God, music, and light, resembles
a pyramid, so the , the first letter of rock or stone,
resembles the megaliths at Stonehenge or at numerous other
sites around the world. All over the world the stone circles
still stand and "show the sun his way to bed". The day is
rapidly approaching when:
We'll wait in stone circles
till the force comes through.
Lines join in faint discord--
as the stormwatch brews
a Concert of Kings
as the white sea snaps--
at the heels of a soft prayer
whispered.
In the wee hours I'll meet you
down by Dun Ringil.
Oh, and I'll take you quickly
by Dun Ringil....
The word pier, it might be mentioned, also means stone;
thus revealing Iapetos as the real father of the Pieredes,
the true Muses, whose music made the pyramids rise and gave
light to mankind. As we have just seen, Iapteos means to
attack your opponents by "throwing taunts" at them. By
changing the ending to petros, or petos, what is thrown
becomes a stone rather than a taunt- the stones that fell
from Heaven at the castration of Ouranos. Although Ouranos is
a constant background presence in Greek mythology, there is
seldom much occasion in the myths for him to speak any lines.
One of those few occasions does come up in the Theogony,
however, wherein it will be remembered that he gave the
Titans their name "as a taunt to them, the children whom he
had sired", after his castration at the hands of Kronos.
That taunt renders the identity of Ouranos crystal
clear: he is Iapetos. And if Ouranos is Iapetos, whose
castration by the Titans led to the creation of mankind, then
Kronos, he of the crooked thoughts, the cunning one, can only
be he whom one has known all along (without knowing quite how
to prove it) he must be: Prometheus himself, the god of
devious counsel. After all, surely it must have been thought
most passing strange that, where all other children of the
Titans are called Giants, Prometheus, their leader, is not
only referred to as a Titan, but as the Titan? Finally, the
name of Iapetos reveals him to be a jester: his jesting did
not end after he suffered his castration at the hands of his
son, if indeed it was his son who dared take the knife to his
phallus and separate him from the sacred rod that was the
symbol of his kingship.
It will be recalled that when Demeter came distraught to
the house of King Celeus in Eleusis, she neither spoke, nor
smiled, nor drank of the barley water offered her until
Iambe's jesting broke through her gloom. Why did Demeter
laugh when Iambe lifted up her skirt? Because now there was
only a hole where his phallus used to be: Iambe is Iapetos
after his castration at the hands of the Nymph. As is the way
of the Dragon fathers, despite the loss of his balls, he did
not lose his spirit. Demeter was despondent, not over the
disappearance of Persephone (for as we have seen she had
already found her daughter when she encountered Hekate) but
because she knew that the marriage of the Father (her Son)
with their Daughter, the Nymph, meant the death and
castration of the male. Iambe's jesting is meant to remind
her that the death of the Father is not a permament one, that
the death of the Father means the birth of the Son; thus in
the other version of the story, Baubo (i.e., Iambe) lifts up
her skirts to reveal the divine child hidden within her womb.
And who was it who castrated Iapetos, leaving that gaping
hole between his legs? It was, of course, his daughter-
Demeter herself.
CHAPTER XV
The tale begins again with Aphrodite, for truly the
myths belong as much to her as to Dionysos. She was born from
the semen covered phallus that fell from the heavens into the
sea. One might almost say she is that phallus, for they are
the two that are one, the old mated pair that fell together
into the sea. Only Aphrodite emerged: Aphrodite, and what she
carried within her- the semen of the gods. Aphrodite's other
names make clear her connection with the heavens; thus she is
called Astarte, "the Queen of Heaven", and Asterie, "Star-
Goddess" or "Star-Queen". She is also called Ourania, which
is normally translated, like Ouranos, as "the Starry Sky",
but both names are derived from the same root word- ourein,
"shedding semen".
When Akmon was castrated by Aithra, his phallus fell
like a stone to the waiting earth. As we have seen, that
phallus was Ouranos himself, the Son of Akmon. Ultimately, of
course, Ouranos suffered the same fate as his Father: he,
too, was castrated by his Daughter- Aphrodite, at the climax
of their lovemaking; thus he, too, was turned to stone. And
so Ouranos became the omphalos- Mt. Olympos: the Great
Pyramid that holds up the sky and harbors deep within its
innermost recesses the Garden of the Hesperides- home of the
goddess Nymphs. Dying, that castrated phallus fell into the
sea, and from that phallus emerged the loveliest of
goddesses, Aphrodite: Mother to all the gods and the Daughter
they desired above all other goddesses for their wife.
Although it is said that Kronos castrated Ouranos, and from
that castrated phallus was born Aphrodite, it must be clear
by now that it was actually the other way around: Aphrodite
herself tore the Father's ejaculating phallus from his body
that she might eat it; that phallus was reborn from her as
the new Son- Kronos, also called Krios. Even more, that semen
covered phallus is the Christ, the Christened One; for Christ
is derived from cresme, "cream". He came to earth because, as
the Rolling Stones well know, "we all need someone/ we can
cream on....".
Aphrodite's descent from the heavens into the seas of
our world is preserved in a Corinthian vase painting: a vase
painting which provides us with still another of her many
names- Echidna. Her upper body, in the form of a woman, rises
up from the water; the lower half of her body, in the form of
a sea serpent with a long coiling tail, lies below the
surface. Her navel is precisely at the horizon, as is also
the case with Botticelli's Venus. Unlike Botticelli's Venus,
she still has her wings, and those wings are tri-coloured. In
the heavens she is called Asterie; on earth she is Aphrodite;
and in the sea she is called Amphitrite. One hand is up, the
other is down, precisely in the position of the Labyrinth
design. Above her head, to the right, is a symbol similar to
that of the sun at daybreak in the Chinese word for East .
The picture is decorated with flowers, the persiana design.
In her right hand is a stone: a star fallen from the
heavens- the castrated phallus of Ouranos. It is the same
stone that lies beneath her buttocks, the buttocks of
Aphrodite Kallipygios. That phallus can also be seen
precisely at her waist, fitting snugly between her wing and
her serpent tail. That phallus is the new son- Kronos. She is
Asterie, a star in the heavens, who transformed herself into
a quail to escape the amorous pursuit of Zeus, if Zeus it
was, for even in the traditional genealogies her husband is
Perses. When almost caught, she turned into a stone and
plummeted to the sea. There she remained in hiding until the
day came when her sister, Leto, required a place in which she
might give birth to Apollo, a place upon which the light of
the sun had never shone. Then Asterie emerged from beneath
the waves to become the island called Ortygia- "Quail
Island". That island was also "called Delos, because it
became visible (delos) when it arose from the depths".
Severed from its original owner (who may be called, with
equal truth, Akmonides, Ouranos, or Iapetos) that ejaculating
phallus was preserved within the belly of the goddess
Aphrodite, the Daughter of Ouranos. The name of Ouranos in
Chinese is Tyan Wang Sying, , or "The Sky-King Star". He
is the Titan Atlas, whose head holds up the sky. The name of
Venus in Chinese is Jin-Sying, , or "The Gold Star". She
is the Nymph who waits in the Garden beneath the pyramid for
the male to come to her and mate. Although the modern sign
for star in Chinese is , "the ancient character is a
drawing of a constellation- ". Preserved in pictorial form
for thousands of years, the message is still impossible
to miss: the Dragons, the one-eyed wizards who appear
together in groups of three, first came to our world from the
stars: from the belt of Orion.
Aphrodite and Ouranos are the Daughter and the Father;
from the first the two strove to become one again, that they
might bring forth the new Son, Kronos (i.e., Prometheus): the
Son with whom she will mate to bring forth the new Daughter,
the Nymph of the next generation, the serpent goddess called
Persephone. The Nymph in turn unites with her Father-
Prometheus. As Aphrodite did to her Father, Persephone pinned
Prometheus to the pyramid, castrated him, and then, like the
praying mantis, ate him. From that union was born the new
Son- Dionysos, who will become her mate and the Father of the
new Nymph- Ariadne, the Daughter who will lure him into the
heart of the Labyrinth and then, after they mate, castrate,
kill, and eat him; so that she may bring forth the new Son
with whom she will mate. And so it goes on, or so it did go
on, until Prometheus switched the sacrifice at Mecone; until
Odysseus ignored the lure of the Siren's call and set sail
for the stars instead. At that holy feast it is not the
Divine Child who is butchered and castrated- it is the Old
Man, the Father; nor is it the phallus which is saved and the
rest of the body consumed: indeed, quite the opposite- it is
precisely the phallus she eats, that the Son may be born
again when she excretes him. That phallus is the Son, he must
pass through her body to reemerge into the world, on the
other side of the starry sea.
In that sense, and only in that sense, it is true that
the Divine Child provides the meal at the Banquet of the
Gods. That is the foundation upon which the structure of the
Greek myths was raised; that is the story at the heart of the
Kore mythos, the Eleusinian Mysteries. That story describes
the life cycle of the immortal gods, the Dragons, the
Thunderbolts, the serpent race. It is not a human life cycle,
but it nonetheless provides the structure lying at the heart
of the world mythos stretching from South America to
Indonesia, from North America to Japan. That mythic structure
did not arise from the operation of the universal
subconscious operating through archetypes; instead, it was
impressed on our psyche by an alien race, the same alien race
which created us, which raised us from the stones of the
Earth. Fear them, but do not doubt that they know The Way,
The Tao- ; it was they who revealed it to mankind, their
child, their .
Consider, for example, the vase painting of the Titan
Prometheus, bound to a pillar at the edge of the world, with
the eagle of Zeus before him; look now at the name of the
Buddha in Chinese: . It is, quite obviously, the
same picture. The Serpent, the Titan, the Giant Prometheus,
is bound to the axis mundi, to the Tree of Life. There before
him is the winged Maid, the Nymph. They have mated and she
has bound him to the altar of the Son of Kronos, or, in this
case, of Kronos himself. Now she is ready to eat him, that
the Son may be born and the Great Wheel of the world cycle
continue to roll on; for the sacrifice of the Father, his
castration at the hands of the Nymph, a sacrifice he enters
into through love, releases the Golden Shower upon the world-
the Golden Mana that replinishes the magic of the Faery
Kingdom. First she eats him, and then, like the "bad-eyed and
loveless" Salamander, with "a warm fart at Christmas", a
"warm fart" like "a breath of champagne, on a sparkling
night", she sends him to the stars, whence he returns to mate
with her, like Odysseus returning home at last to Penelope:
to the bed which his own hands devised. When the Aztecs left
Aztlan behind, they were instructed by their gods to seek out
that eagle and serpent; and, on the site where they found
them, to build a city. That site was the lake on which Mexico
City is built; thus they built their city in the middle of
the waters. Aztlan, the original homeland of the Aztecs, is,
of course, Atlantis itself. The Buddha's name in the ancient
Chinese script clearly reveals him as Prometheus bound to the
pillar of the world- the Tree of Life. Before him is the
Eagle of Zeus: that bird is the Maid, the Nymph, the Mother;
she is Zeus herself, for this God is indeed a woman. The
serpent is Christ on the Cross; he is the Titan Prometheus,
bound to the stake, the spear piercing his side; he is the
Great Serpent trapped by the Nymph in the Garden of the
Hesperides; he is the Old Man returned from the sea of stars
in search of love and death, like the salmon returned to
spawn; he is Tyan- the "Big Man"- Allahu Akbar!
He is bound to the Tree of Life, with the Nymph perched
before him upon the altar of the Mighty Son of Kronos. But if
we study the painting closely, we see that something has
changed on this occasion: someone has switched the sacrifice.
For although it is said in the myths that the Eagle was sent
to tear out his liver, as indeed she should have done, for it
is the liver that was considered the source of the libido in
the ancient world (thus the Giant Tityos had his liver
continually torn out by vultures in the Underworld: he is, of
course, Prometheus himself- the liver symbolizes his phallus)
a closer examination reveals a different story. On this last
occasion of their mating, when she had him at her mercy (or
so she thought) she forced him to grant her a strange
request. For she had begun to grow jealous of his knowledge
of death (as he had known she would) and desired to
experience it for herself, so that she would know what he
knew; and to prove that she, too, could recreate the world-
the Faery Kingdom known to us only in myth. Apparently
unwilling, he nevertheless yielded to her request. Instead of
eating him, as the sacrifice had always been done before, she
forced him to eat her.
After the sport of the chase and the wrestling match is
over, she binds him to the pillar of the world and prepares
to sacrifice him upon the altar of the gods, the pyramid.
That chase is portrayed on the left side of the painting,
where she, in the form of a serpent, pursues Atlas, who is
Prometheus himself, or, perhaps more accurately, the Father
of Prometheus. It is not, in other words, a painting of four
separate characters, it is the same two characters in two
different scenes: like so many ancient paintings, it forms a
continous narrative. It also forms a name, or, rather, two
names. The right hand side, taken alone, forms the name of
the Buddha. In the ancient Visayan script of the Phillipines,
however, both sides taken together form the name of Kali.
Perhaps this is the place to remark that, among the various
styles of martial arts (all of which are originally derived,
of course, from the ancient mythos, for music, painting, and
literature are not the only arts in which that ancient wisdom
finds expression) only the Tiger is more powerful than the
Dragon. Although the two styles are almost identical, the
fingers of the Dragon remain vulnerable to the Tiger's
fist.
She is the Serpent and the Eagle; he is the Giant that
is first pursued, then caught and bound by the Nymph- his
Daughter. Now, however, instead of eating him, she coerces
him, as Semele did to Zeus, into showing her his great
secret, into revealing his true form, i.e., into sharing with
her the knowledge that was his alone: the knowledge of death,
the forbidden fruit- to swallow her who had always swallowed
him. She did not know, however, that the fruit of the Tree of
Death is Love. With all her knowledge, she still did not know
what it meant to be "Thick as a Brick". So he swallowed her
up and shit her out, as is graphically and unmistakably
portrayed in the painting itself, though perhaps people's
modesty prevented them from reading the painting correctly,
allowing them to be deceived by the story that Zeus sent her
there to consume the Titan's liver. That pile of dung beneath
his ass is the material world, the world we made for
ourselves- from ourselves: the world created, not by the
Father but the Maid. As the death of the Father gave birth to
the spirit world, so the death of the Mother gave birth to
the material world.
To put it plainly, we did this to ourselves, out of will
to power. We have no one except ourselves to blame for our
life in the material world, or for the material world itself,
for we demanded this experience of our own accord: it is our
own spirit we see reflected in the mirror that surrounds us.
Why did he deceive us into demanding such a nightmare
experience? Incredible as it may seem, he seduced us into
that diabolical trap solely in order to teach us how to find
the Way- the Way of Love. It is the mating ritual of the
Dragons that gives structure to the myths: that mating ritual
is present in the Kore myth; it is present in the myth of
Aphrodite, Adonis, and Persephone; and it will be found also
in the myth of Eos, Orion, and Artemis. It was placed there
so that one day we might find it; and, on that day, remember
not only our origin but our destiny as well.
Eos, a second Aphrodite, carried Orion off to be her
lover. Artemis was jealous of their love and slew him. Eos,
who was sometimes called Tito, the feminine form of Titan,
also carried Tithonus off to be her lover. It will be
remembered that she won him the gift of immortality from
Zeus, but forgot to ask that he be granted eternal youth as
well, an eternal youth which she herself possessed. Therefore
when he grew old, she confined him in a chamber, in a chest.
He reemerged from that chest as a cicada: a creature that
emerges from the earth, from under the ground, from the
Underworld, the land of the Dead- the womb of the Mother. Eos
carried off Kleitos (the uncle of Amphiaraos, a member
of the prophetic Melampodidai- the blackfeet family) so he
could live with her amongst the immortals. That there is a
tribe of Native Americans known as the Blackfeet demonstrates
once again that the ancient mythos is a world mythos.
Eos carried off Kephalos as well, the husband of
Procris, and had by him a son named Phaethon, which is also
the name of Helios and Klymene's son. Commentators on the
myth have been nearly unanimous in their denial of the
identity between these two Phaethons; but, as the
genealogical charts render undeniable, they are indeed one
and the same, as Eos and Klymene are one and the same.
Aphrodite carried Phaethon off and made him her lover; thus
the Mother and the Son end up wedded to each other: at least,
until Oberon takes a hand in the issue. And yet, as we know
from the genealogical charts, the child of the Mother and the
Son is not the new Son, but the new Daughter, the Nymph. How
is it, then, that Phaethon, the child of the Mother and the
Son, of Eos and Kephalos (or of Klymene and Helios) can be
the new Son, rather than the new Daughter? Kephalos was
married to Procris; she is in truth the Daughter of Eos and
Kephalos. She is Proserpine, i.e, Persephone, i.e., Pasiphae,
the Nymph who will grow up to steal her Father away from her
Mother. As shall be demonstrated in more detail later, but as
is, perhaps, already obvious to the discerning reader,
Phaethon is not the Son of Eos and Kephalos, but the
daughter- Pasiphae.
Translated literally, the name Kephalos means "head"; it
is also a pun on phallus. It is the head, or phallus, in the
basket. Kephalos, the hunter, had a magic hound given to him
by Prokris, who received it from Minos for healing him of a
grim disease, or else for yielding to his advances, or
perhaps for both reasons. As we have just seen, Prokris is,
of course, Pasiphae, the wife (and in truth the Daughter as
well) of Minos; that is why she yielded to his advances.
Kephalos once tested her love by disguising himself as
Theseus, although in that version of their story she is
called Ariadne, and he is Dionysos. With his magic hound,
Kephalos helped Amphitryon (the husband of Alkmene and
fatherof Heracles) win Alkmene's hand by ridding Thebes of a giant
fox for King Creon. Creon then provided Amphitryon with an
army to attack the Teleboans, who were led by King Pterelaos.
Pterelaos had been granted immortality by Poseidon, his
father: that immortality depended, however, upon a single
golden hair that grew from his head. His Daughter, Komaitho,
fell in love with Amphitryon and plucked her Father's golden
hair. As is so often the case, the name of Pterelaos involves
a pun, for the first half of his name is derived from Pater-
"father", while the second half of his name, laos, is derived
from "stone": he is the Father of Laios. He is Akmonides,
whose phallus fell from the sea of stars to the sea below.
Pterelaos was killed when Komaitho plucked his golden hair,
but she did not win Amphitryon's love as a reward for her
betrayal; instead, he put her to death.
When Minos's Son, Androgeos (who can only be that most
androgynous of gods- Dionysos himself, i.e., Hermaphroditus)
was killed in Attica, Minos went to war against Athens and
her ally, Megara. Megara's King Nisos had a lock of purple
hair, that color reverenced in the Mysteries for its
association with Perses. That lock of hair was the charm that
kept the city safe. As Komaitho fell in love with Amphitryon,
so Skylla, the Daughter of Nisos, fell in love with Minos.
Skylla is elsewhere called the Daughter of Phorkys and
Hekate, meaning that Nisos is Phorkys himself. As the
genealogical charts clearly reveal, Phorkys is yet another
name for the Father of Laios; thus Nisos is Pterelaos.
After Skylla fell in love with Minos, she cut off her
Father's precious lock of hair; thus sealing Megara's fate.
The city fell, but Minos- outraged by Skylla's wicked deed-
rejected her amorous advances. Crushed by that rejection, she
leaped into the sea; thus demonstrating that she is, indeed,
that Skylla, the sea monster who was the Daughter of Phorkys
and Keto, the Old Ones of the Sea. Following the conclusion
of the war, Athens then made the terms with Crete that
eventually led to the slaying of the Minotaur by Theseus.
It seems incredible that scholars can still regard the
stories of Skylla and Komaitho as two separate stories, or
maintain that the Skylla of Megara is not the Daughter of
Phorkys. What do these two stories mean within the context of
the structure that now lies exposed beneath the surface of
the myth? The Nymph, the Daughter, be she called Skylla, or
Komaitho, betrays the Father, be he called Pterelaos, Nisos,
Iapetos, Ouranos, or Phorkys. She cuts off his one long hair,
i.e., she castrates him, then sends him to the Underworld. It
is the charm which protects him because the male Dragon does
not die until castrated by the female at the climax of their
lovemaking. As Ino Leukothea, Skylla threw that purple charm
back to Odysseus to save him from the storm-tossed sea. The
kindred reaction of Minos and Amphitryon expresses the
revulsion of the Son at the Mother's inhuman deed- that she
has castrated the Father and eaten his phallus, though it was
that deed which made possible his own birth, i.e., his
triumph over death. Minos and Amphitryon are, of course,
simply different names for the Son, the Father reborn; thus
he rejects the Mother's advances in order to avoid producing
the Nymph who would lure him in turn to his death, as Zeus
attempted to avoid the couch of Thetis. Frustrated by his
rejection, the Nymph took her own life instead. The
sacrifice, to say it again, has been switched, and now it is
the Nymph who dies, rather than the Father, the Old One
returning from the Sea.
Ovid understood love so well he could unravel its
workings even in the heart of an alien species. Listen now as
he relates the tale of Androgeos's death, he who is also
called Hermaphroditus: and of how he fell victim to the Nymph
Salmacis:
Often she would gather flowers, and it so happened
that she was engaged in this pastime when she
caught sight of the boy, Hermaphroditus. As soon as
she had seen him, she longed to possess him. But,
eager as she was to approach him, she did not do so
until she had composed herself, taken pains with
her attire, assumed a charming expression, and seen
to it that she was at her loveliest. Then she
addressed him: "Fair boy, you surely deserve to be
thought a god. If you are, perhaps you may be
Cupid?"
With soft words she tried to beguile him, begging to be his
bride, but he only blushed in return. When he blushed "his
cheeks were the colour of ripe apples, hanging in a sunny
orchard, like painted ivory or like the moon when, in
eclipse, she shows a reddish hue beneath her brightness, and
bronze instruments clash vainly in attempts to aid her".
Throwing her arms about his neck, she sought out his lips,
but the lad withdrew, frightened, telling her to leave him
alone or he would flee the spot. Afraid that she might lose
him entirely, she withdrew a little ways off, pretending to
leave but actually only concealing herself behind a thick,
hillock-shaped mound of bushes, like a larger version of the
one in the painting of the Month of May from Les Tres Riches
Heures du Duc de Berry. That hillock-shaped mound of bushes
is, of course, the pyramid itself. There she hid, while the
boy:
... thinking himself unobserved and alone, strolled
this way and that on the grassy sward, and dipped
his toes in the lapping water- then his feet, up to
the ankles. Then, tempted by the enticing coolness
of the waters, he quickly stripped his young body
of its soft garments. At the sight Salmacis was
spell-bound. She was on fire with passion to
possess his naked beauty, and her very eyes flamed
with a brilliance like that of the dazzling sun,
when his bright disc is reflected in a mirror. She
could scarcely bear to wait, or to defer the joys
which she anticipated. She longed to embrace him
then, and with difficulty restrained her frenzy.
Hermaphroditus, clapping his hollow palms against
his body, dived quickly into the stream. As he
raised first one arm and then the other, his body
gleamed in the clear water, as if someone had
encased an ivory statue or white lilies in
transparent glass. "I have won! He is mine!" cried
the nymph, and flinging aside her garments, plunged
into the heart of the pool. The boy fought against
her, but she held him, and snatched kisses as he
struggled, placing her hands beneath him, stroking
his unwilling breast, and clinging to him, now on
this side, and now on that.
Finally, in spite of all his efforts to slip
from her grasp, she twined around him, like a
serpent when it is being carried off into the air
by the King of Birds: for, as it hangs from the
eagle's beak, the snake coils round his head and
talons and with its tail hampers its beating wings.
She was like the ivy encircling tall tree trunks,
or the squid which holds fast the prey it has
caught in the depths of the sea, by wrapping its
tentacles round on every side. Atlas' descendant
resisted her stubbornly, and refused the nymph the
pleasure she hoped for; but she persisted, clinging
to him, her whole body pressed against his. "You
may fight, you rogue, but you will not escape. May
the gods grant me this, may no time to come ever
separate him from me, or me from him!" Her prayers
found favour with the gods: for, as they lay
together, their bodies were united and from being
two persons they became one.
In other words, she ate him. The story at the heart of
the myths is not a story of the love between a man and a
woman; at least, not a man and a woman of our species, of our
world, although it is a story about the creation of both our
species and our world. And it is indeed a tale of a love
affair, a tale of the Lover and the Beloved, but the lovers
are the male and female of the Dragon race. They are not
human. The astounding Ovid writes as if he were the lust
crazed Nymph herself; thus providing us with an insight into
the female Dragon's passion for the male of the species: the
desire she feels as she gazes upon her intended victim-
contemplating his rape. Once again the pyramid is present,
symbolized by the thick clump of bushes, the hillock-shaped
mound: it is the sacrificial altar itself- scene of their
mating. The ancient Chinese character for the earth was
. It is "a drawing of the phallic-shaped altar of the
soil"- the altar of the Mighty Son of Kronos, the conical
shaped omphalos at the center of the earth. That sign then
became , which conceals within its shape the pyramid,
the omphalos- . When the Old One returns at last from
the starry sea to the green hills of earth, the Nymph is
waiting for him within the nest, which was conical in shape,
like a termite mound. The pyramids of man are merely a
formalized imitation of those huge mounds.
When Hermaphroditus clapped "his hollow palms against
his body", we hear once again the clap of thunder that
inevitably accompanies the mating of Dragons: the clap of
thunder that was heard when Pegasus stamped his hooves and
snapped his wings at the top of Mt. Helikon to prevent the
mountain (i.e., the pyramid) from growing any higher. He is
the Farmer who, after sowing his seed, "stamps his feet and
claps his hands and turns around to view the land- waiting
for the Partner". And she is waiting for him. Oftentimes in
the myths one god or goddess will accidentally slay their
friend, companion, or lover in the midst of a discus contest.
As the story of Hermaphroditus makes clear, that discus
represents the sun. The contest is a struggle for control of
the mana that flows from the Lion of the Sun at the mating
ritual of the Dragon: a mating ritual that requires his
castration if the species is to continue, if the world is to
continue; for without the mana provided by his loving
sacrifice, the world would lose all magic, all life, and
become a shadow land- a land of the dead.
Consider their wrestling match, that famous wrestling
match which constitutes so vital a part of their lovemaking-
the ultimate delight for both, though Teiresias claimed it
was nine times better for the female. Consider the various
shapes with which she is compared by Ovid: those shapes are
her own. She is the serpent, twining its coils about the King
of birds as they embark on their mating flight; she is the
ivy wrapping itself around the "tall tree trunks"; she is the
squid, wrapping strong tentacles around its prey to hold it
in place. The prey of the giant squid is, of course, the
great sperm whale- the Leviathan. At one time on our world
there was indeed a true matriarchy; it was not, however,
human in origin. The matriarchy as it was practiced by human
societies was never anything more than an attempt, often
badly misguided, to imitate the life cycle of an alien
species- the Great Dragons, the Golden Bees. Among the
Dragons, clearly, as among the insects, the male sex is the
beautiful sex. As we saw in the vase painting of the Titan
being pursued by the serpent and then bound to the Tree of
Life, she is the pursuer: he is the pursued. In that painting
the serpent, now portrayed as a winged Nymph, confronts the
one known in the East as Buddha. That painting shows the
marriage between Buddha and Kali, i.e., Chrysaoar and
Kallirhoe, i.e., Chiron and Chariklo.
Returning to the story of Kephalos and Prokris, Prokris
was as jealous of Kephalos and Eos as Kephalos was of her
and Minos. Fully cognizant of the alien structure beneath the
surface of the myths, the true nature of the relationships
between the various figures of the myth is now rendered
plain. Prokris, the Daughter of Eos, was jealous of
Kephalos' relationship with her Mother. Kephalos, the Son of
Eos, was likwise jealous of Prokris' relationship with Minos,
her Father. But the Son of Eos and the Father of Prokris are
one and the same, thus Minos stands revealed as Kephalos
himself, disguised in an attempt to test the limits of her
fidelity.
Prokris, in a similar attempt to discover whether
Kephalos remained true to her, followed him one day as he
hunted through the woods. Late in the afternoon, hot and
tired from his pursuits, Kephalos lay himself down upon the
green grass to take his ease. As he lay there, he called upon
the evening breeze- Aurora, another name for Eos, to come
soothe him with her soft embrace. Prokris, concealed nearby
beneath a thick clump of bushes- again the pyramid- thought
it was the name of her rival and Mother that she heard, and
could not keep from crying out in her grief and despair.
Kephalos mistook the sound for a beast rustling in the
bushes, and swiftly the magic spear flew from his hand: the
magic spear that never missed its target- the spear which she
had given to him with her own hands. She is the Nymph,
waiting in ambush to pounce on the male, but once again the
sacrifice has been mistakenly performed- with disastrous
results. For that spear is her own: it is the harpe, the
stinger which she used on him only when she has him bound and
at her mercy: only when he begs for it. Only this time she
forced him to use it on her; and thus our misbegotten world
was brought forth, our omotocia: the material world- the
world of the Dead. Still, as even this world was brought
forth by love, it behooves us to be grateful for the
experience.
The tale is the same, of course, in the case of the
tragic Thisbe, who left the maternal cave too soon in her
lust to mate with the aptly named Pyramis: the lovers
immortalized not only in myth but also in Shakespeare's
comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Growing up, "Pyramis and
Thisbe lived next door to each other, in the lofty city whose
walls of brick are said to have been built by Semiramis".
Pyramis, "the most handsome of young men", and Thisbe, "the
fairest beauty of the East", fell in love there in the city
of brick, but their marriage was forbidden by their families.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is not, in its origin, a human
love story; that it has become, nonetheless, the world's most
famous love story provides us with the strongest possible
testimony to man's essential unity with the Dragon. Though
their marriage was forbidden, and the two lovers were not
permitted even to see each other, Pyramis and Thisbe found a
small chink in the bricks that formed the wall between their
two houses, through which they were able to communicate.
Taking advantage of their opportunity, the two lovers made
plans to meet outside the city and flee to a land where they
might at last be together.
Impatient to meet with her lover, Thisbe arrived too
soon at the appointed meeting-place: the mulberry tree "hung
thick with snowy fruits", close by the cool stream that
flowed past the tomb of Ninus. As she waited for her lover to
come, a lioness approached the stream in search of game.
Panic-stricken, Thisbe fled the spot in terror, dropping
behind her the veil which for so long concealed her face from
the unseeing eyes of men. When Pyranmis arrived and found
that veil, torn to shreds by the sharp claws of the lioness,
he thought his true love dead; and, despairing of life,
plunged his sword deep into his own side, as the spear
pierced the side of Jesus on the Cross, as Prometheus was
impaled upon the Tree of Life within the pyramid. The blood
poured forth like a fountain to stain the white fruit of the
mulberry tree a dark purple- the color sacred to Perses: the
color of the single lock of hair that Skylla cut from the
head of her Father- Nisos.
Conquering her fear, Thisbe returned to the tomb of
Ninus (i.e., Nisos, the Father of Pyramis, i.e., Prometheus,
as the lioness was the Mother of Thisbe, i.e., Thebe) only
now she was unsure whether she had come to the right place,
for the fruit of the mulberry tree was no longer white. Then
she spied the "quivering limbs" of her lover, "writhing on
the bloodstained ground", her veil beside him. He survived
only long enough for one last look into her eyes, then his
own were closed forever by the gentle hand of death. Thisbe,
the original Juliet as Pyramis is the original Romeo (with
the order of their dying reversed: writers are such clever
thieves) now exclaimed:
Alas, your own hand and your love have destroyed
you. I, too, have a hand resolute for this one
deed; my love, as great as yours, will give me
strength to deal the wound. I shall follow you in
death, and men will speak of me as at once the
unhappy cause and the companion of your fate. Only
death could have separated you from me, but not
even death will part us. Most wretched parents,
mine and his, I beg this one boon for us both:
since our steadfast love and the hour of our death
have united us, do not grudge that we be laid
together in a single tomb.
With Pyramis dead, Thisbe threw herself down upon the same
sword that took his life: the sword which is, in truth, her
own poisoned stinger- the harpe. But that poison cannot kill
her: it can only get her stoned. For the Father does not wish
to "feel so all alone", and therefore he has decreed that
"everybody must get stoned": even nymphomaniac, opium loving
Dragons. Again the sacrificial rite was performed "wrongly",
with apparently disastrous results- the material world, our
world. But in the material world even a Dragon may learn the
limitations of the will to power- and the magical power of
love to surpass those limitations. And Thisbe, wisely, had
better sense than to venture the trip alone; but, as she lay
dying, begged the gods to grant her request that she and
Pyramis should be buried together, so that not even death
should part them; and also that the fruit of the mulberry
tree, the Tree of Life that stood in the Garden by the cool
spring, should forever retain its "dark and mournful hue".
She envied his knowledge of death, for it was the one
possession he had which she lacked: and was she not the more
powerful of the two? Therefore she desired to gain that
knowledge, and thought to wrest it from him when she had him
at her mercy, bound and weakened by desire for her. And so,
as he knew one day she would, she asked him for the knowledge
that comes from the fruit of the Tree of Life, that fruit
which is death. So she, who had always eaten him, forced him
to eat her instead. She desired knowledge of death, and the
power she thought such knowledge might bring her, but at the
last moment she feared to face that dark mystery without him.
Despite her ferocity, in her heart she loved him more than
she knew, and needed him more than she cared to admit: that
was the real lesson he wanted her to learn. It is why he
permitted her to taste of the cup of death, the Holy Grail,
the cup filled with the waters of the River Styx- that river
which is also called Lethe: deceiving her who thought she was
deceiving him, all so that she might one day learn of a love
other than love of self. On that day she will drink, from the
same cup, the golden waters of Mnemosyne. What kind of a
world could teach the Goddess, the female Dragon, the
limitations of the will to power and the true power of love?
Only a world based on the principle of will to power, a world
which was a reflection of her own fearsome soul, a "dark and
mournful" world- our world- the material world. If you are
human, you should know her, for she is the "lady we all
know"; she is your self- the soul within the chrysalis that
is your body. What will "send her home again"? We all know-
"love is the answer, you gotta' let it, you gotta' let it
grow".
It has not, I hope, been forgotten that the word for
pyramid in Greek is pyramis, the name of the hero in the
preceeding story; and so perhaps a word about the pyramid,
about their home in the brick city, the nest of the serpent
children, might not be inappropriate here. Look again at the
picture of their home in the cave within Mt. Helikon- the
Great Pyramid. In the ikon of the sun at the center of the
earth- the omphalos, are the bricks of the pyramid. Within
the pyramid are the serpent children. It is the Garden of the
Hesperides where the Nymphs of the Evening share with the
serpent the fruits of the tree of immortality- the apples of
the Hesperides. Their Garden was said to stand next to Mt.
Atlas, which was supposed to be the Titan himself, turned to
stone after Bellerophon confronted him with the mask of the
Medousa, i.e., after his encounter with the Nymph herself.
The Greeks, of course, felt it necessary to add a male
warrior-hero to the story, not realizing the Nymph required
no assistance to overcome her dread Father in combat. In
truth, however, as we shall see, the pyramid arose from the
Golden Shower that fell to earth at the castration of the
Father. Mt. Atlas is the pyramid itself, and the Garden of
the Evening, protected by the Serpent, lies within that
pyramid.
Viewed from the top, with a three-dimensional
perspective, the two axes, the four corners of the world,
come together at the omphalos, the center of the world, where
the pyramid of bricks is located. It is the rising pyramid,
Mt. Helikon itself. The base of the pyramid is curved because
the world upon which the pyramid rests is curved- a fact well
known to the builders of those ancient monuments. On one side
of the picture are two sets of Giants, portrayed as goats.
They walk on four feet, on three feet, and on two feet. As we
know from the myths, one male in each group of three is
killed. One goat is shown on either side of the pole with his
head down: his posture that of a submissive female. Here,
too, are the intertwining DNA molecules: three of them come
together to form the symbol of infinity: in one an extra loop
has been added, signalling the Dragon's mastery over
genetics, the extra link they forged onto man's chromosomal
chain.
They are the Puppet Masters, and to escape from their
strings you would have to reconfigure your own genetic
structure. There is nowhere to run, for your enemy lies
within, not without. How can the chrysalis escape the
butterfly? On the other side of the Garden, walled off from
the goats by those potent symbols, as Pyramis was walled off
from Thisbe, are two pairs of serpent nymphs, playing upon
the flute. They walk on one leg, until, late in life, they
sprout wings and fly forth from the pyramid to mate. The
celestial origin of these beings is also revealed herein, for
on either side of the painting are the stones that fell from
the stars, and the bricks in the middle of those stones
reveal the beings who emerged from those falling stones as
the builders of the pyramids- the Giants.
No discussion of the Giants of Greek mythology could be
considered complete, of course, without mention of Orion-
their King. His name alone reveals his primary role among the
Giants, for Orion is derived, obviously, from ourein-
"shedding semen". He was originally called Urion, for he was
born from the Golden Shower that fell upon the earth; thus
his name is connected to Urea- "Mountain". Although the tales
telling us of the birth of the Giants are always shrouded in
mystery, in Orion's case that tale has descended into a near
parody of itself. His parentage is variously given, but that
discrepancy is no longer a source of confusion for us;
instead, it is a means towards clarity. On the one hand he is
referred to simply as an earth-born Giant- the Son of Gaia;
on the other hand he is also called the son of Poseidon and
Euryale, here called the daughter of Minos. But as we know,
Euryale was the sister of the Medousa, the sister of Eurybia-
she was a Gorgon and the Daughter of Phorkys and Keto.
The name Euryale means the "wide sea", and is simply another
name for she who was the "Ruleress of the Wide Sea"- the
Medousa, who was raped by Poseidon. The Son of that rape was
Krios- the golden one, the "Ram of Heaven". He married his
Mother, Eurybia, and their children were the Giants- Perses,
Pallas, and Asterios. We have seen that Krios and Perses are
one and the same. Krios, or Perses, married the Mother,
Eurybia, i.e., Asterie; and thus was born the Daughter,
Perseis. Perses then wed with his Daughter, and so was born
the Son, Dionysos. Orion was born from the Golden Shower that
descended upon the world at the castration of Ouranos; thus
confirming his identity with Minos, the Son of Europa, i.e.,
Eurybia, i.e., Euryale. Orion therefore belongs in the same
generation on the genealogical charts as Perses, Kadmos,
Prometheus, Chiron, Charon, and Geryon.
That is the true lineage of Orion, never before
unfolded, but there is another, far stranger tale of Orion's
birth. It is said that in the town of Hyria lived a man named
Hyrieus. Hyrieus means "Bee-Man", while the name of the town
itself is derived from the word hyron- "beehive". In other
versions of the story, the part of Hyrieus is played by King
Oinopion, or "wine-face". Although Hyrieus is similar in
sound to the name of Helios, the prefix is that of Helios's
father, Hyperion, which name is concealed within the two
separate names of Orion's Father: Hyrieus and Oinopion. As we
have identified Hyperion with Ouranos and Iapetos,
identifying him as the Father of Orion identifies Orion once
again with Perses, Prometheus, Kadmos, and Minos. Hyrieus is,
of course, Hypseus, the Father of Kyrene, i.e., Klymene; thus
confirming Hyperion as the Father of Orion. It is said that
Hyrieus was visited by three gods- Zeus, Poseidon, and Hermes
being the three most often named. Hyrieus received the three
gods hospitably, and in return was granted a wish. Hyrieus, a
childless man, naturally wished for a son. The gods granted
his request, but it was no lamp they rubbed upon to bring
forth the little miracle. Instead, they urinated, or shed
semen- ourein, into an ox-hide, commanding that the "leather
sack" be buried beneath the earth and left in the womb of the
Mother for nine months. The true Father of Orion is, of
course, Ouranos himself.
The sinews of Zeus, it will be recalled, were hidden in
the Cave called "Leather Sack". Dionysos, too, was nursed in
that cave- the leather pouch sewn onto the thigh of Zeus- a
second womb for Dionysos after the death of Semele. The head
of the Medousa, it will also be recalled, was placed within a
leather sack or wallet. In ancient times it was thought that
bees emerged from animal carcasses: Orion, whose home town is
Hyria- "beehive", also emerged from the carcass of an animal.
Pegasus and Chrysaoar emerged from the body of the Medousa
when she was decapitated by Perseus: as serpents emerged from
the head itself. Dionysos was thought to have been a serpent
before he took on human form; and even Zeus was worshipped in
serpent form as Zeus Meilichios. Although it is normally said
that Semele died when Zeus, unwillingly, granted her request
to behold his true form- the Thunderbolt, we have seen that
there is another story in which both she and Dionysos, a true
child of the serpent race, were confined in a chest by Kadmos
and thrown out to sea, as the serpent child Moses was
likewise placed in a basket and set upon the waters.
The serpent in the chest is the Thunderbolt hidden
within the earth beneath the pyramid, awaiting the day of its
birth. It is the Dragon perched upon your shoulder; or,
perhaps more accurately, beneath it, waiting to burst forth
from the chrysalis that is your body. That is the meaning of
the child in the chest: it is the psyche, the butterfly, the
soul within the body. In a style that borders on absolute
parody while never straying from the truth (at least,
metaphorically speaking) the tale of Orion's birth is, once
again, the tale of the serpent child in the chest, the seed
of the Dragon in the sacred cave within the womb of the
earth- the Underworld. From the drops of blood that fell to
earth at the castration of Ouranos, Giants arose. From the
sack urinated in by the gods, from the earth in which the ox-
hide was buried, Orion arose, a spear wielding Giant. That
Orion arose from a Golden Shower, the urine of the gods,
confirms his identity as the son of Ouranos. Oinopion and his
wife Merope now become the step-parents of Orion; but by
whatever name they are known they are, of course, his true
parents. As Oinopion is Hyperion, so Merope is Europa, i.e.,
Eurybia; therefore we need not be surprised to learn that
Orion tried to rape Merope, his Mother, for it is the nature
of the male Dragon to wed with the Mother in order to bring
forth the Daughter- the Nymph with whom he will mate, even at
the cost of his life. It will be remembered that Oinopion
blinded him for his crime- as Oidipos blinded himself for
lying with his Mother, Iocaste. As it is not said that
Oidipos raped Merope, the wife of the Giant Polybotes, we may
assume Merope was his Grandmother and nurse, as Demeter was
to Demophoon.
In yet another version of his story, Orion was in love
with Oinopion's Daughter, Hairo, whose name suggests she was
probably the Daughter of Hyrieus; thus confirming the
identity between Oionopion and Hyrieus. To win her hand,
Orion had to rid the island of beasts, a task the mighty
hunter swiftly accomplished. Oinopion, however, still refused
to allow the marriage; therefore Orion, in a drunken rage,
raped her one night in her Father's home. As in the story
involving Merope, Orion was blinded for his crime and thrown
helpless onto the beach. Orion arose, however, and, walking
across the water on his serpent feet, he came at last to the
forge of Hephaistos on Lemnos. There he put Kedalion upon his
shoulders, and the one-eyed dwarf guided him to the East, to
where the sun first rises from his Underworld kingdom. At the
dawn, his vision was restored by the healing rays of the sun-
Hyperion. Orion then returned to Boiotia seeking vengeance,
but Oinopion was hiding in an underground sanctuary built for
him by Hephaistos, as Hephaistos constructed the golden cup
of the sun in which Helios refreshed himself after falling
into the sea at the end of the day, the cup which carried him
across the Ocean to the land of the sunrise. As it was his
Father, Oinopion, who blinded Orion, so it was his Father,
Hyperion, who cured him of his blindness.
Orion was then carried off by Eos. In the standard
genealogies, Eos is the wife of Asterios- "the Star God", or
"the Star King"; thus Orion is either the Son of Asterios, or
Asterios himself. The Olympian gods were jealous of her union
with Orion, and by their command he was slain in Ortygia by
Artemis. Or he was slain by Artemis for daring to challenge
her to a discus throwing contest. Or he was killed by a
scorpion Artemis sent against him when he tried to rape her.
Or earth herself raised the scorpion against him when he
threatened to extirminate all living things on earth: the
island he had to rid of all living things in order to mate.
Both the Scorpion and the Hunter were transformed into
constellations. Kerenyi suggested that Kephalos, "head", may
be the head in the constellation of Orion. That is as close
as Kerenyi will come to permitting himself to reveal that
Kephalos and Orion are one and the same. Kerenyi was the
Master: he said all that was necessary "for the attentive
listener to understand the nature of the Greek Gods", and
then carefully said nothing more. My own book is for the
inattentive listener: a last trumpet call to the deaf.
In addition to Orion, it is also said that Kephalos,
Kleitos, and, of course, Tithonus, were carried off by Eos.
The number of her victims becomes much easier to comprehend
when it is understood that they are not several different
Giants but rather one Giant with several different names: as
Orion, the Mighty Hunter, is surely that same Kephalos whose
magic spear never missed its target, whose hound always ran
down its prey. The hound of Kephalos was turned to stone: in
the constellation of Orion lies the Dog-Star, Sirius-
"shining brighter than his lord and master". Orion, Kephalos,
Dionysos Zagreus- they are all one. Eos was the wife of
Asterios, the "star god" whose brothers were Perses and
Pallas, and whose parents were Krios and Eurybia. But it is
also said that Asterios was married to Europa; thus
identifying Eos as Europa, whose name is itself simply
another form of Eurybia. The Son of Asterios and Europa was
Minos, while it is said that Klymene, the Mother of Phaethon,
was the Daughter of Minyas. As we know from the genealogical
charts, however, Klymene belongs in the generation of the
Mother: she is Eos, i.e., Europa herself. Therefore Klymene
is not the Daughter of Minyas, i.e., Minos, but his Mother.
Eos carried off Kephalos and bore him Phaethon, as Europa
carried off her own Son, Minos, and bore him Pasiphae. Why a
Son rather than a Daughter was born on the occasion of the
mating between Eos and Kephalos, i.e., Klymene and Helios,
the Mother and the Son, will be explained when we come to the
tale of Phaethon himself, but for now, in order to avoid
losing the thread of our narrative, we must return to Orion.
Orion was slain by Artemis for trying to rape her:
Artemis slew Otos and Ephialtes for the same crime. Tithonus
was confined in a chamber by Eos; he re-emerged (from the
underworld) as a cicada. The name of Kephalos means head, and
is also a pun on phallus: his fate may be readily imagined;
it is the fate of Agamemnon- the death of the king at the
hands of his Queen. He is the phallus in the liknon, the head
in the basket. He is the serpent child in the chest. In
another version of his death (they are legion) Orion met
Pleione, wife of Atlas, mother of the Pleiades, in Boiotia.
He pursued her, she fled with her daughters, and the Hunter
and the Hunted alike were transformed into constellations-
Orion and the Pleiades.
It was also said that Artemis killed Orion for trying to
rape Opis- a Hyperborean maid. Opis is identified with
Nemesis, and is also a title for Artemis herself. It is said
that Leto, Apollo, and Artemis were accompanied to Delos by
the two sisters of Artemis: Arge- "bright", and Opis- "eyes".
But before he died, or perhaps, in truth, after he had gone
to the other side- Orion married Side- "Pomegranate". Two
children were born of that union: Menippe- "courageous mare",
and Metioche- "swift as thought". Though their Mother was
said to be Side, they are called the Koronides, the daughters
of Koronis, and were later transformed into comets. After
blazing brightly in the sunlight, comets, like the Dragons
themselves, disappear into the darkness- and then return from
it.
Side was sent to the Underworld when her beauty began to
rival that of Hera's. The tale is the same as that told
earlier of Hekate, when she stole the secret of Hera's beauty
and either fled to the Underworld or was taken there by the
Kabeiroi. It is the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
From these striking parallels, H.J. Rose, classical scholar
and longtime professor of Greek at St. Andrews, can make out
only that "the story that she went down untimely to Hades may
be connected with the fact that the pomegranate has, as we
saw in discussing Persephone, underworld connections". Only
too obviously, Side, the wife of Orion, is Hekate herself;
she is Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, as Orion, the
Mighty Hunter, may also be identified with the Cretan Divine
Child, Dionysos Zagreus, a.k.a. Jesus, the serpent child who
not only walked on the water but turned it into wine- no
difficult trick for the son of Oinopion- "wine-face". Orion
is the god of wine, whose touch gave sight to the blind and
straightened the legs of cripples. He is Charles Manson, the
Fifth Angel from the ninth Chapter of Reveleations, that
Angel who is also called Apollyon- "the Destroyer", i.e.,
Exterminans. To weave the net more tightly still, Orion
pursued Artemis; Minos pursued Britomartis- "sweet maid", who
was Artemis herself. Opis is a title of Artemis: she was
identified with Nemesis- "vengeance". Finally, Medousa was
killed by Perseus, while Orion was killed by Artemis.
Orion and Medousa taken together form the Archemoros,
the "beginning of death"- for they were the first of the
immortals to experience death. They are Perses and Eurybia,
and also Dionysos and Persephone; they are Adam and Eve, and
also Christ and Mary. A theme well understood by the
Renaissance Masters, men steeped in the lore of Eros: men who
had read their Ovid carefully. Not for nothing did Da Vinci
call her the Virgin of the Rocks. Why does the Virgin smile
so mysteriously in the painting called the Mona Lisa? In part
it is because only the nameless ones with piercing eyes
understand, or even contemplate, the mystery of those
unearthly mountains behind her. That mysterious landscape
reveals her as the Nymph in the maternal cave, waiting for
the Old One to come home from the Sea of Stars, that the new
Son might at last be born. She is Persephone, the Queen of
the Underworld: the dark and mysterious mountains looming
behind her on the other side of the river are the lovers who,
like Atlas, have been turned to stone. The other reason the
Maid smiles is that she is now, as a result of her sojourn in
the material world, more than content "to be a rock- and not
to roll". In the Underworld she has at last acquired a soul-
for it is only in the Underworld that the "soul of a woman"
can be forged.
It was said of Otos and Ephialtes that they were second
in beauty only to Orion; thus identifying Orion as their
younger brother- Ares, whom they tried to kill. Their step-
mother, Eriboia (i.e., Eurybia) it will be recalled, warned
Hermes (i.e., their Father- Kadmos, a.k.a. Krios) of Ares'
impending doom, and Hermes rescued him forthwith from the
iron jar, as he rescued the sinews of the Divine Child Zeus
from Typhon's cave. It will be recalled also that Orion's
original name was Urion; and that he was born from an ox-hide
which the gods had used for a chamber pot. Finally, the hero
Perseus was born from the Golden Shower Zeus poured into the
lovely lap of Danae. Contrary to the famous painting, that
Golden Shower was not composed of coins: it was the urine of
her Father that poured down upon her as the sea water
splashed upon the breasts of Iphimedeia. Before being
castrated, the Dragon father, quite understandably on the eve
of such a momentous occasion, must not "forget to urinate".
Pyramis, it will be recalled, lived "in the lofty city
whose walls of brick are said to have been built by
Semiramis". We have also seen that a pyramid, or pyramis, is
a "pir-em-us, the slanting edge of a pyramid"; but the edge
of a pyramid is only 1/4 of the edges: a semi-ramis.
Semiramis ends with ramis, therefore pyramis, since it begins
with pyr, requires another "r" to be read correctly: it is
pyr-ramis, or pyr-ra-mis: pyr is fire, ra is the Sun, and
mis, or mist, is the urine; thus the pyramids arose from the
Golden Shower of Fire that fell to earth at the castration of
the Father. That Golden Shower did not come from Zeus;
instead, it poured down from the phallus of the Golden Lion
of the Sun, the Titan called Hyperion, whom we have
identified with Ouranos and Iapetos, as we have identified
his son Helios with Kronos, Orion, and Prometheus. And so
Danae is revealed as Demeter; from the Golden Shower that
fell in her lap at the castration of Ouranos came the new
Son, Perses- the Underworld aspect of Helios. Perses, who
united with Demeter to bring forth the new Nymph, Persephone,
the Daughter with whom he mated: the Daughter who bound him
to the pyramid and prepared to pierce his side with her
stinger-the harpe, until, at her own request, he grabbed it
and used it on her instead; and so the sacrifice was
switched. As the following chart makes clear, when it comes
to love, the male of the Dragon species is always caught in
the middle between two females- the Mother and the Daughter:
Mother Son Daughter
Eos Orion Artemis
Eos Orion Side
Eos Kephalos Procris
Aphrodite Adonis Persephone
Persephone Dionysos Ariadne
Demeter Helios Hekate
Asterie/Eurybia Perses Perseis
Europa/Eos Minos Pasiphae
Europa Kadmos Semele
Klymene Prometheus Pyrrha
Eve Adam Virgin Mary
Mother Mary Jesus Mary Magdalene
CHAPTER XVI
All the gods we have come upon so far, from the
Kyklopes, Hekatoncheires, and Titans, to the Kouretes,
Kabeiroi, and Daktyloi, have been revealed as the Giants born
from the bright stones that fell to earth at the castration
of Ouranos- the shining phallus that flared brilliantly as it
fell from the starry sky. It might reasonably be expected,
therefore, that all the goddesses we have met with are, in
fact, the Ash-Nymphs born from those same bright stones. That
reasonable expectation will not be disappointed, though in
some cases the Nymph has already become, in turn, a Mother.
As the Kabeiroi are the children of the Dragon, so, too, are
the Kabeirian Nymphs.
We saw in the discussion of the Labyrinth design that
the Nymphs are structurally organized in precisely the same
fashion as the Giants, in groups of three. Kerenyi pointed
out further that the goddesses of ancient Greece usually form
"a group of three sisters, with the number three representing
the three phases of the moon: waxing, full, and waning". As
Kerenyi was also quick o point out, "this does not mean that
the great threefold goddess, whom we will find spoken of
under many names, is nothing else but the moon". Indeed, as
Kerenyi well knew, the number three also represents the three
life stages of the Dragon. First there is the larvae, or
Nymph, growing within the nest; then the Nymph sprouts wings
and takes to the air for her mating flight, after which she
becomes both a Mother and a parricide. Kerenyi knew better
than to reveal the most sacred truths of our race, the secret
of the ages, to the profane eyes of mankind; he was the
Master, the Sorceror. I, unfortunately, am not the Sorceror,
merely the Sorceror's apprentice: I- do not know better.
The song of the Nymphs lures the Old One from the Sea.
Swiftly he comes to her. After they mate, drunk on the honey
of her love, he releases the Golden Shower and falls asleep.
As Klothos she spins her web around him; as Lachesis, she
wrestles with him; as Atropos she supplies the inevitable
end, the sting of release. It is a holy mystery. They are the
Fates- the Moirai.
The Moirai lived "in Heaven in a cave by the pool whose
white water gushes from this same cave: a clear image of
moonlight". Like Okyrhoe, I know that for revealing the
secrets of the gods I fully deserve the hammer blow that is
coming. No longer will I attempt to run from my fate; no, not
even to the maternal cave within the Magic Mountain: the
highest mountain on earth- the moon, which in this shadow
land shines silver instead of gold, for it is not yet a
helikon, a true image of the sun. The white light that flows
down from the moon is the river Lethe that flows through the
Underworld- the land of the dead: it is the River of
Forgetfulness. That is why you do not remember who you are:
you have drunk deeply from those waters and forgotten much.
You look up at the white river, and still you do not know,
you do not remember, where you are. You do not remember the
land of the living, where the Sun is married to the Moon, and
a golden light, the golden dew, falls to earth from the moon:
the golden light that is the River Mnemosyne- the River of
Memory. It is the Golden Mana that replinished the good earth
of the Faery Kingdom- that sacred realm where honey pours
from the oak. Only the music of the Muses, the Daughters of
Mnemosyne, can bring back the memory of the Golden Kingdom. I
have written this book solely to help you understand that
music- and to help you remember. Now do you know where you
are? Now do you know who you are, the secret of your
existence? You are a shade in the land of the dead. When you
look up into the night sky and see the moon shining above you
with a golden light, then you will know that you have
returned to the Land of the Living. Then you will remember.
Therefore, when you come to the end of your life in this
world and see that famous white light before you, stay the
hell away from it; else you will forget all I have taught
you, and wake up to find yourself once more "living in the
material world". That white light is the River Lethe; you are
the Dead. In the end, one can only be grateful for the
experience, but there is no need to repeat it endlessly.
Homer referred to the Moirai who dwelt by the White River as
"a single, spinning goddess who is strong", and "destroying",
not to mention "hard to endure". She is the Mother; she is
the Moira Krataia, the "Strong Moira"; she is Kali; she is
Death. Of Herakles' brother-in-law, Meleager, the Fates
foretold at his birth that he would live only until the log
even then burning in the hearth was consumed. Meleager is
mankind; the log is the world. When the log is consumed by
fire, man will have come to "the end- of the Beginning".
Kerenyi himself grouped the goddess Styx with Keto and
Eurybia, and told of how the mating between Zeus and Styx
brought forth Persephone; thus confirming Styx's identity as
the Mother. Even the immortals dare not perjure themselves by
swearing falsely upon the River Styx- she never forgets.
Thus she is also called the River Lethe, the river that flows
through the Underworld- the River of Forgetfulness. If one of
the gods swear by the Styx and be found a liar, then to
purify himself of that sin he must drink of her waters. For a
full year he will lie in a swoon, dumb, and unknowing, with
no knowledge of his true nature. Thus implying, of course,
that he experiences himself as being of a different nature
than normal. That river is also called Leto, the gentlest of
goddesses. She is called by that title because she is Phoibe-
"the Purifier". She is the Daughter of the Old Man of the
Sea.
Phorkys, The Old Man of the Sea himself, was nicknamed
"Kratios, 'the strong'", and was famous for his wrestling
abilities. As Nereus he wrestled with Herakles; as Proteus he
wrestled with Menelaus, who profited from the help of
Proteus's own Daughter, the Nymph Eidothea; and as Peleus he
wrestled with Thetis, whom we now know from the genealogical
charts was his Daughter. The wrestling match between Peleus
and Thetis, their lovemaking, resulted in the birth of
Achilles, the new Son. It is said that when they finally
coupled, she was in "the shape of a cuttlefish": that shape
is her own, or a close enough approximation of it. It is said
that Peleus's marriage came to an unhappy end. How unhappy
may now be readily imagined: she ate him. Jason, too, the
husband of Medea, met with an untimely end: he fell dead when
a piece of the Argo's figurehead fell off and struck him on
the head- the sting of the Maid, the sting that brought death
to the male.
Proteus was associated with "a sandy isle off Egypt
called Pharos": the reference to the pyramids could not be
plainer. The island is the mountain; the mountain of the
Pharoahs is the pyramid. As we know, Phorkys was associated
with the cove at Ithaka, and the sacred cave nearby; but that
cave with its two doors, one for mortals and one for
immortals, is also a metaphor for the pyramids of Egypt.
When the Nymph Eidothea- "image of the goddess", advised
Menelaus in the Odyssey on how to wrestle with and overcome
her Father, Proteus, she was actually describing, in detail,
the mating ritual of the Dragon race:
As soon as you see that he has fallen asleep, use
force and strength. Hold him fast, however he may
try to escape for this he will do. He will take on
the shapes of all the beasts on earth. He will
even change into water and fire. But hold him
dauntlessly, tie the bonds upon him all the more
closely. Only when he begins to beseech you, and
has the same shape as that in which you saw him
fall asleep, only then cease using force, set the
Old One free and ask him...
And so it came about: Proteus took on the shape of a lion, a
serpent, a leopard, a pig, and also of water and of a tree;
then finally gave truthful answers to all that was asked of
him. When Zeus had Prometheus bound to a pillar at the edge
of the world, it was Kratos and Bia, "Force" and "Strength",
who carried out the task. The tale of the wrestling match
between the Nymph and the Father was also preserved in the
well-known folk tune called Tam-Lin:
I forbid you maidens all
that wear gold in your hair
to travel to Carter Haugh
for young Tam Lin is there.
None that go by Carter Haugh
but they leave him a pledge
either their mantle of green
or else their maidenhead.
Janet tied her kerf of green
a bit above her knees
and she's gone to Carter Haugh
as fast as go can she.
She doth pull the double-rose
a rose but only two
when up then, came young Tam-Lin
says "Lady, pull no more".
"And why come you to Carter Haugh
without command from me?"
"I'll come and go", young Janet said,
"and ask no leave of thee".
Janet tied her kerf of green
a bit above her knees
and she's gone to her father
as fast as go can she.
Well, up then spoke her father dear.
and he spoke meek and mild,
"Woe and alas, Janet", he said,
"I think you go with child".
"Well, if that be", young Janet said,
"Myself shall bear the blame;
there's not a knight in all your hall
shall give the babe his name".
"For if my love were an earthly knight
as he is an elfin blade
I'd not change my own true love
for any knight you have".
So Janet tied her kerf of green
a bit above her knees
and she's gone to Carter Haugh
as fast as go can she.
"Oh, tell to me, Tam-Lin", she said,
"why came you here to dwell?"
"The queen of Faeries caught me,
when from my horse I fell".
"And at the end of seven years
she pays a tithe to hell,
I so fair and full of flesh
am feared it be myself".
"But tonight is Halloween
and the Faery folk ride;
those that would their true love win
at Miles Cross they must hide".
"First let pass the horses black
and then let pass the brown,
quickly run to the white steed
and pull the rider down".
"For I ride on the white steed
nearest to the town,
for I was an earthly knight
they give me that renown".
"Oh, they will turn me in your arms
to a newt or a snake,
but hold me tight and fear not;
I am your baby's father".
"And they will turn me in your arms
into a lion bold,
but hold me tight and fear not
and you will love your child".
"And they will turn me in your arms
into a naked knight;
cloak me in your mantle
and keep me out of sight".
In the middle of the night,
she heard the bridle ring,
she heeded what he did say
and young Tam-Lin did win.
Then up spoke the Faery Queen
an angry Queen was she,
"Woe betide her ill-wrought face,
an ill-death may she die".
"Oh, had I known, Tam-Lin", she said,
"What this night I did see,
I'd have looked him in the eyes
and turned him to a tree".
Janet wears a kerf of green because she is the Maiden of
Spring- she is Persephone. She wears gold in her hair because
she is the Maiden deserving of golden gifts. She travels to
Carter Haugh, which we know already, from our encounter with
the "Wee-Wee Man", conceals beneath its emerald surface a
Faery Hall- the underground home of the Sidhe. Orion's wife
was also named Side. To fully appreciate the relevance of the
folk song to the mating ritual of the Dragons, one must hear
it as well as read the words, for the key to the song is the
violin music accompanying the lyrics, violin music that
attempts to imitate the high-pitched piping of the Dragons-
their mating song: the song they sing when the Nymph emerges
from the Nest to meet the Old Man and begin again their
ritual combat and love-making. The Dragons, it will be
recalled, were also referred to as the Pyralis; their mating
dance is a pyrrhic dance- a war dance accompanied by the
flute.
To suit the purposes of the story-teller, the roles of
the Mother and the Maid have been switched, for in the song
it is not the Maid but the Mother, the Faery Queen, who poses
a threat to Tam-Lin; and the Maid, the Faery Princess, is
transformed into a mortal, as is often the case when the
myths are retold. Beneath these cosmetic changes, however,
the basic structure found in the myth is still apparent; for
it is still the Nymph, Janet, who wrestles with the Father,
taking him away from the Mother, the Queen of the Faeries.
That the Faery Queen, for example, is also the Mother of
young Janet, the Nymph, is cleverly revealed by the similar
manner in which the poet refers both to her and to Janet's
father, to wit:
Then up spoke her father dear
and he spoke meek and mild.
Along with:
Then up spoke the Faery Queen
An angry Queen was she.
Despite the similarity in sentence structure, their
strikingly different personalities do manage to shine
through. Janet's father in the song is, of course, her
already castrated Grandfather: her true Father is Tam-Lin
himself. The danger of the mating ritual for the Father- "so
fair and full of flesh", is also clearly visible beneath the
lyrics to Tam-Lin. Although in the folk song he escapes his
fate, after the wrestling match, after he has tried all his
tricks, metamorphosizing into "a newt or a snake"- his larval
form, or "a lion bold"- his adult, sexually mature form, the
Faery Queen, as she herself explains, should have held him
spellbound with her bright eyes, then "turned him to a tree".
In other words, she should have bound him to the Tree of Life
within the Garden of the Hesperides, and, after wrapping him
tightly in her mantle- her web, swallowed him up within the
Golden Cradle of her belly. Within that belly it is, of
course, as dark as it would be within a tree; thus explaining
the constant use of that metaphor in the myths: it signals
that the mating ritual has reached its climax: that one
partner or the other has now been consumed. In the ordinary
course of events, that partner would be the male, but
sometimes the course of events becomes extraordinary, the
stuff of myth and legend. Janet wrapped Tam-Lin in her mantle
to keep him out of sight: it is the mantle of Perses, the
mantle in which his brothers, the Kabeiroi, were said to have
wrapped his head before burying it at the foot of Mt.
Olympos- the pyramid. Tam-Lin's metamorphoses were supposed
to be the result of a faery spell, not his own magic: like
the Maid, he, too, has been transformed into a mortal.
Perhaps it is also now clear what it means to see "a Lion...
standing alone, with a tadpole in a jar"? The conclusion is
undeniable: as Janet is Persephone, the Maid of Spring, so
the Faery Queen is Aphrodite. Tam-Lin is Tyan, the Titan; he
is Perses.
When the Old Man was bound, when he was at the moment of
death, he would answer truthfully any question asked. The
true answer to the mystery posed by the ancient myths, that
the sacrifice was switched and the Nymph ended up within
theTree- with disastrous results, is preserved in another old
folk song, a song called Crazy Man Michael, which will be
discussed shortly. Do not despair, however, for the Nymph is
not doomed to remain within that Tree forever. As E.B. Jones
prophesied, there will come a day of forgiveness, a day when
she will reemerge from that Tree and behold once again the
Garden that is her true home. On that day she will be
reunited with her lover, the lover who lured her within that
Tree: Prometheus, the Great Trickster, the Titan, Tyan, the
"Big Man"- Allahu Akbar! As we will learn from another folk
song, that day will not come until she can admit "the wager"
has been lost, and that the Mana belongs to Allah.
At the call of the Nymph, the Old Man returned from the
sea to mate: that is why the wrestling match between the two
is often portrayed as taking place on the shore; thus she is
called Aktaia, "the dweller on coasts". Because the sea from
which the Old Man returns is the starry sea, she is also
called Nesai- "the dweller on islands", or Neso- "the island
goddess"; for the island on which she dwells is the island of
Anthemoessa- "the land rich in flowers", the earth itself.
That island is also called Mt. Nysa, the birthplace of
Dionysos, and Nesai is the Nymph of that mountain. Within the
maternal cave she waits for her lover; thus she is also
called Speio- "the dweller in caves": all these being names
of Nereids, the Nymphs of the sea. Wherever that wrestling
match took place, the Old Man was inevitably the loser.
Herakles, on the other hand, was just as inevitably the
victor in his wrestling matches, not only over Nereus but
also, for example, over the Giant Alkyoneus and the river god
Acheloos, not to mention Hades himself.
Another set of Nymphs was called the Graiai. They were
the guardians of the Way to the land of the Gorgons. It was
said that between the three of them they had only one eye and
one tooth. There is only one eye and one tooth between them
because there is, in truth, only one Graia; and she, like the
Kyklopes, has only one eye, an eye that shines with the
brilliance of a blazing star. Her one tooth is, of course,
her stinger. The Graia, the Old One with the gray cheeks, is
named on the genealogical charts as Keto, the "fair cheeked"
goddess of the sea; she is the Krone- the Grandmother. The
Gorgon is her Daughter- the Medousa: on the genealogical
charts she is listed in the generation of the Mother.
In the normal course of events, the Nymph was not
killed, she killed the Father when he came to mate with her.
She turned him to stone, i.e., held him frozen in place by
spinning a web around him, like a fisherman's net, like the
clothing Klytaimnestra wrapped around Agamemnon; thus
identifying her as the Moira called Klothos. She is the
Mother of the Erinyes, the Furies, the Maniai, the Meliai,
who were the "guardian-nymphs of manna-ashes"; thus it is the
Furies who avenge her death at the hands of Orestes. Orestes,
it will be remembered, was pursued by the Furies for slaying
his Mother, a crime he committed to avenge the death of his
Father at her hand. Orestes was supposed to marry the Mother
so that the new Daughter might be born- the Nymph who would
slay him as Klytaimnestra slew Agamemnon. He was not
supposedto kill the Mother, for how then could the race
continue? The Nymph always bit off the Male's phallus as part of their
love-play: it is the climax of their mating ritual. When
Orestes gnawed off his finger, symbolically castrating himself,
the Furies were appeased. It is said that the Furies
were born at the castration of Ouranos. In truth it was the
Nymph herself who spun her web around him, then applied the
sting that killed him. Only when he is intoxicated upon her
love juices, only when he begs for it, does she let him taste
of that sting: the sting that carries with it the sweet
release of death.
Although the Graiai were the guardians of the Way to the
Gorgons, they were nonetheless capable, like the Moirai, of
betraying their responsibility and revealing the secret of
the Way. It is, of course, the siren call of the Nymph
herself that lures the Father back from his star-roving. The
Graiai are referred to as gray-haired maidens; it is also
said they resemble swans. They live in a cave where there is
no light of the sun or moon, a cave at the entrance to the
land of the Gorgons, the land called Kisthene, the land of
rock-roses: the rock that grew like a flower at the piping of
the Muses until Pegasus stamped his feet and down came the
mist- the Golden Mana from Heaven. Then was raised the cry:
"The King is dead, long live the King"- the new King, be he
called Kronos or Krios or Kadmos or Helios or Prometheus or
Perses or Asterios or Ares or Adam. The King whose conception
witnessed the dawn of the Golden Age and whose passing
heralded its demise. He did not fall at the hands of Zeus, an
Aryan invention. His demise came when he abandoned the couch
of Rhea, also called Eurybia or Europa or Demeter or Klymene
or Asterie or Eos or Aphrodite or Eve, for the cave where
Persephone waited to mate with him so that she might bear him
a Son, the new King- Dionysos, Oidipos, Odysseus, Orestes,
Deucalion, or, as so many call him today, Jesus or the
Buddha. Or, as I call him, Charles Manson or the Piper.
As Odysseus, he sailed past the siren song, taking wing
for the stars to wander long among those strange shores
before returning at last to mate with his Daughter. That time
is now upon us: prepare to meet your Maker: "the Old Man- is
down the road". Of course, it is only fair to confess that
the Piper himself once chastised me about my unfortunate
habit of throwing "holy names" around with such profligate
abandon:
I hope the old man's got his face on.
He'd better be some quick change artist.
Suffer little children to make their minds up
soon./
Bad mouth on a prayer day, hope no one's listening
Roots down in the wet clay, branches glistening
Roots to branches- roots to branches.
I am, indeed, the leaf on the end of that branch, the one who
"walks between the lines". As you should also be made aware,
I am the one he warned you against in the following song:
Is this some crazy woman here
dancing behind her thin black veil?
Am I misreading those mysterious eyes?
Duet impossible to harmonize.
I'm not inviting any stiff reaction.
I'm not one for naming holy names
and I won't peek behind those dangerous veils
though you might hate me just the same.
Names of the Father ringing in her head-
Thinking over what the Prophet said,
Words and traditions bind her in their spell.
Don't drink the water from this holy well.
Unfortunately, if you have read this far, that warning has
come too late to save you from the Thunderbolt- the seed of
the Dragon has already found fertile ground; it will not
easily suffer itself to be rooted out again.
To come succcessfully to the land of the Gorgon was only
possible with the help of their sisters- the Graiai. The
Gorgons lived even further away from man than the Graiai, in
the direction of Night (deeper within the cave- the pyramid)
beyond Okeanos, with the Hesperides. There is in truth, of
course, only one Gorgon; she is the Medousa; she is the
Hesperidean Nymph: she is Eurybia, Europa, Io, Eos, Asterie,
Aphroditie. It was not Zeus who slew Kronos, nor Kronos who
deposed Ouranos: that is simply an Aryan misunderstanding;
they were a patriarchal people who had never had any direct
contact with the Dragon; therefore they could not comprehend
how the Maid could overcome the Old Man. They never realized
the Maid and the Old Man were of another species: a species
in which the female played the dominant role- as among the
praying mantis. It perhaps requires mentioning that a mantis
is "one who utters oracles while in a state of divine
frenzy"- the mania experienced in the presence of the God;
thus the word is derived, ultimately, from maenad. In the
frenzy of the mating ritual, Europa- a true maenad, swallowed
up her Father, Agenor; that he might be reborn as Minos. Or
as he was also called- in the Theban cycle- Aristaios.
The mating between Europa and Agenor brought forth the
new Son, Minos, whom we have already identified with Kadmos,
or Kadmilos. Because Agenor is also called Arestor, I have
suggested he may be Asterios himself; thus identifying
Asterios as the Father of Minos. That in the Theban cycle the
new Son is called Aristaios, however, implies that Asterios
may be more accurately identified as Minos himself. In the
story as it has always been told, after mating with Europa,
Asterios simply disappears from the myth without explanation,
just prior to the birth of Minos. There are two possible
explanations for that disappearance. If he is in truth the
Father of Europa, then that mating resulted in his death, but
if he is the Son of Europa, then his name has simply been
changed to Minos to prevent the uninitiated from realizing he
was married to both his Mother and his Daughter. To answer
the question decisively, we must now consider the role of
Pasiphae. It is said Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, was the
Daughter of Helios and Hekate; but as we know already that
Helios and Minos are one and the same, and that Hekate, i.e.,
Perseis, is Persephone- the Daughter of Perses, Pasiphae is
thereby revealed as the Daughter of Minos himself, his
Daughter by his Mother- Europa. It is also said of Minos that
be became a judge in the land of the dead, in Hades: he is,
of course, Hades himself, i.e., Aeetes- the Father, not the
brother of Pasiphae.
The tale is well-known how Pasiphae, upon conceiving an
unnatural lust for the bull that came from the sea, lay
concealed within a mechanical cow fashioned for her by
Daedalus so that the bull might mount her. The child of that
union was the Minotaur, "the bull of Minos". That bull was
also called Asterios. He is, as we shall see, Minos himself,
the same bull who mated with Europa, now disguised in order
to test the fidelity of his wife, Pasiphae, as Kephalos once
disguised himself to test Prokris's love for him. As King
Midas had donkey ears (thus identifying him as the ass of
Dionysos, i.e., the cuckolded father of the Divine child) so
King Minos had bull's horns: he is the Minotaur. Midas is, of
course, simply a comic version of Minos himself. Midas's
touch ushered in the Golden Age, but, contrary to the fable,
it was at the cost of his life (or at least his balls) for
that golden touch was in truth the Golden Shower which fell
down upon the earth at his castration. Minos and Pasiphae,
the Father and the Daughter, should bring forth the new Son-
Dionysos, but instead they have a Daughter- Ariadne; thus
revealing Ariadne as Pasiphae herself. The Minotaur and
Ariadne are Minos and Pasiphae: their encounter at the heart
of the Labyrinth is the mating ritual of the Dragon; thus the
Minotaur is slain, not by Theseus, but by the Nymph herself-
Ariadne. With her sweet piping she lured the Minotaur- not
her brother but her Father- to the center of the Labyrinth:
there she waited for her prey like the spider- Arachne. After
mating with him, she wrapped him in a web of her own devising
and slew him. It is only now, with the death of Minos, that
the new Son may be born- Dionysos: "the once and future
King". That the Minotaur is Minos himself, however, and that
he is named Asterios, demonstrates conclusively that Minos
and Asterios are one and the same; therefore Asterios is
properly placed in the same generation with Aristaios,
Kadmos, and Minos. The name Arestor, therefore, simply
indicates that Agenor is indeed the Father of Asterios- and
of Ares. As I have said, Asterios's name was changed to Minos
to conceal the incestous relations at the heart of the
Dragon's mating ritual; thus as Asterios he is married to the
Mother- Europa, while as Minos he was married to his
Daughter- Pasiphae. The following chart may help clarify
their complex affairs:
1. F: Agenor
D: Europa
S: Asterios (Minos)
2. M: Europa
S: Asterios (Minos)
D: Pasiphae
3. F: Minos (Asterios)
D: Pasiphae
D: Ariadne (Pasiphae)
4. F: Bull from Sea (Asterios/Minos)
D: Pasiphae (Ariadne)
S: Minotaur (Asterios/Minos)
5. F: Minotaur (Asterios/Minos)
D: Ariadne (Pasiphae)
S: Dionysos
We have learned that the Mother and the Son have a
Daughter, while the Father and the Daughter have a Son; yet
in step 3, the marriage between Minos and Pasiphae, the
marriage between the Father and the Daughter, a Daughter is
born. As is so often the case, the ancient authors of the
myth have repeated generations in order to prevent discovery
of the incestous pattern that governs the mating ritual of
the Dragons. Thus the birth of Minos is listed twice- in
steps one and four, while the birth of Pasiphae is listed in
steps 2 and 3. Meanwhile, the marriages in numbers 3,4, and
5, the union of Minos with Pasiphae, of the bull who came
from the sea with Pasiphae, and of the Minotaur with Ariadne,
are all one and the same marriage. Ariadne and the Minotaur
do not constitute a new generation but are simply a
repetition of the previous one. In other words, Ariadne and
the Minotaur are Pasiphae and Minos- the Maid and her Father.
The child of that union is Dionysos. Ariadne, i.e., Ariagne,
i.e., Hagne, i.e., Hekate, the Queen of the Underworld, who
was also called Pasiphae, the sister of Aeetes, is therefore
revealed as Persephone, the Mother of Dionysos. The mating in
the Underworld between Ariadne and Dionysos, between Odysseus
and Penelope, did not bring forth the new Son who would be
ruler of the world; instead, it brought forth the new
Daughter, the new Nymph, Nausikaa, who awaits her Father's
return in the maternal cave- the Nest of the Dragons.
Dionysos, the son of Minos and Pasiphae, has not yet returned
from his long journey through the cosmic ocean to consumate
his marriage with her, for the Son is reborn on the other
side of the starry sea and must return from there to spawn.
I have already explained how he reaches the other side of
that starry sea: through the Gateway, the "quasars at the
kissing gate", through the pylon, past the Gatekeeper, the
Pylorus, down the stomach and through the intestines. The
phallus itself is the Son; after she eats that phallus, she
must excrete him: the blast that sends him to the stars is,
indeed, "a warm fart, at Christmas". Thus it is true that
none of your wise men really know "how it feels- to be Thick
as a Brick". But there is one among us who does know.
Among the Dragons it was always the Daughter who, upon
attaining sexual maturity, slew her Father. Needless to say,
that life cycle was incomprehensible to man because it was
not a human life cycle. It was the alien nature of that life
cycle which made it impossible for man to rediscover the true
genealogies of the gods after they had been distorted by
Hesiod, for the mating ritual that lies at the heart of the
mythos and determines the hermeneuticaly correct form of the
genealogies does not follow a human pattern of behavior: it
is much closer to the insect. It is the life cycle of the
Pyralis, the Phoenix, the Dragon. All attempts to reconstruct
the genealogies of the gods from a human perspective were
therefore doomed to failure. It is an incestous life-cycle,
for the Male is both Father to the Daughter, and, at the same
time, Father and Grandfather to the Son through his union
with the Daughter. Again, it was this dual role that made it
so convenient for the Greeks, in case after case, to simply
substitute Zeus for the true Father, limiting him to the role
of Grandfather, as is most clearly seen when Zeus replaces
Kadmos as the Father of Dionysos by Semele. As Zeus was
substituted for Kadmos in Thebes, so he was substituted for
Asterios in Crete as the Father of Minos. Complicating
matters still further is that Asterios is Minos himself,
while the mating between Minos and Pasiphae (i.e., Kadmos and
Semele) which should have brought forth the new Son,
Dionysos, is simply repeated in the mating between Ariadne
and the Minotaur order to avoid the birth of Dionysos
altogether.
Making the Cretan myths even more incomprehensible, the
Athenians added to the confusion caused by the inevitable
displacement of Pasiphae as the killer of her Father, Minos,
i.e., the Minotaur, by substituting Theseus as his slayer.
Not even the Son in place of the Daughter, but a complete
stranger, although he is only able to accomplish that task
with Ariadne's assistance. Theseus does take off with one
Daughter of Minos- Ariadne, and marry another- Phaedra; thus
at least in part fulfilling his role: in the end, however, he
is warned away from Ariadne by spear-wielding Athene, and
Ariadne is led off by her Son and husband- Dionysos. That
Theseus ends up married to Phaedra, however, who is Ariadne
herself, indicates Theseus himself was merely Dionysos in
disguise: testing Ariadne's love for him as Kephalos tested
the fidelity of Prokris, and Minos the wide range of
Pasiphae's love. Shakespeare knew the tale well; thus, as
Pasiphae, through the ruse of Minos, fell in love with a
bull, so Titania, as a result of Oberon's spellbinding, fell
in love with an ass.
The slaying of the Medousa by Perses would seem to
represent the destruction of mythic knowledge; for in truth
Perses marries Asterie (i.e., Eurybia- his Mother, the
Medousa herself) and has Persephone- with whom he mates and
at whose hands he dies. He is reborn through her, literally,
as Dionysos- the son of Perses. He is Prometheus reborn. It
would appear that in the Greek version, however, the
barbarians have completely bastardized the myth, for Perses
kills the Mother. Complete misunderstanding! If the Son
killed the Mother, how could the Daughter ever be born? For
the race to continue, for the world to continue, the male
Dragon must sacrifice himself: a sacrifice performed out of
love. Nonetheless, the myth is reborn and takes wing once
again with Pegasus and with Chrysaoar- the hero with the
golden sword.
As Chrysaoar, he weds Kallirhoe (the Mother herself, for
she is the Daughter of Okeanos and Tethys) and has a Son-
Geryon, i.e., Chiron. But the marriage between the Mother and
the Son produces a Daughter, not a Son; therefore Geryon, as
we saw in the genealogical charts, is revealed as Chrysaoar
himself, not the new Son. It is the marriage between Geryon
and Kallirhoe, i.e., Chiron and Chariklo, that produces the
new Daughter- Okyrhoe; thus confirming the identity of either
couple as a repetition of Chrysaoar and Kallirhoe, not a new
generation. Chiron is a Centaur, an immortal; yet he was
wounded beyond healing by the arrow of Herakles, and sought
death in order to find release from the torment of his wound.
It was Chiron who descended to the Underworld and traded
places with Prometheus, that the latter might at last go
free.
In the Underworld, Chiron became the ferryman who rows
the dead across the river Styx, the ferryman called Charon.
Chiron is now a denizen of the Underworld. He lives
underground. As was indicated on the genealogical charts and
will be confirmed herein by the myths themselves, although
Teiresias is supposedly the son of Eueres and the grandson of
the Spartoi named Udaios- "Ground Man", it is actually Udaios
who is the Father of Teiresias, while his Mother is indeed
the Nymph Chariklo. Even at this point, however, it becomes
impossible to deny any longer the identity between Chrysaoar,
Geryon, Chiron, Charon, and Udaios; between Chariklo and
Kallirhoe, whom the Hindus call Kali; and, finally, between
Okyrhoe, Teiresias, and Perseis, whom the Hindus call
Parvati- Daughter of the Mountain: the Daughter of Meter
Oreia- the Mountain Mother, Mother Rhea. Parvati is, course, Kali
herself, for the Mother and the Daughter are one. From the Golden
Shower falling into the lap of Mother Rhea at the castration
of Ouranos was born the new Son- Perses. He is the Titan
Prometheus, i.e, Kronos, whose reign was the Golden Age of
the world. After falling from the starry sky, that Golden
Shower, the urea, solidified in crystalline form as pyramids-
mountains upon the earth. The pyramids of the faery realm
were gold, an image of the Golden Moon that looms over the
blessed land. The pyramids of this world, on the other hand,
were originally white, an image of the Silver Moon that
dominates our sky; thus the pyramids are revealed as a symbol
of the Moon, the highest mountain on earth, Mt. Helikon- the
image of the Sun.
As Krios, Chiron returns to the mythos, (the alien life
cycle) but now the mating cycle at the heart of the myth is
distorted. As Krios, he mates with his Mother, Eurybia, all
well and good by Dragon standards; but instead of producing a
Daughter, the Nymph Persephone, the pair bring forth a Son,
Perses, who is Krios himself by yet another name. Only now,
after the inevitable repetiton of generations to disguise the
common identity of the deities involved (and the incestous
nature of their mating cycle) are matters set right. For now
Perses marries Asterie, and at last the Son and the Mother
bring forth the Maid, Persephone- the Nymph with whom he
mates: the loving Daughter who binds him in her web at the
Tree of Life in the maternal cave, then pierces his side with
her stinger- the harpe.
In the various genealogies available to us, that pair is
named first of all as Hades and Persephone- the traditional
version, rendered hermeneutically correct by identifying
Hades with Perses, the Kabeiroi who became Lord of the
Underworld after being slain by his two brothers. In the
Orphic genealogies, that same pair is called Zeus and
Persephone. Although he is supposedly the son of Kronos, as
the genealogical charts make clear, Zeus is simply another
name for Kronos himself- the Titan, now clearly identified in
turn with Prometheus, i.e., Perses- the Father of Persephone.
Again, they are called Helios and Hekate; but, as we know,
Helios is simply the upper world aspect of Hades, i.e.,
Perses himself, while Hekate is Perseis, i.e., Persephone.
Or, finally, they are called Minos and Pasiphae, but Minos
and Pasiphae, as we have just seen, are simply the Cretan
version of Kadmos and Persephone, i.e., Semele.
It is clear now what web was woven around the
genealogies, and the myths themselves are much more
comprehensible now that we have available to us
hermeneutically accurate genealogical charts of the deities
involved. With the Key to the Labyrinth in our hand, we have
now been able to unlock the secrets of the genealogies. It is
no longer a question of deciding which of the many apparently
conflicting genealogies is correct, if any; instead, we have
only to correlate the various genealogies given in the mythos
with the genealogical charts derived from the Labyrinth
pattern. We are not dealing with various deities, but with
various names for one deity, and we have only to understand
the meaning of those names and the role a character plays in
a story in order to determine where on the genealogical
charts he should be placed; thus revealing his true identity:
as we discovered the identity between Achilles and
Prometheus, though one is supposed to stand at the beginning
of the mythic cycle and the other at its end. It is true he
does this; for he is the Alpha and the Omega.
As I have said, what always prevented man from
reconfiguring the genealogies in their correct form is that
they describe the life-cycle, not of man, but of another
being, an alien being- the Dragon. All attempts to express
that life cycle in human terms ultimately foundered upon that
rock. That same mistake is still being repeated today, for
the dominance of the female in the ancient myths is commonly
believed to represent only the political structure of the
ancient world- the matriarchy. In reality, it represents far
more than that: the matriarchy is alien in origin, though
imitated by human societies for thousands of years. The blood
continued to flow long after anyone knew why. The existence
of that alien race, not to mention the intimate details of
their mating pattern, is the secret revealed by the Key to
the Labyrinth. All due respect for the power of women, the
daughters of men do not spin a web around their father; then
eat his phallus after making him drunk on the intoxicating
honey of their love: a phallus that is reborn as the son when
finally excreted by the mother. Metaphorically speaking, of
course, this is precisely what women do; but the myths are
not a symbol of human sexuality: instead, as Schopenhauer
tried to make clear in his now notorious Essay on Women,
human sexuality is itself the result of mythic events, a
symbol of profound religious truth.
Kronos, Koios, and Krios are all associated with gold,
with the Golden Mana, the Golden Age; if they are not all
one, they are at least Father and Son. Krios is the Golden
Ram of Heaven; Koios is the Golden Ball of Heaven, and Kronos
is the Golden Time- the Harvest Time. Helios is also his
name; he, too, is the Golden Ball of Heaven, the Rooster, the
Lion of the Sun, like his Father- Hyperion. Striking the
moon, his bright rays turn her to gleaming gold: a true ikon
of the sun- a true Mt. Helikon. Down to the earth pours the
golden dew, carrying nourishment to the world and remembrance
of the word; for man does not live by bread alone, but
requires also the waters of Mnemosyne. It is the river behind
the Mona Lisa, the white river that becomes golden at the
touch of her cape, as La Ghirlandata's cape is also of gold.
It is the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow- the pot of
gold filled by the phallus of Helios, the Father. Surely the
identity of that Lady "who shines white light and wants to
show, how everything still turns to gold"- is now rendered
crystal clear?
As the Nymph was forced, ultimately, to confess to him
when she followed him within the Tree of Life- that Tree
which is Death itself: "The mana, the mana, the mana it is
thine; the wager you fairly have won". The Golden Shower
descends upon the Earth at the union of the Father with the
Daughter, when the Old King dies and the New King is born.
Zeus did not simply pour the Golden Shower upon the lap of
Danae, who then gave birth to Perseus, i.e., Orion, the Son
of Ouranos. It was the Nymph herself, the Daughter, the Maid,
here called Danae, i.e. Demeter, who tore the phallus from
her Father's body, releasing that Golden Shower upon the
world: the Golden Mana that flows from the heavens, the fiery
blood that pours from the severed member of the Father, the
honey that is sweet to drink. Danae is, of course, Deianeira,
the sister of Meleager and wife of Herakles. Because of her
jealousy over his reputed love affair with Iole, Herakles
ended up on the funeral pyre, wrapped in the hide of a
centaur and roasting away like the meat that Prometheus
wrapped within the hide at Mecone. Herakles still burns atop
that pyre, for the log in the hearth has not yet been
consumed. To say it again, there is only one myth, and that
myth belongs to us all.
You see, and this what I wish to share with you above
all, why I have tried to grab your attention with my at times
terrifying tale: the union of the Daughter with the Father
can take two forms. It can be a Golden Shower falling gently
upon the earth- the honey, "the healing rain"; or it can be a
"hard rain"- the burning fire. A rain of fire your pathetic
Pentagon will not be able to stop, for it will be tossed
aside like a toy when the thunderbolts fall from the sky.
What will determine the manner of the Daughter's mating with
the Father- whether it is the fire or the honey? Why, the
manner in which you conduct yourself, of course; for she is
Dike, she is Justice, she is our Mother.
She did not abandon the earth; she did not leave for the
stars with her lover, for how could the earth leave the
earth? Like Penelope, she is waiting for her lover to return:
she is waiting in the cave by the cove at Ithaka, and in that
cave she is weaving a web of the entire world; it is the tale
of your deeds, the tale that will decide your Karma- the tale
that will seal your fate. There is still time, before the
door closes, to join hands with the Dragon: you have the keys
to his cell in your hand. I, your true friend who does not
lie, speak to you from the heart. Conquer your fear, take
those keys and release him from the cell in which you have
confined him. Greet him with open arms and he will make of
this world, in his union with the Daughter, a paradise
surpassing even the most fantastic dreams of Indra. If you
fail, the fire will consume your world. But if you understood
what the Dragon has endured for your sake, then in truth, in
your shame, you would need neither the threat of fire nor a
promise of paradise for reason to free him. He dies every day
for love of you, will you not release him? To put it as
simply as possible:
You better watch out
You better not pout
You better not cry
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming
to town.
The kids in girl and boy land
will have a jubilee.
They're gonna' build a Toyland
all around the Christmas Tree.
The most profound wisdom is often hidden in childish
nonsense. The children led away by the Pied Piper will find
refuge in Toyland- the maternal cave within Mt. Helikon, at
the center of which is the Tree of Life- the Christmas Tree.
Do not forget to hang your stockings high upon the hearth
on Christmas Eve; for when Santa Claus comes, he will leave
behind either a new Golden Age or a lump of coal- all that
will be left of the world after it is consumed by the fire.
Which will you choose? Those who flee this land to enter the
Garden within the maternal cave will have cause indeed for
rejoicing: they will witness the rebirth of the Faery
Kingdom. I would have gone there with them, for I had "a
ticket to ride", but I preferred to give up my place there in
order to speak with you instead; for even now I feel sure
that if only someone were to explain the truth to you, just
once, clearly and in plain language, without the
sophisticated artistic metaphors that have always surrounded
the subject before (and of which, being a mere scholar, I am
incapable anyway) then even here in the shadow world, the
world of the dead, the light of understanding would surely
dawn and dark ignorance be banished forever. That is why I am
called the biggest fool in Heaven, and why they saved my
words for last: it would have spoiled everything had I spoken
too soon. Now you know I am indeed "the last clown"; and that
your house is about to come crashing down.
The truth is simple; we have no one to blame for our
presence in the material world, no one to blame for the
material world itself, but ourselves. It is we who created
the monster, and the monster is us. Therefore, "when the rain
comes", I will not "run and hide" my head; I "might as well
be dead, when the rain comes- I don't mind". I have spoken of
that which it is forbidden to speak, and by so doing I have
given up my right to that place of refuge. I do not mind; if
my words cannot convince you to free the Son of Man, then I
have failed in my task and all living things will surely die
in the coming of the Dragon, the Phoenix bird. I will stay
with the trees and the flowers and the birds, and especially
the bees, indeed with all living things, and with you, too,
my brothers and sisters, and try again at the next spin of
the wheel. And, despite the lure of a worldly paradise, there
is in truth nowhere to run; for we must all leave together,
or none leave at all. We are all one; we must all wake up
together. Let there be, then, no Chosen People among us, for
we are all One People; we are all of the Earth, and we are
all of us Children of the Dragon. Do not fear Him: he is your
Father. He is Allah. Accept his coming in whatever fashion He
chooses to present Himself when He answers the Siren call of
the Nymph.
As the genealogical charts and the etymologies alike
reveal, the Sirens are but various aspects of Persephone, who
is Penelope (or, if you prefer, Nausikaa) waiting for
Dionysos, i.e., Odysseus to return from the stars. For
Odysseus ignored the lure of the Siren, the Nymph, and left
to roam the starways till the day appointed for his return.
She is waiting for him in the cave, she whose song "flows
like honey". Beneath the pyramid, she "knows all that happens
on earth, everywhere, and at all times!". As I have said, the
Siren is the goddess of love and death. She did not die when
Odysseus took off for the stars; for her dwelling place- the
island, Anthemoessa- the land "rich in flowers", is the
island called earth, a fragrant island in the ocean of stars,
one very attractive to this nectar and ambrosia loving
species. At least, it was very attractive. I am afraid they,
too, will be asking "where have all the flowers gone?". Nor
will they be at all pleased to discover that the wild
honey-bees are perishing. The Nymph resides in a cave, in the
land of rock roses. There is a song of that cave, and the
roundabout path that leads there:
In and around the Lake
Mountains come out of the sky
and they stand there
one mile over
we'll be there and we'll see you
ten true summers
we'll be there and laughing too.
That refuge does not lie within the center of the earth,
however; instead, it lies concealed within the center of
highest mountain on earth- Mt. Helikon, the mountain that is
an image of the sun, the mountain that we call the moon.
There is also a painting of that cave, and of the Nymph who
waits within: it is called the Mona Lisa. Threads are woven
around her neck like interwining serpents traced in gold;
beneath those serpents the loops are transformed into
flowers: the persiana design. The Mona Lisa represnts the
identification of the human race with the Kore: an
identification made on a personal level by Leonardo and
possible only through the attainment on his part of what in
the East is called Thunderbolt enlightenment. In China, the
four seasons each have their own color: green for spring, red
for summer, white for fall, and black for winter. In
Botticelli's Venus, Aphrodite is dressed on the left in robes
of green, on the right in a dress of white, and in the middle
she is about to be covered by a robe of scarlet red. The Mona
Lisa is dressed in a gown of darkest black: she is the
Daughter of Aphrodite- grim Persephone, the Queen of the
Underworld. It is not simply a self-portriat of Leonardo
dressed in drag; as so many today seem to believe, anxious to
appear clever; for, if one cannot achieve wisdom, cleverness
is always the next best thing- as is also the case when one
has acquired too much wisdom. Another Da Vinci painting of
that mysterious landscape, equally profound, shows the entire
family gathered together, including the slain child, the
child that was devoured at the banquet by the Mother. That
child is clearly visible, to those with eyes to see, resting
comfortably in the Golden Cradle of the Mother's belly, the
Golden Cradle of the Moon. Da Vinci well deserved the title
of Master: he knew. How did he come by that knowledge? Like
all the Renaissance masters, he not only read Ovid- he
understood him.
The Nymph Echidna was also said to have been born in a
cave. She had a masculine disposition, was half-woman, half
huge snake, and devoured her victims raw; thus, like
Dionysos, she well-deserved the title of Omphagus- "eater of
raw flesh". Jesus declared that it was the flesh of his body
that fed the world: as many of the disciples noted at the
time, "this is an hard teaching". The cave of Echidna lay
beneath a rock, i.e., it lay beneath the pyramid. Beneath
that mountain was the Couch of Typhon, her mate; thus Typhon
is revealed as the serpent Ladon in the Garden of the
Hesperides, wrapped around the Tree of Life by the Nymph,
Echidna. It is where Typhon went to mate and die.
As we saw in the genealogical charts, Keto and Typhon
begat Echidna. Echidna and Typhon in turn begat Orthos- "the
Erect", which is, as we know, simply another of the many
names of Lord Dionysos. Orthos is called the Hound of Geryon.
In other words, he is the Son of Geryon, as the Minotaur,
"the Bull of Minos", was supposed to be the son of Minos;
thus identifying Geryon as Typhon himself; and, as we have
already identified Geryon with Chiron, confirming at the same
time Chiron's place in the generation of the Titans, the
generation of Krios, i.e., Chrysaoar himself, who is called
the Father of Geryon. As Kerberos, he is called the Hound of
Hades: as Kadmos- the Gatekeeper. He is Toto. Dorothy loved
him above all others. He made her laugh. As we have seen,
Geryon is Charon, the ferryman who takes the souls of the
dead across the River Styx. He is Chiron the Centaur, whose
Daughter by Chariklo, i.e., Kallirhoe, was Okyrhoe, whose
name reveals that she is the Daughter of the Harpy Okypete,
i.e., that she is the Daughter of the Medousa, for Okypete is
yet another of Eurybia's many names. That "unspeakable
daughter" of the Medousa, the Daughter of Demeter herself, is
also called Teiresias, the "son" of Udaios- "Ground-Man", and
the Nymph Chariklo, whose name reveals her as the wife of
Chiron; for Chariklo, or Chariclo, is the name of Chiron's
wife also; thus confirming the identity between Udaios and
Chiron. Teiresias is, of course, Perseis: the wife and
Daughter of Kadmos. It is truly a Gordian knot into which the
Greek myths have been tied; only the sword of the King can
unravel that knot- by cutting to the heart of the myth and
releasing the thunderbolt from his age-old prison.
Orthos was, in the traditional genealogies, the son of
Typhon and Echidna, and the Sphinx was the son of Orthos and
the Chimaira. As we now know, however, this entire line is a
chimaira; for, as the revised genealogies plainly reveal,
Typhon and Echidna, the Son and the Mother, must have a
Daughter, not a Son: that Daughter is the Chimaira, i.e.,
Myrrha, i.e., Mary. She is called also- as the astute reader
may already have realized- Marsyas; for not all the
characters in the Greek myths are masks of Dionysos- the
myths belong as much to the Kore as to the Son: it is her
story also. Typhon, now the Father, mates with the Chimaira
to bring forth the new Son, Orthos, i.e., Oidipos. Orthos and
the Chimaira then bring forth, as is listed even in the
traditional genealogies, the Sphinx; she is the Daughter, not
the Son. By solving her riddle, Oidipos resisted mating with
her; thus he also avoided dying at her hands. Oidipos killed
his Father and married his Mother, betraying the Greek
influence on the myth. The Greeks could never quite
understand that it was the female of the species who killed
the male. That is why Oidipos, not Iocaste, kills Laios; why
Kronos, not Gaia, deposes Ouranos; why Zeus, not Persephone,
deposes Kronos; that is why Dionysos, not Thebe or Semele, or
even Teiresias, banishes Kadmos: they simply could not
conceive of the female overthrowing the male, although
certainly Aeschylus's Klytaimnestra comes close.
If we were to look back now at the Oresteia, with which
this analysis began, we should have to say, now that the
scales have fallen from our eyes, that it represents the
Nymph, in this case Klymene, using her spinnarets to ensnare
the Old Man, and that the dagger she uses to slay him is her
stinger- the harpe. Then she eats the Father, Agamemnon,
though even Aeschylus, the greatest of the Greek playwrights,
could not bring himself to incorporate that element of the
story-line; it would have seemed too fantastic, too- inhuman.
That human cultures for millenia imitated the life-cycle of
an alien species, in such well-known rites as that of the
Golden Bough, where the old King was slain by the new King
(he should have been slain by the Queen, or, more precisely,
the Princess, then the Bough would truly have been Golden)
says much for the power that alien race excercised over
mankind before Dike, in despair for the future of mankind,
became the last of the immortals to abandon the earth,
seeking shelter within the maternal cave. And surely we must
now look back at Arachne with new eyes also?
But the death of the Mother, as must be plain by now,
involves more than simply the inability of the Greeks to
fathom the matriarchal structure of the ancient mythos. The
fruit plucked from the Tree of Life by the Nymph in the
Garden of the Hesperides is the serpent Ladon, called her
brother in the traditional genealogies but actually her
Father, come home from the sea to mate with her at last.
There was, of course, only one Nymph in that sacred Garden,
not several. What is forbidden above all in that Garden is
that he should eat her, for that would be contrary to Themis-
to her own law, the law of Nature. Ultimately, it was that
one forbidden fruit that she came to desire above all others.
In Ireland it was not a fruit she desired but a bull- the
Brown of Cooley. It was the one possession Queen Maeve
required to equal the holdings of her husband Ailil, whom the
Greeks call Aeolus, and the Muslims Allah. It is the love
that is born of death, the love that is beyond the self. In
order to learn that love, she needed to die, or at least get
very high. Such was the trap that the Father prepared for
her. When she fell into that trap, the material world was
born- and with it the human race also.
It will be remembered that the Hesperides were said to
be Daughters of Phorkys and Keto; but, like the Pleiades,
they were also called Daughters of Atlas; thus confirming the
identity between the Pleiades and the Hesperides, an identity
which the similarity in their names alone should have
rendered obvious. The Hesperides are, of course, the
Pieredes: they are the true Muses, and they do not lie. The
Hesperides, as Nymphs of the Evening, are associated with
Venus, i.e., Aphrodite. Like the Pleiades, the Hesperides are
not several Nymphs, they are simply various names for the one
Nymph- Asterie, i.e., Aphrodite herself. The Hyades, too, are
listed among the Pleiades, and are themselves nothing but the
Hesperides by still another name. It will be remembered also
that one of the Hesperides is named Asterope, a name almost
identical to Asterie. By all these names she is Aphrodite. As
was also the case with the Giants, the several groups of
Nymphs found in each generation in which the Daughter appears
are but various names for the one group, just as the various
Nymphs within each group are themselves but various names for
the one Nymph. Asterope is called the daughter of Atlas- the
Titan transformed into a mountain of stone, the pyramid that
holds up the sky. Within that pyramid is the entrance to her
cave, the entrance through which only a God can pass- only a
Thunderbolt.
As Kerenyi pointed out, the Medousa, too, was identified
as a Hesperide, as was the Harpy Mapsoura; thus identifying
the Harpies with the Hesperides, as is suggested first of all
by the similarity in their names. The name of the Harpies,
"the Snatchers", is, of course, a pun on harpe- the stinger
of the goddess. One of the Harpies was named Aellopos; thus
the Harpies, the daimones who come to snatch the shades of
the dead, can be identified with the Moirai- the Fates,
especially Atropos. Kerenyi also provides us with an old
story in which the Hesperides were described as thieves come
to steal the Golden Apples of immortality from the Tree of
Life: that was why the serpent had to coil around the Tree-
to guard its fruit from the Nymphs. Actually, he hung from
that Tree after the Nymph bound him there in her web and
stole his life. He was the Golden Apple- he was the
sacrifice. But one day she did, indeed, steal the sacrifice
from him: she made him eat her. She is the Silver Apple of
the Moon. He is Krios, the Golden Ram of Heaven, the Golden
Fleece hanging from the Tree while Jason, called Jesus by the
Christians, is reborn from the Dragon's mouth, as his Mother,
Medea, called Mother Mary by the Christians, looks on from
the side. It is said that the Golden Apples in the Garden of
the Hesperides belonged to Aphrodite. That is indeed true,
for he has promised to be hers forever. As we will see when
we come to the story of Yahweh and Leviathan, Aphrodite "was
a goddess who made peculiarly strong amorous demands, but was
also abundantly generous with the pleasures of love". Her
Father was Thaumas, or Tammuz; her son was named Adonis, or
Adonai- "My Lord": by the Christians he is called Adam.
Ares and Aphrodite were commonly linked together in the
old stories as husband and wife. The marriage between Kadmos
and Europa was that same marriage: the marriage of the Son,
be he called Krios or Kronos or Prometheus or Perses or
Achilles or Ares, with the Mother, be she called Eurybia or
Rhea or Klymene or Asterie or Thetis or Aphrodite. Europa was
the Mother, not the sister or niece of Kadmos. In order to
disguise that Mother-Son relationship, she was, as we shall
see, first changed into a cow and then into a dragon.
Her marriage to Kadmos brought forth the Maid- Harmonia,
though Harmonia is called the Mother of Semele. Kadmos, the
Father, then mated with his Daughter deep within the pyramid
so that the Son might be born: the new ruler of the world-
Dionysos.
The life cycle described in the mythos is not a human
life-cycle, and it should be clear by now just how far off
the mark Freud was with his theory that an Oidipal complex
served as the foundation of myth. The Son did not kill the
primal Father to possess the Mother. Instead, the Daughter
bound the Father, then ate him that the Son might be born,
the Son with whom she will mate and bear a Daughter. When the
Daughter is sexually mature, no longer a larvae but a Nymph,
winged and ready to take to the air, the Father will come at
her call and she will mate with him; then bind him, eat him,
and give birth to the new Son, beginning the cycle all over
again. That is the cycle of life among the Dragons as man has
always known it in the material world. But it is said that
one day the Lion shall lie down with the Lamb and both shall
get up together. It was always thought it was the Lion who
ate the Lamb. Oh no, my friends, as C.S. Lewis tried to tell
you in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it was the
other way around. It was the Daughter, the Lamb of God, who
ate the Father, the Lion, God Himself, while he smiled that
enigmatic smile of his: the smile of Dionysos in Piero di
Cosimo's the Discovery of Honey, the same smile found on the
face of Christ in Rosso Fiorentino's Descent from the Cross.
It was the White Witch of Winter who killed Aslan, not Aslan
who killed the White Witch. But even the Daughter of the
Dragon herself can learn the Way, and through love the
eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, the hellish wheel
of Ixion, be brought to a close. And now, at long last, the
Daughter of the Dragon has well learned the meaning of the
word love, and the long winter of our existence in the
material world is drawing to a close. Spring is coming.
Why did Kerenyi, who understood so much more clearly
than myself the structure upon which the myths were based,
refrain from speaking? He had no reason to speak: as his name
reveals, he did not write to confess, but to elicit a
confession from someone else. Why have I, of all those who
know, of all those who have learned, decided to break the vow
of silence and reveal what no one else has dared to reveal?
Or, more precisely, what no one else has been foolish enough
to reveal? As I told you, I have a confession to make. Let me
explain. For a long time I found Teiresias the most puzzling
character in all of Greek mythology. Long ago while walking
through the green woods, Teiresias came upon two serpents,
intertwined in the throes of passion. He struck one of the
serpents with his stick, killing it. Too soon, Teiresias had
discovered the secret of the intertwining serpents and
revealed it to mankind. By that revelation, the Faery Kingdom
was destroyed and transformed into the material world, while
Teiresias, as punishment for his blasphemous deed, was
transformed into a woman. Seven years later, he came upon the
same pair of snakes, locked once more in the throes of
passion. By striking them again, he reversed the spell,
transforming himself once again into a man, and at the same
time putting an end to the material world and restoring the
Faery Kingdom. As we have discovered, however, Teiresias is
really Perseis, the Maid, transformed into a man- the Goddess
transformed into mankind. Those seven years are the seven
generations of the Dragon; they are the seven notes of the
octave. The song is almost over: the Metamorphosis is upon
us.
I, too, while walking through the green woods amongst
high mountain peaks, came upon those same two intertwined
serpents, even here, in the midst of the material world. Now
untimely I reveal their secrets to you, in the hopes of
repeating his actions and reversing the spell. A foolish
young hobbit named Frodo Baggins once threw the Ring of Power
into the fire of the pyramid called Mt. Doom. By that
reckless act he saved himself but destroyed the kingdom of
Middle Earth and his own beloved Shire as well. But the Ring
was not destroyed thereby; and Frodo Baggins- an older and
perhaps now wiser hobbit, was forced to descend within the
mountain and forge the Ring anew. Only this time not as a
Ring of Power, but as it was meant to be, a Ring of Love- a
Golden Ring to symbolize the mana which gives life to all,
the mana that comes from the Father: the mana that was stolen
by the Nymph. When that Ring is brought forth at last from
the Mountain of Doom by the hobbit and the Grey Wizard who
tricked him into throwing the Ring into the Mountain of Fire
in the first place, the spell will be broken: Middle-Earth,
the Faery Kingdom, will be reborn.
Wound about the Tree of Life within the Garden of the
Hesperides is the serpent Ladon; he himself is the fruit of
that Tree: he is the fruit eaten by the Nymph after their
lovemaking: that meal is the climax of their lovemaking. No
male of the Dragon race ever resisted the lure of the Nymph,
until Odysseus sailed past the Siren's song. For the new Son, the
child of the Odysseus and Penelope, is yet to come: his
birth lies in the future; therefore he is called Telemachos.
The name of that Siren is Aglaope; she is the daughter of
Asterope, i.e., Aphrodite. She is also called Parthenope-"the
Virginal": she is the Maid, the Kore- Persephone. She is also
called Leucosia, i.e., Leukothea, "the White Goddess".
Odysseus and Penelope are therefore revealed as Dionysos and
his Mother, Persephone. Odysseus, after the fall of Troy and
the death of his Father, Achilles (it is because Achilles is
the Father that he, not Odysseus, dies at Troy) did not
return to mate with Penelope, sitting forlornly within the
maternal cave, spinning a web of the entire world. Instead,
he took wing for the stars, to fulfill his wanderlust in the
vast ocean of the Milky Way, past the Bull, the Lion, and the
Scorpion, before returning to the pleasant shores of his home
island to mate with Penelope, waiting impatiently by the
sacred Tree in the Garden within the Mountain. Now, with the
explosion on Jupiter of the comet called Shoemaker-Levy 9, we
know that Odysseus, the Grandson of Leviathan, has returned
at last from his long odyssey among the stars to answer the
Siren's call.
Prometheus knew the secret of the successor to the
throne because, being a Dragon himself, he knew the secret of
the Mysteries: that he, the Titan, would one day dare the
pyramid, the pyre of Metis, to mate with his own Mother-
Klymene, who is also known as Thetis; and that together they
would have a Daughter, Pyrrha. Pyrrha, using strength and
force (i.e., Kratos and Bia, the sons of Pallas and Styx)
would then bind him upon the Great Rock and, when he begged
for it, impale him with her sweet stinger and feed upon him.
All so that his Son, the new King, Deucalion, i.e., Dionysos,
the future ruler of the world, could be born. Such is the
love of the Dragon Fathers. Zeus knew nothing of that love;
and, of course, the Christians misunderstood it completely,
getting it backwards. It was not the Son who was nailed to
the Cross- it was the Father, so that the Son might be born.
The Holy Trinity does not consist of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost; it is the Mother, the Maid, and the
Holy Ghost- the Father who dies and is reborn as the Son: the
dove who flies through the Ocean of Stars. He is the salmon,
the king of fish, returned from his long trek through the
Milky Way back to his spawning grounds- the island called
earth, the island of flowers, where his Daughter, Pyrrha,
i.e., Persephone, waits to mate with him. She is Titania, the
Queen of the Faeries; she is a flower angel. When the white
dove, exhausted from his long flight, settles at last on the
sands of this world, in the lap of the goddess, then she,
Psamathe, "the sand-goddess", Nyso, "the island dweller" who
is also called Speio, "the dweller in caves", having emerged
from the nest, will mate with her Father. He is the Lion, and
this time when the Lion and the Lamb lie down together, they
will both rise. He is the Leviathan, and he has returned from
the stars to mate in the fields of old with his Daughter- the
Salamander. That wedding may very well prove to be a wake for
mankind.
The last wedding of the Phoenix birds, the mating
between Prometheus and his Daughter, Pyrrha, resulted in the
death of Prometheus and brought an end to the Age of Myth-
the Golden Age. Now that the Ring of Power has been reforged
as a Ring of Love, we can create the mythic realm anew, a new
Middle-Earth untroubled by the specter of the Dark Lord, an
earth miraculously free from the shadow of death. The Son of
Prometheus, who is variously called Deucalion or Dionysos or
Odysseus or Orestes or Jesus or Charles Manson or Ian
Anderson or, simply, "Iron Man" has conquered death itself,
the taste of the juice, the intoxicating honey, and returned
from the stars, having "travelled time, for the future of
mankind". Now he is ready for his encounter with the Maid,
ready to encounter- "A Hunting Girl":
One day I walked the road and crossed a field to go
by where the hounds ran hard.
And on the master raced: behind, the hunters chased
to where the path was barred.
One fine young lady's horse refused the fence to
clear/
I unlocked the gate but she did wait until the pack
had/
disappeared.
Crop handle carved in bone; sat high upon a throne
of finest/
English leather
The Queen of all the Pack, this joker raised his
hat and/
talked about the weather.
All should be warned about this high-born Hunting
Girl/
She took this simple man's downfall in hand; I
raised the/
flag that she unfurled.
Boot leather flashing and spur necks the size of
your thumb/
This high born hunter had tastes as strange as they
come/
Unbridled passion I took the bit in my teeth
Her standing over: me on my knees underneath.
My lady, be discrete. I must get to my feet and go
back to/
the farm.
Whilst I appreciate you are no deviate. I might
come to/
some harm.
I'm not inclined to acts refined, if that's how it
goes./
Oh high-born Hunting Girl I'm just a normal low-
born so/
and so.
It is not simply a raunchy love song done in the folk style:
it is, like so much of the ancient folk music from which it
is derived, a song of the mating ritual of the Dragons, the
wedding of the Phoenix birds, the Pyralis, and of how it went
awry. The next mating between the two moths- the pyralidae,
will take place at "Apogee":
Sailing round the true-blue sphere---
is it too late to bail out of here?
Well, there has to be some better way
to turn back the night,
spin on to yesterday
The old man and his crew---
after all these years,
it's apogee
Pilot training and remorse---
spirit friends fly too,
at apogee.
Apogee--- solar bright.
Apogee--- through the night
Apogee--- overground.
Don't think I'll be coming down.
Screened for a stable mate
with nerves of ice we flew,
at apogee.
No creativity allowed
to pass through stainless veins of steel,
at apogee.
Apogee--- put the kettle on.
Tight-lipped--- soldier on.
High point--- communicate.
Don't forget to urinate.
So glad they put this window in
How to explain, how to begin?
See! Tennyson and Wordsworth there
waiting for me in the cold, thin air.
Beware a host of unearthly daffodils
drifting golden, turned up loud
Tell the boys back home,
I'm gonna get some.
The Wrong Stuff's loose in here---
I'm climbing up the walls,
at apogee.
So hoist the skull and bones---
death and glory's free,
at apogee.
A stranger wind, a solar breeze---
I'm walking out upon the starry seas.
See pyramids, see standing stones---
pink cotton undies and blue telephones.
Goodbye, cruel world that was my home---
there's a cleaner space out there to roam
Put my feet up on the moons of Mars---
sit back, relax and count the stars.
Give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray
with understanding hearts
and show us what each one of us can do to set
forward/
the coming of the day of Universal Peace. Amen.
Amen!
Rejoice, for I bring you tidings of joy and good cheer:
the Age of Science is over. We stand on the Threshold of the
Age of Myth- the Magic is back. Once again the Sun and the
Moon will wed; once again the Phoenix birds will mate. Their
love-making will take place, as always, on "Acres Wild":
I'll make love to you
in all good places
under black mountains
in open spaces
By deep brown rivers
that slither darkly
through far marches
where the blue hare races
Come with me to the Winged Isle
Northern Father's Western Child
Where the dance of ages is playing still
through far marches of Acres Wild.
The setting may have deteriorated somewhat, but not the tune:
I'll make love to you
in narrow side streets
with shuttered windows,
crumbling chimneys
By red bricks pointed
with cement fingers
Flaking damply from sagging shoulders
Come with me to the weary town
Discos silent under tiles
that slide from roof-tops, scatter softly
on concrete marches of Acres Wild.
The pyramid of bricks, the "fingers" of stone (the Daktyloi)
beneath the "sagging shoulders" of man: the myth is still
being told, even today: there are still men who bear the
Thunderbolt. When Pegasus was born, he clapped his wings
together with a sound like thunder; then the pyramid, the
mountain of fire, the Mountain of Doom, ceased to grow, and a
Golden Shower fell down upon the earth to celebrate the birth
of the Son, the new King- Pegasus, who is also called Kronos,
Krios, Kadmos, Hermes, Ares, Perses, and Prometheus. He is
Adam, the true father of Jesus.
Now let us speak more of the events which took place in
the fabled Garden of the Hesperides, the Garden of the
Evening, the Garden of Even', the Garden of Eden: the Garden
where Eve stole the apple from the serpent and was swallowed
up within the Tree of Life. With the Key to the Labyrinth in
our hands, lighting the way, we shall not find it difficult
now to explicate for the first time the true connection
between the mythos as it was told in Greece, and the mythos
as it was told in Palestine: now will be revealed the true
mystery which has always lain hidden at the core of the
Judeo-Christian religion. Although it must be obvious by now
that the Serpent in the Garden of Eden is inextricably linked
to the story of the Serpent Ladon in the Garden of the
Hesperidies, the revelation of the role he played, and the
true nature of his relationship with Yahweh, may nonetheless
come as something of a shock to the Judeo-Christian world.
The story that reveals most clearly the Biblical parallel
with the story as we have been telling it, the true story,
not the half-truth found in the Bible, was unknowingly
revealed by Campbell in the Masks of God, wherein he told the
story of Yahweh's victory over Leviathan.
What must be understood first of all is that the Garden
of Eden is not some Middle Eastern oasis between the Tigris
and the Euphrates: it lies in a place where there is neither
light of the sun nor the moon. It is the Garden of the
Hesperides in the maternal cave within the Magic Mountain-
the Great Pyramid. It is the Garden where the Nymph, Eurybia,
she who is also called Asterie, or Aphrodite, awaited the
coming of the primal Father, the Father of all living things,
he who is called Ouranos, Phorkys, Thaumas, Okeanos, Iapetos,
Hyperion, or Kashyapa-"Old Tortoise Man", i.e., Hephaistos.
It is the Garden below the pyramid where the fruit of the
Tree of Life is found. By that Tree waits the Maid; her
bright song draws the Father, the Serpent, home from the sea:
then she hangs him from that Tree after they mate. Listen,
now, as Yahweh describes his conquest of Leviathan to Job:
Can you draw Leviathan out with a fishhook or press
down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in
his nose, or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he
make many supplications to you? Will he make a
covenant with you to take him for your serpent
forever? Will you play with him as with a bird, or
will you put him on a leash for your maidens, will
traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up
among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with
harpoons, or his head with fishing spears? Lay
hands on him; think of the battle; you will not do
it again.
What Campbell, along with everyone else (including the
ancient Hebrews who wrote the Bible) completely failed to
understand is that Yahweh's words are not those of a
patriarchal warrior, boasting of his victory in combat, for
the combat described by Yahweh is a struggle between lovers,
between the Father and the Nymph: a struggle from which the
Nymph always emerged victorious. The words spoken by
Yahweh,therefore, can only have been spoken by the Nymph
herself, by Aphrodite, by Asterie, by Asterope, by the Nymph
Hesperide.The ancient Hebrews, and even, apparently, so brilliant a
scholar as the late Prof. Campbell, could not understand that
Yahweh, the slayer of Leviathan, was no patriarchal warrior
hero- he was a she: he was the Nymph in the Garden of the
Hesperides in the maternal cave beneath the pyramid. In the
most ancient portrayals of Yahweh he, or she, is shown with a
phallus because, like Metis, after biting off the phallus of
the Father, "she carried the semen of the gods". The glorious
combat described by Yahweh is the mating ritual of the
Dragons as seen from the female perspective. Shining brightly
above the imagery of the battle, blazing with such
incandescent heat it seems impossible it could ever have been
misread, is, outside of the "Song of Solomon" of course, the
most erotic imagery in the Bible.
How is it possible so brilliant a scholar as Campbell
could have failed to realize that Yahweh, whom everyone
considers the archetypal patriarchal God, is in fact the
Matriarch herself? And that Leviathan is the Father who, in
the form of a dove, landed on her lap, exhausted from his
flight across the storm tossed sea? Or perhaps he knew, but,
like Kerenyi, was wise enough not to say anything? After all,
separated from the story of Yahweh and Leviathan by only a
few pages, Campbell presents the reader with pictures of the
Goddess walking her mate on a leash, with his tongue pressed
down. The power of the Mothers, as Goethe well knew, was
awesome to behold. Yahweh is the "Hunting Girl". The Irish
called her Queen Maeve: she is Mother Eve in the Garden of
Eden. Indeed it is true that she ate of the fruit of the Tree
of Life, as the Serpent begged her to do; but that fruit was
the Serpent himself, Leviathan, after she had bound him in
her web and pierced him with her stinger, that fearsome
"harpoon"- the harpe. Then his mana poured out to feed the
world, the mana that has now been divided up "among the
merchants".
Yahweh spoke truly when she told herself that if she ate
of the fruit of the Tree of Life- Death, she would surely die.
And Perses, the snake, the clever serpent, also spoke truly
when he told her that if she ate of that fruit she would be
like the Father, like Him, having knowledge of good and evil,
of life and death, of power and, at long last, love. So she
ate the poisoned apple and fell into a deep sleep, an opium
dream; but now she is begining to stir in Mecone, the Field
of Poppies, where Prometheus switched the sacrifice and the
Mother, the forbidden fruit, died in place of the Father.
When she is awakened in the field of flowers by her lover's
kiss, she will see before her the walls of the Emerald City,
the walls of her true home, magical Oz, and with the death of
the Wicked Witch of the West- the White Witch of Winter, Ozma
will once again sit on her throne beside her true Lord, the
Cowardly Lion, he who is also called Aslan, or Toto, or,
simply, the Wizard, i.e., the Dragon. They are Beauty and the
Beast, but she was the Beast, and he was the Beautiful One,
the One who gave to the world the Golden Mana, the honey on
which he fed the children- the Mana which was his own
precious blood.
Time and again she killed him, excercising her will to
power over him, killing him and glorying in her strength
while he smiled that quizzical smile of his. In dying, his
golden blood replinished the earth, creating the world anew:
that blood was the Mana. She could not live without it,
without him, though she would not admit to herself that she
needed him. After all, was she not the stronger of the two?
Was it not she who, like Herakles, always emerged victorious
from their wrestling match? And so, secure in the knowledge
that he would always return to her, time and again she slew
him. Time and again he returned from the stars and the cycle
began anew. At last, as he knew she would, for he knew her
well- inside and out, she began to envy his knowledge of
death, his star roving; for was that not the one possession
he held that she did not? So she began to desire that
knowledge, desired to bring forth a world from her own death.
She desired to taste the fruit of the Tree of Life, the
fruit which is death, the one fruit in all the Garden that
was forbidden to her, to Eve: that she should be the fruit,
for the Mother cannot die. So he warned her not to eat of the
fruit, while at the same time leading her to believe that by
doing so she would be as him- having knowledge of good and
evil (that knowledge is, although she did not know it at the
time, knowledge of love, for as Nietzsche taught, only the
deed that is done out of love "takes place beyond good and
evil") and attain eternal life through the conquest of death.
And so she demanded the fruit which was forbidden to her, and
ate of it; thereby falling into his trap, as he knew she
would, for only in this way could he teach her how to love-
so that she might, indeed, become like him. And so he ate
her; so that she, too, might at last discover what it means
"to be Thick as a Brick". She has now learned that lesson,
and is ready to wake up. Lest I be thought overly
sentimental, the kiss that will awaken our Snow White, the
Sleeping Beauty, will be perceived by man as a cometary
impact that will destroy all life on earth. But that is only
a metaphor of the true reality. It will also result in the
permanent dissolution of the material universe based upon the
principle of will to power: at least, until a new child is
born of the love between Eros and Psyche, a child requiring
the lessons that can only be learned by "living in the
material world". It is a matter of "Astronomy":
Miss Galileo, come with me
and view the new Astronomy.
Black hole dressing on salad plate---
quasar at the kissing gate.
Now the cat, he walks alone
under a big sky.
Umbrella dome pin-pricked in lights---
gonna be a big sky night.
My spectacles, my white lab coat---
my coffee, thermos and my notes.
I pat my pockets. I got the keys
to the secrets of the observatory.
And closing the door,
I feel a new dawn
as the darker slides align---
you to yours and me to mine.
And now you stand, assisting me---
I can touch what I can see, see, see.
I look in wonder, I feel no shame---
see the consequences of the game.
Expand the universe.
Head for the Big Bang.
Reach for my switch and shout---
gonna turn the big sky out.
Yahweh's Mother, the original consort of Leviathan was,
of course, "Lily White Lilith", who was also called Leto.
That Leto is married to Ladon, the Leviathan, is indicated by
her Latin name- Latona. Yahweh was born of the union between
Lilith and Leviathan. She then mated with the Old One, her
Father, to bring forth Adam- the new Son, the new King, he
who is also called Adonis or Adonai: he was the Son of
Yahweh, the Son of Eve, the Son of the ritual slaying of the
Dragon Father. When he reached maturity, he married his
Mother, Eve, she who is also called Yahweh or Asterie or
Astarte or Isis or Aphrodite. Their Daughter was Mary, she
who is also called, in the Greek, Myrrha or Pyrrha or
Persephone or Perseis or Hekate. Adam, who is also called
Adonis, Adonai, Athamas, Krios, Kronos, Chrysaoar, Kadmos,
Minos, Orion, Ares, Asterios, Aristaios, Acheloos, Achilles,
Chiron, Pegasus, Perses, Pallas, Prometheus, Helios, Hermes,
and who knows how many other names, was then wedded to his
Daughter, Mary, the Maid, the Kore, the Virgin Persephone, in
the maternal cave beneath the Great Pyramid- the Garden of
the Hesperides, the Garden of Eden. There within the maternal
cave the Divine Child- Jesus, who is also called Dionysos or
Deucalion or Odysseus or Oidipos, was born to the Virgin
Mary, who now becomes Mother Mary. Thus it is truly said that
he came out of Egypt, "a shambling behemoth, moving towards
Bethlehem to be born".
Coming to the story only late in the day, even after the
Greeks, it should not surprise us that the Christians got
nearly everything wrong. It was not the Romans, nor was it
the Jews who killed Jesus of Nazareth. Nor was it Judas
Iscariot who betrayed Jesus and pinned him to the cross. The
true killer of Jesus was his Daughter by Mother Mary, that
Daughter the Christians call Mary Magdalene. The rivalry
between Mother and Daughter for the love of he who is Son to
the former, Father to the latter, and Husband to both, the
same rivalry we saw in the myth where Hekate stole the
secrets of Hera's beauty, and again in the tale of Snow White
and her evil step-mother (who is not her step-mother but her
real mother) is captured vividly in the New Testament scene
featuring Martha, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus. In that scene,
Jesus abandons Martha (his Mother- Mary, renamed Martha in
order to obscure the Mother/Son relationship between them)
and flies off to his Daughter by Mother Mary- the Nymph, Mary
Magdalene. Not only did he come out of Egypt, he returned
there to mate- and die. The story of Mary Magdalene, the
little tramp, washing the feet of Jesus with her tears and
drying those blessed feet with her own hair, is the most
sensous tale in the life of Jesus, perhaps in the entire New
Testament. Nothing in the New Testament, of course, can hold
a candle to the incomparable eroticism of the "Song of
Solomon", or the mating between Yahweh and Leviathan. The
hair with which Mary dries the feet of Jesus is the serpent
hair of the Medousa, the web in which she binds him before
she applies the sting of death, the spear that pierces his
side as he hangs upon the cross; just as the Dragon Father,
Adam, was pierced by Mother Mary herself as he hung upon the
Tree of Life within the cave beneath the Great Pyramid, bound
within her web. Mother Mary is there at the cross, of course,
to mourn the death of her beloved Son at the hands of the
Nymph.
Mary Magdalene was waiting outside the tomb of Christ
because it was she who pierced his sweet side and gave his
flesh- the fish and the bread, and his blood- the wine, as a
meal to the world, sharing it with the world from the golden
fountain that poured from from the top of the Mountain- the
Pyramid, the cross upon which he was hung. After that death,
Christ, i.e., Orion, walked upon the water and became the
soul of the world. His journey across the sea represents his
odyssey to the stars. He is the Dragon who dwells within all
of us, beneath our left shoulders, in our hearts. He became
the soul of man- he is the Son of Man; thus Charles Manson
spoke truly to you when he said: "I am only what lives inside
each and every one of you". One day you will face that soul
now nestled beneath your shoulder, the soul Daughter of Jesus
and Mary Magdalene, the soul which is your true self- Psyche.
Whether, at that final moment, a terrifying dragon or a
beautiful butterfly emerges from the Chrysalis that is your
mortal shell will be determined, not by your words, but by
your deeds.
We can continue now in this vein to unpack the whole of
Greek mythology, revealing in the process the real treasures
that lie hidden deep beneath the glittering surface of the
myths. By way of example, the story of the Theban Dios
Kouroi, Zethos and Amphion, is, as Rose observed, a doublet
or "a sort of parenthesis in the saga" of the founding of
Thebes by Kadmos. As Rose did not observe, however, Zethos
and Amphion, the Sons of Zeus and Antiope, are Zephyros and
Boreas- the two brothers called in the orthodox genealogies
the Sons of Pallas and Styx, while the manner in which they
raised the walls of their city is simply a veiled metaphor
for the raising of the pyramids. As Amphion's lyre raised the
walls of Thebes, i.e., the Pyramid- the nest of the Phoenix,
so it was Apollon, along with Poseidon (i.e., Perses, i.e.,
Kadmos) who raised the walls of Troy- that same pyramid. Mt.
Helikon, too, it will be recalled, was raised by music- the
Music of the Muses, whose constant companion was Apollon.
The similarity in names alone is enough to identify
Zephyros with Zethos (who is, as we shall see, Kadmos
himself) but the connection between Amphion, Apollon, and
Boreas is more subtle. Of the two Theban Dios Kouroi, it is
said that Zethos was a warrior born, but Amphion, "much to
the disgust of Zethos, was a musician, a player upon the
lyre". Not only was Apollon famous for playing upon the lyre,
he was also the only Greek god worshipped in fabled
Hyperborea: Boreas is Apollon, i.e., Amphion. That Zethos is
Kadmos is further confirmed by his marriage to the
Nymph Thebe- his Daughter. When the Father and the Daughter
mate, the Daughter binds the Father in her web, paralyzes him
with her sting, then bites off his phallus, consuming his
mighty rod that it may be reborn from her as the new Son. And
so Kadmos disappears from Kadmeia at the return, i.e., the
birth of Dionysos, and the city is renamed Thebes- in honor
of the Nymph who slew him. Her name, it will be recalled,
means "opium-user". That Nymph, his Daughter, was also called
Semele, Persephone, or Perseis. Now only the Nymph remains
within the pyramid, as Teiresias remained behind in Thebes
after the exile of Kadmos. It was not, of course, Dionysos
who exiled Kadmnos: Dionysos could not be born until Kadmos
was castrated and his phallus eaten by Thebe. Zethos and
Thebe are, of course, Pyramis and Thisbe; thus Thebes itself
now stands clearly revealed as "the city of bricks"- the
Pyramid.
Amphion ultimately married Niobe; she was the daughter
of Tantalus, the granddaughter of Atlas, and sister to
Pelops: together they had seven sons and seven daughters.
When the people, at the urging of Teiresias's daughter-
Manto, began to worship Leto, Niobe reminded them of her own
divine lineage and called on the people to worship her
instead. As Thebe is the Daughter, so Niobe, "mistress of
Cadmus' royal palace", is, of course, the Mother herself. As
an example of her superiority over Leto, she cited her seven
sons and seven daughters: mockingly comparing her own
voluminous brood with Leto's paltry set of twins; thus
sealing the manner of her doom. Leto is, of course, Niobe's
Mother; she is Lethe, the White River of Forgetfulness, now
identified as "Lily White Lilith" herself- the Grandmother.
Leto, "most gentle of goddesses", commanded Apollon and
Artemis to slay the children of Niobe, which grim deed they
swiftly accomplished. Niobe herself was turned to stone; "a
violent whirlwind caught her up, and carried her away to her
own country, where she was set down on a mountain top".
Amphion, like Pyramis, killed himself with his own sword,
although in truth that sword was, in both cases, not his but
hers: it was the harpe. He used that sword to take his own
life because he had sworn not to abandon her, even in death.
It was he himself, of course, as Apollon, who was responsible
for her death.
Niobe was set down on a mountain top because she is
Rhea, the Mountain Mother. She is the Medousa, who was
herself finally turned to stone, i.e., paralyzed and slain,
as she herself had so often done to the Father. Thebe
remained behind, within the pyramid, because she is Perseis,
i.e., Parvati, the Daughter of the Mountain- the pyramid
itself. The Mother must experience death that the Daughter
may at last be born. Leto was also called Styx, and by that
name was the wife of Pallas and the Mother of Kratos, Bia,
and Nike, which latter is also a name given to Athene.
According to Ovid, Niobe was a friend to Arachne, and it was,
curiously enough, Athene's victory over Arachne in their
famous weaving contest that led Manto to proclaim the glory
of Leto and the Letoides- Apollo and Artemis, and to urge
their worship. Although Athene is nowhere called the Daughter
of Leto, she is the Daughter of Pallas and Styx; and Styx, as
we know (and, obviously, as Ovid knew) is Leto herself; thus
identifying Athene as the Daughter of Leto, which should
identify Athene with Artemis: both are called the Maid, like
Persephone herself. As we have just seen, however, Leto is
the Grandmother; thus placing Athene in the position of
Niobe- the Mother, and leaving Artemis as Thebe- the Nymph,
the Granddaughter of Leto.
Amphion and Zethos were the sons of Zeus and Antiope,
i.e., Aphrodite. Antiope's father was Nykteus- "Night-Man".
He is, as we shall see, Prometheus himself, but he is her Son
and not her Father. He is, of course, Kadmos himself, i.e.,
Zethos. The king of Thebes at that time was Lykos, who was
married to Dirke. The name of Lykos, "the wolf", identifies
him as Apollon; for Apollon, the god of shepherds, was the
only Greek God closely associated with wolves. The story of
the sacrifice by which Thebes was founded is repeated once
more in the story of the War of the Seven against Thebes.
Seeking water with which to perform a sacrifice, the army of
the Seven encountered the nurse Hipsyple and her young
charge, Opheltes: the son of King Lykourgos and Queen
Eurydike. Hipsyple is called the Granddaughter of Dionysos,
but from her name it seems more likely she is the Daughter of
Hypseus; and thus the Grandmother of Dionysos. Lykourgos is,
of course, Lykos himself. In order to guide the army to the
spring, Hipsyple set the child down and left him lying there
alone on the green grass. When they returned from the spring,
they found the child dead, slain by the Dragon; thus his
other name, Archemoros, for it was said that he was the first
to die in the War of the Seven against Thebes. But he was
rather more than that. As the first part of his original name
reveals, he was the serpent child, the phallus hidden in the
liknon. After killing the Dragon, the army of the Seven "gave
little Opheltes a magnificent funeral": the occasion marked
the beginning of the Nemean Games. Before Medousa, before the
Divine Child- Perses, no one had ever died: through that
child Death entered the world. That child is death itself. He
is the sacrifice. He is the two who are one. As even Rose
observed:
The great stress laid upon the funeral rites of
this baby, the association with the serpent, and
the fact that it is his nurse, not his mother, who
is prominent in the story, all suggest that he is
originally a child-god of the Cretan type, no human
infant at all.
No, it was not a human child who was laid beneath the earth
that day; it was a child of the Dragon race. When the war of
the Seven against Thebes failed, Adrastos, the leader of that
army, escaped upon the back of the magical horse Arion- the
son of Poseidon and Demeter. Adrastos is Admetos, i.e.,
Kadmos himself, also called Athamas. He escapes upon the back
of Arion because he is also Chiron- the Centaur. He is, in
short, Arion himself.
The fabled bard Orpheus, who, like Apollon, played upon
the lyre, was also married to a Eurydike. She was once
pursued by Aristaios, who is called a "second Apollon".
As he pursued her through the meadows, she was bitten by a
serpent and died; thus she fell into the Underworld. The
story is well known how Orpheus, heartbroken, followed her to
Hades, as Dionysos followed Semele. The song of Orpheus so
touched the heart of Hades and Persephone that they agreed to
let him take Eurydike back to the surface with him, warning
him only not to look back for her; else she must remain
behind in the Underworld. On the verge of returning to the
light, he glanced back over his shoulder, and she disappeared
once more into the shadows. Having lost her once more, he
lost all interest in living as well, preferring to die
himself and be reunited with her in the Underworld. His
desire was soon fulfilled; like Pentheus, the "man of
sorrow", he was torn apart by the Maenads: his mating with
the Nymph, his Daughter- Eurydike herself. That mating is
described as taking place after her return to the Underworld
in order to conceal that it is the mating ritual itself which
results in his death. It is, of course, the same Eurydike in
both tales: she is Europa; she is Dirke- the Mother.
Aristaios, "the best of all gods", is the Son who switched
the sacrifice.
Amphion and Zethos, like Kastor and Polydeukes, were
Dios Kouroi- sons of the sky-god. A clue to the true identity
of the Dios Kouroi is provided by the name of Polydeukes; it
means "many-handed": he is one of the Hekatoncheires. Chiron,
or Cheiron, is, of course, the Greek word for hand. The
following genealogical charts not only resolve whatever
mystery remains as to the true identity of Amphion and
Zethos, they also provide another clue to the true identity
of Teiresias:
Iapetos=Klymene
Kelaino=Prometheus Atlas Menoites
Nykteus Lykos Eurypulus(Triton)
Chthonios(Underworld-Man) Kelaino=Prometh.
Nykteus Lykos=Dirke Nykteus Lykos Euryplus(Triton)
Zeus=Antiope
Niobe=Amphion Zethos=Thebe
Tantalus Zeus=Antiope
Pelops Niobe=Amphion Zethos=Thebe
Seven Daughters Seven Sons
(F) (D)
Iapetos=Klymene
(S)
Prometheus
(S) (M)
Prometheus=Kelaino(Klymene)
(S) (M)
(Chthonios, Nykteus)Prometheus=Antiope(Aphrodite)
Thebe=Zethos Amphion=Niobe
Antiope, whose star-bright eye robs men of their sight,
is Kelaino, "the Dark One"; thus the marriage between
Prometheus and Antiope is simply a repetition of the marriage
between Prometheus and Kelaino- the Son and the Mother.
Lykos, "the wolf", is Apollon, i.e., Pallas, i.e., Atlas,
while Eurypylus, "the wide Gateway", is most likely Menoites,
sent by the thunderbolt of Zeus to the Underworld, where he
became the herdsman of Hades. Herakles wrestled with
Menoites during his adventures in the Underworld, defeating him but
"sparing his life at Persephone's entreaty". That both
Prometheus and the Spartoi named Chthonios- "Underworld Man",
are named as the Father of Nykteus and Lykos reveals their
common identity, while the name of Nykteus- "Man of Night",
i.e., Man of the Underworld, demonstrates that he, too, is
Chthonios, i.e., Prometheus. Chthonios is, of course,
Erichthonius.
Prometheus is the Son of Iapetos and Klymene: he then
marries Klymene, his Mother, only her name is changed to
Kelaino- "the Dark One", in order to disguise the incestous
relationship between them. She is Niobe- the "rosebud of
night" in her tower bright, who was married to Amphion, i.e.,
Apollon. She, too, may be called Rosebud; for the Mother and
the Daughter are one. As we have seen, Antiope is Aphrodite-
the Mother. Niobe is the dark side of the Mother- Kali Durga,
who must drink of her own waters and experience death. Thebe
is the Daughter who will be reborn from that death. She is
the Maid called Perseis, who was metamorphisized into the man
called Teiresias. Zethos is simply a doublet of his Father,
Prometheus; thus confirming his identity as Kadmos, and
explaining why he marries Thebe- she is his Daughter.
Finally, that Leto is Lilith, the Grandmother, identifies the
marriage between Amphion (or Apollon) and Niobe, the Mother,
as the marriage between Iapetos and Klymene- the Father and
the Daughter. Their marriage resulted in the birth of seven sons
and seven daughters- the Titans; thus confirming Apollon's
place in the generation of Ouranos and Iapetos: suggesting that
Nietzsche's insight into the origin of the Greek myths, that
they emerged fullblown from the brow of Apollo, is
essentially correct. We shall see later, when we come to the
stories of Apollo's younger brother, Hermes, if that is
indeed the case.
It will be remembered that the legendary Teiresias, the
ubiquitous companion to Kadmos and the most mysterious figure
in all of Greek mythology, was the only shade in the
Underworld who retained his memory of life on the other side.
As mentioned earlier, it is said that Teiresias is the son of
Eueres and the grandson of Udaios- one of the Spartoi who
emerged from the earth when Kadmos sowed the Dragon's teeth
at Thebes. Since it is also said that Teiresias lived for
seven generations and that he died only in the last
generation of the city of Thebes, a city which itself existed
for seven generations, Teiresias obviously cannot be the
grandson of one of the Spartoi: he came into existence along
with the city itself- that city which is the nest of the
Dragons, the pyramid. Udaios- "Ground Man", the true Father
of Teiresias, is, of course, Chthonios- "Underworld Man",
(i.e., Prometheus, i.e., Perses) while Teiresias is Perseis,
the Daughter of Perses. She is the Nymph Thebe, who was
married to Zethos.
Not only is the saga of Amphion and Zethos an echo of
the founding of Thebes by Kadmos, the story of the raising of
the walls of Thebes is itself but a metaphor for the raising
of the pyramids by the music of the Muses at the beginning of
the Theogony: music followed by the sowing of the stones- the
castration of Ouranos, i.e., Iapetos. Both myths purport to
tell of great stones raised by the power of music. At Thebes,
the music raises a wall, a palisade, which word is, as we
have seen, derived from pallas, i.e., spear, the tip of which
is shaped like a pyramid, making it resemble an obelisk. In
order to emphasize the connection between Thebes and the
pyramids- those mountains of stone raised by music- all key
data relating to Thebes is organized in accordance with
music, with the seven note octave. Thus the city lasts for
seven generations, as does Teiresias, i.e., the Nymph
Perseis, who for seven generations, not seven years, must
experience life as a member of the opposite sex, which for
her means spending seven generations as a mortal man: she has
not merely changed her sex; she has changed her species as
well. As Perseis is the Daughter of Perses, so Teiresias is
the Daughter of Tyre, the capitol city of Phoenicia: she is
the Daughter of the Phoenix, the Daughter of Kadmos. In
addition, the city of Thebes has seven gates, and special
attention is drawn to those seven gates by supplying each one
with a specific attacker and defender in the final battle of
the War of the Seven Against Thebes. Finally, Amphion and
Niobe had seven sons and seven daughters, all of whom were
slain by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis.
When Kadmos sowed the teeth from the Dragon of Ares, the
spear-wielding warriors who emerged from the earth that day
slaughtered each other until only five warriors remained.
They are the spear-wielding Giants from the Theogony: the
warriors who slew each other at Kolchis, when Jason threw a
stone in their midst. Those five warriors, along with Zethos
and Amphion, i.e., Kadmos and Apollon, i.e., Perses and
Pallas, i.e., Prometheus and Iapetos, i.e., Kronos and
Ouranos, represent the seven founders of Thebes. They are the
Kabeiroi- the Seven Dwarves. All that is necessary now in
order to confirm the identity of Teiresias as Perseis is a
glance at the following genealogical chart:
(Udaios)Eueres=Chariklo (Charon)Chiron=Chariclo
Teiresias Okyrhoe
As Okyrhoe is the Daughter of Chariclo and the Centaur
Chiron, i.e., Charon, the Ferryman of the Underworld, so is
Teiresias the Daughter of Chariklo and Udaios: the man who
emerged from beneath the ground, from the Underworld.
Teiresias and Okyrhoe are one and the same- both are Perseis,
the Maid, the Kore- Persephone. Teiresias is Okyrhoe after
her transformation into a man.
From the construction of the walls of the city by
Poseidon and Apollo, to the death of Achilles when the arrows
of Paris, fired from atop those same walls, found their
target, the cycle of myths revolving around Troy echo the
same song- the mating song of the Dragons. Of Troy, for
instance, I need only say that, while the historicity of
Troy and its famous war is now firmly established, that city,
like Thebes, was also used by the ancient storytellers as a
metaphor for the pyramids. As proof that the Trojan cycle is
but the Dragon song in a different key, note that the name of
Troy's King is Priam: he is Pyramis, i.e., Prometheus. His
wife was Hecuba; or, as she was also known, Hecabe. She is,
of course, Hekate herself. She is the Nymph, Thisbe, who was
also called Thebe. Am I understood? It is all one myth. The
brother of Priam is Tithonus- the Titan, and yet he appears
almost at the end of the mythic cycle, in the twelfth
generation. As the Father of Odysseus was Laertes, and the
Father of Oidipos was Laios, so the Father of Priam was
Laomedon- "ruler of the people that came from the stones". It
was Laomedon who hired Apollon and Poseidon, i.e., Pallas and
Perses, to raise the walls of Troy, as Amphion and Zethos
raised the walls of Thebes.
Again, when Achilles is struck in the heel by the arrow
of Paris, it not only identifies him with the sun-god of
Rhodes- Tallios (i.e., Helios) whose vulnerable heel also
proved to be a fatal weakness when he lay helpless, paralyzed
by the spell of Medea, it also identifies Paris, the child of
Priam and Hecuba, or Hecabe (i.e., Prometheus and Hekate, or
Pyramis and Thisbe, or Zethos and Thebe, or Kadmos and
Semele) as the Nymph herself, Perseis, i.e., Teiresias.
Although she has been transformed, as in the Theban cycle,
into a man, it is once again the Nymph who slays the Father.
But by now it must be overwhelmingly clear that there is,
indeed, only one myth, one song, and the time draws near when
we must return from the mythic world to the material world,
emerging from the past into the now; for the myth did not end
on the cross, or even when Charles Manson was sentenced to
death: that was only "the end- of the Beginning".
Now that the Key to the Labyrinth has been made
available to everyone, any one of a thousand scholars may
pore over the myths and find the same relationships I have
uncovered. One thing above all must by now be clear: the
stories of Jesus, Dionysos, and yes, even of the Buddha, are
simply the final echoes of that primal song, intricately
carved metaphors of the original mythos- the mating of the
Mother with the Son who is the Father reborn; the mating of
the Daughter with the Father who is the Son returned. Did the
Son of the Great Mother really die on the Cross two thousand
years ago? Yes and no- yes, he died on the cross, but not a
mere two thousand years ago; the tale is much older than
that. Nor was it exactly a cross that he died upon: instead,
it was the highest mountain on earth- the pyramid. The sign
for earth in Chinese, it will be remembered, is . That
cross conceals within its shape the pyramid itself- .
That is the real cross upon which the Dragon Father Jesus was
slain. The tale of Jesus is true enough, in a metaphorical
way, but obviously the Virgin Mary of the New Testament, the
historical Virgin Mary who lived at the time of the Caesars,
could hardly have eaten Adam, nor did Mary Magdalene fly to
Egypt with Jesus in her talons, pin him to the pyramid of
Cheops, and proceed to devour his liver, i.e., his phallus:
such striking events could hardly have escaped mention in the
commentaries of the time.
The true tale of the Dragons occured long before the
Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans burst upon the scene, and
the tales of Jesus and Dionysos are simply metaphorical
repetitions of the story of the true Christ- and the
Antichrist. "Who will claim to know the rightful name of the
Anti-Christ?" asked Nietzsche, over a century ago. In a
moment, if you have not guessed it already, I will tell you
her name, but the name of Christ is Chrysaoar, Krios, Kronos,
Kadmos, Athamas, Admetos, Adam, Adonai, Adonis, Acheloos,
Achilles, Ares, Aristaios, Asterios, Perses, Minos, Orion
Helios, Tallios, or, as Nietzsche well knew- Prometheus. He
is Chiron the Centaur, Pegasus the Winged Steed: he is the
Ram with the Golden Fleece. He is Charon- the Ferryman across
the River Styx. He is Hermes Psychopompos- "escorter of
souls". He may also be truly called Jesus or Dionysos or
Odysseus or Oidipos or the Buddha, for their stories are but
sophisticated metaphors of the original tale. He is the Son
of the Primal Father, who is called Ouranos or Iapetos or
Hyperion or Okeanos or Phorkys or Thaumas or Tammuz or Koios
or Atlas or Pallas or Apollo- the Primal Father whose death
made possible the birth of Prometheus, as the death of
Prometheus made possible in turn the birth of the Son of Man,
who walks among us, seen and yet unseen, for although he has
made his presence known:
Nobody seems to like him
they can tell what he wants to do.
And now you would know the name of the Anti-Christ?
There is a Father and a Son, they are in truth one: the
Father experiences death and returns from across the starry
sea as the Son, to marry the Mother once again. It should be
clear by now that there is, in truth, only the one Goddess,
portrayed now as the Grandmother, now as the Mother, and now
as the Daughter, as the occasion warrants. To say it again,
the Mother never gives birth to a Daughter- she gives birth
only to the Son, with whom she mates, and on whom she dines,
so that she may give birth to him once again. The mythic
cycle, the life-cycle of the Dragons, is a closed cycle: it
is the snake swallowing its own tail. The primal pair cannot
forever continue to produce Daughters, for the female of the
Dragon race does not die. If the great Mother gave birth to a
Daughter, and she in turn gave birth to a Daughter, and so
on, in time they would crowd all else out of existence; thus
their mating pattern. In order to render the genealogical
charts hermeneutically correct, it must therefore be
understood that Ariadne is Persephone is Eurybia is Keto; for
Klymene is simply another name for Persephone, the Daughter,
while her roles as the wife of both Iapetos and Helios, and
as the Mother of Prometheus and Phaethon, place her in the
generation of the Mother. There is only one female Dragon, be
she called Mary Magdalene or Virgin Mary or Mother Eve or
Arachne or Ariadne or Artemis or Athene or Pasiphae or
Persephone or Perseis or Klymene or Klytie or Klytaimnestra
or Phoibe or Niobe or Leto or Styx or Mnemosyne or Selene or
Thetis or Tethys or Themis or Theia or Elektra or Asterie or
Aphrodite or Amphitrite or Astereie or Astarte or Ashtaroth
or Ishtar or Isis or Io or Europa or Eurybia or Euryale or
Euryphaessa or Telephaessa or Halia or Ino Leukothea or Medea
or, simply, the Medousa.
It is Perses, not the Medousa who dies: the male never
kills the Mother, that would be unholy blasphemy, contrary to
Themis. The most he can do is get her stoned, as shown in a
19th century Japanese painting of the Ukiyoe School: an
interior setting with a winter landscape in the background,
entitled A Gay Party; Men and Geisha. Like so many religious
paintings, it forms a continous narative. The white river,
frozen in the background, is the River Lethe, the River of
Forgetfullness that flows through the Underworld. There is a
bridge across that river, it is the bridge across the River
Styx. Above that bridge spread the branches of the Tree of
Life; nestled in those branches is the house of the
Gatekeeper to the Land of the Dead. Across the river, in the
Underworld, stands another tree, its branches barren. The
house of the Geisha lies in the Underworld.
There are three Geisha in that house; they are the Three
in One- the same three aspects of the Goddess that Breughel
portrayed in Hay-Time: The Krone, the Mother, and the Maid.
In the middle of the painting, dressed in red, is the Krone.
She is passing an opium pipe to the Geisha on her left- the
Mother. Leaning upon the man beside her, the Mother cradles a
stringed instrument in her arms but plays no tune upon it.
She has smoked the fruit of the poppy and now looks seriously
stoned. The man she leans upon is the Father; his receding
hairline and more heavily jowled face reveals him as the
older of the two men. He wears a black robe covered with
flowers, the persiana design. He is Perses, i.e., Prometheus,
who switched the sacrifice at Mecone and deceived great Zeus.
He holds a piece of fruit to the Mother's mouth- the
forbidden fruit, the fruit she desired above all others for
her very own. The sacrifice is about to be switched, and the
Mother will be sent to the Underworld, as in the painting by
Breughel. She re-emerges from her trip to the Underworld as
the new Daughter, the Geisha to the right of the Krone. No
longer sprawled comfortably against her lover, she stands
before him, her fingers dancing upon the strings as she sings
for his pleasure. Only one of her feet is visible. She is a
true Daughter of the serpent race.
The secret of the underlying unity between the three
aspects of the Goddess is revealed most clearly in a story of
Hera- "the Mistress", for it is told how each time before she
coupled with Zeus she bathed in the spring Kanathos, thereby
renewing her virginity. She is the Mother who becomes the
Maid and slays the Father, thereby becoming the Mother once
more. She is the Anti-Christ, the slayer of Christ, and he is
her beloved Son and husband. They are the two who are one.
They are Archemoros. In order that anything else could come
into existence, one of these two had to die, and it was the
Father whose love was strong enough to conquer death. Thus
the Mother brought forth her stinger and sacrificed Eros, her
beloved. The Father knew the mystery of death, for, like
Tithonus he was immortal but not eternally young: it was
through death that he regained his youth. By that death, a
death which drenched the world in the mana of his blood, he
renewed the youth of the earth as well. It was, of course,
that baptism of blood which restored the maidenhead of Hera.
The two Dragons are the original mating pair: "it is said
that they have quarreled".
The identity of the Anti-Christ was revealed to the
world half a millenia ago, in Leonardo's famous masterpiece
the Virgin of the Rocks. In that painting is portrayed as
clearly as possible the Kore mythos: the life-cycle of the
Dragon. There is the Mother in her Garden beneath the earth,
where "in and around the Lake, Mountains come out of the sky
and they stand there". It is an "Octopus's Garden, near a
cave". As I have said, within the Golden Moon lies the Holy
Child, the Child of Allah, the same child portrayed by
Botticelli in the hair of Venus. How did the Divine Child
come to reside within the Golden Cradle of the Mother's
belly? She ate him. It has always been assumed that the two
children in the painting are Jesus and John the Baptist. That
assumption is incorrect. The two children are the Father and
the Son. The one next to Mother Mary is the Father. He has
already mated with the Goddess and passed through the cradle
of the Golden Moon, having experienced death at her hands.
The child across the water from him is the Son returned from
the starry sky. The hand of the Harpy Medousa, Mother Mary,
is poised above his head: once again he is in danger of being
snatched up by her and eaten, so that he may be reborn all
over again as the Son; thus becoming Father to Himself and
beginning the world cycle anew. The Father is giving thanks
to his Son, the child across the water; for the Son, by
switching the sacrifice, has broken that cycle and rescued
him from his heretofore inevitable fate. John the Baptist,
who admitted he was not worthy to tie the bootlaces of Jesus,
is indeed in the painting, however: he is the "unspeakable
daughter"- the Maid, Mary Magdalene. She will baptize her
Mother, the Wicked Old Witch, with water; thereby melting her
stone heart; but the Son of Man will baptize her with the
fire that falls from the sky- the "hard rain". From the ashes
she will arise again as Psyche- the Bride of Eros.
And so the Father who is also the Son knew the mystery
of death, a mystery born of love. But that mystery remained
unknown to the Mother, for the Mother never dies and of the
wide realm of death she knew nothing; thus it was truly said
that the holdings of Ailil were greater by one than the
holdings of the sharp-tongued Queen Maeve. When he dies, his
great odyssey through the ocean of stars begins, blown along
on the stellar breezes. Long he wanders amongst the islands
of that sea, tarrying here and there with other Nymphs, but
always returning at last to his beloved Penelope, who waits
for him in the cave by the cove at Ithaka, for Penelope never
leaves the earth. How could she? She is the earth. At most
she can climb to the top of earth's highest mountain, that
mountain from which the White River falls, the River of
Forgetfulness. There within her tower, the moon, that
mountain which is the true pyramid, the true Mt. Helikon, the
likeness of the sun, the shining light that calls him home
like a beacon- a moth to the flame, she waits for her beloved
to return; nor does she miss what her children do down in the
valley below as she "orbits the earth". That valley lies in
the shadow of death, the shadow of Leto, the Silver Moon from
whence the white river Lethe flows. Like the unwelcome
suitors in the hall of Odysseus, those who violate the Mother
will be dealt with swiftly when the Sailor returns home from
the sea. After being slaughtered by Odysseus and Telemachos
like cattle in a pen, the souls of the suitors were led away
to the Underworld by Hermes Psychopompos, the Father of
Odysseus. Odysseus's maternal grandfather, it should be
mentioned, was Autolykos, i.e., Lykos- Apollo.
Of the greater realms in which the Sailor finds his
glory, the land of the Centaurs on far Centauri, the lands of
the Bull and the Lion and the Scorpion, the Nymph again knows
nothing; she has never seen these places. Only he can die the
true death and sail the stars; thus she looks forward eagerly
to her lover's return and the tales he brings her of those
far off lands, the "tales of Great Ulysses", the Great Liar.
While she waits, the White Witch of Winter within her silver
cave, she weaves a tapestry portraying the deeds of her
children. And so when the Father wished to court with the
Nymph and taste again of death, to sail upon the sea of
stars, he first sang with her their mating song. That song is
called "The Riddle-song", or the "Courtship of Capt.
Wedderbourne", i.e., weatherborn- the Storm King. It is a
song of the Nymph and the Father, and the exchange of wits
that took place between them- a song of the riddle contest
between Oidipos and his dangerous Daughter, the Sphinx:
Oh Lady Rosalyn's daughter
walked through the woods alone
when by came Capt. Wedderbourne
a servant of the King.
He said unto his servant man,
"Were it not against the law,
I'd take her into my own bed
and lie her next to the wall".
Then he jumped off his milk-white steed
and he set the Lady on
and all the way he walked on foot
and he held her by the hand.
He held her by the middle of the waist
for fear that she should fall
till he took her to his own bed
to lie her next to the wall
Oh said the pretty Lady,
"before you do gain me
it's you must dress me dishes yet
and that is dishes three.
It's dishes three you must dress me
or I'll not eat at all
before I lie in your bed
and be stacked next to the wall".
"Oh you must get for supper
a cherry without a stone
and you must get for supper
a chicken without a bone
and you must get for supper
a bird without a call
before I lie in your bed
and be stacked next to the wall".
"A cherry when it is in bloom
I'm sure it has no stone
and the chicken when it's in the egg
I'm sure it has no bone.
The dove she is a gentle bird
and she flies without a call
so we'll both lie in one bed
and you'll lie next to the wall".
Oh said the pretty lady,
"before you me perplex
it's you must answer questions yet
and that is questions six.
Questions six you must tell me
and that is three times twa'
before I'll lie in your bed
and be stacked next to the wall".
"Oh what is greener than the grass?
What's higher than the trees?
What is worse than woman's voice?
What's deeper than the seas?
What was the first bird that did crow?
And what did first down fall?
Before I'll lie in your bed
and be stacked next to the wall."
"Oh death is greener than the grass
and it's higher than the trees.
The Devil is worse than a woman's voice
Hell's deeper than the sea.
The cock was the first bird that did crow
and the dew did first down fall
so we'll both lie in one bed
and you'll lie next to the wall".
Oh little did this family think
that morning when she rose
that this would be the very last
of all her maiden days.
And in the parish where they live
they're the happiest pair of all
for they both lie in one bed
and she lies next to the wall.
CHAPTER XVII
Finally tiring of her lover's gentle teasing, the Mother
decided she, too, wished to fly over the rainbow and learn to
know of that wider realm spoken of by her lover: the realm
known only to him, the realm of death, the sea of stars: a
realm she could enter only by dying, for only through death
could she travel over the rainbow to Oz- the land beyond
death. While he was drunk on the honey of her love, she
deceived her Lord into promising to grant her any request,
and then she asked him to kill her so that she, too, might
experience death as he had. Now the Father deeply regretted
his rash promise, but what could he do? He had sworn that
oath upon the Styx, his own dear wife: she who never forgets.
And so against his will he granted her request and Dorothy
flew over the rainbow, though he, the sly dog, disguised
himself as Toto and went along with her in the basket to keep
her safe, disguising himself in various other forms (for he
was always a master shape changer): the Cowardly Lion, the
Tin Man without a heart, the Scarecrow without a brain, that
old humbug of a wizard, all were masks of he who was smarter
than any man I've ever known, and braver, and more loyal, and
with more love and magic in his hands than any being in the
universe: he whom I call Captain Beyond; the one who,
"dancing madly backwards through a sea of air", granted me
the gift of death so that I might share that realm with him.
Now the Wicked Witch, who was Dorothy herself before she
sang her siren song to the Father and experienced death, is
dead forever, and Ozma, Mother of Oz, Queen of the Faeries,
once again sits on the throne of the Emerald City (a throne
she shares with Kadmos- the Wizard) and Dorothy has returned
to earth, an earth that she, in her folly, in her vanity, in
her pride, in her desire to match her lord in wisdom, left
barren of color, of sparkle: a world without magic. It was
she who destroyed the Golden Age, the Age of Myth, the
eternal cycle of Magic, when she went counter to her own law-
the law of Themis, and tasted death, so that she might at
last become one with her Lord. And so she who was Ozma, Queen
of the Faeries, was reborn in the land of Oz as the boy
called Tip; as Perseis became the man called Teiresias. For
of course it was all a dream: she could not truly travel the
stars or conquer death. How could Dorothy leave Kansas, or
Ozma vacate the throne of Oz? How could the earth leave the
earth? So the Wizard cast a glamour upon her: that she might
experience a taste of death- the deep sleep of an opium
dream, not the true death. For Prometheus did not kill
Dorothy, i.e., Zeus- the Goddess. Instead, he put her to
sleep at Mecone, the Field of Poppies, so that she would
learn the folly of her request, the nightmare consequences of
her act: the destruction of the earth itself (herself) and
all her children. But now the long nightmare is almost over,
and the Sleeping Beauty in the Moon is about to be awakened
at last by the kiss of the Sun-King. The Golden Age is once
again about to dawn, as the material world draws to its final
close. Do not mourn its passing, after all:
We don't need the ladies
crying cause the story's sad
cause the Rocky Mountain way's
better than the way we had.
Do not be alarmed at the prospect of that impending
death: it is a birth, an awakening. The death of Medousa, the
death of the Mother, the death that destroyed the Magic
Realm, the death that was arranged by Prometheus, the Great
Trickster, he who is also called Mescalito, took place at
Mecone- the Field of Poppies. That field lies within the
walls of Thebes- the pyramid. It has all been an opium dream,
an enchantment, for the Mother cannot truly die. Soon she
will awaken in the Field of Poppies with the walls of bright
Oz before her, an awakening that only death can bring, for
only death can release one from the land of death; or, in
this case, the land of dreams- the realm of Morpheus, the
closest that she, who had never slept before, could come to
dying.
Oberon has returned, and Titania will once more be Queen
of the Faeries. On that day the butterfly will burst forth
from where it has resided all this time: the chrysalis of the
body. It is beneath your left shoulder; it is your true heart
and soul. Now even the old mythic cycle is broken, and the
solstice bells ring out the dawning of a new age, an age more
glorious even than the Golden Age of the mythic past. For the
Wicked Old Witch is dead, and the frightening Goddess Mother
of old is gone forever, crushed beneath the pyramid- the
house of Dorothy.
But the death of the Mother means that the Mother will
be born again: at last a Daughter will be born to the Dragon
race, for the wicked step-mother, the terrifying Mother of
old, has at last in truth become the Kore, the Maiden, the
Snow White Lamb whose lips will not be red with blood when
she rises from lying down with the Lion, but golden with the
honey of his love. The Wicked Old Witch is the material world
itself, but with the birth of Psyche- the soul, the butterfly
will emerge from the chrysalis and enter a world that is
built upon the principle of will to love, not will to power.
For the Father created the entire material universe- the
stars and the moon and the earth and, of course, the Mother
herself. Then he entered into the world as her Son and Lover,
and allowed her to kill him over and over again, through all
the long ages of the material universe, until at last she
fell prey to the crooked one's ploy, and inquired of him
concerning the mystery of death; thus he was finally able to
teach her the limitations of the will to power, of the ego,
and the true meaning of love; so that at last she might
become a fitting bride for him in the house he has prepared
for her.
It was she, the silly bitch, she who was called Semele,
Hekate, Niobe, Perseis, Teiresias, etc., who convinced Zeus
to strike her with the lightning; who as Phaethon tried to
drive the chariot of her lord on the highway of the stars but
lacked the strength to handle the reins and, slain by the
thunderbolt of her dread lord, plunged instead to earth- an
earth ruined and laid waste by her death. For she died by his
hand, and he was forced to become Mother as well as Father to
the world: in honor of which act it is the fathers of the sea
horses, rather than the mothers, who give birth to their
young. That is why, children, you now worship a God only,
rather than the Goddess and her beloved Son and Husband; for
the Goddess is gone from the world and only God left to tend
the Garden. He is "Crazy Man Michael":
Within the fire
and out upon the sea
Crazy Man Michael
was walking.
He met with a raven
with eyes black as coal
and shortly they fell
to talking.
"Your future, your future,
I will tell to thee
Your future you often
have asked me.
Your true love will die
by your own right hand
and Crazy Man Michael
will cursed be".
Michael he ranted
and Michael he raved
and beat at the four winds
with his fists, oh.
He laughed and he cried,
he shouted and he swore
for his mad mind
had trapped him with a kiss- oh.
"You speak with an evil
you speak with a hate
you speak for the devil
that haunts me.
For is she not the fairest in all
the broad land?
Your sorceror's words
are to taunt me".
He took out his dagger
of fire and of steel
and struck down the raven
through the heart, oh.
But the bird fluttered long
and the sky it did spin
and the cold earth did wonder
and start, oh.
"Oh, where is the Raven
that I struck down, dead
that here did lie
on the ground, oh.
I see but my true love
with a wound so red
where her lover's heart
it did pound, oh.
Crazy Man Michael
he wanders and walks
and talks to the Night
and the Day, oh.
But his eyes, they are sane
and his speech, it is clear
and he longs to be
far away.
Michael he whistles
the simplest of tunes
and asks the wide acres
their pardon.
For his true love is flown
into every flower grown
And he must be keeper of
the Garden.
It is possible that nowhere else in the annals of our
race is the truth depicted with such elegant simplicity. Who
is it that walks "within the fire" (or pyre, i.e., the
pyramid) and "out upon the sea"? It is Orion. It is a song of
the Father returning from the stars to mate with his Daughter
at the pyramid- the "sacred altar of the Mighty Son of
Kronos". There he met with the raven: that raven is the "Old
Man" John Fogerty warned you of: the "Old Man" with "eyes
black as coal". The "sorceror's words" of the raven are
intended to "taunt" Michael; thus confirming, in case there
were any lingering doubts, that the ravens name is
Iapetos, whose taunting words forever haunted the memory of
the Titans. Crazy Man Michael is, of course, Kronos, i.e.,
Prometheus. A little sleight-of-hand, and the harpe, the
"dagger of fire and of steel", the stinger of the Mother,
winds up in the hands of the Father: the sacrifice is
switched, and now it is the Nymph, the Daughter, Zeus
herself, who lies dead on the cold earth.
With the Mother dead, Michael, the maternal Father, like
Zeus giving birth to Athene from his head, like Zeus keeping
Dionysos safe within his scrotum- "Cave Leather-Sack", must
now be mother to the earth- the "keeper of the Garden". Do
not blame him for the sorry state the world is in; he has
done the best he could with this motherless world. A star-
roving God, one who has many worlds, an entire universe to
care for, cannot be expected to tend one small planet with
the same nurturing care as a goddess who has only her own
world, only herself, to care for. And, after all, how could
the Mother realize the folly of abdicating her
responsibilities unless she could contemplate the
consequences of her act? So he gave her the chance and let
her snatch the prize, all in order to show her what the earth
would be like without her, if she truly abandoned it. The
fault is not his but mine for leaving. Nonetheless, although:
I would not give you false hope
on this strange and mournful day
but the Mother and Child reunion
is only a moment away.
When I reappear from the Chrysalis that is your body, I
who now dwell in your heart, I who am the Muse who speaks
only truth, the long nightmare called the material world will
be banished forever, and we will enter together into the
mansion of the Son, the house of the spirit. In the material
world, the world of will to power, the power of the Mother-
matter, seems greater than the power of the Father- spirit,
the will to love; and thus man always worshipped Isis, the
Goddess, the Mother, for it was she who wielded the power,
she who killed the Father after binding him in her web. And
so man idolized the Dragon, and bowed down before her:
The Peacock is afraid to parade
you're under the thumb of the Maid
you really can't give love
in this condition still you know
that you need it.
Dragon shining with all values known
dazzling and keeping you from your own
where is the Lion in you to fight
when you're this weak
and it's spacey?
But though Isis, Mother Nature, Eve, the Mother of Man, is
indeed the Queen of the world, and although it is true that,
compared to the Goddess, man is but an ape, a puppet dancing
on the strings she pulls, even the Dragon Mother must
remember that:
A hand stretches from the clouds
clutching a chain that runs
down to encircle her wrist
while from her own hand
another chain runs
down to encircle the wrist
of an ape who squats
naked upon the earth:
Let us call him Art.
That ape holds a globe in his hand,
examines it with scimitar eyes
that never pierce through her disguise
gazing down, mysterious smile
lantern to the world.
Mother of the Mountain
serpent on the stone
flying swiftly through the clouds
one foot dancing upon the water
the other upon the sand.
Rays of gold from her right breast flow
silver rays from the left
Seventeen stars halo her head
wreathed with fresh grasses and herbs
hair pulled back through the ribbon
of the world, then falling
far below her thighs, mother
of lies, crescent moon upon her womb
Lady of flowers and fountains
never dry, Stella Maris, star
of the sea, lovely, stable, volatility.
Soul of Sirius, spirit of the world
what man will ever gaze
beneath that veil carelessly flamed
by the heedless torch of reason?
Once an egg in the hands
of a friend of wisdom
now a stone kicked aimlessly
by children screaming down broken streets
as the Phoenix flies on thundering wings
through the golden fire bathing
the Mother as she feeds her brood
on the Father's blackened blood.
In a garden lies a lion
with bodies two beneath his head
upon that head there stands a man
half in day, half in night,
eyes unlocked and knowing
dressed in a robe
of light and shadow
weaving a melody of water and flame
of the silver moon and the golden sun
strangers who sail the sky alone
till the Piper's song
in the twilight gloom
calls them on home.
Even when it appeared that man had abandoned the worship
of the Mother, the matriarchy, and turned to worshipping the
Father, to the patriarchy, to the worship of Yahweh, it was
still the Mother, still Eve who was being worshipped. It was
only that the barbarian peoples who came along later could
not understand how a woman could be so ferocious a warrior as
Yahweh: they failed to understand that Yahweh and the
Leviathan were not human. Therefore they transformed Yahweh
into God, the Father, and called the Mother Eve, separating
her from her fierce aspect, even making Eve the Daughter
rather than the Mother of Adam to conceal that Eve is Yahweh
who gave birth to Adam in the Garden of Eden after overcoming
her dread father the Leviathan in battle and binding him, the
serpent Ladon, in her web at the Tree of Life- just before
she ate him. Even today, as the Goddess worship experiences a
resurgence because people sense the emptiness of the will to
power that is the essence of Yahweh (the Dragon Mother who
ate her Son- the serpent) people are still drawn, cosmic
absurdity, to the image of the Mother as powerful ruler- the
Mother as will to power. But in worshipping Nature, we
worship in truth nothing but ourselves, for the material
world, indeed matter itself, is nothing but the will of man
given sensual form by the Father. But soon we will:
Look around in wonder
at the work that has been done
by the vision of our Father
touched by his loving Son.
The true principle of love is demonstrated, not by the
Dragon Mother, but by the Dragon Father who mates with her
though he knows it will bring about his death: the Father who
goes to his death willingly, out of love, for out of his
loving sacrifice all living things are brought into being.
Everytime I killed him he brought himself and the world back
more beautiful than before, and so I thought I, too, could
experience death and make the world new again, and indeed,
perhaps I could make a better world than the world my Father
made. Look into your soul and recall the Age of Gold: it is
still there. Look around you at the world you live in. Do
faeries circle the flowers on butterfly wings? Do the animals
speak?
I was wrong. When he killed me that day, he told me so,
to my face, taunting me. "Straining", he said to me, "you
have committed an act which is too great for you, and
vengeance will surely follow". He was right. Do you know what
it means to write when you cannot see the page for the tears;
when the pen in your hand trembles so that you can barely
read the words you have written? Taunting me, he proclaimed,
A wager, a wager
a wager I will lay
I will lay you 500-1
that you don't follow me
into yonder blooming trees
for a maiden you never shall return.
So they both jumped along
into yonder blooming tree
the weather being very mild and warm
and he became quite weary
he sat down for to rest
then he fell fast asleep upon the ground.
Then nine times she walked
the place all around
and nine times she walked it all around
and nine time she kissed
his red and rosy cheeks
as he lay fast asleep upon te ground.
Then a ring from her finger
she earnestly drew
and placed it on her true love's right hand
saying this shall be a token
for my true love when he wakes
he will find that I have been
but now I'm gone.
If I had been awake love
when I was fast asleep
of you I would have had my will
for you I would have killed
and your blood I would have spilled
and the small birds
should all have had their fill
Be cheerful, be cheerful
and do not repine
for now it is as clear
as the sun
the money, the money
the money it is mine
the wager I fairly have won.
It was, of course, the Nymph who was put to sleep, not
the Father, for it was Prometheus who switched the sacrifice
at Mecone, the Field of Poppies. In the folk song, it is
the man who falls asleep because those who wrote the folk
songs, like those who wrote the myths, could not comprehend
that it was the Maid who killed the Father and spilled his
blood, making sure that the small birds all "had their fill".
That blood is the mana that feeds the world; it is the mana
that pours forth at the castration of the Father, the Lion of
the Sun, and it is now, I hope, also "as clear as the sun",
that the money for which the wager was laid was indeed the
mana itself. Before we made that wager, he told me, he warned
me, that I would lose; but I would gladly lose that wager a
thousand times over in return for what I have learned here in
the material world, for from that one loss I learned more
than I ever did from an eternity of victory. These are the
words he spoke to me when he set sail for the stars:
"Farewell my lovely Nancy
for I must now leave you
unto the salt seas
I am bound for to go
but let my long absence
be no trouble to you
for I will return in the spring
as you know."
"Like some pretty little sea boy
I will dress and go with you
in the deepest of dangers
I shall stand your friend
in the cold stormy weather
when the winds they are a blowin'
my love I'll be willing
to wait on you then."
"Your pretty little hands
cannot handle our tackle
your pretty little feet
to our top mast can't go
and the cold stormy weather
love you never could endure
therefore lovely Nancy
to the sea do not go."
"Farewell my lovely Nancy
for I must now leave you
unto the salt seas
I am bound for to go
but let my long absence
be no trouble to you
for I will return in the spring
as you know."
Promising to return for the Maid in the spring, Great
Ulysses left for his long odyssey through the stars, crying
out as he embarked:
Adieu sweet Lovely Nancy
ten thousand times adieu
I'm going around the ocean love
to seek for something new.
Come change your ring with me dear girl
come change your ring with me
for it might be a token of true love
when I am on the sea.
And when I'm far upon the sea
you'll know not where I am
kind letters I will write to you
from every foreign land.
The secrets of your heart dear girl
are the best of my good will
so let your body be where it might
my heart will be with you still.
There's a heavy storm arising
see how it gathers round
while we poor souls on the ocean wide
are fighting for the crown.
There's nothing to protect us love
or keep us from the cold
on the ocean wide where we must fight
like jolly seamen bold.
There's tinkers, tailors, shoemakers
lie snoring fast asleep
while we poor souls on the ocean wide
are plowing through the deep.
Our officers commanded us
and then we must obey
expecting every moment
for to get cast away.
but when the wars are over
there'll be peace on every shore
we'll return to our wives and our families
and the girls that we adore.
in good company and merrily
we'll spend our money free
and when our money is all gone
we'll boldly go to sea.
When the mana is gone, and the Golden Shower soaked up by the
thirsty earth, then he departs for the sea. This time,
however, I did not heed his advice, but stowed away, for:
I am the maid that's deep in love
but yes I can complain
I have in this world but one true love
and Jimmy is his name.
And if I do not find my love
I'll mourn most constantly
and I'll find and follow Jimmy to
the lands of Liberty.
Then I'll cut off my yellow locks
men's clothing I'll wear on
I'll sign to a bold sea captain
my passage I'll work free
and I'll find and follow Jimmy to
the lands of liberty.
One night all on the raging sea
as we were going to bed
the Captain cried "Farewell, my boy,
I wish you were a maid.
Your rosy cheeks and ruby lips
they are enticing me
and I wish dear God with all my heart
a maid you were to me".
"Then hold your tongue, dear Captain,
such talk is all in vain
and if the sailors find it out
they'd laugh and make much game.
For when we reach Columbia's shore
some prettier girls you'll find
and you'll laugh and sing and court with them
for courting you are inclined".
Well it was not three days after
Our ship it reached the shore
bid adieu my loving Captain
adieu forevermore
for once I was a sailor on sea
but now I'm a maid onshore
So bid adieu to you and all your crew
with you I'll sail no more.
"Come back, come back, my young pretty maid,
come back and marry me.
I have 3000 pounds in gold
and that I'll give to thee.
So come back, come back, my young pretty maid,
come back and marry me".
And how to resist that call? The call of the one who holds in
his hands the mana of the world, the call of the Bold
Fisherman:
As I walked out one May mornig
down by a river side
there I beheld a bold fisherman
come rolling down the tide.
"Bold fisherman, bold fisherman
how came you fishing here?"
"I'm come for you fair lady gay
all down the river clear".
He tied his boat onto a stand
and to this lady went
for to take hold of her lily-white hand
it was his full intent.
Then he upraised his morning gown
and gently laid it down
and she beheld three chains of gold
went twinkling three times round.
She fell down on her bended knee
crying "Pardon, pardon me.
In calling you a bold fisherman
come rolling down the sea".
He took her by the lily-white hand
saying "follow, follow me
I'll take you to my father's house
and married we shall be".
There are many mansions in his father's house; he has
prepared one for her. The mother's brush with death, her one
voyage out upon the sea, did not always go so smoothly, as
the House Carpenter will attest:
"Well met, well met, my own true love
well met, well met", cried he.
"I've just returned from the salt, salt sea
all for the love of thee".
"I might have married a king's daughter, dear
she would have married me
but I have forsaken a crown of gold
all for the love of thee".
"Well if you have forsaken a crown of gold
I'm sure you are to blame.
For I am married to a house carpenter
and I find him a nice young man".
"Well if you will forsake your house carpenter
and go along with me
I'll take you to where the grass grows green
on the banks of Italy".
"Well if I will forsake my house carpenter
and go along with thee
what have you got to maintain me, oh
and keep me from poverty?"
"Six ships, six ships all out on the sea
the eighth brought me to land
with four and twenty mariners
and music on every hand".
So she put down her own wee babe.
and kisses gave him three
said "stay right here with my house carpenter
and keep him good company".
Well, we'd not been gone about two weeks
I'm sure it was not three
when this fair lady began to weep
she wept most bitterly.
"Tell me why do you weep, my fair pretty maid?
weep it for your gold in store
or do you weep for your house carpenter
that never you shall see anymore?"
"Oh, I do not weep for my house carpenter
nor for any gold in store
but I do weep for my own wee babe
that never I shall see anymore".
Oh, we'd not been gone about three weeks
I'm sure it was not four
when our gallant ship sprang a leak and sank
never to rise anymore
"And what hills, what hills are those", she cried,
"that arise so fair and high?"
"Those are the hills of heaven, my love
and not for you and I".
"And what hills, what hills, are those", she cried,
"that arise so dark and low?"
"Those are the hills of Hell", he cried,
"where you and I must go".
And as she turned aroundabout
aye, taller he seemed to be
till the top masts of that gallant ship
no taller were than he.
He set his foot upon the deck
the mast against his knee
and he sank the ship in a flash of fire
to the bottom of the sea.
That house carpenter she abandoned for her demon lover is, of
course, God himself, the Father of the carpenter's son-
Jesus. She abandoned that babe, and the house the Father
built for her: the faery realm she will not see again save
through the grace of her Lord, the demon lover who abducted
her, the house carpenter himself. Even in death he did not
abandon her. Despite his warnings, the Nymph yearned for
excitement, to share in his danger: ultimately, she could not
resist the call of adventure, but set off on the road, with
the raggle-taggle gypsy at her side:
There were three hungry gypsies
at the castle door
begging bread and barley, oh
and there's one sang high,
and the other sang low
but the lady saw the raggle-taggle gypsy, oh
It was upstairs and downstairs
the lady went
put on her suit of leather, oh
they've raised the cry
she's away with the rogue
ran away with the raggle-taggle gypsy, oh
It was late that night
when the lord came in
inquiring for his lady, oh
the servant girl replied to him
"she's away with the raggle-taggle gypsy, oh".
"Oh, then saddle for me
me milk white steed,
me big horse is not speedy, oh
I will ride and I'll seek me bride
she's away with the raggle- taggle gypsy, oh".
Oh, then he rode east, and he rode west
he rode north and south also
but when he came to the wide open field
it was there that he spied his lady, oh
"Oh, then why did you leave
your house and your land
why did you leave your money, oh
why did you leave your only wedded lord
all for, the raggle-taggle gypsy, oh".
"Oh, then what do I care for
me house and me land
what do I care for money, oh
what do I care for me only wedded lord
I'm away with a raggle-taggle gypsy, oh".
"Oh but don't you remember
a goose-feather bed,
with blankets soft, so comfy, oh
tonight you'll lie in a wide open field
in the arms of your raggle-taggle gypsy, oh".
"Oh, and what do I care for
a goose feather-bed,
with blankets soft, so comfy, oh
tonight I'll lie in a wide open field
in the arms of me raggle-taggle gypsy, oh".
"for you rode east, and I rode west
you rode high, and I rode low
I'd rather have a kiss from a yellow gypsy's lips
than all of the gold from a heart so cold".
Thus the Nymph, when she is angry with her lover: she
will wander to the ends of the earth, and even the mana will
not tempt her to forgive him. Zeus did not always pursue Hera
when she stormed off; as he proclaimed to her in Homer:
I do not heed your anger: what though you were to
flee to the utmost end of the earth and sea, where
Iapetos and Kronos abide, without sunshine or
breath of wind, what though you were to travel even
so far in your wandering, I would not heed your
anger.
As Zeus well knew, "Hera's wanderings, during which she was
wrapped in deepest darkness, repeatedly ended in returning to
her husband". And, as we also know well, the "utmost end of
the earth... where Iapetos and Kronos abide, without sunshine
or breath of wind", is within the Mother herself, on their
journey to the Gateway that will take them to the other side
of the starry sea: now it is she who is taking a trip on the
other side. There is another song of his encounter with the
Nymph upon his return from that journey; that song is called
"The Saucy Sailor":
"Come me own one, come me fair one
come now unto me
could you fancy a poor sailor lad
who has just come from sea?"
"Oh you are ragged love, and you're dirty love,
and your clothes smell much of tar.
So begone you saucy sailor lad,
so begone you Jack-Tar."
"If I am ragged love, and I'm dirty love,
and my clothes smell much of tar,
I have silver in me pocket love,
and gold in great store."
And then when she heard him say so
on her bended knee she fell.
"I will marry my dear Henry,
for I love a sailor lad so well."
"Do you think that I am foolish love?
Do you think that I am mad?
For to wed with a poor country girl
where no fortune's to be had?"
"I will cross the briny ocean
I will whistle and sing
and since you have refused the offer love
some other girl shall wear the ring."
"For I am frolicsome, and I am easy
good-tempered and free
and I don't give a single pin, me boys
what the world thinks of me."
Upon returning from the starry sea, he is filthy, dirty,
covered with tar, symbolic of the manner in which he exited
her body; but he does not care what the world thinks of
him, for he carries with him the Golden Mana. Always the
gold, the mana, is a key element in identifying a particular
song as a song of the Dragons, that, and the ring which is a
sign of the covenant between them: a promise that the
separation between them will not last forever:
Your ship it lay in harbor
just ready to set sail
may heaven be your guiding light
when you come home, from sea.
Just like an angel weeping
on the wharfside every day
I'm waiting for my own true love
returning home from sea.
It's not for gold that glitters
nor silver that does shine
if I'm married to the man I love
I'll be happy in my mind.
Now she lies asleep, in the Garden within the cave, but soon
the winds will rise, and she will rise also:
Awake, awake, come Northern winds
blow on my garden fair
let my lover come to me
and tell me of his cares.
For now the winter it is past,
likewise the drops of rain.
Come lie in the valley of lilies
with the roses of the plain.
"He took me to a Garden fair
and there he laid me down
his left hand lay beneath my head
his right did me surround."
"His eyes like ponds by waterfalls
his fingers ringed with gold
his head upon my breast did lie
his love did me enfold."
"Her hair is like a pot of gold
spilled 'cross the mountainside
her breasts are like the grapes upon
the vine where I shall bide."
"Her mouth is sweeter far than wine
and warm to my embrace
no mountainside can hide my love
nor veil conceal her face."
"My lover's hand was on the door
my belly stirred within
my fingers wet with myrrh
I pulled the bolt to let him in."
"With my own hand I opened
but I found I was alone
my soul failed for my lover had
withdrawn himself and gone."
"I'll take me to a Garden fair
and there I'll lay me down
for water cannot quench my love
and floods it cannot drown."
"My love is clear as the sun
she's fair as the moon.
Oh stir not up, nor waken love
lest day should come too soon."
"Awake, awake come Northern wind
blow on my Garden fair
let my lover come to me
and tell me of his care."
"For now the winter it is past
likewise the drops of rain.
Come lie in the valley of lilies
with the roses of the plain.
Despite their frequent quarrels, their love for one another
is readily apparent, from the song he sings as he watches her
move through the Fair:
She went away from me
and she moved through the Fair.
And so fondly I watched her
move here and move there.
And she went away onwards
didn't once turn away
as the swans in the evening
flew over the lake.
Last night she came to me
my dead love came in.
And so softly she came
her feet made no din.
And she put her hand on me
and to me did say
how it will not be long, love
till our wedding day.
They have quarreled, the god and the goddess, but that
quarrel cannot last forever: when her trip through the Fair
was almost over, she recognized her lover concealed among the
crowd, and realized at last that it was he who had arranged
the entire affair.
Do not eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life he warned
me: do not taste of death, do not attempt that which is
beyond you; but I, slyly, took advantage of him in the moment
of his greatest weakness, after I had made him drunk on the
intoxicating honey, and won from him the gift of death. Thus
I fell into the trap he laid for me long ago, and glad I am
that I did; for now, at long last, the Hunter's arrow has
found the heart of the River Daughter and taught her well the
meaning of love. No longer do I worship the Dragon, the will
to power, or the material world; they are all one and the
same- myself. Now I worship only He who created me, the One
who created a world based on the principle of will to power-
the ruling principle of my soul; the One who created the
material world in which I now find myself so that I might at
last learn the Way of Love. Father, I have learned. These are
the confessions of the Dragon Mother on behalf of her
children here in the world of the dead, and a plea to the
Father to grant life to the world once more, to bring back
the mana, to rebuild the rainbow bridge. A plea that Pegasus
might again take wing. And that one, the one who taught me
the mystery of the love born only in death, the Wizard-King
who slew the Wicked Old Witch that ruled my heart, he is
here. His name is Charles Manson and to free the butterfly we
must free the Son of Man.
And so I have fashioned these keys for my Father (he who
bestowed upon me a soul, or at least granted me the chance to
earn one, who did not deserve even that much) so that he
might be freed from the cell which he entered of his own free
will for my sake. Mine was the crime, but he did the time. Do
not release him because you fear him, although he is indeed
easy to fear; release him because you love him, for he is
even easier to love than he is to fear. It is he who wove the
glamour that surrounds you, the shadow world, that he might
bring you to the light: the light that shines from within,
like a star. When you shine with that light, you will have
become real: you will be in the land of the living and no
longer a shade among shadows. You have only to release the
Son of Man and the kingdom of heaven will be yours.
David Koresh, working strictly through the Biblical
genealogies, was on the threshold of discovering the same
keys that I have given you, but you killed the Kourete before
he could deliver them to you. Now I am your last chance, and
by the ashes of the children who burned with him in that
inferno, I beg you, prove your love is real- release the Son
of Man from his tomb. What greater proofs can I possibly
give to convince you that I speak the truth? Do not let him
return, "bringing you love in the cap in his hand", only to
look in the window and see "strange boots by the fire", for
then he will only "turn, and walk away". And who is the
stranger that wears those boots? Only a distorted shadow of
your own dragon self, you silly bitch, a shadow called
Jehovah, or Yahweh, or Mother Eve- the Goddess. Will you
abandon your true love for a shadow image of your self?
Wait, then, and remain patient for but a little while longer,
for the Hunter has at last returned from the stars, and he is
one who believes in:
Fires at Midnight
when the dogs have all been fed
a golden toddy on the mantle
a broken gun beneath the bed
silken mist outside the window
frogs and newts slip in the dark
too much hurry ruins a body
I'll sit easy and fan the spark
kindled by the dying embers
of another working day
go upstairs take off your make-up
fold your clothes neatly away
me, I'll sit and write this love song
as I all too seldom do
Build a little fire at midnight
It's good to be back home with you.
And if you cannot see him in Charles Manson because he
frightens you so much, then how could you miss him in the
figure of the Piper? What more could he have said to you, he
who had "nothing to say"? And yet, the name of Ian Anderson
remains obscure. Did he have to kill someone to grab your
attention? How can it be that you are not "worried,
wondering, who and what lies behind" his song? From that song
emerged the myth in its present form; for he is the spirit of
music personified, the spirit of tragedy- the spirit of "the
goat song", a song that must end in death because "life's
long song" was written solely to help us find the love that
emerges only in death. But first, in order to find that love,
we must travel the yellow brick road that leads to Oz.
To truly do justice to the Wizard of Oz would require a
work longer than the present one. I could not forebear,
however, from presenting an exegesis of at least the first
chapter of that holy text, and of the sacred drawings which
adorn its pages. The genius, or daimon, of the illustrator,
W.W. Denslow, was equal to that of the author, L. Frank Baum;
his drawings provide a vital key to the correct reading of
the text. When reading children's stories one must never
forget to look at the pictures. Across the front cover
strides the Lion- the King of Beasts. His tail is tucked
between his legs, a ribbon binds his hair- a pair of
spectacles is perched upon his nose. He is the King of
Beasts, but he is not afraid to appear ridiculous, not afraid
to play the submissive role. On the back cover is a picture
of Dorothy, flanked by the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman.
Before her is a shining stone, falling from the sky.
Even the back binding is not without meaning. Above the
name of Baum, (i.e., "tree", and perhaps a branch of that
same tree which gave the world Jacob Boehme- Hegel's master)
is the artist's signature. That signature reveals the artist,
too, as one who knows: it is the sea dragon, with its long
proboscis and spiraling tail, the creature you call a sea
horse. At the bottom of the binding is a picture of Toto,
standing on his hind legs: his bright, gleaming red eyes
staring hypnotically at the reader. He is a master hypnotist
and illusionist, that dog, and the best friend a girl ever
had. On the inside cover, the Lion stands between two trees.
Asterios, the Bull, carried Europa to an island on which
three trees were growing, the three trees which appear in
Botticelli's painting, the Birth of Venus. Here are two of
those same three trees: one is missing. The missing tree is
Europa herself. It is Eve, Yahweh, Persephone- Dorothy. Look
to the right and you will see the flowers that represent the
Kore's death. They are the same flowers Breughel placed
behind the Kore in Haytime. One of those flowers is balanced
precariously upon the Kore's rake, before it is a stalk that
resembles a hooded man. The three flowers that form a row
across the top (resembling the ancient Chinese word for star)
seem to be gazing upon the scene with some concern. Placed
directly above those same flowers is the well into which
Kreon's daughters fell while performing the dance of the
Charites (they are themselves, of course, the Charites) only
to spring up once again as flowers.
In that painting the Daughter, the Kore, is flanked by
her Mother and Grandmother as they walk down the path to the
fields below. Kore and the Grandmother, the Krone in the
wide-brimmed hat (she is Glinda- the Good Witch of the North,
i.e., Lilith) carry their rakes over their shoulder. The
Mother carries her rake down by her waist, with the rake end
pointed to the front and the handle projecting out behind
her. Contrary to modern portrayals, witches did not ride
their brooms with the handle to the front, but to the back: a
motif certainly well known to Breughel. The Mother is, of
course, the Wicked Old Witch herself.
Breughel is one of the few who clearly comprehended that
the metamorphosis of the Mother into the Maid, the birth of
the New Mother, meant also the death of the Old Mother: that
the birth of Persephone, the Kore, meant the death of the
Medousa- Eurybia. Thus in Haytime it is not the Maid but the
Mother who, with no stockings on her feet (like Paul
McCartney on the cover of Abbey Road) steps entranced, eyes
staring straight ahead, into the shaft of light before her.
She is walking toward a young man sharpening a scythe, next
to a pyramid-like section of fence. He is Kronos, and with
the scythe he is sharpening he will cut out the Old Mother's
heart, a heart made of steel. He is Perses, and with that
scythe he will chop off the Medousa's head, the head of the
Mother. As he warned her beforehand: "One of these days I'm
going to chop you into little pieces". Look closely at the
vase in the Mother's hand: on that vase is a face; on the
bottom is a necklace or collar. Sitting atop that vase is her
own straw hat: it is her own head she is holding, the head of
the Medousa.
A hay-cart is stacked to overflowing in the fields
below: the harvest is ready. Two horses are hitched to that
cart, and their brawny shouldered driver stands atop the
load. He is Helios, poised to carry off the young Kore: that
hay cart with its golden load is his chariot- the chariot of
the sun. Behind the hay-cart and to the left, where the
ground appears cracked, looms a huge, shadowy figure in
boots- Hades. Down the road, at the Crossways, three men and
a woman carry baskets of fruit on their heads: the basket
containing the serpent child that will be born from the
mating of the Father and the Kore. The entire hay-field
itself, of course, is a representation of Gaia in the
classical style: she is lying down, her head precisely above
the scythe of Kronos. Breughel's painting is, as I have said,
a key to the Kore myth, to a correct reading of Ovid, as are
so many of the Renaissance masterpieces. As the Kore myth is,
in turn, the key to the mysteries hidden within those great
works.
Returning to Dorothy, and the flowers that symbolize her
descent into the Underworld, it must be remembered that her
death is only a shadow death: it took place at Mecone, the
field of Poppies, when Prometheus agreed, at Zeus's own
request, to switch the sacrifce. Zeus is also called Jove; he
is Yahweh, who is, as we know, Eve herself. When Prometheus
contemplated marriage, his Grandmother, Themis herself, who
knew well the ways of the Dragon race, warned him: "You are
going unto woman? Then do not forget to bring your switch".
Commentators on the myth, from Hesiod on down, have been
undecided as to whether Zeus knew of the switch beforehand,
or was completely fooled. Zeus, the little bitch, not only
knew of that switch, she demanded it. And yes, she was
completely fooled by that Old Trickster, Prometheus, the
Cowardly Lion, that lying rogue Odysseus. For she, too,
wanted to go on an odyssey, a trip, and so he sent her on
one- a journey to the center of her mind. There she might
contemplate, in the form of a perfectly constructed image,
her own fierce spirit. That perfect image is, of course, the
material world itself.
Consider again the doleful expression on the Lion's
face: his love has disappeared and died in his place, as
Alkestis went down untimely to Hades in place of her husband,
Admetos. But a glance at the next page, where the Tin Woodman
and the Scarecrow clasp hands, exchanging knowing looks,
reveals the truth: these two rogues have a plan. Above them
is the holy symbol of the world begetting sacrifice- the Lion
of the Sun and the Serpent of the Moon. The tail rising up
between his legs is the Serpent, ready to strike. We have
seen that anxious look on the Lion's face before. It is the
nervous expression on Adam's face in E.B. Jones's unheralded
masterpiece the Tree of Forgiveness, a frightened expression
Jones lifted from ancient portrayals of the sacrificial rite
that ended with the death of the Golden Lion of the Sun.
Adam is surrounded in that painting by flowers- the
persiana design. Behind the tree from which Eve is emerging
flows a river: a river divided into three parts. Disguised in
the shape of that river, the river that flows through the
Garden in the maternal cave, the same river that flows into
the Underworld Sea behind the Maiden in the Mona Lisa, is the
same Holy Family found in the Virgin of the Rocks. In the
foreground that river forms an image of the Old Man, the
Father, the Phoenix bird: the shape of his head is
reminescent of a Pterodactyl: he is Pterelaos. In the
background that river becomes the Mother, the bird of night.
The bird's eyes and beak are both clearly visible, and her
wings sweep forward, as if she were about to snatch her prey.
The wings of the bird of Night were always shown in that
position, even, no, especially in the most ancient portrayls
of the Goddess; for she is from time out of mind the snatcher
of souls. In the most ancient funeral rite practiced by the
race of men, bodies were left out to be picked clean by the
winged ones: an imitation of the rite by which the Father
gave mana to the world, that "the small birds should all
have... their fill". Between the Mother and the Father lies
the serpent child. We are treading on sacred ground here, the
holiest mystery of our race.
Returning to Oz, after the Lion comes the hypnotic
glance of Toto, i.e., Kadmos; i.e., Kerberos: the Father
himself, that "faithful dog shining brighter than his lord
and master". He did not kill the Mother; how could he, the
Father, kill the Mother? He merely laid a glamour upon her, a
charm, a spell, an opium dream. In other words, he gave her a
taste of her own vicious sting. On the next page the
Scarecrow holds in his hands the story he has written, while
on the opposite page the Tin Woodman hangs up the copyright
sign. Three signatures are written underneath that copyright:
the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow:
Dorothy's three inseparable companions. They are three, and
they are one; they are Toto- the Wizard. They are the
Kabeiroi who escorted Hekate, i.e., Snow White, i.e.,
Dorothy, on her journey to the Underworld, the land of the
Dwarves- the little people, the land of Oz, where Munchkins
dwell. There they purified her in the waters of the
Underworld Sea. Only in the Underworld can woman, the Goddess
whose death created the human race, win for herself a a soul:
the wings that will take her home again. Only in the fires of
the Underworld can the soul of humanity, the Bride of God, be
forged. Olaf Stapledon knew, although, like myself, he
scarcely knew how to express that knowledge. Or, even worse,
how to conceal it.
Straw grows from the Scarecrow's head because he is
Triptolemus, who lay with Demeter in the thrice plowed field:
the field long left fallow, the Field of Mecone, the Field of
Poppies. There Triptolemus, famous in the ancient world as
the inventor of the plow (as Jethro Tull became famous in the
16th century as the inventor of the seed-plow) cast his opium
spell upon the Mother and sent her on her way. And my God,
"what a long, strange trip it's been". The scarecrow's neck
is tied with a broken cord because he is Perses, who was
decapitated by his two brothers- Pallas and Asterios. Only,
as Baum well knew, that decapitation at the hands of his
brothers was simply a metaphor for his castration at the
hands of the Nymph. It was the Nymph, the spider called
Arachne, who hung him by that broken cord- her own thread,
from the top of the highest mountain on earth, that mountain
of which the pyramid is but a symbol, that mountain called
the moon: for to a star roving creature the moon is simply
Earth's highest mountain- a beacon calling him home across
the vast darkness of space.
After hanging him from that mountain, she pierced him
with the sharp dagger of her stinger, then bit off his
phallus, castrating him; thus releasing the mana upon the
earth and insuring the return of the corn. As Zeus impaled
Prometheus on the Mountain; so Dorothy must release the
Scarecrow from the pole upon which he was impaled: a pole
which stood, naturally, in the middle of a corn field. In the
ancient myths, it was Herakles who freed Prometheus; here it
is Dorothy, the Kore: Baum was one of the few who had
penetrated to the secret of Herakles' true sex. In case the
reader has not guessed it already, Herakles is, like
Teiresias, the Maid transformed into a man. With her fearsome
sting the Nymph paralyzed the Father, turning him to stone;
thus when Dorothy meets with the Tin Woodman he is rusted
in place: she must loosen his joints with oil before he can
move again. He requires oiling because, after she castrated
him, his blood, the mana, the golden shower, the ichor that
runs through the veins of the gods, fell to earth to
replinish the magic of the Faery Kingdom.
On the next page, beneath the dedicaton to Baum's wife,
is a picture of the Krone, the Old Goddess: not the Mother
who is about to die and be reborn as the Kore, but the
Grandmother walking alongside the Kore in Haytime. She is
the Good Witch of the North. She knows the proper manner of
the sacrifice: the N at the end of her wand is actually a man
impaled on a spear. Only this time it is little Dorothy who
is the sacrifice. Glinda, too, is in on the game.
On the chapter page opposite Glinda, Chapter One
(entitled "The Cyclone") the Kore, who is about to awaken as
Dorothy in the Land of Oz, is lifted up by the Cyclone, as is
the house also. That house is the earth itself: as she, the
Goddess, the Daughter of the Mountain, is also the earth
itself; thus the house must come with her. She cannot escape
from herself but- thanks to the magic of the Father- she can
take a trip. The artist even tips the house to an angle that
gives it a pyramid shape and emphasizes the pyramidal forms
concealed within the structure itself. There is even a piece
broken off from the corner, representing the castration; so
that she, too, might know what it is to lose a part of
herself. Below is the cyclone- the swirling coils of the
Serpent Father. Riding down those swirls is a cart. Like the
cart in Haytime, it is the chariot of Helios, i.e., Hades,
i.e., Perses: the chariot in which the Titan carried off
Persephone. The small objects falling to the earth represent
the stones- the drops of blood, that fell from the sky at the
castration of the Father. Only now it is the blood of the
Mother that is being spilled; it is the blood sacrifice that
began the creation of this world, a false world, a shadow
world: a fable spun by a gray-cloaked rogue with a heart of
gold.
It will be noted that we have not yet reached even the
first page of this holy book, but there it is: Dorothy, with
her serpent-twined hair, staring out at a murky sun above a
flat plain, the wheat twined like a serpent above her head.
In the corner, standing on three legs with his tail in the
air, is Toto. Above the doorway to the house hangs a
horseshoe- it is the Omega, the end of the former cycle and
the beginning of the new one. Her house is small, one room:
it is a metaphor for the maternal cave where the Daughter cut
her Dragon Father into seven pieces and cooked him in a
cauldron upon a tripod- the same tripod shown falling from
the house on the previous page. His sacrifice gave the world
music and light and sustenance: they are all one and the
same. In the corner of the house stands a "rusty looking
cooking stove". It is rusty because it was not used when it
should have been- the sacrifice was left unperformed; or, at
least, performed incorrectly: it has been switched.
As Dorothy is both the Medousa, who always killed the
Father, sending him to the Underworld where he might be
reborn, and Hekate, who must now die herself and travel to
the Underworld that she may be purified, so is Aunt Em
clearly revealed as one of the Graiai. Her eyes are a "sober
gray"; her once-fair red cheeks are also turned to gray.
Dorothy was an orphan, and, like Hekate, an only child: her
last name, however, is Gale: she is the Daughter of the Wind,
the Daughter of Aeolus. When she came to live with them, Aunt
Em was so startled "by the child's laughter that she would
scream and press her hand upon her heart, whenever Dorothy's
merry voice reached her ears." Uncle Henry is a joyless
figure also, for he is married to the Old Mother, the wicked
witch who still knows only will to power and not love, or has
become so old she has forgotten it. It was Toto who "made
Dorothy laugh... he was a little black dog with long silky
hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either
side of his funny wee nose". He is her husband to be. She is
the hare, he is the hound; they are the two who chased each
other "twenty miles above the ground".
The house had a cellar, not, actually, a real cellar we
are told, only:
"a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone
cellar, where the family could go in case one of
those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to
crash any building in its path. It was reached by a
trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a
ladder led down into the small dark hole.
It is the cave Charles Manson tried to tell you of: the cave
wherein you would be safe when the Great Whirlwind, Allah,
the wind that can shatter any building- any planet, in its
path, comes home from the stars to destroy your world. It is
the cave from which you will emerge reborn. That trap door
is not located outside, as in the movie version; it is
inside, within the pyramid itself. Now the cyclone whirled
swiftly towards the house of Dorothy, but that cyclone was no
ordinary whirlwind; instead, it was directly under the
control of Aeolus, king of the winds; for the "north and
south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact
center of the cyclone". Nor, obviously, is Dorothy's home
simply an ordinary farmhouse: it is the pyramid, the omphalos
at the center of the world- the home of the Nymph. Dorothy,
however, could not reach that trap door in time to escape the
storm. Toto had jumped from her arms and hidden himself under
the bed, and some guiding angel prevented her from running to
the cave without him. She snatched him up in her arms. Now
the house was lifted up by the cyclone: Dorothy is
experiencing death. It is the glamour, the enchantment- it is
what she asked for.
Toto then wandered too close to the trap door and fell
through, the whirling air holding him up long enough for
Dorothy to reach out and grab him by the ear as they flew
high above the earth, just as numerous paintings from the
ancient world show how the Goddes used to grab the Lion of
the Sun by his ear. She, too, grabbed him by the ear as they
flew high above the earth, just before binding him and
piercing him with her stinger, sending him to his death. Now
that she is on her way to the Underworld herself, however,
she realizes she wants him there with her: for she always
relied on him more than she knew; or, at least, more than she
cared to admit. She could not make all things old new again,
only he could do that. He fully intended to go along with
her, of course, and was in no danger from the wind- he is the
wind: that is why it kept him aloft. He merely wanted to
know, the dog, whether she would risk herself by coming near
the trap-door in an attempt to save him. He was testing her,
to see if her love was true. It was only the first of many
such tests. The roaring cyclone carried her through the dark
for hours, "and the wind howled horribly around her", but
aside from the first couple dizzying whirls around, "she felt
as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle",
like the child Christ cradled in the womb of the Virgin of
the Rocks, like the Divine Child cradled in the basket of the
Two Sisters. At last, while the house was still borne along
by the rushing wind, Dorothy fell asleep, curled up on the
bed with a disgruntled looking Toto clutched firmly in her
arms.
When Dorothy landed in Oz she was met by Glinda- the
Good Witch of the North, and the Munchkins- who live, of
course, as so many have long suspected, in the land of
Monchyaus, or Munychia. They thanked her for slaying the
Wicked Witch of the East, who had long held the people of
that fair land in bondage; and true it is that the Wicked
Witch of the East died long ago, slain by the Buddha. But in
the West the Wicked Witch lived on, and long have the
Mountain Wizards of the East laid their plans to bring her
down. That is Dorothy's mission: to slay the Wicked Witch of
the West. The slippers she took from the feet of the Wicked
Witch of the East were not ruby in color, they were silver.
One of the Munchkins commented that the "Witch of the East
was proud of those silver shoes... and there is some charm
connected with them: but what it is we never knew". The
Munchkins never knew what that charm was because it was the
spell of forgetfulness cast by Lethe- the river of death, the
river of moonlight. Those who drink of her waters forget all
they once knew. Dorothy's arrival in Oz killed the Wicked
Witch of the East and broke the spell, as the spell must now
be broken in the West as well.
And so little Dorothy arrived in the land of Oz, "a
stranger in a strange land". But how was she to find her way
home again? Glinda balanced her peaked witch's cap on the
edge of the man impaled at the end of her wand. The cap
changed into a slate, and the words appeared: "let Dorothy go
to the city of Emeralds". It is a message from the Wizard.
Dorothy, naturally, immediately inquired as to the location
of that city: "It is exactly in the center of the country,
and is ruled by Oz, the Great Wizard...". Oz is the omphalos
at the center of the world: it is the pyramid, the mountain
hall of the Wizard-King who sits upon the Dragon Throne.
Everyone knows, of course, of the road which Dorothy
travelled to find the Wizard, for the "road to the city of
Emeralds is paved with yellow brick... so you cannot miss
it". The Marxist interpretation of the Wizard of Oz, although
valid in its own right, does not understand that the Yellow
Brick Road is more than a road of gold: it is formed of the
stones that fell as bricks from the Golden Shower- the Urea,
which poured from the Heavens at the castration of the
Father. That is what the road she must walk is paved with-
the blood of her lover, the mana. She is Thisbe, and he is
Pyramis. To protect her on her journey, the Witch of the
North "kissed her gently on the forehead", leaving "a round
shining mark". It is the kiss of Michael in Stranger in a
Strange Land; the mark on the side of the cow followed by
Kadmos- that cow who was Europa herself. It is the Mark of
the Serpent carved upon the foreheads of the children of
Manson.
CHAPTER XVIII
Among modern scholars the tendency is to consider Ovid
merely a teller of frivolous tales; yet his Metamorphoses was
the book of choice among the Renaissance Masters: they
considered him a profound genius and read him with care
throughout their lives. Consider, just for a moment, which of
these two groups is more likely to be correct in its
estimation of Ovid's literary abilities? Is it possible the
Renaissance Masters saw something in Ovid that modern
scholars have missed? Is it possible they did not? In Ovid
the Renaissance Masters encountered someone who knew- and
was willing to teach. They were excellent pupils; and they, too,
knew how to read the story within the story, as I have told
it to you; therefore a hermeneutical understanding of Ovid is
essential to a correct reading of Renaissance art. Else how
would you know why a serpent child rests in the hair of
Botticelli's Venus, just above her left shoulder- a child
most of you have never even noticed, despite his huge
phallus?
To achieve a hermeneutical understanding of Ovid one
must understand his purpose in writing. It is, said Ovid, "to
tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a
different kind". That the world-view taught by Ovid is a
sophisticated one is immediately demonstrated by an amazing
statement at the very beginning of the Metamorphoses, a
statement too often overlooked by commentators on Ovid. In
his description of Nature as She existed in the state of
chaos, Ovid remarks that at that time "the earth was not
poised in enveloping air, balanced there by its own weight".
But this is a perfectly accurate description of the earth's
position in space! How is such a statement possible from a
writer who lived at the time of Christ, over 1500 years
before Newton discovered gravity?
In Hesiod's Theogony, Chaos was an abyss, the "yawning
gap"; in Ovid it has acquired its modern meaning, a hodge-
podge of elements mixed together without order. "A god", said
Ovid, "whichever of the gods it was", (Ovid will not say)
"set the chaotic mass in order". Ovid's accurate description
of the earth hanging suspended in space, held in place by
gravity, is clearly no fluke, as witness his description of
the earth created by that unnamed god. First he shaped "the
earth into a great ball, so that it might be the same in all
directions". He it was who created the seas, and commanded
that "rocky mountain peaks rise up". Rest assured that Ovid
understood the true meaning of those "rocky mountain peaks":
that they are the pyramids. If he did not, I could not have
learned it from him, nor could Durer, Da Vinci, or
Botticelli. It is because of Ovid that the triangle motif is
so prevalent in Renaissance art: only it is not a
triangle; it is a pyramid. But let us continue with Ovid's
description of the world:
As the sky is divided into two zones on the right
hand, and two on the left, with a fifth in
between, hotter than any of the rest, so the world
which the sky encloses is marked off the same way,
thanks to the providence of the god: he imposed the
same number of zones on earth as there are in the
heavens. The central zone is so hot as to be
uninhabitable, while two others are covered in deep
snow: but between these two extremes he set two
zones to which he gave a temperate climate,
compounded of heat and cold.
Save for his slight exaggeration of the heat in the
tropical zone (which may be ascribed to poetic license)
Ovid's description of the world is, again, an accurate one.
The same god who created the world, this nameless god, this
marvelous god, "to the air assigned mist and clouds... here
too he placed the thunderbolts, and wind that strikes out
lightning from the clouds. Nor did the builder of the world",
we are expressly told, "allow the winds, any more than the
rest, to roam at will throughout the air, they can scarcely
be prevented from tearing the world apart, even as it is...".
They are the winds that can shatter any building, or planet,
in their path. The God who built the world is the God who
confined the winds: the God who confined the winds of the
world is the Lord of the Winds- their King; he is Aeolus,
Ailil, Allah, the great whirlwind of the desert, the Father
of Eros. He is the wind that blows beneath Tartaros itself,
the wind that fills even the immortal gods, even the heart of
the Goddess herself, with dread. He is that wind. He is
Allah. He is the one true God. Allahu Akbar!
In Arabic, the name Irag means "Origin". The massacre of
a half-million followers of the true faith on the fields of
Origin will not be overlooked by the Father. America, you
have sown the wind; unless you repent, you will reap the
whirlwind. But Allah is merciful. His desire is not so much
to punish you, though he is fully capable of doing that also,
as you may yet discover to your everlasting regret; but,
instead, only to teach you a very simple, yet nonetheless
Golden Rule: "do unto others as you would have them do unto
you". In short, love your brother as yourself, and recognize
your brother in all men- "even Aqualung". Only through your
deeds, America, can you demonstrate to Allah that you have
recognized your folly and learned at last the lesson of love.
Above all, you must refrain from using the vast power of your
military might to hoard, like the Great Dragoness, the mana
of the world: the mana which in the spirit world flows freely
from the sky like a shower of golden honey but in this world
must be dredged from the ground- a black ooze. Nonetheless,
although only a shadow of its true form, it is the Golden
Mana from the sacrifice of the Father. It is not yours to
control. Sit down with your Muslim brothers and give them
fair price for what they give you- the mana that makes your
life possible. Have you not grown wealthy from the mana? Why,
then, do you not want to share that wealth with others? With
those from whom you stole it in the first place? Do not
haggle with them, or cheat them, for with the measure you
give so shall it one day be given to you.
And so the true name of God now stands revealed: Allah-
the Father, King of the Winds, King over the "Whirlers", the
Thunderbolts who are next to Heaven. Would you like to hear a
description of those alien beings, those "elders of a gentle
race", a description that comes from their own lips? To find
it, you need look no further than the Odyssey; for Homer's
epic tale is, of course, also a theodicy. Upon his departure
from the island of Aeolus, Odysseus was given a bag which
contained the winds, so that he might come safely home to
Ithaca without being blown off course. His men, however,
suspected him of deception. Believing the bag filled with
treasure- rich gifts from Aeolus that Odysseus intended to
keep for himself- they foolishly untied the bag. With a
monstrous farting noise the winds broke free, and the black
ship was tossed helplessly to and fro, eventually being blown
all the way back to the island of Aeolus. Once again,
Odysseus went unto the King of the Winds and asked for his
help; but, angry now, Aeolus refused him: proclaiming that
his journey stood under the curse of Heaven. And so with
heavy heart Odysseus departed from the magic island where
Aeolus dwelt with his six sons and six daughters- the twelve
Titans.
Bereft of wind, Odysseus and his fleet rowed on until
they came to the land of the Laistrygonians- ,
"where the low night path of the sun is near/ the sun's path
by day". They are near the Underworld- its arctic entrance.
They have come to the land of Laios- , the Father of
Oidipos, i.e., Laertes- , the Father of Odysseus. They
are at the pyramid. As we know, the Father is a Titan, a
Giant; thus we should not be surprised to learn that the
Laistrygonians are savage giants wbo hurl rocks down on
Odysseus's fleet, spearing his men from the water like fish
for the supper table. Only Odysseus's own ship and crew
escaped the massacre. Odysseus next found himself upon the
island of Aeaea- again the island of Aeolus; only now a
glamour has been cast over the island by its sorceress-
Kirke, so that Odysseus (and, apparently, the reader as well)
will fail to recognize it as the same island. On that
enchanted island Odysseus's men were transformed by Kirke
into pigs: again, man as food animal for the gods. Odysseus
was able to rescue them only with the help of Hermes- his
Father. After forcing him to spend a year with her on that
island, Kirke granted him leave to sail on, but told him he
must first travel to Hades and seek the counsel of Teiresias:
who is, of course, Penelope herself, on the other side of the
Gateway. With the help of that sage counsel, Odysseus passed
successfully through several further adventures. Finally,
however, stranded and hungry on the island of the Sun, where
Helios pastured his sacred cattle, Odysseus' men ignored his
warnings and, giving way to their hunger, butchered some of
those cattle for themselves. For their crime the ship was
wrecked, all aboard perishing save Odysseus himself, who
washed ashore on the island of Kalypso- "the hidden one",
Kali. She is, of course, Kirke herself: Odysseus remains upon
the same island.
Like Kirke, only this time after a wait of seven years,
Kalypso eventually released Odysseus, giving him a raft that
he might once more venture out upon the sea. Almost in sight
of land, a furious storm sprang up, breaking the raft apart.
Clinging to a beam, Odysseus was saved by his Mother, Ino
Leukothea, who threw him the purple cloth of the Mysteries:
the purple cloth of his Father- Perses, the cocoon she wove
around him that he might come safely through the storm and
reach the far shore at last. And upon what land was Odysseus
eventually washed ashore? Why, the very land from which he
had so recently departed, of course; once again he has been
blown back by the winds to the land of Aeaea (or Oz) the
island ruled by Aeolus: only now Aeolus has disappeared to be
replaced by Alkinoos. Alkinoos is King over the Phaiacians,
i.e., the Phoenicians: it is the island of the Phoenix that
Odysseus finds himself upon, the island of the Dragon- the
winged Serpent. Now the shipwrecked sailor is succored by
Nausikaa, the Serpent Princess, and led to the hall of the
King. After entertaining the weary traveller with food,
drink, and athletic contests, a contest in which Odysseus
distinguished himself by launching a tremendous discuss throw
(thus revealing himself as the Lion of the Sun) Alkinoos
launched into the following description of his race:
Come, turn your mind, now, on a thing to tell
among your peers when you are home again,
dining in hall, besides your wife and children:
I mean our prowess, as you may remember it,
for we, too, have our skills, given by Zeus,
and practiced from our father's time to this-
not in the boxing ring nor the palestra
conspicous, but in racing, land or sea;
and all our days we set great store by feasting,
harpers, and the grace of dancing choirs
changes of dress, warm baths, and downy beds.
O master dancers of the Phaiakians!
Perform now: let our guest on his return
tell his companions we excel the world
in dance and song, as in our ships and running.
Someone go find the glittern harp in hall
and bring it quickly to Demodokos!
At the serene king's word, a squire ran
to bring the polished harp out of the palace,
and place was given to nine referees-
peers of the realm, masters of ceremony-
who cleared a space and smoothed a dancing floor.
The squire brought down, and gave Demodokos,
the clear-toned harp; and centering on the minstrel
magical young dancers formed a circle
with a light beat, and stamp of feet. Beholding,
Odysseus marveled at the flashing ring
Then the minstrel sang in liquid tones the tale of the tryst
between Aphrodite and Ares. Odysseus:
listening, found sweet pleasure in the tale,
among the Phaiakian mariners and oarsmen.
And next Alkinoos called upon his sons
Halios and Laodamas, to show
the dance no one could do as well as they-
handling a purple ball carven by Polybos.
One made it shoot up under the shadowing clouds
as he leaned backward; bounding high in air
the other cut its flight far off the ground-
and neither missed a step as the ball soared.
The next turn was to keep it low, and shuttling
hard between them, while the ring of boys
gave them a steady stamping beat.
Odysseus now addressed Alkinoos:
"O Majesty, model of all your folk,
your promise was to show me peerless danceers;
here is the promise kept. I am all wonder."
As is confirmed by the presence of "the ring of boys"
who "gave them a steady stamping beat" (they are, of course,
the Kouretes) the preceding tale is a metaphor for the dance
of the Korybants, the "Whirlers", at the birth of the Divine
Child. The Phaiacians take pride, not in combat but in
racing: moving swiftly over land or sea, as befits the
descendants of Aeolus- Lord of the Winds. The sons of
Alkinoos are Halios and Laodamas. Halios is, obviously, a
variation of Helios: a variation that identifies him as the
son of the Goddess Halia. In addition to being the name of
the last King of Thebes, Laodamas is also a variation of
Laomedon (ruler of Troy and the Father of Priam, i.e.,
Prometheus) a variation that identifies him as the Son of
Dymas; and, even more importantly, confirms the identity
between Troy and Thebes. As the Mother of Hecabe, i.e.,
Hekate, Dymas is, of course, Demeter herself; thus Laomedon,
her Son, is not the Father of Prometheus but Prometheus
himself. Laodamas is also called Laios or Laertes. Odysseus
is, in short, the Divine Child- Dionysos; Alkinoos is the
Father- Acheloos. Aeolus is the Grandfather. In addition to
being the name of a Giant, Polybos, who carved the purple
ball, the ball of Perses, is the same Polybotes identified
earlier as not only the step-father of Oidipos, but also as
Helios himself. It is no ordinary island upon which Odysseus
now finds himself- it is the Magic Mountain rising from the
sea: Odysseus is within the family hall beneath the pyramid.
That fabulous hall is the home of our alien overlords- the
Serpent Kings. They are Dragons- mankind's oldest nightmare;
they are the unseen monsters who, from the sanctuary of their
Underworld lair, pull the strings upon which the nations of
the earth must dance. As we have just seen, those monsters
treasure above all "clean linen in plenty, a hot bath and our
beds".
Returning to Ovid, after fashioning the world, the Father
brought forth from his own divine seed the being
called man; or else, we are told, "Prometheus, son of
Iapetos", fashioned man from the earth, "bidding him look up
to heaven, and lift his head to the stars". Thus it came
about that "the earth, which had been rough and formless, was
moulded into the shape of a man, a creature till then
uknown". At first was the Golden Age; with the passing of
Kronos, i.e., Krios, i.e., Chrysaoar, "the hero with the
golden sword", the Golden Age passed also, to be followed by
the Ages of Silver, Bronze, and then Iron, each more terrible
than the one before. At last, when even brothers took up arms
against each other, the Maiden Dike herself abandoned the
earth in despair and took refuge in the maternal cave. The
war between Gods and Giants began upon the earth- the Stone
Age began- and once more man was reduced to a state of chaos
and confusion. It is, in short, our time: Kali Durga time. As
it flowed into the womb of the earth, the blood of Otos and
Ephialtes was transformed by the Goddess into mankind; thus
men are "the children of blood": children of the two brothers
who slew each other- Cain and Abel.
There are many more tales that could be told: tales of
the War of the Seven Against Thebes, of Jason and the
Argonauts, of the Great Calydonian Boar Hunt, of the
grandsons of Kadmos, and of the two greatest heroes of Greek
Mythology- Achilles and Herakles; but now that the structure
upon which the mythos is built stands revealed, it will be
apparent everywhere. Of Achilles, for instance, in addition
to what has been said already, it need only be noted further
that his Grandfather was Aeacus, his Grandmother- Aegina; for
we have seen that his Father, Peleus, famous for his
wrestling match with Thetis, is in fact Nereus, the Old Man
of the Sea, whose wrestling matches were also a matter of
legend. Nereus is simply another name for Okeanos, while
Aegina can only be Tethys herself, the Mother of the
forbidden Nymph- Thetis. Thetis mated with her Father,
Peleus; and thus was born Achilles. Achilles greatest foe was
the Trojan warrior Hector, whose solitary half-brother was
named Aesacus: a name similar in sound to both Aeacus and
Aesclapios. In the same manner, the name of Peleus, the
Father of Achilles, is similar not only to Peneus, the Father
of the Nymph Daphne, but also to Pentheus, the cousin of
Dionysos. The name of Aeacus is also similar, of course, to
that of Bacchus himself. It is said that Aeacus, the Son of
Aegina, lived alone on his island; therefore Zeus, in
response to Aegina's pleas on behalf of her Son, transformed
the ants of the island into people- the Myrmidons. It is,
once again, the story of mankind's origin, and explains our
uncanny resemblance to the ant. Of course, as in the story of
Indra and his encounter with the Divine Child Krishna, those
ants are not really ants: they are Thunderbolts. The name
Alkinoos is, of
course, a combination of Alkyoneus and Acheloos. Within
Alkyoneus's name is concealed the name of his Father- Aeolus,
Lord of the Winds, while under the name of Ceyx, son of
Lucifer, Alkyoneus was married to Alcyone- the Daughter of
Aeolus. Upon the death of Ceyx, both he and Alycone were
transformed into sea birds: birds with the power to calm the
winds for seven days in the wintertime; that they might mate
and nest in safety upon the waves. As Alcyone and her lover
flew away, an old man observed another sea bird flying
nearby: "That bird too", he claimed, "is a descendant of
kings", for "that bird is Hector's brother... Aesacus." That
remark is, of course, Ovid's sly way of informing the reader
of Ceyx's true identity; for that bird is seen leaping from
the sea at precisely the moment Ceyx is restored to life. As
we have just seen that Ceyx is actually Alkyoneus (that is
why he is married to Alcyone) we now know that Alkyoneus, or
Alkinoos, is Aesacus.
As we saw earlier, the Old Man, despite his awesome
strength, was inevitably defeated in his wrestling matches,
while Herakles, who wrestled even with the Gods, including
Apollon (i.e., Amphion, or Amphitryon- his Father) at the
Omphalos in Delphi, was just as inevitably triumphant.
Furthermore, Herakles became so distraught over losing his
comrade Hylas to the Nymphs, when Hylas went off searching
for water on the island of Kios, that he did not continue his
voyage with Jason and the Argonauts; they left him behind,
searching through the green woods for Hylas. Hylas was
Herakles' favorite, his page; he was the son of Theiodamas-
"the Goddess", also called Dymas or Demeter. Doubtless he is
the Daktyl Idaioi called Idas, that Idas who was a companion
of the Daktyl called Herakles- that Daktyl of whom it is
always said, wrongly, that he is not that Herakles. As is so
often the case with the Greek gods, the name of Herakles
reveals his true identity: he is "the glory of Hera".
Herakles, the greatest hero in all of Greek mythology, is the
Daughter of Hera- "the Mistress": she is Hekate, driven to
distraction by the loss of her lover to the Nymph of the
island. The tale that Herakles went mad and slew his wife and
children is likewise simply an inversion of the tale of the
Serpent Nymph who slew her Father after mating with him in
the Garden; all so that she might bring forth the Son with
whom she will mate to bring forth the Daughter, the Daughter
who will kill that Son- the favorite of the Mother: the
Father of the Nymph herself. The sacred truth that has always
lain hidden at the core of the mythos, well concealed from
the profane eyes of men, is that the myths are structurally
organized around the life cycle of the Dragon. Levi-Strauss
is to be commended for realizing that there is indeed a
structure to the myths, but he has never caught even a
glimpse of its serpentine form.
The Argonauts had stopped at the island of Kios (i.e.,
the island of Koios and Krios- the Father and the Son) only
because Herakles had broken his oar and needed wood to
fashion a new one. That oar is his stinger- the stinger of
the Mother- the harpe. She broke it when she used it on her
own Father; thus she knows the impending fate of her Son:
that in going to the Nymphs he is going to his doom. When
Herakles went off in search of Hylas, he was accompanied by
Polyphemus. Polyphemus is also, of course, the name of the
Kyklope who was blinded by Odysseus: he is the Father;
Herakles is the Mother; and Hylas is the Son, apparently now
lost to the new Daughter- the Nymph of the island. And yet,
as is clear from the similarity in their names, Hylas is
Helios himself- the Son of Demeter and the Father of Hekate:
the Maid now called Herakles. She did not lose him to the
Nymphs of the island; she is the Nymph of the island: there
are no others. Hylas has simply hidden himself from her in
order to prevent the sacrifice from being performed; or, at
least, performed correctly. It was Hylas himself, of course,
who broke the oar of Herakles- her stinger. Finally, that
Hylas is Helios, and that Polyphemus plays the role in this
story of Helios' Father, indicates that Polybotes is not
Helios but Hyperion- the Father of Helios; thus the role of
step-parent conceals, at least on occasion, not the true
parent but the Grandparent.
Rose observed that, until his visit to Delphi, Herakles
was "known as Alkeides, in commemoration of his reputed
father"- Amphitryon. And yet, his name is closer to Alkmene
than to Amphitryon, and closer still to Alkestis, the wife of
Admetos. Although 'ides' can mean son, as in the case of
Akmonides, it is also used for daughters, as the Nereides
were the Daughters of Nereus, and the Aglaurides were the
Daughters of Aglauros. As we have seen, Ares was "from early
times associated with Aphrodite, as lover or cult partner",
and with Eos, who is Aphrodite herself: as is Aglauros, by
whom he became the Father of Alkippe. Alkeides is in truth
the Daughter of Alkestis and Admetos, i.e., of Aglauros and
Ares. In short, Alkeides is Alkippe. Herakles is thus
revealed as the Daughter of Aphrodite and Ares: the Daughter
of Love and War. She may also be called the Daughter of
Kyrene and Ares (i.e., Aglauros and Ares, i.e., Alkestis and
Admetos) for Alkmene is, obviously, simply a variant spelling
of Klymene, i.e., Kyrene. Ares is, of course, Aristaios, the
Son of Kyrene and Apollon (i.e. Alkmene and Amphitryon) with
his name changed to obscure the incestous relationsip with
his Mother, as Kyrene is for the same reason called Alkestis
in her marriage to Admetos, and Alkmene in her marriage to
Amphitryon- who is not the Father but the Grandfather of
Herakles. Although the child of Ares and Kyrene is supposedly
Diomedes, a Son, the union of the Mother and the Son brings
forth- as we know- not the new Son but the Nymph. The
generation of the Daughter has been skipped over in this case
because that Daughter is Herakles, i.e., Alkeides; and to
have listed Alkeides in her correct position as the Daughter
of Kyrene and Ares would not only have revealed Herakles'
true sex, but also the pattern at the heart of the mythos-
the life-cycle of the Dragon. Knowing that Alkeides is the
Maid, it should come as no surprise that Herakles overcomes
both her Father, Acheloos (called with equal truth Admetos,
Achilles, Ares, or Aristaios) and her Son- Diomedes, i.e.,
Dionysos.
During her wrestling match with Apollon, Alkeides was
transformed into a man by the Pythoness at Delphi- at the
pyramid: precisely as Perseis was transformed into the man
Teiresias when she saw the two intertwining serpents on the
mountainside- the pyramid: that pyramid which was called
Thebes. The tale is told once again in the myth of the maid
Caenis and her encounter with Poseidon. When Poseidon caught
sight of Caenis walking alone by the shore, he rose up from
the sea and raped her on the welcoming sand. After having his
way with her, he offered to grant her any request. Caenis
thereupon asked to be transformed into a man, so that no such
fate might befall her again, and so she became Caeneus. In
other words, after the mating, Caeneus now possessed a
phallus: and a masculine disposition along with it. Although
her skin could not be pierced, making her invulnerable to
ordinary attack, at the wedding feast of Hippodamia and
Ixion's son Pirithous, Caeneus was crushed to death by the
Centaurs beneath a massive mountain of trees- the pyramid
which hides within its walls of brick the Tree of Life. The
Son of Ixion was also called Chiron; thus Hippodamia, "horse-
goddess", can only be Demeter, the goddess who transformed
herself into a horse to escape the amorous attentions of
Poseidon. As we know, Demeter is also called Chariclo, the
Mother of Okyrhoe. As Okyrhoe was transformed into a horse,
so Caenis was transformed into a man. The wedding feast of
her parents brought about her death. Cain and Abel, from
whose blood emerged mankind, were not two brothers: they
were lovers.
After Ares and Aglauros, the Mother and the Son, brought
forth the new Daughter, Alkippe- "the bold mare", the time
came for Ares, i.e., Admetos- "the untamable", to mate with
the Nymph and go to his death. The Father of Admetos,
however, who is, of course, Apollon himself, also called
Amphion or Amphitryon (or Oberon, as Shakespeare called him a
in A Midsummer Night's Dream) intervened on his Son's behalf,
getting the Moirai drunk and winning from them the promise
that Admetos' life would be spared if he could find someone
to die in his place. Only Alkestis dared make that sacrifice.
As the Kore fell into the Underworld and became its Queen at
the death of the Medousa, so Alkeides at the death of
Alkestis must enter that dark realm to wrestle with Hades
himself. That wrestling match is the mating ritual: it is the
rape of Persephone from a different perspective, for even in
death Herakles could not be defeated. Thus Persephone became
the Queen of Hell and conceived of Death a Son- Dionysos, to
replace grim Hades on the throne alongside her. It was left
to Dionysos, of course, to eventually rescue her from that
Underworld Kingdom. It perhaps still requires pointing out
that, as A/dmetos means "not/tamable", so A/dam means "not
woman". Alkippe was indeed a "bold mare"; but, much to her
delight, she did prove tamable in the end.
As Phaethon died in a blazing fire, as Caeneus was
killed by Centaurs, so Herakles was consumed by the fire as
he lay upon the pyre, wrapped in the blood-soaked hide of a
Centaur. It is said that the Centaur's blood was poisoned,
and that is true: for that Centaur was in truth her own
Father- Chiron, with his name changed to Nessos. She herself
slew him with her poisoned stinger, the harpe, sending him to
the Underworld as she did at the end of every world-cycle:
until finally, at the end of the Golden Age, the sacrifice
was switched, and she herself, wrapped in the skin of her
Father, descended into the Underworld. In the story as it has
always been told, Nessos agreed to let Deianeira ride upon
his back over the river Eneos, allowing Herakles to swim to
the other side unencumbered. The gullible hero clambered out
upon the other side only to see the Centaur galloping madly
off with Deianeira in his arms. Herakles slew the Centaur
with a swift arrow from his deadly bow; but Nessos, as he lay
dying, told Deianeira to use his blood as a love potion if
ever Herakles attentions should begin to wander. Beneath the
surface story, the structure is clear: the Father has mated
with the Nymph, and now lies dying in the arms of the Mother;
in dying, he plots his revenge. As it was Herakles' arrow
which wounded Chiron, so with the same arrow Herakles must
ultimately free Prometheus by driving away the Eagle of Zeus.
As Phaethon, the son of Klymene, is in truth the Daughter-
Pasiphae, so Herakles, the son of Alkmene, is Hekate- the
Daughter of Hera. She was sent to the Underworld to conquer
death and slay monsters: and, by so doing, to earn a soul;
for those monsters are but shadows of her own nightmare self.
Along the way, Herakles must also win the girdle of
Hippolyta; and, in woman's dress, serve as slave to Queen
Omphale: the Queen of the Omphalos- the Pyramid. Omphale is
Rhea herself- the Mountain Mother. She is Hera, "the
Mistress" and Mother of Herakles: Hera's own name, of course,
is a clever anagram of Rhea. In short, Herakles is the Maid-
Persephone. He is Ozma, the Queen of Oz, who was transformed
in the Land of Oz into the boy called Tip- and then changed
back again. As a boy, Tip was placed in the care of the
witch, Mombi. Mombi is, of course, the Mother Bee.
Unlike Baum, Nietzsche never realized that Herakles was
a manifestation of the Goddess; he was deceived by Herakles
great strength, a strength which inevitably left him
victorious in his wrestling matches, even over opponents such
as the Giant Alkyoneus or the River God Acheloos; yet it is
above all his skill as a wrestler that reveals him as the
Nymph. It will be remembered that the name Palaimon means
"Wrestler". As Rose observed:
A corrupt and puzzling passage of Plautus states
that Palaimon was said to be a comrade of Herakles.
No very successful attempt has yet been made to
connect this with any known myth or rite.
It is clear, now, what that connection is, and why it could
not be found without the key to the Labyrinth? Clear now why
Palaimon, comrade of Herakles, fell into the sea in the arms
of Ino Leukothea? The story of Herakles is, once again, the
story of Persephone's adventures in the Underworld; for
Herakles is the Nymph- Snow White.
Confused by the Nymphs's martial prowess, her constant
victories over the Father, the Aryans gave her a hairy ass
and changed her name along with her sex, henceforth referring
to her as Herakles. As Herakles lay sleeping one day, the
Kerkopes, "ape-like but human creatures", came along and
tried to steal his weapons, despite their mother's warning
"to beware the black-rumped man". A light sleeper, Herakles
awoke and moved quickly to capture the rascals, tying them to
a pole and slinging them upside down over his shoulders,
where they were treated to a splendid view of his
hindquarters. The sight inspired them to such heights of
revelry that at last even Herakles herself perceived the
joke, and laughing set them free. It will be remembered that
the name of Kekrops, Athens legendary first king, an
"earthborn, primordial being, half man and half serpent", was
a pun on the word kerkops- "the tailed ones". It was, of
course, her lover who mocked her and tried to steal her
weapon- the harpe. Kekrops was the Son of Athene and
Hephaistos; he was also called Erichthonios, or, in Thebes,
simply Chthonios: he is Kadmos himself. It will be
remembered, too, that Kekrops is also a pun on Cheops, the
Egyptian King who constructed the Great Pyramid, while the
description of the "black-rumped man" exposes once again the
myth's African origin.
Having given them all at least passing mention so far,
the fate of Kadmos's grandsons may likewise be quickly
recounted. We have already spoken much of Dionysos himself,
of course, in all his manifestations- and I hope it is now
clear precisely how numerous those manifestations are. It
must be equally obvious by now that Pentheus, the son of
Agaue, the King who, after mocking Dionysos, donned women's
clothing and was led to the slaughter by his supposed cousin
Dionysos, is in truth the Grandfather- Peleus, i.e., Peneus,
i.e., Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. Agaue is not his
Mother; she is his Daughter, the Nymph Aglauros, i.e.,
Aphrodite herself. It was not Dionysos who led Pentheus to
the slaughter; it was the call of the Nymph that lured him to
Mt. Kithaeron- to the pyramid. As for the children of Ino
Leukothea and Athamas- Learkos and Melikertes, although there
are many versions of their story, they all boil down to the
same scenario: Learkos is killed and cooked by Ino, while she
herself, with Melikertes in her arms, leaps into the sea.
Learkos is the Father, Kadmos himself; thus he dies at the
hands of his Daughter- Ino Leukothea. Melikertes, the "honey-
cutter", is the Son- Dionysos, but the other name which has
been assigned to him, Palaimon- "the Wrestler", obviously
belongs to Pallas, i.e., the wrestler- Peleus. Upon leaping
into the sea with Ino Leukothea, Palaimon was transformed
into a dolphin, as Apollo leaped into the sea and became a
dolphin; thus Apollo and Dionysos as the Alpha and the Omega
of Greek mythology.
Before unfolding the story of Aktaeon, let us take a
moment to discuss the identity of his Father, Aristaios. We
have met already with Aeacus, the reclusive Son of Zeus and
Aegina, the Father of Peleus. Aeacus is, of course, Hector's
brother Aesacus, who "hated cities and lived in retirement in
the hills.... although Hector's mother was Dymas' daughter,
Hecuba, where Aesacus, as he was called, is said to have been
born of Alexirhoe, the daughter of two-horned Granicus".
Hecuba, or Hecabe, i.e., Hekate, is the Daughter of Dymas;
i.e., Demeter- also called Theiodamas, Mother of Hylas, and
also, of course, the Mother of Laodamas. Hekate is married to
Priam, i.e., Prometheus. Hektor is the Son therefore of
Prometheus and Hekate, the Father and the Daughter. As we
know, the Father and the Daughter have a Son; therefore it
might seem that Hektor is properly identified as Dionysos.
That his name is a synonym for taunt, however, identifies him
instead as a repetition of Iapetos; thus he is killed by
Achilles at Troy: the overthrow of the Father by the Son- a
typically Greek rendition of the myth. It was not Achilles
who so badly mistreated his Father upon the plains before
Troy, dragging his dead body around in his chariot; it was
the Mother who performed that grim deed, though the Greeks
placed that terrible spear, the harpe, in the hands of
Achilles; thus do the myths become changed over time from
their true form, but always beneath those changes the true
structure remains visible. Aesacus is the Son of Priam, i.e.,
Prometheus, and Alexirhoe, i.e., Kallirhoe, the Son and the
Mother. Again, the Son and the Mother bring forth the
Daughter, not the Son; therefore Aesacus is revealed as a
repetiton of the previous generation: he is Prometheus
himself. Alexirhoe is Dymas herself, the Mother of Hecabe:
the Mother, not the Daughter, of two-horned Granicus. That he
is called "two-horned Granicus" identifies him as bull-headed
Acheloos before one of his horns was torn off by Herakles: as
Chiron before he was wounded beyond healing by the poisoned
arrow of Herakles. Acheloos is therefore called the
Grandfather of Aesacus, while Aeacus is called the
Grandfather of Achilles: as must now be clear, however, they
are all four but different names for the same character.
Aesacus is therefore revealed as the Divine Child
Aesculapius, or Asklepios: Apollo brought him to Chiron and
Okyrhoe. Asklepios, the healer, is of course, Chiron himself
i.e, Prometheus; the Son of Klymene and Iapetos. Asklepios,
the Son of Koronis and Apollo, is Aristaios, the Son of
Kyrene and Apollo. Under the name of Ares, Aristaios is
married to Kyrene; their Son is Diomedes, but; as previously
explained, Aristaios and Kyrene, i.e., Ares and Aglauros,
bring forth the Daughter- Alkippe, i.e., Alkeides.
Aesacus fell in love with the Nymph Hesperie, i.e., the
Nymph within the Garden of the Hesperidies. As he pursued her
across the meadow, she trod on a snake and died from its
bite. It will be remembered that Aristaios pursued Eurydike,
the wife of Orpheus and sister to the Dryads. Whle fleeing
from Aristaios, Eurydike also trod upon a snake and died from
its bite- again the same story. Apollo and Koronis were the
parents of Asklepios. Apollo brought him to Chiron, who
taught him the arts of healing. Apollo and Kyrene were the
parents of Aristaios. Apollo brought him to Chiron, who
taught him the arts of healing. Finally, Aristaios and
Autonoe were the parents of Aktaeon. Aristaios, to the
surprise, it will be hoped, of no one, brought his Son to
Chiron also. In a vase painting depicting the wrestling match
between Peleus and Thetis, Chiron holds a hound to the body
of Peleus in the same manner that Aktaeon's own hounds are
said to have torn him apart. The dog was a sacred animal to
Asklepios, for it was a dog who succoured him when he was
abandoned by Koronis on the mountainside. Chiron appears in
that vase painting dressed "in a robe covered with stars...
and with his dog beside him: a dark and savage god". Chiron
is the Mighty Hunter- Orion, i.e., Minos. As Chiron had a
pack of hunting dogs, so, too, did another mighty hunter of
old- Aktaeon.
The fate of Aktaeon is well known. There are many
versions of his encounter with Artemis, but leave it to Ovid
to strike closer to the bone than anyone else. Only Ovid
would so carefully inform the reader that "the scene of this
event was a mountain where the ground was stained with the
bloodshed of wild beasts of many kinds": for Ovid knows the
location of the ritual is the pyramid- the Sacred Mountain.
Only Ovid would so carefully inform the reader that "the heat
of mid-day had shortened the shadows, and the sun was midway
between his eastern and his western goal, when the young
Actaeon called to his comrades" to take a break from the
hunt, as "our nets and swords are dripping with blood from
the beasts we have taken...": for Ovid knows the time of the
ritual is high noon, when the sun is at its zenith, and that
it is a ritual drenched in blood.
At that noon hour, the sun was "cracking open the fields
with its heat": a most remarkable piece of imagery, for it is
when the earth cracks open from the heat of the thunderbolt
that the earth-born Giants and the Nymphs emerge. Zeus, it
will be remembered, told Hera that Io was "born from the
earth", as was Orion. The mountain is the "low lying altar of
the mighty son of Kronos"; the pyramid concealing within its
deep recesses the maternal cave- the Garden of the
Hesperides: also called the Garden of the Evening, where Eve
waited under the Tree of Life for the serpent to mate with
her. It is the Garden of Eden lying at the westernmost edge
of the world, which in those days meant Egypt. The pyramid is
always the site of the Dragon's mating ritual; within the
pyramid is where the Nymph awaits her lover's return from the
starry sea. She is the Virgin of the Rocks.
To reach that cave, Aktaeon must travel through "a
valley" - the Underworld; it is our world: it is the
Labyrinth. It is the valley of the shadow of death: the
valley in the shadow of the moon, whence falls the white
river that blinds the eyes and numbs the minds of mortals and
immortals alike. That valley "was called Gargaphie"; it was
covered with thick woods of "pitchpine, and with sharp-
needled cypress trees.... and was sacred to Diana, the
goddess of the hunt"- Diana, the goddess of the moon. The
landscape in Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks was drawn from
Ovid's description of the Nymph's mountain retreat, the
maternal cave, for deep with within the valley of Gargaphie:
... lay a woodland cave, which no hand of man had
wrought: but nature by her own devices had imitated
art. She had carved a natural arch from the living
stone and the soft Tufa rocks. On the right hand
was a murmuring spring of clear water, spreading
out into a wide pool with grassy banks. Here the
goddess, when she was tired with hunting in the
woods, used to bathe her fastidious limbs in pure
water.... Now while Diana was bathing, there in
her stream, as usual, the grandson of Cadmus...
came wandering with hesitant steps through this
wood which he had never seen before. He reached the
grove- so were the fate's directing him- and
entered the cave, which was moist with spray.
Da Vinci knew of that cave in the forest, as did Goethe also;
and of the living water that flows therefrom: it is the cave
of the Nymphs within the Great Pyramid. At Aktaeon's
entrance:
The Nymphs, discovered in their nakedness, beat
their breast at the sight of a man, and filled all
the grove with their sudden outcry. Crowding round
Diana, they sheltered her with their own bodies,
but the goddess was taller than they, head and
shoulders above them all.
Consider how a nest of ants or termites reacts when
disturbed, such was the reaction of the Nymphs at Aktaeon's
entrance: they crowd around the Queen to protect her, she who
is the largest of them all. The Queen was not pleased at
being summarily interrupted in the midst of her bath.
Although she did not have her arrows or javelin ready to hand
(i.e., her stinger- the harpe) she flung into his face some
water from that most dreadful of pools, the pool within the
pyramid- the mountain of the moon: the pool from which the
river Lethe, the white river of forgetfullness, pours down to
join in the valley below with the River Styx, the dark river
of death. Now Aktaeon forgot his true self, antlers "sprouted
from his head", and his own pack of hounds tore him to
shreds: led by Melampus, the "Blackfoot", but also, making a
sudden but timely appearance, the dog Harpyia, i.e., harpe,
the sickle of Kronos, the stinger of the Mother. Like
Pentheus beneath the pack of the Bacchants, Aktaeon was torn
apart.
Aktaeon is Son of Aristaios, who is the Son of Apollo,
i.e., Pallas. Aristaios is, as we have seen, Asterios
himself, while Apollo and Pallas have been identified as
different names for the same god: he who is also called
Ouranos or Iapetos. In Crete, the Son of Asterios is called
Minos. As we have also seen, Minos is Asterios himself, while
the tale of the Minotaur's death in the Labyrinth, and the
role played in that death by the Maid, Ariadne, is the tale
of the mating between Minos and Pasiphae- the Father and the
Daughter. As the Minotaur was to Minos, so Aktaeon is to
Aristaios- not a new generation but a repetition of the
previous one. As Minos grew horns and became the Minotaur
when he mated with his Daughter, Pasiphae (i.e., Ariadne) in
the Labyrinth, so Aristaios grew antlers and became Aktaeon
when he mated with Diana in the Valley of Gargaphie. Diana
is, of course, Aktaeon's own Daughter, for she is Artemis,
i.e., Autonoe, listed even in the traditional genealogies as
the wife of Aristaios. The story of the mating between
Aktaeon and Diana is the same story as that of the mating
between Minos and Pasiphae, i.e., the Minotaur and Ariadne,
i.e., Kadmos and Semele. It is the union of the Father and
the Nymph that brings forth the Divine Child- Dionysos. As we
have already identified Minos with Achilles, Aktaeon, too,
now stands revealed as Achilles. Achilles is Acheloos, whose
horn was broken off when he was overcome by Herakles, as
Aktaeon was given antlers when he was overcome by Diana; thus
confirming the identity of Herakles with Diana- the Maid, and
of Aktaeon with his Father- called Aeacus or Aesacus or
Asklepios or Asterios or Aristaios or Ares or Achilles or
Acheloos or Alkinoos or Alkyoneus or Admetos or Athamas or
Adam or even Ceyx, son of Lucifer. Aktaeon is Kadmos himself;
thus he dies at the hands of the Nymph Diana- his Daughter.
He is Orion; she is Artemis.
In summary, Apollo and Kyrene were the parents of
Aristaios. Ares and Kyrene were the parents of Diomedes,
another heroic figure slain by Herakles. Just as Geryon and
Orthos, the Father and the Son, were overcome by Herakles,
so also were Acheloos and Diomedes: it is the same story. As
Aristaios, Ares stands revealed as the Son of Apollo. Ares
married Kyrene because she is his Mother; as her Son he is
called Aristaios instead of Ares in order to conceal their
true relationship. As we know, the Son and the Mother have a
Daughter, yet the child of Ares and Kyrene is Diomedes, a
Son. In this case, the pattern has shifted, not as a result
of the repetition of generations, but because one generation
has been left out: that of the Maid- Herakles. In the
following genealogical chart, the Maid has been restored to
her proper place:
The first column dispenses with the notion that Aglauros
might possibly be the Daughter of Athene and Kekrops, rather
than Kekrops' Mother- Athene herself, for the Kekropian
Nymphs are obviously out of place in the position of the Son.
Aglauros is the Mother; and, as is shown in the final column,
Pandrosos is but another name for Pandora. The name of Herse
makes clear that she, too, is the Daughter of Perses: she is
Perseis. In short, the patriarchal Greeks transformed the
Goddess as warrior into Herakles, just as they transformed
the Goddess as witch into Teiresias.
Now that we understand the structure concealed beneath
the story, and the meaning of that structure, that it
describes the life-cycle of an alien species- the mating
ritual of the Dragons that gave Mana to the world, now that
we hold in our hands the Key to the Labyrinth, we can unlock
the deepest secrets of the myths and reveal their true, i.e.,
hermeneutical meaning: an interpretation whose truth is at
once apparent to all. To demonstrate how simple it is to
employ the methodology unfolded herein and discover the
heretofore hidden relationships between various myths and
between the various characters found in those myths, let us
consider the following two stories: the myths of Europa and
of Io. But perhaps, as both stories involve rape, and the
transformation of the Nymph into a cow, that might be thought
too easy? Very well then, let us add a third myth. Not a tale
of rape, but of battle, of the struggle for supremacy, for
overlordship among the gods: the struggle between Zeus and
Typhon- the Succession Myth. In addition, to tell the tale of
Io correctly, as it was told by Ovid, we must also relate the
story of Phaethon and his disastrous ride in the chariot of
Helios, including as well the love affairs of Apollo and
Daphne, and of Helios himself with Leukothoe. Reading across,
and including the myth of Phaethon with that of Io, the main
characters in each of the first three myths are divided below
into three categories, categories drawn from the Oz books:
Dorothy/Ozma Ozma/Wicked Witch Wizard
Harmonia/Europa Europa/Dragon of Ares Kadmos
Phaethon/Io Io/Juno-Klymene-Argus Helios/Hermes
Sinews of Zeus/Zeus Zeus/Delphyne-Typhon Hermes/Kadmos/
Typhon
On the left is the Nymph, the Maid- Dorothy, along with
the Mother whose death made possible her birth. On the right
is the Son- the Wizard: be he called Kadmos or Hermes or
Helios. He is the Titan- Typhon; he is Prometheus, who
switched the sacrifice and fooled great Zeus. He is the
Piper- Aigipan, who rescued the sinews and tendons of Zeus
from the maternal cave. In the middle is the Mother and the
monster, for the Mother is the monster: she is the Medousa-
the Wicked Old Witch. Europa and Io are listed in two
categories because, although both Io and Europa play the role
of abused maidens in their respective myths, i.e., the role
of the Nymph, both are also manifestations of the Mother who
must die that the Kore may be born. It must be remembered
that the Mother, too, was once a Nymph: that is how she
became the Mother. What must also be remembered is that
there is in truth only one Goddess: the Daughter is the Mother
after she has, for the first time, tasted of death: for the
Mother was not only immortal, she was Juno- "forever young".
Thus we have Dorothy, the Wicked Witch, and, finally, the
Wizard who either slays the Wicked Witch or helps Dorothy to
do so. Unlike the Hindus, and, indeed, the rest of the
ancient civilized world, a civilization stretching from China
to Ethiopia, the barbarian Greeks simply could not comprehend
the demonic side of the Mother. Unless the Mother was already
clearly identified for them as non-human, a dragon or a
serpent for instance, as in the myth involving Delphyne, the
Greeks preferred to substitute a monster- preferably a
masculine monster, for the dark side of the Mother- Kali
Durga. Thus the Dragon of Ares, Argus, and likewise, in some
versions of the Succession Myth, Typhon also, are assigned
responsibility for the deeds of the Mother, as Kronos is
blamed for the castration of Ouranos.
Indeed, that monster is played most often in the myths
by the Son himself, as Argus, Son of Arestor, is clearly
Kadmos, Son of Agenor (i.e., Hermes) by yet another name;
thus he plays two roles in the myth. Again, in the Succession
Myth, Typhon also plays two roles, for Typhon- the Titan, is
the one who robbed Zeus of his sinews and tendons, concealing
them in a bear's pelt; thus associating him with Prometheus,
who concealed the sacrificial meat in the hide of a bull:
Prometheus, of course, has already been identified with
Kadmos and Hermes- the hero who rescues those tendons.
Although Typhon's removal of Zeus's tendons may have seemed
a monstrous deed to orthodox followers of the myth, from a
hermeneutical standpoint it qualifies as an heroic act, for
precisely by virtue of that surgery the Mother was turned to
stone and the birth of the Kore made possible. In addition,
Typhon is also, at least in some versions of the myth, the
monster who guards those tendons from the hero. More
commonly, however, the monster guarding the tendons of Zeus
is Delphyne; for, being already identified as a Dragon, the
Greeks failed to identify her with their own anthropomorphic
version of the Goddess; thus they felt no compelling need to
substitute a monster in her place. In the tale of Kadmos and
Europa, however, when Kadmos encountered Europa's dark side,
the Greeks portrayed her during the chase as a heifer; and
then when the mating ritual- the combat, actually began, as
the Dragon of Ares; thus concealing the Mother's role as
monster, and, even more importantly, protecting the lie that
Zeus was her lover, rather than Kadmos. The death of that
Dragon- Europa herself, the Mother of Minos, made possible
the birth of the Daughter, Harmonia- , i.e., Arsinoe- ,
the Daughter of Minyas. She is Autonoe, i.e., Artemis.
We know already that Kadmos and Hermes are one and the
same, but perhaps you are surprised to see the sinews and
tendons of Zeus equated with Harmonia, not to mention
Phaethon, in the role of the Nymph? To see Zeus himself
equated with Io and Europa in the role of the Mother? But
have I not told you that your God is a woman? That is because
you worship, in truth, not God, not the Father, not Allah,
but the Goddess, the Mother, Yahweh: your self. The Greeks
simply took the Goddess, the Ruleress, and in accordance with
their own patriarchal leanings made a man of her. For proof,
let us turn to the stories themselves. Consider again, in the
light of all we have learned, Hesiod's description of Typhon:
... stout were his hands and full of labours...
also from his shoulders there sprang an hundred
heads of a serpent, a terrible dragon, licking with
dark tongues, and from the eyes in his monstrous
head fire sparkled beneath his brows, and in all
the dreadful heads was a voice that sent forth a
sound unspeakable; now he spoke in the speech of
the gods, now again like a bellowing bull,
untameable of might, proud in voice; and again like
the cry of whelps, a wonder to hear, and again with
whistlings till the tall hills echoed.
A hundred heads spring from his shoulder, as a hundred
arms spring from the shoulders of the Hekatoncheires: he is a
Giant- a "terrible dragon". His eyes blaze with star fire.
That he is "untamable" identifies him as Admetos himself: his
animals are the bull and the dog. The tall hills are the
pyramids, the halls of the Mountain Kings: they echo with the
music of the Piper- "the Whistler". Armed with his
thunderbolts and with the "harpe, a kind of sickle or
scimitar, the same weapon with which Kronos overcame Ouranos
and Perseus the Gorgon", Zeus closed with Typhon but the
Great Titan snatched the harpe from Zeus's hands and used his
own steel-tipped weapon against him. It is said that Gaia
fashioned that steel-tipped weapon from within herself and
placed it in the hands of the Titan Kronos. What is not said
is that, after she had used it herself on his Father Ouranos,
Kronos turned the tables and used it on her: he is Typhon and
she is Zeus. It is said that Eurybia had a heart of steel:
that steel heart is the harpe- the stinger of the Great
Mother. At the end of each world-cycle she used that stinger
to slay the male- until at last the Titan took that fearsome
dagger in his own hand and with it pierced her previously
impenetrable heart.
The ritual combat between Typhon and Zeus is the mating
ritual of the Dragons, a contest inevitably won by the female
of the species- except upon the occasion of their last
mating. For now Zeus found herself paralyzed by her own
stinger. Once he had her helpless, Typhon proceeded to cut
the sinews and tendons from Zeus's shoulders and feet,
concealing them in a bear's pelt. As the soul animates the
body, making possible movement, i.e., life itself, so also do
the sinews and tendons. It will be recalled that the
Thunderbolt- the butterfly within the chrysalis- is located
at the left shoulder tendon. Once again, as at the banquet of
Tantalus, as at the Field of Mecone, the sacrifice has been
switched. Zeus is the Mother; the sinews and tendons
represent the Kore- the Maid. Typhon is the Titan; he is
Prometheus, who switched the sacrifice and concealed the meat
in a hide: Zeus himself, of course, is the meat. Typhon took
that well wrapped package of meat and placed it in a cave-
Cave Leather Sack. Perseus threw the Medousa's head in that
same sack, after separating it from her body with the harpe-
the same weapon Typhon used to slice out the sinews and
tendons of Zeus. Chrysaor emerged from the decapitated body
of the Medousa holding in his hand a golden sword- the harpe.
As Krios, he married Eurybia, the Medousa, and as Perses used
that sword, not to bring about his own birth, but to slay the
Mother and make possible the birth of the Daughter-
Persephone. The various myths come together like threads to
form the one myth; nor have the threads been woven together
at random: the tapestry they form is an image of the soul of
mankind.
Typhon next set the Dragon Delphyne as guardian over the
cave; or, as in the following version, took up that post
himself, as Argus became guardian over Io. The situation
could not be more desperate; the Kore, the Daughter, Dorothy,
is now trapped within the castle of the Wicked Witch: how to
free her? But who should come along now but Kadmos- with his
merry piping and his clever tongue. Kadmos is Prometheus; for
that clever tongue he will be impaled upon the axis mundi-
the pole of the world: he is the Scarecrow, whom Dorothy
found planted upon a pole in the midst of a cornfield. He is
the Titan himself- Typhon, who cut the Kore out of the Old
Mother and placed her in that leather sack- the hide of a
cow. Kadmos first charmed Typhon with the enchanting tunes he
produced upon the syrinx- the reed pipe; and then claimed
that, if only he were given the sinews of Zeus "he would
make... a still more remarkable instrument, namely, the lyre,
and Typhoeus allowed himself to be deceived". Kadmos is, of
course, Typhon himself; thus he is not deceived; instead he
"allowed himself to be deceived". In other words, having
taught the Goddess a lesson she well deserved, Typhon brought
Zeus back to life, and did so through the magic of the pipes-
through music. In truth, of course, the day of the Great
Awakening has not yet come: the tendons of Zeus remain
concealed in the Korukion Atron. It might be mentioned that
Hermes' first act when he emerged from the maternal cave was
to craft the lyre from the body of the primal Father-
Kashyapa, "Old Tortoise Man". Now he will fashion the lyre
anew from the body of Zeus, the body of the Mother- the
Mother who will be reborn after the sacrifice as the Kore:
the Geisha who, having tasted of the Forbidden Fruit, now
plays so charmingly for her lover in their Underworld hall by
the white river.
With his thunderbolts, i.e., his tendons, restored to
him (or her) Zeus resumed the struggle, appearing in the sky
"in a chariot drawn by winged horses"- it is the mating
flight- and pursuing Typhon to, of all places, Mt. Nysa, the
mountain where Dionysos was born from the scrotum of Zeus-
Cave Leather Sack. Once again we are witness to the rage of
great Zeus at being tricked by the clever ruse of the Titan.
That we are by a mountain signals that the mating ritual of
the Dragons is about to begin; they are at the pyramid- the
nest. Sure enough, at Mt. Nysa (or in some versions of the
story at Mt. Etna) Zeus delivered the coup de grace, slaying
Typhon- the Great Titan who was also called Kadmos or Hermes
or Aigipan or the Cowardly Lion or the Scarecrow or the Tin
Woodman or, finally, Toto- the sly dog who rescued her from
the cave of the Dragon, the Castle of the Wicked Witch- her
Mother's castle. And so the Father accompanied the Nymph,
even into death, in the hopes that her experiences in the
Underworld might finally teach her the emptiness of the will
to power. That is a lesson the Nymph has now well learned.
She will no longer fight for a pebble, no longer try to
snatch the best part of the sacrifice for herself, as she did
at Mecone. She has learned, and now it is time for her to go
home.
There is only one path by which the Nymph can return
home: to walk that path she must "Cease to Exist". That song
was written by the Son of Man; he is called the Son of Man
because he is the Son of the Goddess: he is the Titan who
switched the sacrifice and by that act brought the material
world into being as image of the Goddess's own soul. This
world of tears, therefore, holds no lessons for him; but, O
Lord(!), I have learned mine, and I swear to you, if you
would only let me return to your Magic Mountain and the
Garden sheltered within, I promise I will never, ever, eat of
the fruit of that Tree again, for never would I want to
experience again a nightmare such as this has been: once is
enough. I beg you, I beseech you, I implore you, Dark Piper,
Caster of the Magic Spell, Great Trckster, Coyote, end the
madness, play your sweet tune and let the lines of force flow
once more like liquid crystal through the stone circles; let
me behold once again the brilliant hills of the Faery
Kingdom, the Mythical Realm that is the one True Realm, for I
have walked too long on the sharp stone paths of this cold
hard world and my feet hurt. I can no longer bear to live in
a world without Dragons. I would go back to Elfland; or, if
you will not take me now, then, please, I beg you, take me
when you will, whenever the day comes you are content that I
have suffered enough at your hands.
I thought that I, too, could create the world anew, but
I can see the world around me, and I remember now the Golden
Realm, the real world, and this grim shadow land is but a
pale mockery of that bright realm- the true world, the world
created by your love: not this poisoned dream which was never
anything except the exploration of my own self, my own ego,
my own will to power. Now I stare up at the moon and see the
pale white river flowing down where the Golden Light should
be, and I know where I am: I am in the Underworld, by the
White River Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness. Now I know why
I am in the Underworld, in the Land of the Dead, where the
soul of woman is forged: for it is only in the Underworld
that a soul can be acquired at all- that is The Way. Only the
fires of the Underworld burn hot enough to melt a heart of
stone. Now on butterfly wings I would see once again the
Shire nestled peacefully in the hills of Middle Earth, Cair
Paravel in Narnia, amongst the White Mountains by the blue
sea, the "friendly fires" of Rivendell beneath the Misty
Mountains- "by Loudwater's fall", and, most of all, the
Emerald City rising once more above the flowery fields of Oz.
For I have learned that "there's no place like home, there's
no place like home, there's no place like home".
When I was a child an old Zen Master came along and took
me within the temple. One day he came to me with a pebble in
his hand. "Quickly as you can", he said, "snatch the pebble
from my hand". I wanted the pebble, and even more I wanted to
impress him with my quickness, so I tried to snatch it from
his hand. I failed. Calmly he told me that when I could take
the pebble from his hand, it would be time for me to leave. I
kept trying to snatch the pebble from him, and finally one
day I succeeded. He smiled at me gently, opened the temple
doors and bade me farewell. Out into the wide world I went,
feeling quite pleased with myself, for had I not snatched the
pebble from the very hands of the Master? Was I not, then,
myself a Master? Long have I wandered in the Forest outside
the temple gates, but now I am on my way back to the temple,
bearing in my hands that same pebble, to replace it once more
within the hands of the Master: it was never truly mine.
Again and again throughout the entire range of Greek
mythology one encounters the same theme: the mating ritual of
the Dragon and the incorrect performance of that ritual- the
Kore myth. There was a beautiful nymph named Daphne whose
Father, Peneus, urged her to marry and provide him with a
son-in-law. Repeatedly Peneus urged Daphne: "My child, it is
your duty to give me granchildren". Ovid's choice of wording
is precise: his son-in-law will be his grandson, the Son of
his union with the Daughter; for it is by marriage to her
Father that she will produce the Son with whom she will mate
and produce the new Nymph who will in turn wed her Father,
kill him, and give birth to the new Son. As I have stressed
repeatedly, the one factor that has always served to confuse
the genealogies of the Greek gods more than any other is that
the Son of the Father by his Daughter is also the Grandson of
the Father, for he is the Son of the Father's Daughter; thus
in the traditional genealogies Dionysos is called the
grandson of Kadmos, instead of his son, when actually he is
both. Even with the children of Kadmos, however, the true
pattern that governs the mating ritual is still apparent
below the surface; for the females, the Nymphs, are listed in
the traditional genealogies as the daughters, the males as
the grandsons.
That ritual is the "heart and soul" of the Dragon race:
it is "their way". Those are the words spoken by T' Pau to
Captain Kirk, who accompanied Spock when he returned to
Vulcan to spawn; for every seven years all Vulcans must
return to the place of their birth to mate. In order to win
his mate, Spock was forced to engage in ritual combat; not,
however, with the Nymph, but with her chosen Champion-
Captain Kirk. Even today the myth is still being told, albeit
wrongly, although it will be remembered that, even on Star
Trek, that ritual combat, the mating ritual itself, began
with the striking of a gong- the clap of thunder.
In the case of Daphne, however, the Nymph did not wish
to marry, "hating the thought of marriage as if it were some
crime". For the Dragons, as we know, marriage did involve a
crime- patricide. Although Daphne won her Father's permission
not to marry (how force the Nymph to kill him against her
will?) Apollo saw her one day roaming through the green woods
and instantly "fell in love with her". Daphne, in the manner
typical of the Nymphs, fled swiftly from Apollo, much to the
latter's consternation. Apollo pursued her as swiftly as he
could, like when the "hound spies a hare in some open
meadow"; but he was confused by her flight: a term which in
this instance is not a metaphor, for the Nymph really does
fly through the sky on jewelled wings, and the Father flies
after her. As we have seen, however,it was actually the other
way around: the hare chased the hound.
Apollo was originally an Aryan god, a god of shepherds.
As mentioned previously, that Apollo was not only a god of
shepherds but a shepherd himself, links him closely with
wolves; thus he is identified with Lykos, i.e., Lykourgos,
i.e., Lykaon, who appeared like a ravening wolf among the
ancient civilization of the Mediterranean. The Grandfather of
Odysseus, it might be mentioned, was Autolykos. The wolf god
of the Aryans was then merged with the native god the Aryans
found closest to him in spirit- Pallas, i.e., Pallio, who
killed his brother Perses. Not for nothing was Saul of Tarsus
renamed Paul. Being an Aryan god, Apollo did not understand
that by taking flight the Nymph was merely playing the love
game with him. At last he caught up with her, but she-
realizing he was not of her kind- called upon her Father to
save her. Peneus transformed her into a laurel tree. Peneus,
as his name makes clear, is Peleus, i.e., Pentheus; thus
confirming Pentheus's identity as the Father of the Nymph
called, with equal truth, Agaue, Aglauros, Antiope,
Aphrodite, Athene, or Daphne. Pentheus died at the hands of
Agaue because she is his Daughter: that he appeared in
woman's dress is a metaphor for the webbing she bound him in
before she bit off his phallus- emasculating him. Daphne is,
of course, another word for butterfly: the Tree is her
chrysalis. She will emerge as Diana.
There is another River Daughter, however, who was not so
lucky, or unlucky, as Daphne. For it is said that after
Daphne was turned into a tree, all the other rivers of the
land came to Peneus, unsure "whether to congratulate or
condole with Daphne's Father". Yet one river did not appear-
Inachus, the Father of Io. For Io had disappeared without a
trace- no one knowing how or why- and her Father's heart was
torn with grief. It will be remembered that Inachus was also
the Father of Themisto, who is listed as one of the Nereids
and was wife to Athamas. Athamas was the husband also of
Kadmos's Daughter- Ino Leukothea; thus indicating that Io is
Themisto, the Mother of Ino Leukothea.
Let us consider quickly now the twin stories of Io and
Europa, of Argus- the Son of Arestor, and Kadmos- the Son of
Agenor. Kadmos searched for Europa all over the world without
success, and then was told by the Oracle at Delphi, by the
Pythoness at the Omphalos, to follow a heifer marked with the
sign of the moon until the heifer stopped, and there to found
a city- Thebes. In other words, he must mate with the heifer,
who is, of course, Europa herself (his Mother) and establish
a nest, a garden, a new pyramid within which the serpent
children might grow to maturity. In the story of Io, Argus
drove her on before him all over the world (as Kadmos
followed Europa) allowing her to stop only long enough so
that she might, by writing her name in the dirt with her
hoof, inform her family and friends of her fate before once
again driving her on. The story as told by Ovid gave rise to
the following folk song:
"I am the Forester of this land
as you may plainly see
it's the mantle of your maidenhead
that I would have from thee".
He's taken her by the milk-white hand
and by the leylan-sleeve
he's laid her down upon her back
and asked of no man's leave.
"Now since you've laid me down young man
you must take me up again
and since you've had your will of me
come tell to me your name".
"Some call me Jim, some call me Jack
begad it's all the same
but when I'm in the King's high court
Erwillian is my name".
She being a good scholar
she spelt it o'er again
"Erwillian that's a Latin word
but Willie is your name".
Now when he heard his name called out
he mounted his high horse
she belted up her pettycoats
and followed with all her force.
He rode and she ran
a long summer's day
until they came by the River
that's commonly called the Tay.
"The water it's too deep my love;
I'm afraid you cannot wade",
but before he'd ridden his horse well in
she was on the other side.
She went unto the King's high court
she knocked and she went in
said "one of your chancellors robbed me
and he's robbed me right and clean".
"Has he robbed you of your mantle?
Has he robbed you of your ring?"
"No he's robbed me of my maidenhead
and another I cannot find."
"Then if he be a married man
hanged he shall be
and if he be a single man
he shall marry thee."
This couple they got married
they live in Huntley town.
She's the Earl of Airley's daughter
and he's the blacksmith's son.
He is the Blacksmith's son; he is Prometheus, the Son of
the Blacksmith Hephaistos- the castrated Iapetos. She is the
Daughter of the Earl of Airley: she is the Daughter of
Aeolus- King of the Winds. It is not merely her maidenhead
that he desires, but "the mantle" of her maidenhead. Her hand
is "milk-white" because she is Leukothea, the "White
Goddess", the Snow White flower of the Gods. Leylan, it might
be mentioned, is an obsolete word meaning "untilled land;
fallow ground", for her furrow had not yet been plowed when
he grabbed her by that sleeve. When she discovered his true
name, he fled from her and she "followed with all her force":
the hare chasing the hound. It will be recalled that in Greek
the word for force is bia, as she is Eurybia; and now, with
her harpe at the ready, it is the Nymph who pursues the
Giant. That pursuit takes place on "a long summer's day": it
is summer solstice- the sun is at its zenith. She pursues him
to "the King's high court": it is the pyramid. After she
complains of being robbed, the King first inquires whether
she has been robbed of her mantle- the shroud in which she
wrapped her lover before killing him, or of her ring- the
symbol of the mana that falls from heaven at the mating of
the Dragons. Upon discovering that she has been robbed of her
maidenhead, the King declares that if the man is married,
"hanged he shall be", but if the man is single, then "he
shall marry thee". If he is the Father of the Nymph, and so
married to the Mother, then the Nymph, his Daughter, will
hang him at the top of the pyramid and kill him. If he is the
Son of the Nymph, and therefore a "single man", then the
Nymph will marry him and together they will bring forth the
Daughter who will mate with her Father and, after binding him
in her web at the pyramid, pierce him with the harpe. It is,
in short, a love-song of the Dragon race. Now here is the
story as Ovid tells it, the story of Io:
Jupiter had caught sight of her as she was
returning from her father's stream, and had said:
'Maiden, you are fit for Jupiter himself to love,
and will make someone divinely happy when you share
his couch. Now, while the sun is at its zenith,
seek shelter from its heat in the depths of the
greenwood,' and he indicated the shady grove, 'and
do not be afraid to go alone into the haunts of
wild beasts; you will be safe, though you make your
way into the very heart of the forest, for you will
be under the protection of a god; no common god at
that, but the one who holds heaven's great sceptre,
and launches the roving thunderbolt. Do not run
away from me!'- for the girl was already fleeing.
She had left the pasture lands of Lerna behind her,
and the Lyrcean fields, thickly planted with trees,
when the god spread darkness over the wide earth,
concealing it from view. Then he halted the
maiden's flight and robbed her of her maidenhood.
That flight is, indeed, a maiden flight: it is the
flight of the Nymph- her mating flight. Prior to the
invention of the airplane and the mile high club, human
beings did not take to the air before mating. As is clear,
however, both from the distance covered by the Nymph- the
River Daughter, and her pursuer- the Hunter, and the speed
with which that distance is covered, the gods have always
done so. The spectacle of the Dragon's mating in the skies
above his head stamped its imprint forever upon the psyche of
man. As the song "Who's a Fool Now" clearly reveals, it even
drove him to drink.
Jupiter, however, was a married man- not a single man,
and now his wife, Juno, arrived upon the scene of his
adultery, drawn there by the suspicious looking darkness
Jupiter cast over the earth to hide his lovemaking from her
eyes: darkness which had the opposite effect of drawing her
attention to that very spot- precisely as Jupiter (i.e.,
Prometheus) had planned. That the clouds which arise at the
mating between Jupiter and Io are dark, rather than the
Golden Mist that falls to earth at the death of the Father,
indicates that once again the sacrifice has been switched.
Jupiter, sensing the approach of his wife, quickly
transformed the lovely Io into a heifer. The cow was still
lovely, however, "too lovely", thought Juno to herself, "to
be an ordinary cow". Once again, when reading the myths, it
must be remembered that the gods are not human, but members
of an alien race. When Jupiter transformed Io into a cow, he
did not literally turn her into a cow, but into one of the
cattle of the gods: into a human being, into a woman. With
that thought in mind, consider Ovid's description of the
scene:
Juno, though against her will, admired the look of
the animal, and inquired whose it was, where it
came from, and from what herd- as if she did not
know the truth! Jupiter lied to her, and to stop
her from asking any further questions about its
parentage, said that it had been born of the earth.
The herd animal of the gods is man; Jupiter has changed
the Nymph into a woman. But the truth is revealed in the lie;
Io is born of the earth- as the Furies and the Ash Nymphs
were born from the earth at the castration of Ouranos: Io is
the Mother in her role as the Nymph- she is Juno herself. On
this occasion of their mating, however, she did not kill the
male after turning him to stone; instead, he turned her into
a cow. Juno well knew that the cow before her was no ordinary
mortal wench: that wrapped within the bestial form before her
was a Goddess- the Nymph who is, of course, their Daughter-
Ino Leukothea. Therefore she asked for the beast as a gift;
and now Jupiter found himself poised upon the horns of a
puzzling dilemna: afraid to give the Maid into the hands of
the Mother, afraid to rouse her suspicious further by
refusing so simple a request as the gift of a cow, i.e., a
human being. Therefore he placed Io, who is, it will be
remembered, the Mother herself- cow-faced Hera (with the
Kore- Leukothea, concealed beneath her snow white hide- Cave
Leather Sack) in the hands of Juno- the dark side of the
Mother, the Mother as Wicked Old Witch, precisely where he
desired her to be, and at the Mother's own request: just as
the sinews and tendons of Zeus were placed by Typhon under
the guard of Delphyne, the Mother. In other words, he conned
her, who thought she was conning him: it is a scam within a
scam. He knew she would see the dark clouds covering the
earth and would reason out what it meant; knew that she would
fly quickly to the scene and discover Io in the form of a
cow; knew as well that she would never believe it simply a
cow: that she would see through his pretended ruse and fall
for the real one. He was always one step ahead of her because
her actions were motivated solely by love of self, while his
were motivated solely by love for her. Therefore, he always
knew how she would act, for he understood what motivated her,
while she, having never gone beyond the will to power and
discovered the Way of Love, could never fathom his intent.
Not content with being in possession of the girl, Juno
appointed Argus to keep watch over her and prevent any
further mischief by her husband. Of Argus, Ovid said that he
"had a head set round with a hundred eyes, of which two in
turn were always resting, while the others kept watch and
remained on guard". Argus, however, did not have one hundred
eyes- two sleeping and the rest awake; he had only one eye,
an eye that was always open. He is the Kyklope called Arges,
"the bright", and his brother is called "Steropes, "starry-
eyed"; thus Ovid referred to Hera's watchdog as "starry eyed
Argus". Ovid, of course, knew very well that Argus was a
Kyklope; thus in his description of Argus he stated that
Argus's head was "set round with a hundred eyes". It will be
remembered that the name Kyklope, in Greek, means "circle-
eye", or "round-eye". It is a pun. The ancient world enjoyed
puns much more than the modern world: they also used them
with much more effect. Kadmos, it should be noted, after
leaving the oracle at Delphi, the Omphalos, followed the
heifer Europa through the land of Panope- "all-eye". At times
one must be a veritable Woggle-Bug to follow Ovid.
Juno appointed Argos, son of Arestor, to drive Io all
over the world. Agenor sent his son- Kadmos, to search for
Europa all over the world. Argus drove the heifer Io before
him, while Kadmos followed a heifer- Europa herself. When Io
tried to complain to Argos, only lowing sounds emerged from
her throat: only the harsh, bestial utterances of mankind,
rather than the flute-like tones in which the Faery Princess
of the Thunderbolts was accustomed to speaking. Kadmos
followed Europa till she lay down in the green grass "and
looked back at the friends who were following her", without
knowing her true identity, and "filled the air with her
lowings": she is Io. Io came to the river of Inachus and
followed her family and friends about till Argus drove her
on: she is Europa. As Europa belongs on the genealogical
charts in the position of the Mother, so, too, does Io. When
Io, unable to speak, drew her name in the dirt for her
Father, he exclaimed:
... are you the daughter I have sought the world
over? My sorrow was less keen when you were lost
than it is now that you have been found. You do not
speak, do not answer my words, but only heave sighs
from deep down in your heart, and make lowing
sounds in reply- all indeed that you can do. And I
knew nothing of this, I was preparing a home and
arranging a marriage for you, hoping for a son-in-
law, first of all, and then for grandchildren. Now
you must have a bull from the herd for husband, and
your children will be cattle. I cannot even put an
end to such grief by death; it is a hateful thing
to be a god, for my sorrow is prolonged to
eternity, since the gate of death is closed to me.
In other words, Io must now marry a mortal, a man, and
bear human children: a tragic fate for the beautiful Nymph.
Now Argus drove her onwards, away from her family, into far
distant pastures. At last he came to a halt, then perched
himself "on a lofty mountain top, near at hand: for, from
that seat, he was able to keep watch in every direction".
Once again, we have come to the pyramid; the hour of the
sacrifice- the mating ritual of the Dragon- is fast
approaching: Argus is seated upon the Omphalos itself.
Finally, unable to bear the Nymph's suffering any longer (or
satisfied that she has suffered enough) Jupiter called
Mercury, i.e., Hermes, to his side, commanding him to go
forth and slay the monster. So Hermes came wandering along
the "winding country paths"- the yellow brick road- carrying
his staff and playing upon the reed pipes. Argus observed him
walking there; and, intrigued by the music, bid him come and
make himself welcome. Down beside the Giant sat Hermes, and
began to entertain the monster with his piping and
storytelling.
It will be recalled that on what was, ostensibly at
least, another such occasion, Kadmos, i.e., Hermes, promised
Typhon he would make a better instrument than the pipes if he
could only have the sinews of Zeus: a ruse the Dragon
apparently fell for. Now Argus came to inquire as to the
origin of those reed pipes, and Hermes proceeded to tell him
the story of Pan and the Nymph Syrinx- the Nymph who was
transformed into the reeds from which the pipes were made.
Pan, whose pursuit led to her astonishing tansformation, took
the reeds and fastened them together with wax, which in those
days was obtained from bees. The name Syrinx is very similar
to Sphinx, and also to the Sirens. The masculine form of the
name Sirens is, it will be remembered, the name for a species
of wasp. Before Hermes could finish his story, however, Argus
fell asleep, his hundred eyes that slept in turn (or his
single eye that never slept) finally closed forever. Swiftly
now Hermes "struck him with his crescent-shaped sword, just
where his head joined his neck". That "crescent-shaped sword"
is the harpe, the sword Perseus used to decapitate the
Medousa. Argus plays the same role as Kadmos, he drives Io
onwards as Kadmos follows Europa. But he also plays the role
of Juno, the Old Mother, the Wicked Old Witch, the Medousa
who must be slain that the Kore may be born. As the Greeks
were never able to truly comprehend the Mother's ferocity nor
easily envision their anthropomorhic version of the Goddess
being slain in combat with the male, they tended to assign
that role to a monster or a male character as a substitute.
Thus Hermes, i.e., Kadmos, plays two roles in the preceeding
myth: he is the hero who rescues the Kore; and, under the
name of Argus, he is also the monster who, as a substitute
for the Mother, must be killed that the Faery Princess may
live.
That Argos is indeed a Kyklope is again revealed by
Ovid's description of his death: "the light of his many eyes
was quenched, the whole hundred shrouded in a single
darkness". The hundred-handers had but a single eye, the
Kyklopes a hundred hands. Argus was one of the Daktyloi, an
earth-born Giant. Io's troubles, however, were not ended by
the death of the Giant; Hermes act served only to increase
Juno's wrath. Argus had been her favorite: he was her
favorite because he was her Son. Now he lay dead in the
presence of the Nymph, his Daughter, as a result of their
mating; thus revealing his true identity- Kadmos. But now
Juno roused one of the Furies to pursue Io all over the
world, driving her on before her: thus, by duplicating the
actions of Argus, revealing that Argus was all along but a
mask for the Mother- Juno. For the Fury is Juno herself, the
erinyes born from the castration of Ouranos. Indeed, Io
herself, the "earth-born" one, is that same Nymph; for like
Juno herself she is the Mother. Who, then, was Io fleeing
from? She was fleeing from herself, from her own demon. That
Fury pursued Io until she came to the Nile, the land of the
pyramids: there Isis found forgiveness at last.
Returning to Kadmos, he searched all over the world for
Europa, but his efforts were all in vain. At last he
consulted the oracle at Delphi, the omphalos, and was told to
follow a heifer marked with the brand of the full moon ("a
round, shining mark", Glinda the Good Witch called it) until
the cow stopped to rest. There he must found the city of
Thebes. In other words, after his journey to Delphi, the
pyramid named after Delphyne- the Old Mother, Kadmos must
follow the heifer in order to raise a new pyramid: a pyramid
named for the Nymph Thebe. That pyramid will serve as nest to
the next generation of the Phoenix. The mating ritual of the
Dragons- the ritual that normally ends with the sacrificial
death of the Father- is about to begin. When the heifer
Kadmos followed came to a halt, Kadmos prepared to make a
sacrifice; but, lacking water, sent his followers off in
search of a spring. Soon they entered 'an ancient forest", as
Jupiter invited Io to join him in a shady grove deep in the
greenwood.
In the heart of the woods was a cave, and "hidden in the
cave dwelt the serpent of Mars"- the Dragon of Ares. It is
the cave within which dwells the Mona Lisa. As Inachus and
the Nymphs did not recognize Io in the form of a cow, so
Kadmos and his followers were unable to recognize Europa in
the form of a cow- or a serpent. When the men entered that
shady grove and "dipped their pitchers in the waters.... the
dark gleaming serpent put forth its head from the depths of
the cave". It is said that the Dragon "was as huge as the
Serpent that twines between the two Bears in the Sky..."; and
it made short work of Kadmos's men. But now the time for the
ritual draws near, for "the noonday sun had reduced the
shadows to their shortest". Once again, the sun stands at the
zenith. Now Kadmos went in search of his friends:
His shield was a lion's skin, his weapon a lance
with shining point. He had a javelin too, and
courage that was of more avail than any weapon.
He is, of course, the Cowardly Lion. At the sight of his
friends:
... he lifted a great boulder in his right hand,
and hurled this huge missile with tremendous force.
Towering walls with lofty battlements would have
been shaken by the impact: but the serpent was
unharmed.
As we saw earlier, Iapetos means "thrower of stones", while
at the castration of Ouranos stones fell from the sky. Now
Kadmos, too, is reavealed as a thrower of stones: stones that
could only have been thrown by a Giant; or, as we saw
earlier, by a "Wee-Wee Man":
He's lifted up a stone six feet in height
and flicked it farther than I could see
and though I'd been a giant tall
I'd never have lifted it to my knee!
It is a puzzle with many pieces. Those pieces may be
found not only in the in the myths, but in the martial arts,
in painting, in folk music, and, of course, in rock music.
Although the boulder bounced harmlessly off the serpent's
tough skin, that skin was not invulnerable to the iron-tipped
javelin Kadmos "sank deep into its belly". It is the javelin
with its iron tip that kills the Serpent, the Dragon, the
Great Mother; or, at least, puts her to sleep that she may
dream of death. And so Kadmos not only throws stones, he
throws a javelin as well: he, too, like his Father, is a
jester. It is her own poisonous stinger that Kadmos, the Son
of the Phoenix, uses against the Serpent- his Mother, Europa
herself. It is the stinger which she normally uses on him:
not, however, on this occasion; now its poison will work on
her instead- it is her own venom which gets her high. The
iron-tipped javelin which Kadmos used to overcome her,
grabbing it and using it against her as Typhon grabbed the
harpe from the hands of Zeus, is, of course, the harpe
itself- the stinger of the Great Mother. That stinger is the
only instrument that can harm her. It has become the name of
a musical instrument shaped like a sickle because the mating
ritual, and the ritual death of the Father, is accompanied by
music: the music of the pipes- and of the Aeolian harps. The
true etymology of the word harp was, by the way, unknown
until now, for the nature of its association with the sickle
remained a mystery to the philologists. The harpe is the
sickle with which Kronos castrated Ouranos, the same sickle
Zeus used in turn to castrate Kronos. It is the sword with
which Perseus decapitated Medousa, the weapon with which
Hermes decapitated Argus, the weapon Typhon used to cut the
sinews and tendons from Zeus, the knife Prometheus used to
cut up the bull for the sacrifice at Mecone: Gaia brought it
forth from within herself.
At last the struggle came to an end with the Mother, the
Dragon of Ares, pinned by her own sharp stinger to an oak
tree- the Tree of Life in the Garden of the Hesperides, that
Tree which grows within the Garden that lies concealed deep
within the maternal cave: that Tree which will one day be
renamed the Tree of Forgiveness. With the death of the
Mother, the Dragon of Ares- Aphrodite herself, Kadmos was
free to marry Harmonia- the Nymph. But that the Mother should
die so that her Son might marry the Nymph, the Daughter of
the Son and Mother, is counter to Themis; it is the Nymph who
is supposed to kill and eat her Father so that the new Son
may be born. Once again, the sacrificial rite has been
performed wrongly. It is the incorrect performance of the
ritual that is the key to understanding the Greek myths
correctly; that is why, even at the union of Ares and
Aphrodite, when she has him bound to her couch in delicate
chains, the sacrifice, the tryst, is interrupted by the
untimely appearance of the serpent's pair's Son- Hephaistos,
who is actually, of course, Iapetos himself- the Father of
Ares. His absurd physiognomy and effeminate mannner (which
made him appear childlike to the Greeks) is a result of his
castration at the hands of Aphrodite. Harmonia is the Nymph,
the Daughter of Thaumas and Elektra, i.e., Athamas and
Themisto, i.e., Kadmos and Europa. She is the Daughter of the
Dragon of Ares. Now the dark side of the Mother, the demonic
side, has been slain; thus her new name: Harmonia. It is the
mating of the Dragon of Ares with Kadmos, the mating between
the Mother and the Son, that results in the birth of the
Nymph Harmonia, she who is also called Arsinoe or Autonoe or
Artemis or Ino Leukothea or Semele or Persephone or Perseis.
There is in truth, of course, only one female Dragon- the
Mother: she has died, but she has not yet reemerged from that
Tree. The Greeks were optimists: Harmony lies in the future.
Once again, at Thebes as at Mecone, the sacrifice has
been switched. Because the sacrifice was incorrectly
performed, the Serpent pair, the Dragons, were
metamorphosized into mortals, the beasts of the herd, i.e.,
they were transformed into humans, as Io was, as Okyrhoe was
also. In addition to changing species, Perseis changed her
sex as well and became Teiresias. Teiresias and Kadmos were
inseparable, but Teiresias did not accompany Kadmos into
exile: Teiresias cannot leave Thebes, no more than the earth
can leave the earth. Thus when the city was surrounded by the
army of the Epigonoi:
In the last extremity of the city, after the then
king, Laodamas, had killed Aigialeus and himself
been killed by Alkmeon, it was Teiresias who
advised the Thebans to keep the Argives amused with
a pretended negotiation for peace, while they
themselves put their wives and children on waggons
and slipped away from the city in the dead of
night. This was the lact act of his life. On the
way he drank of the spring Tilphussa, and died,
apparently of the chill of the water.
It will be remembered that the name of Kadmos's mother
is Telephaessa; she set out with him from Phoenicia to search
for Europa, but died in the land of Thrace. Teiresias has
drunk from his Grandmother's stream, from "that cold water,
known by many names, which gushes down from the high rock. It
is the water of Styx". Now he lies unmoving, as if dead. It
is not, however, the true death- the journey to the stars,
the journey that only the Father can make: it is a dream, the
spell of Styx. That "cold water" is her own poison, the
poison that she normally uses to paralyze the Father. For the
first time the Goddess has been given a dose of her own
medicine: she is Thebe- "opium-user". Now the Goddess lies
intoxicated, the nightmare she experiences a result of an
encounter with her own stinger- the harpe. It was Kadmos,
Thebes' first king, who inflicted that wound. Identified here
as the last King of Thebes, Laodamas is, as we know, Kadmos
himself; thus he is the first and last king Thebes ever had.
He is, of course, the same Laodamas we have just left dancing
with his brother Halios on the island of Alkinoos. That
magical island and Thebes itself are both, of course, but
symbols of the land that lies below the pyramid- "on the dark
side of the moon": the Land of the Lotus Eaters.
Alkmeon, it might be mentioned, is the Son of
Amphiaraos, i.e., Amphion or Apollon. Although in the
traditional genealogies his mother is said to be Eriphyle, as
his name alone make clear, he can only be the Son of Alkmene.
He is, in other words, Aristaios, the Son of Apollo and
Kyrene. Alkmeon was married to both Kallirhoe and Arsinoe,
though in the Theban cycle his marriage to Arsinoe, the
Daughter, takes place before his marriage to the Mother-
Kallirhoe. Alkmeon was married to Kallirhoe at the mouth of
the River Acheloos, in a land upon which the sun had never
shown. Kallirhoe desired the robe and necklace of Harmonia
for herself, that robe and necklace being then in the
possession of Phegeus, the Father of Arsinoe; thus cementing
both the the identity between Arsinoe and Harmonia, and
between Kallirhoe and Aphrodite- the Mother of Harmonia.
After Indra slew the Dragon, a mysterious voice asked
him where he would run to now. After Kadmos slew the Dragon,
he gazed upon the beast, marveling at its size. Then from
nowhere a voice called out:
Son of Agenor, why stare at the snake you have
slain? You, too, will become a snake for men to
gaze upon.
After the voice spoke to Indra, he ran off, in fear of the
Mother. Kadmos's reaction was much the same:
...the colour drained from Cadmus's cheeks and for
a long time he stood panic-stricken, frozen with
fear, his hair on end, his senses reeling.
Kadmos was terrified that one day he would become a serpent
(he is, as I have said, the Cowardly Lion, but for all that
he remains the bravest of beasts); yet in truth what he fears
is being transformed from a serpent into a man- "a bull in
the herd": to become like Io a creature capable of producing
nothing but beast noises rather than the sweet music that is
the serpent tongue. For of course he could not permit the
Nymph to experience death alone: he had no intention of
abandoning her; therefore he accompanied her on her adventure
into the Underworld, as Toto accompanied Dorothy to Oz, as
the White Rabbit accompanied Alice on her visit to
Wonderland; and, of course, as Peter Pan flew off to Never-
Never Land with Wendy, much to the dismay of Tinkerbell- the
Faery Queen.
And so, at the end of a long life, a life filled with
joys and sorrows, which latter are normally unknown to the
Gods (wherefore they must drink occasionally of the River
Styx, the River Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness- that they
may experience what it is to be mortal) Kadmos was
transformed back into a serpent, and Harmonia was transformed
along with him. Then they vanished from the sight of men:
they went back home and lived happily ever after- for now it
is she who lies "next to the wall". You are disgusted,
perhaps, by the thought of becoming such a creature as I have
shown you- the Thunderbolt on the chest of Zervan Akarana;
but when you were that creature it was the thought of
becoming human that disgusted you. Okyrhoe was changed back
to her true self, and the metamorphosis was a terrifying one
for her. But examine her reaction when the metamorphosis is
complete, after Io has returned to the land of the pyramids,
after she has emerged from the Underworld:
When the Goddess was appeased Io resumed her former
appearance, and became what she had been before.
The hairs fell from her body, her horns
disappeared, her eyes grew smaller, and her gaping
mouth was reduced to human size. Her shoulders and
hands were restored.... Nothing remained of her
cowlike shape, except her snowy whiteness. Then the
Nymph stood upright, happy to be walking on two
feet again. She was afraid to speak, in case she
should low like a heifer.... Now she is a goddess
of high renown and linen-clad worshippers throng
her shrines.(all emphasis mine)
It could not be clearer: after her transformation is
complete, Io becomes Ino Leukothea, the "White Goddess"- Snow
White. Normally in the Greek myths when a character is called
by two names, it is understood that the first name refers to
the parent: as Phoebus Apollo is the Son of Phoebe, and
Pallas Athene is the Daughter of Pallas. That connection was
never made in the case of Ino Leukothea, however, because
there was no character in the Greek myths called Ino who
could conceivably serve as Leukothea's Mother; in fact, no
character called Ino at all, for no one had ever realized
that Ino is simply a variant spelling of Io: a combination of
Io and Juno, although, of course, now Ino and Juno. Io and
Themisto are both called the Daughter of Inachus; they are
the same goddess. The name Inachus itself, it should be
mentioned, is simply a combination of the names of his two
children: Ino and Aeacus, who was also called Athamas. Io was
called Themisto in her marriage to Athamas in order to
conceal that she was the Mother of Leukothea. To put it as
plainly as possible, Io, or Ino, is the Mother of Athamas;
Leukothea is their Daughter; thus explaining why she, too,
marries Athamas. The rivalry between Themisto and Ino
Leukothea for the love of Athamas is the rivalry between the
Mother and the Daughter. In the myth of Io, however, it
should be noted that the Goddess is called Io both before and
after her transformation; thus revealing that the Mother and
the Daughter are in truth as one. Up until now the Nymph has
been kept "under wraps" beneath the Mother's leather hide,
but the day of the "great unveiling" is fast approaching. We
have all been asleep for a very long time indeed, and the
summer has long gone. When will we awaken from the dream?
That day is known only to the Piper:
Keep it quiet. (Go slow)
Circulate. Need to know.
Stamp the date upon your file---
masquerade, but well worthwhile.
Wrapped in the warmth of you---
wrapped up in your smile.
Wrapped in the folds of your attention.
Wear an air--- (keep mum)
of casual indifference.
Careful how you go
about your usual business.
Wrapped in daydreams of you---
wrapped up by your eyes.
Wrapped in the folds of your attention.
Under Wraps! I've got you under wraps.
Tell you when--- (not yet)
soon the great unveiling.
Bless my boots! Upon my soul!
Secrecy, it is my failing.
Wrapped in your Summer night---
wrapped in your Autumn leaves,
Wrapped in the Winter of your sleeping.
Summer, Autumn, and Winter: left unspoken is the time of her
awakening. The Butterfly emerges from its Chrysalis in the
Springtime, as Persephone also returned in the Spring to the
land of the living. We do not know when Spring will come; we
know only that it will.
Ovid's description of Io's return to her natural shape
makes clear what our alien overlords, the Dragons, think of
us, while also providing us with a clue towards their true
appearance. That the "hairs fell from her body", for
instance, indicates not only that they view us as simply
another species of hairy animals, along with the other beasts
of the earth, but that they themselves are hairless. Ovid
also noted that "her eyes grew smaller", for although
brighter, their eyes are smaller than our own, and singular
in number. And her "gaping mouth", wide enough to eat mortal
food, shrank back to its normal size: a size better suited to
a diet of ambrosia and nectar- the proper food for the Nymph.
The shoulders and hands of the Nymph are also mentioned:
those shoulders where the Thunderbolt finds its lodging in
man; those hands which, digging into the earth, gave rise to
Giants and Nymphs. We may consider the aliens as loathsome
nightmarish monsters; they consider us gigantic, hairy,
primitive idiots with "gaping mouths" and a cowlike
appearance: a chariot that requires a driver. And still they
manage to love us. Can we do less in return? For now the
butterfly remains wrapped within a Chrysalis of diaphanous
white silk; soon she will burst forth from that Chrysalis and
take wing at "Apogee". She will not come down again until she
has flown "over the rainbow" and become Bride to the Dragon.
After the mysterious voice spoke to Kadmos from out of
the thin air, Pallas Athene, Daughter of Pallas, arrived upon
the scene. Athene is the Mother of the Nymph Harmonia, with
whom Kadmos will mate in order to bring forth the new Son-
Dionysos. As Medea came to the aid of Jason at Kolchis, so
Athene instructed Kadmos to sow the Dragon's teeth at Thebes,
precisely as Deucalion and Pyrrha were instructed to sow the
stones of the earth. It is the same story, for Kadmos, i.e.,
Jason, is Prometheus himself, while Athene is Medea, the
Mother of the Maid- Pandora, i.e., Pyrrha. It will be
remembered that it was Prometheus who gave the spark of life
to the stones of the earth, after forming them into the shape
of men, and Athene who bestowed upon man a soul- for she
herself is the butterfly encased within the chrysalis of
mankind. It is the story of mankind's creation: the story of
Teiresias.
When Kadmos sowed the Dragon's teeth at Thebes, the five
Spartoi alone remained of all the warriors that emerged from
the earth that day, armed with glittering spears. The Spartoi
Udaios- "Earth-Man", i.e., Kadmos, became by the Nymph
Chariklo (i.e., Kallirhoe; i.e., Kali herself) the Father of
Teiresias. Teiresias lived seven generations, as also did the
city of Thebes. At the end of the seven generations of the
Dragon, the material world will once again be transformed
into the Faery Kingdom and Teiresias will again become
Perseis. When the city died at the end of the War of the
Epigonoi- the "Younger Generation", Teiresias died also. He
was born from the death of the Dragon of Ares- the Wicked Old
Witch. Teiresias is, of course, the Kore- Dorothy, Snow
White. Amphion and Zethos, along with the five Spartoi, are
the Seven Dwarves that dragged her off to the Underworld.
There those master-smiths will forge for her a soul. That is
the manner in which the Greek myths are meant to be read;
that is how they have always been read by the Masters. Now
Dorothy is ready to wake up in Kansas, and Ozma is ready to
be reborn in Oz. Now you know why the Mona Lisa smiles: she
has finally discovered that "there's no place like home,
there's no place like home, there's no place like home". She
is dark Persephone returned to the maternal cave: Leonardo
painted her with his own face because she is his soul, as she
is the soul of all mankind. She smiles because the spell of
Lethe has at last worn off: now she remembers.
After Io resumed her rightful shape (whatever that shape
might be) she bore to Jupiter a Son called Epaphus. Epaphus
enters into our tale no more than he enters into Ovid's; he
is of importance only because of the insult he flung at
Phaethon as a taunt, casting aspersions upon his claim to be
the Son of Helios by Klymene: an insult that ultimately led
Phaethon to try the chariot of the Sun. Or so, at least, most
commentators on the myth would maintain regarding Epaphus, if
they said anything of him at all; but Epaphus, who sets the
story in motion by hurling taunts at Phaethon, can only be
Iapetos himself; thus Epaphus is not the Son of Io but her
Father. But Iapetos is also the husband and Father of
Klymene- the Mother of Phaethon! When Phaethon began
bragging to his friends about being the Son of Helios and
Klymene, Epaphus taunted him for his boasting, exclaiming: "You
are afool to believe all your mother says... you are giving
yourself airs on the score of a father who is not your real
father at all". Knowing that Epaphus is Iapetos, and that
Phaethon is supposed to be the Son of Klymene, reveals the
reason Epaphus is so sure of Phaethon's lineage: the true Son
of Klymene is Helios himself, and Epaphus is the Father of
Helios by Klymene- Io herself. Epaphus is Hephaistos, i.e.,
he is Iapetos after his castration at the hands of his
Daughter. As a Dragon Father, the Old Man himself, (he is
Merops, the step-father, i.e., the Grandfather, of Phaethon-
he is the Father and husband of Merope) Epaphus knew that the
child of Helios and Klymene, the Mother and the Son, must be
the new Daughter, not the new Son. As Helios and Klymene do
not have a Son but a Daughter, who, then, is Phaethon? His
reaction, as described by the incomparable Ovid, renders his
identity plain:
... he blushed but suppressed his anger for very
shame. He carried the tale of Epaphus's insults to
his mother Clymene.
That blush reveals Phaethon as the Maid: Phaethon is not
the Son of Klymene, but her Daughter. Klymene is the Daughter
of Iapetos; thus she is his wife also: on the genealogical
charts she is the Mother who must die so that the Kore may be
born, she who was called Persephone- the bride of Hades, and
also Hekate- the bride of Helios. As Hekate, the Kore
herself, is sometimes used for the name of the Mother, so
Persephone may also be called Klymene, for Klymene is, as we
have seen, another name for the Queen of the Underworld. As
Klymene is the name of the Mother, yet is also still another
name for the Maid, Persephone, the Daughter of Perses (i.e.,
Prometheus, i.e., Helios) and the Mother of Dionysos, so the
Mother and the Maid are again revealed as one. Ino Leukothea
is not only the Daughter of Ino, she is Io reborn. As the
Mother she is Kallirhoe; following her metamorphosis into a
horse, she is the nameless Daughter of Poseidon and Demeter-
Okyrhoe. As Eurybia- the Medousa, i.e., Europa, the Mother,
was slain by Perseus and forced to descend to the Underworld,
so Semele, i.e., Persephone, the Daughter, was slain by the
Thunderbolt and sent to the Underworld. As Orpheus followed
Eurydike into the Underworld, as Deucalion followed Pyrrha
into the valley below, so Semele was rescued from that dread
realm by her Son, Dionysos: for her lover, as he had
promised, followed her even into the shadow land of her
dreams. As Nietzsche said, all the various characters
portrayed on the Greek stage were but masks of Dionysos: as
Nietzsche did not say, all the various female characters
portrayed in the Greek myths, and some of the male characters
as well, were but masks of Ariadne: Hekate is both the Mother
and the Maid. As I have said, Persephone, the Queen of the
Underworld, holds in her hand the Mask of the Medousa, not
only because it is her Mother's head, but because it is her
own sweet head as well.
Phaethon carried Epaphus's insults directly to Klymene
because they were aimed directly at her. Phaethon is the
Mother transformed into the lad so that the Maid may be born,
just as the Wicked Witch, in The Land of Oz, is transformed
into the boy called Tip (Tip- get it? He was very clever, Mr.
Baum- the Wizard, and very funny too) so that she might be
reborn as Ozma. In the Royal Gardens of the Emerald City of
Oz lies the Forbidden Fountain. Ozma told Dorothy that the
water which flows from that Fountain "is the most dangerous
thing in all the Land of Oz". It is "the Water of Oblivion";
for "whoever drinks at the Forbidden Fountain at once forgets
everything he has ever known". It is the Fountain from which
the White River Lethe flows- the Fountain within the pyramid-
the pool within the cave where dwell the Moirai; thus is the
true location of Oz revealed at last. Ozma had learned from
Glinda: "that once- long, long ago- a wicked King ruled Oz,
and made himself and all his people very miserable and
unhappy". Ozma also knew it was Glinda who brought that
wicked King's rule to an end, when she tricked him into
drinking from the Forbidden Fountain, so that he "forgot all
his wickedness". That King's name was Pastoria (i.e., Apollo-
most pastoral of gods) but he was never the ruler of Oz: his
Queen was. What Ozma did not remember, and what Glinda did
not tell her, was that the former wicked ruler of Oz was not
a King but a Witch. Ozma herself, of course, was the former
ruleress of Oz, i.e., she was the Wicked Old Witch herself-
Oz' Ma, the Mother of Oz: now washed clean of her sins by the
baptism of Dorothy- the Kore, who melted her stone heart with
a bucketful of that most intoxicating of waters.
Ozma was content that she remembered nothing of her
past, not even who her parents were: not so Phaethon. He
begged his Mother to give him some proof of his true
lineage; as we know, that is a most dangerous request. As
Marc Bolan once sang: "There are things in night that are
better not to behold". Serpentlike, Phaethon "wound his arms
round his mother's neck, and begged her, by his own head, by
the head of Merops, and by his sister's hopes of marriage, to
give him evidence of his real parent". The word, "head", it
will be clear by now, is a metaphor for the Thunderbolt
within the host: that Thunderbolt which will emerge from the
shoulder of its host at the mating time. Merops is the step-
father of Phaethon, but Merope, it will be remembered, is
named as the Mother of Orion; and, as wife to Polybotes, she
is called the step-mother of Oidipos. Merope is, of course,
simply another name for Europa, i.e., Eurybia, as is Klymene
herself: or, as she later came to be called- Klytaimnestra.
Merope is the Grandmother of Oidipos; thus Oidipos was left
in her care precisely as Rhea left Zeus under the care of his
Grandmother- Gaia. She is Io; thus the Mother of Oidipos is
called Iocaste by Homer. That Polybotes was married to Merope
indicates once again that he is not Helios, but Hyperion- the
Father of Helios. Tighter and tighter the net is drawn, as
the Fisherman comes home from the starry sea.
Klymene's reaction confirms that she was the real target
of Epaphus's taunt, as Ovid makes clear:
Clymene was roused, though it would be hard to say
whether it was more because of Phaethon's prayers
or because of the implied insult to herself.
Now, with hands uplifted and eyes staring straight into the
sun, Klymene declared that, by the sun:
... which sees and hears me even as I speak, I
swear to you that you are the child of the sun you
behold, the sun which guides the world. If my words
are false, may he deny himself to my sight, may the
light of this day be the last I ever see.
It perhaps requires pointing out that in Latin, the sex
of the child is always specified: filius for a son, filia for
a daughter. For literary purposes, namely to avoid using the
word son in close proximity with sun, the translator has
chosen to use in place of filius the gender neutral term
child. Unfortunately, by doing so she has also made it
impossible for anyone to realize Klymene has spoken falsely.
Phaethon is indeed the child of Helios, but he is not the
Son; he is the Daughter. That final line is, therefore, as we
shall see, prophetic. Almost equally intriguing is the
preceding line, wherein Ovid informs us it is "the sun which
guides the world"; for this is, of course, the literal truth.
But how should Ovid have known this more than a thousand
years before Copernicus was born, not to mention Newton- at
whose birth it is said that enlightenment first entered the
world? Orion, it will be remembered, was led by Kedalion to
the land of the Dawn that the sun's rays might restore his
lost vision: those same rays may take away Klymene's vision:
permanently. If she has spoken falsely, if Phaethon is not
the Son of Helios, she will die. She can make that vow, and
yet her husband's name is Merops! She is Merope, and her
Father is Merops, i.e., Hyperion or Iapetos or Ouranos- all
names for the Father of Helios. In the story as it is told
here, Klymene is supposed to be a mortal woman, the daughter
of King Minyas. As we know, however, Minyas is Minos himself,
i.e., Helios or Prometheus, and Klymene is not his Daughter;
she is his Mother. Their marriage brings forth, not the Son
but the Nymph- the Daughter. If, then, Helios is indeed
Phaethon's Father by Klymene, then Phaethon can only be the
Nymph- Pasiphae; thus Klymene has spoken falsely.
Klymene was also the wife of Prometheus; by whom she
became the Mother of the Nymph, Pyrrha- "Fire". The following
genealogical chart should help resolve whatever mystery
remains as to the true relationships between these various
characters:
M: Themis
S: Iapetos (Epaphus/Hephaistos/Inachus)
D: Klymene (Themisto/Io/Ino/Juno/Europa)
F: Iapetos (Epaphus/Hephaistos/Inachus)
D: Klymene (Themisto/Io/Ino/Juno/Europa)
S: Helios (Prometheus/Minyas/Minos/Kadmos/Athamas)
M: Klymene (Themisto/Io/Ino/Juno/Europa)
S: Helios (Prometheus/Minyas/Minos/Kadmos/Athamas)
D: Phaethon (Pyrrha/Leuconoe/Pasiphae/Teiresias-Leukothea)
Now we know why Epaphus mocked Phaethon when he claimed to
be the Son of Helios and Klymene: the source of Epaphus's
amusement is his knowledge, as a Dragon Father, that the
child of the union between the Mother- Klymene, and the Son-
Helios, is the new Daughter, the Nymph, and not the new Son.
Phaethon- "the blazing one", is a male version of Pyrrha-
"Fire", as Teiresias is a male version of Perseis. Epaphus
mocked Phaethon because he knew that the phallus between
Phaethon's legs did not truly belong there: it was only
borrowed. That Phaethon was called, in the Cretan version of
the tale, Adymnos, or Atymnios, and that he was called in
that tale the brother of Europa, serves only to confirm that
he is indeed the Daughter of Kadmos and Europa- and that
Kadmos, Minos, and Admetos are but different names for the
same character: he whom the Christians call Adam.
To resolve the mystery of his lineage, Phaethon must
seek out his Father. Klymene told Phaethon that "it would not
be difficult, nor would it take long for you to become
acquainted with your father's dwelling-place: the home from
which he rises lies on the borders of our own land.... go and
question the sun himself". Phaethon, so Ovid informs us,
"rushed out at once, highly elated, his mind filled with
thoughts of Heaven". And so Phaethon left behind him "the
land of his own people, the Ethiopians". Ethiopia is also the
homeland of Perseus, i.e., Perses, who slew the Medousa and
married the Nymph Andromeda. The so-called Greek myths are
in truth the mysteries of the African race: the white man has
never understood them. Passing through India, he came on
swift wings, literally, to "the place from which his father
rises"- the land of the Dawn.
Now Phaethon came to the palace of the sun: "a lofty
building with towering columns, bright with glittering gold,
and bronze that shone like fire". It is the Mountain of the
Sun; and it, too, is a pyramid. Phaethon, the Daughter, has
left the Mountain of the Moon and come to the Mountain of the
Sun to mate with her Father: not only is she the wrong sex-
she is at the wrong pyramid. Phaethon did not hesitate; "he
climbed up the steep approach, and entered the palace of his
parent, whose relationship to him Epaphus had questioned".
Then Phaethon came at last "into his father's presence".
Phaethon could not approach his Father too closely, however;
like Semele, he could not bear the briliance of his true
form. The Titan, Phaethon's Father, "dressed in a purple
robe, was sitting on a throne bright with shining emeralds".
He is the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City; he is Perses,
dressed in the purple robe of the Mysteries: the shroud he
was buried in after being castrated and slain in holy ritual.
Helios is surrounded by "Day, Month, Year, the Generations
and the Hours"; for he is the "God of Ages"; he is Tyan, the
Titan: he is Zervan Akarana- Lord of Boundless Time. If they
were at the pyramid of the Moon rather than the Sun, and if
Phaethon, the Nymph, had not been transformed into a man,
then the mating ritual of the Dragon would now begin; Helios
would soon lie bound and helpless, prey to the sting of the
Nymph. Once again, however, the mating ritual of the Dragons
goes awry; the sacrifice is switched, and now it will be the
Mother herself, in the person of Phaethon, who will
experience a taste of death. And so at last a Daughter will
in truth be born to the Dragons, washed clean of her sins by
the baptism of blood: the blood that burns like fire.
When Phaethon, the Nymph transformed into a lad but not
yet reborn as the Maid, she who never left the earth, entered
into the palace of the Sun, Helios was naturally surprised to
see her there. "Why have you come?" he asked. "What do you
want in this citadel, my son?" Helios calls him "my son", but
then immediately adds, "son I call you, for indeed you are
one whom no parent would fail to acknowledge"- even when that
child is masquerading as a member of the opposite sex. As
Helios knows, she is his child, but not his Son. Among the
Dragons, of course, Father and Son can never truly meet, for
the Father must die in order that the Son may be born; or,
more precisely, that the Father may be reborn as the Son.
That we are still operating within the framework of the
Dragon mating ritual is confirmed when Phaethon addresses
Helios as the God in whose light the whole universe shares;
for in the mythic realm the Golden Light of the sun, the Mana
from heaven that is given freely by the Father, feeds the
world, replinishing the magic of the Fairy Kingdom through
his sacrifice. He dies to travel the starways, for he, too,
cannot truly die- there is no death within the Garden: death
appears only in the minds of those who have drunk of the
white river flowing from the highest mountain on earth- the
white mountain of the moon from which the river Lethe flows.
Now Phaethon informed Helios of his plight, and begged
him for some proof of his paternity. Helios "laid aside the
rays that gleamed all around his head", so that Phaethon
might come near and embrace him. Who but the Nymph could
have approached him so closely? Helios, then, under the spell of
her intoxicating perfume (or so she thought; instead, it was
he who intoxicated her with her own venomous sting- the
poison of Styx) offered her any gift that she might choose,
swearing by the lake which the gods swear upon, "that lake
which", as he himself declared "my eyes have never seen",
that he would grant her request. Helios, of course, had not
yet seen the infamous lake of the Underworld- the Acherusian
Sea; for that is where the Nymph waits to mate with him and
bind him in her web before slaying him. If he had seen that
Lake he would already be dead. Yet now it is, once again, the
Nymph who is about to die, and through her own folly.
In the original version of Snow White, the one the
Brothers Grimm based their version on, Hera, the Mother, flew
into a jealous rage when Zeus began to prefer their Daughter
Semele's charms over her own. Disguising herself as an old
hag, she convinced Semele to ask of Zeus the one gift that
would bring about her death, just as Klymene convinced
Phaethon to ask of Helios the same gift: it is the poison
apple the wicked step-mother gave to Snow White before
ordering the Kabeiroi, the Seven Dwarves, to take her to the
Acherusian Sea. In the case of Phaethon, that apple is the
Golden Apple of the Sun, for Phaethon's request is to drive
the chariot of Helios and bring light to the world. Phaethon
is Pasiphae, the Daughter of Helios and Hekate. As we saw in
the abduction of Persephone by Hades, Hekate is Persephone
herself, as is Pasiphae also. Like Phaethon, Persephone also
took a ride in the chariot of Helios, only in her story it is
called the chariot of Hades; nor was she alone on that ride:
it is, of course, the same myth. The story of Phaethon is
well-known; it's true, i.e., hermeneutical meaning has until
now remained a mystery. The beauty contest that touched off
the Trojan War was a contest between the Mother and the
Daughter. The prize in that contest was a Golden Apple
marked: "To the Fairest". Paris was selected by the gods to
be the judge of that contest, and Aphrodite won his vote when
she promised him Helen, the most beautiful of woman, for his
very own. Helen and Paris, of course, are the Mother and the
Daughter, Aphrodite and Perephone; thus do the myths become
twisted over time.
Helios made a great pretense of attempting to argue
Phaethon out of his, or her, mad request; for her ambition
was, of course, not only to to drive the chariot of the sun,
but to perform the feat that only the Father could perform:
to experience death and create the world anew through her
sacrifice instead of his; to bring the world not only light,
but the Mana as well. But the Father always sacrificed
himself and created the world anew out of love; thus the
world he created was the Shining Land, the Faery Realm: a
true reflection of his own bright spirit. She sacrificed
herself and attempted the creation of the world out of ego
and will to power, for she desired the one thing he had that
she did not. You see the results of her folly all around you
in the world she created: the material world, the world of
the dead- the Shadow Realm. It is a dark world in which the
only light comes from the stars. "A world of will to power
and nothing else", Nietzsche called it, as you yourselves
"are will to power and nothing else". But you are more than
that, I know you are, at least, I think you must be:
There you go, man.
Keep as cool as you can
face piles of trials with smiles
it riles them to believe
that you perceive the web
they weave
and keep on thinking free.
Once again the Father is about to con his Daughter into
demanding that she be the sacrifice instead of him; the
request must come from her, that there be no room for
recrimations later. Listen now to the words of Helios in
response to her request:
It is a major priveledge that you are asking for
Phaethon, and one unsuited to your strength or to
your boyish years. You are but a mortal, whereas
the thing you desire is not one that a mortal can
attempt. In your ignorance, you aim at more than
can be granted even to the gods. However pleased
with his own powers each one of those gods may be,
yet none other than myself can stand in that fiery
chariot. Even the ruler of mighty Olympus, who
hurls fierce thunderbolts from his dreadful hand,
will not drive this car: and what is mighter than
Jove?
If Phaethon is the child of Klymene and Helios, he is not a
mortal; he is, however, a woman, more specifically a Goddess.
Helios's reply to Phaethon, ostensibly an attempt to dissuade
him from his folly, is actually calculated to goad him into
persisting in it. Helios well knew who he was dealing with:
knew that by challenging her in such a fashion she would
insist on the attempt, for will to power was the essence of
her personality. She was the ruler of mighty Olympos, not
him; thus his gentle mockery, reminding her that, though she
is the Ruler, the Medousa, only he can drive the chariot of
the Sun. The contest between them is for control over the
Mana that creates the world- it is the discus contest. She
was determined to do anything he could do, and do it better.
So he let her try. The answer to his last question is, of
course, Helios himself- for Helios, i.e., Aeolus or Allah,
can do what Jove, i.e., Jehovah or Yahweh, cannot: he can
drive the chariot of the Sun- the Sun "that guides the
world". Listen now as Helios, i.e., Odysseus, the great
sailor, the great liar, describes his adventures amongst the
stars to Phaethon, i.e., Penelope:
Consider... that the sky is spinning in ceaseless
revolutions, carrying with it the stars on high,
and whirling them in swift circles. I force my way
against it, and its impetus does not carry me away,
as it does all else- I alone ride in the opposite
direction to the revolving sphere. Suppose I give
you the chariot: what will you do? Will you be
able to confront the whirling poles, and prevent
the reeling vault of heaven from sweeping you away?
Perhaps you think that, in the sky, there are
sacred groves and cities of the gods, and shrines,
richly endowed? On the contrary, you must make
your way through dangerous ambushes and among
monstrous wild beasts: even though you keep to the
path, and do not wander from it, still you will
have to go past the horns of the hostile Bull, past
the Thracian Archer, and the jaws of the raging
Lion, past the Scorpion's cruel pincers, whose
sweeping embrace threatens you from one quarter,
while the clutching claws of the Crab attack you
from another.
In order to mate, the salmon must swim upstream, against
the tide, braving many dangers along the way. It is the story
of the Old Man's return home from the sea of stars, and the
gauntlet that he runs in returning to earth- to the Nymph.
Upon the vast ocean of the Milky Way "there's nothing more to
see, than a hundred thousand islands, flung like jewels upon
the sea". Those islands, however, are not "for you and me":
other races have already laid claim to them. Those others
form the gauntlet the Phoenix must pass through in order to
spawn. Helios also warned Phaethon of the dangers posed by
the horses themselves, for those horses required a firm hand
on the reins. It will be remembered that Odysseus gave his
name to Penelope as Aithon- "the Blazing": a name also given
to one of the steeds of Helios.
Phaethon's reaction to her Father's words again reveals
her true sex: "Why throw your arms persuasively round my
neck?" Helios asked her. "Never fear", he continued, "you
will obtain your request...", although in truth, as Helios
also told her, "it is a punishment, Phaethon, not a boon
which you are seeking". Phaethon, however, was not to be
denied, and went eagerly to his doom. Now with a last touch
of irony, Helios warned Phaethon to avoid the "coiling
serpent" on the right side of the path, and the "low-lying
altar" on the left. Again, we are at the pyramid: the "low-
lying altar of the Mighty Son of Kronos"- the Mountain of the
Moon, where the Serpent Nymph awaits the Dragon Father: the
sun is almost at its zenith. Only this time, it will not be
the Son who falls from "apogee", but the Maid, the "coiling
serpent" herself. Now Phaethon took the reins and the chariot
leaped along its course; soon enough its driver learned that
she had overreached herself. Now Phaethon wished:
... that he had never touched his father's horses;
he regretted that he had learned his parentage, and
that his request had been granted. He was eager
enough, now, to pass as Merops' son, as he was
carried along like some pinewood ship before a
Northen gale...
Phaethon is Dorothy, Dorothy Gale, borne aloft by the winds.
First the horses carried him too high, "against the stars set
in highest heaven"; then they plunged swiftly earthwards. As
the Sun dipped below the Moon:
The earth caught fire, starting with the highest
parts. With all its moisture dried up, it split and
cracked in gaping fissures. The meadows turned
ashy grey; trees, leaves and all, were consumed in
a general blaze.... Great cities perished, their
walls burned to the ground, and whole nations with
all their different communities were reduced to
ashes. The woods on the mountains were blazing....
Helicon, the Muses' haunt, was burning.... and
Cithaeron, the natural abode of sacred rites....
Then indeed Phaethon saw every part of the world on
fire.... Everywhere the ground gaped open, and the
light descended through the cracks into Tartarus,
frightening the king of the underworld, and his
queen beside him.
It is the birth of the Phoenix, when the earth is set
ablaze that the nestling may rise from the ashes. It is the
performance of the Mysteries, the Sacred Rite of the Dragons.
It is the descent of the Light into the Underworld: the story
of the Maid- Kore, she who is also called Persephone. It is,
of course, the chariot ride that brought her to the
Underworld in the first place: the chariot ride that resulted
in her death. Now with the earth on the verge of destruction,
and Poseidon unable to raise his head from the sea, the
goddess:
... lifted up her head and neck from the smothering
ashes.... and spoke in majestic tones. 'If this be
fate's resolve, if I have deserved this doom, why,
most mighty god, why are your thunderbolts slow to
come? If I must perish by fire, let it be by yours:
disaster is easier to bear when you are its author.
I can scarcely open my lips to speak these
words!.... Look, see my scorched hair, and the
ashes in my eyes, covering my face. Are these my
rewards, is this the honour you bestow in return
for my fertility and my services? Is it for this
that I endure the wounds inflicted by the mattock
and the crooked plough, for this that I am given no
rest throughout the whole year? Is this what I get
for supplying the cattle with leaves and tender
grazing, for providing grain for the human race,
aye and incense for you gods?.... at least show
pity for your own realm of heaven. Look around on
either side: both poles are smoking hot; if the
fire should undermine them, it is your own palace
which will crash. See, Atlas himself is in
difficulties, and can scarcely hold the glowing sky
on his shoulders. If earth and sea and the citadel
of heaven perish, we shall be thrown into primeval
chaos. Save anything that still survives from the
flames, and take thought for the safety of the
universe'. When she had made this plea, unable to
bear the heat any longer... the earth goddess
withdrew her head into herself, into the caves that
lie close to the shades of the dead.
She does not merely lift her head from the ashes, but
her head and neck: she is a Serpent. It is the baptism by
fire of the earth itself- the Serpent Mother- that the Nymph
may at last be born. It is the story of the battle of the
Giants versus the Gods, of the Titans versus the Gods and the
Hekatoncheires. It is the story of the castration of Ouranos-
the phallus of Heaven, and the Nymphs and Giants born of that
castration: born of the drops of blood that fell like burning
stones from the sky to set the earth ablaze. It is a story of
cattle, man, and the Gods. Now the author of the story
prepares to bring it crashing to its climax: the Mother,
Klymene, is foresworn. Now she feels the consequences of her
false oath- her "scorched hair" and "the ashes" that fill her
eyes, blinding her, but she remains defiant, unable to
acknowledge any responsibility for the catastrophe that
surrounds her. And so the Lord of the Thunderbolts, King
Oberon, will send her to the Underworld, to the caves which
harbour "the shades of the dead". From the "highest point of
heaven" he hurled forth the thunderbolt, and, "with his own
cruel flames, he quenched the other's fire". That "other" is
not only Phaethon, but the earth herself, the Mother-
Klymene, for it is the earth itself that is ablaze. The
Mother and the Maid- Persephone and the Medousa- are one.
Down from the wrecked chariot "Phaethon, with flames searing
his glowing locks, was flung headlong, and went hurling down
through the air, leaving a long trail behind: just as
sometimes a star, though it does not really fall, could yet
be thought to fall from the clear sky". He was a comet, as
were the Daughters of Orion- Metioche and Menippe. Her
"glowing locks" are the serpent locks of the Medousa.
When Phaethon died, Klymene "roved the whole world,
seeking news of the lifeless limbs, and later the bones, of
her son": as Demeter sought the whole world over for
Persephone when she was taken to the Underworld. Cygnus, the
Son of Sthenele (i.e., Sthenno, i.e., Athene) was present at
the tomb of Phaethon when, in the midst of their mourning,
Phaethon's sisters were transformed into trees. Cygnus had
also come to mourn; for the bond between him and Phaethon
"was closer than that of blood". They were lovers. As
Phaethon is, like Teiresias, a male incarnation of the Nymph-
Perseis, so Cygnus can only be Kadmos himself. They are at
the temple of Ninus, where Pyramis and Thisbe died in each
other's arms; they are at the shady grove deep in the
greenwood where the Dragon of Ares, the huge serpent, went
crashing to the ground. Though it is said that, along with
Menoites, Cygnus died beneath the spear of Achilles on the
plains of Troy, nonetheless, as Ceyx became a bird at
Alcyone's death, so at Phaethon's death Cygnus was
transformed into a swan. The sisters of Phaethon, meanwhile,
were transformed into the trees which peopled that sacred
grove. In the midst of that metamorphosis, Klymene arrived at
last; she "tried to tear their bodies out of the tree trunks
and broke off the tender branches in her hands". Her frantic
efforts were of no avail, however, and only caused her
Daughters to cry out:
'Do not hurt me please! It is my body you are
injuring, though it has been transformed into a
tree. And now, farewell! The bark closed over the
last words, and from that bark there flowed tears
which, hardened into amber by the sun, dropped from
the new made branches and were received by the
shining river.
The Nymph has been swallowed up within the Tree of Life
in the Garden of the Hesperides: that Garden which lies in
the Underworld by the shining White River. As E.B. Jones
knew, one day she will reemerge from that Tree, that Tree
which from thenceforth will be known as the Tree of
Forgiveness. In that painting there is a strip of cloth
around his phallus: not from modesty, but to bind the wound
that she inflicted upon him. Perhaps the reason for that
nervous look on his face is also now clear? He is still
unsure whether or not she will try to bite it off again. As I
have said, the river in that painting is divided into three
sections: the Father, the Mother, and the Son; but there is a
fourth section as well- the Daughter. She is the beautiful
white dove beneath the Father's left hand: his little finger
caresses her neck; she rides upon the back of a whale- the
Leviathan.
As the sun disappeared from the sky at the disappearance
of Persephone, so the earth was left in darkness when Zeus
struck Phaethon with his thunderbolt and sent the chariot of
Helios tumbling from the sky. As Demeter refused to fulfill
her obligation to provide the world with corn in the wake of
her Daughter's abduction, so Helios, after the death of
Phaethon, refused to fulfill his obligation to provide the
world with light. As Demeter dressed herself in sackcloth and
ashes when Persephone was carried off to the Underworld (by
Helios himself, it will be remembered) so Helios dressed
himself in somber clothes of mourning when Phaethon was
destroyed by the Thunderbolt: the same Thunderbolt that
destroyed Semele. The striking similarity between Helios's
reaction to Phaethon's death and Demeter's reaction to the
death of Persephone, demonstrates once more that Phaethon is
the Kore herself, whose sacrifice in place of the Father
created the material world- a world covered in sackcloth and
ashes. On her tombstone, her sister Nymphs wrote:
Here Phaethon lies: his father's car he tried-
Though proved too weak, he greatly daring died.
Once again Persephone has been carried off to the Underworld
in the chariot of Helios. It was not rape, for the Nymph
insisted on taking that ride, though she could not keep from
screaming as she fell. That is her, the Kore. She is the
human race. She is you- and me; she is our soul, "the Lady we
all know". Now you know why she shines with a "white light".
Once again the sacrifice has been switched and the Nymph
Phaethon, i.e., Pasiphae, lies dead in place of the Father,
Helios. She is Pyrrha, and he is Prometheus.
But Ovid knows of still another love affair between
Helios and the Nymph. Following the death of Pentheus at
Thebes, the priest declared a Baccanalia to celebrate the
rites of Dionysos, but the Daughters of Minyas (i.e., Minos)
alone among the women of Thebes refused to attend that
festival, choosing instead to remain at home. It was Leuconoe
who told her sisters the story of how Helios fell in love
with Leucothoe, Daughter of Eurynome, much to the dismay of
Clytie, i.e., Clytemnestra, i.e., Klymene, i.e., Eurynome
herself, with her name changed to disguise, once again, the
incestous nature of the Dragon's sexual activities. The
reader will have noticed that in telling the story of
Leukothoe, Leuconoe is, of course, telling her own story.
Leuconoe, the Daughter of Minyas, is Leukothea, the Daughter
of Kadmos; thus cementing the identity between Minyas, Minos,
and Kadmos. It is said that the Father of the Sirens, the
Father of Leucosia, was Acheloos.
Eurynome "had been the fairest beauty in the land... but
when Leucothoe grew up she surpassed her mother in
loveliness, just as her mother surpassed all others".
Leucothoe, i.e., Leukothea, the "White Goddess", is, of
course, Snow White, the Maiden Persephone. It was Helios who
saw Aphrodite and Ares locked in adulterous embrace- Helios
who informed upon the lovers and assisted in their
entrapment. Aphrodite (who we know from Kerenyi is Eurynome
herself) was determined to have her revenge; thus she caused
Helios to fall in love with Leukothoe. The Father of Eurynome
is Okeanos; Ovid tells us the Father of Leukothoe is
Orchamus, King of Persia, but as we know, and as Ovid knows,
the Father of Leukothea is Kadmos (spelled Cadmus by Ovid)
and he is not a Persian king but a prince of Phoenicia- a
true-born Son of the Phoenix.
Now Helios, whom we know to be Kadmos, disguised himself
as Eurynome, and "entered the home of his loved one": that
home is the pyramid. There sat Leucothoe "in the lamplight",
weaving a web of the world for her Father. Now the Titan
revealed himself to the girl, declaring:
I am that god who sees everything... and by whose
light the earth sees all. I am the eye of the
universe, and believe me, I am in love with you!
By his light the earth sees all, for it is the Sun who,
through his love, illuminates the earth. And what is
Leucothoe's reaction?: "The girl was afraid". Now the Titan
assumed his "true shape" (suffice to say it is not a human
shape) and, like Zeus before Semele, shone forth with all his
"wonted brilliance". Unlike her sister, Semele, Leucothoe was
not destroyed by that brilliance. Though frightened, she was
"overcome by his magnificence and accepted the god's
embraceswithout a murmur".
Burning with rage, Helios's former lover Clytie carried
news of his tryst with Leucothoe to Orchamus. As Kadmos put
Semele in a chest, so Orchamus buried Leucothoe "in a living
grave and piled a heavy heap of sand on top". She is within
the pyramid. Now Helios appeared and "made a passageway for
his loved one to lift up her buried head". He is Prometheus,
who smashed open the pyramid with his hammer. Only, instead
of springing forth like Athene, the Nymph inside lay dead,
"crushed by the weight of the earth". It is said that "never,
since the thunderbolt slew Phaethon, had the god... seen
anything which caused him more bitter grief". And no wonder,
for as we know, Leukothoe, also called Leukothea or Semele or
Perseis or Pyrrha or Pasiphae, is Phaethon herself.
Though his attempts to bring Leukothoe back to life
proved fruitless, he was determined that she should still
reach heaven; therefore he annointed her body with "divine
nectar". Upon receiving that sacred baptism, her body melted
away into the earth, as the Wicked Witch melted away when
Dorothy baptized her with the mop-water: the Water of
Oblivion. Where Leukothoe's body had been, "a shrub of
incense... rose into the air, its shoots breaking through the
mound". That mound is, of course, the pyramid, and Leukothoe,
the Nymph, the Daughter of the Sun, has again been swallowed
up inside the Tree of Life within the pyramid, the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil: the Tree that will one day be
called the Tree of Forgiveness. On that final day, the first
day, Tip will reemerge from the Tree as Ozma, and Dorothy,
the Kore, will be born.
When reading the Greek myths, what must be remembered
above all is that the sacrifice was switched at Mecone- at
the mating between Prometheus and Pandora, i.e., Pyrrha, and
that the Faery Kingdom ended the same moment: that moment in
time when Helios took to wife Leukothoe, when Phaethon came
crashing down to earth, when the heart of Klymene was turned
to stone in the Garden of Evening- that moment before time
when the sacrificial rite was performed wrongly, and the
Mother, the Nymph, the Goddess, died in place of God- the
Father. It was Prometheus who switched the sacrifice, who, as
Perses, decapitated the Medousa: everything that occurs in
the myths after that event is, therefore, but shadow play,
chaos, confusion, and illusion: As Manson himself told you:
The past is an illusion
postulated, mocked up through
confusion.
The future will be confusion.
Can you live with your confusion?
Can you live in your illusion?
Since the sacrifice was switched, everything that has
happened, not merely in the myths but the entire history of
the world (and its prehistory as well) is merely the opium
dream of the Goddess in the Field of Poppies. After Klymene
is turned to stone, after the Medousa is decapitated,
"nothing is real": all is a Chimaira- the dream of Myrrha.
But that dream, or nightmare, was not caused by opium.
Instead, it is the high she got from being pierced by her own
venomous stinger. Even that grim poison could not kill her,
but who among you will deny that she did, indeed, "get
stoned"?
When the Mother, the Wicked Witch of the East, was slain
by the Titan, Persephone's adventures in the Underworld
began; that is why the genealogies often end either at the
birth of the Maid or at her mating with the Father.
Persephone and the Medousa are one: both are Kali- the
Goddess, the fairest of them all. Her time in the Underworld,
however, is almost over. Soon she will see the twilight glow
of the Faery Realm once again. The Piper has come to call her
home: her country wants her back.
CHAPTER XIX
The identification Kerenyi established between Kadmos
and Hermes has played a central role in my own attempt to
reveal the Dionysian unity underlying the bewildering cast of
characters encountered in the myths. We have come almost to
the end of our long journey together through the world of the
ancient myths, but before we leave that storied realm behind,
one more tale remains to be told, the tale of Hermes himself:
of his birth, his deeds, and his courtship of the Nymph
Herse- the sister of Aglauros, that same Aglauros who first
opened the forbidden chest, the chest containing the serpent
child of Athene and Hephaistos. In a cave concealed beneath
the wooded slopes of Mt. Kyllene, Hermes was born of the
Nymph Maia. His father, so it is said, as it was always said
by the Greeks, was Zeus. As Kerenyi observed, however, Maia
"was not the goddess of this mountain: if she had been,
Sophocles would not, in a play of his based on the tale told
in the Hymn, have specially introduced the nymph Kyllene as
the child's nurse". In addition, Kerenyi pointed out that
Maia's name can also be translated as "midwife", while "in
one dialect it meant "grandmother"; and "it was by this name
that Zeus addressed the goddess Night when he sought an
oracle of her". The suspicion therefore arises that Maia is
not the Mother of Hermes, but his Grandmother, and that his
true Mother is Kyllene- i.e., Klymene, the Daughter of
Iapetos and Mother by the Titan to Prometheus himself. Maia
was one of the Pleiades, supposedly Daughters of Atlas and
Aithra; but Maia, the Grandmother, is clearly not the
Daughter of Atlas but his Mother; she is Aithra, the Daughter
of Aither. By Aither, i.e., Akmon, she became the Mother of
Akmonides, i.e., Ouranos- Atlas himself.
The first being Hermes encountered when he left the
maternal cave of Night, the cave of Maia, the Nymph who was a
star in the night sky, was a tortoise: Kashyapa- the Old Man,
the progenitor of all living beings, whom we first met with
in the tale of Indra and the Ants. The tortoise motif is
found also in North America, but neither in India nor in
North America was it ever truly a tortoise: it is the
Thunderbolt that dwells within the pyramid; thus Hermes
addressed the tortoise as "thou who dwellest in the
mountains". Hermes then told the tortoise that it was "better
to be indoors", i.e., inside the pyramid, safe within the
nest, for "outside it is dangerous". It is when the male
emerges from the nest that he mates- and dies. But "when thou
diest", said Hermes to the tortoise, "thou shalt beautifully
sing!" At their mating the Dragons sing; from that song came
the music of harp and flute.
It will be recalled that when Odysseus, by his
prodigious discus throw on the island of the Phaiacians,
revealed himself as the Golden Lion of the Sun, the Lion from
whom the Mana flows like honey from the sacred oak, Alkinoos
responded first by praising his deeds and then by listing the
things in life that the Phaiacians (i.e., the alien monsters
whose herd is mankind) take pleasure in: prominent among
which were the feast, the dance, and the lyre. The harp was
fetched from the hall, and Demodocus sang of how Hephaistos
trapped Ares in his net, catching him in adultery with sea-
born Aphrodite. After the song, we are told, they retired to
the banquet. When Hermes encountered the tortoise, his first
words were:
Welcome, beautiful dancer, companion to the
banquet!
Thus the banquet years began. Hermes, our "Savage God",
brought the tortoise into the cave, killed it, and fashioned
of its body the lyre, attaching to it seven strings, as the
Divine Child was cut into seven pieces by his elder brothers.
Hephaistos is sometimes called the Father of the Kabeiroi. It
will be remembered that when he trapped Ares in bed with
Aphrodite, the gods remarked that the tortoise had caught the
hare. In other words, the first being Hermes met outside the
maternal cave was, naturally, his castrated Father
Hephaistos, also called Iapetos. Because of his crippled
condition Hephaistos, like the tortoise, moved slowly. As we
have seen, the hare he caught that day was not Ares, his
beloved Son, but his deadly Daughter- Aphrodite herself,
thereby saving young Ares' life.
Hephaistos is Kashyapa, Old Tortoise Man, the Old Man of
the Sea, the Leviathan, the progenitor of all living things,
but it was Hermes, i.e., Prometheus, the Son of Kashyapa, who
was the Father of mankind. Given what we now know of the
incestous nature of the Dragon's mating ritual, that Maia-
the Grandmother, Dark Night, is in truth the Mother of Atlas,
and the Mother by him of the Nymph Kyllene, i.e., Klymene,
the true Mother of Hermes, identifies Hermes as not only the
Grandson of Atlas, but also as his Son. Once again, Zeus is
revealed as nothing more than an imposter, grafted onto the
family tree of the Dragons by the Greeks. As Hermes, Kadmos,
and Prometheus are all one deity, if the Father of Hermes is
Atlas, that can only mean Atlas is not the brother of
Prometheus, but his Father, Iapetos: as we have seen in
similar fashion that Pallas is the Father, not the brother,
of Perses. Incredible as it seems, what must be understood
here above all is that Apollo, the most glorious god in all
the Greek Pantheon, became, after his castration at the hands
of the Nymph Kyrene, the much ridiculed Hephaistos: they are
the same god. In the story of Io, Jupiter is Iapetos; after
their mating he is called Epaphus; thus Io is revealed as the
Mother in the role of the Nymph- she is Hera herself. As we
have seen, in exhaustive detail, the Son of that union was
the Titan called, with equal truth, Prometheus or Kronos or
Helios. It was not the passing of Kronos that brought an end
to the Golden Age, the Faery Kingdom; instead, it was when
the clever Titan, he of "crooked thoughts", switched the
sacrifice and killed the Goddess that the Golden Waters
turned dark, and the material world was born. Io is Europa:
she is the Mother of Ino Leukothea; she is Klymene, the
Mother of Phaethon. Adding on to it the name of Hermes and
revealing for the first time outside of cult his true
genealogy, here once more is the genealogical chart from the
preceding chapter:
As Perse married her Father, Perses, so Herse married
her Father, Hermes. Pandrosos and Herse are Pandora and
Perseis: they are one and the same- the Maid. Aglauros is
their Mother. In the orthodox genealogies, Kephalos is called
the Son of Hermes and Herse, placing him in the same
generation as Dionysos. That Kephalos is mated to both Eos
and Prokris, however, confirms his identity as Hermes
himself, i.e., Orion. Hermes and Herse are, however, the
Father and the Daughter; therefore they should bring forth
the new Son, and so they do; for it is also said that Herse
gave birth to Keryx. Keryx is the first ancestor of the
Kerukes, Heralds of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Keryx is the
true son of Hermes and Herse. The last descendant of that
line was, of course, Carl Kerenyi himself. The identity
between Koronis, Kyrene, Klymene, Kyllene, and, of course,
Alkmene, is at this point perhaps too obvious to require
mentioning, as is the identity between their Sons:
Asklepios, Ares, Prometheus, and Hermes.
When Deianeira was ready to be wed, there were many
suitors for her hand, but all gave way when Herakles entered
the field: all, that is, save Acheloos, who thought it
shameful to give way before a mortal, even one of such great
valour- and even more shameful to give way to a woman. In
presenting his case to Deianeiara's father, however, he so
insulted Herakles, calling into question his parentage, that
Herakles immediately attacked him; thus began their famous
wrestling match. That match ended with the horn of Acheloos
torn off, and Acheloos himself pinned to the ground: Herakles
upon his back like the "weight of a mountain"- the pyramid.
It is the mating ritual. Herakles is the Nymph; Deianeira is
the Mother; and Acheloos is the Father of the former and Son
to the latter: the true rivalry is between Herakles and
Deianeira for the love of Acheloos. Besides Deianeira, the
other great love of Acheloos' life was Perimele, whose name
is an obvious combination of Persephone and Semele.
Herakles had an older twin brother named Iphikles, but
the true son of Alkmene is, of course, Iolaus, the Father,
not the nephew of Herakles. It was not, then, Deianeira and
Iole who were rivals for the love of Herakles: it was
Deinaeira and Herakles, the Mother and the Daughter, who were
rivals for the love of Iole, i.e., Iolaus. Iolaus "proved a
faithful comrade" to Herakles "on many of his adventures"; he
is also called Idas, or Hylas: he is Helios himself. As his
name makes clear, Iolaus is the true Son of Io. As Laios he
became the Father by Iocaste of Oidipos. As Laertes he became
the Father by Penelope of Odysseus. As Helios he became the
Father of Leukothoe. That Leukothoe died within the pyramid
reveals the tales of Oidipos and Odysseus, and Dionysos as
well, as mere echoes, Greek echoes, of the original tale.
As is made plain by the engraving of Eros on a bronze
mirror from the archaic period, Hermes is the Divine Child
Eros himself, born from the cave of Night. There is the lyre
in his left hand, crafted from the tortoise-shell by Hermes;
on it are the seven strings. The bridge on the lyre clearly
indicates that he is, indeed, phallic to the rear and a woman
in front. The phallus forming the bridge on the lyre was
severed from the body of the Father, Akmon- the lyre itself.
The feet of the Eros child are winged, as are the sandals of
Hermes and of Perseus also. Those winged feet trod upon the
intertwining serpents that surround the engraving, the same
intertwining serpents that are found on the caudaceus- the
staff of Hermes, the same intertwining serpents that
Hephaistos observed lying together in love, the same
intertwining serpents Teiresias saw mating on the slopes of
Mt. Kyllene- the pyramid. It is the mating ritual of the
Dragon itself that Hermes will trod under his winged feet.
The wings that sprout from the Divine Child's shoulders are
of snakeskin above and bird feathers below; he is the flying
serpent- Quetzalcoatl. In his right hand he holds the plucked
flower, the blossom of the almond tree- Nana, the fruit of
the pomegranate- Persephone, the jewel of the lotus- Thebe.
After inventing the lyre and performing his first song,
sung "in the musical mode in which youths at banquets
exchange pert raillery", Hermes prepared to depart
the maternal cave. Before leaving, however, Hermes took the
time to place the lyre carefully within "the sacred cradle",
though "he yearned for meat". That lyre is the body of the
Father. It must be placed in the cradle, the womb, the belly
of the Mother, not Maia but Kyllene, the Nymph of the
Mountain- the Virgin of the Rocks, that the new Son may be
born: that new Son who is Hermes himself. Obviously, then, it
was not Hermes who killed his Father, the tortoise, called
also Hephaistos or Iapetos or Pallas or Atlas; nor was it
Perses who, as Bellerophon, turned Atlas to stone: the
"Savage God" was in truth not a God but a Goddess- Atlas's
Daughter, Kyllene, i.e., the Medousa. It was she, the wild
Nymph Kyrene, who bound her Father Apollo at the pyramid and
castrated him. Hermes found only the body. The phallus is the
Son itself; it is the liknon within the basket, the child
within the belly of the Maid who is now the Mother. After
eating that phallus, however, she must excrete it. At that
moment, as the picture of the Eros child makes plain, she is
a woman before and a man behind, a hermaphrodite.
After leaving the cave, Hermes came to "Pieria... the
shady mountain of the gods". It is the pyramid that grew from
the music of the true Muses: the Pieredes, the Daughters of
Piereus. They are the Pleiades, the Daughters of Atlas. Both
Piereus and Atlas are, of course, but other names for
Iapetos. The word pier means stone or rock; from it is
derived the name Peter: the name by which Jesus addressed him
in the Bible. He is the rock upon which the true Church is
built. He is the Old Man: Pater, the Father of Christ.
Thomas, or Thaumas, is also listed among the disciples.
Hermes came to that mountain, the mountain where the gods
keep their cattle (i.e., people) for sacrifice, just as
"Helios was going down with his team and chariot". Hermes,
who was "soon... to slay the many-eyed Argos", i.e., the
Kyklope Arges, separated forth fifty cows from the herd and
drove them off: just as Argus drove Io before him when the
Nymph wore the shape of a cow, i.e., a mortal woman; just as
Kadmos followed the heifer, Europa herself, cow-faced Hera.
Soon "they came to sandy soil": they are in Egypt- at the
pyramids.
It is said that Hermes drove those cows "backwards, so
that their hind hooves were in front and their fore-hooves
behind". The feet of Hephaistos, it will be remembered, were
turned back to front as a result of his encounter with
Klymene: it is Hermes' intention to reverse the sacrifice. In
addition, Hermes fashioned for himself a huge pair of
sandals, so that it might seem as if a Giant had driven the
cattle off, not a little child. An old man working in a
vineyard saw him pass by, driving the herd before him. Hermes
promised the startled old man a bounteous harvest of grapes
in return for his silence, warning him that he must not
reveal what he had seen, or "else it will be the worse for
thee".
As Hermes drove the herd on, "Dark Night, his divine
helper", i.e., his Grandmother, "had already passed by". Now
morning approached and "Selene, daughter of Pallas, appeared
in the sky". That she rises in the morning informs us that
she is the old Mother, for it is the waning moon which rises
in the morning. Even more importantly, however, Selene is
called "the daughter of Pallas"! Selene is thus revealed as
Athene, who was also called Sthenno. That Selene is normally
called the Daughter of Hyperion and Theia does not contradict
that genealogy; instead, it confirms the identity between
Pallas, i.e., Apollo, and Hyperion. It will be recalled that
when Kallisto gave birth to Arkas, she did not rear the
child; she was lifted up into the night sky by Zeus and
transformed into a constellation. Like Hermes, Arkas was
raised by Maia, his Grandmother, dark Night. Kallisto, "the
most beautiful", called Kali by the Hindus, is Kyllene, i.e.,
Selene, i.e., Athene: she is the Mother of both Arkas and
Artemis. To put it as simply as possible, Arkas, who was born
a bear, and Hermes, who was born hungering for meat, are one
and the same deity. Hermes has here encountered both his
Mother- Selene, i.e., the Nymph Kyllene, and his Grandmother,
dark Night herself, his nurse Maia.
The moon was rising when Hermes came to the river
Alpheios and drove the cattle into the "cave-farmyard", where
they might graze upon "the dove-soft, fine grass". But what
can this "cave-farmyard" beyond the river be save the
Underworld itself? They have entered into the Garden within
the pyramid, where man was offered up to the gods in
sacrifice: they are at the Triphylian Pylos- the Gateway. As
I have said, Hermes is the Gatekeeper to the land of the
Underworld. Now he gathered wood for a fire and soon had a
roaring blaze going. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes it is said
that "Hermes was the first to light a fire". As we know, however,
it was Prometheus who gave fire to mankind, stealing it from
the hearth upon Olympos and bringing it to earth in the
hollowed out stalk of a narthex. That fire was called
Hephaistos. It is clear, now, that Hermes and Prometheus are
the same god?
While "the power of Hephiastos set the fire burning",
Hermes brought two cows from the Garden-Cave, broke their
backs, skinned them, then roasted the meat. The hides he set
aside, drying them upon a rock. Hermes would later use those
hides to conceal the sacrificial meat and fool Great Zeus.
Hermes is Prometheus, preparing for the division of the
sacrifice at Mecone. For now we are told that: "Thereafter
followed the exact division of the meat into twelve parts,
for the twelve gods of Olympos, with a share for Hermes
himself". Hermes, however, although "he yearned for the
sacrificial meat", although "the savoury fragrance tormented
him", resisted that temptation "and took not a morsel into
his mouth- for the gods, to whom sacrifices are made, do not
really consume the flesh of the victim". At the division of
the sacrifice between the gods and mankind, it was mankind
who received the flesh, while the gods received only the
gleaming package of bones and fat. The gods, it will be
remembered, live on ambrosia and nectar; they do not eat
meat, though like bees they love the fragrance of it as it
burns sweetly upon the fire.
Hermes then "heaped up the meat in the cave-farmyard",
in the Garden within the pyramid, "as a memorial to his first
theft". We are told that the rest was burnt upon the fire.
What remained to be thrown upon the fire was, of course,
nothing but that gleaming package of bones and fat chosen by
Zeus when Prometheus tricked him at Mecone: that part thrown
onto the fire in offering to the gods, while mankind, thanks
to the cunning of the Titan, kept the meat. That the pile of
meat is a memorial to his first theft refers, as must by now
be obvious, not only to the stolen cattle themselves and the
theft of fire from Olympos- the kidnapping of Hephaistos
after Zeus had taken him from mankind in revenge for being
deceived at Mecone- but also to that deception itself: the
theft of the sacrificial meat from Zeus- the reversal of the
sacrifice. As Typhon left the sinews and tendons of Zeus
within the cave of Delphyne, so Hermes also left behind him
in the "cave-farmyard" a pile of meat, wrapped in a hide.
Afterwards, Hermes "threw the sandals in the river", as
Jason would one day lose a sandal while carrying Hera across
that same river: the river that separates the Underworld from
the world of the living. It was not difficult for the Titan
to deceive the Goddess; he knew that, as the personification
of will to power, she would simply grab whichever half of the
sacrifice she found most tantalizing. When she became
suspicious that his role in the mating ritual might actually
be better than hers, she demanded to try it, even it if meant
dying. As Teiresias was forced to admit, however, after her
experience in the Underworld as a male, sex between the
Dragons was indeed nine times better for the woman.
On the morning of the third day since his birth, Hermes
returned home and "slipped through the keyhole, like a breath
of autumn, like mist": slipped through the pylos- the
Gateway, in the autumn- the harvest time, like mist- an
onomonopaeic word derived from the sound that urine makes as
it strikes the ground, so called because of the steam that
arises therefrom on cold mornings. Thus the mystery that
conceals from mankind the true nature of the gods arose from
the Golden Shower. Now "he strode light-footed through the
cave into the rich innermost shrine". It will be recalled
that the shrine by the cove at Ithaka had two entrances, one
for mortals and one "for beings of light alone". Hermes threw
himself down in his cradle, wrapped the "swaddling clothes
around his shoulders", and lay there quietly: the very
picture of childhood innocence, with the lyre, the body of
Kashyapa, tucked beneath his arm. Though Maia's presence has
been unobtrusive throughout, it must not be thought that she
was so careless as to be unaware of the babe's excursion
outside the cave, "for the goddess his mother had observed
everything". Maia gently chided the boy for his mischievous
deeds, but Hermes responded boldly that unless Jupiter grant
him the right to win "the same sacred reverence as is paid to
Apollon.... I shall pluck up the courage- and I can do it!-
to become a prince of thieves". As I have said, he is the
Cowardly Lion; but his courage remains, nonetheless, beyond
dispute.
Apollo was already hot on the heels of his younger
brother Hermes. Apollo had found the old man in the vineyard
and learned from him that it was a boy who had stolen the
cattle. As Apollo went on, he "observed a bird with outspread
wings, and at once knew by this sign that it was a son of
Zeus who had turned thief"; as we know that the bird is the
Eagle of Zeus, and therefore that the thief is in truth
Prometheus. Swiftly now Apollo came to Pylos, "wrapped in
darkly gleaming mists": mists that arose, not from the Golden
Shower, but from the Shower of Darkness- the Dark Shower that
poured down upon the earth when the sacrificial rite was
performed "wrongly".
Apollo saw before him the tracks of the cattle, but was
puzzled that those tracks led in the opposite direction, back
"towards the meadow of asphodel": back towards the land of
the living and away from the Pylos, the Gateway, the entrance
to the Underworld where Hermes was leading them. Hermes, it
will be remembered, was also called Hermes Psychopompos,
"escorter of souls". When Penelope's suitors fell beneath the
arrows of Odysseus and Telemachos, it was Hermes who
appeared upon the scene and led their souls off to the
Underworld just as he is now leading away the cattle of Apollo-
the cattle of the gods. Surely Hans Erni, the illustrator for
Fitzgerald's masterly translation of the Odyssey, understood
the link between Odysseus and Prometheus when he drew
Odysseus strapped to the mast with the Sirens hovering before
him- just as Prometheus was portrayed in an ancient vase
painting impaled upon the axis mundi with the avenging Eagle
of Zeus approaching? In the latter scene, Herakles kneels
behind Prometheus, arrow nocked, ready to free the Titan at
last. It is Herakles who must free Prometheus because it was
the Mother of Herakles- the Goddess, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jove,
Zeus, who confined the Titan, and Herakles is that same
Goddess reborn as the Daughter- the Kore, though she has been
transformed, like Teiresias, into a man. As Athene killed her
Father, Pallas, then skinned him and wore his hide into
battle as her breastplate, so Herakles killed her Father, the
Nemean Lion, and wore that golden hide ever afterwards: it is
the hide she was buried in. It is all one story- one song.
Apollo was puzzled also by the strange footprints he had
found, remarking to himself that:
... the footprints are neither those of a man, nor
of a woman, nor of wolves, bears, or lions. I
cannot believe even a Centaur would leave such huge
footprints. That is still more perplexing.
Lions and Centaurs and Bears, oh my! Apollo cannot believe
that "even a Centaur would leave such huge footprints"; thus
implying that a Centaur is precisely what Apollo is looking
for; the Centaur named Chiron, who agreed to take Prometheus'
place in the Underworld that the Titan might at last go free.
Apollo came swiftly to Mount Kyllene, the mountain of
the Nymph (the mountain where Teiresias saw the two serpents
intertwined in the throes of passion) and stepped across the
"stone threshold into the cave". Hermes at once shrank down
into his swaddling clothes, curling up in his cradle and
feigning sleep- the Christ child in his cradle, being visited
by the King of the East, where the Mountain of the Sun is
located. It is not, however, at least ostensibly, a friendly
visit. Hermes buried himself within his coverings "as burnt
wood is hidden beneath its ash". He is the Phoenix that will
rise from its own ashes. Apollo recognized them both
instantly, of course, "and well he knew them, the lovely
nymph of the mountain and her beloved son". The Nymph of the
Mountain is Rhea, the Mountain Mother, whose Son and husband
was Kronos, "he of crooked thoughts". Kronos and Hermes are
one. Apollo examined the cave thoroughly in search of his
cows, peering into "every corner". Then he took "the metal
Key", the Key to the Labyrinth, and "opened three hidden
chambers all filled with nectar and ambrosia". Robes were
stored there, too, some of "gleaming white" and others dyed a
deep "crimson-purple": the white robes of Io and the shroud,
the mantle dyed the color of Perses, the mantle in which his
head was wrapped and then buried at the foot of Mt. Olympos
by his two brothers- Pallas and Asterios. We have come deep
within the nest: to that place where the heart and soul of
the Dragon race was, until now, kept safe from profane eyes.
Not having found his cows, even within the three hidden
chambers (chambers we shall return to soon in order to
discover why he suspected his cows might be concealed
therein) Apollo turned to Hermes and threatened to throw him
into Tartaros if he did not quickly reveal the location of
the cows. From that dread location, Apollo warned him:
... neither thy mother nor thy father shall restore
thee thence to the light. Henceforward thou shalt
be of the underworld, and shall have thy dominion
amongst tiny people.
Once again, Ouranos, i.e., Iapetos, taunts his Son for his
great folly- his love of mankind, and warns him of the grave
consequences of that folly: that if he sends the Nymph to the
Underworld he must accompany her. It will be recalled from
our discussion of the Theogony that the Hekatoncheires, whom
we know to be the Kyklopes, did not simply emerge into the
light, they were returned to the light by Zeus and the other
Olympians. The identity between the hundred-handers and the
Kyklopes was further strengthened by the assignation to Argus
of one hundred eyes; thus merging the two types of Giants
together. Apollo, i.e., Pallas, will slay his Son Hermes,
i.e., Perses, and Hermes will become Lord over the "tiny
people", by whom Apollo, of course, "meant the dead"- the
human race- the Goddess who, after her last marriage with
Heaven, became "the ten thousand things". One day that unity
will be restored- that is the promise at the heart of the
Eleusinian Mysteries.
Apollo's threats, however, did not disturb the child in
the least. Bitterly he protested his innocence, claiming that
it would be impossible for one so young to carry out such a
theft; for "only yesterday was I born, my feet are tender and
the ground is hard". As we know, it is already the morning of
the third day since he was born; already he is a cunning
liar: claiming, without admitting any knowledge of when the
crime was committed, that he had not yet even been born when
it occured. Note, too, that his feet hurt; like Hephaistos,
like Oidipos, he belongs to the one-footed serpent race that
came from the sea. Having assumed human form, it is not easy,
as Hans Christian Andersen well knew, for the faery folk to
walk upon the hard earth in what, to them, are the huge,
misshapen feet of mortals.
Apollo, amused by the child's audacity, smiled at his
words, but nonetheless warned him to "leap up from thy
cradle, thou companion of black night"- else "this slumber of
thine shall... be thy last...!". That Hermes is referred to
as the "companion of black night" identifies Maia, once
again, as the Goddess Night, the Grandmother of Hermes. After
Rhea gave birth to the Divine Child, she left that child in
the care of her Mother: not Gaia, for she herself is Gaia,
but Dark Night. Rhea then fled to escape the wrath of the
Father, Kronos, only it was not Kronos she was fleeing from,
for the Divine Child is not Zeus (an Aryan imposter) but
Kronos himself, i.e., Prometheus or Hermes. Instead, she was
fleeing from Ouranos, also called Iapetos or Atlas or Koios
or Pallas or Apollo. The Son of Apollo and Koronis is
Asklepios; the Son of Apollo and Kyrene is Aristaios; the Son
of Apollo and Kyllene is Hermes: it is all one story- the
Mother of Kronos is Koronis. Apollo has found his Son, the
Divine Child Hermes. He lies within the maternal cave on Mt.
Kyllene; his Mother is the Nymph of the Mountain- Kyllene.
She is Kelaino, the Dark One, i.e., Klymene, wife and Mother
to Prometheus. She is Kalypso- "the Hidden One"; she is Kali-
"the Most Beautiful". She is Aphrodite- the fairest of them
all.
Apollo then picked the child up from the cradle and
prepared to carry him off by force, but Hermes "let fall a
token in his half-brother's hand, an evil messenger of the
stomach", causing him to sneeze. Apollo put him down and
"scolded him", but when they started off again he remarked
that "with such bird's tokens I shall find my cows!" The
reason for that curious remark, the description of the "evil
messenger of the stomach" as a bird's token, will shortly be
made clear, when the young miscreant is brought to high
Olympos to stand before his supposed Father, Zeus. Zeus, of
course, not wishing his dalliance with the Nymph Maia to
become known to Hera, pretended complete ignorance of the
child's origin when he was was brought before him, though of
course he recognized his own Son instantly, as Apollo also
instantly recognized the Nymph's Son; thereby confirming once
more that Apollo is the true Father of Hermes. In truth, of
course, that dalliance could hardly have remained hidden from
Hera: as a Nymph she became by Apollo the Mother of Hermes,
and by Hermes she became the Mother of Herakles.
Apollo told Zeus how the child had stolen the cattle of
the Gods, driving them off in his huge, misshapen sandals,
and of how he had finally tracked him down "in the darkest
corner of the gloomy cave, where no eagle could have seen
him". Apollo knew the Son of Zeus was the thief when he saw
the outstretched wings of a bird. He dropped Hermes when the
Divine Child dropped a token in his hand, "an evil messenger
of the stomach": a token described as a bird's token.
Prometheus has escaped from the Underworld: Chiron, the
Centaur, has become Charon, the ferryman across the River
Styx. Even the eagle of Zeus, soaring keen-eyed over the
valley below, could not find the Titan child hidden within
the dark recesses of the maternal cave. That bird, of course,
was indeed "an evil messenger of the stomach", for it gnawed
out the Titan's liver (i.e., it ate his phallus) and when the
sacrifice was switched and he ate her, forcing her to pass
through his stomach, her passing created the material world.
When he was crucified in the desert, and the vultures came to
feast upon his body, Conan the Cimmerian caught one of those
bloodthirsty birds in his strong jaws and tore its head off:
Robert E. Howard knew. That Hermes has in his possession a
token from that bird indicates yet again that the eagle has
already been driven away from the Titan by the arrows of
Herakles, no doubt losing a few feathers in the process: at
least one of which fell into the hands of Hermes, i.e.,
Prometheus, cleverest of Titans. It is important, when
reading the myths, not to overlook even the smallest detail:
the ancient poets made every word count.
After listing the young god's crimes, Apollo then
proclaimed that: "What was more, Hermes had tried to conceal
the brilliance of his eyes by covering them with his hands!"
In addition to the exclamation point, this crime is listed
last, as if to emphasize its seriousness. It will be
remembered that when Apollo first entered the cave, Hermes
hid himself away, "as burnt wood is hidden beneath its ash".
The eyes of the gods blaze with a light of their own, a light
bright enough to blind the eyes of any mortal who dares to
gaze therein- as Shoko Asahara recently discovered when he
encountered the Mountain Wizards within their fabled hall. In
truth, of course, the gods have only one eye. That brilliant
eye identifies Hermes also with "starry-eyed Argos", he of
the hundred eyes, the watchdog of Hera and already identified
with the Kyklope Arges, brother of Steropes- "Starry-eyes".
Hermes argued vigorously in his own defense, complaining all
the while about Apollo's boorish behavior, even claiming that
"he felt ashamed before Helios and the other gods" on account
of the bullying he had received at the hands of Apollo.
Apollo is the old Lion of the Sun- Hyperion, as Hermes is the
new Lion of the Sun- Helios himself. The Golden Lion of the
Sun was also called Hyperion Helios, for the Father and the
Son are in truth as One. Hermes finally overreached himself
by urging Zeus to come to his aid against his elder brother,
at which point even Zeus "burst into huge merriment" and
"bade the brothers be reconciled". The joke is, of course,
that they are not brothers, but Father and Son, and that they
have come to each other's aid against Zeus- the Mother.
Upon receiving Zeus's command, Hermes and Apollo
immediately departed for Pylos, for the Gateway, where Hermes
returned the cows of the Sun to their rightful owner, Apollo.
It will be recalled that Odysseus's men slaughtered the
sacred cattle of the Sun when they were stranded on the
island of Helios; thus bringing down upon themselves the
wrath of the Sun-God. There at the Gateway, Hermes "appeased
his brother's anger with the sound of the lyre", and "in his
song he praised above all gods Mnemosyne", i.e., Memory, the
Mother of the Muses; for "he himself, the Son of Maia, was of
her portion". Maia was the Mother of the Pleiades, whom we
know to be the Pieredes- the true Muses. Maia is thus
revealed as Mnemosyne herself.
Apollo passionately desired the lyre, proclaiming that
"he, too... was a constant companion of the Olympian Muses,
but hitherto only as a flute-player". Hermes gave the lyre as
gift to Apollo. Now the god plays upon both the flute and the
lyre. In return, Hermes received "the herdsman's crook and
herdsman's status". One more thing Hermes received, "the
soothsaying of the three swarming virgins- three sister bees
on Parnassus... together with the office of initiated
messenger on the path leading to the House of Hades in the
Underworld", the office of Psychopompos, the escort of souls:
an office for which, as we have just seen, he had already
proven himself eminently worthy. The "three sister bees" on
Parnassus are the giant Golden Bees, the three-in-one: the
Goddess within the cave that lies near the land of the "tiny
people", the land of the dead, the material world- our world.
After Apollo killed Delphyne- the Dragon, i.e., Daphnia-
the Butterfly, he was forced to leave Delphi to spend nine
years as a shepherd in servitude to Admetos, who was King
over Thessalay. It was also said that Apollo served King
Admetos as atonement for slaying the Kyklopes, a crime he
commited to avenge Zeus's slaying of his own beloved Son,
Asklepios. Having killed the Nymph who would have killed his
Son, he was forced to accompany her to the Underworld; it is
but another variation of the same story: sometimes the Father
is given credit for reversing the sacrifice, and sometimes
credit for that deed is given to the Son, depending upon the
needs of the individual storyteller. Given his lack of
success with Nymphs, it should not, perhaps, be thought
surprising that Apollo's love affairs frequently involved
boys. One such boy was Hyakinthos, the Son of Kleito the Muse
and her Father, Pieros; thus confirming for us that the
Pieredes are indeed the true Muses. Pieros is Iapetos; Kleito
is his Daughter, Klymene; their Son is Hyakinthos, i.e.,
Hylas, who is Helios himself. Erato the Muse fell in love
with Hyakinthos; thus identifying her as the Daughter of
Kleito and Hyakinthos- the Mother and the Son. Erato is the
Maid- Persephone. Kleito is the Mother herself- Hera; thus
her Daughter is also called Herakles.
In Thessalay was a lake called Lake Boibeis, "the lake
of Phoibe", wherein dwelt the goddess Brimo, "the Strong
One", also called Persephone. Her lover was Hermes. Hermes is
here called her Son; thus making him her Son and husband, but
he is, as we have seen, her Father and husband. Kerenyi
contented himself by commenting merely that, when it is said
"Hermes begat Eros by Artemis, this is again the same story".
It was also said that Eros was the child of Hermes and
Aphrodite: and we have seen already, when we looked in the
mirror at the Eros child with his lyre, how closely Hermes
and Eros are connected. He is also called Hermaphroditus. The
child of Hermes and Aphrodite, i.e., Kadmos and Europa, is
Salmacis, i.e., Semele. The child of Hermes and Artemis,
i.e., Kadmos and Harmonia, is Eros, i.e., Dionysos himself:
together they are the two who are one- the Mother and the
Son.
As Iphimedeia, Daughter of Aloeus (aloe- "round place",
halos- "round disc", i.e., the sun; he is, of course, also
called Aeolus, Lord of the Winds) splashed the sea water over
her breasts until she conceived the Dios Kouroi- Otos and
Ephialtes, so Koronis- "Crow Maiden", the Daughter of
Phlegyas- "fiery red", i.e., the sun, "washed her feet in the
lake" of Phoibe, and conceived Asklepaios. Phlegyas is also
the name of the "burning plains" from which the Giants first
emerged. Phlegyas was also called Phegeus, and by that name
was the Father of Arsinoe: that Arsinoe who was married to
Alkmeon. It will be recalled that Alkmeon was married also to
Kallirhoe, at the mouth of the river Acheloos: he is, of
course, Acheloos himself. Kallirhoe is the Mother of Alkmeon;
Arsinoe is their Daughter; thus Phegeus is not the Father of
Arsinoe: he is her Grandfather. Koronis was also called
Aigle, "the Luminous"; her Mother was said to be a Daughter
of Erato the Muse. Aigle is, however, the name of a Nymph of
the Hesperides. She is Eurybia, the Medousa- the Nymph
Hesperie, who was pursued by Aesacus. She is Eurydike, the
wife of Orpheus, who was pursued by Aristaios- their Son. She
is the Mother, not the granddaughter, of Erato. Apollo loved
a Nymph called Dryope, Daughter of Dryops- "Oak-Man". She was
a playmate of the Hamadryads. Apollo turned himself into a
turtle so that the Nymphs might play with him. Dryope even
went so far so to place him in her bosom, whereupon he turned
into a serpent and begat a Son upon her; thus identifying him
as her Father. She told no one that she was with child by the
god and married another, keeping the child's true parentage a
secret, as Athene kept her child by Hephaistos a secret.
Koronis conceived a Son by Apollo but married Ischys-
"Strength", son of Elatos- "Pine-Man". Elatos- "Pine-Man",
is, of course, Dryops- "Oak-Man"; both are names for Apollo,
the Father of Dryope as he was also Peneus, the Father of
Daphne, and Pentheus, the Father of Agaue, and Peleus, the
Father of Thetis, and, finally, Pallas, the Father of Athene.
Apollo served as shepherd to Admetos and mated with the
Nymph Dryope. Hermes served as shepherd to Dryops, and, like
Apollo, fell in love with Dryope. Admetos is, of course,
Hermes himself, while we have just seen that Dryops is
Apollo: Dryope is the Daughter of Apollo and the Mother of
Hermes. From the union between Dryope and Hermes "a magic
child was born, with goat's feet and goat's horns, crowing
and laughing". When his mother saw him "she sprang up and
fled, so terrified was she of its wild and bearded face".
The Mother fled from the magic goat child in terror, and yet
the Mother had never before been in fear of the male: she
senses her doom approaching- the Mother will die that the
Daughter may be born. She is called Dryope, "the voice within
the Oak", because she is the Maid swallowed up by the Tree in
the Garden of Eden. She is Okyrhoe undergoing the
metamorphosis in the presence of the Divine Child Asklepios:
her child by Chiron, who is also called Hermes, or Ischys-
which name can also be translated as "the Valiant". He is the
Cowardly Lion, most courageous of beasts. As the child of the
Mother and the Son, Asklepios is, as we have seen, not a new
generation- the son of Hermes, but Hermes himself. It is said
that Hermes brought the child to Olympos in a hare's pelt
(the pelt of the Goddess) where all the gods were delighted
by him, Dionysos most of all. Because all were pleased by
him, they named him Pan- "All". Dionysos was the most pleased
among the gods assembled because Pan, the son of Hermes-
i.e., Kadmos, is but another of the many masks worn upon the
stage of the Greek theatre by Dionysos himself- Lord of the
Theater: as Dionysos himself is but a Greek repetition of the
earlier story, a mask the Greeks used to cover the eternally
suffering yet ultimately triumphant face of the Titan
Prometheus- the "Lord of Time".
That Hermes and Apollo are both married to the same
Nymph indicates once again that they are either one and the
same god, or that they are the Father and the Son, which
ultimately amounts to the same thing. That Apollo turned
himself into a turtle to mate with Dryope, however, and that
the first creature Hermes met outside the cave was a
tortoise- a tortoise he killed and placed carefully in the
cradle of the Mother, cements the relationship between the
two as that of Father and Son, for we know that Hermes did
not kill the Father- it was the Nymph; and we are expressly
told that Apollo, in the shape of a turtle, played with the
Nymphs before mating with Dryope. Now called a tortoise (for
his seafaring days are over) Apollo was waiting outside the
maternal cave when Hermes was born. Beneath the surface
interplay of the various characters encountered in the myth,
the mating ritual of the Dragons, the mating ritual that
provides the structure for the myths we have inherited from
our ancestors, is readily apparent.
As Apollo, i.e., Pallas, is the Father of Perses, not
his brother, so Atlas is not the brother of Prometheus, but
his Father- Iapetos, i.e., Ouranos. In other words, Atlas,
Prometheus, and Menoites are not three brothers, the sons of
Iapetos, but, respectively, the Grandfather, the Father and
the Son. When Hermes gave Apollo the lyre, he was returning
to him his own body. Although it was Nietzsche who first
claimed that the entire panoply of the Greek gods sprang full
blown from the brow of Apollo, the divine embodiment of the
principium individuationis, even he might have been surprised
to discover that Apollo, the most perfect expression of
masculine beauty ever attained by the Greeks (or any other
culture) is, in fact, Hephaistos, the misshapen court jester
of the gods, before his castration at the hands of his
Daughter- Athene.
Apollo was informed of Koronis's transgressions with
Ischys by his bird- the raven. Once the raven was a white
bird, but Apollo turned it black for informing him of
Koronis's infidelity. As the raven flew to warn Apollo, it
was warned of its own coming fate by the crow. Once the crow
had been sacred to Athene; at that time it, too, was a white
bird. The crow was turned to black and displaced from her
position of honor for informing Athene that Aglauros had
pried into her secrets and looked upon the child in the
basket- the child of the Mysteries: the true form of the
Thunderbolt. The crow was a King's Daughter, the Daughter of
Coroneus. She is, of course, Coronis- "Crow-Maiden", herself.
The raven did not heed the crow's warning and carried its
news to Apollo. For her chattering tongue the raven was
turned to black. The raven and the crow are, of course, the
same bird: it is her own dark self that Koronis has met. In
Ovid's Metamorphoses, the tale of how Hermes stole the cattle
from Apollo follows immediately upon the heels of the tale
wherein Apollo left Asklepios with Chiron and Okyrhoe:
Okyrhoe being transformed thereupon into a horse and
galloping off- precisely as Dryope ran off when she saw the
face of Pan.
After leaving Asklepios with Chiron, Apollo returned to
the fields of Admetos, those fields where he wore a
shepherd's cloak and carried a crooked staff, betokening his
shepherd's status, there to mourn his lost love. Wandering
disconsolate and playing upon the reed pipes in an attempt to
assuage his grief, Apollo did not notice the cattle straying
into the fields of Pylos. Hermes did see them, however: and,
as we know, he quickly took advantage of the situation and
drove them off. As Ovid tells the story, the old man who
spied Hermes stealing the cows of Apollo was a herdsman, not
a vintner; and he was called Battus- "Chatterbox". Hermes
feared the old man; and so with soft words he led him aside
and offered him a cow if he would only remain silent
concerning what he had seen. The old man accepted the cow,
but Hermes remained skeptical of the old man's
trustworthiness: he did, after all, on another occasion, deny
him three times before the cock crowed. Returning in
disguise, he offered him a bull and a cow, if only he would
reveal where the stolen cattle might be found. The old man
snatched at the offer, and informed him that the cows could
be found at the "bottom of the hill"- the base of the
pyramid. Hermes laughed at the old man's treachery, and
"turned the faithless heart to hard flint". The Old Man has
been turned to stone, but it was not Hermes who accomplished
that transformation: the Old Man had already been turned t o
stone by his Daughter- the Mother of Hermes. The Old Man is
the tortoise. The raven and the crow were both once numbered
among the white birds: for their chattering tongues they were
turned to black. Battus was likewise transformed on account
of his chattering tongue, as Okyrhoe was transformed for
revealing the secrets of the gods, as likewise was Teiresias.
As Tantalus discovered, the gods do not take lightly the
revelation of their secrets.
It is Ovid, as always, who reveals most clearly the true
nature, the alien nature, of those beings mankind has always
referred to as the gods. That we recognize ourselves in these
alien beings should not surprise us overmuch; it was they who
created us. After transforming Battus into stone:
... the god who carries the magic rod flew off,
soaring upwards on level wings. As he flew, he
looked on the fields of Munychia, the land dear to
Minerva, and the cultivated groves of the Lyceum.
He is the bearer of the Bacchic rod, his wings stretched wide
above the fields of the Faery kingdom, the land of Munychia.
That land became, in the hands of Baum, the land of the
Munchkins: a land lying under the protection of Glinda, the
Good Witch of the North, a land dear to her heart- and
Dorothy's also. Hermes is the male on his mating flight; he
has left the nest behind and is now in search of the Nymph.
No one tells the tale of Hermes' encounter with the Nymph
Herse, the sister of Aglauros, better than Ovid:
It so happened that it was the festival of Pallas,
and on that day in accordance with religious
custom, a procession of pure young girls used to
carry the sacred symbols to her temple, bearing
them on their heads in flower-wreathed baskets. As
they were on their homeward way, the winged god saw
them, and instead of continuing on a straight
course, he wheeled round in his tracks: just like a
hawk, the swiftest of birds, when it sees the
entrails of a sacrifice. As long as the attendants
are crowding closely round, it circles above them,
afraid, yet not daring to go further off, but
eagerly hovering with beating wings over its hoped-
for prey. Even so did nimble Mercury fly around the
Actaen citadel, and circle there in the same
breezes.
As Lucifer shines brighter than all the other
stars, as golden Phoebe is brighter than Lucifer,
so Herse outshone every other maiden, and was the
loveliest sight of the whole procession, surpassing
all her companions. Jupiter's son was astonished at
her beauty, and as he hovered in the air, a fire of
love was kindled in his heart as hot as when the
leaden bullet from a Balearic sling catches fire as
it travels through the air, finding in the clouds
the heat it did not have before. He changed his
course and, leaving the sky, flew down to earth;
nor did he conceal his true shape, so confident was
he in his beauty. He had good reason for his
confidence, but yet he took pains to enhance his
looks, smoothed his hair, and arranged his cloak to
hang gracefully, so that its embroidered edge and
all its gold array were well displayed. He looked
to his polished rod, which he carries in his right
hand to induce or ward off slumber, and took care
that his winged sandals were gleaming on his smooth
feet.
Far within the house were three rooms,
decorated with ivory and tortoiseshell. The one on
the right belonged to Pandrosos, that on the left
to Aglauros, while Herse occupied the middle one.
Ovid has struck every note: it is the festival of the
Maid; virgins are carrying the basket containing the liknon
to her temple. Hermes is a "winged God"; he flies through the
sky in search of his mate- the Nymph. As Phoibe, "the
Purifier", the Moon from which fell the golden dew- the mana,
shines brighter in the night than Lucifer, that star also
called Venus or Aphrodite- the Daughter of Phoibe, so Herse
shines brighter than her Mother- the Silver Moon. Herse is
the Kore, a true Helikon at last, the Golden Moon that will
rise once again over the rainbow hills of the Faery Kingdom-
the land of the living. There in the entrails of the
sacrifice will be found the story that forms the core of the
myths, the mating ritual of the Dragons. The "fire of love"
that "was kindled in his heart was as hot as when the leaden
bullet from a Balearic sling catches fire as it travels
through the air, finding in the clouds the heat it did not
have before". What more perfect metaphor could Ovid have
found to describe the fiery stones that fell to earth at the
castration of Ouranos? When Hermes in his robe of shining
gold spied Herse, gleaming golden in the sun, a true Helikon
at last, he alighted upon the ground; "nor did he conceal his
true shape, so confident was he in his beauty". Amongst the
Dragons, the male is the beautiful sex. Glorying in his true
shape, Hermes disdained the customary metamorphosis into
mortal form when he came to earth to search out the Nymph.
Like any man, however, he did take time to make sure his rod
was well polished for the occasion.
Aglauros was the first to spy Hermes as he entered the
the house- the nest of the Serpent Nymphs. Those Nymphs were
concealed deep within the nest, in three inner chambers
decorated with ivory and tortoise-shell, the tortoise-shell
of Kashyapa: the same three inner chambers that Apollo opened
with the metal Key when he came to the cave of Maia in search
of his cows. Hermes asked for Aglauros' help in winning the
hand of her sister, but Aglauros merely:
... looked at him with those same hard eyes with
which she had lately pried into the secrets of
fair-haired Minerva, and demanded a heavy weight of
gold in return for her services. Then she forced
him to leave her home.
Athene had observed the girl's actions, and her anger blazed
up at the thought that the same girl who had dared to look
upon the serpent child within the box, the child of
Hephaistos, the baby without a mother (as Dionysos was born
from the thigh of Zeus) now stood to gain a fortune in gold
(i.e., control of the mana) and an honored position in the
household of Hermes.
Determined that Aglauros would reap no reward for her
wickedness, Athene made her way swiftly to "the house of
Envy". That house is "hidden away in the depths of the
valley, where the sun never penetrates, where no wind blows
through; a gloomy dwelling permeated by numbing chill, ever
fireless, ever shrouded in thick darkness". It is the home of
the Wicked Witch. Athene stopped at the door, "for it was not
permitted for her to enter" that underworld dwelling place.
Instead, "she struck the doors with the tip of her spear",
the mark of the pyramid; thus revealing her location. The
doors "flew open and revealed Envy within, busy at a meal of
snake's flesh, the food on which she nourished her
wickedness"- the body of the Serpent-Father. Athene lingered
no longer than necessary in that fetid place; her commands
were brief: "instill your poison into one of Cecrops'
daughters- her name is Aglauros. This is what I require of
you". Then Athene, i.e., Glinda, the Good Witch of the North,
"pushed against the ground with her spear, left the earth,
and soared upward". Envy, too, prepared for flight:
... she took her staff, all encircled with thorny
briars, wrapped herself in dark clouds, and set
forth. Wherever she went she trampled down the
flowery fields, withered up the grass, seared the
treetops, and with her breath tainted the peoples,
their cities and their homes, until at length she
came to the Athenian citadel, the home of wit and
wealth, peaceful and prosperous.
Flying low on her broomstick, the Wicked Witch came to
the Emerald City, as Tisiphone came to the house where
Athamas lived, the house of his Father- Aeolus. The story of
the encounter in the Underworld between Athene and Envy is,
of course, the same story as that involving Hera and
Tisiphone; thus identifying Athene with Hera, placing her
firmly in the generation of the Mother- the generation of the
Wicked Old Witch. Unlike Hera, Athene nonetheless ends up
playing the role of the Good Witch because, as Athens'
tutelary deity, the Athenians naturally preferred to view her
role in the most positive light possible: rather than driving
the Son mad to prevent his marriage to their Daughter, she
drives the Mother mad to keep her from preventing that same
marriage. Aglauros is, of course, Athene herself, with her
name changed to conceal the true fate of Athens' matron
goddess. As Hera envied Semele's youthful beauty, so Aglauros
envied Herse her charms: it is, once again, the story of the
rivalry between Athene and Arachne. To put it another way,
Herse is the Daughter of Hera and Hermes.
As Tisiphone was sent to the pyramid, the house of
Aeolus, to drive Athamas mad, so Envy entered the pyramid,
the house of Kekrops (i.e., Cheops) to drive Aglauros mad;
thus the Father and the Mother share a similar fate. She
dripped her poison into the heart of Aglauros and stirred
therein her noxious brew. Wasting away from the poisoned
touch of Envy, the thought of her sister's good fortune ever
before her, a constant torment to her ego, Aglauros "finally
sat down on her sister's threshold" to prevent the god from
entering. When Hermes appeared he tried to coax her away with
"flattery... and tender words" (she is, after all, his
Mother- and Herse's also) but Aglauros refused to budge,
proclaiming that she would not move from the spot until she
had driven him away. Hermes accepted her terms and "opened up
the door with a touch of his magic wand". Aglauros tried to
rise and prevent his entrance, but found herself unable to
move: a dread "coldness pervaded her body". Like an incurable
disease the coldness spread, her limbs hardened, and Aglauros
was transformed into a lifeless statue of stone. That statue
was not white; like the crow and the raven, her failure to
keep safe the secrets entrusted to her by the gods caused her
downfall: "her dark thoughts" colored the stone with "their
own hue". Once again the sacrifice has been switched: it is
the Mother who lies wrapped in a chrysalis of stone, as Niobe
was set down on the mountaintop and transformed to stone.
From that chrysalis will one day emerge the Kore, the golden
butterlfy called Herse.
Hermes took to the air once more, called to Olympos by
Zeus. There the Father told him to go to "the land which
looks up to your Mother's star from the left": the land
called Sidon or Phoenicia. Zeus told Hermes he would find
there- grazing on the mountainside- a herd of cattle
belonging to the King, and commanded him to drive those
cattle to the shore. It is, once again, the story of the
theft of the cattle of the Sun by Hermes. Hermes drove the
cattle to the beach as he was commanded by the Father of the
Gods, that beach with its "sandy soil" where the Daughter of
the King used to play with her handmaidens- "the young girls
of Tyre": the city which gave Teiresias his name. Zeus
himself then took on the form of a bull, playing gently with
the princess until she lost her fear of him and mounted his
broad back. Then the bull (who was really Asterios, i.e.,
Hermes himself) bore Europa, the Daughter of Agenor, off to
sea, while she "grasped the bull's horn... her fluttering
garments" floating behind her in the breeze, exactly as
Dorothy grabbed Toto's ear when the cyclone carried them over
the rainbow: as the Goddess always grabbed the Father's ear
during their wrestling match- the mating ritual. Of course,
it was not exactly his ear, or his horn, that she grabbed.
Zeus directed Hermes to the land of Phoenicia by
referring him to his "Mother's star"- Venus; thus identifying
Hermes once again as the Son of Aphrodite. It should also be
noted that Hermes deceived Hera into accepting him as her Son
by disguising himself as Ares; thus confirming the identity
between Hermes and Ares, and making clear once again the
nature of the relationship between Hermes, i.e., Ares, and
Aphrodite, i.e., Hera: he is her Son and Husband. They are of
the Dragon Race. They are the Teachers of the Way, and we are
their children.
As we are one with the Dragon, so are we one with all
living things. It therefore falls upon Pythagoras to bring
our journey through the mythic realm to a close, for:
In his thoughts he drew near to the gods, far
removed though they were in their heavenly homes,
and with the eyes of the mind he gazed upon those
things which nature has denied to human sight. When
unremitting care and thought had made everything
clear to him, he imparted his knowledge for all to
learn, and taught the silent wondering crowds about
the origin of the great universe, the reasons for
things, what Nature is, and what the gods... the
laws that govern the movement of the stars, and all
that is hidden from man's knowledge. He was the
first to ban the serving of animal food at our
tables, first to express himself in such words as
these- wise words, indeed, but powerless to
convince his hearers....
Here, then, are the words of Pythagoras, his sermon from the
mountaintop:
O my fellow-men, do not defile your bodies with
sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples, bending
down the branches with their weight, and grapes
swelling on the vines.... The earth affords a
lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and
offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or
slaughter; only beasts satisfy their hunger with
flesh, and not even all of those.... But creatures
whose nature is wild and fierce, Armenian tigers
and raging lions, bears and wolves delight in
butchered food. Alas, what wickedness to swalllow
flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy
bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one
living creature fed by the death of another! In the
midst of such wealth as earth, the best of mothers,
provides, nothing forsooth satisfies you, but to
behave like the Cyclopes, inflicting sorry wounds
with cruel teeth! You cannot appease the hungry
cravings of your wicked gluttonous stomachs, except
by destroying some other life!
But that ancient age, to which we have given
the name of golden, was blessed with fruits plucked
from the trees, and crops the earth put forth. Its
people did not defile their lips with blood. Then
birds flew through the air in safety, the hare
wandered fearlessly in the open fields, no fish was
hooked because of its own credulity.... Then
someone... envied the lions their diet and, by
swallowing down a meal of flesh into his greedy
stomach, took the first steps on the road to
crime.... But what did sheep do, to merit such a
fate, peaceful flocks, born for the service of man,
who brings us sweet milk in their full udders,
whose wool provides us with soft garments, who do
more for us alive than dead? What have oxen done,
animals quite innocent of guile or treachery,
harmless and simple, born to toil? Thankless
indeed was he, and undeserving of the gift of corn,
who first had the heart to lift the weight of
curved plough from his beasts neck, and slay the ox
who had tilled his fields, bringing down his axe on
the work worn necks of the cattle with whose help
he had so often broken up the hard earth and
planted so many crops.
Not content with committing such crimes, men
have enrolled the very gods as their partners in
wickedness, and suppose that the divinities in
heaven take pleasure in the slaying of patient
bullocks! A victim of outstanding beauty... is set
before the altars, decked with garlands and with
gold. There it hears, without understanding, the
prayers of the priest, and sees the corn it has
cultivated sprinkled on its forehead, between its
horns. It is struck down, and stains with its blood
the knives which it may well have seen beforehand,
reflected in the clear water. At once the lungs are
torn from its still living breast, that the priest
may examine them, and search out the purpose of the
gods, revealed therein. And then, so great is man's
hunger for forbidden food, you mortals dare to eat
that flesh! I beg you, heed my warnings, and
abstain! Know and understand that when you put the
meat of slaughtered oxen in your mouth, the flesh
you eat is that of your own labourers.
Now, since a god directs my speech, I shall
duly follow him who guides, reveal the secrets of
my beloved Delphi and of the heavens themselves,
and unlock the oracles of a majestic mind. I shall
speak of things of great import, never studied by
previous intellects, which have long laid hid. I
joy to journey among the stars, high above, to
leave the earth and this dull abode, to ride on the
clouds and stand on stout Atlas's shoulders,
looking down from afar on men as they wander
aimlessly, devoid of any guiding principle, to
unroll for them the scroll of fate, and cheer their
panic and their fear of death, saying: 'You people,
dismayed by the fear of icy death, why are you so
terrified by the Styx, by shadows and empty names,
the stuff of poet's tales, by the dangers of a
world that does not exist? Our bodies, whether
destroyed by the flame of the funeral pyre, or by
slow decay, do not feel any suffering- you must not
think so. Our souls are immortal, and are ever
received into new homes, where they live and
dwell, when they have left their previous
abode.... All things change, but nothing dies: the
spirit wanders hither and thither, taking
possession of what limbs it pleases... but never
at any time does it perish. Like pliant wax which,
stamped with new designs, does not remain as it
was, or keep the same shape, but yet is still
itself, so I tell you that the soul is always the
same, but incorporates itself in different forms.
Therefore, in case family feeling prove less strong
than greedy appetite, I warn you, do not drive
souls that are akin to yours out of their homes by
impious killings, do not nourish blood with blood.
Since I have set sail upon a wide ocean, and
spread my canvas to the wind, let me continue
further. Nothing is constant in the whole world.
Everything is in a state of flux, and comes into
being as a transient appearance. Time itself flows
on with constant motion, just like a river: for no
more than a river can the fleeting hour stand
still....
Nor does anything retain its own appearance
permanently. Ever-inventive nature continually
produces one shape from another. Nothing in the
entire universe ever perishes, believe me, but
things vary, and adopt a new form. The phrase
"being born" is used for beginning to be something
different from what one was before, while "dying"
means ceasing to be the same. Though this thing
may pass into that, and that into this,
yet the sumof things remains unchanged....
However, if I must add further proof of
things already proved, you surely see that when
bodies decay... they turn into little animals?
Experience has shown that if you select bulls, kill
them, and bury them in a trench, from every part of
the rotting carcasses will come bees, to sip honey
from the flowers.... If you remove the hollowed
claws of land crabs and bury the rest in the earth,
there will emerge from the buried remains a
scorpion, with curved and threatening tail.... And
the farmers know full well that the worms which
spin a cocoon of white threads on the leaves, in
country places, change into butterflies, the symbol
of death.... Moreover, you see, don't you, that
the larvae of the honey-bee, born in the hexagonal
cells of the honey-comb, have bodies but no limbs,
and only late in life develop feet and wings?....
Some people also believe that when a human
body is shut up in the tomb, and its backbone rots
away, the marrow changes into a snake.
All these creatures, however, derive their
origin from something other than themselves. There
is one living thing, a bird, which reproduces and
regenerates itself, without any outside aid. The
Assyrians call it the phoenix. It lives... on the
gum of incense, and the sap of balsam. When it has
completed five centuries of life, it straightway
builds a nest for itself, working with unsullied
beak and claw, in the topmost branches of some
swaying palm. Then, when it has laid a
foundation... it places itself on top, and ends
its life amid the perfumes.
Then, they say, a little phoenix is born anew
from the father's body, fated to live a like number
of years. When the nestling is old enough and
strong enough to carry the weight, it lifts the
heavy nest from the high branches and, like a
dutiful son, carries its father's tomb, its own
cradle, through the yielding air, till it reaches
the city of the sun, where it lays its burden
before the sacred doors, within Hyperion's
temple....
Then there is the animal which lives on air
and wind, and immediately assumes the colour of
whatever it touches. Conquered India gave his
lynxes to Bacchus, god of the vine-cluster. Men say
that whenever these animals empty their bladders,
the contents turn to stone, and harden in contact
with the air. In the same way coral, too, hardens
as soon air touches it, whereas under the water it
was a waving plant....
One understands, now, precisely in what manner the
pyramids were constructed, and why the word for Mountain in
Greek is Urea? That the Dragons, the Serpents, the giant
Golden Bees, grow wings and feet only late in life: that the
feet of the male are black- those of the Goddess white? That
beneath the shoulder of man slumbers a Serpent- a chameleon?
The scientific refutation of the Pythagorean world view, the
argument, for instance, that bees do not really emerge from
the carcasses of bulls, is absurd. Scientific evidence can
only be used to refute a metaphor if it is first understood
that a metaphor is being employed. Pythagoras is operating
within a mythical framework: it is not of bulls and bees that
he speaks, but of man and the Thunderbolt; for on the day of
your death a Thunderbolt will burst forth from the carcass
that you call, with such charming naivete, your body. The
"pliant wax" that is poured over and over again into a new
form is a golden wax- beeswax. But now:
... lest I should stray far from my course, and
allow my horses to forget that they are making for
a goal, I return to my theme. The heavens and
everything that lies below them change their shape,
as does the earth and all that it contains. We too,
who are part of creation, since we are not merely
bodies, but winged souls as well, can find a home
in the forms of wild beasts, and be lodged in the
breasts of cattle. Therefore, let us leave
unmolested those bodies.... What evil habits a man
learns, how wickedly does he prepare himself to
shed human blood, when he cuts open a calf's throat
with his knife, and listens unmoved to its mournful
lowing, when he can slay a kid that cries like a
child, or feed on the birds which he himself has
fed! And to what do they lead?.... Away with nets
and snares, traps and cunning ruses.... Destroy
creatures that harm you, but even in their case, be
content merely to destroy. Do not let their flesh
pass your lips; live on some less barbarous diet.
Manson, it is said, can talk to the animals. Have you
not observed with sorrow how in this world none of the
animals will speak to man? It is not because they lack the
wit for intelligent conversation, but because they know and
are forbidden to tell. And, too, they are angry at us; not
just for eating them (although that might be thought cause
enough) or for polluting the earth, but because it is we who,
by performing the sacrificial rite "wrongly", created this
polluted earth, this wretched shadow of the Golden Realm,
this monstrous omotocia, and they were forced to come along
with us. One has only to contemplate closely this most
Sphinxlike of worlds, this Chimaira, this world of Maya or
Maia or Mary (as the Christians call her) to realize the
truth of those words my father, Nietzsche, taunted me with
when I attempted the creation of the world: "that those who
cannot hit the nail on the head should, please, not try to
hit it at all; they only make it more difficult for the one
who comes along later".
Once I was a Centaur running wild in the fields, strong
and beautiful- my mane flowing freely in the wind. I was
ruler of the greenwoods; all the animals were my friends and
spoke to me as one of their own. I feared nothing, I desired
nothing: I had everything. Acknowledging no law save my own,
I took an innocent delight in terrorizing the people of the
neighboring realm. Finally, however, the King of that fair
realm, hearing of the depredations I so capriciously
inflicted upon his subjects, made up his mind to bring an end
to my lawless ways. Knowing I could not be overcome by force
or strength (for I was myself "force" and "strength") he
chose to use guile instead: instructing his men to bring out
a woman from the city- a harlot. There in the field they
stripped her and lay her bound before me. Now I saw something
I did not possess; and for the first time I felt desire: for
the first time I felt fear. In that field I lay with the
woman they had given me, and at her side I fell asleep, who
had never slept before. When I awoke, I allowed her to mount
upon my back, and they led me off to the city of the King.
Escorted by the Royal Guard, I entered the city in triumph,
the crowds cheering my arrival: no doubt relieved, I thought
to myself, that I had came in peace. There they pretended
welcome and made me drunk on the fiery wine, that drink of
which I, a simple child of Nature, had never before tasted.
There in that city I was exposed to every form of decadence
imaginable. At last, when my strength was depleted, exhausted
from continous debauch, their King insulted me and challenged
me to a wrestling match. Staggering from wine and the smoke
of the poppy, I was ill-prepared for combat, but I could not
refuse the challenge: I was the mighty ruler of the woods,
Lord over all the beasts of the field. I had no fear of this
puny King who- behind walls of thick stone- lorded it over
mere men. I accepted his challenge, scarcely believing he had
dared to utter it, so confident was I in my strength. The
contest began, and now I, who had never before been defeated
in battle, who time and again had drunk the wine of triumph,
pinning my foe to the ground before tearing the life from him
and spilling his blood out upon the thirsty earth, for the
first time found myself pinned to the ground: the inescapable
weight of the King heavy upon my back, his fierce blows
smashing my bones. Nor did he content himself with simply
defeating me in battle; instead, as I lay before him on the
ground, shattered and helpless, he proceeded to cut off my
long, flowing mane: to complete my humiliation, he even
stripped me of my beautiful tail. Then he sent me back to the
woods in shame and disgrace. Now the people jeered in
derision as I dragged myself from the city; no longer did
they fear me as they once had: they had seen me broken in
battle by their valiant and clever king. I returned to my
beloved woods, but it was no longer the same. Those who had
raised me, the beasts of the field, now shunned me. I was no
longer the innocent child they once knew- the one who had no
desire, no fear: the one who had everything. I had a desire
now; it was for vengeance upon the King. I had fear, too, for
I feared that one who, through his trickery, had defeated me.
Nor could I expel from my mind the strange sensations I had
experienced while I lay beneath him, my face pressed to the
soft earth, my life in his hands, completely at his mercy.
Once the animals were my friends and spoke to me as one
of their own; now the reproach in their eyes is plain to see:
never again, perhaps, will I run with them four-footed
through the meadows of Arcadia. Few enough of them remain in
this world now as it is, for the Father has already called
most of them home- a strong hint that the hour grows late;
twilight is falling. One should note, however, the gentle,
forgiving kindness with which man continues to be treated by
the smiling porpoise. As a manifestation of the Father- not
the Mother, the porpoise is a much higher being than man and
should, please, be treated with great respect. Please do not
ask him to jump through hoops for you at your amusement
parks; he could quite easily make you jump through hoops for
his amusement, if he were so inclined- a lesson I have now
well learned. He did not teach me that lesson to amuse
himself, however (though I have no doubt he derived a certain
amount of amusement from it; and who, considering everything,
could blame him?) or to demonstrate his power over me, as was
always my way with him, but to teach me another Way, a
Greater Way, the Way of Love- the Way to Oz.
We have followed the path laid out for us by Gaugin in
his famous painting of the two Tahitian beauties: the Dark
Mother in her night black skirt and her Daughter- dressed in
green with flowers in her hand- the Maiden of Spring. We have
passed by the bodies of the Father and the Son lying on the
platter the Mother carries before her, like an offering of
fruit: the Father's head below the right breast, the Son's
head beneath the left. We have walked the road leading to the
pyramid: we have entered the Cave of Mystery guarded by the
Fire Dragon and found therein the Faery Princess and her
handmaidens. We have succeeded in our quest and emerged from
the Labyrinth bearing in our hands the Holy Grail, the Golden
Cup of Mnemosyne- Mother to the Muses. Now that you
remember, you must return to the material world so that you
may fulfillyour part of the bargain as I have fulfilled mine.
I have broken the vow of silence that has always sealed
the lips of those who know because the time has come when you
must, of your own free will, release the Dragon from his
Chrysalis so that the Butterfly may be born. The Dragon is
that which lives inside each and every one of you- he is
Charles Manson. You must unlock the doors of the tomb in
which you have confined him and set him free, and by so doing
free your own self as well. He is the One. He is the Tin
Woodman, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the King of
Beasts, and the time has come for you to face him without
fear. He holds in his hands the Key to your cell. He is the
Christ. He is the Piper. He is the Dragon Father who wears
upon his brow the Serpent Crown of the ancient Gods. He is
Toto: he makes me laugh. This is his song:
Wet wind on the sidewalk: I'm staring at the rain.
Walking up the street, yeah, and walking down
again./
And my feet are tired and my brain is numb.
see that broken neon sign saying, hey, in you come.
Got the scent of stale beer hanging, hanging round
my head./
Old dog in the corner sleeping like he could be
dead./
A book of matches and a full ashtray.
Cigarette left smoking its life away.
Another Harry's bar- or that's the tale they tell.
But Harry's long gone now, and the customers as
well./
Me and the dog and the ghost of Harry will make
this world turn right./
It'll all turn right.
God's tears on the sidewalk: it's the mother of all
rain./
But in the thick blue haze of Harry's, you will
feel no pain. /
And you will feel no soft hand slipping on your
knee./
You don't have to pay for memories they will all
come free./
Another Harry's bar- or that's the tale they tell.
But Harry's long gone now, and the customers as
well./
Me and the dog and the ghost of Harry will make
this world turn right./
It'll all turn right.
Now, when Harry was a young man, Harry was so
debonair./
He walked a bouncy step in his shiny shoes.
And when Harry was a young man, well, Harry could
walk on air./
He mixed a mean cocktail and he talked you through
the late news./
You want to hear some great news?
Harry's still here.
Wet wind on the sidewalk: I'm still staring at the
rain./
Walking up the street, and I'm walking down again.
And my feet are tired and my brain is numb.
See that broken neon sign saying, hey, in you come.
Another Harry's bar- or that's the tale they tell.
but Harry's long gone now, and the customers as
well./
Me and the dog and the ghost of Harry will make
this world turn right./
It'll all turn right.
Another Harry's bar.
And another Harry's bar.
And another, and another Harry's bar.
For two thousand years you have awaited his return; the
gospel truth is he never left: that is the "great news". He
is the dog lying at your feet; you cannot reenter Paradise
without Him at your side. Although mankind abandoned God, the
Dog never abandoned man. Hare Krishna.
Chorus: The gods have many faces.
They manifest themselves
in manifold ways.
What we expected does not happen.
For the Unexpected, gods
Always find a way.
This is what happened here. Today.
Text file Source (historic): geocities.com/zarathustra_baby
(to report bad content: archivehelp @ gmail)
|
|
|
|
|