Hercules vs Dionysys
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@Edward Mason said
"Robert, 93,
I'd say you're hardly alone in looking to the archetypes to resolve parent issues. And Crowley, as Magus, is as much archetype as man. His Magus-self (if we can speak of a 'self' at that grade) is both Herculean by means of his attainment, and Dionysiac by means of the ecstasy of that attainment. I don't, however, accept your word 'fiction' here because I think the emotional content is far too real for that term to apply.
Oddly, my own biological father's tendency to be emotionally absent led me to seek out authority, not reject it. I therefore found a different pair of opposites arose within me, to both address the need and to help resolve it. But that topic unlike you, I prefer, to keep behind its own veil, other than to say it's a lifelong process. However I think you've produced a very useful analysis of one person's situation here, that other people can apply in their own way.
93 93/93,
Edward"Thanks for your thoughts.
I had hoped to imply that fiction was as real as non-fiction, and at times more appropriate as a tool to help us understand subjective experience, like emotions.
Now that the impulse is exhausted it becomes easy for me to feel detached from the writing. I'm still prepared to defend it for what it is, but I'm not really worried about whether it says anything real about me or the world. I was more content to have made the gesture.
By way of a nominal apology to Hercules I will admit that I too can get pretty Herculean at times, though it tends to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. The evil of the world worries me too. I accept the fact that there are moments in life when only a strong man or woman with a big club need apply, but maybe those times are fewer than we 'imagine.'
Love and Will
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Your are descriptions confusing.
You say Hercules = mother-complex, Dionysus = father-complex. Yet Hercules is the masculine figure, and Dionysus the feminine figure. The role of the mother is key to understanding both male archetyples. Hercules is the hero, fighting evil, etc, but all for the sake of the Mother. His father Zeus probably felt a little competiton coming from his upstart half-human son.
Hercules is about righting injustices for the Glory of Hera (plus his mother would no doubt be proud of him). One of Parsons big mistakes is that he never freed himself from the influence of his mother. He envisioned a New Aeon where women were powerful and witchy, had equal rights to men, etc (that's the Hercules phase). But in the end due to his reckless Babalon Working, he was blown to bits (that's the Dionysus phase).
Dionysus is free from all this dualism and represents a far more terrifying (and older) archetype. Remember he ultimately gets torn to pieces by the maenads.
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@he atlas itch said
"Your are descriptions confusing.
You say Hercules = mother-complex, Dionysus = father-complex. Yet Hercules is the masculine figure, and Dionysus the feminine figure. "
Yes, it's confusing, but only on a superficial level. The connection between over-achievers, or people who can never be good enough at what they do, and the mother is well established. I refer back to my example of Alexander the Great. Also, Hercules is the myth-type, not the resultant human manifestation, which we would expect to take any number of forms based on this relationship: the goddess as mother makes demands on the son, who keeps extending himself, heroically, to realize them. I think it makes all the sense in the world that mommy's little man will act like a mission-from-god reformer.
Dionysus is equally the son of his father, the father being the liberal source, the plenitude, the libertine Zeus. It would be a mistake to assume Dionysus should somehow behave like a clean cut American youth—decadence is an expected, necessary excess or dark side of this archetype.
But to address what I think is the root question in your post, that I should tie down these two mythic, larger than life personages to rather banal psychological disorders... This is standard psychological practice. Consider my effort an excursion into the Q'lipoth of these two archetypes.
In any event, the connections and associations you are inclined to make is ultimately a question of what works for you. You shouldn't let my writing trip you up in this regard.
I will just add that what I did was not strictly a scholarly effort, though I did cite stories that have some basis in fact. It was an associational exercise.
Love and Will
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@RobertAllen said
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.... Dionysus .... he is, according to Heraclitus, identical to Hades, the god of the underworld and death. "this is very interesting!
could you point out to the specific fragment where he (Heraclitus) says this? -
@danica said
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@RobertAllen said
"
.... Dionysus .... he is, according to Heraclitus, identical to Hades, the god of the underworld and death. "this is very interesting!
could you point out to the specific fragment where he (Heraclitus) says this?"Searches for Heraclitus and fragments will turn up numerous hits. Here is a link to one from the top of the stack—it looks complete:
classicpersuasion.org/pw/heraclitus/herpate.htm
The fragment in question is #127 on this site:
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For were it not Dionysus to whom they institute a procession and sing songs in honor of the pudenda, it would be the most shameful action. But Dionysus, in whose honor they rave in bacchic frenzy, and Hades are the same."May familiarity with the fragments is through James Hillman, who asserts Heralcitus to be the first depth psychologist because his work is ultimately concerned with the character of soul.
Love and Will
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When I was learning Greek and roman mythology, and came across Hercules, I felt like I had hit a wall.
It seems that there were pages And pages of all the glorious things he did, how heroic and good he was to vanquish evil.
But I only ever found scant info on the fact that before all of that, he was married and had a family, that for some reason he brutally, savagely murdered them with out cause.
Part of this mother complex, would be what appears at face value. But if we look deeper we may uncover a little Peter Pan........who also was a glorious hero.
He was selfish, he did all those deeds for redemtion, not because he wanted to help mankind.
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Veronica, 93,
"He was selfish, he did all those deeds for redemtion, not because he wanted to help mankind."
And ... ? I don't believe anybody wants to "help mankind" as a thing on its own, though self-redemption may well benefit others. Read Cap II of the Book of the Law in this regard.
93 93/93,
Edward -
@danica said
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@RobertAllen said
"
.... Dionysus .... he is, according to Heraclitus, identical to Hades, the god of the underworld and death. "this is very interesting!
could you point out to the specific fragment where he (Heraclitus) says this?"The identification of Dionysus with Hades is indeed interesting. It identifies Dionysus with Osiris, who was cut to pieces by Set, then remembered by Isis, to become the king of the underworld and death. Hence Dionysus = Hades.
But keep in mind the Greeks writers were completely fascinated by, and often misread, Egypt and the Egyptian system, the remains of which existed as a far older and more sophisticated civilization to the south of the much younger Greek civilizations. This gave rise to a kind of pseudo-Egyptianism - similar to Renaissance scholars attempting to make sense of the Kabbalah.
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@RobertAllen said
"In this respect I cite the fact that Crowley was the first person I found who told me things about how to live that ordinarily would have been the responsibility of a father. If I feel his paternity, I am certainly not the first or only one. It may seem a stretch, even a muddling of the planes for me to claim that Crowley as Zeus is my true father, and that I was nurtured in his thigh until my term was up, but let me remind you that this is an effort of the imagination and the rules of fiction apply and the connections I make in this regard are what's important, not the orthodoxy of the connection itself"
I would suggest that feeling that one's biological father is not one's real father should not be regarded as a fiction but as the real orthodoxy of gnosis. Think of the first line of the Lord's Prayer. Or any of the other countless legends of mythical characters being secretly fathered by gods on hapless females. The question to ask is, what part of myself feels there is something "more" to who I am? Children often feel shame at the deficiencies of biological parents, and dislike talking about it to others - the sense of injustice is too personal. But in fact this dissatisfaction/revulsion/rebellion against one's inherited enviroment is a necessary part of evolution and awakening that leads to discovery of True Will. Once this occurs, we can reassess our biological parents and be able to accept them for who they are, not how they should be.
As a Christian gnostic once said, there are many usurpers but one true Father.
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@Edward Mason said
"Veronica, 93,
"He was selfish, he did all those deeds for redemtion, not because he wanted to help mankind."
And ... ? I don't believe anybody wants to "help mankind" as a thing on its own, though self-redemption may well benefit others. Read Cap II of the Book of the Law in this regard.
93 93/93,
Edward"And........
Being selfish is not a bad thing,But I think maybe what I am banging up against here, is the idea of being good an heroic (helping mankind) for the sake of being good and heroic ( was it his true will to shovel shite).
And the false pretenses that have now been projected onto his archetype, of being the good ol boy, Because of that.
Or being good because you have too.
Does it matter who cleaned out the stables, as LNG as they got clean?
The devil made him do it, made him slaughter little babes.
Made him loose himself to madness, and commit the worst of the worst.And no matter how atrocious, how wrong, how bad a man can be.....
He deserves the chance to redeem himself,
To return to the motherI never liked the fact, that the hideousness of crime is buffered and down played.
Reminds me of what I hear in the news about how environmental British Petroleum is. Now
Will my grandkids ever hear about the devastation and destruction that forced them to act in accordance.
That daughter that Heracules killed was someones daughter, and she will never get to hold her hand again, no matter how many monsters are slated, nor how much shite is shoveled.
I believe that fact should not be down played in history books.
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Veronica, 93,
Ancient myths have a particular quality of their own. I read all of The Odyssey a few years ago, and was fine with it until the end, when Odysseus hangs the serving maids for, basically, being disrespectful. He had the right to do so as ruler of Ithaca, but that sequence almost spoiled the book/poem for me. It forced me to step back and remind myself this story was 3,000 years old.
Hercules is an archetypal figure, not a man, and Homer makes Odysseus into something close to an archetype, too. The strenuous nature of their efforts is beyond human comprehension. Hercules' story is told within the context of a warrior society, with strict codes, such as we have not had for many centuries. Its significance for us now lies beneath those cultural overlays. For the archetypes never die, but keep on expressing themselves in new forms. For the Greeks, Hercules. For boys as I grew up, it was super-hero comics, and for many people today, the character they adopt in video games. Or, as the practitioner in a magick circle.
93 93/93,
Edward -
The significance of the Mother vs the Father vis-a-vis mythical archetypes misses the point. The crowned and conquering Child should balance Justice (= the Mother) and Mercy (= the Father) within him/herself while following their star..
It takes a hero to fight a monster because the hero is quite monstrous themselves. Only the winners become remembered in history and legends as heros, their sins swept under the carpet, while the losers are demonized as monsters...
Personally I don't care for the concepts of heros or monsters because both suggest individuals who are extraordinary and beyond the laws of reality. Sooner or later we discover the same laws apply to everyone. Its natural for children to latch on to hero characters, but later in life we discover that 1) these stories for children contain a grain of truth and 2) that it is simply a matter of consistent and hard inner work.
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93 Mr. Mason
I appreciate you clarifying your insight for me.
I know that I would do well to get a grip with the fact that the way I view things is not typical, and runs contrary to popular beliefs. The world is not sunshine and lolipos, rainbows and fairy dust, even if I am.The world really is a hard cold place isn't it. And it does want my warmth and softness doesn't it.
Little boys and girls need heroes, always. And I guess it is best if they are not privy to the commonnality of the hero, for that would completely destroy the purpose of having one in the first place.
Storey time:
My father really liked GWBush, and often tried to engage me, in conversation about what it was that I didn't like about him. It got rather exhausting for me, and I don't like to talk politics. One day it came to me, on how I could stop this.Dad......why don't you like gw.
V..........after all he's done and said, good and bad....it comes down to this simple, fact....I would never want to have sex with him. Nothing that he has ever said or done has made me think....I wanna screw that guy. He should get a blow job......I do not find him attractive in anyway, shape or form. I do not think that he should be able to reproduce, and that is it.Dad kinda shuddered a bit and said simply oh.
And I have never had to talk about gw again.
Silly story, but I would not have sex with Heracules either......he isn't attractive to me, now Dionysus.....he is a hottie and. I hope he gets some luvn everyday.
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93,
That's an interesting test! I'd have to switch sexual orientation (or at least become an ancient Spartan in my leanings) to consider my feelings on screwing Dubya, but a het-male equivalent (and this would get the Spartan okay, too) might be considering whether I'd want to be beside this person in a dangerous or combat situation. Does he have the backbone to stick it out, come what may? Or will be cite security concerns and disappear in a government helicopter while the Persian army surrounds the rest of us?
I think this would apply to female leadership here. Few women in positions of senior authority project sexuality per se, given that the world as it is doesn't (yet) do a lot to support such an identity for leaders. Cristina Kirchner of Argentina is my favorite exception here, but she is that - an exception. But I'd want to know if the female would have my back in every other way, and not merely have her own helicopter waiting to whisk her to safety.
93 93/93,
Edward -
93,
The Atlas Itch wrote:
"The significance of the Mother vs the Father vis-a-vis mythical archetypes misses the point. The crowned and conquering Child should balance Justice (= the Mother) and Mercy (= the Father) within him/herself while following their star.. "
But isn't the point here that this is not something that can be done according to a precisely pre-set formula, but has to be explored by each of us, using the symbols that assert themselves? What I'm working personally is something I would never have imagined when I was younger. My inner reality overcame my conscious preferences on all counts, and it was lengthy inner work that produced that situation.
93 93/93,
Edward -
@Edward Mason said
"But isn't the point here that this is not something that can be done according to a precisely pre-set formula, but has to be explored by each of us, using the symbols that assert themselves?"
On a subjective level, yes. The symbols that assert themselves, and the meaning we draw from them, indicate areas in our psyche that need addressing. The path is self-correcting.
But what's interesting to note, especially when we start looking at archetypes, is how "pre-set" human behavior is. Issues that seem so personal are, in fact, quite universal.
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@he atlas itch said
"The identification of Dionysus with Hades is indeed interesting. It identifies Dionysus with Osiris, who was cut to pieces by Set, then remembered by Isis, to become the king of the underworld and death. Hence Dionysus = Hades.
But keep in mind the Greeks writers were completely fascinated by, and often misread, Egypt and the Egyptian system, the remains of which existed as a far older and more sophisticated civilization to the south of the much younger Greek civilizations. This gave rise to a kind of pseudo-Egyptianism - similar to Renaissance scholars attempting to make sense of the Kabbalah."
First I support the association of Osiris and Hades, and then, by the suggestion from Heraclitus, Dionysus, but not because it's factual. It isn't and cannot be proved Heraclitus meant any thing of the sort. But as a fiction, it's beautiful and useful, and for these reasons, true enough.
On another score though, I just want to point out that it is probable Heraclitus could have meant something else, and this other direction is equally valid. Rather than assume the Greeks were simply Egyptian wannabe's, Hades in the context of the quote might have had more to do with the Greek idea of Hades than the Egyptian notion of the god of the dead, or Osiris. Connections can be made between them, but then there are differences as well.
Atlas, I know you probably didn't intend this slight, but there was still a sense from your comment that the Greeks had no real genius of their own, but only mauled Egyptian traditions and religious insights.
As a singularly Greek concept, in my attempts to understand what Hades represented, I have found it fruitful to look at the excursions to the Underworld by Greek Heroes—Ulysses, Orpheus, and of course Hercules—for clues as to the nature of this reality, and by extension Hades himself. I touched on this a little when I wrote my initial thoughts into the thread.
Love and Will
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@Edward Mason said
"Hercules is an archetypal figure, not a man, and Homer makes Odysseus into something close to an archetype, too. The strenuous nature of their efforts is beyond human comprehension. Hercules' story is told within the context of a warrior society, with strict codes, such as we have not had for many centuries. Its significance for us now lies beneath those cultural overlays. For the archetypes never die, but keep on expressing themselves in new forms. For the Greeks, Hercules. For boys as I grew up, it was super-hero comics, and for many people today, the character they adopt in video games. Or, as the practitioner in a magick circle."
What fun, a game could be made of this—looking for contemporary examples. A kind of "if Hercules were alive today who would he be" game. Of course the danger is that this becomes reductive, when people think they have figured it out and can now put the meditation aside. But avoiding this pitfall I would make an initial entry by asserting:
Charleton Heston = Hercules
Re: prying his gun from his cold dead fingers!James dean = Dionysus
Re: as the eternal rebel...Love and Will
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@he atlas itch said
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@Edward Mason said
"But isn't the point here that this is not something that can be done according to a precisely pre-set formula, but has to be explored by each of us, using the symbols that assert themselves?"On a subjective level, yes. The symbols that assert themselves, and the meaning we draw from them, indicate areas in our psyche that need addressing. The path is self-correcting.
But what's interesting to note, especially when we start looking at archetypes, is how "pre-set" human behavior is. Issues that seem so personal are, in fact, quite universal."
Uhmm, aren't you guys saying the same thing?
If you are, this is my take on the similarities: the idea is ultimately to become aware of what controls us, and as a result, a little freer from it.
We talk about the archetypes as though one could take them or leave them. But the point of the original concept was not simply to give us a contemporary way to understand the Gods of our ancestors, but as a way to show us what in fact, conditions and directs every psychic breath we take.
Love and Will
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in 'defense' of the herculean:
he portrays a figure who by his own strenght, courage and labor made the bridge between the animal and divine.
the quest for atonement begins after a murder - an act of insanity, madness, and lower self, from our human moral perspective - and his story tells us that there is a path out of that horrific deed, there is a path out of our karmic bonds, that there is a road to atonement!
even the worst, lowest, ugliest in us can be transformed, transmuted into gold!in herculean myth, we see that that path is towards the Sun and 'through' the Sun - that's the symbolic essence of his story.
as I see it, his main characterisics are three: strenght, persistance and above all: aspiration to reach the end of the journey. and that's what we can learn from him.