The Golden Ass of Apuleius
Page 24
During this time the following dream comes to Lucius:
On a night the great priest appeared unto me in a dream presenting his lap full of treasure, and when I demanded what it signified, he answered that this portion16 was sent me from the country of Thessaly, and that a servant of mine named Candidus was thence arrived likewise. When I was awaked, I mused in myself what this vision should portend, considering I never had any servant called by that name: but whatsoever it did signify, this I verily thought, that such offering of gifts was a foreshew of gain and prosperous chance. While I was thus anxious and astonished at my coming prosperity, I went to the temple, and tarried there till the opening of the gates in the morning: then I went in, and when the white curtains were drawn aside, I began to pray before the face of the Goddess, while the priest prepared and set the divine things on every altar with solemn supplications, and fetched out of the sanctuary the holy water for the libation. When all things were duly performed, the religious began to sing the matins of the morning, testifying thereby the hour of prime. By and by behold arrived my servants which I had left at Hypata, when Photis entangled me in my maze of miserable wanderings, who had heard my tale as it seemed, and brought with them even my horse, which they had recovered through certain signs and tokens which he had upon his back. Then I perceived the interpretation of my dream, by reason that beside the promise of gain, my white horse was restored to me, which was signified by the argument of my servant Candidus.17
In accordance with the classical view of dream interpretation, Candidus is seen as the servant that had been announced. The rest of the dream is not interpreted, as for Apuleius-Lucius only the synchronistic event is important; for he takes it as a “sign” that the goddess is looking after him and that he is on the right path. One could say more about this dream, though I think that the old interpretation is valid on that level. For instance, the priest offers Lucius parts of a meal sent from Thessaly, the country of his mother, the place where he learned about witchcraft and became an ass. One could say: everything Lucius experienced hitherto was negative, but now a turning point has been reached, and he receives from the Mother Earth inner nourishment, which helps him find human contact again. All this announces the transformation of his negative mother complex. From Thessaly now comes the possibility of relatedness, communion, and nourishment from the unconscious, and finally Lucius even finds his white horse again.
We said in the beginning that the horse belongs mythologically to the sun hero, it represents that aspect of our libido which carries us towards the spiritual and not the chthonic. Lucius had lost his light horse a long time ago and moved completely into the darkness. Now the light and a movement towards consciousness, which had been denied, comes back. Candidus in Latin means “white,” innocent in the sense of being uncomplicated and spontaneous, the virginal white. One could say therefore that Lucius returns to an unsophisticated, spontaneous attitude. Most neurotics, especially men with a negative mother complex, have great difficulty being spontaneous, as their feeling is hurt and sensitive. Such a man does not dare to be open, for he fears in every woman the “terrible mother.” If he assumes an innocent, spontaneous, and candid attitude, any woman can hurt him. We can conclude from this that Lucius discovers again his feeling and idealistic side, previously so badly hurt by the negative mother and lost in the moment of invasion by darkness, and that this innocence has been found in a new form.
We can assume that his most pure and spontaneous feelings now belong to the mystery cult of Isis, where his heart can come alive again. The white garment which he receives at the transformation would indicate this. The white garment was also used by Christians at baptism to illustrate the new attitude where all sinfulness fell off and a new beginning could be made. The Christian interpretation was more connected with the idea of ethics and sin. But one could say that any kind of unconscious contamination means not being at one with and true to oneself. When one is true to oneself one finds a new attitude and a new impulse towards life, a return to spontaneity and naturalness. The dream shows us that Thessaly, where Lucius was bewitched, now stands for something positive. It is the archetype of the mother which after all the developments now shows its other side. Seen in this light, even the two witches who murdered Socrates at the beginning of the story were a form of the goddess Isis.
It is the great goddess under her double aspect who dominates the life of Lucius. After the negative form of the arche-type had been exhausted, the enantiodromia to the positive aspect has set in.
Lucius grows very impatient while waiting to become one of Isis’s initiates, but the text says that the priest checks him, speaking to him in a friendly way, “just as parents reply to the immature wishes of their children.” (One can compare this to the behavior of patients who, after three weeks of analysis, want to become analysts themselves!) But the priest advises him to be patient:
But he, which was a man of gravity and well-renowned in the order of priesthood, very gently and kindly deferred my affection from day to day with comfort of better hope, as parents commonly bridle the desires of their children when they attempt or endeavor any unprofitable thing, saying that the day when any one should be admitted into their order is appointed by the Goddess, the priest which should minister the sacrifice is chosen by her providence, and the necessary charge of the ceremonies is allotted by her commandment; all of which things he willed me to attend with marvellous patience; and that I should beware both of too much forwardness, and of stubborn obstinacy, avoiding either danger, that if being called I should delay, or not called I should be hasty.18
All haste, the priest tells him, is dangerous:
. . . considering that it was in her power both to damn and to save all persons, and that the taking of such orders was like to a voluntary death and a difficult recovery to health.19
Later Lucius has another dream informing him about the day and the place of the initiation, as well as the name of the initiator, the great priest Mithras, because he “is related to him through a divine conjunction of stars.” In the morning, when Lucius relates his dream to his priest, he finds out that the priest himself has also been told in a dream that he should be the initiator, and all is arranged for the ceremony.
That the priest is called “Mithras”20 and that there is an accordance in the horoscopes of both, points to a psychological “kinship,” just as there often exists an alchemical “affinity” or soul kinship between analyst and analysand, so that the right relationship establishes itself. One would not want to analyze a person one found revolting, although if there is a very negative feeling perhaps there is also a kinship.
Lucius is instructed from the holy texts, some of which are in hieroglyphs drawn in a spiral. Such drawings of texts written in a circular manner exist and are also to be found in some early alchemical texts. The writing begins at the outer end of the spiral and moves towards the center. Alchemical prescriptions and magic formulas were sometimes written in such a mandala form, which shows once again the close relationship between alchemy and the mystery cults. Again Lucius-Apuleius says almost nothing of the content of these instructions, remembering the respect due to the mysteries:
I would tell thee if it were lawful for me to tell, thou wouldest know if it were convenient for thee to hear; but both thy ears and my tongue should incur the like pain of rash curiosity.21
Even in cases of Christian propaganda against the mysteries, the real contents were never given away, which shows how numinous they were, for even where the initiate turned later to another religion, they had been so deeply touched that they could not betray the mystery. Only a few meager references were made to the mysteries by the early Christian Fathers. Lucius himself says:
I approached near unto hell, even to the gates of Proserpine, and after that I was ravished throughout all the elements, I returned to my proper place: about midnight I saw the sun brightly shine, I saw likewise the gods celestial and the gods infernal, before whom I presented myself and worship
ped them.22
That is all we know about this part of the initiation: a vision of the midnight sun, in other words, an illumination that comes from below, and the realization of the upper and lower gods. According to Egyptian cosmography, Ra crosses the heavens in daytime and then goes down over the West. During the night he sails by boat through the underworld. The god Seth kills the Apophis snake every night, then Ra reappears as Khepera, the scarab, in the East, after which begins again his daily journey across the sky.
In a funerary text, Isis is called “mistress of light in the realm of darkness.”23 Initiations into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris were underworld cults with a chthonic aspect; therefore Lucius worships the midnight sun. The initiation is a descent to the underworld and an illumination by a principle of consciousness which comes from the unconscious, in contrast to the doctrines of collective consciousness. (You can be illuminated by the latter, but that would be the sunshine of the day.) Lucius experiences this in some kind of symbolic form, and worships all the gods according to the different hours of the day and the night which are the various personifications of the sun god. The initiate goes through the whole night, and then:
When morning came and that the solemnities were finished, I came forth sanctified with twelve stoles and in a religious habit, whereof I am not forbidden to speak, considering that many persons saw me at that time. There I was commanded to stand upon a pulpit of wood which stood in the middle of the temple, before the figure and remembrance of the Goddess; my vestment was of fine linen, covered and embroidered with flowers; I had a precious cape upon my shoulders, hanging down behind me to the ground, whereon were beasts wrought of divers colours, as Indian dragons, and Hyperborean griffins, whom in form of birds the other part of the world doth engender: the priests commonly call such a habit an Olympian stole. In my right hand I carried a lighted torch, and a garland of flowers was upon my head, with white palm-leaves sprouting out on every side like rays; thus I was adorned like unto the sun, and made in fashion of an image, when the curtains were drawn aside and all the people compassed about to behold me. Then they began to solemnise the feast, the nativity of my holy order, with sumptuous banquets and pleasant meats.24
This ending indicates that, during his initiation, Lucius has not only gone the way of the sun god, but that he has been assimilated into the Sun at the end. In the morning he has himself become the new sun god. This was also practiced in the Mithraic mysteries, and is connected with the famous solificatio to which the alchemical texts allude.25 In these, the moment of realization of the work is often described as the appearance of the sun rising over the horizon, signifying that a new form of consciousness is born after a descent into the unconscious. Psychologically, the solificatio corresponds to the completion of the individuation process.
Later, having said his farewells to the great priest Mithra, “his father,” Lucius returns to Rome:
I departed from him straight to visit my parents and friends, after that I had been so long absent. And so within a short while after, by the exhortation of the Goddess I made up my packet and took shipping towards the city of Rome. . . . And the greatest desire which I had there was daily to make my prayers to the sovereign Goddess Isis, who, by reason of the place where her temple was builded, was called Campensis, and continually is adored of the people of Rome. When now the sun had passed through all the signs of heaven and the year was ended, and that the Goddess warned me again in my sleep to receive a new order and consecration, I marvelled greatly what it should signify and what should happen, considering that I was most fully an initiate and sacred person already. But it fortuned that while I partly reasoned with myself, and partly examined the perplexity of my conscience with the priests and bishops, there came a new and marvellous thought to my mind: that is to say, that I was only religious to the Goddess Isis, but not yet sacred to the religion of great Osiris, the sovereign father of the gods.26
We have seen that Osiris, after having gone through the underworld, in the end rises over the horizon as an immortal star, and is assimilated into the new sun god. This is the path followed by all initiates into the mysteries. In some form every dead person was assimilated to this total cosmic god.
Christianity teaches the transformation of man into an immortal being after death and the last judgment. Thus immortality is a hope, or a promise, and hence a content of faith. In the antique mystery cults, on the contrary, there was a kind of symbolic ritual, which was supposed to bring about this transformation into immortality while one was still in the earthly life. The same idea existed also in alchemy, where the texts frequently said that the production of the “stone of the philosophers” meant at the same time producing the incorruptible body of resurrection. According to the Christian idea, at the last judgment we are supposed to be recreated in a new form and enter eternal life; the alchemists, on the other hand, thought of it as an inner experience which happened during one’s life time; the immortal or glorified body should be produced through meditation or through an alchemical process, just as the “diamond body” is created in this life, according to the Eastern cultures. Out of the mortal body, an immortal nucleus is extracted with a breathlike quality. The same idea lives in the antique mystery cults: the eternal personality is already established in this life and is not projected into a postmortal sphere.
Unfortunately, I am not able to go into the whole problem of alchemy, which I should since it is here that alchemy begins. Alchemy contained the germs of ideas which the Christian doctrine rejected but which reappeared in the Renaissance and even earlier in the Arabic sphere. They appeared also in some movements in Western civilization which repenetrated Europe at the time of the Crusades when the Templars got in touch with Arabic traditions. Also, in the legends of the Holy Grail, the Arab and antique mystery symbolism survived to a great extent and suddenly came up again at the time of the Crusades; but it was never officially recognized by the Church.
Afterward, Apuleius-Lucius returns to Rome and lives a normal profane life until another dream heralds that now he should be initiated into the mystery cult of Osiris. At first he is surprised, because he had thought that they were the same as the Isis mysteries, but the dreams say that there are even higher regions, which he does not yet know. Everything happens as it did the first time:
. . . for in the night after appeared unto me one of that order, covered with linen robes, holding in his hands spears wrapped in ivy, and other things not convenient to declare, which he left in my chamber, and sitting in my seat, recited to me such things as were necessary for the sumptuous banquet of my religious entry. And to the end I might know him again, he shewed me a certain sign, to wit, how the heel of his left foot was somewhat maimed, which caused him a little to halt. After that I did manifestly thus know the will of the gods, and all shadow of doubtfulness was taken away, when matins was ended I went diligently from one to another to find if there were any of the priests which had the halting mark of his foot, according as I learned by my vision. At length I found it true; for I perceived one of the company of the Pastophores who had not only the token of his foot but the stature and habit of his body resembling in every point as he appeared in the night, and he was called Asinius Marcellus, a name not much disagreeing from my transformation. By and by I went to him, which knew well enough all the matter, as being admonished by like percept to give me the orders; for it seemed to him the night before, as he dressed the flowers and garlands about the head of the great god Osiris, he understood by the mouth of his image, which told the predestinations of all men, how he did send to him a certain poor man of Madaura, to whom he should straight away minister his sacraments, whereby through his divine providence the one should receive glory for his virtuous studies, and the other, being the priest himself, a great reward. When I saw myself thus deputed and promised unto religion, my desire was stopped by reason of poverty; for I had spent a great part of my patrimony, which was not very large, in travel and peregrinations, but most of all my charge
s in the city of Rome were by far greater than in the provinces. Thereby my low estate withdrew me a great while, so that I was in much distress betwixt the victim and the knife (as the old proverb hath it), and yet I was not seldom urged and pressed on by that same god. In the end, being oftentimes stirred forward and at last commanded, and not without great trouble of mind, I was constrained to sell my poor robe for a little money; howbeit, I scraped up sufficient for all my affairs.27
This time Lucius is not only called to be an initiate of Osiris, but also one of his priests, a pastophore. Pastophoroi were the priests who carried the holy barges in the procession. Osiris appeared to him in a dream summoning him to be his priest:
Not very much after I was again called and admonished by the marvellous commands of gods, which I did very little expect, to receive a third order of religion. Then I was greatly astonished, and I pondered doubtfully in my mind, because I could not tell what this new vision signified, or what the intent of the celestial gods was, or how anything could remain yet lacking, seeing that twice already I had entered the holy orders.
After this sort the divine majesty persuaded me in my sleep what should be to my profit. Whereupon I forgot not nor delayed the matter at all, but by and by I went towards the priest and declared all that which I had seen.28
Lucius, having made ritual preparation for his ordination, adds:
And verily I did nothing repent of the pain which I had taken and of the charges which I was at, considering that the divine providence had given me such an order that I gained much money in pleading of causes. Finally after a few days the great god Osiris appeared in my sleep, which is the more powerful god of the great gods, the highest of the greater, the greatest of the highest, and the ruler of the greatest, to me in me in the night, not disguised in any other form, but in his own essence and speaking to me with his own venerable voice, commanding me that I should not get me great glory by being an advocate in the court, and that I should not fear the slander and envy of ill persons, which bare me stomach and grudge by reason of my doctrine which I had gotten by much labour. Moreover, he would not that I should serve his mysteries mixed with the rest of the number of his priests, but he chose me to enter the college of the Pastophores, nay he allotted me to be one of his decurions and quinquennial priests: wherefore I executed mine office in great joy with a shaven crown in that most ancient college which was set up in the time of Sylla. . . .29