Parsifal’s fame has come back to Arthur’s court and the King sets out to find this great hero in his land. Parsifal is the greatest knight in the world, just as the maiden who had not laughed for seven years indicated. Arthur vows not to sleep two nights in the same bed until he has found this wonderful hero, the flower of his realm.
A curious experience comes to Parsifal just at this moment. He is wandering about on his knight’s journey when a falcon attacks three geese in the air. Three drops of blood from one of them falls onto the snow near Parsifal and he drifts into a lover’s trance at the sight. He is transfixed by the three drops of blood and can think of nothing but Blanche Fleur. King Arthur’s men find him in this immobile state and two of them try to lead him to Arthur’s court. He fights them off, breaking the arm of one; he is the knight who had jeered when the maiden laughed in Arthur’s court. Parsifal had vowed to avenge her for this scorn. This vow is now completed.
Gawain, a third knight, asks Parsifal gently and humbly if he will come to Arthur’s court and Parsifal agrees.
In another version of the story, the sun melts the snow and obliterates two of the drops of blood relieving Parsifal of the spell so that he can function again. It is possible that Parsifal would still be there in his lover’s trance if the sun had not reduced the three drops of blood to one or if Gawain had not rescued him.
Curious symbolism is at work in this part of the story. When dreams or myth make much point of numbers it is certain that very deep parts of the collective unconscious are at work. Do you remember the great emphasis on four in the Grail castle? Here it is the number three which is highly accentuated. Four seems to be the language of the collective unconscious for peace, wholeness, completion, tranquility. Three is the symbol for urgency, incompleteness, restlessness, striving, accomplishment. Parsifal, having been profoundly touched by the fourness of the Grail castle now must cope with the threeness of here-and-now life. His loves, the knightly quest, his place in Arthur’s court—these here-and-now things claim him. No one can make his way back to the Grail castle until he has made his way through the human dimensions of life.
An awkward time comes when life is dominated by three; it must be reduced to one or increased to four. Three, or that consciousness represented by three, can not long be endured in its intensity and drivenness. If one finds himself in a paralyzing dilemma, he must make the forward thrust to attain an enlightened place of insight, the fourness, or else reduce his consciousness just to survive.
Dr. Jung spent much of his later years working at the symbolism of three and four. He felt that mankind was just evolving from that stage of consciousness represented by three to that represented by four. In 1948 and 1949 he was jubilant at the new dogma of the Catholic church which placed the Virgin Mary with the Trinity, all masculine figures, in Heaven. He felt that this completed an earlier, incomplete stage of development that had brought so much unrest and conflict to the western world. The symbol precedes the fact by many years, which indicates that the possibility is now open to us; but the work is not yet done. Dr. Jung felt that the work of a truly modern person was to make the expansion of consciousness represented by the evolution from three to four—from the consciousness devoted to doing, working, accomplishing, progressing to that characterized by peace, tranquility, existential being. The heart of the matter is that four can contain three, but three can not contain four. A person of the high consciousness of four is capable of all the practicalities of life but is not bound by them. A person of the world of three is not capable of appreciating the elements associated with the number four.
We are apparently in an age where the consciousness of man is advancing from a trinitarian to a quaternarian view. This is one possible and profound way of appraising the extreme chaos our world is now in. One hears many dreams of modern people, who know nothing consciously of this number symbolism, dreaming of three turning into four. This suggests we are going through an evolution of consciousness from the nice orderly all-masculine concept of reality, the trinitarian view of God, toward a quaternarian view that includes the feminine as well as other elements that are difficult to include if one insists on the old values.
It seems that it is the purpose of evolution now to replace an image of perfection with the concept of completeness or wholeness. Perfection suggests something all pure, with no blemishes, dark spots or questionable areas. Wholeness includes the darkness but combines it with the light elements into a totality more real and whole than any ideal. This is an awesome task, and the question before us is whether mankind is capable of this effort and growth. Ready or not, we are in that process.
The year of Mary has come and gone and has mostly been forgotten and seems to have had little immediate effect on our lives. But if we can view this extraordinary event in the right way it will have a profound effect on theology and upon our everyday lives.
When the fourth element is given dignity and honor it is no longer the adversary; it is only when we exclude a psychological truth that it becomes negative or destructive. An element showing its evil side needs only consciousness to give it a useful place in our structure.
Man has often seen the dark side of himself as feminine and, pushing it even further away, has turned it into the witch. Much of the darkness of the rejected element during the Middle Ages was feminine—hence the burning of witches at the stake. These were not a few isolated occurrences that gained unwarranted publicity; it has been estimated that more than four million women were burned at the stake during the height of the counterreformation in Europe. Now, it is a formidable task to incorporate into our personality those elements that were seen to be so dark only a short time ago; to retrieve so dark an element is a dangerous operation. If one has antagonized the wolf at the door he does not suddenly open the door and say, “Now come in.”
The Hideous Damsel
Parsifal has conquered so many knights and sent them to Arthur’s Court that he has grown famous in the Arthurian world. Now Arthur and his court set forth to find this elusive man of power and search the countryside for him. They find Parsifal one day, set him at the head of the court, and declare a three day festival and tournament in his honor. Parsifal certainly has earned this honor but unwittingly blunders into its inevitable consequence. How many times Parsifal blunders! It is extremely reassuring to see that it is often in his blunders that he finds the next stage of his development. If it were not for this benevolent fact all the Parsifals of the world would have fallen off the edge of the flat world and vanished into the oblivion they deserve. Don Quixote, the archfool of all time, makes his sublime journey entirely by way of nonsense.
At the very height of the three-day festivities a most hideous damsel appears and puts an instant damper on all the celebration. She is on a decrepit old mule that limped on all four feet. The damsel’s black hair was tressed in two braids, “iron dark were her hands and nails.” Her closed eyes “small like a rat’s.” Her “nose like an ape and cat.” Her “lips like an ass and bull.” “Bearded was she, humpedbreast and back, her loins and shoulders twisted like roots of a tree.” Never in royal court was such a damsel seen.
Her mission is to present the other side of the coin at the festival, a task she accomplishes with genius. She recites all Parsifal’s sins and stupidities, the worst being his failure to ask the healing question in the Grail castle. Parsifal is humbled and left silent before the court that only a moment before had been praising him to the sky.
With the certainty of sunset the Hideous Damsel will walk into a man’s life just when he has reached the apex of his accomplishment.
There is some strange correlation between the achievement of a man and the power of the Hideous Damsel in his life. The greater the height, the greater his capacity for suffering and humiliation seems: the amount of fame and adulation one gets in the outer world seems to determine the sense of failure and meaninglessness he will find at the hands of the Hideous Damsel. One would guess that accomplishment would be the
surest protection against meaninglessness, but this is not so. It is the accomplished man who is most capable of asking unanswerable questions about his worth and the meaning of his life. This questioning, often called the “dark night of the soul” in medieval theology, has an uncanny way of claiming one at two or three o’clock in the morning. Someone observed darkly that it is always two A.M. when one is in the “dark night of the soul.”
The Hideous Damsel is the carrier of doubt and despair, the destroying, spoiling quality that visits any intelligent man at mid-life. The savor of life has gone; unanswerable questions torment him. “What is the use of going to the office? What difference does it make? What good is it? Why?” Woman pleases him no more, his children are either difficult or gone, vacations don’t work any more. Just when he begins to have the time and means for the pleasurable things of life they are no longer meaningful. This is the work of the Hideous Damsel.
There is a great urge in a man at this stage of his life to try to find a new Fair Damsel as protection from the Hideous Damsel; but unless he comes to terms with the dark element first, no old or new damsel of any description will save him from this dark time of his life.
It is genius in a woman if she can be quiet in the presence of her man when he is going through this dark time. This protects her from the projection of the Hideous Damsel that the man would be only too happy to put upon her. A quiet kind of “being there” is the greatest gift a woman can give at this time.
In our tranquilizer age it is the general opinion that the Hideous Damsel time should be avoided and treated as an illness to be cured. To banish her darkness is to sterilize one’s chance at the evolution she brings.
This harbinger of darkness accomplishes a profoundly important act of individuation in the court. She parcels out tasks to each of the knights present, each task an individual quest for each knight. Before this moment in evolution all tasks were communal tasks, that is, knights went out in groups or at least in pairs to fight a dragon or lift a siege from a castle. After the visit of the Hideous Damsel all tasks are individual and unique. Each knight has to go alone, find his own path, make a solitary battle in his quest. Collective or group solutions to problems cease here. This change in basic attitude is the only workable answer to the despair brought by the Hideous Damsel. When a man knows that he is alone, unique and on a solitary quest he will be out of that dark time of the Hideous Damsel. All psychological suffering (or happiness, taken in its usual sense) is a matter of comparison. When one accepts the solitariness of his journey there is no comparison possible and he is in that existential world where things simply “are.” In this realm there is no happiness or unhappiness in the usual sense but only that state of being that is correctly called Ecstasy. It is bitter on the tongue to admit that this is the gift of the Hideous Damsel but there is no other carrier of so sublime a gift. Perhaps this was known to the author of the medieval statement that “Suffering is the swiftest steed to redemption.”
To honor the Hideous Damsel and accept her new view of the nature of the quest is to embark on the second half of one’s life.
From the Hideous Damsel Parsifal learns that his task in this new dispensation is to find the Grail castle a second time. He vows he will not sleep twice in the same bed until he finds the visionary world again.
The Hideous Damsel reminds the court that the search for the Grail requires chastity of the knights, and then she limps off, her task accomplished.
For the hundredth time I remind you that the chastity required for this journey has nothing to do with one’s conduct with flesh-and-blood women—which has its own laws and requires its own intelligence. The chastity required of a man in this quest is that he neither seduce nor be seduced by the inner woman in terms of mood or anima. All the knights except Parsifal (and Galahad in the English version of the grail Legend) fail in their quest. This is to say that there will be many failures in one’s life quest but it is absolutely necessary that consciousness (Parsifal) stay true to the quest. Perfection or a good score is not required; but consciousness is.
The Long Quest
Parsifal spends many years, most of the legends say twenty, on his knightly adventures. He grows more bitter, more disillusioned; he grows farther away from his beloved Blanche Fleur; he forgets why he wields his sword in his knight’s journey. He functions with less and less understanding and joy.
These are the dry years of a man’s middle age. He knows less and less why he is functioning and is apt to give an evasive answer when asked about the meaning of his life.
Parsifal comes upon a band of ragged pilgrims who are wandering on the road. They say to him, “What are you doing riding in full armor on this, the day of the death of our Lord? Don’t you know it is Good Friday? Come with us to the forest hermit, say your confession, and be shriven in preparation for Easter Sunday.” Parsifal is suddenly wakened from his dark reverie, and, more from inertia than inspiration, goes with the pilgrims to the old hermit.
THE HERMIT WITHIN
The hermit is the highly introverted part of one’s nature that has been waiting and storing energy in a far off corner waiting for this very moment. Extroversion is the usual dominant of the first half of one’s life and that is correct. But when one’s extroversion has run its race and taken one on that very valuable part of life journey—then one must consult the hermit deep inside for the next step. We do this very badly in our culture and few people know how to draw upon the genius of their introvert nature for the next step. It frequently happens to a modern person that he is forced into his introversion by an illness or accident or paralyzing symptom of some other kind. The hermit is a noble figure and will serve you well if you can go to him in honor and dignity. There is little dignity left if one is dragged into his realm by accident or illness; but one way or another he will have you sometime about the middle of your journey—dignity or no dignity.
To do justice to the hermit, we must speak at least briefly about those whose hermit nature has been so strong that it is the dominant feature of their personality. These few people, born hermits (highly introverted souls), must remain in the forest (symbolically speaking) in solitude, storing up energy so that they may serve mankind when their quality is crucial and of the highest value. There are few Red Knight victories for these persons and they know little of the laurel leaves of victory. Such people receive very little encouragement or reinforcement these days and they often have a lonely and solitary life to lead. But a day comes when their genius is absolutely necessary to make a transition to another stage of life—for themselves or for someone in their environment. Just to know of this validity is a safeguard for such a person. Please be good to your own hermit quality or the born hermit in your circle of friends. If you have a born hermit as a son, don’t push him into Red Knight experiences but let him find his own forest way.
When Parsifal is with the hermit he finds another experience much like his exchange with the Hideous Damsel. Before Parsifal speaks a word, the old hermit, with his clairvoyant quality, berates him with the long list of his faults and failures. Again, the worst was his failure to ask the healing question when he was in the Grail castle.
The hermit quickly grows gentle with Parsifal and takes him to the road with the instruction to go a short way, turn left, and cross the drawbridge. The Grail castle is always that close, but it is generally at mid-adolescence or middle age that it easily opens to one.
Here the great French poem by Crétien stops! Some guess that he died at this point or that some of the manuscript was lost. I think it is more likely that the author stopped at this point because he had no more to say. That great story from the collective unconscious had gone thus far in its evolution and the author had the humility to stop when he had no more to say. I think the myth has proceeded little further, collectively speaking, to this very day. It is an unfinished story within us, full of power, and begs for further work. If you wish for a true knight’s task, take up the story inside yourself where it now
lies unfinished and proceed with it. Truly, everyone is Parsifal and his journey is one’s own journey.
Other authors have tried to finish the story with indifferent success. We can take up one such continuation and carry Parsifal to his second visit to the Grail castle.
The Grail castle is always just down the road and a turn to the left. If anyone is humble enough and of good heart, he can find that interior castle. Parsifal has had the arrogance beaten out of him by twenty years of fruitless searching, and he is now ready for his castle.
THE SECOND GRAIL CASTLE
Just down the road, turn left, and cross the drawbridge, which snaps closed ticking the back hooves of your horse. It is always dangerous to make the transition of levels that entry to the Grail castle involves.
Parsifal finds the same ceremonial procession going on; a fair damsel carries the sword that pierced the side of Christ, another damsel carries the paten from which the last supper was served, yet another maiden bears the Grail itself. The wounded Fisher King lies groaning on his litter, poised between life and death in his suffering.
Now, wonder of wonders, with twenty years of maturity and experience behind him, Parsifal asks the question which is his greatest contribution to mankind: Whom does the Grail serve?
What a strange question! Hardly comprehensible to modern ears! In essence the question is the most profound question one can ask: where is the center of gravity of a human personality; or where is the center of meaning in a human life? Most modern people, asked this question in understandable terms for our time, would reply that I am the center of gravity; I work to improve my life; I am working toward my goals; I am increasing my equity; I am making something of myself—or most common of all—I am searching for happiness, which is to say that I want the Grail to serve me. We ask this great cornucopia of nature, this great feminine outpouring of all the material of the world—the air, the sea, the animals, the oil, the forests, and all the productivity of the world—we ask that it should serve us. But no sooner is the question asked than the answer comes reverberating through the Grail castle halls—the Grail serves the Grail King. Again, a puzzling answer. Translated, this means that life serves what a Christian would call God, Jung calls the Self, or and we call by the many terms we have devised to indicate that which is greater than ourselves.
He Page 5
