Chapter 3 Goddess of Intuitive and Psychic Wisdom Hecate at the Fork in the Road

From the book "Goddesses in Older Women."  Copyright © 2001 by Jean Shinoda Bolen.  Published by HarperCollins e-books.  Mobipocket Reader February 2008.

Part 1  Her Name Is Wisdom

What does it mean to be an elder in this culture?  What are my new responsibilities?  What has to be let go to make room for the transformations of energy that are ready to pour through the body-soul?
---Marion Woodman

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Chapter 3  Goddess of Intuitive and Psychic Wisdom  Hecate at the Fork in the Road

In Greek mythology, Hecate was the goddess of the crossroads who could see three ways at once.  When you arrive at a fork in the road, she is there.  She can see where you are coming from, and where each of the two paths at the crossroad might take you.  If you are someone who pays attention to dreams and synchronicities, draws upon a store of past experiences and uses intuition to decide which direction to take, you know this archetype.

Hecate is a goddess of intuition.  Her three-way perspective allows her to see the connection between past, present, and future.  This ability to see patterns that link past situations or relationships and present circumstances is an intuitive way of perception.  Seeing how a situation evolved---or where someone is coming from---is not uncanny or mysterious to an intuitive person.  At significant junctures, Hecate is silently present as an inner witness.  Hers is wisdom learned from experience; she is what makes us grow wiser as we grow older.  At significant forks in the road, she recalls the shape of the past, honestly sees the present, and has a sense of what lies ahead at a soul level.  She does not make your choices, nor judge you.  To know her wisdom, you must come to a stop and consult her.  You must listen to what she says in the voice of your own intuition.

Sometimes in life something happens and you know that nothing in your life will be the same again.  You know it is no longer an option to go on as before, but you are not sure what to do.  A younger you might have responded impulsively by letting your emotions carry you away without much thought or consideration.  Those same emotions may arise, but a maturity (often having to do with being responsible for others) stops you from acting on them.  You know that whatever you decide to do here matters.  It is time to call on Hecate to help you see the larger picture, to stay at the crossroad until it is clear to you which path to take. 

You may find yourself at a significant fork in the road not because of some external event, but because your psyche is urging you to make changes.  It's not uncommon for the focus---or archetypal direction---that a woman has had for decades to shift as a woman enters the third phase of her life.  If you feel that you have reached a point where whatever you are doing no longer holds much interest, you are at a crossroad with Hecate.

Hecate is the goddess at the threshold of major transitions.  She is embodied by the midwife who assists at births, and by women who help ease the passage of the soul as it leaves the body at death.  Metaphorically, Hecate is an inner midwife, whose perspective aids us when we birth new aspects of ourselves.  She helps us let go of what is ready to die: outmoded attitudes, outgrown roles, whatever elements in our lives are no longer life-affirming.

Hecate can be found at the threshold between old and new millennia.  We anticipate the possibility of a new age for humanity, but until we arrive there, we are betwixt and between---in a 'liminal' time (from the Latin word for "threshold") where a shimmering potential has not yet become solid.  At the beginning of the twenty-first century, humanity is at a critical juncture where change is needed to avert turning where we live---from neighborhoods to the planet---into a wasteland.  Many women enter the crone phase with some sense of wanting to make a difference, or have an urge to "give back" in appreciation of opportunities that feminism provided them and first-hand experience that it is possible to bring about change.  Women born just before, during, and in the first decade after World War II were in a movement that was peaceful and yet revolutionary in its influence.

Hecate is at the crux of the situation when a woman enters the third phase of her life and heeds a pull inward.  She appears indecisive or as if her energy is lying fallow, when she is in this liminal (from Latin limen, limin- ‘threshold’) phase.  If she stays at the crossroad until she intuitively knows what direction to take, she emerges renewed and replenished.

Hecate the Goddess

Even if you took a course in Greek mythology or have a current interest in the gods and goddesses as archetypes, at best Hecate is a vague figure.  She is mentioned as accompanying Demeter in the story of the abduction of Persephone, depicted as the third and least important goddess.  Hecate is invariably the crone (an old woman) goddess when classical mythology describes goddesses in threesomes; a pattern derived from the unacknowledged triple goddess of pre-Olympian times.  Besides Persephone the maiden, Demeter the mother, and Hecate the crone, there were three goddesses who personified the phases of the moon: Artemis, goddess of the waxing moon; Selene, goddess of the full moon; and Hecate, goddess of the waning and dark moon.  A third triad was Hebe the maiden, a cupbearer of the gods; Hera, the goddess of marriage; and Hecate, the goddess of the crossroads.  Women who saw themselves in the archetypes of Persephone, Demeter, Artemis, or Hera in the book, Goddesses in Everywoman, may realize that by the third phase of their lives, the paths converge in the wise woman archetype of Hecate.

Metaphorically and mythologically, she is dimly seen.  She is associated with the underworld but did not reside there.  Her time was twilight.  Offerings---"Hecate suppers"---were left for her at crossroads, usually when the moon was dark, sometimes when it was full.  In later times, when women were feared as witches, Hecate was called a queen of the witches or queen of the ghostworld, and seen as a diabolical figure.  The poet Sappho called her queen of the night.

Her mythological origins are unclear, with discrepancies in the few accounts of her genealogical tree.  Usually she is described as a Titan, who remained a goddess after these earlier divinities were defeated by Zeus and the Olympians.  Hesiod, in "Theogony" (about 700 B.C.E.), said that her name means "she who has power far off" and that she was honored more highly than other divinities and given power over land, sea, and sky by Zeus.  These were realms clearly divided among and ruled over by male divinities, thus for Hecate to be accorded "power over" them must not have been the same as ruling over a domain.  This may have had to do with a psychic ability or clairvoyance.  It also may have acknowledged another once valued aspect attributed to her, that of goddess of magic and divination.

Hecate is described as a moon goddess who wears a gleaming headdress or a headband of stars, and holds flaming torches in each hand.  She was thought to walk the roads of ancient Greece accompanied by her black hounds.  She was an invisible presence at the three-way crossroad, or materialized in the form of a pillar or Hecterion, a statue with three faces that looked in the three directions.  Over time, as she was denigrated, Hecate became transformed into the goddess of trivia (from the Latin word 'trivia'---three ways---which meant "crossroads").

Demetra George in 'Mysteries of the Dark Moon' describes an ancient image of Hecate, depicting her with three heads and three pairs of arms.  She carries three torches and a key, a rope, and a dagger.  Her torches allow her to see in the dark, the key unlocks the secrets of the occult or hidden mysteries and knowledge of the afterlife; the rope is a symbol of the umbilical cord of rebirth, the knife, which became a symbol of ritual power, the power to cut through delusions.

Greek divinities were linked with animals who were sacred to them or had their characteristics and became symbols of them.  The dog was Hecate's primary symbolic animal. 

pick up again on p. 49:

Descents Into the Underworld and the Acquisition of Wisdom

The story of the rape or abduction of Persephone is told in the Homeric "Hymn to Demeter."  The maiden Persephone was gathering flowers in the meadow.  Attracted to a particularly beautiful, large bloom, she left her companions in order to pick it.  As she reached for it, the earth opened up before her.  Out of a deep, dark vent in the earth, Hades the Lord of the Underworld emerged in his black chariot drawn by his black horses, abducted her as she screamed in terror, and took her with him back into the underworld.  When Persephone disappeared from the meadow, her mother, Demeter, searched the entire world for her, to no avail.

Finally, after nine days and nights, Demeter returned, defeated and in grief, to the meadow.  There Hecate came to her, saying that though she could not see what had happened, she had heard Persephone's screams.  Hecate suggested that they seek information from the god of the sun, who was overhead when Persephone disappeared.  He could tell them what had happened.  Accompanied by Hecate, Demeter now hears the truth: Persephone was abducted by Hades, with Zeus's permission.

Hecate is not mentioned again in the myth, until Persephone returns from the underworld and is reunited with Demeter.  Hecate greets Persephone with much affection, followed by a cryptic line that reads, "And from that day on that lady precedes and follows Persephone."

For Hecate to precede and follow Persephone would be impossible physically.  It suggests that Persephone would now be accompanied by a spirit or consciousness that she acquired upon her return from the underworld.  The story of the rape of Persephone and her abduction into the underworld applies to everyone.  We've all had periods when we were Persephone gathering flowers in the meadow, when all was well.  Then the unexpected happened, and we were terrified as our secure world was violated by a sudden loss.  It could be a betrayal and the end of a relationship, a death, the onset of an illness, financial loss, or an end of innocence.  If we are plunged into the dark world of hopelessness, depression, or despair, or into cynicism, bitterness, or revenge, we are for a time held captive in the underworld, wondering if we will ever return.

If you return from your own descents into the underworld, you have learned that love and suffering are parts of life.  By making it through the hard times, you grow in depth and wisdom.  A wise Hecate then becomes an inner companion.  Women friends or women in support groups gain this perspective by listening, and witnessing, and caring about each other as well.

Hecate consoled Demeter in her grief and loss but she was more than a comforter and a witness.  She suggested that they seek information from the god of the sun who saw what happened to Persephone.  Hecate's counsel was to 'seek the truth.'  She accompanied Demeter and was with her when Demeter learned that Persephone was abducted by Hades.  The god of the sun urged her to accommodate and accept Hades as, after all, he was an Olympian like herself, and thus would not make a bad son-in-law.  When Demeter heard this, and that it was done with Zeus's permission, her grief turned to anger.  She decided to leave Olympus and, in disguise, wander among people, and her determination eventually led to Persephone's return.

People may think that they cannot face what is true, and so they adapt, often by keeping the truth at a distance through rationalization, denial, or addictions that serve to numb us to the truth.  Only when a woman has learned from experience that reality can be faced, is she a wise-woman like Hecate.

A Hecate Meditation/Active Imagination

Ask yourself: "What have I learned about life from my own experience?" and "What truth do I need to face?"  Answers are likely to come when you really want to know and are receptive.  They may come into your mind if you are quiet and wait.

Or you might visualize Hecate and ask her these questions.

Hecate the Witness

Hecate is a witness within us at every juncture, even if the ego denies, represses, distorts, and cannot acknowledge what is happening.  This observer makes connections and speaks to us in the symbolic language of dreams.  Dreams come to you in the half-light, they are liminal messages that come from the dreaming unconscious and require conscious effort to grasp and remember, just as the insights that could illuminate a painful emotional situation also come and will recede and be forgotten unless you pay attention and learn.

As an archetypal figure, Hecate, too, can be ignored.  She can also become an observing part of your psyche that you draw upon daily.  Psychotherapists come to depend upon Hecate, and to some extent serve as embodiments of Hecate for their clients.  People are at a crossroad when they seek psychotherapy.  A therapist observes, hears, and bears witness to what is revealed.  Like Hecate was for Demeter, the therapist encourages the client to seek the truth of the situation, which includes her genuine feelings and perceptions that denial covers.  Hecate the witness is there when you pay attention to your dreams, heed your intuitive perceptions, or listen to an inner voice.  It's as if she accompanies us, holding up her torches so we can see in the dark.

People with multiple personalities reach Hecate's juncture each time a new personality emerges.  This disorder arises out of terrible abuse in childhood when the child learns to dissociate from pain and memories too awful to bear.  Multiples are usually unaware of the existence of other personalities in them, experience unaccountable lapses of time, and puzzling and distressing occurrences.  In the absence of a consistent "I" there is a hidden observer who functions like Hecate and bears witness to the "birth" of each personality.  Ralph Allison, M.D., a psychiatrist who worked with integrating multiples, called this part of the psyche the "inner self-helper."  Allison characterized the inner self-helper as androgynous, as feeling only love and goodwill, and knowing all of the personalities and the circumstances in the patient's life.  Allison and other clinicians have found that with the help of this inner witness, the many fragmentary personalities can become aware of each other, and eventually integrate into one personality.  The inner self-helper is another name for Hecate.

Unlike people with multiple personalities, we may not have amnesia and have chunks of time we cannot account for, and yet we, too, are "multiple selves."  Observing this in others is easy and begins in childhood, when we see how adults put on a "different face."  Seeing the "multiples" in ourselves is harder.  The compassionate gaze of Hecate the witness does not blame or shame anyone, and so does not foster defensiveness or denial.  Instead, she enables us to see ourselves, especially those parts that might otherwise be kept hidden.  While Hecate may develop early in a person's life or come into the foreground of the psyche when traumatic circumstances call her forth, Hecate usually grows in significance as we grow older and can see patterns and reflect upon events that have taken us unaware into dark places of depression, jealousy, vengefulness, or hopelessness.  The older we become, the more likely it is for us to know Hecate as a wise counselor who reminds us of lessons learned from experience.  In these ways, Hecate facilitates the integration of our multiple selves into becoming a consistent and authentic person.

* * * *

Chapter 2 Parsifal from the book "He : Understanding Masculine Psychology" by Robert A. Johnson

From "He : Understanding Masculine Psychology."  Copyright © 1989 by Robert A. Johnson.  Revised Edition.  Published by HarperCollins e-books.

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Chapter 2  Parsifal

The story now turns from the Fisher King and his wound to the story of a boy who is of so little consequence that he has no name.  He is born in Wales, during that time a country geographically on the fringe of the known world and a cultural backwater, the least likely place for a hero to appear and it reminds one of another Hero who was born in an unlikely place.  What good could come out of Nazareth?  Who would ever think of Wales as possibly producing an answer to our suffering?  Myth informs us that our redemption will come from the least likely place.  This reminds us again that it will be a humbling experience to find our redemption from the highly sophisticated wound of the Fisher King.  The origin of the word 'humble' traces back to 'humus'---it means of the earth, feminine, unsophisticated.  This reminds us of the biblical injunction, "Except ye become as a little child, ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

In his typology of the personality Dr. Jung observes that every educated person has one superior function of the four functions of feeling, thinking, sensing, and intuiting, which make up the human temperament.  Also as a part of our psychology there is an opposing inferior function.  While our superior function produces most of the high value of our life, the more developed personality strengths, it also leads us into  our Fisher King wound.  Our inferior function, that part of us which is least differentiated, will heal us from that wound.  So it is the innocent fool from Wales who will heal the Fisher King.

The boy is of such lowly origin that he has no name when we first meet him; later we will learn that his name is Parsifal---innocent fool.  The name also has a deeper meaning---he who draws the opposites together---and foretells his healing role, something like the meaning of the Chinese word, 'tao.'

Dr. Jung describes an occasion when he was forced to rely on just this faculty in himself.  The falling out between Jung and Freud occurred over the nature of the unconscious.  Freud said that the unconscious is the repository of all the inferior elements of the personality, the unvalued things of one's life.  Jung insisted that the unconscious is also the matrix, the artesian well from which all creativity springs.  Freud would have none of this, so the two parted.  That was a frightening experience for Dr. Jung since he was young and untried, with no reputation of his own.  It looked as if he were finishing an abortive career before it began.

Dr. Jung knew where to look for the cure of his desperate wound and looked to his inner world.  He locked himself in his room and waited on the unconscious.  Soon he was down on the floor playing childish games.  This led to the recall of his childhood fantasies which soon filled his attention.  For months he labored daily in the privacy of his fantasy and in his backyard he built stone villages, towns and forts.  He had fantasied all of this as a boy.  He trusted his childlike experience and that was the beginning of an outpouring from the collective unconscious from which we have the legacy of Jungian psychology.  A great man was humble (earthy) enough to trust his Parsifal for his cure.

Parsifal (we will call him that though he does not have a name until much later in the story) is raised by his mother, whose name is Heart's Sorrow.  His father is dead and he knows nothing of him.  He has no brothers or sisters.  The redeeming hero in mythology often has no father and is raised in humble and lonely circumstances.

Parsifal grows up in primitive, peasant way, wears homespun clothes, has no schooling, asks no questions, and is completely untutored.

Early in his adolescence he is out playing one day when five knights came riding by wearing all their impressive equipment: the scarlet and gold trappings, the armor, the shields, the lances, all the accouterments of the knighthood.  They dazzled poor Parsifal so completely that he dashed home to tell his mother he had seen five gods.  He was on fire with this marvelous sight and decided to leave immediately to join the five wonderful men.

His mother burst into tears after seeing there was no way to stop her son from following in the footsteps of his father, who had been a knight and who was killed in some foolishness.  His mother had tried to shield Parsifal from knowing anything of his lineage, but no mother has ever succeeded in keeping her son from danger when his father's blood begins to stir in him.

Heart's Sorrow (for this is the character of the moment as viewed by any mother) then tells Parsifal that his father had been a knight and been killed rescuing a fair maiden.  His two brothers were knights and had also been killed.  Heart's Sorrow had taken Parsifal to a remote place to raise him in hope he could be shielded from a similar fate.

Heart's Sorrow gives Parsifal her blessing and releases him from her protection.  She can not resist giving him advice as he leaves: to respect fair damsels and instruction not to ask too many questions.  Also he receives the gift of a single homespun garment she has woven for him.  These are the legacies she bestows upon him.  These two gifts will reverberate throughout the whole story and be instrumental in many of the complexities of what follows.

Parsifal's Journey

Parsifal goes off happily to find his five knights and begin his career as a man.

Parsifal asks everyone he meets, "Where are the five knights?"  The look in an adolescent's eyes when he searches for his five knights is the question, "Where is it?"---the "it" always being only vaguely defined.  A youth has had his first glimpse of meaning and value in the form of the five-ness of life and he searches throughout most of his adult life for experiences that will embody this quality.  The number five implies the completion of life and is the root from which we form our word, quintessence, the fifth essence.  Five implies completion.  The five is everywhere, but elusively, also nowhere.  It seems cruel to flash a vision of completion to a sixteen-year-old boy and set him on the road to find embodiment of that quality.  But such is the motivation of any true spiritual life.

In his searching Parsifal comes to a tent.  He never had seen a tent before, for he had grown up in a simple hut.  The tent is the most magnificent place he has ever seen, so he presumes he has come to the divine cathedral of his mother's stories.  He bursts into the tent to worship and finds a fair damsel.  This is the first of a glittering, dazzling, incomprehensible array of fair damsels whom Parsifal will meet.

Parsifal remembers his mother's instructions to treat women fairly.  He also remembers not to ask too many questions.  He proceeds to cherish the fair maiden by embracing her and taking the ring from her finger as a talisman from her.  This will be his inspiration for the rest of his life.

Have you ever seen a boy on his first date?  He is always Parsifal blundering into the fair damsel's tent for the first time.

Parsifal had been told by his mother that he would have all the nourishment, all the food that he would need for his life in God's church, and it is all there before him in the form of a table set for a banquet.  The damsel is waiting for her beloved knight, who is courting her, and she has spread out her best for him.  But to Parsifal this is prophesy working out perfectly; here is God's temple, here is the fair damsel, here is everything he could wish to eat.  Everything is just as his mother said it would be.  Parsifal sits down to eat at the table and find that life is good.

The damsel by this time is becoming aware that she is in the presence of an extraordinary person.  She is not angry for she sees that before her is a truly holy, simple, guileless person.  She implores Parsifal to leave immediately because if her knight comes and finds him in the tent Parsifal will be killed.

Parsifal obeys the maiden and leaves her tent.  He finds that life is good just as his mother had taught him.

The Red Knight

Parsifal asks everyone he finds how he may become a knight.  He is informed that he should go to Arthur's Court where he will be knighted by the King if he is strong and brave enough.

He finds his way to Arthur's Court where he is laughed out of the great hall for his naiveté, the look of his homespun garment, and his rashness at asking to be knighted.  He is told that knighthood is an arduous life and that to be made a knight is an honor won only after much valor and noble work.  Parsifal asks again and again until finally he is brought before King Arthur himself.  Arthur, a kindly man, doesn't scorn Parsifal but tells him he must learn a great deal and be versed in all the knightly arts of battle and courtliness before he can be knighted.

Now there is in Arthur's Court a damsel who has not smiled nor laughed for six years.  The legend in the Court is that when the best knight in the world appears, the damsel who has not smiled for six years will burst into laughter.  The instant this damsel sees Parsifal, she bursts into laughter and joy.  The Court is mightily impressed with this; apparently the best knight in the world has appeared!  Here is this naive youth, this boy in a homespun garment, completely untutored, and the maiden is laughing.  Extraordinary!

Until the Parsifal part of a man's nature appears, there is a feminine part of him that has never smiled, that is incapable of happiness, and she bursts into laughter and joy at the sight of Parsifal.  If one can awaken the Parsifal in a man, another quality in him immediately becomes happy.  When the court sees the doleful maiden laughing they treat Parsifal more seriously and King Arthur knights him then and there!

I had an experience of this recently.  A man came to my office in tears, caught in the darkness of life.  It was difficult to talk with him as he could see nothing but the dread of life.  So I told him old tales and drew him into taking part in the stories.  I drew out the Parsifal in him and found his childlike quality.  Soon he was laughing and the maiden in him who hadn't known joy for six years burst forth.  Then he had energy and courage to bring to his cheerless life.  The awakening of Parsifal in a man constellates energy in him and he can function again.

Parsifal returns to Arthur and says, "I have a request.  I want the horse and the armor of the Red Knight."  Everyone laughs uproariously because there has not been a knight in King Arthur's Court strong enough to stand up to the Red Knight.  Arthur too laughs and says, "You have my permission.  You may have the horse and armor of the Red Knight---if you can get it."

As Parsifal leaves Arthur's court he is met at the door by the Red Knight.  This wonderful being is strong enough to do as he wishes without fear, for no one in the court can oppose him.  He had taken the silver cup, the Chalice, and no one was strong enough to stop him.  As the last insult, he had thrown a flagon of wine in Queen Guenevere's face.

Parsifal is dazzled by the Red Knight with his red armor, his scarlet tunic, his horse's trappings, and all the stuff of knighthood.  Parsifal stops the Red Knight and asks for his armor.  The Red Knight is amused by the young fool before him and with a guffaw replies, "Fine, if you can get it."

The two square off, as knights are wont to do, and have a brief battle in which Parsifal is knocked ignominiously to the ground.  But as he lies there he throws his dagger at the Red Knight and kills him by a wound in the eye.  This is the only killing Parsifal commits and represents a very important part in the development of a young man.  Esther Harding, in her book 'Psychic Energy,' discusses at length the evolution of psychic energy from the stage of instinct to the stage of ego-controlled energy.  In the moment that Parsifal kills the Red Knight, he relocates a very large sum of energy from the Red Knight, that is, instinct, to himself, as ego.  One can say this is the moment when he leaves adolescence and becomes a man.  A further development is required of him when he again relocates this sum of energy from the ego to the self or to that center of gravity which is greater than any personal life.  But that story is for later in the myth.

Parsifal subdues many knights in his career but none are killed.  He extracts a promise from each knight he conquers that he will go to the Court of King Arthur and put himself in the service of that noble King.  This is the cultural process operating in a man in the middle section of his life where he conquers one center of energy after another and puts them under the control of the Noble King.  This is truly the process of nobility in a man's life and is the highest good for that middle section of his career.

No explanation is given for the killing of the Red Knight.  It gives pause for thought if one examines what might have happened in our Western Culture if the Red Knight had been sent to serve at Arthur's Court rather than being killed.  A study of the teachings of India give an alternative way of coping with the Red Knight energy in us.  These teachings prescribe that one reduce the duality between Good and Evil in one's life---and thus reduce the power of the Red Knight---rather than kill that energetic quality and attach it to the ego.  But our western way is to go the heroic path and to vanquish---by killing or conquering---and find victory in this way.

The victory over the Red Knight may happen outwardly or inwardly in a young man's life.  The two ways are equally effective.  If he is to follow an outer path, as most do, he must overcome some great obstacle.  Many a Red Knight victory takes place on the playing field in competition or in some feat of endurance or in winning a victory of some other sort.

One of the bitter dimensions of life is that winning is generally at the cost of another's loss.  Perhaps this is the Red Knight killing.  Victory seems sweetest in the presence of another who has lost.  This may be inherent in masculinity or it may be a phase of evolution which will one day be surmounted.  At present, subduing the Red Knight is fierce and bloody.

There is an inner dimension possible for Red Knighting; a boy may conquer a rough or rude sum of energy inside himself, overcome a bully or a clever cheat within.  This is equally effective in making the transition from boy to man.  This is native language to the introverts of our society.

If the Red Knight battle goes badly, either inwardly or outwardly, that sum of energy will go rampant in the personality and emerge as a bully, a vandal, or an angry young man.  It can also take the form of the beaten and defeated shy man.

The Red Knight is the shadow side of masculinity, the negative, potentially destructive power.  To truly become a man the shadow personality must be struggled with, but it cannot be repressed.  The boy must not repress his aggressiveness since he needs the masculine power of his Red Knight shadow to make his way through the mature world.

Parsifal now owns the Red Knight's armor and his horse, for in those days to conquer was to own.  This is to say that the Red Knight energy is now under Parsifal's control and is his to use.

He tries to put on the Red Knight's wonderful armor but he has never before seen anything so complicated as a buckle and he can not manage the armor.  A page who came out of Arthur's Court to see what the battle was about assists Parsifal in the mysteries of buckles and such complicated things of chivalry.  The page urges Parsifal to take off his awful one-piece homespun garment, which is unbefitting a knight.  But Parsifal refuses and clings to the one-piece garment given to him by his mother.  This is to have serious repercussions later and it will take all our powers of comprehension to see what is implied in this clinging to the mother's garment.  Parsifal puts the armor on over his homespun garment and rides away.  What boy does not impose his newfound knighthood over his mother complex?  The stern stuff of chivalry works very badly when it only covers a mother-complexed man.  One more mystery remains; though he can get his horse started, no one has ever taught him how to stop it.  He rides all day until both horse and rider stop in sheer exhaustion.  Have you some memory of a project you began in your early youth which started easily enough but stopping it eluded you?

Gournamond

Parsifal then discovers Gournamond, a godfather.  A godfather is such a boon to a boy at the time he is turning into a man!  One's own father has probably worn out or the communication has grown thin about the time a boy reaches adolescence.  He is far from independent but he is also too proud to go to his father with intimate matters.  It is a rare house-hold today where intimacy still happens between father and adolescent son.  At this moment the boy needs a godfather, the man who will continue to train him after his father has lost contact with him.  Gournamond is the archetypal godfather and spends a year training Parsifal in the ways of knighthood.

Gournamond teaches Parsifal information vital to attaining manhood; he must never seduce or be seduced by a fair maiden and he must search for the Grail castle with all his might.  Specifically, he is to ask a certain question, "Whom does the Grail serve?" when he reaches the Grail castle.  What would knighthood be worth if it were not for this noble end?  Both of these instructions from Gournamond are worthy of discussion and will soon find their place in our narrative.

After these instructions Parsifal suddenly remembers his mother and goes in search of her again.  Perhaps we can stand only so much of masculinity before we need to be in contact with feminine mother energy again.

So off he goes to hunt for his mother.  He finds that soon after he left her, she died of a broken heart.  You remember her name was Heart's Sorrow, which is part of motherhood.  Naturally, Parsifal feels dreadfully guilty about his mother's death, but it is also part of his masculine development.  No son ever develops into manhood without, in some way, being disloyal to his mother.  If he remains with her, to comfort her and console her, then he never gets out of his mother complex.  Often a mother will do all she can to keep her son with her.  One of the most subtle ways is to encourage in him the idea of being loyal to her; but if he gives in to her completely then she often finds herself with a son severely injured in his masculinity.  The son must ride off and leave his mother, even if it appears to mean disloyalty, and the mother must bear this pain.  Later, like Parsifal, the son may come back to the mother and they may find a new relationship, on a new level; but this can only be done after the son has first achieved his independence and transferred his affection to a woman, either in an 'interior' way with his own inner feminine side or in an 'exterior' way with a real female companion of his own age.  In our myth, Parsifal's mother died when he left.  Perhaps she represents the kind of woman who can only exist as mother, who dies when this role is taken from her because she does not understand how to be an individual woman, but only a "mother."

Blanche Fleur

Many people set forth on their journeys through life in good faith but with very little psychological understanding of why they are going on that particular journey or of where it might take them.  Sometimes they do have an intended goal but fail to achieve that goal.  Often fate will serve them unexpectedly and a far deeper purpose may be accomplished.  So it is with Parsifal's search for his mother.  He finds, instead, Blanche Fleur---which means "White Flower"---and comes into awareness of the highest motivation of his life before the grail encounter.  Blanche Fleur is in distress and her castle is under siege.  She implores Parsifal to rescue her kingdom.  Obeying that profound law, "A man knows not his strength until it is needed," he frees her domain of the intruders.  He does this by searching out the second in command of the besieging army, dueling heroically with him, sparing his life at the last moment, and sending him in fealty to the court of King Arthur.  He repeats this with the first in command.  We are seeing the first of a long series of encounters that will add to the fellowship of the round table.

This is a poetic way of describing the process Dr. Jung speaks of as "relocating the center of gravity of the personality," a careful and highly conscious process of drawing from the untamed pool of masculine energy and adding to the conscious center of the personality, which is here represented by King Arthur and his round table.  No endeavor is more noble or heroic than this ideal in the first half of one's life.

It is in the service of Blanche Fleur that Parsifal performs his heroic task; she is his lady fair and the carrier of inspiration, the very core of heroic action, for everything Parsifal accomplishes.  It is not by accident that it was the mother-search which led the blundering Parsifal to she-who-will-inspire, truly the animating principle of life.  It is a moment of poetic beauty to find what Dr. Jung called this inspirer in a man's bosom, the Anima, she who animates and is the fountain of life in the heart of man.  Blanche Fleur, indeed, deserves her name.

Her conduct in the rest of the story would be bitterly disappointing if one were to consider her a flesh-and-blood woman; for all she does is remain in her castle as a symbol of inspiration or perhaps a talisman of affection---when Parsifal occasionally comes dashing back for a moment of her beauty and trust.  But taken as that interior feminine, deep in the heart of a man, she is the very core of inspiration and meaning.  A rose from her hand or a glance of approval is sufficient to provide motive and strength for the most heroic of deeds.  Though this is couched in medieval terms and is encased in the stuff of chivalry, it is no less present in the most modern of men.

After raising the siege from her castle, Parsifal returns to spend one night with Blanche Fleur.  We are given a detailed account of how they slept together in the most intimate embrace---head to head, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, knee to knee, toe to toe.  But the embrace was chaste and worthy of the knight's vow that he never seduce or be seduced by a fair maiden; a vow he must keep if he is to win a vision of the Grail.

Many inner truths are shorn of their true power by being transposed to a level inconsistent with their power and depth.  Viewing the virgin birth of Christ as only a historical event will blur the sight of a vital law which is needed when you are called upon to make that interior mating of the human soul with the Divine Spirit which is the true genesis of one's individuality.

Much of our religious heritage is a map or set of instructions for the deepest meaning of our interior life, not a set of laws for outer conduct.  To relate to our religious teaching only in its literal dimension is to lose its spiritual meaning.  This dimension of materialism is far more harmful than much of what is usually condemned under that dark name.

The Introduction and Chapter 1 The Fisher King from the book "He : Understanding Masculine Psychology" by Robert A. Johnson

From "He : Understanding Masculine Psychology."  Copyright © 1989 by Robert A. Johnson.  Revised Edition.  Published by HarperCollins e-books.

Introduction

Often, when a new era begins in history, a myth for that era springs up simultaneously.  The myth is a preview of what is to come, and it contains sage advice for coping with the psychological elements of the time.

In the myth of Parsifal's search for the Holy Grail we have such a prescription for our modern day.  The Grail myth arose in the twelfth century, a time when many people feel that our modern age began; ideas, attitudes and concepts we are living with today had their beginnings in the days when the Grail myth took form.  One can say that the winds of the twelfth century have become the whirlwinds of the twentieth century.

The theme of the Grail myth was much in evidence in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.  We will be using the French version, which is the earliest written account, taken from a poem by Chretien de Troyes.  There is also a German version by Wolfram von Eschenbach.  The English version, 'Le Morte Darthur' by Thomas Malory, comes from the fourteenth century; but by that time it had been elaborated a great deal.  The French version is simpler, more direct and nearer to the unconscious; therefore it is more helpful for our purposes.

We must remember that a myth is a living entity, and exists within every person.  You will get the true, living form of the myth if you can see it as it spins away inside yourself.  The most rewarding mythological experience you can have is to see how it lives in your own psychological structure.

The Grail myth speaks of masculine psychology.  This is not to say that it is confined to the male, for a woman participates in her own inner masculinity, though it is less dominant for her.  We must take everything that goes into the myth as part of ourselves.  We will have to cope with a dazzling array of fair damsels, but must see them too as parts of the masculine psyche.  Women, too, will be interested in the secrets of the Grail myth, for every woman has to cope with one of these exotic creatures, the male of the species, somehow, as father, or husband, or son.  Also a woman partakes quite directly of the Grail myth as the story of her own interior masculinity.  Especially as modern women take more part in the masculine world by embracing a profession, the development of masculinity becomes important to her.  A woman's masculinity or a man's femininity is closer than one realizes.  The insights of this myth will be immediate and practical for our present time.

The Fisher King

Our story begins with the Grail castle, which is in serious trouble.  The Fisher King, the king of the castle, has been wounded.  His wounds are so severe that he cannot live, yet he is incapable of dying.  He groans; he cries out; he suffers constantly.  The whole land is in desolation, for a land mirrors the condition of its king, inwardly in a mythological dimension, as well as outwardly in the physical world.  The cattle do not reproduce; the crops won't grow; knights are killed; children are orphaned; maidens weep; there is mourning everywhere---all because the Fisher King is wounded.

The notion that the welfare of a kingdom depends upon the virility or power of its ruler has been a common one, especially among primitive people.  There are still kingdoms in the primitive parts of the world where the king is killed when he can no longer produce any offspring.  He is simply killed, ceremonially, sometimes slowly, sometimes horribly, because it is thought that the kingdom will not prosper if the king is becoming weak.

The whole Grail castle is in serious trouble because the Fisher King is wounded.  The myth tells us that years before, early in his adolescence, when he was out wandering around in the woods doing his knight errantry, the Fisher King came to a camp.  All the people of the camp were gone, but there was a salmon roasting on a spit.  He was hungry, there was the salmon roasting over the fire, and he took a bit of it to eat.  He found that the salmon was very hot.  After burning his fingers on it he dropped the salmon and put his fingers into his mouth to assuage the burn.  In so doing he got a bit of the salmon into his mouth.  This is the Fisher King wound and gives its name to the ruler of much of our modern psychology.  Modern suffering man is the heir to this psychological event which took place culturally some eight hundred years ago.

Another version of the story has it that the young Fisher King was overwhelmed with 'amour' one day and was out hunting for some experience of his passion.  Another knight, a Muslim pagan, had had a vision of the True Cross and was out searching for some expression of this quest.  The two came within sight of each other and, like true knights, each lowered visor and lance and went at the other.  There was a terrible clash, the pagan knight was killed and the Fisher King received the wound in his thigh which blighted the kingdom for so many years.

What a sight!  The knight of vision and the knight of sensuousness clash in terrible combat.  Instinct and nature now suddenly having been touched by a vision of spirit clashing with pure spirit which has been touched by a vision of instinct and nature.  Such is the crucible within which the highest evolution can take place---or a deadly conflict capable of psychological destruction.

I shudder at the implications of this clash, for it leaves us the legacy of our sensuous nature killed and our Christian vision terribly wounded.  Hardly a modern man escapes this collision in his own life and he may end up in the sad state described in our story.  His passion is killed and his vision is badly wounded.

The story of St. George and the dragon, which was adapted from a Persian myth at the time of the crusades, says much the same.  In battle with the dragon, St. George, his horse, and the dragon were all mortally wounded.  They would all have expired but for the fortuitous event that a bird pecked an orange (or a lime) that was hanging on a tree over St. George and a drop of the life-giving juice fell into his mouth.  St. George arose, squeezed some of the elixir into his horse's mouth and revived him.  No one revived the dragon.

Much is to be learned from the symbol of the wounded Fisher King.  The salmon or, more generally, the fish, is one of the many symbols of Christ.  As in the story of the Fisher King coming upon the roasting salmon, a boy in his early adolescence touches something of the Christ nature within himself but touches it too soon.  He is unexpectedly wounded by it and drops it immediately as being too hot.  But a bit of it gets into his mouth and he can never forget the experience.  His first contact with what will be redemption for him later in his life is a wounding.  This is what turns him into a wounded Fisher King.  The first touch of consciousness in a youth appears as a wound or as suffering.  Parsifal finds his Garden of Eden experience by way of the bit of salmon.  That suffering stays with him until his redemption or enlightenment many years later.

Most western men are Fisher Kings.  Every boy has naively blundered into something that is too big for him.  He proceeds halfway through his masculine development and then drops it as being too hot.  Often a certain bitterness arises, because, like the Fisher King, he can neither live with the new consciousness he has touched nor can he entirely drop it.

Every adolescent receives his Fisher King wound.  He would never proceed into consciousness if it were not so.  The church speaks of this wounding as the 'felix culpa,' the happy fall which ushers one into the process of redemption.  This is the fall from the Garden of Eden, the graduation from naive consciousness into self consciousness.

It is painful to watch a young man realize that the world is not just joy and happiness, to watch the disintegration of his childlike beauty, faith, and optimism.  It is regrettable but necessary---if we are not cast out of the Garden of Eden, there can be no Heavenly Jerusalem.  In the Catholic liturgy for Holy Saturday evening there is a beautiful line, "Oh happy fall that was the occasion for so sublime (noble, exalted) a redemption."

The Fisher King wound may coincide with a specific event, an injustice, such as being accused of something we didn't do.  In Dr. C. G Jung's autobiography he tells that once his professor read all of Jung's classmates' papers in the order of their merit, but didn't read Jung's paper at all.  His professor then said, "There is one paper here that is by far the best, but it is obviously a forgery.  If I could find the book I would have him expelled."  Jung had worked hard on the paper and it was his own creation.  He never trusted that man, or the whole schooling process, after that.  This was a Fisher King wound for Dr. Jung.

Stages of Evolution

According to tradition, there are potentially three stages of psychological development for a man.  The archetypal pattern is that one goes from the unconscious perfection of childhood, to the conscious imperfection of middle life, to conscious perfection of old age.  One moves from an innocent wholeness, in which the inner world and the outer world are united, to a separation and differentiation between the inner and outer worlds with an accompanying sense of life's duality, and then, at last, to enlightenment---a conscious reconciliation of the inner and outer in harmonious wholeness.

We are witnessing the Fisher King's development from stage one to stage two.  One has no right to talk about the last stage until he has accomplished the second one.  One has no right to talk about the oneness of the universe until he is aware of its separateness and duality.  We can do all manner of mental acrobatics and talk of the unity of the world; but we have no chance of functioning truly in this manner until we have succeeded in differentiating the inner and outer worlds.  We have to leave the Garden of Eden before we can start the journey to the Heavenly Jerusalem.  It is ironic that the two are the same place but the journey must be made.

A man's first step out of the Garden of Eden into the world of duality is his Fisher King wound: the experience of alienation and suffering that ushers him into the beginning of consciousness.  The myth tells us that the Fisher King wound is in the thigh.  You may remember the biblical story about Jacob wrestling with the angel and being wounded in the thigh.  A touch of anything transpersonal---an angel or Christ in the guise of a fish---leaves the terrible wound that cries incessantly for redemption.  The wound in the thigh means that the man is wounded in his generative ability, in his capacity for relationship.  One version of the story has it that the Fisher King was wounded by an arrow that transfixed both testicles.  The arrow could not be pushed through nor could it be withdrawn.  Again, the Fisher King is described as being too ill to live but unable to die.

Much of modern literature revolves around the lostness and alienation of the hero.  Moreover, we can see this alienation in the countenance of almost everyone we pass on the street---the Fisher King wound is the hallmark of modern man.

I doubt if there is a woman in the world who has not had to mutely stand by as she watched a man agonize over his Fisher King aspect.  She may be the one who notices, even before the man himself is aware of it, that there is suffering and a haunting sense of injury and incompleteness in him.  A man suffering in this way is often driven to do idiotic things to cure the wound and ease the desperation he feels.  Usually he seeks an unconscious solution outside of himself, complaining about his work, his marriage, or his place in the world.

The Fisher King is carried about in his litter, groaning, crying in his suffering.  There is no respite for him---except when he is fishing.  This is to say that the wound, which represents consciousness, is bearable only when the wounded is doing his inner work, proceeding with the task of consciousness which was inadvertently started with the wound in his youth.  This close association with fishing will soon play a large part in our story.

The Fisher King presides over his court in the Grail castle where the Holy Grail, the chalice from the Last Supper, is kept.  Mythology teaches us that the king who rules over our innermost court sets the tone and character for that court and thus our whole life.  If the king is well, we are well; if things are right inside, they will go well outside.  With the wounded Fisher King presiding at the inner court of modern western man we can expect much outward suffering and alienation.  And so it is: the kingdom is not flourishing; the crops are poor; maidens are bereaved; children are orphaned.  This eloquent language expresses how a wounded archetypal underpinning manifests itself in problems in our external lives.

The Inner Fool

Every night there is a solemn ceremony in the Grail castle.  The Fisher King is lying on his litter enduring his suffering while a procession of profound beauty takes place.  A fair maiden brings in the lance which pierced the side of Christ at the crucifixion, another maiden brings the paten which held the bread at the Last Supper, another maiden brings the Grail itself which glows with light from its own depth.  Each person is given wine from the Grail and realizes their deepest wish even before they voice that wish.  Each person, that is, except the wounded Fisher King who may not drink from the Grail.  This surely is the worst deprivation of all: to be barred from the essence of beauty and holiness when just those qualities are right in front of you is the cruelest of all suffering.  All are served except the Grail king.  All are conscious that their very center is deprived because their king can not partake of the grail.

I remember a time when beauty was denied me in just this manner.  Many years ago I was particularly lonely and at odds with the world during a trip to visit my parents for Christmas.  My journey took me through San Francisco and I stopped at my beloved Grace Cathedral.  A performance of Handel's Messiah was scheduled for that evening so I stayed to hear this inspiring work.  Nowhere is it better done than in that great building with its fine organ and master choristers.  A few minutes into the performance I was so unhappy that I had to leave.  It was then that I knew that the pursuit of beauty or happiness was in vain since I could not partake of the beauty even though it was immediately at hand.  No worse or frightening pain is possible for us than to realize that our capacity for love or beauty or happiness is limited.  No further outward effort is possible if our inward capacity is wounded.  This is the Fisher King wound.

How many times have women said to their men: "Look at all the good things you have; you have the best job you have ever had in your life.  Our income is better than ever.  We have two cars.  We have two and sometimes three day weekends.  Why aren't you happy?  The Grail is at hand; why aren't you happy?"

The man is too inarticulate to reply, "Because I am a Fisher King and am wounded and cannot touch any of this happiness."

A true myth teaches us the cure for the dilemma which it portrays.  The Grail myth makes a profound statement of the nature of our present day ailment and then prescribes its cure in very strange terms.

The court fool (and every good court has its resident fool) had prophesied long ago that the Fisher King would be healed when a wholly innocent fool arrived in the court and asked a specific question.  It is a shock to us that a fool should have to answer to our most painful wound but this solution is well known to tradition.  Many legends put our cure in the hands of a fool or someone most unlikely to carry healing power.

The myth is telling us that it is the naive part of a man that will heal him and cure his Fisher King wound.  It suggests that if a man is to be cured he must find something in himself about the same age and about the same mentality as he was when he was wounded.  It also tells us why the Fisher King cannot heal himself, and why, when he goes fishing, his pain is eased though not cured.  For a man to be truly healed he must allow something entirely different from himself to enter into his consciousness and change him.  He cannot be healed if he remains in the old Fisher King mentality.  That is why the young fool part of himself must enter his life if he is to be cured.

In my consulting room a man barks at me when I prescribe something strange or difficult for him: "What do you think I am?  A Fool?"  And I say, "Well, it would help."  This is humbling medicine to accept.

A man must consent to look to a foolish, innocent, adolescent part of himself for his cure.  The inner fool is the only one who can touch his Fisher King wound.

* * * *

The First 5 Chapters of Book II of Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle

From http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html

Nicomachean Ethics 

By Aristotle 

Written 350 B.C.E

Translated by W. D. Ross

Book II    

1 

Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name (ethike) is one that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance the stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit. 

Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. 

This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one. 

Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft. This, then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states of character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference. 

2 

Since, then, the present inquiry does not aim at theoretical knowledge like the others (for we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use), we must examine the nature of actions, namely how we ought to do them; for these determine also the nature of the states of character that are produced, as we have said. Now, that we must act according to the right rule is a common principle and must be assumed-it will be discussed later, i.e. both what the right rule is, and how it is related to the other virtues. But this must be agreed upon beforehand, that the whole account of matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall under any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each case consider what is appropriate to the occasion, as happens also in the art of medicine or of navigation. 

But though our present account is of this nature we must give what help we can. First, then, let us consider this, that it is the nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain light on things imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things); both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it. So too is it, then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other virtues. For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean. 

But not only are the sources and causes of their origination and growth the same as those of their destruction, but also the sphere of their actualization will be the same; for this is also true of the things which are more evident to sense, e.g. of strength; it is produced by taking much food and undergoing much exertion, and it is the strong man that will be most able to do these things. So too is it with the virtues; by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate, and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them; and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being habituated to despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground against them we become brave, and it is when we have become so that we shall be most able to stand our ground against them. 

3 

We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate, while the man who is annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward. For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right education. 

Again, if the virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure and pain, for this reason also virtue will be concerned with pleasures and pains. This is indicated also by the fact that punishment is inflicted by these means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the nature of cures to be effected by contraries. 

Again, as we said but lately, every state of soul has a nature relative to and concerned with the kind of things by which it tends to be made worse or better; but it is by reason of pleasures and pains that men become bad, by pursuing and avoiding these- either the pleasures and pains they ought not or when they ought not or as they ought not, or by going wrong in one of the other similar ways that may be distinguished. Hence men even define the virtues as certain states of impassivity and rest; not well, however, because they speak absolutely, and do not say 'as one ought' and 'as one ought not' and 'when one ought or ought not', and the other things that may be added. We assume, then, that this kind of excellence tends to do what is best with regard to pleasures and pains, and vice does the contrary. 

The following facts also may show us that virtue and vice are concerned with these same things. There being three objects of choice and three of avoidance, the noble, the advantageous, the pleasant, and their contraries, the base, the injurious, the painful, about all of these the good man tends to go right and the bad man to go wrong, and especially about pleasure; for this is common to the animals, and also it accompanies all objects of choice; for even the noble and the advantageous appear pleasant. 

Again, it has grown up with us all from our infancy; this is why it is difficult to rub off this passion, engrained as it is in our life. And we measure even our actions, some of us more and others less, by the rule of pleasure and pain. For this reason, then, our whole inquiry must be about these; for to feel delight and pain rightly or wrongly has no small effect on our actions. 

Again, it is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, to use Heraclitus' phrase', but both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder; for even the good is better when it is harder. Therefore for this reason also the whole concern both of virtue and of political science is with pleasures and pains; for the man who uses these well will be good, he who uses them badly bad. 

That virtue, then, is concerned with pleasures and pains, and that by the acts from which it arises it is both increased and, if they are done differently, destroyed, and that the acts from which it arose are those in which it actualizes itself- let this be taken as said. 

4 

The question might be asked,; what we mean by saying that we must become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate acts; for if men do just and temperate acts, they are already just and temperate, exactly as, if they do what is in accordance with the laws of grammar and of music, they are grammarians and musicians. 

Or is this not true even of the arts? It is possible to do something that is in accordance with the laws of grammar, either by chance or at the suggestion of another. A man will be a grammarian, then, only when he has both done something grammatical and done it grammatically; and this means doing it in accordance with the grammatical knowledge in himself. 

Again, the case of the arts and that of the virtues are not similar; for the products of the arts have their goodness in themselves, so that it is enough that they should have a certain character, but if the acts that are in accordance with the virtues have themselves a certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately. The agent also must be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character. These are not reckoned in as conditions of the possession of the arts, except the bare knowledge; but as a condition of the possession of the virtues knowledge has little or no weight, while the other conditions count not for a little but for everything, i.e. the very conditions which result from often doing just and temperate acts. 

Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are such as the just or the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as just and temperate men do them. It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. 

But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be made well in body by such a course of treatment, the former will not be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy. 

5 

Next we must consider what virtue is. Since things that are found in the soul are of three kinds- passions, faculties, states of character, virtue must be one of these. By passions I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred, longing, emulation, pity, and in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure or pain; by faculties the things in virtue of which we are said to be capable of feeling these, e.g. of becoming angry or being pained or feeling pity; by states of character the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions, e.g. with reference to anger we stand badly if we feel it violently or too weakly, and well if we feel it moderately; and similarly with reference to the other passions. 

Now neither the virtues nor the vices are passions, because we are not called good or bad on the ground of our passions, but are so called on the ground of our virtues and our vices, and because we are neither praised nor blamed for our passions (for the man who feels fear or anger is not praised, nor is the man who simply feels anger blamed, but the man who feels it in a certain way), but for our virtues and our vices we are praised or blamed. 

Again, we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues are modes of choice or involve choice. Further, in respect of the passions we are said to be moved, but in respect of the virtues and the vices we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a particular way. 

For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are neither called good nor bad, nor praised nor blamed, for the simple capacity of feeling the passions; again, we have the faculties by nature, but we are not made good or bad by nature; we have spoken of this before. If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor faculties, all that remains is that they should be states of character. 

Thus we have stated what virtue is in respect of its genus. 

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Four Letters from Lucius Annaeus Seneca

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger

From Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia:

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca; c. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature.

He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. While he was forced to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, he may have been innocent.[1][2] His father was Seneca the Elder and his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, called Gallio in the Bible.

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Other names Seneca the Younger, Seneca

Born c. 4 BC in Cordoba, Hispania

Died AD 65 (aged 68–69) in Rome

Nationality Roman

Era      Ancient philosophy

Region Western philosophy

School Stoicism

Works

Works attributed to Seneca include a dozen philosophical essays, one hundred and twenty-four letters dealing with moral issues, nine tragedies, and a satire, the attribution of which is disputed.[21] His authorship of Hercules on Oeta has also been questioned.

Seneca generally employed a pointed rhetorical style. His writings expose traditional themes of Stoic philosophy: the universe is governed for the best by a rational providence; contentment is achieved through a simple, unperturbed life in accordance with nature and duty to the state; human suffering should be accepted and has a beneficial effect on the soul; study and learning are important. He emphasized practical steps by which the reader might confront life's problems. In particular, he considered it important to confront one's own mortality. The discussion of how to approach death dominates many of his letters.

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From http://www.stoics.com/seneca_epistles_book_1.html#%91II1 :

Letter 2  On discursiveness in reading.

     Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future.  You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness+ is the sign of a disordered spirit.  The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered maid is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.  Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady.  You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.  Everywhere means nowhere.  When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong.  There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about.  And in reading of many books is distraction.

Accordingly, since you cannot read all the books which you may possess, it is enough to possess only as many books as you can read. "But," you reply, "I wish to dip first into one book and then into another." I tell you that it is the sign of an overnice appetite to toy with many dishes; for when they are manifold and varied, they cloy but do not nourish.  So you should always read standard authors; and when you crave a change, fall back upon those whom you read before.  Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.  This is my own custom; from the many things which I have read, I claim some one part for myself.

The thought for to-day is one which I discovered in 'Epicurus'; for I am wont to cross over even into the enemy's camp, - not as a deserter, but as a scout.  He says: "Contented poverty is an honourable estate." Indeed, if it be contented, it is not poverty at all. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.  What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbour's property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come?  Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough. Farewell. 

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Letter 15  On brawn and brains.

The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime.  They would add to the opening words of a letter: "If you are well, it is well; I also am well." Persons like ourselves would do well to say. "If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means.  Without philosophy the mind is sickly, and the body, too, though it may be very powerful, is strong only as that of a madman or a lunatic is strong.  This, then, is the sort of health you should primarily cultivate; the other kind of health comes second, and will involve little effort, if you wish to be well physically.  It is indeed foolish, my dear Lucilius, and very unsuitable for a cultivated man, to work hard over developing the muscles and broadening the shoulders and strengthening the lungs.  For although your heavy feeding produce good results and your sinews grow solid, you can never be a match, either in strength or in weight, for a first-class bull.  Besides, by overloading the body with food you strangle the soul and render it less active.  Accordingly, limit the flesh as much as possible, and allow free play to the spirit. Many inconveniences beset those who devote themselves to such pursuits. In the first place, they have their exercises, at which they must work and waste their life-force and render it less fit to bear a strain or the severer studies.  Second, their keen edge is dulled by heavy eating.  Besides, they must take orders from slaves of the vilest stamp, ---men who alternate between the oil-flask and the flagon, whose day passes satisfactorily if they have got up a good perspiration and quaffed, to make good what they have lost in sweat, huge draughts of liquor which will sink deeper because of their fasting.  Drinking and sweating, ---it's the life of a dyspeptic!

Now there are short and simple exercises which tire the body rapidly, and so save our time; and time is something of which we ought to keep strict account. These exercises are running, brandishing weights, and jumping, ---high-jumping or broad-jumping, or the kind which I may call, "the Priest's dance," or, in slighting terms, "the clothes-cleaner's jump." Select for practice any one of these, and you will find it plain and easy.  But whatever you do, come back soon from body to mind.  The mind must be exercised both day and night, for it is nourished by moderate labour. and this form of exercise need not be hampered by cold or hot weather, or even by old age.  Cultivate that good which improves with the years.  Of course I do not command you to be always bending over your books and your writing materials; the mind must have a change, ---but a change of such a kind that it is not unnerved, but merely unbent.  Riding in a litter shakes up the body, and does not interfere with study: one may read, dictate, converse, or listen to another; nor does walking prevent any of these things.

You need not scorn voice-culture; but I forbid you to practice raising and lowering your voice by scales and specific intonations.  What if you should next propose to take lessons in walking! If you consult the sort of person whom starvation has taught new tricks, you will have someone to regulate your steps, watch every mouthful as you eat, and go to such lengths as you yourself, by enduring him and believing in him, have encouraged his effrontery to go. "What, then?" you will ask; "is my voice to begin at the outset with shouting and straining the lungs to the utmost?" No; the natural thing is that it be aroused to such a pitch by easy stages, just as persons who are wrangling begin with ordinary conversational tones and then pass to shouting at the top of their lungs.  No speaker cries "Help me, citizens!" at the outset of his speech.  Therefore, whenever your spirit's impulse prompts you, raise a hubbub, now in louder now in milder tones, according as your voice, as well as your spirit, shall suggest to you, when you are moved to such a performance.  Then let your voice, when you rein it in and call it back to earth, come down gently, not collapse; it should trail off in tones half way between high and low, and should not abruptly drop from its raving in the uncouth manner of countrymen.  For our purpose is, not to give the voice exercise, but to make it give us exercise. 

You see, I have relieved you of no slight bother; and I shall throw in a little complementary present, ---it is Greek, too.  Here is the proverb; it is an excellent one: "The fool's life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future." "Who uttered these words?" you say.  The same writer whom I mentioned before. And what sort of life do you think is meant by the fool's life?  That of Baba and Isio?  No; he means our own, for we are plunged by our blind desires into ventures which will harm us, but certainly will never satisfy us; for if we could be satisfied with anything, we should have been satisfied long ago; nor do we reflect how pleasant it is to demand nothing, how noble it is to be contented and not to be dependent upon Fortune.  Therefore continually remind yourself, Lucilius, how many ambitions you have attained.  When you see many ahead of you, think how many are behind!  If you would thank the gods, and be grateful for your past life, you should contemplate how many men you have outstripped.  But what have you to do with the others?  You have outstripped yourself. 

Fix a limit which you will not even desire to pass, should you have the power.  At last, then, away with all these treacherous goods!  They look better to those who hope for them than to those who have attained them.  If there were anything substantial in them, they would sooner or later satisfy you; as it is, they merely rouse the drinkers' thirst.  Away with fripperies which only serve for show!  As to what the future's uncertain lot has in store, why should I demand of Fortune that she give rather than demand of myself that I should not crave?  And why should l crave?  Shall I heap up my winnings, and forget that man's lot is unsubstantial?  For what end should I toil?  Lo, to-day is the last; if not, it is near the last.  Farewell.

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Letter 16  On philosophy, the guide of life.

It is clear to you, I am sure, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom; you know also that a happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion, but that life is at least endurable even when our wisdom is only begun.  This idea, however, clear though it is, must be strengthened and implanted more deeply by daily reflection; it is more important for you to keep the resolutions you have already made than to go on and make noble ones.  You must persevere, must develop new strength by continuous study, until that which is only a good inclination becomes a good settled purpose.  Hence you no longer need to come to me with much talk and protestations; I know that you have made great progress.  I understand the feelings which prompt your words; they are not feigned or specious words.  Nevertheless I shall tell you what I think, ---that at present I have hopes for you, but not yet perfect trust.  And I wish that you would adopt the same attitude towards yourself; there is no reason why you should put confidence in yourself too quickly and readily.  Examine yourself; scrutinize and observe yourself in divers ways; but mark, before all else, whether it is in philosophy or merely in life itself that you have made progress.  Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show.  It is a matter, not of words, but of facts.  It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent, or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us.  It moulds and constructs the soul; it orders our life, guides our conduct, shows us what we should do and what we should leave undone; it sits at the helm and directs our course as we waver amid uncertainties. Without it, no one can live fearlessly or in peace of mind.  Countless things that happen every hour call for advice; and such advice is to be sought in philosophy.

Perhaps someone will say: "How can philosophy help me, if Fate exists?  Of what avail is philosophy, if God rules the universe?  Of what avail is it, if Chance governs everything?  For not only is it impossible to change things that are determined, but it is also impossible to plan beforehand against what is undetermined; either God has forestalled my plans, and decided what I am to do, or else Fortune gives no free play to my plans." Whether the truth, Lucilius, lies in one or in all of these views, we must be philosophers; whether Fate binds us down by an inexorable law, or whether God as arbiter of the universe has arranged everything, or whether Chance drives and tosses human affairs without method, philosophy ought to be our defense.  She will encourage us to obey God cheerfully, but Fortune defiantly; she will teach us to follow God and endure Chance. But it is not my purpose now to be led into a discussion as to what is within our own control, ---if foreknowledge is supreme, or if a chain of fated events drags us along in its clutches, or if the sudden and the unexpected play the tyrant over us; I return now to my warning and my exhortation, that you should not allow the impulse of your spirit to weaken and grow cold.  Hold fast to it and establish it firmly, in order that what is now impulse may become a habit of the mind. 

If I know you well, you have already been trying to find out, from the very beginning of my letter, what little contribution it brings to you.  Sift the letter, and you will find it.  You need not wonder at any genius of mine; for as yet I am lavish only with other men's property. ---But why did I say " other men"?  Whatever is well said by anyone is mine. This also is a saying of Epicurus: "If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich." Nature's wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless. Suppose that the property of many millionaires is heaped up in your possession. Assume that fortune carries you far beyond the limits of a private income, decks you with gold, clothes you in purple, and brings you to such a degree of luxury and wealth that you can bury the earth under your marble floors; that you may not only possess, but tread upon, riches.  Add statues, paintings, and whatever any art has devised for the luxury; you will only learn from such things to crave still greater. 

Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point.  The false has no limits.  When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless.  Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point.  If you find, after having travelled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature.  Farewell.

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Letter 38  On quiet conversation.

You are right when you urge that we increase our mutual traffic in letters.  But the greatest benefit is to be derived from conversation, because it creeps by degrees into the soul.  Lectures prepared beforehand and spouted in the presence of a throng have in them more noise but less intimacy.  Philosophy is good advice; and no one can give advice at the top of his lungs.  Of course we must sometimes also make use of these harangues, if I may so call them, when a doubting member needs to be spurred on; but when the aim is to make a man learn and not merely to make him wish to learn, we must have recourse to the low-toned words of conversation. They enter more easily, and stick in the memory; for we do not need many words, but, rather, effective words. 

Words should be scattered like seed; no matter how small the seed may be, if it has once found favourable ground, it unfolds its strength and from an insignificant thing spreads to its greatest growth.  Reason grows in the same way; it is not large to the outward view, but increases as it does its work.  Few words are spoken; but if the mind has truly caught them, they come into their strength and spring up.  Yes, precepts and seeds have the same quality; they produce much, and yet they are slight things.  Only, as I said, let a favourable mind receive and assimilate them. Then of itself the mind also will produce bounteously in its turn, giving back more than it has received.  Farewell. 

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