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.

p. 13

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.