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Snakes and Ladders
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Happy Hermes-Day! Can we talk about Teiresias for a second? That whole thing with the snakes [item 3] has been bothering me.
So if you're recall, one day blind Teiresias was walking on Mount Kullene (the birthplace of Hermes), stumbled across two snakes entwined in sex, and he accidentally crushes one or both of them with his staff. Hera was infuriated at this and changed Teiresias into a woman. Teiresias becomes a priestess of Hera. At some point, Apollo advises Teiresias that if he ever happens upon the same situation to crush one or the other of the snakes with his staff; in the eighth year of being a woman, Teiresias does and is restored to his original form.
This is clearly a story about reincarnation in order to learn a particular lesson: Teiresias is each of us, Teiresias's sex-change is reincarnating into different bodies, Hera is "mother Earth" and becoming her priestess is to devote oneself to learning her lessons; Apollo is the mysteries and his advice is the mystery teachings; eight years is a "great year" representing one's greater life (Apollodoros, Library III iv §2).
All that is very straightforward, I think; the only question is, what is the lesson to be learned? It has something to do with polarity, certainly, which already puts me at a disadvantage since I'm of a monistic bent and have a difficult time making sense of dualities; but it is further complicated by the fact that almost every version of the story we possess tells it differently. I tend to trust Apollodoros more than the others, but his version is itself ambiguous, so we're on our own.
Thinking about this, though, reminded me of the Ra Material; if you're not familiar with it, it's one of the major channeled texts of the New Age movement. (Since it's a channeled text, we're already in super-grain-of-salt-territory, but bear with me.) "Ra" states that there are seven degrees of consciousness, and that each degree of consciousness has a lesson to learn in order for beings of that consciousness to move to the next degree of consciousness. First degree beings (like minerals) are static and inanimate, and their lesson is to learn to move and grow. Second degree beings (like plants and animals) are animate but unselfconscious, and their lesson is to learn individuality. We humans are third degree beings, and our lesson is to learn to relate the individual to the all. "Ra" says that there are two polarities of relating to the all: the positive pole of giving to others or compassion, and the negative pole of taking from others or selfishness; since all is one, both the love of others and the love of self are ways of loving the all, and so either way can carry one upwards, but the crucial point is to develop enough reflective capacity and will to be capable of actively choosing a path.
Of course, all models are wrong, but some are useful: true or not, "Ra's" model certainly has the merit of making sense of the snakes. The female snake is the negative pole (and let me stress that I'm not denouncing women, I am referring strictly to the inward-attracting direction of any negative pole); the male snake is the positive pole (as outward-emitting); Teiresias is doomed to reincarnation by being incapable of choosing a path (his first killing is accidental); over a great year he studies the lessons of earth, guided by the mysteries; finally, he is freed from reincarnation by choosing a path (his second killing is willed). Perhaps it even makes sense of why so many variants of the story are recorded: a "pure" version of the story, like the "Ra" material, stresses the free will of the individual to choose as they please; however, "moralistic" versions of the story might urge the individual to prefer one or the other polarity. (And I can certainly sympathize with this: I would, myself, much rather hasten to the light in love than sound the darkness in isolation.)
Penises (as emblematic of male sexuality) are really all over the mysteries, from the phalluses in the temples of Osiris to the thursoi of Dionusos. (Hell, if you haven't read De Dea Syria, there's a veritable boatload of penises in there for you.) I've always thought that's pretty weird to say the least, but if it's an injunction towards the positive pole, that would at least make some sense of it.
It is interesting to me that Hermes picked up the image of the story as his symbol, carrying always the kerukeion with it's two snakes coiling around Teiresias's cornel-wood staff, topped by the wings which the development of will grants. It is interesting that this became Hermes's symbol even though Athena also figures prominently in the Teiresias myth; we see just the opposite in the Perseus myth, where Perseus is guided by both gods, but only Athena took her symbol—the head of Medousa affixed to a shield—from there.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Reading about reincarnation and New Age degrees in the same post made me think about reincarnation as a metaphor for a major life change. Like when I grew up there was a moment when I realized Santa Claus isn't real and that everyone I trusted lied to me. That change was like accidentally crushing a snake. Then later on I choose to wake up to The Science and that was like consciously crushing a snake. Rationalizing these changes in terms of male/female seems like a fruitful area for thought.
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By the way, you're the first person who introduced me to the notion of no model is right, but some are useful. That notion has been very helpful to me. Thank you!
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There's really not a lot written about Teiresias; a few paragraphs scattered among several sources. My overview from a few weeks back is sadly pretty comprehensive, and the sources are cited; the main source which I explicitly avoided was Ovid, since I don't trust him for spiritual use (though the Metamorphoses is, of course, quite entertaining). I found Kallimakhos's hymn on the Bath of Pallas particularly moving.
Regarding "all models are wrong," you're welcome! I learned it when I was studying statistics in school, and it's stuck with me as a more useful version of "the map is not the territory." I think it deserves to be better known than it is (as I do with Bayesian statistics generally), as Western culture badly needs an antidote to it's dogmatic tendencies.
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Metal alchemy, I do not know a good intro. I am partly through "Mercurius" by Patrick Harpur. He actually describes the metal alchemy process in detail, though I do not know if it is accurate or not. (And he actually shares a lot of other alchemy tidbits, but I don't know if it would make sense without having a background in it.) The alchemy stuff is mixed in with a story (fiction or not, I really cannot tell). The story is interesting enough that I have barely taken notes the first read through, just so I can find out how the story ends. I have ordered a used copy of the book, so I can keep it and go through it again in more detail. (What is helpful to me is he explains some Jung, who I have not studied, but he doesn't think Jung is the end-all and be-all. That suits me.)
Plant alchemy, I have read Mark Stavish's The Path of Alchemy and it seems to be a pretty straightforward intro to plant alchemy/spagyrics. I have not done the exercises, though. I want to learn herbalism first before I start trying to do tinctures, etc.
Spiritual alchemy, there is not a good intro. I am trying to write an intro as part of the LWB that goes with the alchemy oracle I am developing, but it is just for the model I developed (and you know about models :-) ). If you would like a draft copy to read, though, I don't mind sharing so long as you give me feedback. (I never intended to be an author and writing is a struggle for me.)
The stuff that I have read that I found worthwhile is listed here: https://druidalchemist.com/bibliography/
If you like Greek, I think understanding the Tetractys helps. I think it is a better model than the Tree of Life for spiritual alchemy. A Study of Numbers (de Lubicz) and Sacred Geometry (Robert Lawlor, not on the biblio page cause I just finished it a month ago) and Iamblichus Theology of Arithmetic are good for understanding the Tetractys.
I found Heindel's Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception and Wirth's Tarot of the Magician very helpful when building my model, though their model ends up being very different from mine. (Basically, they think Spirit splits into Soul and Body. I understand things better considering the Spirit as a Cosmic Atom and the Soul as a Logoidal Atom (from Cosmic Doctrine). This works better with Greek, too, as Thomas Taylor said Hera is the Fount of Souls. Hera (to me) is the feminine Zeus, which is third generation, so she is analogous to the Spirit of Ain Soph, so Logoid Atom and Cosmic Atom unite and form an atom on a "lower" Plane, which is a Body for the Soul and Spirit.) (So, yeah, Cosmic Doctrine by Dion Fortune figures in a little...)
After that, I spent a great deal of time with Splendor Solis. My thoughts from a year ago are here: https://druidalchemist.com/splendor-solis/. I need to go an update them, cause I've read more since then. The Book of Lambspring is good, though I think I missed a lot. Mercurius (the book I am currently reading) never mentions it, but many of the scenes in the story mimic scenes from Lambspring, so I am planning on going back through and seeing what more I can get out of it.
I hope this helps.
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