sdi

ὤ μοι, τέκνον ἐμόν, περὶ πάντων κάμμορε φωτῶν,
οὔ τί σε Περσεφόνεια Διὸς θυγάτηρ ἀπαφίσκει,
ἀλλ’ αὕτη δίκη ἐστὶ βροτῶν, ὅτε τίς κε θάνῃσιν:
οὐ γὰρ ἔτι σάρκας τε καὶ ὀστέα ἶνες ἔχουσιν,
ἀλλὰ τὰ μέν τε πυρὸς κρατερὸν μένος αἰθομένοιο
δαμνᾷ, ἐπεί κε πρῶτα λίπῃ λεύκ’ ὀστέα θυμός,
ψυχὴ δ’ ἠύτ’ ὄνειρος ἀποπταμένη πεπότηται.
ἀλλὰ φόωσδε τάχιστα λιλαίεο: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα
ἴσθ’, ἵνα καὶ μετόπισθε τεῇ εἴπῃσθα γυναικί.

Oh! my child, unluckiest of all men,
Persephoneia, the daughter of Zeus, isn't deceiving you:
this is just the way it is when a mortal dies,
for sinews no longer hold flesh and bones together,
but the mighty force of blazing fire overcomes them
once spirit first leaves the white bones,
and soul, like a dream, flutters up and away.
But be anxious to hurry to the light; and remember all,
so that you can tell your wife even after.

(Antikleia speaking to Odusseus. Homer, Odyssey XI 216–24.)

μὴ δή μοι θάνατόν γε παραύδα, φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ.
βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ,
ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη,
ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.

Don't talk to me about death, Mr. Smarty-Pants.*
I would rather be a hired laborer slaving for another,
a man with no land and little means,
than to be king of all the wretched dead.

(Akhilleus speaking to Odusseus. Homer, Odyssey XI 488–91.)

488. Mr. Smarty-Pants: φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ, literally "brilliant Odysseus," but I take this sarcastically, as immediately above (473–6) he says, "if you're so clever, why the hell did you go to Hell?"

If we take Haides to be the material world, it really puts a different spin on Antikleia's and Akhilleus's words, doesn't it?

The reason why being a student is so great is that you can be wrong all you want and it's not a problem—you just fix the mistake, learn something new, and off you go. Today was the first day in a while that I felt like I was capable of thinking well and so I spent a bunch of time reading and thinking about Apollodoros's account of the Theban cycle, when I realized that the Horos myth does have an exile-and-return. In fact, it even has a city! It's Bublos that is the equivalent of Thebai and Troia.

But it isn't Horos that gets exiled, it's Osiris; Horos is only "exiled" in the sense that his seed is contained within Osiris. Osiris is thus sort of the entire Greek host; his box being accepted into Bublos is not so very different from the Troian horse, and his coming back in fourteen pieces is like how the Greek host was scattered to the far winds in their returns.

But this means Aineias isn't Horos. But it turns out I already knew our Horos: it's Orestes, son of Agamemnon. (Which I suppose should have been obvious, since Orestes never goes to Troia, murders his mother, and avenges his father.) We see the same character in the Theban cycle in the figure of Alkmaion, who also murders his mother to avenge his father, is chased by the Erinues, undergoes purifications, etc.

But there were many heroes at Troia (and, indeed, at Thebai). I haven't chased them all down, but the one who really stands out is Diktus, who almost leaves Bublos, but not quite; this one is Akhilleus, who was also nursed-but-not-really by a goddess by day and burned in a fire at night, and managed to survive most of the way through the war before succumbing to passion. (I'm sure he would have left Troia alive had Peleus not cried out upon seeing him burning!) And, while I'm not 100% sure of it, the most likely candidate for Aineias is actually old Teiresias, who led the Thebans away before the Epigone sacked the city, helping them to found a new one.

Anyway, I've a long way to go, but I think there's two takeaways from this. First, always treat your knowledge as provisional; there is always something to be learned by ditching your assumptions. Second, if I want to reconcile my myths, it won't do to simply have a list of point-by-point in the stories: they actually form a sort of tree, with the core stem following Osiris-Horos, the house of Atreus, and Europe's magical necklace, but with branches splaying off at various points depending on which hero we are talking about. This strengthens the hypothesis that the ancients knew there were many spiritual paths and tried to support them...

Κασσάνδρα. ὀτοτοτοῖ πόποι δᾶ. Ὦπολλον Ὦπολλον. [...] Ἄπολλον Ἄπολλον ἀγυιᾶτ᾽, ἀπόλλων ἐμός. ἀπώλεσας γὰρ οὐ μόλις τὸ δεύτερον.

Kassandra. [incoherent screaming] O Ruin! O Ruin... [sobbing] Ruin, Guiding Ruin, my ruining! Twice now you have utterly ruined me... [sobbing]

(Aiskhulos, Agamemnon 1072-82.)

I'm not much of a theater person, but Aiskhulos's Kassandra is harrowing. I've checked something like five translations and, while I'm no expert, nobody seems to translate her well. And honestly I just don't think she can translate well: she's incoherent, rambling, and everything she says seems to have a double or triple meaning. Here, Aiskhulos explicitly connects Ἄπολλον "Apollon" (the god) with the virtually identical ἀπόλλων "destroying utterly" (the action), referring to how Apollon despoils the material world in favor of the spiritual (cf. Horos beheading Isis; Perseus from πέρσευς "pillager [of cities];" etc.) as he has also despoiled Kassandra. Ἄπολλον ἀγυιᾶτα "Apollon of the Roads" refers how Apollon guides initiates on the upward ways but also how he has guided Kassandra to her undoing. One gets the impression of a failed initiate, who saw but was unable to digest what she had seen and was broken by it.

By the Hellenistic era, Apollo was a joyful singer of songs; but to Homer, Apollon was a harsh warrior. I wonder if his golden lyre was only for his heroes; his golden arrows were for everyone else...

Plotinos has a line (at the end of Enneads IV ii §2, my translation) which has haunted me ever since I first read it:

ἔστιν οὖν ψυχὴ ἓν καὶ πολλὰ οὕτως· τὰ δὲ ἐν τοῖς σώμασιν εἴδη πολλὰ καὶ ἕν· τὰ δὲ σώματα πολλὰ μόνον· τὸ δ' ὑπέρτατον ἓν μόνον.

So then, soul is one and many in this way; the forms within bodies are many and one; bodies are only many; but the highest is only one.

He was speaking of his emanative principles, but I think it applies just as clearly to Empedocles's roots. Bear with me as I try to explain.

First, forget everything that modern science has taught us about atoms, molecules, gravity, planets, the solar system, etc. Try to think of the universe the way somebody might have three thousand years ago. At the "bottom" of everything is the Earth; above that, Water flows in rivers and lakes and the sea; above that, Air fills the void; and somewhere way above is Fire, the Sun. We think of each of these things as made of particles and such, but the ancients wouldn't have: the Sun is a single "thing;" Air isn't something that can be divided up, it's more of a space-filling continuum; Water can be divided but it can just as easily be joined back together and tends to act as a unit; Earth, however, once divided isn't easily put back together again. And so we see that Plotinos's distinction seems applicable: Fire is one thing only; Air is one thing but it occupies many places; Water is many things but acts as one thing; Earth is many things only.

Next, consider each of these with respect to light. Fire emits light; Air transmits light freely, without distortion; Water transmits light, but it distorts it with refractions and reflections; Earth, however, does not transmit light at all, and merely receives it.

Are you with me so far? I hope I'm making sense.

The magic trick is to equate light and consciousness. Fire is the image of God, who is the source of all consciousness: just as the Sun illuminates all, so too does God experience all (and, indeed, all experience is God's). Light travels freely through the Air in many directions, and this is the image of Heaven, where God's one consciousness pervades all angels, allowing for individualized consciousness but still acting as one; God sees and acts as one through many eyes; this consciousness is as yet unreflective and unselfconscious, but moves and moves rightly as God wills. Water, however, introduces distortions to light and may be physically separated; God's will can be turned to the individuals' wills, and beings may join together and act as one or separate and act individually as they choose. Earth, finally, does not transmit light, but only receives it; the body is a dead thing, unconscious, merely acting as a container for Water.

Because it only acts as a container, beings cannot have Earth-consciousness. Beings with Water-consciousness (whether possessing an Earthy body or not) have the two peculiar properties that they can be self-conscious, on the one hand, and may choose to align or not with God's purposes, on the other. Beings with Air-consciousness are not self-conscious or reflective (though this is not to say without unique characteristics), and convey only God's light to all, acting as one, naturally and without effort. And, of course, there is only one Fire-consciousness, and it simply is.

Thus we see our five gods: fiery Osiris simply is, innocent and pure; airy Seth is divisive only insofar as he is the medium for individual consciousness; earthy Isis and watery Nephthus are always working together, mother supporting and nurse nourishing; and bright Horos is the light which shines from Osiris through and onto all.

Thus we also see our three worlds: fire, air, and our muddy Tartaros. If you wish to leave Tartaros, it isn't enough to leave the body behind: you must clear your water so as to transmit light as clearly and as naturally as possible, with as little need of self-conscious reflection as possible (though I think it takes lots of self-conscious reflection to get to that point). Is this way you diminish the individual will and allow God's will to operate through you. One can do that with or without a body, and so the body becomes vestigial, allowing one to join the angels. Plotinos says (Enneads III v §2) that there is no marriage in heaven, but this seems to me to have the emphasis backwards: there, all things are joined together.

Many years ago, while I was studying Zen, I misquoted Ruth Fuller Sasaki in my diary: "Only when one has no things in their mind and no mind in their things are they unearthly, empty, and marvelous." (I didn't write down the source or the original quote, alas.) But the misquote has stuck with me and I feel like I'm finally beginning to understand it.

τόσσον ἔνερθ᾽ ὑπὸ γῆς, ὅσον οὐρανός ἐστ᾽ ἀπὸ γαίης:
τόσσον γάρ τ᾽ ἀπὸ γῆς ἐς Τάρταρον ἠερόεντα.
ἐννέα γὰρ νύκτας τε καὶ ἤματα χάλκεος ἄκμων
οὐρανόθεν κατιὼν δεκάτῃ κ᾽ ἐς γαῖαν ἵκοιτο:
ἐννέα δ᾽ αὖ νύκτας τε καὶ ἤματα χάλκεος ἄκμων
ἐκ γαίης κατιὼν δεκάτῃ κ᾽ ἐς Τάρταρον ἵκοι.
τὸν πέρι χάλκεον ἕρκος ἐλήλαται: ἀμφὶ δέ μιν νὺξ
τριστοιχεὶ κέχυται περὶ δειρήν: αὐτὰρ ὕπερθεν
γῆς ῥίζαι πεφύασι καὶ ἀτρυγέτοιο θαλάσσης.

as far beneath the earth as heaven is above it,
that is how far it is from earth to Tartaros:
since a bronze anvil falling from heaven to earth
for nine days and nights would land on the tenth,
and a bronze anvil falling from earth to Tartaros
for nine days and nights would land on the tenth.
Around it runs a bronze fence, beyond which night
pours in three rows like a collar, while above it
grow the roots of earth and the barren sea.

(Hesiod, Theogony 720–8, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly. Note that the translation is, alas, not line-for-line due to word order considerations.)

ἤ μιν ἑλὼν ῥίψω ἐς Τάρταρον ἠερόεντα
τῆλε μάλ’, ἧχι βάθιστον ὑπὸ χθονός ἐστι βέρεθρον,
ἔνθα σιδήρειαί τε πύλαι καὶ χάλκεος οὐδός,
τόσσον ἔνερθ’ Ἀΐδεω ὅσον οὐρανός ἐστ’ ἀπὸ γαίης:

or I will pick him up and throw him into murky Tartaros
very far away, where the deepest abyss lies under the earth,
surrounded by iron gates and a border of bronze,
as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth;

(Zeus speaking. Iliad VIII 13–16, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

Ἔστι μὲν οὖν ἡ πορεία διττὴ πᾶσιν ἢ ἀναβαίνουσιν ἢ ἄνω ἐλθοῦσιν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ προτέρα ἀπὸ τῶν κάτω, ἡ δέ γε δευτέρα, οἷς ἤδη ἐν τῷ νοητῶ γενομένοις καὶ οἷον ἴχνος θεῖσιν ἐκεῖ πορεύεσθαι ἀνάγκη, ἕως ἂν εἰς τὸ ἐσχατον τοῦ τόπου ἀφίκωνται, ὃ δὴ τέλος τῆς πορείας ὂν τυγχάνει, ὅταν τις ἐπ' ἄκρῳ γένηται τῷ νοητῷ.

There are two stages of the journey for all, one when they are going up and one when they have arrived above. The first leads from the regions below, the second is for those who are already in the intelligible realm and have gained their footing There, but must still travel till they reach the furthest point of the region; that is the "end of the journey," when you reach the top of the intelligible.

(Plotinus, Enneads I iii "On Dialectic" §1, as translated by A. H. Armstrong.)

The poets describe three worlds: heaven, earth, and Tartaros. We see three worlds in the mysteries, too; heroes always descend twice and reascend twice:

• Osiris is stuffed in a box, then dismembered; in early versions of the Horos-myth (e.g. Shabaka Stone 7–9; cf. Pyramid Texts 770b?, 2099a?), Horos wins the trial to reclaim Lower Egypt, then defeats Seth to reclaim Upper Egypt.
• Perseus is exiled from Argos to Seriphos, and is sent from Seriphos to the ends of the earth; he returns to Seriphos with the Gorgon's head, and returns to Argos as king.
• Persephone is kidnapped from Nusa, then fed the pomegranate seeds to bind her to Hades.
• Hesiod (Theogony 793–804) says that souls which perjure their oaths to the Stux suffer two punishments: they lie comatose for a year, then they are exiled for nine.
• Odusseus returns from Troia aimlessly in his own ship, then directly in the ships of others.
• Zephyr carries Psyche to Eros's palace, the river carries Psyche to earth; as penances, Psyche wanders the earth aimlessly, then Psyche completes tasks for Venus.
• Plotinus says that there are two stages in everyone's upward journey: the ascent from the lower world, and the traversal of the upper world to its highest point.

Therefore I think the poets' "heaven" is the Intellect; "earth" is the world of Soul, the abode of angels and purified souls; and "Tartaros" is our material world, the haunt of daimons and men and beasts, a dark prison surrounded by walls of bronze and gates of iron. Indeed, Homer's shades are insensate because most of us, the inhabitants of Hades, are passive, sheep-like. Teiresias alone among them has his wits because, by the gift of Persephone (that is to say, having mastered the mysteries), he is awake to his seven lives (his reincarnations) and has learned from them, becoming a purified soul, a saint, a hero; he sits in Hades merely waiting for his sentence to be commuted.

So, the heroes' two falls are the emanation from the Intellect and the fall into matter; their two returns are their waking up from the material world (which is relatively brief, if one makes the effort, but very unpleasant) and their efforts to master of the spiritual world (which takes long ages of time but is nicer).

But this also explains another thing that's always bothered me. After Zeus deposes Kronos, he and his brothers share power amongst themselves: Zeus became king of heaven; Poseidon, king of the sea; and Hades, king of the underworld. Since I've mostly followed the four-fold Empedoclean model, the three divisions confused me. The poets' model, however, fits it nicely: Zeus ruling (and being) the Intellect, Poseidon ruling the spiritual world (being Soul), and Hades ruling the material world (being Nature). This explains their traditional attributes, with Zeus being the strongest (because the Intellect has power over all existence), Poseidon being a shapeshifter (because spiritual things are without form), and Hades being wealthy (containing all material things); further, the gifts of the Circle-Eyes are the representation of an individual each at each level: Zeus's lightning-bolts represent the ideas held within the Intellect (hence is a symbol of intuition), Poseidon's trident represents the souls held within Soul (hence is a symbol of reason—a trident grabs a fish much better than a spear, just like reason helps us hold onto intuitive insights—and is, perhaps, why Plato insisted on a tripartite soul), and Hades's dogskin represents the bodies held within Nature (hence is a symbol of sensation and is why Apollodoros says that "it allows one to see while not being seen," a riddling way of describing how a body grants sense-perception while also hiding the soul). This last amuses me: what is a body, after all, but a beast skin wrapped around the soul?

At Eleusis, there were two sets of mystery festivals: the Lesser Mysteries (which occurred around the spring equinox) and the Greater Mysteries (which occurred around the autumn equinox). It is the latter of these that are mythically recorded in part as the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (and which I talked about as the Mystery of Isis). Thomas Taylor (Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries I) says that "the Lesser Mysteries occultly signified the miseries of the soul while in subjection to the body, so those of the Greater obscurely intimated, by mystic and splendid visions, the felicity of the soul both here and hereafter, when purified from the defilements of a material nature and constantly elevated to the realities of intellectual vision."

That is probably all historically factual; but be that as it may, I think the distinction is mistaken. The Mysteries of Isis/Demeter aren't the true Greater Mysteries; neither are those of Osiris/Dionusos or even those of Horos/Apollo. All of these are Lesser Mysteries in the sense that they are preparatory; learning to reflect upon them and discern what they mean is meant to give you the tools to unpack the Greater Mysteries.

Even if the Lesser Mysteries should not be spoken of—and this is for good reason; those of you who have been following my Horos series have been taking them with salt, right?—it is possible to speak of them. The Greater Mysteries are those which cannot be spoken of even in theory: these are the mysteries of your soul itself, that which is strictly internal to you. Only you can experience that myth and explore that terrain, therefore only you can master those mysteries.

Hearing the Lesser Mysteries makes you an apprentice. Mastering the Lesser Mysteries means you know how to use the tools of the mysteries; in a sense, you become a journeyman, capable of work but not yet having constructed a masterpiece. Mastering the Greater Mysteries is constructing your masterpiece, and that masterpiece is your Soul.

Having mastered them, you as Kassandra are both blessed with Illumination and cursed with being unable to communicate it. Still, one should have the good hope of joining the ranks of those who, too, have Seen...

𓎬 𓊽 𓋹

When I revisited the Horus myth in light of discovering what Plutarch censored from it, I had neglected to revisit the sacred talismans of the mysteries, but I think what was omitted from the trial makes it clear what's going on with them.

Each of these objects represent, I think, a token from a critical scene in the mysteries themselves. The tyet knot is Isis's girdle, which she removes when she cuts her hair and puts on garments of mourning—I presume she gives the girdle to the initiate watching the mysteries, or perhaps a miniature version is given them in reminiscence of it. The djed pillar is the stalk of heather in which Osiris was imprisoned, which was perfumed and wrapped in linen and given to Malkander and Astarte—I presume a normal-sized heather stalk wrapped in linen is given to initiates at that point in the mysteries.

But what about the ankh?

Well, the tyet is intentionally soft—not only is it a garment, but it is also representative of feminine matter, which receives and is changed by receiving. The djed is intentionally hard—not only is it a structural element in the story, but it is also representative of masculine spirit, which gives and is unchanged by giving. But these are just the same as the parts of Horus mentioned in the trial: his Isaic part is his soft tissue, his flesh, while his Osirian part is his structure, his bones. By defeating Set he legitimized himself to his father, but by beheading Isis he delegitimized himself from his mother, and so the council of gods gave him the kingdom but took away his flesh. This is saying that when the soul no longer has need of a material crutch, the nature of the cosmos is that they ascend to an unembodied life.

But this is just what we see in the ankh, which writers from antiquity on all agree is representative of "eternal life," and which is expressed in the object itself: it's hard and structural like the djed—presumably initiates were given one made of reed or something—but it has the shape of the tyet knot. This is indicating spirit shaped by matter, which is just what the ascended soul is when divested of its material part: a living idea given its peculiar form through its exile in the world.

So I wonder if the ankh talisman was given to initiates as a part of the trial scene, as a symbol of Horus and a reminder that "eternal life" isn't a gift or an inevitability, but something to be hard-won through the contemplation of the mysteries and the development of one's own, personal meaning from them.

This post is a bit of a revision to my exploration of the myth of Horus: in the month since then, I found a few lost bits and pieces of the Horus myth, and my interpretation of it has evolved a little bit. I think it also agrees even more closely with the Odysseus story than it did before, and it is easier to confidently associate characters and events between the two:

The left column is taken from Plutarch, Isis and Osiris XIX, but I have amended it (sometimes a little speculatively) with the italicized sections as follows:

• 2. Diodorus Siculus (Library of History I lxxxviii) says that Osiris came to Horus "in the form of a wolf," which most likely refers to 𓃢𓏃𓏠𓅂 Khenti-Amentiu "Foremost of the Westerners," who was jackal-headed (woof woof) and equated with Osiris (J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Conflict of Horus and Seth IV ii). The confusion of canids isn't anything to wonder at: Lycopolis ("City of Wolves") was consecrated to Anubis and Wepwawet, both jackals.

• 5. Set turning into a red bull is attested in the Pyramid Texts (418a, 679d, 1543a–1550a, 1977b) and apparently is a commonplace of later Egyptian myth (Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde XLVIII p. 72), though I have not found direct references. The loss of Horus's eye and Set's testicles is attested in the Pyramid Texts (418a, 594a, 679d), and also of course suggested by their restoration (see [8]).

• 6–7. Plutarch censors this episode in Isis and Osiris XIX, but says Isis was beheaded immediately after in XX, and this is confirmed in the Papyrus Sallier IV. I have retained Horus taking Isis's crown and therefore claiming kingship, since otherwise Set would have no reason for taking him to court.

• 8–10. I had mistakenly thought that Set took Horus to court over the legitimacy of his rule, but I was incorrect: it is over the legitimacy of his birth (Greek νοθεία notheia, "birth out of wedlock"). Plutarch censors this episode in Isis and Osiris XIX, but references the uncensored version in Desire and Grief VI and On the Generation of the Soul in the Timæus XXVII, and this is confirmed in the Papyrus Jumilhac. These vary in what parts, specifically, are assigned to the mother and father, but in any case the mother's part is always the outward part (skin, fat, flesh), and the father's part is always the inward part (blood, bones, marrow). The restoration of Horus's eye and Set's testicles is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts (36a, 39a, 65b, 95c, 535a–b, 578d, 591b, 595a–596c, 946a–c, 1614b). There is another version of the trial in The Contendings of Horus and Seth (Papyrus Chester Beatty I), but it conflicts with Plutarch's version of the myth (for example, Thoth is created from Horus "impregnating" Set, rather than pre-existing), and so I consider it a parallel tradition.

• 12. Horus displacing Set to become undisputed king is implied by Turin King List; Herodotus, Histories II cxliv; Manetho, History of Egypt; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History I xxv; etc. The reconciliation between Horus and Set is suggested by the Pyramid Texts (390b, 678a–c, 801b–c, 971a–b, 975a–b, 1453b, 2100a–b), but Diodorus Siculus (Library of History I xxi) says that Set was executed (but his version of the myth differs in a number of other ways, too, so it is less trustworthy).

I think I can fairly confidently say, now, that Odysseus is Horus's bones, Circe is Tewaret, Hermes and Athena are Thoth (who is always the advisor to the king, whether he be Ra, Osiris, Isis, or Horus), Teiresias is Khenti-Amentiu (the avatar of Osiris), the monsters following Circe are the serpent chasing Tewaret, Helios is Set as a red bull (and the cows are his testicles), Calypso is Isis, Odysseus's various ships (his original one, the raft, and the Phæacian ship) are Horus's flesh, and Poseidon is Set.

I had hurried past Osiris's questions to Horus, as I was unsure what to make of them. J. Gwyn Griffiths (The Conflict of Horus and Seth IV iii) suggests that the first question is meant to demonstrate Horus's piety and the second is meant to demonstrate his intelligence, which is no less reasonable than my supposition of blood-thirstiness.

The main change from my prior analysis is that the stripping of Horus's material part makes it obvious that Horus triumphs over matter in the first battle, not the second, as I had previously thought. In a way, this makes more sense: it means that the battles with Set are not the mastery of the virtues, but the climbing of the levels of the tetractys (that is, the reverse process of the birth of the gods): one transcends Earth and Water together, then transcends Air, and finally all becomes one again at the end of time. So we can therefore associate mastery of the civic virtues (e.g. separating men from beasts) with defeating Circe (who does not turn Odysseus's men into pigs, but rather makes their outward form reflect their inward form); similarly, the mastery of the purificatory virtues (e.g. transcending desire) can be associated with defeating Calypso (who appeals to Odysseus's sensual desires, and yet he spends all his time on the shore, longing for home).

That it is only the Osirian part of Horus that becomes king of Egypt is supportive of my hypothesis that Horus the Elder is the seed of the individual soul within Osiris when he is born of Nut. It is also strongly suggestive of the principle that all things return to their source: Fire to Fire, and Earth to Earth. To my recollection, Empedocles never mentions such a principle, though Plutarch does (On the Man in the Moon XXX), albeit in different terms.

In the version of the trial included in The Contendings of Horus and Seth, Horus "impregnates" Set and Thoth pops out of Set's forehead as a result, which is awfully reminiscent of the Athena myth and also agrees with my prior argument that Hermes is Odysseus's intelligence while Athena is Odysseus's wisdom.

Previously I said that the White Goddess was like those daimons who speed the rising soul on their way, but I think this is incorrect: if that's so, why does she remain in the sea, and why does Odysseus throw back her veil? No, I think the White Goddess is the mysteries themselves (appropriate, for the daughter of Cadmus!) and her veil is the mystery teachings; Odysseus makes use of them during his three-day-and-night-swim (that is, Plato's "three philosophical lives"), and he returns the veil because, as the Buddha remarks in his Parable of the Raft, teachings are for crossing over but not for holding on to: once one has transcended the material world, the teachings are simply no longer relevant.

I hadn't paid any attention to the sacrifice of the three animals to Poseidon at the end of the Odyssey. I wonder if these three are recapitulations of the three battles: that is, they express the reason why this is all the way it is. We are living offerings to divinity: the experiences we have, the teachings we learn, the states of consciousness we enter as we individuate and climb the latter of being: all of these are what we bring back to the Source at the end of time. We are god coming to know itself: one ram, one bull, one boar at a time.

I've been thinking about what the purpose and value of the mysteries are, and I think what I've come to appreciate most about all this is that it provides such a lovely map of mystical experience: one can confidently say "oh, this is where I am!" and it gives guidance on what you're dealing with and what you can expect to deal with next. At least the little bit I have memory and experience of seems to fit, anyway, and I have good hopes for what comes after.

ἠδ᾽ Ἔρος, ὃς κάλλιστος ἐν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι,
λυσιμελής, πάντων δὲ θεῶν πάντων τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων
δάμναται ἐν στήθεσσι νόον καὶ ἐπίφρονα βουλήν.

and Love, who is the most beautiful of the deathless gods,
who relaxes the limbs; of every gods' and mortals'
hearts, minds, and careful plans, he conquers.

(Hesiod, Theogony 120–2, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

κάλλιστος is a tricky word, here; it is generally translated "most beautiful," but my dictionary seems to give the sense of "most good" in general—most good in form (hence "most beautiful"), most good in disposition ("kindliest"), most good in worthiness ("noblest"), etc. I'm not really sure in which sense it is meant, if indeed those of Hesiod's day would have distinguished them at all. Plotinus, at least, considered all superlatives (beauty, truth, etc.) to coincide in the Intellect.

I fear making sense of this is beyond my present capacities, but that doesn't make it any less worthy of a topic for meditation. Similarly, it is worth considering why Hesiod and Empedocles place Love at the top of their hierarchies, above even kingly Zeus.

You have four parts to your being: the Fiery consciousness that infuses all, an Airy soul, a Watery imagination, and an Earthy body. I sometimes often almost exclusively like to talk about guardian angels, but the Neoplatonists didn't consider you to have just one of these: rather, each part of your being has a guide set over it, and the one you interact with is of the degree immediately higher than whatever part of your being consciousness reflects off of.

When you are focused on your body, your goal is to master the civic virtues, and in this you are aided by the natal daimon, a being of Water who is set over the body, tending it and keeping it whole. Since this being is set over your body, it only persists with the body for the length of a single life; this is the daimon which Socrates (quoting Er) talks about in the Republic as going with a person when they enter into life, and it's the being which astrological mechanisms relate to and identify.

When you are focused on your imagination, your goal is to master the cathartic virtues, and in this you are aided by the guardian angel, a being of Air who is set over the imagination. This being is immortal and persists with a soul through all its incarnations, shepherding it back up to the spiritual world. Few people, it seems, energize at the level of Water, and this is why the Egyptian priest found it remarkable that Plotinus's guiding spirit was a god and not a mere daimon.

When you are focused on your soul, only one being remains above you, and that is Fire itself: so heroes (those of us who no longer require bodies but live in the spiritual world) no longer have a guardian angel, but are guided by God (which is why Proclus says, "as souls we are dependent upon the Intellect alone, but as souls using a body we are in need of the guardian spirit").

What happens to those guiding spirits as we ascend the ranks? As beings of Water, natal daimons aren't immortal; they outlive the body they tend, but not indefinitely, and I presume it is they who meet us after death and help us to process our life's experiences. Guardian angels, on the other hand, are immortal and persist indefinitely: I presume that even if they aren't our guardians any more in the spiritual world, that they help us acclimate to that world when we first return there, and after that remain our good and close friends.

I have been wondering about this in the context of the Odyssey. As I have said, if Odusseus is the individual soul in the process of reascent, then Ogugia is the limit of the world of Earth, Skheria is the limit of the world of Water, and Ithake is "home," the world of Air. It is noteworthy that Hermes aids Odusseus on Aiaia (giving him moly to protect him from Kirke) and on Ogugia (conveying Zeus's will that Kalupso release Odusseus), but thereafter he is aided by Athenaie (advising him on Skheria, helping him to reclaim his house on Ithake). So in that sense, Hermes acts like Odusseus's natal daimon, while Athenaie acts like Odusseus's guardian angel.

(It is amusing to me that these two deities are the two Olumpians which are described as children. Athenaie in particular is not often depicted this way in modern times, but that is exactly what "Pallas" means: "pre-pubescent girl." Presumably their depiction as children reflects their minor status as compared to other daimons or angels (or gods, like Zeus and Demeter). Certainly, Athenaie's fiery outbursts at Zeus make more sense when she's seen in this way—"daddy, you don't even care about Odusseus!" as she stomps her feet—and I would love to see people draw Athenaie as swimming in an aigis much, much too big for her!)