The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (41 page)

We may try to repress the archetypes and the complexes they generate, but the attempt is futile and creates greater problems. As Jung said, a repressed archetype tends to return, but in an even more primitive form. Therefore psychological health in contemporary culture requires some accommodation with these ancient gods, something between acting

out and repression, for repression eventually leads to even cruder acting out. For example, it is no surprise that religious and political figures with puritanical ideas about sex are regularly discovered to be doing exactly what they condemn.

Fundamental to accomplishing this is humility in the face of the archetypes. We are

inclined toward the arrogant assumption that our conscious ego is in control of our mental life, and in particular of the unconscious mind, both collective and personal. But Jung has been credited with a “Copernican revolution” in psychology, for he showed that the conscious ego orbits around the unconscious Self, rather than the opposite, which in our egotism we would like to believe. The ego is just one complex among many, orbiting the Self as the planets orbit the Sun. Nevertheless, the conscious ego is not irrelevant; it should not simply submit to the Self. For the ego is the uniquely human faculty of conscious introspection, evaluation, and judgment, and so it plays an essential role in living a
human
life.

Therefore the goal is neither to repress the unconscious Self nor to abandon the conscious ego, but to use our conscious faculties to reach a rapprochement between the conscious ego and the unconscious Self—the inner God image—thus using our conscious

minds to draw strength, vitality, intuition, and inspiration from the Self, and to devote it to the Self in order to serve humankind.

Jung used the term
individuation
to refer to the lifelong process of integrating the ego and the Self, the process of becoming psychosomatically undivided (Lat.,
individuus
), of the microcosm and the archetypes 201

becoming integrated in body and soul. Many analytic techniques in depth psychology are directed toward this integration, and we will see that they are similar to Neoplatonic spiritual practices directed toward the same end. This is the topic of the remaining chapters, which will teach you the path into the sacred grove where the gods dwell.

Three Paths of Ascent

You are crossing the threshold into the Neoplatonic mysteries, which will bring you into contact with the gods and divine union. These advanced spiritual practices are the subject of the remaining three chapters and of the last third of your nine-month program of study.

In this chapter you will learn the first of three paths of ascent to the divine, the Path of Love. Each of these paths has four initiatory stages corresponding to the four levels of the Tetractys, and you should devote at least a week to practicing each of them. What is the source of these practices?

Many of the Neoplatonists were inspired by the
Chaldean Oracles
, which they treated as inspired or revealed texts. They date from the late second century CE and were supposed to have been written by Julian the Chaldean and his son Julian the Theurgist; most likely the father used the son as a “medium” for receiving the texts, allegedly from the spirit of Plato. Many Neoplatonists attached great importance to the
Oracles
, including Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. In fact, Proclus said he would be content if all philosophical texts were lost except Plato’s
Timaeus
and the
Oracles
.

In the century before Hypatia, Porphyry, whose philosophy was very close to hers,

wrote a book
Philosophy from Oracles
, which was based on the
Chaldean Oracles
. Unfortunately, only fragments of it survive, as is also the case with the commentary on the
Oracles
by Iamblichus. Of the
Oracles
themselves, a complete text may have existed as recently as the eleventh century, but now we have only about 200 fragments, none longer than seventeen lines, some as short as one word! Nevertheless, scholars have been able to reconstruct 203

204 the path of love

an outline of the Chaldean system from these fragments and from the fragments of Neoplatonic texts that discuss them.

Many readers will doubt the value of such “channeled” texts, and it is certainly wise not to accept them blindly. However, the ancient Neoplatonists believed they were the result of advanced spiritual exercises, and that they were consistent with the results of the Neoplatonists’ own spiritual investigations. In modern terms they are phenomenological investigations of spiritual experiences and the structure of the psyche. The
Oracles
retained their revered status for at least a thousand years, well into the Christian era in Europe, and Plethon (George Gemistos) and Marsilio Ficino wrote commentaries on the fragments in the fifteenth century.

Beauty

Goodness

Wisdom

Love

Truth

Trust

Three Rays

Hypatia is about to teach a lesson in her home to her private students. A dozen of

them are seated in a semicircular arc around her chair. She enters from an adjoining room and, standing by her chair, surprises her students by quoting the words that are spoken by the Hierophant in the Eleusinian Mysteries:

I speak to those who lawfully may hear;

depart all ye profane and close the doors.231

the path of love 205

Sitting, she pauses in contemplation before beginning. “According to the
Chaldean
Oracles
, The One has three attributes or aspects: it is
beautiful
,
good
, and
wise
; these are the three
Chaldean Virtues
or
Excellences
. Therefore, three primary names of The One are Beauty, Goodness, and Wisdom, but please don’t forget that The One is ineffable

and inexpressible, and so all its names, including ‘The One’, are limited attempts to capture some aspect of it in language. Corresponding to the Chaldean Virtues are three

primary relationships: Love, Truth, and Trust (or Faith); we love beauty, we seek wisdom through truth, and we trust (or have faith in) goodness.”

Usually, I will translate Greek
pistis
as “trust” rather than as “faith,” since
faith
sometimes suggests belief in the absence of evidence or even in contradiction to it. This is different from the
trust
we have in a close friend or parent, or the
trust
we have in our senses, even if they sometimes fail us. Such trust is not the result of rational analysis, but neither is it groundless. Trust is earned, not granted blindly. In the context of Neoplatonism, “trust”

expresses the meaning of
pistis
better than “faith.”

Hypatia continues, “Beauty, Wisdom, and Goodness
abide
with The One as its primary aspects, but they also
proceed
through the levels of reality, like rays from the sun, imparting their virtue on everything that exists. We are all illuminated by their light, and consequently, by means of the third term of the Triadic Principle, we can use them to
return
to The One. They serve to connect the here below to the there above, and are like three powerful hands that reach down to draw us up. As a consequence there are

three ways of ascent to The One, the Ascents by Love, Truth, and Trust, and I will explain each in turn.232 They emphasize the three parts of the soul that Plato described: the faculties of
desire
,
reason
, and
will
. Each ascent involves all three parts, of course, but they differ in the part that is used most in the process. Platonists differ about whether certain ascents are more or less powerful in their ability to reach The One. You should learn them all, but each has its strengths and different ascents may work better for different people.”

Gaius asks, “How do we know which path is best for us?”

“If you worship a goddess or god of love, such as Aphrodite or Eros, then the Path

of Love may be for you. Also, if you are filled often with the spirit of love, which comes from these deities, then you may find this path to be the best. Likewise, if you are filled with love and adoration for any gods. Remember also that in this ascent you are drawn 206 the path of love

upward by divine Beauty, and so if you are especially sensitive to beauty, it may aid your progress. Do you understand?”

Gaius blushes and nods eagerly.

“As for the other paths,” Hypatia continues, “I will give you some advice when we

come to them.

“Just as each of us is an emanation from The One, through the World Mind and

World Soul, so these ascents reverse the process, descending into the depths of the

soul, to reach The One within. Remember that The One within mirrors The One above,

for these spatial locations are just metaphors, so the ascent is also a journey inward.

For every thing

when it enters into the unspeakable depths of its own nature

will find there the symbol of the Universal Father.233

“The principle of all these ascents is ‘like knows like’, and so to know The One, we must become like it, that is, unified, utterly simple, and tranquil. Platonic philosophy teaches that this unification is ‘salvation’, the restoration and preservation of the integrity of the soul. Each thing, nonliving as well as living, is ‘saved’ through its principle of unity. Union with The One, that is, union with God, is also called ‘deification’, that is, becoming godlike insofar as it is possible for humans; recall that the common goal of all philosophy, as taught by the ancient sages, is to become godlike.

“Each of the ascents proceeds through the same three stages, traditionally called

Purification
,
Illumination
, and
Perfection
(or
Union
). The meaning of these terms will be clearer after I describe the practices. They correspond approximately to the three degrees of initiation in our ancient mystery religions, such as the Eleusinian Mysteries.”

Now you know the goal of this chapter, and of the next month of your practice: to use the power of love to become godlike and to achieve divine union.

History of the Ascent by Love

Before teaching the Ascent by Love, I will present the highlights of its history, for it has existed for at least two and one-half millennia and stretches through the Pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Moslem traditions. You do not need to know this history to practice this path, but it will help you to see more possibilities in its practice. The Ascent by Love has its origin, at least in the West, in Plato’s
Symposium
, where it is explained to Socrates by a the path of love 207

wise woman, Diotima, from Mantinea (a district in Arcadia, Greece). She may have been a real person, since most of Plato’s characters were, but she is unknown to history except from the
Symposium
. Her ascent is the foundation of the one you will learn in this chapter.

The Ascent by Love was adapted to a Christian framework by St. Augustine (354–430),

a contemporary of Hypatia, in his
Dimensions of the Soul
, and by St. Bonaventura (1221–

1274), in
The Mind’s Road to God
. More generally, the “mysteries of love,” especially in their Neoplatonic form, had a profound influence on the mystical branches of Judaism (e.g., Kabbalah), Christianity, and Islam (e.g., Sufism).

The mysteries of love were at the core of the medieval doctrine of courtly love and

of the art of the troubadours, which gave us the legends of the age of chivalry, with King Arthur, Parsifal, Lancelot, Guinevere, the Grail Quest, and the rest.234 They are the basis of some of practices you will learn. One source of the troubadours’ art was a tradition of Arab mystical poetry, which expressed longing and love for God, who is addressed as “the Beloved.” This tradition began in the ninth century, but is most familiar to us in the poetry of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–1273). The following poem plays on the Persian

word
shams
, which means the sun, a symbol of God the Beloved, but is also the name of Rumi’s mortal beloved, the dervish Shams-i Tabrizi:

Love is longing and longing, the pain of being parted;

No illness is rich enough for the distress of the heart,

A lover’s lament surpasses all other cries of pain.

Love is the royal threshold to God’s mystery.

…

Love is dangerous offering no consolation,

Only those who are ravaged by Love know Love,

The sun alone unveils the sun to those who have

The sense to receive the senseless and not turn away.

Cavernous shadows need the light to play but light

And light alone can lead you to the light alone.

Material shadows weigh down your vision with dross,

But the rising sun splits the ashen moon in empty half.

(Raficq Abdulla, trans.235)

Arab mystical poetry drew from many sources, including Neoplatonism and Man-

ichaeism, a dualistic Gnostic religion that was very popular from Rome to China, espe-208 the path of love

cially in the third to seventh centuries CE. From these sources came its ideas of love and desire for union with the divine, ideas which were considered heretical because, according to orthodox Islam, a finite being (such as a person) cannot love an infinite being (such as God). Indeed, several Sufi poets were tortured and executed for heresy, including al-Hallaj (857–922), known as “the martyr of mystical love.” The charges against him said, “To adore God from love alone is the crime of the Manicheans …” Therefore it was necessary to be somewhat vague about the identity of “the Beloved.” Al-Hallaj wrote of union with the divine Beloved, the inner God image:

I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I.

We are two spirits dwelling in one body,

If thou seest me, thou seest Him;