Running Head: PSYCHE’S STAGE

From Corbin and Hillman to Dionysos: The Partial Unveiling of Psyche’s Stage

A dissertation submitted

by

Laura Jeanine Jones

to

Pacifica Graduate Institute

in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the
degree of

Doctor of Philosophy
in
Depth Psychology

with emphasis in

Somatic Studies

This dissertation has been

accepted for the faculty of
Pacifica Graduate Institute by:

Dr. Joseph Coppin, Chair

Dr. Jason Butler, Reader

Dr. Tom Cheetham, External Reader





ProQuest Number: 10642918




All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.






ProQuest 10642918

Published by ProQuest LLC (2017 ). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author.


All rights reserved.
This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.


ProQuest LLC.
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346
PSYCHE’S STAGE ii

MAY 30, 2017

Copyright by

Laura Jeanine Jones

2017
PSYCHE’S STAGE iii

Abstract

From Corbin and Hillman to Dionysos: The Partial Unveiling of Psyche’s Stage

by

Laura Jeanine Jones

This hermeneutic research journey begins with the premise that Jung’s and Corbin’s

works presuppose a visionary capacity far removed from the experience of most people.

In Corbin, this capacity is associated with an apparitional imaginal world and creative

Imagination depicted in Islamic Sūfism as accessible only to mystics. Hillman’s writings

in archetypal psychology, which are profoundly influenced by both Jung and Corbin,

approach this world of imagination from a literary (or psycho-poetic) perspective that is

potentially more accessible to nonmystics. But Hillman’s intriguing references to Corbin,

which are metaphorically inclined, fall short of providing an explicit knowledge of

Corbin’s abstruse oeuvre. This research explores the works and hermeneutic approaches

of Corbin and Hillman with the aim of learning about the creative Imagination in respect

to nonmystics. A third voice, referred to as the Actress, contributes to this dialogue

reflecting the researcher’s experience. This figure acts as a representative of the

nonmystic whose connection to the numinous imaginal world of Corbin’s focus can best

be described as an associative sense of numinosity experienced through acting. As the

research journey unfolds, Dionysos, the god of Greek tragedy, simultaneously provides

an environment that corresponds to each of these voices and explicitly brings the worlds

of mysticism and theatre together. The Dionysiac cosmos thus leads to a vision of mystic-

theatre as an archetypal practice and twofold individuation process for today’s world

which is informed by Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress.

PSYCHE’S STAGE iv

Keywords: archetypal psychology, Corbin, Dionysus, Hillman, creative Imagination,

mystic, imaginal, theatre

PSYCHE’S STAGE v

Dedications and Acknowledgments

Allow me for a moment to express my gratitude to the unseen heroes and

backstage players in the research story that follows.

First, I would like to thank my dissertation committee members Joseph Coppin,

Tom Cheetham, and Jason Butler for their insight, encouragement, and enthusiastic

support of this work.

Second, I am much obliged to Allen Coulter, whose computer expertise and

format sleuthing skills came to the rescue in a time of need when Microsoft Word

rebelliously refused to follow my instructions.

Third, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Elizabeth Atherton, David

Bohnett, and my coworkers at Baroda Ventures and the David Bohnett Foundation. Their

friendship and support have seen me through the vicissitudes of this journey while

keeping me gainfully employed.

Most of all I thank my husband Everett Chase: first and foremost, for not

divorcing me when I was seemingly wedded to the work, second for keeping our house in

order amidst the writer’s frenzied chaos, and third for luring me step by step to the finish

line with his unrivaled comic routines that saw to the very core of my aspirational being.

I credit his endurance for my own endurance throughout this process.

And last by not least, thank you to the ancestors of this work who compelled me

to carry it forward.

Thank you. Thank you all. We have finally reached the light at the end of the

tunnel.
PSYCHE’S STAGE vi

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1

Purpose Statement ................................................................................................ 1

Introduction to the Topic ...................................................................................... 1

Researcher’s Relationship to the Topic ................................................................ 8

A Word about the Voice of this Work................................................................ 10

Relevance of the Topic for Depth Psychology ................................................... 11

Statement of the Research Problem and Question ............................................. 12

Chapter 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................ 15

Creation and Creativity in Corbin’s Conception of Ibn ‘Arabī’s Eternal

Cosmogony ......................................................................................................... 16

Mediation, Mirroring, and Mystic Vision in the Act of Recurrent Creation ...... 18

The Dhikr................................................................................................ 19

Ta’wīl. .................................................................................................... 19

The Visionary Recital. ............................................................................ 23

Hillman on Psychological Creativity.................................................................. 25

The First Conclusion: Psychological Creativity and the Necessity of

Relationships. ......................................................................................... 26

Secondly: The Destructive and Pathological Element to Psychological

Creativity. ............................................................................................... 27

The Third Conclusion: Distinguishing Creativity from Art. .................. 29

PSYCHE’S STAGE vii

The Fourth Conclusion: Associations with Love, the Heart, and Beauty.

................................................................................................................ 32

Love, Creativity, Beauty, Imagination, the Heart: Seeing Through an Aesthetic

Response to the World, and Panpsychic Sensibility .......................................... 35

Re-searching Between the Space of Captive and Self-Subsisting Imagination . 37

A Bridge Between Corbin and Hillman: Cheetham’s Writing ........................... 39

Healing Fiction ................................................................................................... 41

Chapter 3. Methodology ................................................................................................... 44

Research Approach ............................................................................................. 44

Research Methodology ....................................................................................... 47

A Brief Historical Overview of the Hermeneutic Tradition. .................. 47

Corbin’s Hermeneutics. .......................................................................... 50

Hillman’s Hermeneutics. ........................................................................ 56

Materials and Procedures for Gathering and “Analyzing the Data” .................. 65

Ethical Considerations ........................................................................................ 67

Limitations and Delimitations of the Study........................................................ 68

Organization of the Study ................................................................................... 69

Chapter 4. Contextualizing Ibn ‘Arabī Through Mazdaism ............................................. 71

An Initial Disclosure and Confession ................................................................. 71

Corbin’s Introduction to Ibn ‘Arabī ................................................................... 72

The Mazdean Dramaturgy in Three Great Acts ................................................. 73

Ōhrmazd and Ahriman Informed by a Zervān Tale of Origin ........................... 79

PSYCHE’S STAGE viii

Ōhrmazd’s Liturgical Theatre ............................................................................ 81

The Mazdean Imago Terrae: The Earth as Angel .............................................. 83

Imagining a Practice. .............................................................................. 87

The Fiction.............................................................................................. 88

Reflections on the Fiction. ...................................................................... 90

Spenta Armaiti or Spendarmat and her Daughter Daēnā ................................... 91

Spendarmatīkīh: A Process................................................................................. 92

Chapter 5. Avicennism and a Suhrawardīan Theosophy of Light .................................... 96

Avicennism ......................................................................................................... 96

Theosophy of Light: Suhrawardī, Najm Kobrā, and the Actress ..................... 100

The Meditation. .................................................................................... 101

Our Current Reflections on the Meditation, Viewed in the Context of this

Research. .............................................................................................. 105

Summing Up the Last Two Chapters ............................................................... 107

Going Forward: A Re-visioned Approach ....................................................... 110

Chapter 6. Dionysos ........................................................................................................ 113

Overview .......................................................................................................... 113

Stories from the Myth ....................................................................................... 114

Dionysos, Demeter, and Persephone. ................................................... 114

Dionysos and the Titans. ...................................................................... 115

Dionysos and Semele. .......................................................................... 116

PSYCHE’S STAGE ix

Phase One of his Myth: Dionysos, the Child. ...................................... 117

Phase Two: Madness and Dismemberment. ......................................... 118

The Third Phase: Joy and Ascension.................................................... 125

The Pirate Story. ................................................................................... 126

Dionysos as an Image of Indestructible Life; Ariadne as a Life Individualized

.......................................................................................................................... 132

Dionysos in Hillman’s Work ............................................................................ 134

Chapter 7. Ibn ‘Arabī’s Dialectic of Love and a Return to Dionysos............................. 142

The Sadness of Divine Names and the Aspiration of Forms ............................ 143

Ibn ‘Arabī’s Dialectic of Love ......................................................................... 144

The Creative Feminine ..................................................................................... 147

Ibn ‘Arabī and Dionysos in Concert with Each Other ..................................... 151

Chapter 8. Ariadne: A Series of Fictions in Alternate Voices ........................................ 155

Ariadne’s Tale: A Third Person Narrative in a Fictional Style ........................ 155

The Labyrinth ................................................................................................... 159

Ariadne’s Reflections in a Tri-unified Universe .............................................. 160

The Maze Above Us ......................................................................................... 162

Chapter 9. Beauty............................................................................................................ 165

Beauty Seen Through the Lens of Corbin’s Work on Ibn ‘Arabī .................... 165

The Odd Mix of Beauty and Fear ..................................................................... 166

Incorporating Hillman’s Work ......................................................................... 169

Chapter 10. Seaford’s Dionysos ..................................................................................... 176

PSYCHE’S STAGE x

Dionysos and Nature ........................................................................................ 179

The Vine and Wine. .............................................................................. 179

Other Associations and Identifications. ................................................ 182

Two Themes Which Inform our Emergent Vision of an Artist–Mystic

Theatre. ................................................................................................. 185

Communality .................................................................................................... 186

Inclusion of the Weak and Marginalized Classes................................. 187

Thiasos and the Procession. .................................................................. 190

Transformation of the Marginalized via the Enactment of Myth. ........ 191

Tension Between Communalities. ........................................................ 192

Epiphany ........................................................................................................... 193

Epiphany as Responses to Ritual and Crisis......................................... 194

Epiphany as a Response to Invocation. ................................................ 195

Chapter 11. Seaford on Mystery-Cult ............................................................................. 196

Resistance, Confusion, Disorientation, Anxiety, and Fear in Mystery-Cult .... 199

The Use of Riddling Language............................................................. 202

The Escalation of Resistance, Confusion, Disorientation, Anxiety, and

Fear into Epiphany. .............................................................................. 204

The Use of Mirrors in Mystery-Cult. ................................................... 210

The Terrestrial World’s Mirroring Offering......................................... 214

The Role of Enactment in Mystery-Cult .......................................................... 214

PSYCHE’S STAGE xi

Dressing Up as Mythical Characters. ................................................... 215

Gender-Reversal and Transvestism. ..................................................... 215

Masks. ................................................................................................... 216

Dance. ................................................................................................... 217

The Enactment of Death and Dismemberment. ................................... 218

Animal Sacrifice as a Form of Enactment. ........................................... 219

A Return to the Plot of Euripides’ “The Bacchae” ........................................... 222

A Mazdean Excursion. ......................................................................... 223

The Final Moments of “The Bacchae”. ................................................ 225

Chapter 12. From Mystery-Cult to Theatre .................................................................... 226

From Anthesteria to City Dionysia: The Emergence of Formalized Drama .... 228

Is Tragedy Dionysiac? ...................................................................................... 231

Chapter 13. Gathering the Bones and Parting Words ..................................................... 238

A Retrospective of the Nature and Structure of this Study as a Whole ........... 238

A Gathering of Mazdean Bones: Recapping Chapter 4 ................................... 242

The First Mazdean Bone: Envisioning Theatrical Practice as a Spiritual

Practice. ................................................................................................ 242

The Second Mazdean Bone: The Mystic as a Perspective. .................. 243

Finding Blood in the Idea of Feminine Consciousness. ....................... 244

The Bones of Avicennan and Suhrawardīan Lineages: Recapping Chapter 5 . 244

PSYCHE’S STAGE xii

The First Avicennan Bone: The Soul’s Sense of Incompletion and

Aspiration to the Still Unrealized. ........................................................ 244

The Second Avicennan Bone: The Return to Source as a Return to

Sovereign Beauty and Goodness and Primordial Love. ....................... 245

Bits of a Dionysiac Bone in Avicenna: Dismemberment and “Re-

membrance.” ......................................................................................... 246

Sifting Through Bones in the Suhrawardīan Lineage. ......................... 247

The Dionysiac Boneyard: Recapping Chapter 6 .............................................. 247

Ibn ‘Arabīan Bones: Recapping Chapter 7 ....................................................... 249

The First Ibn ‘Arabīan Bone: Intimations of the Dialectic of Love as a

Twofold Individuation Process............................................................ 249

The Second Ibn ‘Arabīan Bone: The Angel’s Presence is in that Which

we Love. ............................................................................................... 250

A Third Ibn ‘Arabīan Bone: The Undivided as the Player of Both Roles.

.............................................................................................................. 251

A Fourth Ibn ‘Arabīan Bone: The Image of the Feminine Creator. ..... 252

Bones that Join Worlds. ........................................................................ 252

Ariadnean Bones: Recapping Chapter 8 ........................................................... 253

The First Ariadnean Bone: Joining Worlds from Within a Fictional

Sensibility. ............................................................................................ 253

The Second Ariadnean Bone: The Center of the Labyrinth ................. 253
PSYCHE’S STAGE xiii

The Bones of Beauty: Recapping Chapter 9 .................................................... 254

Corbinian Bones. .................................................................................. 254

The Bone of Fear and Beauty. .............................................................. 255

Hillmanian Bones of Beauty. ............................................................... 256

Dionysiac Bones in Seaford: Recapping Chapter 10 ....................................... 258

Three Dionysiac Bones: Nature, Transformation, Identification. ........ 258

The Bone of Communality: Inclusive and Paradoxically Exclusive. ... 259

The Bone of Epiphany. ......................................................................... 260

Gathering the Bones of Mystery-Cult: Recapping Chapter 11 ........................ 261

The Bones of Resistance, Confusion, Disorientation, Anxiety, and Fear ........ 262

Gathering the Bones of Greek Tragedy: Recapping Chapter 12 ...................... 263

Actively Imagining The Sacred Stage: A Narrative Fantasy. .............. 266

Our Postscript Comments to the Fantasy: A Continued Imagining. .... 269

“The Fantasy of the Sacred Stage” in Dialogue with Seaford’s Research

on Mystery-Cult and Tragedy. ............................................................ 270

Implications of the Research and Suggestions for Further Methodological

Development..................................................................................................... 271

Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 273

References ....................................................................................................................... 278

The style used throughout this dissertation is in accordance with the Publication Manual
of the American Psychological Association (6th Edition, 2009), and Pacifica Graduate
Institute’s Dissertation Handbook (2016-2017).
PSYCHE’S STAGE

Chapter 1
Introduction

Purpose Statement

This dissertation represents a hermeneutic study of Hillman’s approach to

archetypal psychology and Corbin’s interpretation of the creative Imagination in Persian

Sūfism. Potential relationships between creativity, soul, and spirit are explored through a

dialogue between Hillman’s terrestrial hermeneutic orientation and the contrasting

celestial orientation in Corbin’s interpretations of Sūfī mystic doctrine. Using an imaginal

and archetypal approach as exemplified in the writings of Corbin and Hillman and

drawing upon the hermeneutic lineage which includes Heidegger, Gadamer, and

Romanyshyn, the intent of this research is to further illuminate our understanding of

creative imagination for nonmystics.

Introduction to the Topic

The creative imagination, as a medium through which psyche or soul can be

engaged with, is the sine qua non of depth psychology. Our perspectives on creativity and

imagination thus shape the very nature of how we view this discipline. Jung’s

experiential descriptions of a process that he called active imagination (Jung, 1997),

illuminate a visionary or mystic component of imagination. In his autobiography

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Jung, 1961/1989), fantasy figures and images are

represented as autonomous entities who preexist distinct from his own consciousness.

Jung’s (1961/1989) memoir describes several of his visionary experiences. In

October of 1913, for instance, an hour-long vision of a monstrous flood appears to him.

Images of “mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilization, and the drowned
PSYCHE’S STAGE 2

bodies of uncounted thousands” stream forth before him, and “then the whole sea turn[s]

to blood” (p. 175). Recurring variations of this initial vision become increasingly vivid

and bloody. The First World War will soon break out but Jung emphasizes the fact that

he does not consciously anticipate this. At the time, he interprets his experiences, not as a

premonition but rather, as a psychosis.

This period of profound disorientation instigates a conscious experiment and

confrontation with the images emerging from a psychic territory that depth psychology

has traditionally referred to as the unconscious. Jung’s theory of the archetypes, active

imagination, and individuation grow directly from his experiences during this time.

His autobiography describes a variety of poignant scenes, images, and characters

who people his visions and dreams. He speaks of a dwarf with leathery skin, of a glowing

red crystal rock spurting blood, and of Biblical figures who are curiously matched. An

old man with a white beard who calls himself Elijah appears with a young blinded girl

who identifies herself as Salome. Present as well, is a huge black serpent who lives with

them. Another character soon emerges developing from the figure of Elijah. Jung calls

him Philemon. He appears with kingfisher wings and bull-like horns. As a dream figure,

Philemon sails across a blue sky filled with clods of flat brown earth. As a fantasy-figure

he walks beside Jung in the garden, guru-like, challenging his thoughts about thought

itself. It is Philemon’s view, Jung (1961/1989) says, that thoughts are more “like animals

in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air” (p. 183). We are not the creators of

our thoughts. They are not even ours, in fact.

The voices of Philemon and other figures emerge spontaneously, as in the

example above, often surprising Jung (1961/1989) with thoughts that he “had not
PSYCHE’S STAGE 3

consciously thought” (p. 183). Jung’s stance is that these entities are not of his own

making, and by virtue of their psychic reality he views them as objectively real. His

perspective is that the process of entering into dialogue with these unconscious figures is

a means for integrating conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. Acknowledging

this dimension of visionary imagination, many depth psychologists have since adopted

the term imaginal as an adjective that gives ontological status to the world of

imagination.

The words imaginal and mundus imaginalis are terms originally coined by Corbin

(1972), a French scholar and theologian born in 1903, who adopted them to support his

interpretations of Iranian and Persian Sūfī mystic doctrines. His intention was to

distinguish between Western and European perspectives of imagination and the

Imagination as viewed in Sūfī cosmology. Corbin was especially known for his numerous

translations of these mystic doctrines and his focus on comparative religious studies that

aimed to unite the so called religions of the “Book.” This project represented an attempt

to link the exoteric and esoteric lineage connecting the prophetic Abrahamic traditions.

The scope of his work included an esoteric reading of the Old Testament prophets, the

story of Jesus, the life of Muhammad, and the possibility of future revelations. The

overarching vision of this project was to provide a spiritual bridge and common ground

between East and West perspectives. Corbin’s many roles as theologian, philosopher,

linguist, translator, and Orientalist attest to the reach of his erudition and eclectic

interests.

The adjective imaginal and the noun mundus imaginalis, as Corbin intends them,

are correlative to the Arab equivalent ’âlam al-mithâl (Corbin, 1989, p. viii), which is an
PSYCHE’S STAGE 4

intermediary realm between matter and pure spirit. The “precise level of Being and

Knowledge” attributed to this realm “connotes imaginative perception, imaginative

knowledge, [and] imaginative consciousness” (p, ix). It is also known as “Malakût, the

world of the Soul and of souls” (p. ix). This middle world or dimension of reality is

populated by subtle bodies. Here “images subsist pre-existent and pre-ordained in relation

to the sensible world” (Corbin, 1972, p. 8) which is the material world of our everyday

lives. In contrast to our Western association with the word imaginary––which conjures

up associations with unreality, pretending, child’s play, and making things up––

imagination is viewed from this perspective as divine Imagination; it is an organ of

perception and creation and the means by which the soul apprehends reality.

The enigmatic gaps between contrasting perspectives on the phenomenon of

imagination, as introduced above, imply that imagination plays itself out within a

spectrum of possibilities. We have pointed to the imagination’s mundane associations

with child’s play, pretend, and unreality; to Jung’s strange and often dark visionary

accounts; and to Corbin’s depictions of a spiritual function that grants access to a celestial

middle world. Jung (1921/1971) acknowledges this spectral multiplicity through which

imagination is made manifest while discussing fantasy in the “Definitions” section of

Psychological Types (the sixth volume of his Collected Works). Here he distinguishes

between fantasies which are consciously, intentionally, and voluntarily produced and

directed and those which are set in motion by the unconscious, in one of two ways. The

first is mobilized by conscious intention through an “intuitive attitude of expectation,”

and the second emerges through “an irruption of unconscious contents into
PSYCHE’S STAGE 5

consciousness” (p. 427 [CW 6, para. 711]). He also tells us that imagination can be

passive or active, and involuntary or voluntary.

In Alchemical Studies Jung (1942/1967) says that imaginatio is “an image

making, form-giving creative activity of the mind” (p. 168 [CW, 13, para. 207]). He also

refers to Paracelsus’s view of imagination as “the creative power of the astral man” (p.

168). This idea of imagination as a “form-giving creative activity” associated with the

“astral man” has a numinous quality and striking similarities to Imagination as depicted

in the mystic world that Corbin illuminates.

The multidimensionality of imagination is addressed in Persian Sūfism as well.

Corbin (1958/1997) tells us that Ibn ‘Arabī distinguishes between two types of

imagination: “an imagination conjoined to the imagining subject and inseparable from

him . . . and a self subsisting imagination dissociable from the subject” (p. 219). The

mystic, according to this tradition, is “capable of creating objects, of producing changes

in the outside world” (p. 223) through the concentrated attention of dissociable

imagination. Objects created in this manner subsist in the imaginal realm and can be seen

by other mystics. From the vantage point of this worldview Imagination is functionally

transformational. It is creative in the sense that it creates change which reverberates

through multiple levels of reality.

A question naturally emerges for us as non-Sūfī-mystics who are nevertheless,

fascinated by Ibn ‘Arabī’s complex theology of the imagination: How might this

paradigm further illuminate the role of imagination for the laity, that is, for nonmystics?

Hillman’s (1975) archetypal practice, which calls for “a psychology that starts . . . in the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 6

processes of the imagination” (p. xvii), might be imagined as a partial response to this

question.

Hillman’s work emerges from within the Jungian lineage and depth psychological

tradition, a branch of psychology where the root of its name psyche is still recognized and

honored as the Latin equivalent of the Greek word for soul. As such, his primary concern

is a concern for soul. Hillman is recognized as the founding figure of what is now called

archetypal psychology. Following Jung, he suggests that the archetypes––which are

essentially indefinable, elusive, and incapable of being viewed or experienced directly––

can be imagined in a very basic sense “as the deepest patterns of psychic functioning”

(Hillman, 1975, p. xix).

In “Instinct and the Unconscious,” Jung (1919/1969) considers the notion of

archetypes as “mode[s] of apprehension” (p. 136 [CW 8, para. 277]), in other words, as

ways of seeing, understanding, and knowing. Hillman takes this notion to another level,

suggesting that soul itself is an archetype (Coppin & Nelson, 2005, p. 48), in other words,

a mode of apprehension, or in his words “a perspective . . . rather than a thing itself”

(Hillman, 1975, p. xvi). For Hillman soul is “the imaginative possibility in our natures,

the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, and fantasy” (p. xvi).

Hillman’s essentially literary and psycho-poetic approach to archetypal

psychology, which is profoundly influenced by Corbin’s work, speaks to the role of

imagination in everyday life while Corbin’s interpretation of the creative Imagination in

the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī explicitly tells us that direct experience with the imaginal realm

is restricted to mystics. While Corbin’s hermeneutic writings embrace a symbolic and

nonliteral approach to esoteric doctrine, they nevertheless seem to imply that the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 7

imagination is a pathway by which the individual might move closer to an all-

encompassing hidden objective truth beyond the merely subjective material world. As

unfathomable and always partially unknowable as this objective truth might be, the

stance he takes is that one exists. “But for Hillman, psyche becomes all-encompassing”

(Cheetham, 2012, p. 198). He bypasses such literal claims about reality, truth, and

objectivity. For Hillman, human life is psychological and the purpose of life is soul-

making: in other words, the making of imaginative perspectives from life. Even spirit is

one of soul’s multiple perspectives according to this paradigm. All of our knowledge

“about the world, about the mind, the body, about anything whatsoever,” Hillman (2013)

says, “including the spirit and the nature of the divine, comes through images and is

organized by fantasies into one pattern or another” (p. 70).

Revisioning Psychology, Hillman’s (1975) seminal work establishing the key

premises of archetypal psychology, is his own sustained “attempt to discover and vivify

soul through [his] writing” (xvi). Assuming a poetic, nonliteral, literary posture, he

illustrates the art of soul-making through the art of Renaissance rhetoric. Here he

rediscovers “the speech form of the anima archetype, [and] the style of words when

informed by soul” (p. 213). He practices psychology in practicing this art. Images––

which are not limited to pictures, and might take the form of smells, or words, or even

ideas––take on lives of their own. They grow: becoming whole environments, scenes,

cultural histories; they sing, dance, and debate through the tonality and rhythm in their

voices that express the plurality of soul’s perspectives. Mythologizing, deifying,

dismembering, pathologizing, and psychologizing are some of the soul-making moves

Hillman moves through. He plays associatively, etymologically, phonically, and

PSYCHE’S STAGE 8

rhythmically with words as images. In so doing we might say that he enlivens the world,

or in keeping with the panpsychic sensibility of an archetypal approach we might say that

the world or even his writing enlivens him. This practice, as a hermeneutic practice, will

be further elaborated in Chapter 3 on methodology.

Researcher’s Relationship to the Topic

The numinous or visionary quality of experience depicted by Jung and Corbin is

somewhat foreign to my own experience. The sharp “not-me,” “not-of-my-making” sense

of otherness attributed to things imaginal is not something that I have experienced in my

waking life, and most of my dream life goes by unremembered. In aligning with my own

phenomenological truth, I have released myself from the assumption that engaging with

the so called unconscious psyche is necessarily marked by a sharp sense of something

autonomous, of something other, of something not-me. My own subtler sensing of the so

called numinous quality that Jung attributed to the presence of an objective unconscious

psyche occurs when I am engaged in artistic or creative activity. The bulk of my

experience, in this regard, has been in theatre arts and freestyle dance or movement that

draws more from my theatrical background and the field of expressive arts therapy than

any formal dance discipline. The ostensibly “autonomous not-me numinous entity” that

shows up in creative moments feels, in fact, more like “me” (by way of its capacity to

make me feel more alive, more energized, more present) than the “me-of-my-most-

mundane-moments.” As such, Hillman’s explicitly creative psychology (which leans less

toward literal visionary capacities) tends to resonate more fully with how I experience the

world.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 9

Hillman’s literary perspective leaves more room than Jung’s and Corbin’s, in my

view, for the possibility that numinosity might exist in the act of pretending, that soul-

making through play-making might not be considered more inferior in terms of soul than

the experience of a visitation from an incontrovertibly autonomous being. In using the

term literary perspective, I am referring to a nonliteral form of vision. I am referring to

the persuasive, transporting, transformative power of language, and to the mediums it

moves through. This perspective is a mode of seeing evoked by great fiction, poetic

writing, speech, and a metaphoric relationship with the world. Seen through Hillman’s

lens, “the human being is set within the field of soul; soul is the metaphor that includes

the human” (Cheetham, 2012, p. 196). Soul, and hence the imaginal which is the world of

soul, is not a place accessible only to mystics; it is everywhere, eagerly or anxiously

awaiting recognition. As such, all things––all activities that situate human life, whether

subtle or solid––are things of soul, things through which soul might witness and reflect

upon itself.

Having grown up with very little exposure to the numinous world of religious

education, rituals, and practices, I find myself curious about the mysterious world of so

called spirit, and the enigmatic experiences people have that fall under this rubric. A part

of me yearns for a phenomenological relationship with this ineffable dimension of lived

experience even though it appears, based on my past, to be inaccessible to me. One

element that fascinates me about Corbin’s work is its framing of the creative Imagination

as an organ of spiritual insight and knowing. Here we see the pairing of that which I

identify to be the most numinously present and most absent aspects of my lived

experience. This pairing makes me curious about how Corbin’s interpretations of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 10

creative Imagination as theophany in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī might further inform us

about the potential role and purpose of so called secular creative imagination.

In asking myself how I might belong within the field of depth psychology, the

presence of a recurring fantasy (or perhaps we might call it an image) appeared

throughout the course of my graduate studies. This image still revisits me at times. It is

awakened by my perception of a symbolic resonance between the world of theatre,

Corbin’s work on the creative Imagination, and Hillman’s archetypal practice. This

image imagines itself as a theatrical space and form of practice seen through the context

of Corbin’s and Hillman’s work. The seed image of this practice was actually present in

my writing before I associated it with Hillman and before I even knew of Corbin. I have

called it “Psyche’s Stage” at times, and “The Sacred Stage” at others. On occasion, I have

imagined that my dissertation would imagine the images of these theatrical spaces and

practices forward in more depth. For now, however, I am gently holding this complex

image and potentiality close at hand without forcing it. In accordance with an archetypal

perspective, acknowledging this image’s presence and autonomy as well as the autonomy

of the research question raised by this work, means making allowances for their

prerogatives––for their desires, or lack thereof, to be in close relationship with each

other. Taking my cues first from the research question itself, my intention is to follow its

lead and see where it takes us. It may invite us to the theatre and perhaps it will not.

A Word about the Voice of this Work

The voice of this work thus far––with the exception of the subsection directly

above about the researcher’s relationship to the topic––is written in the voice of we not

me, of our not my, of us not I. This voice emerged at first inconsistently, not altogether
PSYCHE’S STAGE 11

consciously, and later became a more conscious aesthetic choice. It is our view that this

voice reflects the archetypal idea of intrapsychic multiplicity. This choice acknowledges

that I––the single physical bodied researcher––am constituted by multiple voices, who

within the archetypal perspective, are imagined as persons. It also acknowledges the

interpsychic dynamic of this research; it acknowledges the surrounding world, the reader,

and the unconscious others who are the ancestors of this work, as voices of the work and

it welcomes these voices as collaborative researchers. This basic archetypal idea is

elaborated upon in the literature review and methodology section below.

Another aspect of the voice of this work is worth mentioning now to avoid

confusion going forward. In this introductory chapter, we begin to develop an archetypal

and imaginal sensibility in which all things, including ideas, are viewed as persons. The

archetypal or imaginal expressions of these persons are, in essence, divine. They are more

than personal, universal patterns and gods. This perspective requires that we honor them,

in certain contexts, as proper names by capitalizing words that would otherwise not be

capitalized. This idea is clarified further in the methodology section to follow.

Relevance of the Topic for Depth Psychology

Many artists and depth psychologists alike have been inspired by a sense of

symbolic resonance with Corbin’s abstruse and beautiful theology of the imagination.

Hillman, as noted above, is one among them. It is important to acknowledge, however,

that depth psychology and the creative fields that borrow Corbin’s language have

expanded its applications beyond his intentions. These expansions have not always been

welcomed by him. His interests were expressly oriented towards the imaginative function

connecting an individual with the larger spiritual dimension of his or her being. Restoring
PSYCHE’S STAGE 12

our knowledge of and relationship to divine Imagination and its corresponding imaginal

realm was a profoundly serious matter for him. The cost of ignoring it or treating it

lightly, in his view, could only result in dire consequences. Corbin earnestly feared that

depriving the contents and function of mundus imaginalis and active Imagination their

proper place, would result in them no longer having a place. “With the loss of imaginatio

vera and of the mundus imaginalis” Corbin (1989) says, “nihilism and agnosticism

begin” (p. xii). Concerned that the world of imagination had been relegated to the poets

and artists in modern Western society, it was his intention “to reclaim it for philosophy

and theology” (Cheetham, 2012, p. 3).

But what if we suspend judgment about one discipline’s claim to the imagination

over another’s? What might happen in the act of reclaiming the imagination for artists,

poets, psychologists, philosphers, and theologians alike by reimagining Hillman’s soul

oriented creative psychology and Corbin’s spirit oriented interpretation of the creative

Imagination in Persian mystic Sūfism as one body that represents different dimensions of

the imagination? Might this not serve the discipline of depth psychology by further

informing us about the roles of and relationships between that which we call soul, spirit,

art, and the creative imagination?

Statement of the Research Problem and Question

The Jungian lineage of depth psychology from which Hillman’s work springs was

inspired by Jung’s (1961/1989) observation that we, as a society, no longer had a strong

sense of the myths we live by (pp. 170-199). Christianity, Jung claimed, no longer served

this purpose as it had done in the past. A connection to the deep mystery, to the

enigmatic, to the numinous that Christianity had once offered us, was replaced––
PSYCHE’S STAGE 13

in his view––with something that failed to satisfy our yearnings. Increasingly

institutionalized and dogmatized, the tradition no longer emphasized the individual’s

direct relationship with spirit. The Jungian lineage of depth psychology is rooted in

Jung’s search for an alternative myth to live by. The role of imagination, as the means

for engaging with numinous unconscious contents of the psyche, thus became the

cynosure of depth psychology’s healing myth.

While Jung discovered the numinosity which he found lacking within the current

culture of Christianity via the field of psychology, Corbin found his healing myth within

the esoteric perspective of theological traditions. He, too, was captivated by the potential

of imagination as a portal or passage to the world of numinous phenomena. The loss of

our direct relationship with spirit, that so concerned Jung, was restored for Corbin

through a myth and image that pairs each individual with a corresponding celestial twin

and guide who mediates for him or her in heaven by way of divine Imagination. Here, the

all-encompassing divine Being––who like the archetypes is not directly accessible––is

nevertheless, experienced through a direct relationship with this personal Angel.

One potential problem we see with Jung’s and Corbin’s approaches to the

imagination, however, is that they seem to presume a human predisposition for visionary

or numinous experiences that many people have never had. Hillman’s literary approach

to the imagination offers a lens through which Jung’s and Corbin’s works might become

more phenomenologically pertinent for these individuals. There is, nevertheless, an

uncomfortable gap––an awkward silence––it seems, between Hillman’s soul work and

Corbin’s spirit work. Hillman’s praise of Corbin does not include a detailed and explicit

exploration of his theology. It side steps metaphorically over and around it. The curious
PSYCHE’S STAGE 14

reader of Hillman might feel provoked to read Corbin’s own writings for further

clarification and insight, but reading Corbin is no easy task. One soon begins to wonder

whether his abstruse theology can possibly have any bearing on the life of a nonmystic.

The question soon arises, “What is an everyday person like me to do with this?” And

then, in our case, another question keeps reemerging: “Is there something significant left

unsaid by Hillman’s response?”

In this gap between Hillman and Corbin the overarching question of this research

emerges: How might a phenomenological engagement with and dialogue between

Hillman's work in archetypal psychology and Corbin's interpretation of the creative

Imagination in Persian mystic Sūfism further inform us about creative imagination for the

nonmystic? And furthermore, what forms of creative practice might emerge from the

understanding gleaned by this exploration?

PSYCHE’S STAGE 15

Chapter 2
Literature Review

In the following section, we introduce the works of Corbin and Hillman as they

pertain to the research topic. Opening with a creation story as expressed in the works of

Ibn ‘Arabī, we discuss the role of sadness, mirroring, and theophany in the act of

creation, and as such, of creativity itself. The enigmatic image of primordial Sadness

emerges as the driving force of divine expiration and essential source of creative

movement. All created beings as theophanies, as epiphanies born of the divine Sadness’s

sigh, function as mirrors through which the divine Being appeases His yearning to know

Himself and be known.

We then describe the mystical hermeneutics of ta’wīl and the role of return in the

act of creation. Summarily, ta’wīl is introduced as a hermeneutic form that returns an

object––a text, for example––to the source and yearning through which it sprang into

being, by recalling its Presence in the present. Ta’wīl is essentially understood as a re-

creation and service to this source and yearning that tends to the source’s and yearning’s

present stance and unfinished business. Instigating an exploration of various forms

through which ta’wīl takes place, we touch upon the dialogic and role-playing work of

the dhikr, creative prayer, and the visionary recital. Here we recognize a sense of

symbolic resonance between the Sūfī mystic world and the world of theatre. Noting the

likenesses between practices within these two disciplines, we invite the potential of

further inquiry.

A review of Hillman’s ideas on psychological creativity then leads to a discussion

of the differences and similarities of soul perspectives in the works of Corbin and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 16

Hillman. Themes, ideas, and images corresponding to the research topic, as well as the

works of both of these men, emerge as food for further fodder. Introducing love,

imagination, the heart, and beauty as images associated with creativity in Corbin’s

spiritually oriented perspective, as well as Hillman’s psychologically oriented

perspective, we point to the need for a deeper exploration of these images.

Finally, briefly directing our attention to the pertinence of Hillman’s (1983)

Healing Fiction, we call upon this title’s name as a guiding image that speaks to the

approach and intent of this research.

Creation and Creativity in Corbin’s Conception of Ibn ‘Arabī’s Eternal Cosmogony

Corbin (1958/1997) poses several questions that are pertinent to this research in

his impressive work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn

‘Arabī. “What is the meaning of man’s creative need” he asks, and “What, essentially, is

the creativity we attribute to man?” (p. 180). He responds with the story of Creation

according to Ibn ‘Arabī’s eternal cosmogony. This story begins with “a Divine Being

alone in His unconditioned essence” (p. 184). All that we know of this Being is “the

sadness of the primordial solitude that makes Him yearn to be revealed in beings who

manifest Him to Himself” (p. 184). And so it goes that the Divine Being appeases His

sadness, loneliness, and ardent desire to reveal Himself with an exhale and divine sigh.

This exhale

gives rise to the entire “subtile” mass of a primordial existentiation termed Cloud.

. . . This Cloud, which the Divine Being exhaled and in which He originally was,

receives all forms and at the same time gives beings their forms; it is active and

passive, receptive and existentiating. (p. 185)

PSYCHE’S STAGE 17

As such the primordial Cloud and Divine Being is the “Creator–Creature” (p. 186). Many

paradoxes are implicated by this image. The Creator–Creature is concomitantly the

beginning and end, the hidden and revealed, the veiled and unveiled. The divine Being is,

in essence, an all-encompassing Potentiality who recreates Himself anew from moment to

moment with every breath He takes. Creation, in this paradigm, is a “recurrent creation,

renewed from instant to instant” (p. 187). It is “unceasing theophanic Imagination” (p.

187). Multiple universes and dimensions of being are born of this recurrent archetypal

pattern.

Enigmatically, it is an essential sadness that “makes the primordial Being a

creative Being; it is the secret of His creativity” (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 185). Imagining

ourselves from within this paradigm as creatures of the earth nested in the Cloud which is

the substance of the primordial Being’s sigh, which is the appeasement and existentiation

of His sadness, means sensing ourselves as derived from and constituted by this very

Sadness. Moving forward in this research, our intention is to engage more fully with the

mystery of this secret and image that renders sadness as the source and building block of

Being and beings. Given our culturally informed sense of sadness as suffering and

suffering as sickness (which is generally associated with the mundane rather than the

spiritual world) we see this creation story as a place where Corbin and Hillman, where

psychology and spirit might meet and dialogue together on their mutual connection to

creativity.

After establishing Ibn ‘Arabī’s creation story, Corbin (1958/1997) responds more

explicitly to his opening questions regarding the nature of human creativity. “The initial

act of the Creator imagining the world” he says, “corresponds [to] the creature imagining
PSYCHE’S STAGE 18

his world, imagining the worlds, his God, his symbols” (p. 188). And though we see

Corbin relating mundane human life to Ibn ‘Arabī’s cosmogony in this passage, his

primary focus is on the exceptional capacities exemplified by the extraordinary lives of

mystics. He tells us that the mystic alone can penetrate the mundus imaginalis and

intermediary realm where all religious histories unfold. It is the mystic who participates

in the act of divine Creation which takes place on a non-physical plane of existence, the

manifestation of which is perceptible by Active Imagination: “the imaginative ‘Presence’

or ‘Dignity,’ the Imaginatrix” (p. 188). Intriguingly, the mystic practices that Corbin

describes, and the images he uses to illuminate the mystic’s relationship to the imaginal

world are reminiscent of theatrical practices and the actor’s relationship to the terrestrial

world. Here we briefly introduce these practices and images as depicted in Corbin’s work

to establish a foundation from which an exploration of the symbolic resonances between

these worlds might emerge.

Mediation, Mirroring, and Mystic Vision in the Act of Recurrent Creation

In the prelude to the second edition of Corbin’s (1989) Spiritual Body and

Celestial Earth, he further describes the mediating function of the imaginal world and its

Imaginal Forms: “On the one hand it immaterialises the Sensible Forms,” he says, “On

the other it ‘imaginalises’ the Intellectual Forms to which it gives shape and dimension”

(p. ix). The subtle forms who are also theophanies––those same subtle forms born of the

divine Sadness and sigh––mirror and reflect the archetypal patterns expressed by,

through, and in the Divine Being. As mirrors, they too yearn to be known in concrete

form, and in so doing they create the material world. All material things are beings born

of this recurrent cycle. Each has a corresponding subtle form––an Angel and Lord, an
PSYCHE’S STAGE 19

Image––for whom he or she is the Beloved and concrete agent of. All things, as

differentiations of the divine yearning (including animals, plants, pencils, and even ideas)

are persons as such. Each is paired with a celestial Twin and counterpart on a higher

plane of existence in a hierarchical structure.

The dhikr.

“The imaginative function makes it possible for all the universes to symbolize

with each other” (Corbin, 1972, p. 9). First-hand knowledge of the imaginal suprasensory

non-physical plane of existence which corresponds to the material world of our everyday

lives is experienced by Sūfī mystics via their visionary capacities. This capacity is

polished by a practice through which the mystic mirrors the divine by releasing the divine

element veiled within his body. This can be achieved by the work of the dhikr, which

involves the recitation of sacred texts. The mystic thus “brings the heart to the state of

perfect mirror” (Corbin, 1971/1994, p. 104). Making himself present to his Lord, the

Lord becomes present to the mystic as well. As such, the dhikr is not a unilateral

enactment. It is a dialogue that takes place between the beloved and his Divine Lord. This

ritual can be seen as a type of communion between an individual on the material plane of

existence and his angelic twin who mediates between him and the celestial plane of

existence.

Ta’wīl.

The operation of ta’wīl, as conceived by Corbin, has a function of mirroring and

unveiling similar to that of the dhikr which is crucial to understanding the intent of his

spiritual hermeneutics. Ta’wīl, as he describes it, “is essential symbolic understanding”

(Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 13). It is the “transmutation of everything visible into symbols,

PSYCHE’S STAGE 20

the intuition of an essence or person in an Image which partakes neither of universal logic

nor of sense perception, and which is the only means of signifying what is to be

signified” (p. 13). Here Corbin uses the word symbol in the same sense that Jung does.

Since the meaning that lies beneath the symbol’s surface cannot be accessed directly, the

symbol is simply the best possible expression of an implicit, mysterious, and always

partially unknowable source. Ta’wīl, as the “transmutation of everything visible into

symbols” (p. 13), brings the visible that much closer to its inner invisible source and

meaning.

Bamford’s (1998) article “Esotericism Today: The Example of Henry Corbin”

says that the action of ta’wīl saves the appearances of things by “returning them to” or

“symbolizing them with” their original forms. “But more than that” he says, “ta’wīl, as

mystical hermeneutics or spiritual exegesis, also saves, that is, returns to his or her

source, the person practicing it” (p. XVIII). The act of entering a text through mystical

hermeneutics is thus revealed to us as a return to source and soul that is also creative by

way of its theophanic mirroring function in the cycle of recurrent creation. The

hermeneut––by entering, imagining, and becoming the text in accordance with his

spiritual capacity and relationship to his Lord and celestial Angel––returns to his source.

He lives and enacts the text’s present Presence through which the Divine Being knows

and re-creates Himself. Through the breathing in and out of reciprocal and mutual breath,

the hermeneut and Lord in-and-ex-hale an always present re-creation.

Bamford describes ta’wīl as “a continuous unveiling or revelation of the spiritual

beings to which the hermeneutical levels––spiritual organs and worlds––correspond” (p.

XIX). Here we see the same unveiling language that was present in our discussion of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 21

dhikr. Creativity, seen through this lens, is not truly creativity in the sense that nothing

absolutely new is created. Creativity, we see, is an unveiling of the Divine, an uncovering

of a subsisting though hidden reality.

In History of Islamic Philosophy, Corbin (1964/2014) says that “fulfilment of the

ta’wīl is inseparable from a spiritual rebirth” (p. 12). It is simultaneously an “exegesis of

the text” and “exegesis of the soul”––“a practice known in Ismail gnosis as the science of

the Balance” (p. 12). It is an “occulting [of] the manifest and manifesting [of] the

occulted” (p. 12). Cheetham (2005) tells us in Green Man, Earth Angel that ta’wīl, as the

Science of the Balance, “is required to maintain the equilibrium between the visible and

invisible worlds” (p. 18).

In All The World an Icon Cheetham (2012) relates the activity of ta’wīl to

Corbin’s “search for the interior meaning of the word of God” (pp. 89-90) and describes

it as “a process of ‘reading’ and interpreting a sacred text, the text of the world, and the

soul itself as metaphors for the reality from which they derive. “Meta-phor,” he says,

“means to ‘carry over’ and the metaphoric vision of reality sees through the literal

appearance of things to the ever-shifting and mysterious Presence that lies behind the

daylight Face of things” (p. 92). This description tells us that the works of Corbin and

Hillman both are examples of ta’wīl. While Corbin tends to focus on the world of sacred

texts, Hillman’s view reaches more liberally into the text of the world and soul itself.

Hillman (1997b; 1999; 2004) rediscovers soul even in those subjects that shame

and haunt us: in suicide, in the aging process, in war. His affinity for returning the gods to

man and everyday life, and man and everyday life to the gods, is reflected in many of his

essay titles: “Pink Madness or Why Does Aphrodite Drive Men Crazy With
PSYCHE’S STAGE 22

Pornography” (Hillman, 2007e); “Wars, Rams, Mars” (Hillman, 2007f); “Hera, Goddess

of Marriage” (2007c); “… And Huge is Ugly: Zeus and the Titans” (Hillman, 2007a);

“Apollo, Dream, Reality” (Hillman, 2007b); and “The Inside of Strategies: Athene”

(Hillman, 2007d).

Corbin’s exercises in ta’wīl tend toward abstruse and fascinating theologies and

cosmologies that many of us have never heard of. His interpretations of Persian mystic

Sūfism open up an enigmatic spiritual and philosophical lineage that is quite foreign to

current European and American mainstream culture. His Alone with the Alone: Creative

Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī (Corbin, 1958/1997), due to its thematic

concentration on creative imagination as a spiritual visionary faculty, will serve as the

cynosure of our focus on his work. This focus, however, will necessarily incorporate

Corbin’s related works that draw upon an expansive family of correlative theosophical

thinkers and their associated perspectives. In addition to Ibn ‘Arabī, the Arab from

Andalusia, this spiritual lineage includes but is not limited to “Iranians like Abū Ya‘qūb

Sejestānī (tenth century), Suhrawardī (twelfth century), Semnānī (fourteenth century),

[and] Mullā Sadrā of Shirāz (seventeenth century)” (p. 5).

In Corbin’s (1964/2014) History of Islamic Philosophy he considers the source

material that has informed and shaped the Islamic spiritual and philosophical tradition. In

Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shīʽite Iran (Corbin,

1960/1977) he translates eleven spiritual texts of Iranian Islam that span from the twelfth

century to current day, and in Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis (Corbin, 1983) he

explains the notion of cyclical time in Mazdaism and Ismailism. The Man of Light in

Iranian Sūfism (Corbin, 1971/1994) explores the symbol and suprasesnsory phenomena
PSYCHE’S STAGE 23

of light and color in the writing of Iranian Sūfīs such as Sohravardī, Semnānī, and Najm

Kobrā. In Avicenna and the Visionary Recital Corbin (1954/1988) describes a visionary

phenomenon through which the mystic experiences his deeply personal and unique

connection to the more universal philosophical dimension of his teachings.

The visionary recital.

In Avicenna and the Visionary Recital Corbin (1954/1988) performs an exegesis

and ta’wīl on a characteristically Persian genre consisting of short spiritual romances,

visionary recitals, or récits as he variously calls them. Here, he translates three such

recitals included in the works of the mystic-philosopher Avicenna. His overarching task

is to interpret The Recital of Hayy ibn Yahqzān, the Recital of the Bird, and the Recital

of Salāmān and Absāl as a cycle, trilogy, and “spiritual autobiography in the form of

symbols” (p. xi).

Cheetham (2012) aptly describes these recitals as a “record of the opening of an

inner world that reveals the transcendent individuality of the human person” (p. 68). In

After Prophecy (Cheetham, 2007), he says that récit, as Corbin “intends the term, is the

archetypal personal narrative” (p. 141). The visionary recital, Corbin (1954/ 1988) tells

us, is not to be confused with allegory. It is a psychic Event, “a personally lived

adventure” (p. 4). It is the soul’s own story carried back to its source through an imaginal

Event that transmutes its sensible or imaginable content into symbols. This imaginal

Event opens into a higher dimension of knowing and clarity where that which was

previously known only as dogma becomes personalized. Connections between the

philosopher’s prior consciously lived motifs and teachings, and his inmost self are

experientially brought to his awareness. “The secret motivations” of these motifs and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 24

teachings of which he “was not yet conscious,” become revealed (p. 4). Corbin tells us

that the substitution of dramaturgy for cosmology that characterizes the visionary recital,

“guarantee[s] the genuineness of this universe” (p. 4). Participation in this dramatic form,

in other words, provides a lived experience that verifies or discredits the mystic’s sense

of the ostensibly objective truth.

In contemplating the recital as an actual visionary Event experienced by a great

mystic, there is an understandable tendency to think of its ta’wīl (in other words, the act

which carries it back to its source and the original meaning from which it flowered) as a

duplication of the mystic’s experience. This would be a mistaken understanding. The

cosmological structure of recurrent creation tells us that ta’wīl always takes place in the

present. The return is not a return to the same. It is a return of the like to its likeness; it is

a return to an original intention and meaning pre-existent to the mystic or his

personalized experience. The recital is “an initiation that can be given and related only in

symbols. It is not a story that happened to others, but the soul’s own story” (Corbin,

1954/ 1988, p. 33). This is why the visionary recital is always told in the first person, in

the voice of “I,” and experienced in accordance with the level of spiritual development

attained by the mystic, the reciter, or hermeneut who has penetrated the world of the text.

Ta’wīl of the visionary recital might be thought of as an enactment through which the

hermeneut moves into the-I of- the-text, which is the soul’s (we might also say the

Angel’s) own story.

Having begun this literature review describing the creation story upon which Ibn

‘Arabī’s work is built, then following with an introduction to various creative Persian

mystic practices and literary forms––namely: the work of the dhikr, ta’wīl, and the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 25

visionary recital––our intention has been to establish a fertile ground for deepening into

the question of this research. The parallels between this creation story, these practices,

these literary forms, and the theatre world from which the researcher has emerged, are

striking, or perhaps we should say evocative at least. The images of mirroring, of

unveiling, of playing and exchanging dramatic roles, are present in each. It is our

expectation that a closer look at these parallels will further inform the unfolding dialogic

course of this study.

Hillman on Psychological Creativity

Since the question that gives rise to this research emerges from a desire to expand

our understanding of creativity for nonmystics through the lens of Corbin’s mystic

perspective, it behooves us to begin this review of Hillman’s work by taking a look at his

essay entitled “On Psychological Creativity” (Hillman, 1972a). Here Hillman

distinguishes psychological creativity from other types of creativity in naming psyche

(soul) as the opus of its fascination. Four conclusions derived from this composition seem

particularly pertinent to the task at hand. The underlying themes from which these

conclusions are derived will be addressed, readdressed, and deepened throughout this

research. A brief mention of them now will serve as an introduction to some of Hillman’s

general perspectives as they apply specifically to our topic of creativity. It will also

establish a greater sense of the contrast between his orientation and Corbin’s. The first of

these conclusions says that relationships within the world and human life are necessary if

psychological creativity is to occur. The second acknowledges the inherently destructive

and pathological element in creativity. The third distinguishes creativity from art, and the

fourth points to its associations with love, the heart, and beauty.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 26

The first conclusion: Psychological creativity and the necessity of

relationships.

Regarding the first conclusion, Hillman (1972a) says:

Neither relationships, nor feeling, nor any of the human context in which the

psyche finds itself should be mistaken for the soul-making opus. . . . Yet this

human circle is necessary for psychological creativity: there seems to be a

necessity for a close and personal world––family, tutelary figures, a friendly

society, a beloved, personal enemies. The world and its humanity is the vale of

soul-making. (p. 25)

Hillman tells us that this term vale of soul-making comes from the Romantic poets. The

idea, he says, appears in Blake’s Vala, and Keats expresses his sense of its meaning in a

letter to his brother (Hillman, 1975, pp. xv, 231). Here, in the present context, however,

the word vale might be imagined as an implicit reference to Corbin: as a play on words

and nuance that brings to mind the beloved who releases the divine element hitherto

“veiled” within him. Here we see the contrast between creativity expressed as the

“unveiling” and mirroring work of sacred prayer in Corbin’s interpretations of Sūfī

mysticism and that which is characterized by Hillman as the “vale” of soul-making. The

distinction is illuminated by the difference in height that soul occupies within the works

of these two men. For Hillman the creative act of making soul takes place in the valley, in

the trenches so to speak, with other human beings and terrestrial things while the

connection between soul and creativity (which is theophany) for Corbin always involves

elevation and dematerialization. While human to human and material world relations are

essential to Hillman’s image of soul, Corbin’s pertains not to relationships between

PSYCHE’S STAGE 27

humans and sensible things but rather to the triad and tiered relationship between the

human individual, his or her celestial twin (in other words, his or her soul), and the

Divine Being. Hillman’s (2013) essay “Peaks and Vales: The Soul/Spirit Distinction as

Basis for the Differences between Psychotherapy and Spiritual Discipline,” exemplifies

and clarifies this distinction between his and Corbin’s perspectives. Seeing through the

lens of this essay, we might say in a very general sense that Corbin’s orientation belongs

to the upper half of soul’s middle dimension. It is filled with images of light and is closer

to the world of pure spirit, while Hillman’s orientation belongs more to the lower half of

soul’s middle dimension. Here, we might think of soul as hugging the grounded and

grounding world of concrete matter.

Secondly: The destructive and pathological element to psychological

creativity.

As indicated above, the distinctions between Corbin and Hillman are necessitated

in part by the parameters of their respective disciplines: theology and psychology. This

becomes apparent in the second conclusion regarding psychological creativity. Since

individuals are naturally apt to seek psychological help during the darkest and most

painful periods of their lives the practicality of Hillman’s profession requires that he

include the odd, morbid, dangerous, destructive, and pathological aspects of the

psyche/soul in his archetypal framework to a greater extent than Corbin. “Creative

insights,” Hillman (1972a) says, “come at the raw and tender edge of confrontation, at the

borderlines where we are most sensitive and exposed––and curiously, most alone” (p.

91).
PSYCHE’S STAGE 28

In a discussion that draws upon Jung’s notions of creative instinct, Hillman

(1972a) directs our attention to the “destructive/constructive poles that describe the

instinct in general” as a means for recognizing that “soul-making entails soul-destroying”

(p. 37). This image or idea of instinct might be visualized by imagining instinct as the

preconscious and spontaneous response to an organism’s concomitant sense of something

wrong and its secret desire: in other words, its sickness, its pathology, its closeness to

death on the one hand, and its hunger for satisfaction and fulfillment on the other.

Psychic alteration begins at this instinctual level prior to our awareness of its

presence. It too, like the instinct, has a dual structure. This inherent duality at the level of

our pre-reflective responses shows us that creation or birth and destruction or death are

intimately bound to one another from the outset. One implies the other. “The essence of

creativity” Hillman (1972a) tells us “is that these aspects exist within each other in every

act: that which builds at the same time tears down, and that which breaks up at the same

time restructures” (p. 37). A psychologically creative approach, in his view, would not

attempt to eradicate our inherent destructive tendencies or to strip us of our pathologies;

alternatively, Hillman would ask us to consider the dark and the odd, the distortions and

the sufferings of the soul, as necessary to the full range and richness of its creative

expression.

This view is probably at the core of what concerned Corbin most about Hillman’s

adoption of the term imaginal. Cheetham (2012), an author of five books on Corbin’s

work, aptly notes that “Corbin’s imaginal world is a spiritual world, from which the

darkness of evil is banished” (p. 172). Corbin (1971/1995) himself tells us that

“something like a secularization of the imaginal into the imaginary [is] required for the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 29

fantastic, the horrible, the monstrous, the macabre, the miserable, and the absurd to

triumph” (p. 20).

The third conclusion: Distinguishing creativity from art.

An uncomfortably unsettled and paradoxical relationship between the disciplines

of depth psychology and art is present in both Freud’s and Jung’s writings on the topic.

The sometimes jarring sense of discord that surfaces reflects, we imagine, an overall

societal confusion about the subject of art as well. Here we briefly discuss the means by

which Hillman avoids this confusion and establishes an important premise regarding his

view of psychological creativity.

In “Psychological Factors Determining Human Behavior,” Jung (1936/1969)

discusses what he ambivalently refers to as the “creative instinct” (p. 118 [CW 8, para.

245). This ambivalence is provoked by Jung’s observation that the creative impulse

behaves, on the one hand, “dynamically like an instinct” in that it is compulsive like an

instinct, and on the other hand, unlike an instinct because, in his view, “it is not common”

(p. 118). Hillman (1972a) aptly points out, however, that the commonality of the creative

instinct as such, is implicit in Jung’s descriptions of “the urge toward individuation, or

personality development, the spiritual drive, . . . or in short, the drive of the self to be

realized” (p. 34). Jung’s psychology, though not an explicitly creative psychology is

prevailingly, and one might say accurately, thought of in this respect.

Hillman (1972a) explains that “Jung generally writes about creativity in

connection with the artistic personality and artistic work” (p. 34). In so doing he makes

the common error of confusing and conflating them. Hillman avoids this problem by

distinguishing between the two. “The creative as instinct,” he says, “cannot be limited to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 30

the few, to geniuses and artists” (p. 38). In the context of this paper, we might also add

that the creative cannot be limited to the mystic or visionary. Hillman tells us that “any

notion of two kinds of psychology––one for you and me and one for the creative person–

–cuts off the creative from common humanity and you and me from creativity” (p. 39).

The following passage taken from On Psychological Creativity (Hillman, 1972a),

imagines Jung’s hypothesis of a creative instinct forward and hints at how Corbin’s

concerns about Hillman’s use of his term imaginal might be allayed.

The creative instinct . . . . is not a gift or special grace, an ability, talent, or trick.

Rather it is that immense energy coming from beyond man’s psyche which pushes

one to self-dedication via one or another specific medium. Creativity impels

devotion to one’s person in its becoming through that medium, and it brings with

it a sense of helplessness and increasing awareness of its numinous power. Hence

our relation to creativity fosters the religious attitude, and our description of it

often uses religious language. (pp. 35-36)

As uncomfortable as Corbin might have been with Hillman’s use of the term imaginal,

here we see that Hillman himself did not view his perspective as a “secularization of the

imaginal into the imaginary” (Corbin, 1971/1995, p. 20). Hillman’s image of creative

instinct, as expressed above, is distinctive and at the same time similar to both Jung’s

conception of individuation and Corbin’s interpretation of the pairing between earthly

entities and their corresponding celestial Lords or Angels depicted in Persian mystic

Sūfism.

Hillman’s (1997a) archetypal rendering of this theme is variously explored

through an image of “the acorn theory” in his book The Soul’s Code: In Search of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 31

Character and Calling. This theory, as a refreshed expression of the idea put forth in

Plato’s myth of Er, “holds that each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and

that is already present before it can be lived” (p. 6). The basic plot of this myth, as

Hillman describes it, begins with the gift of a soul companion (which is called a daimon)

who guides the soul and chooses the unique image or pattern through which its life will

be lived on earth. Since the soul inevitably forgets all that transpired prior to its arrival in

the material world, the daimon remembers its unique image and pattern and is as such the

carrier of its destiny.

This mythological premise expresses itself in life as calling, fate, and character.

The myth’s basic plot and themes are reminiscent of those depicted in Corbin’s

interpretations of Persian Sūfism. Corbin, himself, discusses the confluence of Platonic

philosophy and Islamic esoteric theology throughout his many works. He refers to the

neo-Zoroastrian Platonic influences of Sohravardī’s work, in which “philosophical

speculation” leads to “a metaphysics of ecstasy” (Corbin, p. 43, 1971/1994). He also tells

us that Ibn ‘Arabī was “surnamed the Platonist, the ‘son of Plato’ ” (Corbin, 1958/ 1997,

p. 21).

Here, in the overlap of these mythological premises, creative experience is viewed

by both Corbin and Hillman as numinous experience. Creativity itself is an attribute

belonging to soul––not the human person. It is ever present, before and after the birth of

all things. Seen through this paradigm, acknowledging and honoring the non-secular

ubiquity of creative presence means distinguishing it from its limited expression in and

through “art” and “artists.”

PSYCHE’S STAGE 32

The fourth conclusion: Associations with love, the heart, and beauty.

A fourth conclusion discussed in Hillman’s (1972a) “On Psychological

Creativity” is that “the creative is an achievement of love” which is “marked by

imagination and beauty” (p. 54). Our interpretation of this conclusion depends, in part,

on how we understand these words: love, imagination, and beauty. These words as

themes, which play significant roles in both Hillman’s and Corbin’s works, will also play

an ongoing primary part in the larger conversation of this research. Here, we turn to Eros

(god of love) and Psyche (namesake of soul), to introduce some of Hillman’s insights on

these themes.

Following a speculative discussion of various culturally informed notions about

creativity, Hillman (1972a) explores the story of Eros and Psyche as a possible root

metaphor and fundamental myth through which a practice of creative psychology

appropriate to today’s particular needs, might be viewed. He characterizes Eros as a

figure of “the intermediate region,” a figure who is “neither divine or human,” but rather

“the principle of intercourse between them” (p. 70). The function of Eros, as envisioned

here, corresponds with the function of the Imagination and imaginal world depicted in

Corbin’s work. Hillman and Corbin both tell us that Imagination and Love (we might

also say Eros) are inseparable; one cannot exist without the other. “The imaginal”

Hillman says “is entered primarily through interested love; it is a creation of faith, need,

and desire” (p. 86).

He then tells us that seeing through Eros archetypally means recognizing that the

complexity of whole love––like instinct, as discussed above––is spectral, and each of its
PSYCHE’S STAGE 33

essential characteristics includes an oppositional pole. Hate, in other words, is part of

love’s psychological complex.

Hillman then imagines Eros (in the form of compulsion) and Psyche (in the form

of inhibition and ambivalence) as oppositional roles in the complex of psychological

creativity. “Those twins, compulsion and inhibition,” he says “are familiar enough in all

creative efforts where one is both driven and blocked, enthusiastic and critical, on fire

and fearful” (Hillman, 1972a, p. 74). The movement of Hillman’s thought in this passage

has moved Eros from his status as an archetype himself to the position of an oppositional

pole offset by Psyche who is positioned at the other pole-end in the archetype of

psychological creativity. This movement gives voice to the intertwining and tortuous

depths and breadths of the archetypes’ intra and inter-relationships. Creativity––as an

achievement of love which is marked by imagination and beauty––is (as exemplified

here) dynamic, intricate, and complex below the surface.

Hillman sees through the myth of Eros and Psyche to beauty’s connection with

psychological creativity as well. Just as our western culture has lost its connection to and

knowledge of imagination as ontologically real, it has also lost its sense of beauty’s

relationship with soul. “The beauty of psyche” Hillman (1972a) says, “refers to a sense of

the beautiful in connection with psychological events” (p. 101). But beauty, in his view,

does not refer to a merely abstract or celestial idea. Beauty appears and is recognized via

its physicalized form. Eros––before anything else––he reminds us, is attracted to Psyche

by her beauty. Beauty is sensuous, seductive, and physically alluring.

Hillman takes issue with the fact that the presence of beauty is rarely

acknowledged in the discipline of psychology. The depth of beauty and of body is largely
PSYCHE’S STAGE 34

forgotten in today’s cultural landscape. Society’s surface layer relationship to them

makes it dangerous for the therapist to address the sensuous, seductive, and physically

alluring quality of beauty with a client. The potential for abuse or the appearance of abuse

and the litigious threats that come with the territory are probably responsible, in large

part, for this stifled silence on the topic. But avoiding this danger fails to restore beauty’s

relationship to the depth of soul. A closer attention to the subjective (psychological,

inner, veiled) dimension of exterior world physicality has the potential for leading us

back to an experience of Beauty’s source and mystery––to the a priori yearning that

shines through on the face of all things. This type of attention is exemplified in many

forms of poetic writing and other creative mediums of expression. Deepening our sense

of connection to the particularities of Beauty as she appears to us in bodies and things is

the means by which we might save her and save ourselves from our dissatisfied surface

level relationship to her. “By being touched, moved, and opened by the experiences of

the soul, one discovers that what goes on in the soul is not only interesting and

meaningful, necessary and acceptable, but that it is attractive, lovable, and beautiful”

(Hillman, 1972a, pp. 101-102).

The leading role that beauty plays in Hillman’s work––and by extension in his

idea of soul and imagination––can be simply illustrated by the following list of articles

and speeches where beauty appears explicitly in his titles: “Natural Beauty Without

Nature” (Hillman, 2006e); “The Repression of Beauty” (Hillman, 2006f); “Segregation

of Beauty” (Hillman, 2006g); and “Justice, Beauty, and Destiny as Foundations for an

Ecological Psychology” (Hillman, 2006d). The significance of beauty is also implied by

the title of a speech where its opposite is evoked: “The Cost of the Ugly” (Hillman,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 35

2006c). Beauty’s close relative, aesthetics, is featured in two more titles: “Aesthetic

Response as Political Action” (Hillman, 2006a) and “Aesthetics and Politics” (Hillman,

2006b).

In “On Psychological Creativity” Hillman (1972a) suggests that a practice of

psychology which is truly creative would also be an aesthetic practice. The question of

what this means more specifically and what such a form of practice might look like will

be explored through a closer look at the writings mentioned above as well as other

pertinent works of Hillman’s and Corbin’s.

Love, Creativity, Beauty, Imagination, the Heart: Seeing Through an Aesthetic

Response to the World, and Panpsychic Sensibility

Hillman’s (1992b) essay “The Thought of the Heart” delves further into the

relationship between love, creativity, beauty, imagination, and the heart through the

language and ideas put forth in Corbin’s interpretation of Ibn ‘Arabī’s work, while

simultaneously seeing them through the lens of the mundane world. Drawing from

Corbin’s interpretations of Ibn ‘Arabī’s philosophy and Sūfism in general, Hillman

introduces us to the image of a powerful thinking heart whose intelligence “connotes a

simultaneous knowing and loving by means of imagining” (p. 7). This power of the heart

which is the power by which mystics create objects in the imaginal world (described in

the introduction to this paper) is referred to as himma. Telling an imaginative, historical,

etymological, and associative story of the terrestrial human heart and weaving it into

Corbin’s supernal heart story, Hillman recreates our overall sense of the heart. His goal is

to “restore the animal sense to imagining” through remembrance of a heart which

“awakens in the aesthetic response” (p. 74). This response, he says, “is an animal
PSYCHE’S STAGE 36

awareness to the face of things” (p. 74). This statement and his essay “Anima Mundi: The

Return of the Soul to the World” (Hillman, 1992a), which picks up where “The Thought

of the Heart” (Hillman, 1992b) leaves off, reflects the panpsychic sensibility of Hillman’s

approach to archetypal psychology which corresponds to the imaginal world’s

panpsychic reality as depicted in Persian Sūfism.

Corbin’s (1960/1977) translation of a section from Ibn ‘Arabī’s The Book of the

Spiritual Conquests of Mecca describes this panpsychic aspect of the imaginal Earth:

“Everything that is to be found on that Earth,” he translates, “absolutely everything, is

alive and speaks” (p. 138). The mystic who leaves behind his material body to enter the

imaginal world soon discovers that

every stone, every tree, every village, every single thing he comes across, he may

speak with, if he wishes, as a man converses with a companion. Certainly they

speak different languages, but this Earth has the gift, peculiar to it, of conferring

on whomsoever enters the ability to understand all the tongues that are spoken

there. (p. 139)

As a nonmystic alternative to the mystic’s experience of the mundus imaginalis,

Hillman’s psychological use of the imaginal perspective discovers a panpsychic

sensibility and attitude toward the world without shedding the material body. He

accomplishes an as if stance through language that listens deeply for the voice of all

things, including ideas as persons. In Revisioning Psychology Hillman (1975) tells us that

“archetypal psychology envisions the fundamental ideas of the psyche to be expressions

of persons––Hero, Nymph, Mother, Senex, Child, Trickster, Amazon, Puer and many

other specific prototypes bearing the names and stories of the Gods” (p. 128). These
PSYCHE’S STAGE 37

fundamental ideas are honored and seen through in an archetypal move by which they are

personified. His writings, in general, can be viewed as a ta’wīl that includes but is not

limited to the mundane world: a hermeneutics that carries things back to their soul

perspectives through imagination. Revisioning Psychology (discussed further in the

methodology chapter) is his most comprehensive guide to this hermeneutic practice

exemplified within his extensive oeuvre.

Re-searching Between the Space of Captive and Self-Subsisting Imagination

In Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī

Corbin (1958/1997) says that “the form of every theophany is correlative to the form of

the consciousness to which it discloses itself” (p. 232). All human experiences of the

imagination, whether self-subsistent or conjoined, are uniquely attuned to and

symbolically resonant with the relationship between the individual and his or her angelic

Twin. This implies that imagination––in the form by which it makes itself available to

each individual––corresponds to that individual’s unique being, purpose, level of

development, and place in the world. There is no secular imagination according to Ibn

‘Arabī. All imagination is theophany. Corbin tells us that “even the Imagination

conjoined to, and inseparable from, the subject is in no sense a faculty functioning

arbitrarily in the void, secreting ‘fantasies’ ” (p. 220). The implication here is that

conjoined imagination, which is also referred to as captive imagination, serves a purpose

that is symbolically related to the self-subsisting Imagination that concerns Corbin. And

this perhaps, is one way of reconciling Hillman’s use of the term imaginal with Corbin’s

intention for it.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 38

In “The Thought of the Heart” Hillman’s (1992b) task is rediscovering the heart

in captive or conjoined imagination. He draws liberally from the language and themes of

love, creativity, beauty, imagination, and the heart, all of which are crucial to Corbin’s

(1958/1997) treatment of the mystic’s self-subsisting or dissociable Imagination as

conceived in Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī. As

such, a dialogue that opens a space between these works may further our search for a

mode of thinking and practice that brings captive and self-subsisting imagination closer

together. We might think of these two texts as embodiments of the captive and the self-

subsisting imaginations, as earthly beloved and celestial Lord symbolizing with each

other. In so doing, the question arises: how can the nonmystic approach this task with

both respect and authenticity? How does the nonmystic, for whom the self subsisting

Imagination is invisible, converse with his or her Angel? Perhaps, we might begin by

following the relational and role-playing examples given by the dhikr, by ta’wīl, by the

visionary recital, while simultaneouly calling upon the image of child’s play, since we

are, after all––as nonmystics––mere children in this territory. Perhaps we might pre-tend;

in other words, we might tend in advance to that which has not yet presented itself to us.

Corbin (1958/1997) makes a similar suggestion in a discussion on Creative

Prayer. Here he instructs the mystic who sees not-yet His Lord to worship Him “as

though he saw Him” (p. 262). It is noteworthy, we think, that this as though, as if pre-

tending approach to spiritual transformation, which is also present in Hillman’s

archetypal approach to psychology, is a characteristic that can be attributed to many and

possibly all creative disciplines. Perhaps this has something to say about the function and

purpose of creative imagination regardless of the dimensional height from which it

PSYCHE’S STAGE 39

springs. Perhaps the implication is that creative practice on one dimension might present

a window through which the next dimension can be entered.

In “On the Necessity of Abnormal Psychology: Ananke and Athene,” Hillman

(1980) reminds us that “the ontological priority of Corbin’s world” (p. 33) can only be

arrived at by starting from the place where we happen to be at any given moment. Most

often, in the field of psychology this is a place of pain and darkness, not of light and

spiritual heights. Hillman thus recommends taking the operational approach of Jung’s

active imagination technique with Corbin’s vision. For him this means that “active

imagination is not for the sake of the doer and our actions in the sensible world of literal

realities, but for the sake of the images,” for the sake of “where they can take us, their

realization” (p. 33).

Perhaps we should ask ourselves what imagining for the sake of the images or

living for the sake of the Angel means, phenomenologically speaking? How might those

of us for whom the images and Angel appear absent, translate this in the details of what

we live? How might we practice and tend to the images and Angels that we yearn for but

do not as-yet see? What might pre-tending for their sake look like? This is the crux of our

research. These are the questions that move our resonant resources (most notably

Corbin’s work, Hillman’s work, the researcher’s experience, and the recurring image of

theatrical practice) into dialogue with each other.

A Bridge Between Corbin and Hillman: Cheetham’s Writing

Cheetham, an author of five books exploring the works of Corbin, has addressed

to some extent, the question of how a nonmystic might respond to Corbin’s ideas in

everyday life. His informative and beautifully written books, which are excellent
PSYCHE’S STAGE 40

resources for making Corbin’s work more accessible, include: The World Turned Inside

Out: Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism (Cheetham, 2003); Green Man, Earth Angel:

The Prophetic Tradition and the Battle for the Soul of the World (Cheetham, 2005); After

Prophecy: Imagination, Incarnation, and the Unity of the Prophetic Tradition

(Cheetham, 2007); All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of

Beings (Cheetham, 2012); and Imaginal Love: The Meanings of Imagination in Henry

Corbin and James Hillman (Cheetham, 2015). In each of these books Cheetham

compares and contrasts the works of Corbin, Jung, and Hillman, though Corbin is always

at the center of his focus. In his fourth book All the World an Icon, he devotes three

chapters to exploring the similarities, differences, and relationships between their

archetypal and imaginal perspectives (Cheetham, 2012, pp. 130-214).

Cheetham’s answer to the question of how one might transmute the messages of

Corbin’s work into everyday life practices is in some ways similar to Hillman’s. The tone

of Cheetham’s response is more reverent; he writes more explicitly and extensively about

the details of Corbin’s eclectic life and oeuvre but both men, like Corbin himself,

discover soul through hermeneutic practices informed by the phenomenological tradition:

through reading, writing, and re-searching from within a transformative world of

language where metaphor and symbolic resonance have the power to enliven, move, and

shape our lives. All three men respond to the world and the subjects of their attention

aesthetically, poetically, and dramatically through writing. The event and experience that

takes place in the writing is, perhaps, their saving grace and healing fiction.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 41

Healing Fiction

Hillman (1983) says as much in the following passage from his book entitled

Healing Fiction:

Psychoanalysis is a work of imaginative tellings in the realm of poiesis, which

means simply “making,” and which I take to mean making by imagination into

words. Our work more particularly belongs to the rhetoric of poiesis, by which I

mean the persuasive power of imagining in words, an artfulness in speaking,

writing and reading. (pp. 3-4)

Healing Fiction is itself a poiesis, an imaginative telling and re-making of depth

psychology’s discipline viewed as a literary genre: as a tradition that constructs and

collects healing fictions. It is an unearthing of founding fictions grounded and founded in

the stories of its founding fathers: Freud, Jung, and Adler. We return to this work later in

the research process, but for now we make two observations that speak to its immediate

significance. The first observation is that Healing Fiction frequently calls upon theatrical

metaphors and the god of Greek tragedy, Dionysus (also Dionysos), to make its case.

Since the theatre’s relationship to our research question has emerged as a recurrent theme

in the initial stages of this inquiry, a closer look at these references and Hillman’s other

writings where Dionysus appears, is warranted.

Secondly, we would like to direct our attention to Hillman’s stance that all our

claims, as factual or empirical as they may seem, are always fictions. The writer Alain

makes a distinction “between history as stories of outer events and fiction as stories of

inner events” (Hillman, 1983, p. 24) but Hillman rejects the duality of this separation. He

tells us that “the distinction between a case history of outer events and a soul history of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 42

inner experiences cannot be made in terms of indelible and literal truth” (p. 26). Soul and

history (as he envisions them) are names we give to “two perspectives toward events, an

inner psychological one and an outer historical one” (p. 26). The movement between soul

and history can be viewed as a process which is “continually internalizing and

externalizing, gaining insight and losing it, deliteralizing and reliteralizing” (p. 26).

Hillman’s telling of Freud’s, Jung’s, and Adler’s lives and works models this type of

perspectival movement. The Freud, the Jung, and the Adler of Healing Fiction are both

more and less than the human Freud, Jung, and Adler ever were. Seen through the image,

the idea, the archetype of healing fiction––they re-present themselves in service to the

image, the idea, the archetype under investigation in Hillman’s treatment of them. We

mention this now because it speaks to the intent of this research. In opening to the

resources of Hillman’s and Corbin’s work and bringing them together, in allowing them

“to symbolize with each other,” to re-create and recreate with each other, our hope is that

they might further inform us about their and our potential relationships to creativity. In

short, our hope is to expand depth psychology’s repertoire of healing fictions.

Holding the image of healing fiction close at hand allows us to enter this work on

its own terms precluding the need for an in depth analysis of the criticism and

controversy that Corbin’s and Hillman’s works have been subjected to. Here we briefly

mention them as an acknowledgment of opposing perspectives regarding their

scholarship.

Tacey’s (2012) memorial article James Hillman and the Reanimation of the

World, tells us that Hillman’s “efforts to revision psychology along cultural lines met

with resistance not only from academic psychology, which dismissed his work as
PSYCHE’S STAGE 43

unscientific, but from Jungian psychology, which tended to regard his ‘revisioning’ as

irrelevant” (p. 175).

Cheetham (2012) says that Corbin:

has been accused . . . of misrepresenting Ibn ‘Arabi, of overemphasizing the

mystical aspects of Suhrawardi’s writings, of seeing Islam through exclusively

Shiite eyes, of having a somewhat lax attitude toward standards of historical

scholarship, and completely undervaluing the nonmystical aspects of Islam as it is

in fact practiced by most believers. (p. 13)

Analysis of such criticisms is inappropriate to the scope and purpose of this research. Our

immediate task is not to determine how archetypal psychology, as envisioned by Hillman,

measures up to academic or clinical Jungian psychology or to determine how Corbin’s

project measures up to the spiritual and philosophic traditions he draws from. This

research views Hillman’s and Corbin’s works as archetypal or imaginal creations that

symbolize with the sources they draw from for inspiration. Starting from this perspective,

our task is to follow the leads that emerge from these creations in hopes of furthering

their movement in the mundane world for nonmystics.

This literature review has laid the foundation from which the poiesis of this

research will build itself in layers. Here we have introduced themes, ideas, and images

appearing in the works of Corbin and Hillman that symbolize with the research question.

The methodology section below looks to the hermeneutic tradition as a guide to

deepening our relationship with the research question and gleaning its response.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 44

Chapter 3
Methodology

Research Approach

Just as Hillman’s (1975) Revisioning Psychology attempts to restore a sense of

soul to psychological language and thinking, Romanyshyn’s (2007) The Wounded

Researcher attempts to do the same for depth psychological research through an imaginal

or alchemical approach that complements more traditional methodologies. This approach

calls for a poetics of research that holds a space for the presence of depth psychology’s

subject matter: namely, that of psyche or soul. It is a process of research, of searching

again, and remembering that which “has already made its claim upon the researcher

through his or her complex relations to the topic” (Romanyshyn, 2007, p. xi).

The alchemical hermeneutic approach acknowledges and honors the work of

depth psychological research as a life in itself, a life that extends over many generations

transcending the individual researcher who searches again in service to this life. By

returning to the marginalized, lost, or forgotten ancestral lineage through which the soul

of the work has passed, alchemical hermeneutics reaches for the recrudescence of soul’s

“unfinished business.” In its devotion to this cause, the imaginal approach “is attuned to

those hidden and not readily present possibilities that linger and wait as the weight of

history in the work” (Romanyshyn, 2007, p. 291).

Romanyshyn tells us that the depth psychological researcher is drawn into the

topic of inquiry through his complexes. The term complex, originally coined by Jung

(1936/1969), refers to the product of a psychic activity that he envisioned as the splitting

off of psychic fragments from the conscious psyche in response to traumatic psychic
PSYCHE’S STAGE 45

wounds or contradictory tendencies (p. 121 [CW 8, para. 253]). It was Jung’s thought that

these split off unconscious parts of the psyche (present in all of us) could be witnessed

indirectly through our pre-reflective behavioral responses that are triggered by

circumstances correlative to the original wounding experiences. It was his view that these

responses hinted at the presence of distinct, complex, intrapsychic, autonomous entities

originally developed as defense mechanisms against unbearable psychic contents. Jung

called these person-like parts of the psyche that behaved like distinct personalities,

complexes. The depth psychological researcher who is drawn into the topic of inquiry

through his or her complexes is, in other words, a wounded researcher. The wound that

draws one in sensitizes one to the concerns of the research topic. The researcher’s

complexes, seen through this lens, are correlative to the topic’s complexes: to its

unfinished business and unanswered questions. Research with soul in mind, Romanyshyn

(2007) says, “seeks to transform a wound into a work” (p. 111).

We think it is worth noting here that descriptions of the alchemical hermeneutic

approach, like those of Sūfī practices discussed above, are often reminiscent of processes

used in the discipline of theatre arts. This can be seen in Romanyshyn’s (2007)

introduction to Corbin’s notion of three hermeneutic levels. The first of these levels is

“theoretical certainty;” the second “is the certainty of eyewitness testimony;” and at the

third level “the certainty is lived” (p. 117). This is a process of either becoming or of

being consumed by the thing that is known. There is a symbolic resonance between this

level and the act of taking on a role in theatre. In each case, “the other” is embodied and

experienced through embodiment and enactment.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 46

The core of Romanyshyn’s (2007) alchemical hermeneutic process is what he

refers to as the transference dialogue. This dialogic form is viewed as a medium through

which the imaginal others who constitute the soul of the work can be engaged with. In

describing this process, he calls upon an expression for which he credits the poet

Coleridge, though our own association with this expression comes from our experience in

the theatre world: the “willing suspension of disbelief” (p. 150). Romanyshyn relates this

activity to “the ritual place of play” (p. 151). With regard to transference dialogues, “the

willing suspension of disbelief” allows us to experience the livelihood and personhood of

our topic “without denial or affirmation of its real existence by some act of judgment that

would measure the experience against some preformed notion of the real versus the

imaginary” (p. 151). This is an important notion to keep in mind as we move into this

work.

Romanyshyn’s depth psychologically oriented imaginal approach, Corbin’s more

mystic imaginal approach informed by Persian Sūfism, and Hillman’s archetypal

approach to hermeneutics will serve as paradigms that ground this work in an

environment suited to the topic and the field of depth psychology. All of these

approaches are rooted in the historic lineage of hermeneutics and phenomenology. The

confluence of these disciplines reveals itself as a blended-self. The voices of seminal

figures who constitute this blended-self overlap, challenge, and play upon each other.

Though our intention is to align most closely with the hermeneutic approaches described

and exemplified in the works of Corbin and Hillman, we remain conscious of and open to

the presence, influence, and potential guidance of this larger family in so doing. In the

methodology section below, we begin with a brief and very limited historical overview
PSYCHE’S STAGE 47

then elaborate on pertinent aspects of Corbin’s and Hillman’s hermeneutic approaches as

a means for discovering specific ways of entering into the work at hand.

Research Methodology

A brief historical overview of the hermeneutic tradition.

The hermeneutic tradition, as a theory of interpretation, reaches back to the

philosophy of ancient Greece, continues in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as a form of

Biblical exegesis which later includes the study of ancient and classic cultures, then

expands with German romanticism and idealism into a branch of study that is

phenomenologically, philosophically, and existentially oriented. Beginning with

Schleiermacher, hermeneutics turns from its focus on understanding the texts of highly

specialized disciplines (religion and law, for example) to the concept of a universal

hermeneutics, linguistic meaning in general, and the existential question of how we as

humans understand anything in the first place. Dilthey continues along these lines,

adapting Schleiermacher’s romantic hermeneutics through a comparative approach with

the intent of providing a methodology for objective understanding within the sciences of

humanities. This method involves “an initial inductive hypothesis-formation leading up

to a process of critical, empirical investigation and historical comparison aiming at

revision or improvement of the initial hypothesis” (Ramberg & Gjesdal, 2013, p. 6).

The phenomenological turn in hermeneutics is initiated by Heidegger. Drawing

upon the methods of his mentor Husserl, Heidegger proposes a “hermeneutic of Dasein”

(Palmer, 1969, p. 42) in his classic work Being and Time (Heidegger, 1927/1962). Here

hermeneutics becomes ontology: an expression of our fundamental pre-reflective way of

being in the world. The overarching thrust of Heidegger’s work might be viewed as a
PSYCHE’S STAGE 48

philosophical, phenomenological, and hermeneutic reflection disclosing particularized

aspects and levels of being in pursuit of an ultimate goal that reconnects the experience of

being human with universal or primordial being––in other words, with that which is

common to all beings.

A brief introduction to Heidegger’s use of the terms understanding,

interpretation, and assertion will provide a sense of his perspective. Understanding for

Heidegger “is not something we consciously do or fail to do, but something we are.

Understanding is a mode of being, and as such it is characteristic of human being, of

Dasein” (Ramberg & Gjesdal, 2013, p. 7). Interpretation which occurs through “the

explicit foregrounding of a given object . . . . makes things, objects, the fabric of the

world appear as something” (p. 7). The world and objects disclose themselves as we

discover their as-structures through interactions with them. The candle discloses its

candleness, for instance, when our finger burns from the touch of its flame. The meaning

derived from these disclosures is pinned down linguistically through assertion but the

linguistic identification or meaning conveyed by assertion is not its origin. It is

“predicated on the world-disclosive synthesis of understanding and interpretation” (p. 8).

The ontological and phenomenological approach to hermeneutics is continued by

Gadamer (1960/2013) with the publication of Truth and Method. This comprehensive

volume includes a “critical review of modern aesthetics and theory of historical

understanding from a basically Heideggerian perspective, as well as a new philosophical

hermeneutics based on the ontology of language” (Palmer, 1969, p. 162). Gadamer

argues that human being “is a being in language” (Ramberg & Gjesdal, 2013, p. 9) and

“the linguisticality of being is at the same time its ontology––its ‘coming into being’––
PSYCHE’S STAGE 49

and the medium of its historicality” (Palmer, 1969, p. 177). This linguisticality of being

pre-dates and outlasts our individual lives, and this is the basis for an objective

interpretive stance that reaches beyond the merely subjective horizons of a text’s author

or interpreter alone. The objective meaning of a text seen through this lens is identified as

“the what” in living language that repeatedly comes to stand in historical encounters with

it.

For Gadamer, interpretation is “dialectical interaction with the text; it is not bald

reenactment but a new creation, a new event in understanding” (Palmer, 1969, p. 212).

Contrary to “methodical” research approaches characterized by researchers who control

and lead the line of questioning through predetermined rules and systems, this dialectical

approach calls for a switch in role play. The researcher thus becomes the subject in

service to the subject-matter encountered. The matter encountered poses questions to

which the researcher responds. It is only through immersion in the subject-matter that the

“right” question emerges. Here, the work of art or text acts as a medium through which

the question that brought it into being presents and re-presents itself in its present form.

The objective “is eminently phenomenological: to have the being or thing encountered

reveal itself” (p. 166).

As we can see, Gadamer’s non-methodical method is compatible with the

panpsychic perspectives of Hillman’s approach to archetypal psychology and Corbin’s

interpretation of the imaginal world in Persian Sūfī mysticism. As such, it provides, along

with Romanyshyn’s developments in alchemical hermeneutics, and the example of

Hillman’s and Corbin’s writings, a guide to entering and enacting this explorative

inquiry.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 50

The evolutionary movements of the hermeneutic tradition as described above

might be summarily viewed through the shifting scope of what is commonly referred to

as the hermeneutic circle. This term refers, in general, to the cyclical and relational back

and forth movement characteristic of interpretive work. “Originally conceived in terms of

relationship between the parts and the whole of the text, the hermeneutic circle [later]

includes the text’s relationship to historical tradition and culture at large” (Ramberg &

Gjesdal, 2013, p. 4). In Heidegger’s ontologically and phenomenologically oriented

hermeneutics the term refers to “the interplay between our self-understanding and our

understanding the world” (p. 8), and in Corbin’s mystical hermeneutics the relationship

between self and world expands to include the higher celestial worlds. Here the circle

moves back and forth between the mystic or hermeneut and his celestial twin and Angel.

Having provided this brief historical overview of the hermeneutic lineage that

informed and includes Corbin and Hillman, we now turn toward their unique

contributions within it. It is here, in an encounter with their actual works, which are

peopled by the figures who informed them, that we expect to discover a hermeneutic

approach and method that aligns most closely with this particular inquiry.

Corbin’s hermeneutics.

Corbin (1964/1995) describes the overarching project represented in his oeuvre as

“a comparative study that consists essentially in the hermeneutics of the ‘phenomenon of

the Sacred Book’ ” (p. 40). Cheetham (2012) has said that “the questions [Corbin’s] work

raises engage the entire sweep of the prophetic tradition from Zoroastrianism to the

Mormons and beyond” (p. 3). The following passage cited from All the World an Icon is
PSYCHE’S STAGE 51

an insightful consideration of the profound yearning and intent that drove his project

forward:

Among modern theologians and philosophers it is perhaps only Henry Corbin,

with a deep knowledge of Greek, Latin, German, Persian, and Arabic, who was

able to see the religions of the Book with a sufficiently passionate clarity to grasp

their essential unities and to show how we might reimagine the heart of these

traditions to bring them alive and whole into a new cosmopolitan world free from

the fundamentalisms and conflicts that have nearly obliterated the prophetic

message throughout its long history. (p. 3)

Unsurprisingly, Corbin’s ecumenical symbolic blending of Islamic and Protestant

theologies is often viewed as radically controversial by orthodox thinkers within the

fields he draws from. Our intent here, however, is not to analyze Corbin’s work through

the lenses of these thinkers, but rather, to glean an understanding of his hermeneutic

intent and approach as a means for engaging with his work in a manner amenable to the

work itself. Clearly, our teasing out of this approach and method has already begun. It

shows itself in our discussions of the dhikr, ta’wīl, the visionary recital, and creative

prayer. It shows itself in our exploration of recurrent themes, namely: imagination,

mirroring, and unveiling. It shows itself, as well, in the evolving mode of expression and

language that emerges in this inquiry.

During the 1920s and early 1930s, while simultaneously studying Islamic thought,

Corbin was deeply engaged in the German theological and hermeneutic tradition

discussed above. This lineage of thinkers includes such names as Boehme, Luther,

Hamann, Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Barth. Corbin was, in fact, the first
PSYCHE’S STAGE 52

person to translate Heidegger’s and some of Barth’s early work into the French language.

The impact of Heidegger’s ontological perspective on Corbin’s thought is apparent in the

Heideggerian orientation and language that navigates his theological translations.

Hermeneutics, for Corbin––like Heidegger––was an exercise in phenomenology.

Corbin’s mission, however, extended beyond Heidegger’s conception of “Being-towards-

death” to include the phenomena of “Being-beyond-death” inspired by the multiple

worlds and levels of being in esoteric Islamic cosmology. Eschewing the “nominalist

historical criticism” prevalent in scholastic circles during his time, Corbin expressed the

need for a transhistorical penetration of sacred texts: “a comprehensive explanation

which embraces several levels of being and consciousness” (Corbin, 1998b, p. 95).

Challenging the perspective that spiritual themes should be pursued solely for the purpose

of demonstrating “a material origin or an objective genealogy,” Corbin’s (1998a, p. 20)

aspirations centered on reading and understanding sacred texts as spiritually evolved

believers had read and understood them. The result he sought was “a hermeneutic of the

religious phenomenon” that revealed “both the phenomenon and those to whom it [was]

manifest” (Corbin, 1998b, p. 97). In Corbin’s (1998a) opinion, “entering into religious

consciousness and invoking criteria which are appropriate to it” was a requirement for

“speak[ing] meaningfully and convincingly of religious fact” (p. 17). Religious

consciousness, from his perspective, was achieved in the experiential discovery of

presence: of presences within presences, of an inter-presence that contains both I and

World. In considering the sacred, Corbin presupposed an a priori region of being. This

region’s pre-initially emerged horizon, having always been present, is interpreted as

being situated outside the historical world of chronological time. Experiencing the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 53

presence of this a priori Being becomes possible, in his view, through the transhistorical

penetration of a sacred text.

In Comparative Spiritual Hermeneutics, he likens this transhistorical penetration

to the Arabic idea of hikāyat. Hikāyat, as he describes it, simultaneously connotes the

narrative account of an historical event and “an imitation, (a mimesis), a repetition”

(Corbin, 1964/1995, p. 36). History, from this perspective, is history in the usual sense

and concomitantly “history that is essentially an image or symbol” (p. 36). The symbolic

quality of this twofold historical phenomenon imparts “an unusual form to the

“commonplace texture of external events” (p. 36). This form is “related to a higher

requirement,” namely that of the internal and celestial events from which the

corresponding external terrestrial events spring.

Corbin refers to this concept of history (which has its origin in the spiritual world

or the anima mundi) as hierohistory. Time, from the perspective of hierohistory is not

chronological, but vertical. The process of penetrating the hierohistorical (esoteric,

hidden, truly real) dimension of the historic event (which is the exoteric appearance and

mimesis of events in the world of Soul) is the process that we referred to as ta’wīl and

spiritual hermeneutics discussed in the literature review. It is a process that carries each

thing, each event back “to its truth, to its archetype, (asl), by uncovering the hidden and

concealing the appearance” (Corbin, 1964/1995, p. 37). This act of returning, of moving

inward, from the hierohistorical perspective, is the act of raising as well. According to the

angelology that Corbin writes about, the ascent and return of the beloved to his Lord,

celestial Twin, and Angel triggers the ascent of the Lord, celestial Twin, and Angel as

well. The ascent of a being on one plane of existence causes the successive ascent of each
PSYCHE’S STAGE 54

corresponding being on the dimension above it. The intent of hermeneutics revealed here

is ultimately the spiritual elevation of the hermeneut and those corresponding spiritual

worlds above him or her.

Keeping this in mind, it is important to note, that Corbin (1998a) associates the

hierohistorical region of being with an already existing “idea of the good” (p. 18) which

corresponds to our religious needs, desires, and apprehensions. Bringing this region, this

mode of being, this transcendental Presence into the present is the aim of Corbin’s

spiritual and phenomenological hermeneutics. As a Presence that has always been, it is

universal; it is everywhere, in everything. As experienced by the individual through an

intermediate cyclical exchange with his celestial Angel, it is unique and deeply personal.

The ta’wīl of one hermeneut in relationship with a text, as such, will never be identical to

the ta’wīl of another, nor will it be identical from one moment to the next. Presence is

always unveiled as it stands within the present moment. Always in relationship, it is

always moving.

The phenomenological method, as Corbin (1998a) describes it, involves the

holding and unveiling of consciousness “just as it reveals itself in the object it reveals” (p.

24). This occurs “through a certain mode of cognition, a hierognosis that unites the

speculative knowledge of traditional information to the most personal interior

experience” (Corbin, 1964/ 1995, p. 38).

Corbin’s (1964/1995) Comparative Spiritual Hermeneutics provides us with an

example of how this mode of cognition might look in everyday life. This essay explores

the symbolic resonance between Islamic esoteric traditions and an esoteric perspective of

the Protestant tradition as interpreted by Swedenborg, a Swedish visionary born in 1688.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 55

Here Corbin relates the term hierognosis to the idea of an ancient and first humanity

which is fundamental to the work of Swedenborg. According to Swedenborgian

hermeneutics, these ancient and celestial humans possessed “an immediate spiritual

perception” (p. 40).

A tangible sense of what this means might be imagined through a description of

their visual faculties. These celestial humans, it is said, observed objects on earth while

simultaneously thinking by means of them. The sight of physical objects, in other words,

was immediately understood in terms “of the celestial and divine things that these objects

represented or signified” (Corbin, 1964/1995, p. 41) for the person viewing them.

Physical objects were more than physical objects in the eyes of these people. They were

also mediums through which a deeply personal celestial meaning could be gleaned.

Corbin tells us that this higher level of cognition characteristic of this celestial humanity

declined when the function of objects as instruments through which true reality could be

reflected on, was forgotten. A spiritual hermeneutics that aligns with Corbin’s

perspective would ultimately recover this lost mode of cognition––this hierognosis, this

double sense of sight––through which spiritual consciousness is held and unveiled “just

as it reveals itself in the object it reveals” (Corbin, 1998a, p. 24).

This example hints at a possible nonmystic approach to the hermeneutic journey

of our research. As “child mystics,” perhaps we should do what children do. Perhaps we

should pre-tend and imagine that the objects of our inquiry are spiritual consciousness

revealing itself in the objects it reveals. Reading the material world as the mirroring and

unveiling activity of the celestial Lord and image to which we correspond, we might

imagine a response to our inquiry that emerges in accordance with and appropriate to our
PSYCHE’S STAGE 56

level of being. In the section below we look to some key points in Hillman’s archetypal

approach to hermeneutics for further guidance.

Hillman’s hermeneutics.

In Hillman’s (1975) seminal work Re-Visioning Psychology, he builds the case for

and concomitantly exemplifies what we now refer to as an archetypal psychology.

Archetypal psychology is itself a hermeneutic practice and as such, it provides us with a

primary methodological approach to draw from. Re-Visioning Psychology is organized in

four sections that illuminate four psychological moves essential to an archetypal

perspective. The first section devotes itself to personifying or imagining things, the

second to pathologizing or falling apart, the third to psychologizing or seeing through,

and the fourth to dehumanizing or soul-making. These categories are not as discrete as the

book’s sectional organization would imply. As overlapping components of an archetypal

purview, they are inclusive of each other, and often present all at the same time.

These archetypal operations all speak in some way, for example, to the psychic

activity of personifying: of seeing and experiencing the world’s endless plurality and

variety––its plethora of things (its frogs, its body parts, its buildings, its events, even its

ideas, and words) as persons––persons with personalities, moods, affinities, motives, and

persistent wounds that shape them. All of these persons––constituted by multiple

persons––show themselves through their particularities, through the oddities that

differentiate them from other persons via their styles of dress, modes of expression,

gestural postures, and so forth. The archetypal move of pathologizing or falling apart

acknowledges the images constituted by our wounds, our sicknesses, our gross and

morbid thoughts as persons, and takes the stance that all of them are necessary to psychic
PSYCHE’S STAGE 57

life. Seeing through or psychologizing is an archetypal move that sees through the surface

of things to the Gods in our ideas as persons. And dehumanizing or soul-making

challenges the human centered perception that human consciousness is the only

consciousness appropriate to the status of personhood. It decries the notion that persons

are inherently human persons with human attributes, characteristics, reasons, and

personalities.

In the subsections below we briefly touch upon elements of each chapter in

Re-visioning Psychology (Hillman, 1975), as a means of formulating a sensibility and

methodological tools for engaging with our research topic archetypally.

Personifying or imagining things.

Hillman (1975) uses the term personifying to “signify the basic psychological

activity––the spontaneous experiencing, envisioning and speaking of the configurations

of existence as psychic presences” (p. 12). He describes it as “a way of being in the world

and experiencing the world as a psychological field, where persons are given with events,

so that events are experiences that touch us, move us, appeal to us” (p. 13). Hillman

makes the case that personifying is a means for “revivifying our relations with the world

around us,” for “meeting our individual fragmentation . . . and many voices,” and a

means for “furthering the imagination to show all its bright forms” (p. 3). The last

descriptor in this list is crucial to understanding his perspective. Over and over again, he

reiterates the intent of this work: serving imagination––serving its images––and the

middle world of its habitat. The aim is not self-improvement for the human individual,

but rather a mythical consciousness that throws us into a more enlivened relationship

with the surrounding world and cosmos.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 58

Here, we can see the relationship between the human individual and the

image/imagination as reflecting a symbolic correspondence and resonance with the

respective relationship between the mystic and his Lord as depicted in Corbin’s work. It

can also be seen in Hillman’s pairing of the words personifying and imagining things as

label for this archetypal move. This rubric “Personifying or Imagining Things” is an

intimation of what Hillman (1975) actually means by personifying. This intimation is

clarified by his declaration that “we do not actually personify at all” (pp. 16-17).

“Mythical consciousness,” he says, “is a mode of being in the world that brings with it

imaginal persons. They are given with imagination and are its data. Where imagination

reigns, personifying happens” (p. 17). We are not, in other words, the agents who

personify or imagine things; the attitude and perspective Hillman asks us to consider is

one that acknowledges things as imagining entities (persons) whose thoughts become

known to us through imagination. Imagination is a place of perspective where the

personhood of things and humans meet.

Hillman describes a number of ways that personifying happens and has happened

within and throughout history. Personifying happens most unquestionably and perhaps

explicitly in visions, dreams, and fantasies. It happens in poetic and religious language

and the continual reinvention of persons under the guise of memory. It appears in the

traditions of Greeks and Romans who personified “such psychic powers as Fame,

Insolence, [and] Night” (Hillman, 1975, p. 13). It happens in the capitalization of such

words, charging them with power and affect. It appears, as well, in polytheism where

archetypes are personified in the names and stories of the Gods.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 59

Since the task of this research is a hermeneutic one, explored and expressed in

and through words, the following passage from Revisioning Psychology is instructive on

two levels at least. It shows us what Hillman means by personifying while simultaneously

evoking a series of questions that we might ask of the words that people the texts of our

inquiry.

Words, like angels, are powers which have invisible power over us. They are

personal presences which have whole mythologies: genders, genealogies

(etymologies concerning origins and creations), histories, and vogues; and their

own guarding, blaspheming, creating, and annihilating effects. For words are

persons. (Hillman, 1975, p. 9)

Pathologizing or falling apart.

Hillman (1975) defines his use of the term pathologizing as “the psyche’s

autonomous ability to create illness, morbidity, disorder, abnormality, and suffering in

any aspect of its behavior and to experience and imagine life through this deformed and

afflicted perspective” (p. 57). Pathologizing, in his view, is a psychological necessity. Its

overpowering ability to move us is one of its striking characteristics. Sickness, pain, fear,

the unbearable sense that something has gone irreparably and terribly wrong can force us

into new perspectives, postures, and ways of being in the world. Hillman says that

“pathologizing moves the myth of the individual onward by moving him first of all out of

the heroic ego” (p. 89).

Of the four archetypal moves we are discussing pathologizing or falling apart is,

seemingly, most at odds within the framework of Corbin’s focus, but Hillman (1975)

says that “psychopathology is always present within religion” (p. 96). Exploring Corbin’s
PSYCHE’S STAGE 60

interpretation of the creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī with the sensibility

of an archetypal perspective thus requires that we deepen our relationship with the

intimations of pathology in this spiritual cosmology.

Hillman (1975) says that “our psychopathologies can be held within the narrative

structure of a religious allegory” (p. 95). He tells us that mythology provides “an

adequate mirror” for pathology; it “speak[s] with the same distorted fantastic language,”

and its distortion of “the natural and actual” (p. 99) forces our questions inward toward a

world that lies beneath the surface of things. Reflecting on these insights, a question

emerges: What might be gleaned by holding Ibn ‘Arabī’s creation myth as a

cosmological pathology that symbolizes with our individual pathologies? How might the

holding of this question move us toward a better understanding of nonmystic creativity

within the mystic paradigm that we look to for insight?

Psychologizing or seeing through.

In Re-visioning Psychology, Hillman (1975) describes his chapter on personifying

or imagining things as “a reflection from the imaginative psyche;” his chapter on

pathologizing or falling apart, he says, is generally speaking “a reflection from the

affective psyche;” and his chapter on psychologizing or seeing through is “mainly a

reflection from the intellectual psyche” (p. 129). Here he emphasizes psyche’s need for

fantasy by means of psychological ideas, meaning ideas that “engender the soul’s

reflection upon its nature, structure, and purpose” (p. 117). Psychological ideas, as

recurrent representations of our deepest psychic patterns, can also be called archetypal.

For Hillman, “archetypal psychologizing [or seeing through] means examining our

[psychological] ideas themselves in terms of archetypes” (p. 127). Psychologizing is a

PSYCHE’S STAGE 61

process through which the archetypal fantasy and psychic factor in each of our ideas can

be extracted. Hillman tells us that “archetypal ideas are primarily speculative . . . they

encourage speculation” and speculation is defined as “mirroring, reflecting, visioning” (p.

118). In this sense, speculation on archetypal ideas is theophany. It is the appearance of

the Gods in our ideas.

In psychologizing or seeing through, all ideas of literal actions are changed to

metaphorical enactments. Psychologizing is a movement beyond phenomenology

whereby events become experiences through fantasies of what lies behind and beneath

our ideas of them. The objective is subjectivized. The external is internalized. Seeing

through “is a process of deliteralizing and a search for the imaginal in the heart of things

by means of ideas” (Hillman, 1975, p. 136). The soul, which needs its own ideas apart

from the ego’s, has its own style of reasoning, its own logos and way of knowing which

is distinct from the ego’s. Reflecting the soul’s mode of cognition, seeing through

involves “a transposition from the logical to the imaginal” (p. 139).

Hillman (1975) describes four steps to the process of psychologizing, all of which

are required, though not necessarily in sequential order. Often they occur simultaneously.

The first step begins with a curiosity––a spark––a question that drills us down and moves

us “through the apparent to the less apparent” (p. 140). As the less apparent becomes

transparent a new darkness or question surfaces and the cycle continues: moving us

deeper and deeper, layer upon layer like the peeling away of onion skins unveiling the

richness and depth that peoples our ideas. Secondly, “psychologizing justifies itself” (p.

140); it makes us believe that seeing this way is more powerful than simply seeing that

which is evident. Hillman calls the “ultimate hidden value” that justifies this process “the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 62

hidden God’ (deus absconditus) who appears only in concealment” (p. 140). The third

step is mythologizing:

The present event, the phenomenon before us, is given a narrative. A tale is told

of it in the metaphors of history, or physical causality, or logic. We tell ourselves

something in the language of “because.” The immediate is elaborated by fantasy,

so that a metamorphosis occurs as the immediate becomes part of an account. It is

a process of mythologizing. And all explanations whatsoever may be regarded as

narrative fantasies and examined as myths. (pp. 140-141)

In the fourth step, we return to what Hillman refers to as “the tools with which the

operation proceeds” (Hillman, 1975, p. 141). These are the ideas. The ideas, as the soul’s

tools, provide the means through which the activity of psychologizing or seeing through

becomes possible. It is important, however, not to take them literally. The ideas are not

the actual unknown factors which are always only partially unveiled in the process of

seeing through. Hillman uses our idea of the unconscious as an example of what is meant

here. In the act of seeing through our idea of the unconscious we “see through behavior

into its hidden unknowns. But we do not see the unconscious” (p. 141). We do not see a

literal thing that is literally the unconscious.

Hillman tells us that psychologizing or seeing through is the root activity of the

soul. All of the archetypal moves that we discuss here are, as such, part and parcel to

seeing through. As the root activity of the soul, psychologizing or seeing through is the

means through which soul-making takes place. Remembering that soul, for Hillman, is a

perspective rather than a thing, we can see that seeing through is the making of the soul’s

perspectives; it is soul’s making of itself.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 63

Corbin tells us that the imaginal world is the world of soul but the imaginal world

can only be penetrated by the nonmystic in accordance with the worldview he adopts. As

such, seeing Corbin’s work through the moves of an archetypal practice may offer us, as

nonmystics, a means of approach and point of access appropriate to our own level of

development.

De-humanizing or soul-making.

Hillman (1975) says:

the statement that soul enters into everything human cannot be reversed. Human

does not enter into all of soul, nor is everything psychological human. Man exists

in the midst of psyche; it is not the other way around. Therefore, soul is not

confined by man, and there is much of psyche that extends beyond the nature of

man. The soul has inhuman reaches. (p. 173)

In acknowledging that soul is everywhere and soul is more than human, we might infer

that our thoughts, emotions, habits, behaviors––all those distinct and ostensibly human

characteristics so seemingly uniquely our own––are actually communications from the

more than human soul. We might then recognize the persons of more than human Gods

and creatures in our visages, in the ways we love, the outrages that overcome us, and the

symptoms that seemingly betray us. We might then imagine what soul is seeking, what

soul is desiring through her making and shaping of us. We might also imagine through a

text and through our responses to a text in the same way.

For Hillman (1975), dehumanizing soul means demoralizing soul as well. If we

are to acknowledge that soul is beyond human, we must acknowledge that soul’s
PSYCHE’S STAGE 64

concerns and values are beyond human as well. “Rather than looking at myths morally,

archetypal psychology looks at moralities mythically” (p. 179).

Hillman (1975) credits Jung as an “immediate ancestor” of archetypal psychology

within a lineage that goes back “through Freud, Dilthey, Coleridge, Schelling, Vico,

Ficino, Plotinus, and Plato to Heraclitus” (p. xvii). His revisioning of psychology is

inspired by “the imagination of Hellenism, Renaissance Neoplatonism, and polytheism”

(p. 223). A primary concern of his is that the current lack of imaginative language and

ideas in the field of psychology reflects a loss of concern for its etymological rooting in

soul. Calling for a Renaissance psychology and recalling the art of Renaissance rhetoric,

Hillman suggests that rhetoric as method, is a way of doing psychology. Seeing through

to the backdrop of Gadamer, who sees beings as situated in the ontological being of

language, we can imagine where Hillman is attempting to take us with this suggestion.

Renaissance rhetoric is both a tool and an enlivening way of being more connected to the

fullness of being.

Hillman (1975) tells us that Renaissance language “is brought to life by

personified and pathologized figures of speech, by hyperbole and metaphor, by

indirection, repetition, allusion, conceit, and innuendo” (pp. 213-214). Wandering and

self-contradictory––at times bombastic, pleading, and complaining––its style appeals to

psyche’s many sides and faces. Rhetoric’s powers of persuasion, effective only when the

mind is open to its passions, persuades by evoking the logos of soul: by speaking to our

emotions, senses, and fantasies. It is marked by eloquence and a “belief in the verbal

imagination and the therapeutic incantational power of words” (p. 214).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 65

Materials and Procedures for Gathering and “Analyzing the Data”

The primary materials used for this research will be gathered from the oeuvres of

Corbin and Hillman. Supplementary authors, called upon as needed, will deepen our

contextual, topical, and experiential understanding of the work. These additional sources

will include but will not be limited to the authors and texts mentioned thus far. In

exploring these additional sources, our intention is to enrich the dialogue between

Corbin’s works, Hillman’s works, and the research questions. Our purpose is not to

achieve expertise on the many sources that Corbin and Hillman draw from, but to

imagine (in service to their work) the response to our inquiry more fully. In keeping with

the phenomenological perspective that characterizes our hermeneutic paradigm, the

researcher’s background and presence will be viewed as part and parcel of the aggregate

presence that populates the work. The relevant thoughts, emotions, and experiences of the

researcher, in other words, will at times enter into the research dialogue.

In determining the procedures for gathering and analyzing data, we are guided by

Gadamer’s view that methodic methods elude truth by attempting to control the subject

of inquiry. Since a mapped out plan of definitive steps is thus inappropriate, a preliminary

sketch that imagines our task in general terms will provide us with a tangible place to

start while leaving room for the research to unfold and reveal itself in the presence of our

encounter with it.

We begin by taking as our core text the source through which our research

question has emerged: Corbin’s (1958/1997) Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination

in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī. A dialogue between this text, Corbin’s other related works,

corresponding selections from Hillman’s oeuvre, the research question, and the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 66

researcher’s experience will follow. The pertinent themes which have arisen in our

conversation thus far will be explored on yet a deeper level through a deeper penetration

of these texts. Hillman’s archetypal approach to hermeneutics as summarized above will

offer us tools for moving into relationship with the texts and our research question as

nonmystics, or perhaps we might say as child mystics. Corbin’s more spiritually oriented

hermeneutic perspective paired with images of the child, of pre-tending, and play (since

we are mere children in this territory) will instruct our sense of method as well. In

moving through Corbin’s treatise on the creative Imagination of Ibn ‘Arabī, questions

posed by our relationship with the text will direct us toward other sources in search of a

deeper understanding. These will include the works of authors who informed Corbin and

Hillman as well as writings that provide us with historical and topical context. We may

also draw from sources that further illuminate emergent themes, and from the works of

writers who have continued to develop Corbin’s and Hillman’s ideas. In choosing our

resource materials, however, we begin by prioritizing the oeuvres of Corbin and Hillman,

and the experiences of the researcher, who is considered to be our nonmystic

representative. Looking first to these sources will keep us in close contact with the

research questions, reiterated as follows: How might a phenomenological engagement

with and dialogue between Hillman's work in archetypal psychology and Corbin's

interpretation of the creative Imagination in Persian mystic Sūfism further inform us

about creative imagination for the nonmystic? And furthermore, what forms of creative

practice might emerge from the understanding gleaned by this exploration? The extent to

which we explore this secondary question is yet to be determined and depends largely

upon the time and space needed for an appropriate response to the primary question. Here
PSYCHE’S STAGE 67

we acknowledge that a comprehensively imagined creative practice viewed through the

response to our primary question may possibly be more suited to a follow up project.

Our intent for this research is not to “analyze the data” per se, but rather to deeply

experience the call and response of the creative imagination’s reflection upon itself

within the context discussed throughout this preparatory stage of our inquiry.

Ethical Considerations

The American Psychological Association has established a set of ethical standards

for psychological research in which human participants are to be involved. These are

categorized and elaborated upon under the rubrics of: respect for persons, beneficence,

justice, and types of harm. While our research will not involve human participants this

does not preclude the need for ethical consideration. Romanyshyn (2007) specifically

tells us that alchemical hermeneutics, as a method of depth psychological research that

would keep soul in mind, is a movement towards an “ethical epistemology.” The

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992) defines epistemology as

“the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and

foundations, and its extent and validity” (Epistemology, p. 619). An ethical epistemology

would thus take into account the other side, the shadow, the unknown, marginalized,

hidden, and unconscious aspect inherent to our traditionally respected ways of

knowing––to our variously created bodies of knowledge. Without this consideration our

epistemologies become “one-sided, fixed truths and ideological exercises of power”

(Romanyshyn, 2007, p. 336).

Romanyshyn (2007) has identified “a metaphoric sensibility” as a quality of

consciousness that is necessary for keeping soul in mind and speaks of “two moments
PSYCHE’S STAGE 68

that comprise this sensibility, each of which is essential to an ethical way of knowing”

(pp. 339-340). The first moment acknowledges the self and other as perspectives. It

points to the need for curious exchange and dialogue between them. The second moment

requires that we listen from the heart. Remembering the heart’s correspondence with

imagination points to the largely unrecognized role that imagination plays in research

ethics. Assimilating a felt sense of stepping into the other’s shoes, of experiencing the

other’s perspective––which involves thinking from the heart––is the work of imagination.

The ethical responsibilities that we have to human participants and to our topics in

traditional forms of research apply to imaginal/alchemical/archetypal hermeneutics as

well, but Romanyshyn tells us that the range of responsibility is extended because

research with soul in mind extends itself to those voices in the work of whom we are not

wholly conscious. This means that the imaginal hermeneut who is called through his or

her complexes to act as agent of the work itself, accepts full responsibility for it while

concomitantly acknowledging that it is “not fully of his or her making” (p. 344). At some

point, having done one’s best to remain “faithful to the dialogue with the others for whom

the work has been done” (p. 344) the researcher accepts its imperfections and

incompleteness knowing full well that its life continues on beyond the medium through

which it has most recently emerged.

Limitations and Delimitations of the Study

As already noted, the aim of this study is to explore our research question through

a contextual lens that includes the works of Corbin, Hillman, and the researcher’s

experiences. In staying close to these three primary sources, we hope to provide a

manageable container that concomitantly allows for the discursive wanderings that soul
PSYCHE’S STAGE 69

oriented research demands. In exploring the others who inhabit the work, we implicitly

acknowledge the many others who cannot be addressed within the limited time and space

allotted to this composition. In responding to the material as it presents itself through and

in imagination, our hope is to evoke the presence of imagination for and through others.

In adopting a metaphoric sensibility our conclusions will necessarily be qualitative,

suggestive, and hopefully evocative––moving the inquiry toward further explorations.

This study is not designed to gather precisely measurable and quantifiable data, but rather

to further explore the nature, potential roles, and workings of imagination through

imagination.

In honoring the autonomous nature of the work itself and acknowledging the

researcher as its agent, we also acknowledge that the delimitations and limitations of this

study are still partially unknown to us. Having begun this initial phase of the research

process with an affinity for movement toward imagining a form of theatrical practice

founded on the contextual overlap between Corbin’s work, Hillman’s work, and the

discipline of theatre––we are now aware that doing justice to the breadth and depth of

both the primary and secondary research questions might be more readily achieved in the

space of two studies that build on each other. For now, we would like to suspend any

decisions about this matter and allow the soul of the work to lead us.

Organization of the Study

Honoring the work’s unfolding voice and fantasy of itself as an autonomously

emergent form, the organization of this project––like the procedures for gathering and

analyzing its data––cannot be definitively mapped out in advance. For now, we simply

begin with an image of Corbin’s (1958/1997) Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination
PSYCHE’S STAGE 70

in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī as a central thread, a through line, and a medium through

which the call and response of our inquiry is woven.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 71

Chapter 4
Contextualizing Ibn ‘Arabī Through Mazdaism

An Initial Disclosure and Confession

The first three chapters of this work reflect an initial phase of the research process

preparing the researcher and the reader for the work that lies ahead: for the project of

engaging with the research question from this point forward. Let us begin by saying that

the beginning of this project, as it stands before you here, is not the beginning as it

emerged initially. Much has been rewritten and deleted prior to this writing. Having

followed our research impulses from start to near finish, it is our hope that we now have a

greater sense of where this healing fiction wants to lead us. During our initial plunge into

the resources from which this fiction emerges, we focused on understanding the material

to the best of our abilities, and to expressing its ideas with greater clarity for the layman.

A serious concern for “getting it right,” for sorting through the seemingly endless layers

of data, the ambiguities, the contradictions, the abstruse language, and the implications of

what was left unsaid, was present during this time. Our fear of misconstruing and

misrepresenting these works led at first to a rather dry and barren accounting of them.

This process was necessary to the discovery of our working map. It has also provided us

with a means for retaining a working knowledge of these complex works, but the life of

the story that wants to emerge, yearns to be engaging; it yearns to be both vitally personal

and universally significant. In service to this yearning, our intention, going forward, is to

loosen the grip of these initial and once necessary concerns to invite the blossoming of a

liminal space where the researcher’s experience, Corbin’s vision, and Hillman’s

perspective stand most poignantly in relationship with each other. Our purpose, after all,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 72

is not to become scholars on Corbin or Islamic mysticism. Our purpose is to allow the

imagination––in the crossfire of Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress––to work on us, and in

so doing to potentially expand the disciplinary fields that they inhabit. Going forward, we

shall do our best to respectfully honor the texts we draw from while concomitantly

tending to the yearning from which this project springs.

Corbin’s Introduction to Ibn ‘Arabī

Corbin’s (1958/1997) introduction to the creative Imagination begins with an

overview of the esoteric family that provides Ibn ‘Arabī and his school with its context.

Suhrawardī’s theosophy of light, Neoplatonic Avicennan angelology, and Zoroastrian

Mazdaism are included in this family. Corbin also tells us that Ibn ‘Arabī’s work

anticipates the Renaissance Neoplatonic projects of Pletho and Ficino. This is the same

Ficino whom Hillman (1975) has called the “Renaissance patron of archetypal

psychology” (p. 200). Our own exploration of this contextual family began with the most

ancient of its members mentioned here: the Mazdean tradition. This initial plunge into

Corbin’s works on the Mazdean tradition has steered our course throughout the poiesis of

this healing fiction (which is still unfolding in the writing and rewriting of this work).

Knowing its place as a major player in what follows, it begins our story once again. Here

we draw upon Corbin’s texts to reimagine the Mazdean myth as a presence that the

nonmystic may glean insight from. The mythical narratives, as recalled throughout this

work, reflect the resource materials that we draw from, in accordance with our

understanding of them in the moment of putting them into writing. Due to the

complexity, density, and ambiguity of our source materials, this understanding will

certainly differ, to some degree, from the understanding that the authors who wrote them
PSYCHE’S STAGE 73

had. Because we are dwelling within the context of mytho-history we are more often than

not dealing with multiple versions and offshoots of myths and principles within a

tradition variously influenced by different peoples, geographies, and historical time

periods. These variations will, at times, be blended in our narratives while imagination

unveils the overall content’s vital presence as it comes to stand within the present. That

being said, our intention is not to misrepresent the views and scholarship of our source

authors or to conflate them with our own. Our intention is to strike a balance that honors

the texts we draw from while serving the interests of this research and its potential

readers.

The Mazdean Dramaturgy in Three Great Acts

Corbin’s (1951/1983) Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis investigates the Mazdean

tradition in its various transmutations as viewed by its devotees throughout history. This

tradition is also explored in Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to

Shīʽite Iran (Corbin, 1960/1977). While some of the content in these pieces overlaps, the

first source takes the twofold conception of time in Mazdaism as its central theme and the

latter focuses on the role of earth within Mazdean cosmology.

Let us for a moment imagine ourselves as Mazdeans. The prescosmic drama upon

which our worldview is based thus begins with Ōhrmazd––the Lord Wisdom, born of

eternal Time––to whom every Mazdean devotee belongs. Consulting our fourth century

religious manual, we are asked “to think of Ōhrmazd as present Existence . . . which has

always existed . . . and will always exist . . . . [We are asked] to think of him as immortal

sovereignty, as Unlimitation and Purity” (as cited in Corbin, 1951/1983, p. 2). It is

Ōhrmazd, the Lord Wisdom who dwells in eternal and unlimited Time, “adorned with
PSYCHE’S STAGE 74

omniscience and goodness” (p. 7). It is Ōhrmazd, who is surrounded by an infinite height

of Light which is also his abode.

In Zoroastrian Mazdaism he is characteristically “surrounded by six Powers of

Light with which he himself (as the first, or as the seventh) forms the supreme divine

Heptad” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 7). By some accounts, Ōhrmazd––the Lord Wisdom––

created these six other Powers of Light and divided amongst them the task of creation; it

has also been variously said that “all seven together produced the Creation by a liturgical

act” (p. 272) and that each of them “produced its own Creation” (p. 272). Corbin notes a

certain oscillation in the texts he draws from which enhances at times the primacy of

Ōhrmazd, and stresses at other times “his unio mystica with the (six) other Powers of

Light” (p. 8). This oscillation is also expressed in language that emphasizes the

qualitative plurality of the Archangels in certain contexts and their singularity in others.

These seven powers known as the Zoroastrian Archangels are understood “as a transitive,

active, and activating Energy that communicates being, establishes it, and causes it to

superabound in all beings” (p. 7). In mental iconography Ōhrmazd is traditionally flanked

by three masculine Archangels on his right and three feminine Archangels on his left.

“Each of the Seven Powers of Light, by virtue of the Energy that overflows from its

being, brings forth the fraction of the beings that in the totality of creation represents its

personal hierurgy” (p. 8). This energetic overflow from divine Light beings is, in other

words, the product and activity of their own creative prayers and sacred rites.

Ōhrmazd’s own hierurgy and “the object of his creative and provident activity”

(Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 8) is the human being. Of the other masculine Archangels, Vohu

Manah (excellent thought) undertakes “the whole of animal creation” (p.8); Arta
PSYCHE’S STAGE 75

Vahishta (perfect existence) is responsible for “the government of Fire in all its different

manifestations” (p. 8); the “government of the metals” (p. 9) is undertaken by Xshathra

Vairya (desirable reign). Of the feminine Archangels, Spenta Armaiti or Spendarmat “has

as her own hierurgy the Earth as a form of existence whose Image is Wisdom, and

woman regarded as a being of light” (p. 9). Haarvatat (integrity) oversees the Waters,

and Amertāt (immortality) has the vegetable kingdom as her jurisdiction.

Mazdean ontology is characterized by a twofold state of being expressed in the

terms mēnōk and gētīk. Corbin tells us that mēnōk is “a celestial, invisible, spiritual, but

perfectly concrete state” (Corbin, 1951/1983, p. 4) and gētīk is “an earthly visible,

material state” (p. 4). Matter, as expressed by the term gētīk is described, however, as

luminous and as immaterial in relation to matter as we know it today. The mēnōk and

gētīk states of being represent the twofold nature of all being in Mazdean ontology. Each

entity is constituted by a pairing of its mēnōk and gētīk counterparts. From a uniquely

Mazdean perspective the transition from the mēnōk to the gētīk state of being is not a fall

in itself but rather a “fulfillment and plenitude” (p. 4). Mazdean mytho-history (which

includes the eventual fall and subsequent restoration of the gētīk) is told by Corbin as a

dramaturgy that unfolds in “three great acts which extend over twelve millennia” (p. 6).

The first act includes the primordial creation of the world in its mēnōk spiritual

state of being during the first three millennia as well as the ensuing period from the fourth

to the sixth millennium when creation is transferred to the gētīk state. The catastrophe

comes in the second act during the “period of mixture” (Corbin, 1951/1983, p. 6) when

Ahriman––the Spirit of Evil, of negation and darkness––emerges from an outside abyss

of undisclosed origin to invade and attack the abode of infinite Light and purity wherein
PSYCHE’S STAGE 76

Ōhrmazd dwells. Here, Ahriman, who is variously referred to as a “Contrary Power” (p.

5) and “The Negator” (p. 6) ravages the world of spiritual matter: the gētīk. The outcome

of this invasion is “the state of infirmity, of lesser being and darkness represented by the

present condition of the material world” (p. 4). Ōhrmazd, who is omniscient though not

omnipotent, is unable to destroy outright, the “pure negativity” (p. 2) that is Ahriman. It

is only with time and with help that Ōhrmazd will succeed in casting Ahriman forever

back into the abyss from which he came.

And so it goes that Ōhrmazd creates “from eternal Time and in the image of

eternal Time . . . the limited Time he require[s] to frustrate the challenge of Ahriman”

(Corbin, 1951/1983, p.7). The “person” of this time made in the image of Ōhrmazd is “an

eternal liturgy within the being of Ōhrmazd” (p. 10). In celebration of this liturgy––which

apparently takes place on multiple dimensions––an array of celestial beings set to work in

defense of the world of Light, with each doing its part in support of a being that is its

counterpart or angel in the dimension above it. Amongst these beings, are the supreme

Archangels, the Yazatas, and the Fravartis.

From end to end, the work of Creation and the work of Redemption constitute a

cosmic liturgy. It is in celebrating the celestial liturgy . . . that Ōhrmazd and his

Archangels establish all creation, and notably awaken the Fravartis. (Corbin,

1951/1983, p. 10)

As a compassionate and suffering god, Ōhrmazd offers the feminine archetypal entities

called Fravartis a choice between two options: One option is to remain in heaven safe

from Ahriman’s demons; the other is to descend in terrestrial bodies as soldiers who join

the fight for restoration of the gētīk on the battlefield of earth. The Fravartis take the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 77

second choice and here “a kind of duplication occurs” (p. 18); a kind of twinship

(described below) is formed.

“Every physical or moral entity, every complete being or group of beings

belonging to the world of Light, including Ohrmazd . . . has its Fravarti” (Corbin,

1960/1977, p. 9). The Fravartis are “celestial archetypes of the creatures of Light, acting

as the tutelary angels of earthly creatures” (Corbin, 1951/1983, p. 17). They “are celestial

entities and human potencies or faculties as well” (p. 27). The Fravartis announce an

“essentially dual structure” to earthly beings, giving “each one a heavenly archetype or

Angel, whose earthly counterpart he is” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 10). This structure

“establishes a personal relationship that parallels . . . the distinction between the mēnōk

state and the gētīk state of beings” (p. 10). It is the Fravarti aspect in humans that couples

them with their celestial counterparts. Together, the incarnate Fravarti and her angelic

Twin form a partnership, which is respectively identified with the soul and its

corresponding celestial archetype. In the passage below, Cheetham (2012) beautifully

describes this relationship and its place in the Mazdean myth:

The Persons of Light provide archetypes for all the beings of Light who live in the

world invaded by Ahriman, the world of Combat. Every creature of Light has an

Angel––a being who is its “double” and eternal Twin and to whom it is battling to

return. We live in a time of “mixture,” struggling to separate the Light and the

Dark, and we are involved in a battle for the Angel, for our own individual

Heavenly Twin as well as for the salvation of the world. Success in this battle will

mean redemption for the soul and a return of the material creation to its luminous,

paradisial state. It is a battle for the Angel in a double sense. We are battling to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 78

unite with the Figure who completes our being, without whom we are not even

human; and we are battling along with the Angels who are engaged in combat

with the demonic forces of Ahriman. (p. 45)

The nature of this battle is revealed by the devotee’s essential task within it: to embody

the mode of being of his celestial Twin.

This is how we imagine the process: Each twin in this terrestrial–celestial pairing

moves toward reunion with its other half via the mirroring process. On the one hand, the

celestial mirror shines forth as the constantly renewed, always present, positive, and pure

form of the soul’s yearning––unhindered, but also informed by the physical world’s

opposing forces. On the other hand, the soul’s mirroring activity––expressed through its

incarnate form––is concomitantly a movement toward this celestial beacon and a

revelation of the gap between its physical and purely celestial self. This movement while

unveiling the soul’s light also exposes the limitations of its current state, the challenges it

faces when faced by Ahriman (who is described as evil but more mysteriously as pure

negativity) in the world of mixture. The celestial archetype thus comes to know itself via

the reflection of this half lighted mirror, adjusting itself, clarifying itself in response to

the double exposure of each snapshot in the mirroring dance of its incarnate twin. By

extracting, holding, and radiating the moment to moment pure and positive essence or

image contained within the soul’s mixed physical world experiences, a renewed real-time

primordial yearning that never forgets its essence is made eternally present in spirit. The

incarnate soul’s eventual recognition, mirroring, and unveiling of this presence within

itself returns it to its celestial origin.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 79

This recurrent exchange reveals the necessity for both roles (that of the incarnate

soul and that of the celestial archetype) in this drama, which is played in cyclical time.

Here there is an intimation of Hillman’s archetypal premise regarding the soul’s necessity

for pathologizing. The soul’s pathologizing, as seen in this context, is necessary not only

from a soul perspective but also from the perspective of spirit. It is soul that carries and

digests the invasive negativity represented in Ahriman’s attack on spirit. It is soul that

risks losing itself so that spirit can remain intact, untarnished, pure, and positive in the

moment to moment present presence of its purity, on the far side of soul’s pathology in

the world of mixture. Let us remember that Ōhrmazd is unable to defend his creation

without the Fravartis’ help. Humans and all earthly creatures are thus necessary to the

divine creative process, for without them, the entire celestial Creation in eternal Time is

unable to defeat the demonic forces of Ahriman.

In the third act of this Mazdean dramaturgy the Saviors born from the race of

Zarathustra (also known as Zoroaster) make their entrance; here the “final ‘separation’

[and] . . . ‘transfiguration’ of the world” (Corbin, 1951/1983, p. 7) takes place as

Ahriman and his demons are permanently cast back into the abyss from which they came.

This dramaturgy illuminates the foundational eschatological hope and teleology of

Mazdaism.

Ōhrmazd and Ahriman Informed by a Zervān Tale of Origin

Intriguingly, some Zervān versions of Mazdaism put forth a contrasting story

about Ahriman’s origins. In these tales, Zervān––who is unlimited Time––is the father of

both Ōhrmazd and Ahriman. Here Ahriman is Zervān’s own child, born of his doubt.

Corbin tells the story as follows:

PSYCHE’S STAGE 80

For one millennium Zervān performed sacrifices in order that a son might be born

to him, a son who would be called Ōhrmazd and who would be the Creator of the

Heavens and the earth. But then a doubt arose in Zervān’s mind: is this solitary

liturgy not in vain? Is it effective? Would Ōhrmazd, the child of his thought and

his desire, really be born? And then, from this thought and this doubt, two beings

were conceived: one was Ōhrmazd, child of his liturgical act, the other Ahriman,

the child of the Shadow, of the Darkness of his doubt. (Corbin, 1951/1983, pp.

15-16)

Ōhrmazd is then described as having “the loyalty and simplicity of a being of Light” (p.

16). He is “fragrant and luminous” (p. 16). In contrast, Ahriman’s is described as having

“retarded knowledge” (p. 16). He is “dark and foul smelling” (p. 16).

In this Zervān version of Ahriman’s origins, we discover that he is poignantly

associated with doubt, with a sense of unknowing, a lack of confidence, and a secular

(non-liturgical) mode of thinking. And this, we infer to be the source of Evil as seen

through the context of this Mazdean paradigm. While Ōhrmazd represents the positive

preexistential potential of a primordial yearning (which is definitively identified with

goodness) and its subsequent manifestation, Ahriman represents its oppositional

counterpart: the possibility of its not being––of its not coming to fruition. As such, we

might imagine Ahriman as the archetypal barrier or opposition to the manifestation and

individuation of celestial potentialities through concretized forms, and Ōhrmazd might be

imagined as the archetypal actualizing force and actualization of these same

potentialities. While Ōhrmazd might be imagined as “the voice of me within me,”

Ahriman might be imagined as “the voice of not me, within me.”

PSYCHE’S STAGE 81

Ōhrmazd’s Liturgical Theatre

The image of Ahriman sensed as “something other” or foreign that resides within

an entity is present in both the Zervān and Zoroastrian mythical variations reviewed here.

In the pure Zoroastrian drama, Ōhrmazd’s protection from this corruptive otherness

resides within him as a liturgy and person of limited time made in his image. This limited

time is cyclical, eternal, and measured in liturgical moments so the periods of time

indicated by the dramaturgy recalled above are not to be taken literally. This liturgy takes

the form of a celestial battle and dramaturgy which is enacted on the terrestrial world

stage. The implication is that we, as humans (or at least as humans in the Fravarti aspect

of our humanity), are actors in Ōhrmazd’s internal battle and players in his liturgical

drama. As “his own hierurgy,” as “object[s] of his creative and provident activity”

(Corbin 1960/1977, p. 8), we––as humans––are participants in a theatrical ritual which

prepares and provides for his future. Because it is said that Ōhrmazd is unable to win the

battle against Ahriman without the help of the Fravartis, we can infer that his goodness,

his purity, and the eternal Light and Time that is his dwelling is preserved by this liminal

theatre, which is within him, and at the same time paradoxically distinct from him. Epic

dramas are staged and enacted in this liminal theatre. Scripts are written and rewritten as

recurring expressions of liturgical moments in cyclical time; casts are assembled and

reassembled. Battles between contrary powers are fought and won on this stage. Our

whole human world, as such, is Ōhrmazd’s theatre! Here, within this Mazdean worldview

(as we imagine it) we are persuaded to take Shakespeare’s famous line literally: “All the

world’s a stage” he says, “and all the men and women merely players” (Shakespeare,

1604/1974, 139-140).
PSYCHE’S STAGE 82

The entity and activity of theatre as both numinous and necessary has been

unveiled here in our exploration of the three great acts in which the Mazdean dramaturgy

unfolds according to Corbin. Our own sense of theatre’s possible correspondence with

visionary or numinous experience has thus been affirmed and heightened. In chapters one

through three we showed that the acts of mirroring and unveiling, seen through the lens

of Corbin’s works, are viewed as activities through which a mystic is carried back to the

source from which he originates, back to the yearning that propels him into being, and

back to his celestial Twin or Angel. This movement is also viewed as a spiritual

ascension. If we imagine Ōhrmazd’s liturgy as an image suggesting how we might mirror

the spiritual world and in so doing potentially meet our Angels, we might do well to

reimagine theatrical practice as a spiritual practice. We might do well to imagine the

stage (a space that resides within our world and paradoxically distinct from it) as a place

where inner battles are fought and eventually won. Here the destructive forces of contrary

powers, of negation, and doubt might be engaged with and sorted through before the

unchecked rawness of their intensity lashes out in literal acts of violence, potentially

destroying us and the terrestrial world that we inhabit. Because this practice would give

voice, body, and space to both the light and the dark, to the heights and the depths of

being, to “the me and not me,” it is a psychological as well as a spiritual one. And

because it steps definitively away from a purely literal perspective into a metaphorical,

poetical, speculative, imaginative one informed by myth, it is also archetypal. As we

move through the healing fiction which continues to emerge in the process of

reimagining and rewriting, we expect to glean a fuller sense of what this reimagined

practice might look like.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 83

The Mazdean Imago Terrae: The Earth as Angel

In the section above we affirmed and strengthened our sense of theatre’s potential

belonging within the framework of Corbin’s spiritually informed lens. A specific type of

theatre, which corresponds with this lens, might thus be seen as kind of imaginal world

which is more accessible to the nonmystic. We now turn to Corbin’s (1960/1977)

Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shi’ite Iran as further insight

for the nonmystic. The first chapter of this book, entitled “The Mazdean Imago Terrae,”

reflects upon the Mazdean perception of the Earth as person and Angel. Rather than

asking ourselves: “What is the earth?” Corbin would have us pose this question

differently: “who is the Earth? who are the waters, the plants, the mountains? or, to whom

do they correspond?” (p. 5). We have already seen the innately Mazdean presence of this

sensibility in its seven Archangels or Powers of Light through which the being of human,

animal, fire, metal, earth, water, and vegetation is expressed. Corbin’s interest lies in

recapturing “the phenomenon of the Earth as an angelophany or mental apparition of its

Angel” (p. 5), in other words, recapturing an experience through which the earth appears

to the human as a vision of the Angel of the Earth––which is to say “the ideal Earth” (p.

56). “The figure of the Angel takes shape” he says “exactly at the point where the data of

sensory perception are raised . . . to the diaphanous state by the active Imagination” (p.

12).

In the mystic physiology and subtle body system which is “composed of psycho-

spiritual organs” (Corbin, 1958/1997 p. 221) in Sūfism, it is precisely the subtle body’s

heart that operates as the organ and medium through which the active Imagination

functions. It is important to distinguish this organ from that of the physical heart,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 84

although there is an essentially unknown connection between them. And though this

organ is certainly related to love, the pneuma (the breath and spirit), is generally

considered “the specific center of love” in Sūfism. As an “organ of perception which is

both experience and intimate taste,” the subtle heart “produces true knowledge” and

“comprehensive intuition” (p. 221). It “is not a sensory faculty but an archetype-Image”

(Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 11) with a property effecting “the transmutation of sensory data . .

. into the purity of the subtle world” (p. 11).

For the purpose of clarity, we have tended here to describe the active Imagination

as a verb: as the active force moving and pulsing within the noun and medium which is

the subtle heart. But the two words, as Corbin uses them, are conceptually inseparable

and also interchangeable. The active Imagination, for instance, as in the following

statement, is described as the organ itself. “The active Imagination” he says, “is the organ

of metamorphoses” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 12).

In this essay, Corbin uses the terms active Imagination and subtle heart to

definitively refer to an archetypal activity and entity which pertains to all things and

beings. The content represented by these terms encompasses and permeates subset

archetypes through which individuals or groups of beings and things are further

designated. Each of these subset archetypes can be viewed as having an active

Imagination and subtle heart that reflects the particularities of its own being. Corbin

designates the term “Light of Glory,” for instance, to a sacralizing Energy (and

archetype) which plays a crucial role in the process by which the essential pair and unity

of the active Imagination and the subtle heart organ affect the phenomenon of visionary

experience. This Energy, this Light of Glory, he says, is the “archetype-Image of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 85

Mazdean soul” and “the organ by which the soul perceives the world of light that is of the

same nature as itself” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 14). Light of Glory is, as such, not only the

archetype-Image, but also the active Imagination of the Mazdean soul. In the Avesta, this

Energy is designated by the term Xvarnah (p. 13). This Energy, this Light of Glory, this

archetype-Image, and active Imagination of the Mazdean soul––this Xvarnah––is an “all-

luminous substance” (p. 13). When the soul projects this Image, which is its own Image,

a transmutation of the Earth is effected, simultaneously establishing an Imago Terrae (an

Image of the Earth which expresses the deepest being of its Person). The Earth, and

earthly things and beings are thus “raised to incandescence” (p. 11). This transparency

“allow[s] the apparition of their Angels to penetrate to the visionary intuition” (p. 11).

The Energy which effects this transmutation of the Earth allowing for the appearance of

its Angel is the same Energy of the soul’s own projected Image. In summation:

It is by this projection of its own Image that the soul, in effecting the

transmutation of the material Earth, also establishes from the beginning an Imago

Terrae that reflects and announces its own Image to the soul, that is to say, an

Image whose Xvarnah is also the soul’s own Xvarnah. (p. 14)

This exploration of the phenomenon of terrestrial earth as an angelophany compels us

(and we believe this is Corbin’s intention) to view it as a literal sighting of Earth’s Angel

by a human. But what if we were to take this image of mystic vision less literally for the

potential benefit of those who feel excluded from this type of experience? Or suppose we

shift the viewpoint from which our literal stance is taken?

Sight, as seen by active Imagination, we are told, corresponds not with the eyes,

but with the heart. Might we not then expect that the act of seeing through active
PSYCHE’S STAGE 86

Imagination could be phenomenologically different from seeing through our physical

eyes? We might even surmise that active Imagination (because it functions as a

suprasensory organ) has multiple modes of seeing which correspond with all of our so

called established senses as well as with other unacknowledged ones. Perhaps these ways

of seeing manifest themselves at times in experiences which are unrecognizable to us as

experiences of mystic sight because we expect something more visibly extraordinary and

concomitantly tangible. What if we were to shift our definitive sense of this sight as

glorified eyesight? Perhaps we could then take Corbin’s stance literally (that the

terrestrial earth is the appearance and mental apparition, or in other words, the vision of

its Angel). In taking this stance literally, seeing something extraordinary or

characteristically celestial would be unnecessary. This move, which greets our everyday

world as a vision, moves those of us who thought we were nonmystics into the imaginal

world where mystics dwell because the imaginal world, we are told, is the world of

visions. Viewing the terrestrial earth as a vision, we come to realize that we are

embedded in visions. All the world is visions, and in this sense, we might reconsider the

difference between mystic and nonmystic as a difference in perspective. Perhaps the

difference between these two perspectives depends upon whether we receive the world

(in whatever form it presents itself to us) as “a what” or “a who.” Perhaps the mystic

perspective is characterized by one that senses (imagines) in its face to face encounter

with each thing, the presence of each thing’s Angel––its ideal. In Mazdaism this ideal is

present in both the primordial yearning for manifestation of the soul’s Essence as a being,

and the actualization of this yearning as its being (which is its future celestial “I,”

expressed in the Mazdean figure of Daēnā). Daēnā is the daughter of the Archangel of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 87

Earth, Spenta Armaiti. (Further discussion of these key figures will follow.) This mystic

perspective, which sees all earthly things as Who, would not definitively require that we

literally see an apparition of the earth’s Angel. Instead, it would require that we enter the

terrestrial world through the imagination’s unfolding story informed by the overlap

between lived experience and our source texts.

Imagining a practice.

Here we feel compelled to put this emerging mystic perspective and healing

fiction into a preliminary form of practice through which it might be further discovered

and exemplified. This form, as it is now imagined, moves away from an explicit rendition

of the Mazdean myth, toward a lived event that appears to reflect some aspect of it, as we

enter into a relived fantasy of the event. In concomitantly holding the myth and the event

together, our narrative account creates a fiction which is both and neither of them. Lifted

by association and metaphor into the bodies of each other, the event and Mazdean myth

symbolize with each other causing the Angel, shared and constituted by both, to appear.

Seen through the lens of Hillman’s work, the activity by which this form is constituted

could be likened to his archetypal move of mythologizing, discussed in Chapter 3 on

methodology. Here an event is given a narrative; a tale of it is told in metaphors. We

mythologize by “tell[ing] ourselves something in the language of ‘because’” (Hillman,

1975, p. 140). The event “is elaborated by fantasy so that a metamorphosis occurs” (p.

141). Our story, told below, represents our attempt to exemplify and discover this form in

the making. It is told in a third person singular voice to deepen our sense of the lived

event from within a fictional mode of being.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 88

The fiction.

It all started with an assignment at a workshop in Costa Rica: to create a ritual––

to enact an initiation of sorts––inviting the manifestation of one’s current deepest calling

into the world. It was the sort of assignment that she would normally struggle with to

finish on time, even though most people would probably find the three and a half-hour

long window allotted for the project to be more than sufficient. Coming up with an

appealing plan could easily have swallowed up the entire afternoon or more. But she was

lucky on this occasion. The perfect plan came instantly so there was plenty of time to

enact it. The ritual was to be an audition.

It had been her habit to walk in the wee morning hours along the wide green

canopied trail that led (in three miles or so) to an open stage adjacent to the river. She

would take this route again, stand upon the stage, and recite two of her tried and true,

trusted audition monologues as a gesture, as a welcoming back, as an ushering in of an as

yet still unknown vocational calling––as an invitation to the vitality that she once felt in

her days as a young actress.

Her two great loves––the forest and the theatre––filled her to the brim as she

clipped and bounced along the floor and stage that opened up in the trail as her rehearsal

space. Over and over again, she recited piecemealed versions of the two monologues

until they returned to her memory intact. The song of them enticed the enigmatic song of

the Costa Rican forest. The place was alive with hidden creatures and unanticipated

potential dangers. She was happy.

And then it happened. A creature appeared in the middle of the trail that stopped

her in her tracks. The rehearsal was abruptly interrupted. It was close, close enough to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 89

lunge and eat her. At the time, she had no known name for this creature––this odd-

looking wildcat. It was dark chocolate brown. The body was long like a sausage, low to

the ground––with legs, oddly short; the tail was long like the body; the eyes looked

crossed––the face strangely smooshed. Creature to creature––they stared.

She was not afraid, or so it seemed, though she was aware that perhaps she should

be. There was no time in that moment to entertain the yearning lurking beneath the

surface of the moment. It all flashed by too quickly, but lastingly. Slowly, she turned,

with her neck craned cautiously around to watch the wildcat’s response as she stepped

gingerly back down the trail in the direction from which she had come as if to say: “No

worries. This is your trail.”

Almost perkily, or so it seemed, the creature followed behind her. She turned back

around; both of them stopped––the two of them face to face again. Perhaps neither of

them knew exactly what to do. From her point of view, she had been given no safe

option. Continuing along the path as planned was certainly out of the question. Standing

her ground in stillness might be too enticing or threatening as well; but taking the return

path left her dangerously vulnerable too.

Was that curiosity in the face of the creature? It certainly did not seem like

ferocity. But who could know? And even if it was a joyful curiosity, who could say when

it might turn to something dangerous or lethal? The moment––staring face to face––was

long enough to be uncomfortable. She turned and walked gingerly away again––craning

her neck backwards again, and the wildcat pranced after just as it had before. She could

not continue in this fashion and see the way in front of her as well. Taking her eyes off

the creature to see the path seemed terribly unadvisable so she turned around again ever
PSYCHE’S STAGE 90

so slowly. Face to face again, each stared at the other frozen in place for the third time. It

was like a game from childhood called Red-Light, Green-Light. Did the creature want to

play, to follow in parade wherever she might lead? She started down the trail once more,

perhaps not knowing what else to do. The wildcat followed suit. But her next turn would

be the last. She held her gaze this time––too long perhaps, to hold the creature’s interest.

Finally, it wandered off the side of the trail, into the dense forest beyond and became

instantly invisible. She continued on to the stage at the river and performed her audition,

but it seemed as if the initiation had already taken place. Later, she came to know the

creature as a panther called jaguarundi––also known as leoncillo (little lion), the otter-cat,

and weasel-cat.

Reflections on the fiction.

Might we not view this rehearsal in the forest as a projection of our own soul’s

Image? Can we not say that the matter of the Earth is somehow changed in the presence

of its Image, its Energy? Might we not see that this Energy raises and restores the Earth

and things and beings of the Earth, as Corbin has said, to another dimension of being

where things appear “as symbols to be deciphered” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 11)? Let us

remember that symbols, as viewed by him and Jung, are always partially unknowable.

Restoring the Earth and things and beings of the Earth to their symbolic dimension is thus

a move that carries us back to the mysterious wonder that each thing, each being, brings

to the Earth as its unique expression of a primordial yearning and source to which we all

belong. When imbued by this Image, Energy, or Archetype things appear in the form of

their deepest longings; things are seen as the seed of an initial desire to manifest beauty

and goodness from pure potential. This mode of seeing is essentially a mode of being. To
PSYCHE’S STAGE 91

be is to see, and to see is to be. Being as a mode of seeing is a sensibility of the Actress

that is present in Mazdaism as well. Below, we look to the figures of Spenta Armaiti and

the Angel Daēnā to explore this sensibility from a uniquely Mazdean tinted perspective.

Spenta Armaiti or Spendarmat and her Daughter Daēnā

Corbin (1960/1977) tells us that Spenta Armaiti, who is also referred to as

Spendarmat, is translated as “perfect Thought” (p. 15) in the Pahlavi texts of the Avesta.

This perfect thought is “the active Imagination of the celestial Earth” and “a power

capable of ‘substantiating’ and ‘vivifying’” (p. 40). Corbin says that Spenta Armaiti is

translated as Sophia in Plutarch. Praising this translation, he describes the Zoroastrian

Mazdean tradition as a “Sophianic mystery of the Earth, whose consummation will be its

eschatological Transfiguration” (p. 15). Here Mazdaism becomes geosophy and its

essential function is “prepar[ing] the birth of the earthly human being to his celestial ‘I’”

(p. 36). The celestial “I” is typified in the Person of Spenta Armaiti’s daughter: the

transcendent Angel Daēnā who is “the vision of the celestial world as it is lived” and the

soul’s “celestial Idea” (p. 42).

It is said that the Angel Daēnā appears to the soul at dawn following the third

night after departure from this world. As the celestial “I,” and Resurrection Body, the

Angel Daēnā is “engendered and formed from the celestial Earth” which is definitively

“the Earth perceived and meditated in its Angel” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 15). This

statement intimates the nature of the Fravartis’ battle on Earth against Ahriman. Let us

remember that the incarnate Fravarti has been identified with the soul, and its angelic

Twin has been identified with its corresponding celestial archetype. The incarnate

Fravarti’s task is to project, to mirror, and unveil the Image of her own celestial Twin and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 92

in so doing to restore the gētīk. This is the process through which the Celestial Earth is

constituted. The relationship between the Fravarti and the Earth is a reciprocal one. The

destinies of Fravarti souls who are entrusted with the destiny of the terrestrial Earth, are

in turn entrusted to the celestial Earth, through which each celestial “I” is engendered.

The potential for meeting with our own celestial selves, and for the actualization of our

eschatological hopes, is thus dependent upon the manner in which we meet the terrestrial

Earth.

Spendarmatīkīh: A Process

One of the processes through which the mystic develops an appropriate

relationship to the terrestrial Earth is especially intriguing because it builds upon a theme

and image that has recurred throughout this research: that of theatre as a living presence.

This presence has been associated with particular words and activities: with role play,

mirroring, and unveiling. Corbin adds another word and activity to this family:

Spendarmatīkīh. This word is derived from Spendarmat, also referred to as Spenta

Armaiti, the Archangel of the Earth. Approaching the angelology of Mazdaism as a

Sophianic mystery of the Earth, Corbin (1960/1977) tells us that the devotee’s task is

“becoming invested with Spendarmatīkīh” (p. 38). This process is essentially one of

embodiment; it is an enactment. The human being, in assuming Spendarmatīkīh,

exemplifies “the mode of being of Spenta Armaiti” (p. 38). Corbin recommends studying

the features of Spenta Armaiti (much like an actress would in researching and preparing

for a role) as a means for discovering what this implies and how it might be possible.

Plunging into the details of the Archangel’s familial background, it becomes apparent

that the individual human who assumes the role of Spenta Armaiti assumes the role of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 93

mother of his future celestial Self or Daēnā. In studying Spendarmat’s features, as Corbin

suggests, we also discover that other multiple and paradoxical roles emerge from her

Person.

The Mazdean devotee, for instance, knows himself as the son of Ōhrmazd, the

Lord Wisdom, who is his father, and as the son of Spendarmat, who is his mother

(Corbin, 1951/1983, p. 2). But Spenta Armaiti or Spendarmat, as we already know, is

Ōhrmazd’s creation––his daughter. Here it follows that she is both wife and daughter to

Ōhrmazd, as well as mother and sister to the human being. This would also make her

both sister and mother to the other Archangels of the divine Heptad as well as mother to

her very own self. Additionally, “mental iconography attributes features to the person of

Spenta Armaiti that relate her closely to Sophia considered as master craftsman of

Yahweh’s Creation” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 39). As we can see, the Archangel of the

Earth expresses herself through the medium of many faces. Perhaps this is an intimation

of what it means to be “master craftsman of Yahweh’s Creation” (p. 39). Perhaps this is

an intimation of what Spendarmat’s own hierurgy or ritual, which is “Earth as a form of

existence” (p. 9) is reaching for. Perhaps the Wisdom of the Earth as a form of existence

has something to do with the capacity for stepping into the embodiment of all things and

negotiating the familial relationships that come with this differentiated embodiment.

Ōhrmazd (the Lord Wisdom), as we know, is included as the first or seventh

Power of Light in the Mazdean Heptad. Spenta Armaiti’s hierurgical “Image is Wisdom,

and woman regarded as a being of light” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 9). These Images, taken

together, evoke our sense that Ōhrmazd and Spenta Armaiti can be imagined as

masculine and feminine counterparts of Wisdom and Light as a being.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 94

Two related points might also be relevant. The first is that the human feminine

presence seen through this Mazdean lens is associated with the future. Humans in their

“prehistoric or supraterrestrial condition” are Spenta Armaiti–Sophia’s sons, and humans

in their “post mortem” condition are her daughters typified in the figure of Daēnā, the

celestial “I” (Corbin, 1960/1977, p. 48). Today’s “sons,” in other words, become

tomorrow’s “daughters”. The implication here is that human evolution, seen through this

myth, moves the individual from a masculine to a feminine manifestation. Both of these

manifestations are born of Wisdom and Light. So, what is the difference between them,

we might ask? What is it then, that this movement implies?

A possible response might be viewed through a second striking point: Corbin

(1960/1977) describes the “perfect mental activity” involved in exemplifying the mode of

being of Spenta Armaiti as “perfect thought under the pure gaze of love” (p. 39). Perhaps

“the pure gaze of love” (p. 39) involved in this mode of being is a distinguishing

characteristic of this apparent evolution from masculine manifestation to feminine

manifestation. But what exactly does Corbin mean by this phrase: “the pure gaze of love”

(p. 39)? The response to this question, we expect, will emerge as a gradual unfolding over

the course of several chapters. At this preliminary stage, we imagine that it involves a

sense of sight which sees in each thing and being, its Angel––a sense of sight which sees

in each thing the beauty of that thing’s soul’s Image––a sense of sight that sees, in each

being, the primordial yearning of that being’s soul and the forms that each of these souls

long to manifest. We imagine that this sense of sight sees this (even in the midst of the

world’s mixture), and that it holds all things in this Image, this pure gaze of love.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 95

There is yet another character who we expect to include in our reimagined

Mazdean drama––a character who was bypassed in our original draft of this work. His

name is Gayōmart, Spenta Armaiti’s preterrestrial son. We expect to recall his story later,

within the context of as yet untold discoveries (related to Dionysos), but now we turn our

eyes from Mazdaism to Avicennism––another tradition that Corbin places within the

spiritual–philosophical family that includes Ibn ‘Arabī.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 96

Chapter 5
Avicennism and a Suhrawardīan Theosophy of Light

Avicennism

In Chapter 2, the Iranian mystic Avicenna was brought to our attention via a brief

discussion of the characteristically Persian literary genre that Corbin refers to as the

visionary recital. A precursor to the visionary experiences which constitute these recitals

is the mystic’s recognition of himself as a Stranger in the physical world. Here we look to

Avicenna’s philosophical work and his cosmological system, which is

phenomenologically supported by these deeply personal dramaturgies. As is the case with

all our discussions of Corbin’s work, the summary below attempts to strike a narrative

balance that makes this system accessible on the one hand, while retaining its

paradoxical, not fully graspable, and strikingly beautiful complexity, on the other.

Corbin tells us that Avicennan angelology puts forth a triple hierarchy. First, we

have the Archangels or pure Intelligences, also referred to as Cherubs. Second, are the

Angels who emanate from them. These Angels are celestial Souls “possessing pure

Imagination” (Corbin, 1954/1988, p. 260), who move the celestial spheres. Third, are

“the human souls, or ‘terrestrial angels, who move and govern earthly human bodies” (p.

46). The relationship between human souls and the Angel or Active Intelligence from

whom they emanate corresponds to the relationship between the celestial Angels and the

Archangels from whom they emanate. Here we see, as we did in Mazdaism, a

correspondence between originating beings of higher dimensions and the beings of lower

dimensions who emanate from them.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 97

The procession of Archangel-Cherub-Intelligences in Avicenna’s cosmology

corresponds with a passage from the primordial Unity of the absolute One to a Unity

which incorporates “the multiplication of being and the multiplicity of beings” (Corbin,

1954/1988, p. 56). The First Being and all being, as imagined by this philosophical

system, is born of an Intelligence and Principle upon which its Being is based and

founded. Corbin tells us that the First Being is “precisely the Thought eternally thought

by the Thought that thinks itself” (p. 57). The First Being is the First Intelligence’s

intellection, thought, or idea of itself: as, through, and in Being. It is a step out of pure

Thought or Potential into the Being of its own Thought––the Being of its Principle or

Essence. The First Being is also variously referred to as the “First Consequent,” the “First

Caused,” and the “primordial Originated” (p. 57). Because the First Being (as the First

Intelligence’s intellection of itself) is already a step out of itself, it already includes a

duality and as such, it determines a passage from the absolute pure Unity to a Unity of

unities.

Corbin (1954/1988) tells us that the First Being of Avicenna is “sovereign Beauty

and Goodness and primordial Love” (p. 57). From this we might infer that the

constitution of Beauty, Goodness, and primordial Love is an expression of the First

Intelligence’s Essence or Principle. We see a similar dynamic in Mazdaism as well:

Being, in its original and originating forms, is here equated with beauty, goodness, and

love. In Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis, we learn that Ōhrmazd’s goodness has

“existed as long as Ōhrmazd himself” (Corbin, 1951/1983, p. 7), and in Spiritual Body

and Celestial Earth, Corbin (1960/1977) tells us that Ōhrmazd’s creatures at their origins

are “good,” “beautiful,” and “marvelous” (p. 13). We are also told that the perfect mental
PSYCHE’S STAGE 98

activity of Spenta Armaiti, his daughter, is “perfect thought under the pure gaze of love”

(p. 39).

The angelic procession from the First Intelligence in descending order to the

Ninth Intelligence follows a recurring pattern of ternary geneses. Initially, the procession

is set in motion by the First Intelligence’s threefold mode of considering its own being.

From the First Intelligence’s threefold intellection of itself, a Second Archangel, the First

Angel-Soul, and the first heaven is hypostatized. Each corresponds respectively with the

First Intelligence’s three modes of considering its being. The procession of Archangel–

Intelligences continues in descending order following the same pattern, until the Tenth

Archangel is reached. At each level an Archangel–Intelligence, an Angel–Soul, and a

heaven emanates from the Archangel–Intelligence who precedes them. At each level of

this hierarchical system the Intelligences “give origin to a world and to consciousness of

a world, which is the consciousness of a desire, and this desire is hypostatized in the Soul

that is the motive energy of that world.” (Corbin, 1954/1988, p. 266). After the Ninth

Intelligence, the cycle of ternary geneses changes. Because the Tenth Intelligence’s

thought no longer has sufficient energy to engender one Intelligence who resembles him,

one Soul, and one heaven through which his intellection can be hypostatized, it splinters

into the multitude of human souls and terrestrial matter.

The role of Soul within this cosmological structure, provides us with a bridge by

which the heights of Corbin’s sense of soul and the depths of Hillman’s sense of soul

might be reconciled.

In Avicennism, the eternal motion imparted to the sphere by the Soul expresses

not an intellectual desire––that is, the intellectual act representing its good and its
PSYCHE’S STAGE 99

perfection to itself, and thus actuating and realizing the cosmic Order––but an

incompletion, an unfulfillment, an aspiration toward the still Unrealized. (Corbin,

1954/1988, p. 71)

From our vantage point, this view of the Soul, as an Intelligence’s residual sense of

incompletion, aligns with Hillman’s view of psyche’s pathological aspect. Both

paradigms conjure up images of a soul who bears the burden of sensing but never quite

realizing its potential, of a soul who senses the actuality of its being as less than the

essence of its entirety. Both conjure up images of soul as that unrelenting yearning

always searching for some untapped, unmanifested aspect of itself, some still hidden

beauty: unseen, unrecognized, ungraspably sensed, weighty, and bulging just below the

surface. Here, in the Avicennan soul of incompleteness, the space between Hillman’s

depth perspectives and the lofty spiritual heights of Corbin’s perspectives seem to grow

together. The soul’s pathological tendencies and its interminably painful insistence that

something is terribly wrong (as viewed through Hillman’s lens) might be read as intuitive

precursors or symptoms that, from the Avicennan perspective, lead to its recognition of

itself as a Stranger in this world. This recognition anticipates the characteristic psychic

event that finds its expression in the visionary recital which represents the soul’s journey

of return to its angelic source. The point here is that the distinct narratives of these two

authors, which might be read as two conflicting stories, can also be read as different

aspects or phases of the same story. The narrative connection between Hillman’s sense of

soul and Corbin’s sense of soul, as unveiled here, prompts us to suggest that the creative

imagination and the Creative Imagination might be seen in a similar light: as two figures,

both of which belong within the same plotline.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 100

We might also read the necessity of soul’s pathologies, as viewed by Hillman,

into the Avicennan narrative. Corbin (1954/1988) tells us (if we understand him

correctly) that the Avicennan soul’s purpose and role as situated in the manifest world, is

to reconcile the doubts, improbabilities, suspicions, and ambiguities which have entered

the world of true Reality (p. 27). Here we see, as we did in Mazdaism, the creatures of

lower worlds working through the ambiguities (dare we say pathologies) that originate,

not from the physical worlds, but from the spiritual heights. The implication here is that

soul’s pathology is necessary even within these celestial oriented paradigms. It is built

into the veritable preexistential structure of all being. It is the motivating force of

Creation itself.

Theosophy of Light: Suhrawardī, Najm Kobrā, and the Actress

Our original inclination for including Suhrawardī’s theosophy of Light in this

selective summary of the lineage which informs our understanding of Ibn ‘Arabi’s

conception of the creative Imagination was inspired, in part, by an imagined

correspondence between the theosophy of Light, described in Corbin’s (1971/1994) The

Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, and our own somewhat enigmatic experience of flashing

colored lights in a meditation class two or so years prior to reading this text. Subsequent

discoveries, which are discussed in Chapter 11, have since shown the pertinence of this

theosophy in another intriguing respect. Corbin tells us that Suhrawardī (also Sohravardī)

initiated the project of reviving this ancient pre-Islamic wisdom and theosophy of Light

in the twelfth century. His personalized system had elements of Hermetism,

Zoroastrianism, Neoplatonism, and the Sūfism of Islam. In Man of Light, Corbin explores

the evolution of this restoration through an analysis of Sohravardī (Suhrawardī) and other
PSYCHE’S STAGE 101

key figures who contributed to the revival. In Corbin’s (1997/1958) book on the creative

Imagination he specifically notes a “coalescence between the esoteric doctrine of Ibn

‘Arabī and Suhrawardī’s theosophy of Light” (p. 9). He also directs our attention to a

similar coalescence between Suhrawardī’s work and Shīʽite Ishrāqī Avicennism.

It is Najm Kobrā, however, who he credits as the first Sūfī master “to focus his

attention on the phenomena of colors” or “colored photisms” perceived by the mystic in

various spiritual states (Corbin, 1971/1994, p. 61). These colors are understood as “signs

revealing the mystic’s state and degree of spiritual progress” (p. 61). They are not to be

understood as physical perceptions. “Najm Kobrā alludes several times to these colored

lights as something ‘seen with the eyes closed’ ” (p. 62). Our own experience admittedly

occurred with eyes open and was qualitatively subtler, we imagine, than those that Corbin

refers to. Most academics and mystics alike would probably discount the idea that the

material in Corbin’s book and that of our experience is related. In the literal sense we

would not argue with this assessment. In a functional sense, however, the imagined

connection between them arouses our curiosity and fosters a more intimate relationship

with the world of the text. We would like to suggest that seeing the possibility of our own

experience as part of that world may be altogether appropriate to our research topic:

namely, the creative Imagination’s role across all dimensions of reality.

In the section that follows, we switch to a first person singular voice to tell the

story of this experience, as it was described shortly after it happened.

The meditation.

It happened during the third session of a brief introduction course to three Eastern

contemplative meditation techniques. The evening was devoted to a fostering of

PSYCHE’S STAGE 102

compassion and more specifically to the Tibetan practice of tonglen which refers to the

act of “giving and taking” (Glaser, 2005, p. 118). Chödrön (2000), an American Buddhist

nun and teacher, describes this process as a method for connecting with the suffering of

others as well as that of our own. The discipline’s broader intention is to awaken

compassion for all beings. Additionally, the practice of tonglen is said to potentially

connect us with “the open dimension of our being,” (pp. 93-97) which serves as an

introduction to “a far larger view of reality” or “unlimited spaciousness that Buddhists

call shunyata” (pp. 93-97).

The last meditation exercise of the evening involved a pairing into groups of two.

Looking into our partners’ eyes, we were asked to breathe in their suffering then to

breathe out with an offering of loving kindness, compassion, and wishes for their

happiness and well-being.

Generally speaking, guided meditations are ineffective for me. In an effort to

follow the instructions I tend to become overly cognitive which inevitably negates the

purpose of the exercises. On this occasion, however, I received the gaze of my partner

and held the instructor’s words gently in the background of my attention without being

unduly distracted by them. My partner, likewise, seemed instantly ready to receive my

gaze in turn. The first tear that streamed down my face appeared almost immediately.

Relatively free of thoughts––I was held by a paradoxically intense equanimity and

heightened sense of attention that came without me willing anything. Tears flowed in

streams down my face. At times, they subsided but the heightened sense of attentiveness–

–of being present––remained stable. This so called suffering was not accompanied by the

struggle and sense of depletion that I normally associate with the word suffering. A subtle
PSYCHE’S STAGE 103

thought hovered in the background of my experience. It was a curious awareness of the

loop that united me with my partner. As I looked at the “suffering” I saw in her face I was

conscious of the fact that she was supposedly taking in my suffering while I took in hers,

which meant that the pain I saw in her face was a reflection of what she saw in mine and

vice versa. The divide between us was thus muddied. This muddied place prompted the

questions: “Who was I looking at? Was it her or me? And who was she looking at?” I

also noted that the distinction between the taking in of suffering and the giving out of

compassion, loving kindness, and wishes for the other’s happiness was very slight. The

movement between them was subtle for me and both were felt as equally profound. I had

no negative judgment of “suffering” in this context. In hindsight, I wondered if a shift in

our cultural perspective of suffering might better serve us.

Interestingly enough, I find that the etymology for the word suffering supports

this realignment. Tracking it back to its Indo-European root bher, I discover other

important derivatives that suffering keeps company with: bear (as in to bear or carry

children), burden, birth, bring, fertile, differ, offer, prefer, transfer, furtive, and metaphor

(Bher, 1992, p. 2097). What a rich and wonderful family this word suffering has.

The poignancy of this experience is not altogether foreign to me. It may sound

odd to a devout Buddhist but my past as a professional actress has afforded me with

countless comparable experiences. Embodying and relating to the other––in other words,

acknowledging the other in oneself and living the stories of others who live inside us

all––is very much a part of what the acting experience is. Doing it well has been an act of

compassion for me. I suppose that this association with the acting experience has

something to do with why this particular practice involving partnership with another––
PSYCHE’S STAGE 104

with a tangible human being as opposed to a mental image without flesh––was the one

practice from this meditation class that proved most meaningful and accessible to me.

After fifteen minutes or so, the instructor brought the exercise to a close,

suggesting that we either exchange thoughts about the experience with our partners or

write in our journals, but neither my partner nor I were ready to stop. We continued on,

looking into each other’s eyes. I could hear the susurration of conversation hovering in

my background, soft and whisper-like––like a song almost. I imagine now that the

conversation may have sounded more distant to me than it did to the others in the room; I

suspect that my partner and I were somewhat suspended in a limbic loop that existed

halfway in and halfway out of the space that our classmates were engaged in. It was

during this time of extended meditation while our fellow cohorts chatted that I saw the

light in the room change colors in slow intermittent flashes a number of times. It was as if

the room was a stage and the lighting designer had inserted colored gels into the stage

lighting instruments to evoke the mood of a particular scene. Everything became a dullish

blue-green, then yellowish, then blue-green, and my partner’s face became tinted by each

flashing change. It happened three or so times then subsided and happened again a while

later.

I wondered if perhaps some light from outside the room that I was not aware of––

a passing car (with greenish and yellowish flashing lights?) or a lighting effect

announcing the grand opening of a store or entertainment event, or some such mundane

phenomenon––had been the cause of this. I inquired with my partner the following

morning, and discovered that she had not seen the colors that filled the space and flashed

throughout it, as I had.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 105

Our current reflections on the meditation, viewed in the context of this

research.

At the time that this occurred, we had no knowledge of Corbin or Islamic

mysticism. The description of this meditation above is included here for a number of

reasons. Firstly, it is a phenomenological account of an experience that might be

justifiably viewed as visionary in the apparitional sense that Jung and Corbin tended to

use the word. As such, it narrows the gap between us and them. Secondly, the experience

is identified as being familiar to us through the practice of acting. This phenomenological

coalescence of theatrical practice and visionary experience gives further credence to our

sense that the two may be related. Lastly, we recognize a likeness between this human-to-

human practice and various mystic-to-Divine dialogic processes discussed by Corbin,

namely: Ibn ‘Arabi’s dialectic of love (discussed in Chapter 7), “Creative Prayer”

(mentioned in Chapter 2 of this work and discussed more extensively in Chapter V of

Corbin’s [1997/1958] Alone with the Alone), and the dhikr (discussed below). The

phenomenon of colored lights, in mysticism and in association with theatre, will surface

again in Chapter 11: this time, within the context of Dionysiac mystery-cult initiation.

Corbin (1971/1994) tells us that the mystic’s “capacity to perceive suprasensory

lights” (p. 104) is directly related to the dhikr, a process which involves the recitation of

lines or sayings from sacred doctrines. Functionally speaking, the divine light or spiritual

energy released by the mystic’s body as a result of this process becomes a mirror and

unveiling of the Divine. In making himself present to his Lord, the Lord becomes present

to the mystic as well.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 106

Najm Rāzī, a direct disciple of Najm Kobrā, enumerates five subtle organs: “the

intellect, the heart, the spirit, the superconsciousness (sirr), and the arcanum or

transconsciousness (khafī). Each of these suprasensory faculties perceives its own world”

(Corbin, 1971/1994, pp. 109-110). Corbin associates certain types of experience with

“unveilings” to corresponding subtle organs. Of particular interest, in respect to our

meditation experience, is the pairing between “visions of various colored lights” and an

unveiling to the subtle heart. It may be helpful here to remind ourselves that the organ of

active, creative Imagination in Ibn ‘Arabī’s cosmology is the heart. Corbin says:

The capacity to perceive suprasensory lights is proportionate to the degree of

polishing, chiefly the work of the dhikr, which brings the heart to the state of

perfect mirror. In the beginning these lights are manifested as ephemeral flashes.

The more perfect the transparency (the “specularity”) of the mirror, the more they

grow, the longer they last, the more diverse they become, until they manifest the

form of heavenly entities. (p. 104)

Setting aside our doubts in respect to own our mystic and visionary capacities, we can

begin to imagine our experience within the context of this passage. We can imagine that

those visions of colored lights were flashing on the border between our usual

consciousness and that of an imaginal one. Who is to say what might have happened on

this liminal border? Perched on the edge of two worlds, perhaps a double-faced mirror

was coming into being: a mirror, reflecting the face of our human meditation partner on

its terrestrial side, and almost reflecting the face of our divine counterparts––our Angels–

–on the celestial side. We can imagine that in perfecting this mirroring activity we might
PSYCHE’S STAGE 107

expect to reach the other side of this border––the imaginal side––where colored lights

become visionary figures (like those that Jung and Corbin refer to).

Curiously, it is our mutual suffering and compassion in dialogue with itself and

with another that transported us to this edge.

Notably, the experience itself did not feel foreign to us. It is only the subtle

flashing of lights from an unseen source that leaves a trace of an unknown presence, of

something hidden amidst that which is familiar.

Seen through the lens of this mystic tradition, we can imagine our meditation

experience as a borderland experience balanced on the edge of every day consciousness

and the imaginal world as it is understood by Corbin. For us it represents the possibility

of many in-betweens between the physical, imaginal, and spiritual realities pure and

simple.

Summing Up the Last Two Chapters

Among Corbin’s many works, it is Alone with the Alone: The Creative

Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī (1997/1958) which is explicitly dedicated to the

topic of the creative Imagination, as perceived by Islamic mysticism. With this in mind,

we imagined from the outset of our research that this book, in particular, would provide

us with the core material through which our inquiry would be most readily responded to.

It is the introduction to this text, however, that directed us toward some of Corbin’s other

works as a means for acquiring knowledge of a spiritual lineage that he believed was

crucial to an understanding of Ibn ‘Arabī’s school of thought. We have since realized that

these supplemental works, which have been the focus of the last two chapters, provided

us with more than a prelude and background to our main story. They have informed our
PSYCHE’S STAGE 108

idea of the creative Imagination as much as Corbin’s book which is dedicated to the

topic. In some respects, our exploration of these distinct spiritual–philosophical traditions

precludes the need to review certain portions of Alone with the Alone. This is not to say

that these various schools of thought should be conflated with each other. It simply

means that the symbolic resonances between them, allow them to speak for each other in

respect to the purpose of this study. The hierohistorical correspondences they share allow

us to incorporate portions of each distinct tradition in a patchwork plot that constitutes a

unified vision, through which hitherto nonmystics might find a glimpse of themselves.

In the last two chapters, we have been witness to a number of recurring themes,

images, and philosophical–spiritual ideas that begin to respond to our research question.

In our exploration of Mazdaism, we discovered a place where the Actress might feel at

home––a place where the Actress is valued, necessary, and essential––where the Actress

provides the medium through which individuation takes place. The Actress is here

embodied by the terrestrial world of mixture with one eye tilted toward the primordial

yearning that brought her into being, and another eye focused on the actualization of this

yearning as a being. These two “I(s)” are expressed in the dual aspect and characters of

Fravarti and Daēnā. The Actress is, as such, the celestial world’s own ritual and

provident care––a player in Ōhrmazd’s passion play staged on the terrestrial world stage.

The quality of her vision––which is the quality of her becoming––constitutes new worlds.

Our deepest selves––that is, our celestial “I(s),” our Daēnās, our ideal Selves––are born

of these worlds. As Mazdean inhabitants on Earth, we are all the Actress. Seeing through

this lens, the Actress is also a Mystic whose suprasensory vision might be not be

recognized as sight per say but rather felt from within as an embodiment and enactment.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 109

Her scripts when recited in a manner appropriate to them, (like the dhikr), bring ordinary

things to Light.

In taking the Mazdean view of terrestrial earth as an angelophany (as an

apparition of the celestial Earth Angel), we have here unveiled a sacral sense of the so

called mundane world. Viewing the Earth itself as a world of visions has contributed to

our shifting definitive sense of what it is to be a mystic. The mystic, like Hillman’s sense

of soul, is fast becoming a matter of perspective––a perspective that begins with

addressing all things as persons––as Who, not what.

This perspective has led us to Spenta Armaiti (Spendarmat)––to a feminine

archetype and Archangel whose Wisdom is the Earth as a form of existence. The

mysteriousness of her distinctly feminine Wisdom which is related to love has been

linked with an expressly Mazdean eschatological hope and human evolution that leads to

embodied immortality––to the individualized self, typified in the figure of Daēnā: the

celestial “I.” During the preparatory stage of our inquiry (chapters one through three) we

did not foresee that the transformative nature and eschatological hope expressed by the

idea of feminine consciousness in both Corbin’s and Hillman’s works would emerge as

an indispensable theme in this research, but it has. As we shall see, going forward, it will

reemerge in every step of our journey. Our sense of what we mean by these very big

words feminine consciousness will continue to unfold along the way. This holds true, as

well, for our sense of how they relate to mysticism and creativity.

Our brief look at Avicennism brought forth its symbolic resonance with many

aspects of Mazdaism. This resonance is shared between Avicennism and Suhrawardī as

well, and between Suhrawardī and Ibn ‘Arabī. Of particular note, is Avicennism’s
PSYCHE’S STAGE 110

definitive view of the soul as expressing “an incompletion, an unfulfillment, an aspiration

toward the still Unrealized” (Corbin, p. 1954/1988, p. 71). This view has brought us

closer to a place where Corbin’s and Hillman’s conceptions of soul might constitute a

shared narrative and story.

Dipping our phenomenological toes into a theosophy of Light informed by

Suhrawardī, Najm Rāzī, and Najm Kobrā, we deepened our sense of connection between

mysticism (Corbin), depth psychology (Hillman), and theatre (the Actress) through lived

experience. This connection was expressed in the embodiment of another’s suffering as

shared between two partners (a practice familiar to the Actress) which culminated in an

experience with elements that can be likened to a visionary phenomenon. This cursory

glance at the phenomenon of visionary light in mystic practice will also prove useful in

respect to the unfolding of later discoveries in this research.

Going Forward: A Re-visioned Approach

Our next chapter (which directly followed the chapter on Mazdaism in our initial

draft of this work) looks to Dionysos, the Greek god of theatre, for further insight.

Submerged in the labyrinthine depth and breadth of Corbin’s work while writing our first

draft of this dissertation, it was our concern that we had neglected the voices of Hillman

and the Actress, so we followed our chapter on Mazdaism with Dionysos as a means for

including them, then returned to Corbin’s work with our introduction to Avicenna and the

Suhrawardīan theosophy of light. The voices of Hillman and the Actress have since found

their place in the first two chapters on Corbin’s work to a greater degree, and our sense is

that this new order will provide an easier, more comprehendible flow for the reader. At

the outset of this research process, we turned to Hillman’s works on Dionysos as a means
PSYCHE’S STAGE 111

of continuing to explore links between theatre and spirituality that emerged in our

exploration of Mazdaism, while concomitantly giving voice to Hillman and the Actress.

We imagined that this chapter would include a brief overview of the god which provided

context for understanding Hillman’s writing on Dionysos, but our intention, as stated in

Chapter 3, was to remain as close as possible to Corbin’s and Hillman’s own works in

order to keep the scope of our research within a manageable range. Dionysos, we soon

found, had his own agenda. He required more attention from outside authors. We had not

anticipated the degree to which he needed to be heard––not simply as a vehicle for

exploring Hillman’s ideas, but as an entity in himself that penetrates into all aspects of

this research. As a result, we have looked beyond Hillman’s writings on Dionysos to

additional sources more than we had expected to. The surprisingly leading role that

Dionysos plays in this research from this point forward has also resulted in a change of

Hillman’s role in this research. While Hillman remains a central character in the healing

fiction which is unfolding here, we draw less profusely from his many works than we had

once envisioned we would. Nevertheless, his archetypal approach and ideas on key

themes related to our research question maintain a strong presence throughout this work.

In general, we have found that focusing in greater depth on fewer texts has been

necessary in order to tell a coherent and comprehendible story based on very complex,

multifaceted, and abstruse materials. (This holds true for our use of Corbin’s writings and

for authors who have written about Dionysos, as well.) While our approach, as initially

imagined, may have shifted, our research question continues to steer this work, setting its

own limitations on our wanderings. The degree to which we cover each exploratory lead,

and the number of sources we draw from in so doing, is still necessarily bounded by
PSYCHE’S STAGE 112

parameters set forth by the research design (Chapters 1 through 3) and ultimately, by this

emerging healing fiction’s own sense of how it wants to unfold.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 113

Chapter 6
Dionysos

Overview

Evidence from classical philologists, archaeologists, and linguists show Dionysian

influences in Greek culture dating back to pre-Greek Minoan or Mycenaean civilizations

on the island of Crete. The Minoan civilization (named as such by a British archaeologist

after the legendary King Minos in Greek myths) emerged around 2,000 B.C. and lasted

until 1,400 B.C.

Mysterious, enigmatic, and paradoxical––Dionysos (also Dionysus) is “the god of

epiphany” (Otto, 1960/1965, p. 79), the god who comes and goes. He appears suddenly.

And just as suddenly, he disappears––both geographically and chronologically. Known

for his travels through Greece, through Egypt, through Syria, up the Asian coast, into

Phrygia, Thrace, and India––Dionysos is the god of wine, inspiration, and drama

celebrated in boisterous processions where spirits of the earth appear, evoked by masks.

His chariot––adorned with vine branches and ivy––is drawn by panthers. He is

accompanied by a motley crew of legendary figures. These include the maenads (his

female votaries, often depicted naked carrying flutes and tambourines, dancing as if

possessed) and the satyrs or sileni (mythical creatures with “perpetually erect penis[es] of

enormous proportions” [Grimal, 1951/1990, p. 394] who have physical features of both

man and goat).

Dionysos is a mystic god of ecstasy, known also as a feminine bisexual god, a god

of women, of nature, and the founder of a mystery-cult that embraces these elements. He

is associated with sensuality, dance, flow, music, joy, festivals, tragedy, suffering,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 114

madness, life, death, primordial oneness, and dismemberment. The list does not end here.

He is a god of intoxication, a foreign god, and stranger (at least associatively speaking, if

not in actuality). He is friendly, but also bestial, and wild. A number of sources refer to

his miraculous appearances in a variety of forms including bull, lion, panther, many-

headed dragon, young girl, boar, bear, tree, fire, water (Otto, 1960/1965, p. 110), and goat

(p. 168).

As we shall see throughout our exploration of the god, Dionysos’s encounters

with various mystic cults in Asia Minor often led to the absorption of them by his own

cult and to colorful syncretic variations of the tales that he appears in. Contrasting stories

about his lineage emerge from the dynamic interplay of these peregrinations, as do

multiple tales of his episodic adventures that sometimes overlap and sometimes conflict.

The tales below provide a further sense of the god and his story.

Stories from the Myth

Dionysos, Demeter, and Persephone.

In an Orphic version of Dionysos’s birth, the god is born of Zeus Katachthonios,

the “subterranean Zeus” (who is also identified with Hades), and his very own daughter

Persephone, “queen of the Realm of the Dead” (Kerényi, 1980, p. 250). Persephone is

also identified with her mother Rhea––the Great Mother of the Earth, or Demeter (who is

described as Rhea’s alter ego). As we can see, even at first glance, the relations and

identities of the gods are far from straight forward. In this story, we see that Zeus, more

commonly known as a sky god, is also is revealed to us as having an underworld identity.

He is identified, not only with Hades, but at times with Dionysos himself (pp. 250-251).

Mothers are here confused with daughters, and daughters with wives. It strikes us that the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 115

labyrinthine paradoxes of identity and relations that we see in Dionysos’s domain are

oddly reminiscent of those we uncovered in our exploration of Spenta Armaiti, Ōhrmazd,

Daēnā, and the other Mazdean beings of Light. But we digress. Let us return to the birth

of Dionysos.

In one version of the tale, Demeter––the Great Mother of the Earth––arrives in

Sicily from Crete, where she discovers a cave that she uses to house her young daughter

Persephone. She guards the entrance with two serpents from her chariot and goes about

her business. This apparent effort to safeguard her daughter is, in fact, part of a plot

between her and Zeus. There in the cave, Persephone busies herself like a proper young

maiden working in wool “weaving a great web, a robe for her father or mother which [is]

a picture of the whole world” (Kerényi, 1980, pp. 252-253). While engaged in this

project, Zeus appears in the form of a serpent and seduces her resulting in the birth of

Dionysos: the son, who according to the Orphic tales is to be Zeus’s successor––the fifth

ruler of the world.

Dionysos and the Titans.

Another story adopted by Orphic followers tells of the god’s destruction as a

young boy at the hands of the Titans: giant deities with incredible strength who preceded

and were overtaken by the Olympian gods. In this tale, the Titans emerge from the

Underworld, with chalk whitened faces like ghosts, to frighten the child Dionysos who is

taken unaware while distracted by his toys. They attack him, tear him to pieces, boil the

pieces, and proceed to roast them for a feast.

This tale has many variations. In one of them, an outraged Zeus appears on the

scene thrusting the Titans back into the Underworld with the force of his lightening. A
PSYCHE’S STAGE 116

sort of ash is formed from the steam which rises when the lighting strikes them, and from

this ash––it is said––that the human race was formed. In the original tale, Dionysus’s

body parts are woefully lost to the fire, all excepting one. And a later tale serves as an

intimation of what the extant part might have been. In this story, Pallas Athene, who is

present at the feast, manages to retrieve and hide a piece of the god’s dismembered body

in a covered basket, which is later given to Zeus. The rescued body part––it is said––was

Dionysos’s heart.

Dionysos and Semele.

A second Dionysos, of later stories, is said to be the son of Zeus and the mortal

Princess Semele, daughter of King Kadmos (also Cadmus). The name Semele, according

to Kerényi (1980), was given by Phrygians and Thracians “to Chthonia, ‘the

subterranean’” (p. 256). Semele is thus enigmatically associated, like the god’s first

mother, with the Underworld. In one version of this story Zeus prepares a potion from the

rescued heart of Dionysos and serves it to Semele, who then becomes impregnated by it.

Zeus’s wife, Hera, is overcome with jealousy when she discovers this. Plotting her

revenge, she disguises herself as Semele’s nurse, and taking advantage of the young girl’s

confidence, she instills the Princess with fantasies of Zeus appearing before her in the

form that he takes when mating with the goddess Hera so that she too might know the

power of a god’s embrace.

Tutored by her imposter of a nurse, Semele subsequently convinces Zeus to grant

her but one wish (without disclosing its content in advance). Her wish, of course, is that

same wish instilled in her by none other than Hera, herself. Bound by his promise, the

lightening bearing god of Heaven bursts forth in all his elemental glory, and Semele (who
PSYCHE’S STAGE 117

is stricken by flames) perishes, just as Hera had planned. Meanwhile, the infant

Dionysos, who is trapped within the Princess’s womb, is seized by Zeus who fashions a

makeshift womb in his thigh, and carries the child god to term. Dionysos has thus been

called the twice-born god. But we might also think of him as the thrice-born god. First, he

is born of the subterranean Zeus and Persephone, but perishes at the hands of the Titans

in childhood. Second, he is born again when Zeus rescues him from Semele’s womb.

And third, he is born again when he emerges fully formed from Zeus’s thigh. As we shall

see later, these are not the only tales where a recurring cycle of death and rebirth appears

in the course of the god’s story.

Phase one of his myth: Dionysos, the child.

It is noteworthy, perhaps, that ample attention is given to the mythology of

Dionysos’s childhood, especially in light of the fact that he is often associated with the

child archetype. It is generally agreed that Dionysos was reared chiefly by women. In one

version of the story his father Zeus entrusts the infant god to Semele’s sister Ino and her

husband King Athamas with instructions to raise the boy as a girl to avoid detection by

Hera who has plans to destroy the child. Hera is not outwitted by this strategy, however.

Infuriated that Ino and King Athamas have agreed to this arrangement, she proceeds to

drive them mad with the same sort of delusionary visions that Dionysos will magically

inflict on those who cross him in later years. The consequence of these mad visions is

dire, indeed. In mistaking his son for a deer, King Athamas tragically spears his son to

death. Ino, meanwhile, murders their second son then throws herself into the sea with his

dead body (Grimal, 1951/1990, p. 65, 128, 246). As for the child Dionysos, Zeus rescues

him again, transforming him this time into a baby goat (another disguise), and transports
PSYCHE’S STAGE 118

him via the wing-footed Hermes to Mount Nysa where he is nursed and tended to by the

nymphs who live there.

Phase two: Madness and dismemberment.

Madness and dismemberment appear again and again in the stories that inhabit

the world of Dionysos. Dionysus himself, is the victim of madness and dismemberment,

but he also inflicts them upon those that he perceives as having wronged him. He plays

both the victim and the victimizer. His essential role embodying both roles will become

increasingly significant as our discussion deepens.

When fully grown Dionysos wanders off into the country side and again he is

surrounded by women. The nymphs of Nysa who were once his caretakers and

nursemaids now become the initial maenads, possessed by the god, known for their

ecstatic dancing and ritual hunts in the deep forest. Often “depicted as riding panthers and

holding wolf cubs” (Grimal, 1951/1990, p. 255) who suckle at their breasts––the

maenads have also been known to tear these self-same animals apart with their bare

hands once they have matured. Grimal tells us that the female votaries of the god’s

mystery-cult, who came thereafter, sought to imitate the behavior of these original divine

followers. We shall return to our discussion of them, following a brief excursion into

Dionysos’s own madness.

Dionysos: The mad god.

According to one story, it was Hera, Zeus’s jealous wife, who drove the youthful

Dionysos into madness after he discovered the vine (Grimal, 1951/1990, p.128). Grimal

has him wandering throughout Egypt and Syria, up the Asian coast, then into Phrygia

during this phase of his life. Here, the young god is initiated into the mystery cult of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 119

Cybele the “Great Mother” who “governed the whole of nature” (p. 112). “Cybele,” he

says “was often identified by the Greek mythographers with Rhea” (p. 112). Rhea, we

should remember, was Persephone’s mother in our first tale of Dionysos’s birth––and

Demeter, who was described as Rhea’s alter ego, was also identified with Persephone

herself. These associative relationships between Cybele, Rhea, Demeter, Persephone, the

earth, and death play a provocative role in this enigmatic stage of the god’s story. Perhaps

it is worth noting that this initiation into the cult of Mother Earth appears to be what

cured Dionysos of his madness. Perhaps we might infer from this that losing our sanity

has something to do with losing a sense of right relationship with the world we are

embedded in. The importance of the quality of this relationship between the human and

the Earth is also highlighted, as we know, in Mazdaism.

Dionysos and King Lykourgas: A tale of persecution and dismemberment.

Kerényi (1980) refers to this second phase of Dionysos’s young life following

early childhood as a period of suffering and persecution. Death and the Underworld are

thematically prominent during this time. In one tale, which seemingly takes place in the

very early stages of this period, Dionysos is depicted as a young lad with human-like

vulnerability. When the maenads (who, in the not so distant past, served as his

nursemaids and caretakers) are viciously hunted down like cows by King Lykourgas

“the Wolf-man” (p. 262), the poor youth flees in terror, seeking escape from the

frightening figure by leaping into the sea. The sea, in the worlds of myth and depth

psychology, is often associated with the Underworld, with death, the unconscious, and

the unknown. So here we see Dionysos (a god, and as such a supposed immortal), yet

again, living through a sort of death experience.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 120

Lykourgas, as punishment for his misdeeds, is subsequently stricken with

madness. As is customary in these stories, tragic events come to pass in this delusionary

state. In a fit of anger against the god, the murderous king hacks down Dionysos’s most

precious plant: the vine (which he has also been identified with). Unsurprisingly, “the

vine” that Lykourgas sees is actually his son and “the vine branches” that he hacks apart

are his own son’s limbs.

Dionysos and Perseus: A tale of Dionysos’s own death.

In another very old tale Dionysos is killed by Perseus who hurls him into the deep

spring of Lerna (Kerényi, 1980). Again, we see an association between Dionysos, the

watery depths, death, and the Underworld. Again, his helplessness in this situation is

rather human-like. In yet another story, the god uses this self-same spring (which is also

called a bottomless lake) as a passageway into the Underworld to retrieve his mother

Semele from the land of the dead, because it “offer[s] the quickest access to Hades”

(Grimal, 1951/1990, p. 129). According to Kerényi’s (1980) account of this event,

Dionysos needed a guide and pathfinder to successfully carry out this task. The price he

paid for this service was a “promise to complete female surrender. . . . He fulfilled his

promise with the help of a phallus made of fig-wood, which he erected on this spot” (p.

259). Our sense of this mysterious image of “complete female surrender” (p. 259) will

continue to unfold throughout this inquiry: first, when we engage in a discussion of

Hillman’s speculations about Dionysiac consciousness, and later when we look to

Corbin’s call for a restoration of feminine consciousness, as seen through the lens of

mysticism. Ultimately, Dionysos does find his mother in the Underworld. Both ascend to

Olympia together and are immortalized. A corresponding descent, and ascension occurs
PSYCHE’S STAGE 121

again with his wife Ariadne. We shall return to these stories when discussing the third

phase of Dionysos’s life because they thematically exemplify the transition out of this

second phase of persecution, suffering, and death into a period characterized by joy and

ascension. For now, we return to the topic of madness as seen in the maenads.

The madness of maenads.

Kerényi (1980) cautions us against taking the maenads’ mania too generally.

Dionysos himself was called mainomenos or mainoles which means “raging,” and this,

etymologically speaking, is where the name maenad comes from. A fuller understanding

of the god’s votaries would thus include this fuller sense of their namesake. Kerényi

would have us imagine their characteristic mania “as bearing all its various senses at

once––that of raging love as well as that of raging anger” (p. 260). This extended sense of

the word is best exemplified, perhaps, in Euripides’ (trans. 1959) tragic play “The

Bacchae” (which receives our more extensive focus in the latter chapters of this

research). For the time being, we direct our attention toward a particular scene that

evokes a visceral sense of the maenads. Here a messenger (and herdsman) reports on his

experience with the Theban women who have gathered in the mountains of Cithaeron to

dance and hymn the god. Characteristics of the first maenads, who were mythical beings,

are here imaginatively superimposed onto the later human members of the god’s cult

following.

The Theban “maenads” of Euripides’, “The Bacchae”.

From the messenger’s report, we learn that the women, when left to themselves,

exhibited an exquisite panpsychic communality and coherence between each other and all

of nature. The morning light had just begun to shine when he spotted them strewn about
PSYCHE’S STAGE 122

on boughs of fir and beds of oak leaves fast asleep (apparently having danced the night

away). Agave was then suddenly alerted by the mooing of the herdsmen’s cows.

Instantly, she sprang to her feet with a great cry to awaken the other women. “And they

too, rubbing the bloom of soft sleep from their eyes, rose up lightly and straight––a

lovely sight to see: all as one” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 690-695). First, they fastened their

fawn skins with straps of writhing snakes who licked their cheeks. Then they adorned

their hair with ivy, leaves, oak, and flowering bryony. Young mothers, having left their

own infants at home, nestled and suckled baby gazelles and wolves they held in their

arms. Many of them (like the god by whom they were possessed) carried a pinecone

tipped staff of fennel twined with ivy––a thyrsus.

Then one of the women struck her thyrsus against a rock and a fountain of cool

water bubbled forth. Another drove hers into the ground and a spring of wine

miraculously appeared. Still others, who desired milk, scratched the soil with bare hands

as the white fluid welled up from beneath and “pure honey spurted, streaming, from their

wands” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 710-711).

But then, the awe-stricken cowherds and shepherds who witnessed these wonders

decided to hunt the dancers down, expecting an impressive reward from the king for

capturing them. From this point on, the women’s instinctual bond with nature is violently

channeled in a brutal battle against their would-be captors. They cry aloud “with one

voice,” calling upon the god by shouting his various epithets: “O Iacchus! Son of Zeus!

“O Bromius!” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 725). And as they shout, the beasts and the

mountain itself seemingly become “wild with divinity” (727), apparently taking their side

in the fight. The herdsmen narrowly escape, but their cattle are torn apart and clawed to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 123

pieces by the bare hands of the raging women. And then their fury moves them from the

forest to the town as they are lifted into the sky by their own speed. Flying across fields

and streams, they swoop down on the surrounding towns pillaging everything in sight.

Plunder, piled high on their backs, magically stays in place with no binding to secure it.

And the villagers, who take up arms, soon find that their spears draw no blood from the

raging women. Nor does fire burn them. But the women’s wands, on the other hand,

inexplicably inflict wounds like daggers upon their attackers.

The maenads’ madness in full identification with the god.

While Dionysiac women were called “Bakchai” (female Bacchantes), Kerényi

(1980) says “they were more properly ‘Bakchoi,’ in full identification of the worshipped

with the worshippers” (p. 260). Many images of the maenads dancing ecstatically “in

long robes, with heads thrown rigidly back, wreathed with ivy, carrying the thyrsus” (p.

260) are strikingly similar to those of Dionysos himself. The madness of the maenads is

the shared madness of the god. Their enactments through dance, music, and the hunt are

rituals by which the god is mirrored. They are an unveiling of his differentiated presence

within the individual worshipper and the means by which the boundaries between man

and the divine are lifted. Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether this mirroring activity

corresponds in any respect with the mirroring activities which have emerged in our

exploration of Islamic mysticism. Is there not a hint of Spendarmatīkīh in the maenad’s

practices by the very fact that both sets of practices aim to embody the mode of being of

the god who is worshipped? There is a similarity it seems, but the differences between the

two traditions––both in content and in tone––caution us about the dangers of likening

them to each other at this time. Nevertheless, in knowing––to some degree––where this
PSYCHE’S STAGE 124

story will eventually lead us, we anticipate that an appropriate means of bringing them

closer together may unfold in the course of our journey. Our present task, however, is

stressing the unavoidable significance of madness and dismemberment in the myth of

Dionysos by pointing to further instances of them in the stories that constitute Dionysos’s

mythical oeuvre.

More tales of madness, dismemberment, and the killing of kin.

A number of stories in the myth of Dionysos tell of mothers who are provoked by

delusionary visions in states of madness, to unknowingly kill their own children, and in

some cases to literally tear their offspring to pieces with their bare hands. Variations and

combinations of these paradigmatic plot points are present in the tales of the daughters of

King Minyas, King Proitos, and King Cadmus (Kerényi, 1980, pp. 260-262). In the first

of these, Minyas’s daughters (who refuse to honor the god at his mountain rituals) are

frightened when Dionysos appears to them in a flashing epiphany as a bull, then a lion,

and finally as a leopard. To appease him, they offer one of their children as a sacrifice,

and all three of them tear the child to pieces. In the second story, King Proitos’s

daughters are driven mad at the age of ripening for failing to take part in the secret rites

of Dionysos. After Proitos refuses the help of the seer Melampous––who offers to cure

the girls in exchange for one third of his kingdom––the madness of his daughters

becomes effectively infectious. Other women––overtaken by the same rage–– kill their

children, leave their families, and wander off into the forest.

The tales of King Cadmus’s daughters (Ino, Autonoe, and Agave) provide

additional examples of these Dionysiac plot patterns, and further inform our later

exploration of Euripides’ tragedy, “The Bacchae”. Let us here remember that the mother
PSYCHE’S STAGE 125

of Dionysos, named Semele, was also one of King Cadmus’s daughters. Each of

Semele’s three sisters who refuse to believe in their nephew’s divinity, fall upon a similar

fate which involves the loss of their children. We have previously spoken of Ino, who

was driven mad by jealous Hera, and who consequently killed her own son. In another

version of this story, however, it is Dionysos––not Hera––who causes Ino’s madness.

The death of Autonoe’s son, Aktaion, has a characteristically Dionysiac twist as well. He,

we learn, is torn to pieces by his own hounds, and his mother is made to reassemble the

bones of his dead body. Agave’s story, which is central to “The Bacchae” is the most

notorious of the three. She, famously kills her son in a ritual hunt at Mount Cithaeron

with the help of other frenzied women who are possessed by Dionysos. Ino and Autonoe

are among them. “Playing the role of hounds, and calling out to the god as huntsman and

companion in the chase, they [tear] Pentheus [her son, who is also now the king] to

pieces” (Kerényi, 1980, p. 262). Agave, who sees the head of a lion in the place of her

son’s own head, mounts it on a thyrsus and parades it proudly into to town.

The third phase: Joy and ascension.

The second phase of Dionysos’s life characterized by persecution, suffering, and

death eventually gives way to a third which is marked by triumph, festive joy,

immortality, and ascension. This third phase is paradigmatically preceded by the

elemental presence of water, and the Underworld experiences which appear in the second

phase. Some of our tales exemplifying this pattern involved the young god’s descent into

the Underworld by way of the sea. First, there was the tale of King Lykourgas who

frightened the tender boy to such a degree that he leapt into the sea to escape him. And

then there was the tale of Perseus who killed Dionysos and threw his body into the deep
PSYCHE’S STAGE 126

spring of Lerna. Dionysos’s associations with the sea reach far beyond these isolated

tales. Otto (1960/1965) tells us that Dionysos was worshipped as god of the sea in

Pagasae, and also as god of the seacoast in Chios (p. 163). Seaford (2006), drawing from

Plutarch, has said that the Greeks regarded him as the master of all “liquid growth” (p.

23).

The paradigmatic movement from persecution and suffering into triumph and joy

is symbolically expressed by our story of Dionysos’s descent to Hades via the Lake of

Lerna and his ascent to Heaven with his mother Semele, thereafter. This pattern of

descent followed by ascension is mirrored in other tales as well.

The pirate story.

One tale of Dionysos’s capture by pirates and the epiphanic manifestations by

which he frees himself is particularly representative of the movement from the

persecution phase of his life, characterized by a temporary death (or, historically

speaking, a temporary disappearance), and his subsequent triumphant reemergence. The

tale begins with Etruscan pirates who spot Dionysos upon a promontory in the form of a

stunning young man draped with lustrous purple raiment. Imagining him to be the son of

a king or someone of similar rank and wealth, the pirates swiftly seize him with

expectations of commanding an impressive ransom for his return. But much to their

surprise, they find themselves unable to restrain the extraordinary youth. The cords they

attempt to bind him with simply fall from his hands and feet.

The helmsman, witnessing this miraculous phenomenon, soon realizes the grave

mistake they have made. “We have surely attempted to entrap some god” he says,

“Apollo perhaps, or Poseidon! Free him at once, here on the land before we set out to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 127

sea” he begs. But the captain and crew refuse him. The sail is hoisted. The wind carries

the black ship all too swiftly out to sea. And now, wine begins to flow––swirl––ripple––

and gurgle throughout the ship. It is sweet to the taste and divinely fragrant. And the crew

are aghast with wonder. At the top of the sail an enormous vine suddenly sprouts forth

spanning across the entire length of the ship, and plump grapes in all abundance dangle

from the vine’s leafy twining stem. Ivy blooms and twists around the mast. And the

oarsmen, who finally grasp the gravity of the situation, holler to the helmsman

commanding him to return to land at once, but alas, it is too late. The youth suddenly

transforms into a lion, roaring mightily. Then a bear appears from nowhere ominously

raising itself up upon its hind legs. And the crew, all affrighted, rush toward the stern as

the lion springs upon and seizes the captain. Desperately they hurl themselves into the

sea, and miraculously, they are all transformed into dolphins as they hit the water. Only

the helmsman, who had warned them, is spared (Kerényi, 1980, pp. 266-267).

As noted above, this epiphanic victory has been considered as a symbolic

representation of Dionysos’s transition from the second phase of his life (which is

characterized by suffering and persecution followed by his temporary historical

disappearance or mythical death) into the third phase (which is characterized by his

joyful reemergence from the sea). From this point forward the raging maenads, known to

accompany him during the second phase, are converted to “transfigured happy

companions” (Kerényi, 1980, p. 268) who parade in mirthful procession with his

characteristic train of odd creatures: including Satyrs, exotic wild animals, “and all sorts

of minor deities such as Priapus” (Grimal, 1951/1990, p. 128).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 128

Another figure is especially significant (and enigmatic) in the tales associated

with this joyful and triumphant phase of the god’s life. Her name is Ariadne, and she

alone, amidst the many females that contribute to his story, plays the unique role of

Dionysos’s wife.

Ariadne.

There are multiple versions of tales concerning Ariadne. (We shall address these

more directly in Chapter 8.) While Hillman makes little mention of Dionysos’s enigmatic

bride, Kerényi’s (1976, pp. 89-125; 1980, pp. 268-272) and Otto’s (1960/1965, pp. 181-

188) analyses of her––like their analyses of Dionysos, himself––are tortuous and

complex. Both Otto and Kerényi look to the etymology of Ariadne’s name as an

indication of her nature. The word Ariadne (originally “Ariagne” and variously translated

by both authors as pure, holy, and untouchable) is a form of Hagne, which is the surname

to the Queen of the Underworld (Kerényi, p. 269; Otto, 1960/1965, p. 183). Ariadne––

though a mortal born maiden––has thus been identified with the goddess Persephone via

this etymological connection. This connection also occurs associatively by way of the

similarity between Ariadne’s ascension to heaven with Dionysos, and the ascension of

Dionysos with his mother who has been variously identified as both Semele and

Persephone. This mother–wife conjunction shows itself as well in tales where Ariadne

plays a motherly role to Dionysos as one of the female nurses who cares for him during

the first phase of his young life. Ariadne’s enigmatic role as a mortal born maiden with

divine status is strengthened by the fact that she is also identified with yet another

goddess: Aphrodite (the goddess of love and beauty). Otto says that “the nature of the

Dionysiac woman is exalted to marvelous heights” (1960/1965, p. 181) with Ariadne. He

PSYCHE’S STAGE 129

tells us that she is the perfect image of a beauty that gives life immortality when it is

touched by its lover. But he also says that the road to this beauty unavoidably ends in

sorrow and death. The writings of Otto and Kerényi on the subject of Ariadne have a

mystical quality that is oddly and surprisingly reminiscent, in many respects, of Corbin’s

works. Time and time again, we have found ourselves struck by the presence of themes,

plots, images, and language that carried us through imagination back to our exploration

of Mazdaism (and other Corbinian works) during our repeated readings of their Ariadnian

analyses. Within a combined Dionysiac–Mazdean context, we even came to imagine the

ascendant Ariadne as a form and representative of Daēnā (who is the daughter to the

Sophianic figure Spenta Armaiti and the human’s celestial “I”). Here, it may help to

remind ourselves that Daēnā personifies the eschatological transfiguration and

individuated manifestation of the human person in Mazdaism. She is the actualization of

a person’s primordial image and individuality. In discussions to follow we shall further

imagine the correspondences between Ariadne and Daēnā. Both, if viewed through the

lenses of Otto and Corbin, lure us with beauty into love on a path that ends with our death

in this world while bestowing immortality in another.

In the person of Ariadne, we see intimations of the Fravartis, as well. She

descends and ascends to lower and upper worlds or dimensions of being, as do they. Her

namesake, Ariagne (a designation meaning holy, pure, and untouchable) links her to the

celestial world but she resides on earth in a human form like the incarnate Fravarti. And

like the Fravartis, she too, has various double aspects or counterparts which are

mysteriously reminiscent of the pairings between the incarnate Fravartis and their

celestial twins. On the earthly plane this double aspect appears as a rival sisterhood
PSYCHE’S STAGE 130

between Ariadne (the pure or untouchable one) and Phaidra (the bright one). For us, these

names evoke a sense of the twofold nature of all being as put forth in Mazdaism, and

expressed in the words mēnōk and gētīk. Seen through this lens, we imagine a

correspondence between Ariadne (the pure or untouchable one) and the mēnōk state of

being which is celestial, invisible, and spiritual. In the same vein, her sister Phaidra (the

bright one) can be viewed as an expression of the gētīk state of being, which is an earthly

visible, and material state. We find it intriguing that Ariadne (in the myth) is jilted by her

mortal lover Theseus, who proceeds to marry Phaidra. Ariadne becomes the bride of

Dionysos instead. These two marriages might be viewed as one marriage expressing its

earthly, visible, material aspect (embodied by the mortals Phaidra and Theseus) and its

celestial, invisible, and spiritual aspect (embodied by the immortalized Ariadne and

Dionysos).

A similar Fravarti-like pairing in the person of Ariadne exists between

dimensions, as well. Ariadne, after she ascends to heaven with Dionysos, is known by

another name: “Aridela, the visible from afar” (Kerényi, 1980, p. 269). Kerényi also tells

that Ariadne and Aridela were known on the southern islands of Greece as the names of a

goddess “under two aspects with a twofold destiny, a dark one and a bright one” (p. 271).

On the mainland, this same goddess was known as Semele and Thyone. Here again we

see the blending of identities between Dionysos’s mother and wife. To complicate things

further, Kerényi tells us that this goddess with a double aspect and a name for each was

also known as Persephone and Aphrodite (p. 272).

Here, we have seen in the person of Ariadne a complex web of conjoined

relations and paired identities, just as we have in Mazdaism. We have seen the thematic
PSYCHE’S STAGE 131

presence of light and dark, of upper and lower worlds which are both divided and

undivided in a figure who appears to be both one and many. The persons of Ariadne,

Aridela, Persephone, Aphrodite, Semele, and Thyone are individualized and united––

divided and undivided in accordance with their associative and qualitative relationships

to each other, and to Dionysos in his many forms. Dionysos’s mother and wife are thus

identified with each other in this plexiform web. Seeing through a Dionysiac–Mazdean

double lens we might envision the god’s mother in the person of Semele–Persephone–

Ariadne, and the Archangel Spenta Armaiti (Daēnā’s mother). As his mother, they are the

primordial source and yearning from which his manifested being emerges. The fully

individuated and matured manifestation of this yearning might then be envisioned as the

person of Thyone–Aphrodite–Aridela, and Daēnā. As we make this move, we realize that

Dionysos is now being viewed as a god and person who is also the world which includes

within him the persons and relations who constitute him. These women––who are at once

mortals and goddesses, and mothers and wives in their own right––are also aspects or

dimensions of the god himself.

The figure of Ariadne (as informed by Kerényi and Otto) adds an enigmatic

celestial aspect to the Dionysos story. She enters the myth as a mortal and is

immortalized by her ascent with Dionysos (who is the god) but it is her nature, not his,

that has a quality more likely to be associated with the celestial world. It is her

identification with Aphrodite that brings the words love and beauty to the Dionysiac

universe which is more commonly associated with ecstasy, dismemberment, and joy. The

presence of beauty and love, brought with the marriage of Dionysos and Ariadne, opens

us up to a new sense of the Dionysiac cosmos at large. This opening gives space to the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 132

psychological depths where Hillman tends to dwell and the spiritual heights that attract

Corbin.

Dionysos as an Image of Indestructible Life; Ariadne as a Life Individualized

Kerényi (1976) views Dionysos as an image of “indestructible life,” using the

Greek connotation of zöe to clarify his meaning: “The significance of zöe,” he says, “is

life in general, without further characterization” (p. xxxii). An expanded sense of zöe can

be gleaned through its contrast with bios: “When the word bios is uttered,” Kerényi

explains, “something else resounds: the contours, as it were, the characteristic traits of a

specified life, the outlines that distinguish one thing from another” (p. xxxii). When

Kerényi speaks of Dionysos, he speaks of zöe––of the indestructible life that extends

beyond the boundaries of individual form––of the surge that flows through bios, but is

not contained by it.

While Kerényi (1976) views Dionysos as the “archetypal reality of zöe,” (of

indestructible life), he envisions Ariadne as “the archetypal reality of the bestowal of

soul” (p. 124). He imagines her as that which “makes a living creature an individual” (p.

124). Here again, we see intimations of the Mazdean figure of Daēnā. She too, reflects

the unique individuality of a manifest being. But there is a significant difference between

the way Kerényi speaks of Ariadne here, and Corbin’s treatment of Daēnā. Daēnā is the

celestial and eschatological individuality of a person. She is the figure who greets the

human individual upon his passing from this world. But Ariadne, as Kerényi speaks of

her in this section of his text, appears to be more closely associated with bios––with that

which expresses the individuality of a terrestrial being. It is true that both Dionysos and

Ariadne ascend to heaven and are immortalized. In this sense, the biunity constituted by
PSYCHE’S STAGE 133

their marriage and ascension might be imagined through the celestial image of Daēnā.

But Dionysiac and Ariadnian tales are generally oriented toward the vicissitudes of

middle and underworld plots. They act as mirrors that reflect soul’s experience in the

“world of mixture” so to speak. Here, both darkness and light must play a role within the

whole. This inherent duality, while reflecting the definitive “mixture” of terrestrial

existence (in Mazdean terms), also serves as a metaphor for a corresponding relationship

between the lower and higher dimensions of being. This inherent duality and biunity,

which constitutes the whole (on Earth and between dimensions), was reflected in festivals

and rituals that honored both Ariadne and Dionysos. The passage below exemplifies this

duality as enacted in Naxos, an island most believed to be the nuptial site of Dionysos

and Ariadne:

The Naxians saw and celebrated Ariadne in two forms. According to their

historians, a gloomy festival was devoted to a mortal Ariadne and a joyful one to

another whom Dionysos took for his wife. The god himself was also celebrated in

two forms on Naxos. In one form he was called “Dionysos Meilichios,” and his

mask was carved of fig wood. In the other he was the ecstatic “Bakcheus,” and his

mask was carved from the wood of the vine. (p. 123)

This passage seems to express a human need for paying homage to the inherent dualities

and opposing potentialities of our natures. It seems to express the importance of heeding

and respecting the power of both the light and the dark––the visible and the invisible. The

“bothness” that characterizes this sensibility carries us appropriately into an exploration

of Hillman’s Dionysos and all which follows thereafter.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 134

Dionysos in Hillman’s Work

Hillman’s (1972b) essay “On Psychological Femininity” is an exercise in

revisioning the feminine, seen through the myth of Dionysos. In our exploration of

Mazdaism the idea of feminine consciousness presented itself as a dominant theme.

Within the context of Corbin’s perspective of the Mazdean tradition, feminine

consciousness is associated with the wisdom of the celestial earth as a form of existence,

and with the future transformation from our terrestrial selves to the embodiment of our

celestial or ideal selves. This point of view expresses an eschatological hope which is

unattainable on the terrestrial plane; its consummation can only be realized once we have

left this world.

Here on earth, history reveals a view of the feminine that stands in stark contrast

to this celestial perspective of it. Here on the terrestrial plane, the feminine has been

paradoxically associated with that which we perceive to be inferior: with the unconscious

as opposed to consciousness; with darkness as opposed to light; matter as opposed to

spirit; evil as opposed to goodness; and with instinct, emotion, and the physical as

opposed to intelligence and mind. As Jung (1938/1969) has said, the feminine has long

been associated with the “abysmal side of bodily man” and his “animal passions” (p. 107

[CW 9.1, para. 206]). Hillman’s (1972b) essay “On Psychological Femininity” reveals the

unrelenting human perception of the feminine as inferior by surveying ideas in theology,

science, and philosophy that demonstrate its persistence throughout all periods of history.

While countless specific facts, theories, and socially accepted truths constructed in

support of this perception have been debunked time and time again, the underlying idea

of feminine inferiority nested within the generally accepted notions of each new current
PSYCHE’S STAGE 135

day, has endured. Hillman tells us that this unyielding perseverance, even in the face of

our debunked theories, points to an archetypal reality that is psychological rather than

biological in nature. The impetus for his essay begins with the following foundational

premise: By failing to recognize the culturally informed characteristics of this ostensible

inferiority as expressions of necessary psychic patterns which are essential to our

humanity, we project this label of inferiority onto our image of the female body as literal

biological fact. The female sex has thus been made to carry the burden of our human

disdain for that which is viewed as inferior or weak. In the section below, we touch upon

some of the colorful historical ideas in religion and science that Hillman draws from in

constructing his argument for a restoration of feminine consciousness seen through the

myth of Dionysos.

In religion, the primacy of the masculine surfaces in the story of Adam, the first

created, made in the image of God. The feminine, represented by Eve, is made from

Adam’s rib and “extracted from [his] deep sleep” (Hillman, 1972b, p. 218). She is thus

secondary, merely a part of Adam––not an image of God in herself. She is inessential,

less perfect, less conscious. “The male is the precondition of the female and the ground of

its possibility” (p. 218).

In the history of medicine, Hillman points us to a long-held belief that the

substance from which an infant is engendered came from the male sex alone. In this

medical fantasy, the male was all that was needed for the constitution of new human life,

substantively speaking. There was no contribution of female seed. The woman, it was

imagined, acted as carrier and provider of nutrients to the new embryo planted within her,

but played no role in the act of creation itself. It was not until 1827 that the human egg
PSYCHE’S STAGE 136

was discovered, and final experiments demonstrating that the sperm penetrates the egg,

and that new life is formed from this conjunction, did not occur until 1875. The relation

between menstruation and ovulation was not clearly established until the turn of the

century. Even in cases when the existence of female seed was acknowledged, it was

persistently considered to be inferior to that of male seed. This ambivalence about a

woman’s role in child-bearing shows up in the mythic imagination of Greek tragedy as

well. In Aeschylus’s (1953 trans.) The Eumenides, Apollo says that: “The mother is no

parent of that which is called her child, but only nurse of the new-planted seed that

grows. The parent is he who mounts” (pp. 658-660).

Hillman’s account of numerous once reputable theories in embryology,

physiology, and reproduction––which seem absurd today––shows us that even our

discoveries in science (a discipline supposedly based on fact, objectivity, and reason) are

limited by the content and capacity of our imaginations. Since physicians, until recently,

were almost exclusively men, our discoveries regarding the female body, throughout

most of history, have been limited to peculiar biases of the male imagination. Hysteria,

which is indelibly linked to the birth of depth psychology as a discipline, provides us with

a fascinating example of this. Originally perceived as a woman’s disease, it was once

believed that hysteria was caused by a wandering womb––envisioned as a sexually

charged autonomous creature-like entity in itself––which travelled restlessly throughout

the body when its urges were repressed and denied. This wandering womb was thought to

be the cause of all sorts of obscure physical symptoms that symbolically reflected its

pathologized objections.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 137

While relatively recent developments in the disciplines of religion (the

Assumption of Maria) and science (quantum physics) have begun to shift the culturally

dominant philosophical stance that divides mind from body, matter from spirit, and as

such the feminine from the masculine, it is Hillman’s (1972b) view that these movements

in our thinking will fail in effecting actual change unless we transform our view of the

feminine––unless we shift our “consciousness in regard to bodily man”––in regard to our

“own materiality and instinctual nature” (p. 217). If a tangible change is to be effected,

the “uniform world-image” that has emerged in the fields of mysticism and science must

be accompanied by “a uniformity of self-image in psychology, a conjunction of spirit and

matter represented by male and female” (p. 217). This transformation would require a

bisexual consciousness: a consciousness that includes both representations as a priori and

primary givens. The dominant psychic structure, which is exemplified by the

philosophical stance of Adam before Eve, would require rebalancing. The feminine and

masculine in this restructured consciousness would both be recognized and experienced

as necessary within the cosmological wholeness to which we belong.

Hillman suggests that Dionysos provides a structure of consciousness through

which we might envision this transformation. But first, we must begin from the place we

currently find ourselves in. This means acknowledging the dominant structure of over-

weighted masculine consciousness in society today. Seeing through the lens of myth,

Hillman calls this structure of consciousness Apollonic, and describes it as follows:

Like its namesake [the god Apollo], it belongs to youth, it kills from a distance

(its distance kills), and, keeping the scientific cut of objectivity, it never merges

with or “marries” its material. It is a structure of consciousness that has an

PSYCHE’S STAGE 138

estranged relation with the feminine, which we have taken to mean “the abysmal

side of bodily man with his animal passions and instinctual nature, and ‘matter’ in

general.” (Hillman, 1972b, p. 250)

The model of objectivity upon which classical science is built is evident within the

imagery of this passage. While its valuable contribution to scientific development is

undeniable, taken alone––forgetful of the other gods and archetypal dominants––Apollo’s

power, like the sun itself (which is lacking in conscience and compassion) has the

potential to destroy us outright. This objectifying style of imagining stands in stark

contrast to that of Corbin’s philosophical stance inspired by Mazdaism, which views the

earth and the things of the earth as “Who” rather than “what,” while perceiving them as

reflections of celestial yearnings––as epiphanies and angelophanies reflecting aspirations

toward manifestations of their ideal selves. From within this style of consciousness,

knowledge comes not from standing on the outside of things as an objective onlooker, but

rather, from placing oneself subjectively inside of them and embodying the energy that

brings them into being. This type of knowing requires a relationship between the

“observer” and the “observed,” and an act of becoming the other as the other’s idealized

essence. The energy embodied in this act of becoming is the same energy as that of one’s

own idealized essence. In this sense, there is no real other and no real distance between

the human, the earth, and the things of the earth.

The lopsided weight of Apollonic consciousness within our current society

pertains not only to men, but to women as well, because the archetypal structure is

“independent of the gender of the person through whom it works” (Hillman, 1972b, p.

250). In Hillman’s view, the uniform imagery which has emerged in spirituality and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 139

science, fails to effect a change in our everyday lives because it is constituted from within

the same Apollonic structure of consciousness that marginalizes our view of the

feminine. Hillman says that as long as our solutions are sought from within this

archetypal base, which is inherently masculine, an “elevation of the female principle and

a new psychic recognition of female physicality seem structurally impossible” (p. 251).

Hillman makes a compelling argument that Dionysian consciousness, as a

bisexual consciousness from the start, may provide a model through which our attitude

toward “feminine inferiority,” toward “the abysmal side of the bodily man” might be

transformed. Dionysos is widely known as a bisexual god. Kerényi has said that

Dionysos, “in one of his appellations, is ‘man and woman’ in one person” (as cited in

Hillman, 1972b, p. 258). He also refers to “the god’s half female character” (Kerényi,

1980 p. 268), and even details the manifestation of this half female aspect

physiologically. Describing the young god approaching manhood, he says that Dionysos

is depicted “as a handsome boy or as a delicate half-womanly stripling resembling

Adonis or Attis” (p. 262). Hillman (1972b) says that the potential shift in consciousness

“indicated by Dionysus is one where female is not added or integrated by male; rather,

the image shows an androgynous consciousness, where male and female are primordially

united. The coniunctio,” he says “is not an attainment but a given” (p. 259). Within the

Dionysian consciousness that Hillman envisions, those so called “inferior” characteristics

which are archetypally deemed feminine, are not viewed as inferior. They are recognized

as necessary within the overall Dionysiac cosmology. These purported inferiorities––

which are variously expressed in the frailness of physical stature, in a weak emotional

constitution, or an unbridled passion; in an ostensibly unsound mind, an immoral

PSYCHE’S STAGE 140

character, childish behavior, unbearable suffering, or any number of other classic

examples concretized in the female body by an Apollonic perspective––all of these, play

vital and indispensable roles in a Dionysian cosmos. The so called inferior images that

populate the feminine psyche have their own peculiar consciousness, their own particular

light, and way of knowing. This consciousness does not seek healing via the

transcendence of its darker light by ridding itself of its afflicted images. To do so would

be to deny its foundational primordial bothness where the affliction and its cure are

inherent to the cosmology of its wholeness. In Hillman’s words: “Our afflictions and

psychopathologies evoke the feminine side as carrier, [as] sufferer, as nurse to that

sufferer and to the child. The feminine side also holds out joyful abandonment to them

and so a release through them” (pp. 262-263). Each affliction, each pathology plays a part

that is essential to the whole. Each has a role in the movement of consciousness that

unfolds as a story to which they all belong.

Here we see an example of that which Hillman (1983) calls a “Dionysian logos,”

a “dramatic logic,” and “the logic of theater” (p. 37) in Healing Fiction “The particular

embodiment of Dionysian logic” he says, “is the actor” (p. 39). The actor hones his craft

by playing manifold roles. He steps inside the child, and the child’s nurse, the hunted and

the hunter, the persecuted and the persecutor, the victim and the victimizer. He discovers

within him an expression of the god, the panther, and the vine. He sees and lives, for the

duration of a play from the perspective of his given role––not from the outside as

objective observer and judge, but rather, from the character’s interior subjectivity––

guided, moved, compelled by the peculiar dark light unique to the being he inhabits, and

in so doing he comes to know the rush of zöe pulsing in all its manifold forms. Schooled
PSYCHE’S STAGE 141

in the nature and logos of earth’s multitudinous creatures by the masks of Imagination,

the actor expands his skin, and zöe relishes in the instrument through which it plays. The

actor receives (is made by) and makes the world, (which is the play) wherein he plays as

player and played.

Hillman (1972b) says: “In Dionysus, borders join that which we usually believe to

be separated by borders” (p. 275). He reminds us that “one of the names for Dionysus

was ‘The Undivided’ ” (p. 263). In Mysterium Coniunctionis Jung (1956/1970) says that

he was also called “The Divided One” (p. 260 [CW 14, n. 5]). He is both. Otto

(1960/1965) tells us that “all earthly powers are united in the god . . . . The fullness of life

and the violence of death both are equally terrible in Dionysus” (pp. 140-141). Hillman

(1972b) says that Dionysus “rules the borderlands of our psychic geography” (p. 275).

Surprisingly, we have found this “psychic geography” to be strikingly reminiscent of the

“spiritual geography” put forth by Corbin’s work on the creative Imagination of Ibn

‘Arabī. Here we see an enigmatically similar image of bothness, and the presence of

something that can appropriately be called “The Undivided.” Here we are also witness to

the call for a return of feminine consciousness, embedded in what Corbin (1958/1997)

variously refers to as “the sophianic religion of love” (p. 139), “the religion of mystic

love” (p. 144), and Ibn ‘Arabī’s “dialectic of love” (p. 145), the subject of our next

chapter.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 142

Chapter 7
Ibn ‘Arabī’s Dialectic of Love and a Return to Dionysos

The images of bothness, of The Undivided, and of feminine consciousness, as

seen through Hillman’s perspective of the Dionysos myth take on a decidedly different

tone when seen through Corbin’s exploration of Ibn ‘Arabī’s Sūfism. The horrific

Dionysiac tales of violence and dismemberment seem a far cry from the celestial figures

and principles that await us in this chapter. The striking differences and equally striking

similarities provoke us to look closer.

Corbin (1958/1997) tells us that the supreme Godhead or Theos agnostos (the

unknowable God) for Ismailian Gnosis “cannot be known or even named as ‘God’; Al-

Lāh,” he says, “is a name which indeed is given to the created being, the Most-Near and

sacrosanct Archangel ” (p. 113). The sadness and nostalgia of the first Being or

Archangel is “identical with the Sadness of the Theos agnostos yearning to be known by

and in that same creature” (p. 113). This basic paradigm permeates each dimension of Ibn

‘Arabī’s mystic cosmology. Divinity, at its very core, even from its all-encompassing

position beyond all being, is characterized as a twofold simultaneous and eternal

yearning: by a sadness and aspiration for self-knowledge through and in being (which is

instantly realized), and a concomitant nostalgic longing to return to the source beyond

this being. In sharp contrast to the all-knowing and omnipotent God put forth by “rational

theodicies” (p. 113), the divine Being put forth by Ibn ‘Arabī’s cosmology is a pathetic

God, a suffering and compassionate God. This is the “the secret of a human-divine sym-

pathetism” which “determine[s] the sympathy between the invisible and the visible” (p.

114).
PSYCHE’S STAGE 143

The Sadness of Divine Names and the Aspiration of Forms

Now a brief word about Ibn ‘Arabī’s doctrine of divine Names will help to orient

us going forward. The divine Names, which have existed through all eternity, designate

attributes of the divine Essence itself. “Ibn ‘Arabī distinguishes between [the divine

Name] Allah as God in general and Raab as the particular Lord, personalized in an

individualized and undivided relation with his vassal of love” (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 94).

(Let us, here, take note of the words “individualized and undivided.” In the undivided

pairing of Lord and vassal as in Dionysos, borders have the paradoxical quality of joining

that which is usually believed to be separated by borders.) The Lord or Angel, as it

appears in the description above, is the Divine as personified in one of its attributes (p.

122). But the Lord or Angel plays a double role. On the one hand, He is Lord to His

vassal (or soul), who personifies Him to the extent that his belief and aptitude allows, but

He is also the vassal or soul of an unrevealed Lord and Angel on the dimension above

Him, whom He personifies to the degree that His belief and aptitude allows. The double

role and relationship of these two figures––Lord and vassal––binds us on the borders of

each dimension because each figure plays the role of both figures. That which is vassal to

the unrevealed Godhead, is Lord to the vassal who names Him in the manifestation of a

more concrete form, and this pattern continues at the undivided borderland of each

dimension of being. Again––the supreme Godhead, cannot be known directly. What the

concrete being or creature knows of God comes only through knowing his Lord.

Knowing his Lord comes only from knowing himself, and knowing himself means

recognizing his Lord in that which he loves. As Corbin says, “God epiphanizes Himself

to each of us in the form of what we love” (p. 124).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 144

The “meaning and full reality” of the divine Names is dependent upon the

epiphanic forms in which they are manifested (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 115). Forms,

having existed from all eternity in the divine Essence, are latent individualities and

substrates of the divine Names which aspire to concrete being. Corbin equates the

aspirations of these forms with the nostalgia of the divine Names, and then he equates the

divine Names’ nostalgia with “the sadness of the unrevealed God, the anguish He

experiences in His unknownness and occultation” (p. 115). The sadness, nostalgia, and

aspiration of the Names and forms is ultimately the unrevealed Godhead’s sadness,

nostalgia, and aspiration because the divine Names and forms have existed within Him

since pre-eternity. Everything which is and all that is not is only Him. And from this

situation, because all beings are permeated by this Divinity beyond all being, an essential

community between all beings, visible and invisible, is presumed.

Ibn ‘Arabī’s Dialectic of Love

This “essential community between visible and invisible beings” (Corbin,

1958/1997, p. 106) is the principle upon which Ibn ‘Arabī’s dialectic of love is grounded.

This essential community is eternally established in the act and phenomenon variously

referred to as divine sympathy, sympatheia, and divine compassion. Definitively

speaking, it is the reciprocal aspiration and interdependence of invisible and visible

beings, of Lord and vassal, and the infinite pairings as connotes a relationship between

the Creator and created beings through which He is named.

Corbin (1958/1997) tells us that Ibn ‘Arabī distinguishes “three kinds of love

which are three modes of being” (pp. 148-149): divine love, spiritual love, and natural
PSYCHE’S STAGE 145

love. A brief description of each will serve to clarify the relationship between Ibn

‘Arabī’s dialectic of love and divine sympathy or divine compassion.

Spiritual love, situated in the creature, “has no other concern, aim, or will than to

be adequate to the Beloved” (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 149), to the role of loving vassal for a

divine Name and Lord. The Beloved, admitting of no division, would ultimately love

only Him as, for, through, and in Himself. His love is a longing for return, a love for no

other.

Natural love “desires to possess and seeks the satisfaction of its own desires

without concern for the satisfaction of the Beloved” (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 149). Its

inspiration is “the hope of finding itself” (p. 150).

Divine love, has an undivided double aspect which corresponds with the roles of

Lord and vassal as described above in the subsection on divine Names. Divine love is:

“on the one hand the love of the Creator for the creature in which He creates

Himself . . . and on the other hand the love of that creature for his Creator, which

is nothing other than the desire of the revealed God within the creature, yearning

to return to Himself, after having yearned, as the hidden God, to be known in the

creature; this is the eternal dialogue of the divine-human syzygia. (Corbin,

1958/1997, p. 149)

Divine love, we see, loves both from the perspective of Creator and creature. Both are

eternally in dialogue with each other, constantly exchanging roles as part, then whole,

then part, and so on in mutual yearning, in divine sympathy moving from one position to

another and back again. Corbin tells us that a restoration of sympathy between spiritual
PSYCHE’S STAGE 146

and natural love is needed if the bi-unity of the Lord of love and the vassal of love is to

be realized in the creature (pp. 150-151).

Corbin refers to this process, which unifies the twofold structure of the soul, as

mystic love, but he fails to clarify the difference between mystic love and divine love.

We have thus inferred that mystic love, in accordance with his sense of its meaning,

refers to a type of love situated on the terrestrial plane that corresponds with a divine love

that is situated on the imaginal plane. Prior to our repeated readings of Corbin’s chapter

on Ibn ‘Arabī’s dialectic of love we took it for granted that the word divine could be

taken as a synonym for spiritual, celestial, or heavenly, but our sense of it here is

definitively closer to the imaginal. The divine, like the imaginal seems to imply a

conjunction of spirit and matter––a concretized spirit or spiritualized matter. Going

forward we expect to view the word divine through this more specific lens sensing

whether this meaning holds up under our closer attention.

Corbin describes the phenomenon of mystic vision as follows: The “divine

Beloved, who defines Himself as admitting of no division” synchronizes the soul’s dual

nature by “produc[ing] Himself for the soul in the physical form of a theophany”

(1958/1997, pp. 150-151). Here “the two forms of love springing from the two facets of

the soul” (p. 150) are joined. The soul, which is identified by the active Imagination,

recognizes that this physical Form is the Beloved, and drawn to this Form which

expresses its physical and spiritual nature, it sees its Lord. The soul then comes to an

awareness that the medium through which it loves, sees, and contemplates Him is not

itself; it is Him. It is He who sees, loves, and contemplates Himself. The soul realizes, in

other words, that “it loves only through Him, not by itself” (p. 151). From the soul’s point
PSYCHE’S STAGE 147

of view its Lord of love is “the organ of its perception” (p. 151). But from the His point

of view, “the soul itself is His organ of perception” (p. 151). The Lord is the organ of the

soul’s loving perception, and the soul is the Lord’s organ of perception. They see through

each other but both are none other than Him. He is the Lover and the Beloved. “It is in

His essence to be both one and the other . . . and the eternal dialogue between the two” (p.

152). It seems that He, like Dionysos, might be called The Undivided.

The Creative Feminine

The totality of a divine Name is comprised of both the Name and the Namer; one

supplies being; the other reveals it. Each of them puts the other in the passive; each of

them is the action of the other. Both play both roles. The Name who yearns to be known

is the passive receiver of the Namer whose action bears His name, of the Namer who acts

in concrete being playing the role of mirror to the Name he names. The Namer who

actively names is also a passive receiver and receptive vessel to the Name whose active

breath breathes His yearning into His being. This unity, which is the sym-pathetic

dialogue of an interdependent bi-unity, necessitates that each role plays both roles and all

roles are played by Him. The dialectic of love, here described, is set in motion by the

active, creative Imagination on the theophanic (imaginal) plane. Phenomenologically

speaking, Corbin (1958/1997) refers to it as a “sophianic experience” (p. 157). Initiation

into this mode of being, he says, must be sought in sophiology. A passage from his article

The Eternal Sophia (abridged, translated, and reprinted in the Harvest journal) clarifies

his meaning:

[In] ‘sophianity’, the world has become the mirror of the divine world, or

creaturely Sophia––To transcend this duality of the divine Sophia (eternal form
PSYCHE’S STAGE 148

and created form) is to divinize the created, to bestow upon it the divine life . . .

that is the process of humanity’s divination. (Corbin, 1985, p. 20)

This same eschatological hope, as we have seen, was present in the worldview described

in our chapter on Mazdaism. Here the human individual who projected his celestial

Image upon the terrestrial earth effectively co-created the celestial earth wherein the

human’s celestial “I” emerged in the feminine figure of Daēnā.

The citation below describes part of the preinitiation process through which the

mystic gains access to the imaginal realm, to the creative, active Imagination, and the

sophianic experience designated as Ibn ‘Arabī’s dialectic of love.

The Godhead must be contemplated in a concrete form of mental vision[;] this

form must present the very Image of His being. And the contemplation must be

effective, that is its effect must be to make the contemplator’s being conform to

this same Image of the Divine Being. For it is only after his being has been

molded to this Image, only after he has undergone a second birth, that the mystic

can be faithfully and effectively invested with the secret on which rests the

divinity of his Lord. (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 159)

And here Corbin poses the question: What is the most effective image of the Godhead? In

response, he says: “A mystic obtains the highest theophanic vision in contemplating the

Image of feminine being, because it is in the Image of the Creative Feminine that

contemplation can apprehend the highest manifestation of God, namely, creative

divinity” (p. 159). The Godhead, he tells us, is most effectively meditated upon through

the Image of feminine being because this Image incorporates both of His active and

passive––His creative and receptive aspects, while the Image of masculine being
PSYCHE’S STAGE 149

embodies only one of the two. Somatically speaking, this idea can be illustrated by the

female’s biological capacity to embody the dual aspect of the Godhead as both the

Creator and the created. She embodies these roles as both the infant and the mother. She

is born, and also gives birth. She is the created and the creator.

Corbin tells us that Ibn ‘Arabī had a predilection for seeing disclosures of a higher

metaphysical reality in the intricacies of how language was used. This is exemplified by

his observation that all terms in Arabic which indicate origin or cause are feminine. In

Corbin’s (1958/1997) opinion this and corresponding interpretations of grammar and

lexicography, indicate that “the Prophet wished to suggest that the Feminine is the origin

of all things” (p. 167). Corbin’s own complex and convoluted analysis of the feminine,

which draws from Christian and Islamic mysticism, places the original masculine Noūs

(mind, reason, knowing) between two feminines: the Divine Essence and the universal

Soul (p. 168). For Corbin, the Image of feminine being is designated and represented by

many names and archetypal figures. She is variously called the “Creative Feminine,” the

“Eternally Womanly as an Image of the Godhead” (p. 159), “the Feminine Creator” (p.

160), and the “Image of creative divinity” (p. 160). She is “contemplated as the Image of

Wisdom or Creative Sophia” (p. 165). She is Sophia aeterna (p. 159), and

paradigmatically seen through such figures as: “the person of Fātima, considered as

‘Virgin Mother’ giving birth to the line of Holy Imāms” (p. 160)––the Fravashi or

Fravarti in Mazdaism, those feminine archetypes and individual angels who designate the

“eternal existence latent in the Divine Being” (p. 169)––and a figurative pairing of Eve-

Maryam seen through Corbin’s analysis of Adam and Eve, and Maryam and Jesus as a

quaternity (p. 165).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 150

Thematically speaking, Corbin’s interpretations revolve around a central idea and

paradox: “The essence of the Feminine is to be the creatrix of the being by whom she

herself is created, just as she is created only by the being whose creatrix she herself is”

(p. 169). The Godhead’s twofold structure and His story are mirrored in this paradox.

From within this central paradox, we might detect the com-passionate divine Sigh which

receives and releases being, which encompasses and penetrates all beings, which actively

frees them from the expectation of their virtualities and passively receives being through

them because nothing exists outside of Him. This is why the unrevealed God, the

primordial source of Being beyond and within all beings might most effectively be

imagined as She rather than He.

Here we have seen that the preinitiatory process of envisioning the Godhead

through the Image of feminine being most effectively prepares the mystic to access the

imaginal world and sophianic experience which Ibn ‘Arabī refers to as the dialectic of

love. We imagine this process as a rehearsal of sorts––as a pre-enactment that anticipates

and mirrors, here on earth, the initiation experience to follow on the imaginal plane in

active, creative Imagination. The mystic is prepared, in other words, for the sophianic

experience and dialectic of love through which he sees and knows the particularized

Name longing to be named through him, by way of a corresponding experience on the

terrestrial plane that places him in the receptive and active position which is characteristic

of the Godhead in general. This preparation is necessary because the wholeness of his

particularized being can only be known from within the perspective of essential bi-unity

which is characteristic of all being. From this perspective the essential pairing and bi-

unity of a divine Name’s totality, of the hidden and revealed God, which constitutes the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 151

wholeness of a Name, can be put into dialogue. From the standpoint of this bi-unity the

constant exchange of roles between Creator and Created in mutual yearning, between the

Lord and Vassal, the Lover and the Beloved, might be manifested in a sophianic

experience that joins natural and mystic love.

Ibn ‘Arabī and Dionysos in Concert with Each Other

Here in our explorations of Corbin’s perspective of Ibn ‘Arabī’s dialectic of love

and Hillman’s Dionysos, we have uncovered the dual presence of interrelated themes and

images: most prominently, those of bothness, The Undivided, and the restoration of

feminine consciousness. We are also struck by the image of a “second birth” which

emerges in both of these explorations. As we know, Dionysos who is taken prematurely

from Semele’s womb and redelivered from Zeus’s thigh, is called the twice born god.

Corbin refers, as well, to a “second birth” which occurs when the mystic molds his being

to the receptive and creative Image of the Godhead. It is only in the sequel to this second

birth that the mystic is invested with the secret on which the divinity of his Lord depends.

(p. 159).

In our view, the mutual presences in the saliently contrasting worlds of Dionysos

and Ibn ‘Arabī are striking, and enigmatically jarring. The thematic presences of rebirth

and bothness, the figurative presence of the Undivided as a bi-unity of parts and whole,

the presence of transformation via the restoration of feminine consciousness––these

interdimensional presences––appear in both narratives as crafters of dramas that

individuate, that move us toward our unique individuality and larger selves.

Perhaps we might read these two dramas––so different in tone and quality––as

corresponding episodes and dimensions within the same multidimensional story and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 152

imaginal space that encompasses both. And from within this perspective which holds

these two worlds and stories as one that encompasses both, we might feel justified in

pulling from the narratives of either for guidance depending upon the degree to which

one or the other becomes present within our own mundane lives in a given moment. From

this interdimensional perspective the Dionysian and Ibn ‘Arabīan traditions would not

negate or marginalize each other. One drama or another might prove more accessible,

within the context of a specific life or situation depending upon the receiver’s unique

capacity to receive. The interdimensional presences in both dramas might also be

imagined as stepping stones that open up possibilities for movement between dimensions

via their metaphoric overlay. The Actress, the Dionysiac, and the Sufi mystic, for

instance, might symbolize with, mirror, and unveil each other, in concert with each other.

The borders that generally appear to separate them, might join them, and expand the

possibilities for each in the metaphoric play of their tri-unity.

As we wander in this direction, the potential resistance, objections, and ridicule of

Corbin and those purist academics who would accuse us of blasphemous and ignorant

conflation give us pause. Would they not be appalled by the thought of viewing

Dionysian and Ibn ‘Arabīan aspects of feminine consciousness in concert with each

other? The Dionysiac images of humans dismembering humans and feeding on the raw

flesh of their victims are admittedly hard to reconcile with the celestial tonality of Ibn

‘Arabī’s dialectic of love. But our task––we must remember––is one of bringing the

distinct worlds, where Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress dwell, together in service to the

creative Imagination and those would-be mystics who have hitherto judged themselves as

nonmystics lacking in “visionary” capacity. Our task, as such, is one of allowing

PSYCHE’S STAGE 153

imagination––as it presents itself to us in the context of this intention––to carry us where

it will.

That being said, one might still understandably question whether Dionysiac

feminine consciousness (so fraught with visions of madness that lead to horrific violence

in the god’s myth) has any relation to feminine consciousness as it unfolds in Ibn

‘Arabī’s dialectic of love. Do these two sets of imagery belong in the same all-

encompassing story, one might ask? In response, we look to Hillman’s own defense of

feminine consciousness as seen through the myth of Dionysos.

First, he observes that Dionysos appears to punish his enemies, and not his

followers. It is not the Dionysian aspect itself but the denial of or resistance to one’s

Dionysian aspect that leads to Dionysiac madness, he concludes. Then he reminds us that

the violent and gruesome cruelty of humans in Dionysian tales occurs during temporary

madness and visionary states. Within these states the victimizers experience themselves

as something other than they are and at the same time they see their human victims as

plants or animals (as something other than themselves, in other words). The dynamic of

their shared human to human and familial relationships thus become malformed. Agave

becomes, for instance, a hunter and her son, a lion.

Hillman (1972b) has suggested that the symptomatic similarities between the

maenads and hysteric women of early psychoanalytic history, indicate a Dionysian

impulse within hysteria. Hysteria, he says, can be “best explained by the cult of the God

as an archetype that has become repressed and dissociated so that its way of informing

consciousness shows certain distortions” (p. 272). Dionysian madness is not, in other

words, the whole of Dionysian consciousness. Dionysian madness points to the

PSYCHE’S STAGE 154

imbalance of that which has been repressed, marginalized, denied, and deemed inferior

within it (namely the feminine), as a result of our increasingly over weighted Apollonic

society. This madness expresses itself in destructive distortions that demand attention

when subtler calls for awareness have been ignored. The maenad who tears her own child

from limb to limb and devours its raw flesh speaks to the hauntingly real danger of

forgetting the essentially and necessarily double aspect and double role of Dionysian

consciousness. Using Corbin’s language, we might also call it Sophianic consciousness.

Both Hillman and Corbin were concerned about such dangers.

Dionysian consciousness addresses the danger by living it, by including it within

the god’s story. But it also speaks to the possibility of celestial transcendence

(exemplified in the tales of Dionysos’s ascent with Semele, his mother, and with Ariadne,

his wife). The presences of these tales in the Dionysian oeuvre craft an imaginal bridge

that joins the world of depth where Hillman dwells and the celestial heights that Corbin is

so attracted to. It is by way of this bridge, we imagine, that Corbin, Hillman, and the

Actress might discover themselves as vital players within a Dionysian world that

incorporates each of their lived realities.

While Semele and Ariadne are both said to have ascended to heaven with

Dionysos, it is the figure of Ariadne who is treated by Kerényi and Otto with especially

reverent and celestial language. Because it is her image that appears to us as a bridge

between the Corbinian and Hillmanian worlds, it now behooves us to deepen our sense of

her story once again.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 155

Chapter 8
Ariadne: A Series of Fictions in Alternate Voices

We have spoken briefly of Ariadne in our chapter on Dionysos, for the most part

from a somewhat mystical philosophical perspective without recalling much of her actual

story. In this chapter, we continue our Ariadnean conversation with an eye directed

toward the tales that constitute the myth she inhabits. In reviewing the first draft of our

attempt to do this, we found ourselves terribly distraught by the dullness of our narrative.

Ariadne had been slaughtered, it seemed, by our efforts to best represent the scholars who

have interpreted her. In that which follows, we have attempted to revive Ariadne by

reimagining her life from within the style and fictional tone of a novel-like form that

reaches for an understanding of her perspective while incorporating those of the scholars

as well. Our immediate goal is threefold: firstly, our intention is to familiarize the reader

with the myth of Ariadne; secondly, we hope to enrich our view of her as a figure who

constitutes a bridge that brings the worlds of Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress together in

a Dionysiac world that encompasses them all; thirdly, we hope to evoke a sense of

fictional insight as a potentially imaginal insight for “nonmystics.”

Ariadne’s Tale: A Third Person Narrative in a Fictional Style

Ariadne was a stunningly beautiful young maiden with an enigmatic reputation.

Her father, King Minos, was by some accounts, the son of Zeus and Europa, though he

(and his brothers of the same parents) were raised by Asterion, the king of Crete (also

known as Asterios: meaning “King of the Stars” (Kerényi, 1980 p. 110). It was on the

beach at Sidon or possibly at Tyre that Zeus, Ariadne’s purported grandfather––inhaling

the scent of sand and sea––was filled with love for Europa, Ariadne’s ostensible future
PSYCHE’S STAGE 156

grandmother. Transforming himself “into a bull of a dazzling whiteness, with horns like a

crescent moon” (Grimal, 1951/1990, p. 147), Zeus threw himself before her

grandmother’s feet (swooning perhaps). Europa was filled, at first, with fear at the sight

of this awesome creature, whose fall had just missed crushing her big toe. Fear was soon

followed by curiosity, however. Allured by the light that filled his whiteness, she

crawled then sat––like a queen on a throne––upon his back, and was consequently taken

aback by the bull’s power who hastened at once into the sea. Plunging into the waves, he

swam mightily, and she was swept away from the seeming safety of the shore. Reaching

the island of Crete, he settled near a spring beneath some plane trees whereupon they

mated. Together they had three sons, one of which was Minos, Ariadne’s father.

With the gift of hindsight Ariadne might have seen, here in the imagery of the

courtship of her grandparents, an intimation of her own fate or a suggested destiny,

perhaps. The white bull’s visage, as she imagined it many decades hence, could be

likened to the horrific bull-headed man monster who was her half-brother––the

Minotaur––and also to her husband Dionysos, with his affinity for making appearances in

the form of a bull.

When King Asterion passed from this world Minos (Ariadne’s father) took the

throne, but his brothers objected and a quarrel regarding the rightful king ensued. In order

to resolve the issue Minos, it is said, made a sacrifice to Poseidon, god of the watery

depths, asking that he send a bull from the sea as a sign that the gods wished for him to

be the king. In return, he promised to make a sacrifice of that same bull back to the god.

Minos’s wish was granted (by Poseidon in some accounts, though others say that the bull

who emerged from the sea was a manifestation of Zeus himself). Regardless of its source,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 157

the god-sent bull was incredibly beautiful and radiant. Minos thus found himself unable

to part with it. His promise of reciprocal sacrifice was never fulfilled. Some say that

Poseidon took his revenge by driving the divine bull mad. But perhaps the real revenge

took its form in the actions of his wife Queen Pasiphae––Ariadne’s mother––who fell

madly in love with it. Queen Pasiphae’s longing for the divine bull was so great that she

commissioned the court artist, architect, and inventor Daedalus to construct a hollow

wooden cow in which she hid, then wooed the marvelous creature, who in turn

impregnated her. The monstrous offspring of their coupling was born with the head of a

bull and the body of a man. He was widely known (and still is) as the Minotaur (Minos’s

bull) but his other name was Asterios (Star) just like the name of Ariadne’s terrestrial

grandfather (Kerényi, 1980, p. 269).

The genius of Daedalus was then put to work on two additional projects. The first

was a prison, the Labyrinth, built for the purpose of hiding Queen Pasiphae’s illegitimate

son, the Minotaur, from public view; the other was a dance ground for Ariadne. By some

accounts, they were one and the same. The Labyrinth was an enormous palace designed

as an inescapable maze of rooms and corridors. The beast was imprisoned within its walls

and was fed each year by a tribute of seven young men and seven girls exacted by Minos

from Athens to avenge the death of his son Androgeos.

There were many versions and variations of Ariadne’s story in circulation. It was

difficult, we imagine, even for her to sort it through and decide which of them was true or

even truest. Some stories felt truer, perhaps, in one moment and others in another. In

some respects, Ariadne was like any other teen girl. In some respects, we imagine, that

she failed to fathom where all this talk about her supposed “purity” was coming from.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 158

When setting her eyes for the first time on Theseus––the handsome, strong, and heroic

young man, who according to some accounts was Poseidon’s very own son––she fell

instantly in love. He was all that she could see. She simply could not believe that she,

even at this time, like some have said, was already the bride of Dionysos. How could

there have been another when all she could see was Theseus?

She was “Mistress of the Labyrinth” at the time, and tasked with the job of

releasing the annual tributes (the Minotaur’s food) into the maze. Theseus, that year, had

bravely volunteered himself as one of the seven men to be sacrificed, though his intent

was to kill the beast and return in victory. She could not help herself. He was so beautiful.

And so it goes that she conspired to save him. But first, she secured his promise to flee

with her by sea and marry her once they had escaped. Then, she provided him with a ball

of thread by which he could navigate his way out of the maze.

But there were other versions of this tale as well. Those who have said she was

indeed the bride of Dionysos even then, have claimed that the object which Ariadne gave

to Theseus was not a ball of thread at all, but rather a precious gift which she had

received from Dionysos, himself––a bejeweled wreath which she used to light Theseus’s

passage through the Labyrinth. By these accounts, she betrayed not only her father and

her half-brother, the Minotaur, but Dionysos as well.

By all accounts, Theseus killed the Minotaur. He escaped from the labyrinth and

saved the other young tributes as well, thanks to Ariadne’s help. All of them, along with

Ariadne, and her sister Phaidra, boarded a ship and set out to sea. They then decided to

make a short pit stop at the tiny uninhabited island of Dia (meaning heavenly or divine).

For some reason, Ariadne disembarked while the others stayed aboard. She was resting
PSYCHE’S STAGE 159

on a hillock within plain sight of the ship when she fell asleep and the entire party sailed

away abandoning her. Left there to die, after essentially rescuing them all: it was then

that the god of wine, Dionysos, found and rescued her. They drank of his elixir washing

her woes away and mated on the isolated island before ascending to Olympus together.

Ariadne was thus immortalized.

Some say “Theseus abandoned Ariadne because he was consumed with love for

Aigle, a girl whose name means ‘light’ ” (Kerényi, 1976, p. 102). And some say he

abandoned her for love of her very own sister Phaidra whom he subsequently married.

Others say that Dionysos appeared to Theseus in a dream claiming that Ariadne was his

own true bride and this is why Theseus reneged on his promise to marry her.

There are other stories as well, about the plights and heights of Ariadne before her

eventual ascendance. In a number of them, she dies before she is immortalized. By some

accounts, she perishes before Dionysos discovers her on the island of Dia. In one story,

she is killed by Artemis at the request of Dionysos who seeks to avenge her betrayal. In

another tale, she hangs herself. And in yet another, she dies in child birth, delivering her

infant in the Underworld. Some people have even surmised that she was impregnated by

Dionysos and then gave birth to an infant who was also Dionysos. (Kerényi, 1976, p.

106-108).

The Labyrinth

As we twist our minds around Ariadne’s life stories we begin to wonder how she

might have seen herself if all the tales that constitute her life and death were laid before

her all at once as a tri-unified Dionysiac world where Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress
PSYCHE’S STAGE 160

all dwell? The image of the labyrinth becomes more and more present in the presence of

this wondering.

Kerényi (1976) tells us that the labyrinth is represented by meander patterns and

spirals on Attic vase paintings illustrating the Minotaur legend. Both are taken as paths in

which the inhabitant is led involuntarily back to the beginning (pp. 92-93). We are

reminded here of ta’wīl, the hermeneutic process which returns the mystic to his source

and celestial counterpart. The labyrinth, like Dionysos, is paradoxical in nature. It is a

place of death (when closed) and rebirth (when open). Kerényi has said that the spiral and

meander lines on Cretan art point to a labyrinth which is a passage to the light if one

reaches the center and turns (p. 94). He also says that the frequency of spiral decorations

on Minoan walls should “be interpreted as directly relating to zöe, which suffers no

interruption and permeates all things” (p. 95). Dionysos (who Kerényi refers to as the

archetype of indestructible life aptly expressed by the word zöe) is thus identified with

the labyrinth. And Kerényi tells us that Ariadne is the mistress of the labyrinth (p. 99).

In the narrative below we enter a labyrinthine fiction and monologue from within

the voiced reflections of Ariadne as situated in a Dionysiac world where Corbin, Hillman,

and the Actress all dwell.

Ariadne’s Reflections in a Tri-unified Universe

As I reflect and reminisce, I find it curious how the images of my lives and loves

twist and turn back and forward toward each other always pointing to an enduring

aggregate image, love, and mystery. I imagine them for a fleeting moment as one person,

one world, one god. My grandfather Zeus, my half-brother the Minotaur, and my husband

Dionysos merge together and split apart in the simultaneous commonality and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 161

distinctiveness of their bullish role and roles, playing all at once within the darker and

lighter aspects of them-self always seeking a deeper and higher wholeness.

It has been said that Zeus who is my grandfather was, in his subterranean aspect,

Dionysos who is my husband, and some people have also said that the Minotaur who was

my brother was a manifestation of Zeus himself. And so it follows that my brother is my

husband. Both were bull and both were “men” of sorts. Both were ruthless hunters and

eaters of raw flesh. Each of them, perhaps, is an aspect of some being which encompasses

both.

And what if I viewed this wandering train of thought like a Mazdean devotee?

Would the humans (as terrestrial sons of Spenta Armaiti who then become her celestial

daughters in the figure of Daēnā) not suggest that brothers also become sisters? Would it

not then follow that I might be, in my ascended aspect, my brother’s Daēnā? And by this

account, my lover Theseus, who slayed my brother would be the murderer of my human

self and the agent through which my rebirth in marriage to Dionysos is made possible.

And what am I to think of all those theories that elevate me to the status of goddess? I am

identified with Aphrodite––goddess of love and beauty, and Persephone––goddess and

Queen of the Underworld. I am the “mistress of the labyrinth.”

When I thread all these pieces together, I imagine myself so differently. As

Persephone and Aphrodite, I am the navigator who holds the thread or lights the passage

which leads the terrestrial lover back to his primordial image and forward as well to the

manifestation of his feminine celestial “I” and Daēnā. I am the lure and beacon that leads

creatures toward their variously called celestial Twins, Daēnās, daimons, or individuated

selves. The light and thread by which I lead is none other than a beauty and love which
PSYCHE’S STAGE 162

steers beings toward their centers in the maze of disorienting possibilities––toward

themselves, even in darkness. The presence of my beauty and love is the human’s

indication that he has reached the labyrinth’s center and pivoted. The path of light which

opens in this turning is, I imagine, the marriage of me to Dionysos––the marriage of

indestructible life to me, who bestows individuality upon a creature via the lure of beauty

into love.

The Maze Above Us

The spotlight on Ariadne now fades to black as her monologue concludes, and

another light comes into view as we glance upward after a long moment of silence. It is a

single spiral shaped energy efficient light bulb hanging above our writing desk. The cord

from which it hangs dangles from the center of a six-foot diameter wooden puzzle that is

also a painting suspended from the ceiling like an immense chandelier. A youthful dancer

with golden dancing curls is leaping in a blue circle filled with lively translucent white

spirals. She smiles at us from above. The scene is full of movement and vitality. The

circular puzzle has a thick black border around its rim. The fingers that lead the dancer’s

leap just barely penetrate the border in front of her and the pointed toes of her

outstretched trailing leg touch the edge of the border left behind. The painted puzzle is

the product of an assignment from a movement based expressive arts training program at

the Tamalpa Institute some six of seven years ago. The assignment was to create a life-

sized self-portrait and then to engage in a twenty five minute ritual-performance with it.

The puzzle’s painted sky of spirals, and the spiral shaped bulb fed through a centered

hole in the middle of the dancer’s hip line is what strikes us in this moment. It seems that

Dionysos, Ariadne, and the labyrinth––all of which are connected to dance––have been
PSYCHE’S STAGE 163

present for quite some time in the puzzle suspended above our head. This puzzle, as an

open labyrinth, has taken center stage at a seemingly pivotal point in our work here.

Our journey throughout this research process has been tortuously labyrinthine and

puzzling. Its winding path and many rabbit holes have left us confused, disoriented, and

spent. We have experienced ourselves as rent apart by the push and pull of its nonlinear

force. We have lost, at times, our strength of mind and sense of purpose like captives

within a research maze of distorted fun-house mirrors. The identity and relationships of

the characters who populate its space have been continually put into question, and so

have our own. But a moment of hopeful anticipation sets in as we gaze at the dancer

above our heads. We imagine that this chapter marks the central turning point in the

labyrinth of this work. The fictional style with which we approached a narrative of the

Ariadnian myth, and the dramatic style through which we embodied Ariadne’s own

reflection of herself have moved us into a Dionysiac world where Corbin, Hillman, and

the Actress might each discover a resonant space which reflects his or her experientially

derived affinities for so called numinous creativity, whether they emerge from spiritual,

psychological, or theatrical paradigms. The Dionysian myth, in its wholeness, is inclusive

of each of them, without marginalizing any of them. Since the myth of Dionysos

embodies a space that includes each of their contrasting phenomenologically known

realities, we would like to suggest that it might provide an insightful response to our

research question. In other words, a further penetration of Dionysos’s world just might be

the central turn that opens to a passage of light which leads us to the conclusion of this

inquiry. But first we have one last stop to make along the way.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 164

Our next chapter is devoted to beauty because it is Ariadne’s beauty (which is her

thread and light wreath) that navigates the return of captives from the labyrinth. Once we

are better equipped to recognize this guiding light, we expect our pivot at the central

point of this research labyrinth, to carry this work homeward toward its Lord and Angel.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 165

Chapter 9
Beauty

Beauty Seen Through the Lens of Corbin’s Work on Ibn ‘Arabī

In Chapter 7 we discussed the Creative Feminine or Feminine Creator as an image

through which the mystic can most effectively prepare for the sophianic experience that

Ibn ‘Arabī refers to as the dialectic of love. Corbin’s exploration of this idea naturally

leads him to a discussion of beauty within its context. While Beauty is considered a

divine power and also a spiritual power, the significance of its role in the terrestrial world

can be inferred by the characteristic sacral feeling for sensible beauty amongst the Sūfīs

of Ibn ‘Arabī’s school. Beauty is often referred to as theophany par excellence; it is, in

other words, the ultimate exemplification of god as He appears to the human. The idea of

beauty as the manifestation of a god is also expressed in the narrative account of the

divine Sadness (and Hidden Treasure) whose existentiating sigh creates, as mirrors, the

world of beings, through which He “contemplate[s] His own Image, His own beauty”

(Corbin, 1997/1958, p. 148).

Corbin (1997/1958) tells us that a “form of being which is invested with Beauty . .

. is the image of the divine Compassion, creator of the being by which it was itself

created” (p. 163). A being who is invested with Beauty is, as such, a “manifestation of the

Creative Feminine” (p. 166). Corbin says that beauty’s potency, because it is spiritual, is

also creative. The power of beauty, he says, “creates love in man” (p. 164), and arouses

the nostalgia which carries him beyond mere appearances to the imaginal dimension.

This potency provokes the active Imagination to produce spiritual love which leads the

mystic “to self-knowledge, that is, to the knowledge of his divine Lord” (p. 164). Beauty
PSYCHE’S STAGE 166

leads us, in other words, toward our highest, deepest, unique selves. Beauty is a whisper

that hints at who we are; it is the beacon of an individual’s eachness, and an intimation of

his distinct purpose. Sacral Beauty, when recognized within the mundane world,

instigates an act of ta’wīl. It sparks the imagination. It carries the mystic who perceives

Sophia in all things back to the source and primordial yearning from which he came. It

carries him back to the Name which longs to be named through him––the Name whose

very existence depends on this naming.

The Odd Mix of Beauty and Fear

In teasing out a sense of Beauty’s role in Ibn ‘Arabī’s cosmogony, the passage

cited below stands out as one that deserves further attention. Describing his

understanding of Beauty as theophany par excellence, Corbin says:

We are dealing not with a purely aesthetic pleasure accompanied by a joyful

tonality but with the contemplation of human beauty as a numinous, sacral

phenomenon which inspires fear and anguish by arousing a movement toward

something which at once precedes and transcends the object in which it is

manifested, something of which the mystic gains awareness only if he achieves

the conjunction, the conspiration . . . of the spiritual and the sensory, constitutive

of mystic love. (Corbin, 1997/1958, p. 274)

Here the words fear and anguish (by the very fact that they seem anomalous within the

context of Corbin’s work) provoke us into deeper inquiry. We ask ourselves how this

connection between Beauty, fear, and anguish might be further imagined. How, we ask,

might the presence of Beauty (which seems almost analogous with Goodness and Love

within this mystic paradigm) be frightening and painful? Beauty, we are told, is a force
PSYCHE’S STAGE 167

that moves us backwards, toward something that precedes the object through which it

presents itself, and simultaneously forward towards some predestined becoming. So how

might this double movement inspire fear and anguish? Perhaps the experience demands

something of us, something that our customary logic cannot deliver. Perhaps we fear

Beauty’s controlling power over us, and the unreasonable risks it drives us to take.

A brief etymological excursion will further our sense of this intuitive leap. The

definition given to the Indo-European root (per-3) from which the word fear derives is:

“to try [or] risk” (Per-3, 1992, p. 2119). Other important derivatives of this root are

“peril, experience, experiment, expert, and empiric” (p. 2119). These words are the blood

relatives of fear. We can imagine the familial bond between them and the human’s

burden of carrying their shared DNA by recognizing fear in the danger of peril; by

sensing the closeness of fear, risk, and the act of surrendering to experience; by

acknowledging the fear inducing risks at stake in pursuing expertise as well as the

potentially perilous consequences of knowledge gained empirically, that is through

action, through experiments which take place not merely in our minds, but rather, in

partnership with the world. Hillman has said that beauty arrests motion, but here we see

that beauty is simultaneously a call to action. Since Beauty creates love in man and love

(as Corbin [1997/1958] has said) “never ceases to anticipate something that is still absent,

something deprived of being” (p. 155), the fear and anguish aroused by Beauty just might

be related to the impossible demands of love. Perhaps this fear and anguish which

accompanies Beauty anticipates the responsibility that comes with following Beauty’s

lure into love––the responsibility of transforming the absence anticipated by love into the

fullness of manifested being. We can imagine that the soul (with its definitive sense of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 168

incompleteness, and as such of inferiority) faced by the demands and promise of Beauty’s

lure would most certainly be aroused with fear and anguish. The redoubtable possibility

of failure, of not living up to the task at hand, would certainly loom large in the

background of Beauty’s alluring presence.

Hillman (2016) has explored the enigmatic mix of beauty and fear

psychologically through the myth of Aphrodite’s sexual union with Mars (the god of

War). He views this coupling as a syzygy (meaning a “conjunction of two organisms

without [the] loss of either’s identity” [p. 320]). This view adds another dimension to

Aphrodite’s beauty. “Internal to her nature,” he says, “is the trembling fear, the

dissolving terror and immensity given by Mars, which philosophers have named the

Sublime.” (p. 326).

Extreme displays in the natural world have long been viewed as expressions of

“the Sublime,” and so it follows that the beauty of Sophia’s wisdom, which is the wisdom

of the Earth, inspires both reverence and fear. This sensibility is exemplified by Dennis’s

1693 description (excerpted in The Sublime: A Reader in British Eighteenth-Century

Aesthetic Theory) of “Fury,” “terrible Joy,” and “transporting Pleasures” mingled with

“delightful Horrour” and “despair” in the landscape of the Alps (Ashfield & de Bolla,

1996, p. 59). In another passage from 1712, Addison (1996) similarly describes the

“agreeable horror” of sea and mountain tempests (p. 69). These examples speak to the

overwhelming presence of Aphrodite–Mars in Earth’s most dramatic presentations of

herself. Ultimately, her powers defy our attempts to grasp her intellectually. Her whims

are capable of re-creating or destroying us in an instant. Tsunamis, earthquakes, tornados,

hurricanes, lightening, and flash floods are all Aphrodites: hypnotic conveyors of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 169

“transporting Pleasures” and “agreeable horrors.” Sublime beauty stuns us with her

awesome presentations––engulfs us in the sheer drama of the moment––and strips us

from our smaller selves. She shocks us into life––sometimes in those very moments

where our literal deaths are met.

Incorporating Hillman’s Work

While Corbin draws our attention to the Sūfī’s affinity for sacral beauty in the

sensible world and reminds us often that the physical world is theophanic, his focus tends

to quickly shift toward spiritual heights and visionary experiences which are inaccessible

to most people. Hillman’s extensive writings on the subject of beauty (informed by

Corbin’s mystic perspectives and Platonic as well as Neoplatonic ideas) provide a

terrestrial orientation through which the sacral nature of beauty might be more readily

recognized, approached, and tended to in all aspects of everyday life. Our discussion here

focuses on passages within these writings that contribute most directly to this

dissertation’s emergent narrative which seeks to respond to the research question.

Hillman engages with the subject of beauty by way of “reversion,” borrowing the

idea of epistrophē from Plotinus: an idea “that all earthly things, all human themes seek

to return to their archai, their a priori nature or imaginal reality unlimited by the human”

(Hillman, 2016, p. 315). This idea might be viewed as a Greek version of the Islamic

concept of ta’wīl. As it pertains to our current task, epistrophē “means carrying the theme

of Beauty back to Aphrodite” (p. 315), the goddess of love and beauty who we have

already identified in previous chapters with the immortalized mortal born Ariadne. While

Hillman has scarcely mentioned Ariadne in his writings about Dionysos she has certainly

played a crucial role in bringing Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress together within the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 170

Dionysian world as reimagined by this dissertation. As such, the most fruitful and

insightful means for viewing Ariadne through the lens of Hillman’s perspective might be

accomplished by way of his writings on beauty and Aphrodite.

Just as beauty and spirit are inseparable in the celestial world that Corbin leans

toward, beauty and soul are inseparable in the world of Hillman’s leanings. Here

Aphrodite is variously imagined as both the soul itself, and as the revelation of soul’s

essence within things. Hillman directs us to several passages in the Enneads where the

Neoplatonist Plotinus (trans. 1992) refers to Aphrodite as the soul itself: “Aphrodite of

the myth is the Soul” (3.5.8), he says, and “Every soul is Aphrodite” or “the Soul is

always an Aphrodite” (6.9.9). Another, as translated in Hillman (2016), is : “Soul of All

is beautiful, that is Aphrodite is beautiful” (p. 315). The sine qua non of Hillman’s work

is his unrelenting concern for soul and here we see that this concern requires an

analogous concern for beauty.

Following Hillman’s (1992b) interpretation of Plato’s Phaedrus: beauty is “the

showing forth of the hidden noumenal Gods and imperceptible virtues like temperance

and justice. All these are but ideas, archetypes, pure forms, invisible didactic talk unless

accompanied by beauty” (p. 43). Plato (trans. 1961) tells us that beauty, which is itself

one of these virtues or noumens, is the “most manifest to sense” (Phaedrus, 250d).

Beauty thus becomes the means by which we recognize and know the hidden and less

perceptible Gods and virtues as living entities who permeate both world and self. As

Aphrodite, beauty makes them visible. Hillman (1992b) expresses this idea as follows:

With Aphrodite informing our philosophy, each event has its own smile on its

face and appears in a particular mode, fashion, style. Aphrodite gives an

PSYCHE’S STAGE 171

archetypal background to the philosophy of “eachness” and the capacity of the

heart to find “intimacy” with each particular event in a pluralistic cosmos. (pp.

45-46)

In this passage, we see a correspondence between Aphrodite who bestows “eachness”

upon events (as well as humans, things, and ideas) and Kerényi’s Ariadne who bestows

individuality upon a living creature. Aphrodite’s beauty moves us from abstract concepts

into the world itself, giving flesh to principles. Physical, visible, and sensuous: beauty’s

hidden depths shine forth in the mere appearance of things. Aphrodite’s “beauty refers to

the luster of each particular event––its clarity its particular brightness” (p. 43). Aphrodite

is “the golden one, the smiling one, whose smile made the world pleasurable and lovely”

(Hillman, 2006f, p. 178). Hillman (1992b) says: “All things as they display their innate

nature present Aphrodite’s goldenness; they shine forth and as such are aesthetic” (p. 44).

His view of beauty is related to the “ancient notion of aisthesis (sense perception)” (p.

42), to “the very sensibility of the cosmos” with its “textures, tones, [and] tastes” (p. 43).

It is the inner subjectivity of “objects” shining through on the face of things. It is sense

perception as it appears to the imagination. “It is appearance itself” (p. 45) It is “the

manifest anima mundi” (p. 43). Likening beauty to an aesthetic instinct, Hillman says:

“Psyche is the life of our aesthetic responses, that sense of taste in relation with things,

that thrill or pain, disgust or expansion of breast: those primordial aesthetic reactions of

the heart are soul itself speaking” (p. 39).

Aphrodite, like Dionysos, joins at the borders that which is usually thought to be

divided by borders. Hillman tells us that she is as apt to appear in the country as she is

within the city walls, but belongs to neither city or country. Such divisions do not apply
PSYCHE’S STAGE 172

to her. Something about her defies the very nature of walls, for walls “make separations

where she makes new unions” (Hillman, 2006e, p. 161). Aphrodite, like Dionysos, is an

embodiment of bothness. We have viewed her as both the soul itself, and as the

revelation of soul’s essence within things. As soul, she is also Psyche, for Psyche is soul,

and Hillman says that Psyche is beautiful by her very nature. Aphrodite (the goddess of

love and beauty) is therefore beautiful too. But paradoxically, Hillman tells us that beauty

for Plato and Plotinus is, in fact, not beautiful. Here he is speaking in terms of the

Apollonic sense of the word which encloses beauty within the walls of museums,

galleries, and didactic academic principles. Beauty is, on the contrary, present

everywhere. Following Hillman’s view of soul, if Aphrodite is soul, she is a perspective

and not a thing: a soul-making perspective who makes herself by way of reflection upon

her nature and purpose, dwelling in imagination, seeking herself in seeing through the

world.

The myth of Hephaestus (Aphrodite’s husband) provides a salient example of

beauty as not “not beautiful,” of beauty in the unexceptional, and the ordinary.

Hephaestus, god of fire, born of Hera, was a mere craftsman and metalworker: a

weapon’s maker and the object of his mother’s shame. “Though married to Aphrodite, he

was solitary, lamed, and ugly, a marginal Olympian” (Hillman, 2016, p. 322) who was

thrown out of heaven. (His story is elaborated upon in Chapter 10). In contrast to

beauty’s most grand displays, Hillman tells us that Hephaestus’s marriage to Aphrodite

reveals that Beauty is more permanently at home and “divinely yoked” to “the odd, the

unglorified, [and] the marginalized” (p. 322). He asks us to “imagine that beauty is

permanently given, inherent to the world in its data, there on display always.” (Hillman,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 173

2006f, p. 178). He says that “this inherent radiance lights up more translucently, more

intensively with certain events, particularly those events that aim to seize it and reveal it,

such as art works” (p. 178). Along these lines, Hillman (2016) suggests that a closer

understanding of Beauty might be reached by “enter[ing] the mind of the ‘different,’ long

. . . approach of the artist” (p. 322). We are inclined to read this sentence from the

perspective of the Actress whose “long approach” is one of becoming and embodying

that which is imagined. This embodiment is embodied within a world whose whole is

expressed as a play wherein she plays a part. The whole which is the play and its

inhabitant parts constitute each other as a drama. They are always inseparably related to

one another.

When Hillman calls upon the artist’s approach as means for coming closer to an

understanding of beauty, he is displaying his own Dionysian tendencies for bothness.

While he rejects the act of holding beauty hostage in art museums and galleries, he

acknowledges the capacity of art to heighten its radiance. The artist’s job, he says, is to

“reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary” (Hillman, 2006f, p. 179). We would like to

suggest that this revelatory capacity might be a visionary and numinous power that

corresponds on the terrestrial plane, with the power of a mystic’s visionary flights to

celestial planes. We would like to suggest that art, in other words, has the potential for

unveiling the sacral nature of our everyday world. Hillman appears to affirm this idea

when saying that the job is “not to distinguish and separate the ordinary and the

extraordinary, but to view the ordinary with the extraordinary eye of divine

enhancement” (p. 179).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 174

Hillman, as we know from our introduction, distinguishes art from creativity. His

intention in so doing is to dispel psychologies that separate artists or so called creative

geniuses from so called ordinary persons, thereby cutting ordinary persons off from

creativity, and creative geniuses off from common humanity. While we support the idea

of giving creativity back to the commons, our sense is that distinguishing art from

creativity misses the mark by severing art from its creative home. We prefer the idea of

opening the role of artist (and of mystic as well) up to ordinary persons, giving art more

space in common humanity through an exploration of its potential as a sacral practice.

We imagine this practice as one that opens itself to so called common folks as potential

artist–mystics. Artists and mystics, released from their former elitist enclaves, in

hyphenated form, thus become mediums by which the sacral nature of the world’s

presence as currently given might be seen, deepened, further illuminated, mirrored,

unveiled, dismembered, remembered, and transformed in service to the yearning that

brings all things to being. Here the lines dividing dissociable and captive or conjoined

imagination would no longer serve as judges who favor one side over the other.

Following Dionysos, who joins at the borders that which is usually separated by borders:

the practice of art (and more specifically for the purpose of this study, of theater) and that

of mysticism would rediscover a practice that weds the two. This practice would spring

from an essential premise: all that is given has a sacral dimension, and all vision can be

read as such. Here the line between secular and sacral becomes a matter of perspective

and intention. The border between dissociable and captive imagination is no longer a

concern, nor does it distinguish the mystic from the nonmystic. The unveiling of beauty
PSYCHE’S STAGE 175

in all things by way of imagination becomes the concern, and following the lure of beauty

toward transformative love becomes the goal.

In imagining the idea of a non-elitist, artist-mystic theatre by way of our

discussion on beauty as viewed by Corbin and Hillman, our labyrinthine pathway is

turning back to the world of Dionysos: a world where theatre and mysticism go hand in

hand. In our next three chapters, we turn to Seaford’s research on Dionysos in hopes of

gleaning a better understanding of the historical connection between the two. From there,

we hope to develop a sense of how this understanding might inform our emergent vision

of an artist–mystic theatre for today’s world.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 176

Chapter 10
Seaford’s Dionysos

The religious or mystic nature of Athenian tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays

performed at Dionysiac festivals during the classical period is apparently an enigma to

scholars who have written about the god. The authors who inform Hillman’s work have

clearly shown more interest in the secret rituals and philosophies of older mystery-cult

traditions than they have of later developments in formalized drama. The nominal

attention given to these developments, implies a prevailing attitude that Athenian drama

is somehow not truly Dionysiac. Our particular interest in the potential of theatre for

evoking a kind of numinous experience has prompted us to search for alternative

perspectives. Seaford’s (2006) Dionysos has provided us with an explicit and in depth

inquiry that speaks to our purpose. The following exploration discusses his research as a

means of grounding ourselves within a reality through which an idea of the actress–

mystic might be affirmed and further imagined. We have chosen to call this figure the

actress–mystic, as opposed to the actor–mystic, to reflect our vision of mystic-theatre as

an individuation process which aims for a restoration of feminine consciousness. Here we

are referring to feminine consciousness in the sense that it has been regarded throughout

this work.

Seaford’s (2006) introduction to Dionysos begins with a concise review of other

notable authors’ interpretations of the god. Many of his sources draw from the same pool

of scholars who informed Hillman’s writings. Seaford’s own work aims to address what

he views as the “over-abstractness” of Dionysiac material from Nietzsche on, by

grounding his perspectives in ancient practice and belief. His stance is that “Dionysiac
PSYCHE’S STAGE 177

ideas of the unity of opposites and the dissolution of boundaries are comprehensible only

if envisaged as pragmatic, as grounded in the reality of mystery-cult and its concomitant

beliefs” (p. 11).

Dionysos’s name appears for the first time in the thirteenth century BC on a clay

tablet containing economic records from Chania in Crete. Seaford (2006) refers to the

god as “our oldest living symbol” (p. 3), attributing his survival throughout antiquity (and

still today in the adjectival sense of the Dionysiac) to his continuous adaptation to

evolving needs, and to his likeliness (more than other gods) to embody that which has

been lost (p. 146).

That which is manifest and that which is hidden is eternally changing places in the

Dionysiac cosmos; Dionysos mixes things up. In Mazdean terms we could say that

Dionysos represents both the mēnōk and the gētīk by allowing the hidden and the

revealed to periodically switch positions. Plato’s Socrates affirms this sense of his

relationship with mixture by evoking “Dionysus or Hephaestus” (gods assigned with the

“function of mingling”) to aid his search for the good in a well-mixed life (Philebus,

trans. 1961c, 61c). Since the terrestrial world in Mazdaism is definitively a world of

mixture, Dionysos might be imagined as a god who helps us find balance amidst the

vicissitudes, challenges, and fears we face as inhabitants of this inherently mixed world.

But he is also a god who facilitates the crossing of boundaries beyond this world. As we

shall see in the discussion that follows, the secret rituals of Dionysos’s mystic cult deal

with the process of overcoming our fears of leaving it, in other words, our fears of death.

Seaford (2006) says that “Dionysos exists in our own world, as an irreducible

symbol for the antithesis of something basically wrong with our society” (p. 12). As we
PSYCHE’S STAGE 178

imagine it, the gnosis (or knowledge) which this antithesis makes available to us, is

offered up in the activity of drama; the gnosis is embodied by way of enactment within a

living story that plays the role of a whole where all its parts are necessary. The playing of

the story’s parts constitutes this whole, and the whole––in turn––constitutes the parts.

They create and re-create each other, in constant relationship with each other. Perhaps it

is worth noting the similarity of this relationship between the whole as a play, and its

players as its parts––and the relationship between a divine Name, and the being who

names it (as discussed in our chapter on Ibn ‘Arabī’s dialectic of love).

Seaford’s (2006) overall conception of Dionysos arises from the god’s power “to

transform individual identity” (p. 11). This transformation has a unifying function which

serves the needs of an encompassing group or relative whole to which the individual

belongs. For the purpose of this study, we shall focus on the role that dramatic enactment

has played in this transformational process by calling upon examples within the myth

itself, within mystery-cult ritual, and finally, within the evolution of Greek tragedy.

Seaford argues that Greek tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays––which were performed at

Dionysiac festivals in the classic era––evolved (at least in part) from mystery-cult

initiation practices, as a response to the evolving needs of the community. This

community found its expression in the development of the Greek polis. Our task will be

to enter and to engage with the world constituted by his argument, allowing its presence,

as it comes to stand in the present, to respond to our research question.

Seaford discusses four important themes associated with Dionysos as a means for

establishing the pragmatic functions of the god’s cult, as they evolved throughout its

history, in accordance with shifting societal demands. These themes are nature,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 179

communality, epiphany, and death. Our discussion of them below will provide the

necessary context for an exploration of mystery-cult ritual and the emergence of Greek

tragedy.

Dionysos and Nature

Dionysos has been viewed as the god of wine and “the unrestrained joys of

nature” (p. 15) for many centuries but this idealistic perspective of nature is a relatively

recent conception constituted in large part by the fantasies of those who live in cities. As

Hillman and Seaford have both observed, nature throughout most of human history has

been known as an ominous entity full of destructive powers which needs to be controlled.

Hillman (2006e) expresses this idea in the following passage taken from his essay

“Natural Beauty Without Nature”:

During many periods, nature––or the physical world “out there” including the

seas, and the mountains, and the forests––was considered to be demonic. . . . The

forests were places of miasma, of disease, of pagans . . . of all kinds of bad things.

What we now call “nature” was not a good place. The wilderness was for

centuries dreaded. (p. 157)

These so called “demonic powers” of nature were once imagined as gods. Dionysos is a

god who both embodies and cultivates these powers. For this very reason, he has the

potential to be both devastatingly dangerous and equally valuable to mankind. Powers of

destruction and transformation belong to Dionysos.

The vine and wine.

The powers of nature attributed to Dionysos are perhaps most commonly

represented by his role as the god of the vine and of wine. Dionysos is a god who
PSYCHE’S STAGE 180

cultivates raw nature with the transformative but also ambiguous gift of viticulture. The

power of wine to induce laughter, encourage joyful dance, loosen sorrow and inhibition,

relieve pain, and break down social barriers inspiring communality is seen as a boon on

the one hand. But this same gift has the power to engender death and violence on the

other. In myth, this danger is represented by a story in which Dionysos first introduces

the magic of the vine and winemaking to a man called Ikarios (from Ikarion). Thankful

for the gift, Ikarios generously shares his wine with the neighbors who suspect him of

poisoning them after experiencing the unfamiliar sensation of drunkenness.

Consequently, they murder him. His daughter Erigone, discovers the body and is so

aggrieved that she hangs herself. In Kerényi’s (1976) complicated analysis of this myth,

Ikarios is considered as a kind of double for Dionysos and Erigone is viewed as the

Ariadne figure of Ikarion and Athens (p. 155).

Seaford (2006) says that “religious ritual, and indeed religion in general, attempts

to control the power of what is unknown” (p. 74). In ritualizing the process of cultivating

and imbibing wine, the entire community benefited from its power to inspire

communality and joy while minimizing the unknown consequences of unleashing its

more destructive capacities. Dionysiac ritual often took the form of an encompassing

occasion and event with two foundational components: a festival in which the entire

community participated, and a private gathering of female cult members where secret

rites and initiations were performed.

Seaford mentions two seasonally recurring festivals in which the production and

tasting of wine were ritualized. The Oschophoria was celebrated in autumn by the

Athenians at the joyful and economically significant time of the vintage and wine-
PSYCHE’S STAGE 181

pressing. The Anthesteria, celebrated in late February, was centered on the opening of the

wine produced the previous autumn. As the oldest known Dionysiac festival, it was

celebrated in many Ionian communities, though our more detailed knowledge of it comes

mostly from Athens. These festivals (and Dionysiac festivals, in general) provided

ritualistic containers through which the god’s ambiguous powers could be embodied and

balanced to benefit the individual and community as a whole. Dionysos’s capacity for

providing this balance is tangibly exemplified by the practice of drinking wine mixed

with water at the Anthesteria. This custom has been envisaged by historians as a

commemoration of the introduction of the practice by Dionysos himself (Seaford, 2006,

pp. 21-22). Here we see a lesser known side of the god who is more readily associated

with madness and ecstasy than balance. But both are inherent to his nature. From

Herodotus (trans. 1952) we learn that drinking unmixed wine could cause madness

(6.84). We can thus infer (in accordance with Hillman’s perspective) that Dionysos––

who is widely known as a mad god and the god of wine––embodies both the affliction

and its remedy within the wholeness of his cosmology.

While Dionysos is associated with numerous aspects of nature, it would be remiss

of us to apply this association indiscriminately to nature in general ignoring the

distinguishing characteristics of these associations. As god of the vine and wine,

Dionysos’s affinity for dissolving boundaries expresses itself in the cultivation of raw

nature and in the synthesis of nature and culture. From this association, we see that

Dionysos’s relationship with nature and borders, is essentially creative, involving a

collaboration between the manifest world and its latent potentialities in an act of re-
PSYCHE’S STAGE 182

creation which can be metaphorically likened to the Islamic cosmologies previously

discussed.

Other associations and identifications.

Dionysos’s relationship to nature is not solely one of association; it is also

characterized by his identification with it. As exemplified by the tales of his myth, these

associations and identifications with various aspects of nature are many. They include a

variety of specific plants, animals, natural phenomena, and mythical creatures such as

satyrs (who embody the animal, human, and divine immortal all in one being). In the

plant world Dionysos is most known for his association with the vine, the grape, and its

cultivated form: wine. But he is also identified with them. At times, he is the vine; he is

the grape; he is the wine. And this is the case with other associations as well. Dionysos

becomes his associations. He embodies them. They are, as such, epiphanies. Other

vegetative life associations of his include ivy, fruit, flowers, and trees––especially pine

and fig. “According to Plutarch (Moralia 675) all Greeks sacrifice to Dionysos as tree

god (Dendrites)” (Seaford, 2006, p. 23).

Dionysos is also associated with the personified seasons in Greek texts from the

classical period onward. Seaford (2006) interprets these texts, in conjunction with

artwork on mosaics and sarcophagi of late antiquity, as indications that Dionysos

symbolizes “the cycle of the rebirth of nature” (p. 23). As we have seen in the tales of his

myth, he is also associated with the element of water. Otto (1960/1965), drawing from

Plutarch, says Dionysos “was the lord and bearer of all moist nature” (p. 156) according

to Greek belief. He is associated and identified with certain natural forces as well. He is
PSYCHE’S STAGE 183

invoked in a number of sources, including Euripides’ tragedy “The Bacchae” as “Einosis,

i.e. Earthquake” (Seaford, 2006, p. 42).

In the animal-world he is variously associated or identified with the snake, bull,

goat, and panther. In the pirate story (recalled in Chapter 6) he transforms himself into a

lion. Seaford (2006) observes that “the god has a unique rapport with those beasts that are

uncontrollable by humans” (p. 23). Dionysos becomes the things we fear.

Not only Dionysos, but his followers as well, are often associated and identified

with animals. They too, embody the things we fear. The initial maenads suckle and

slaughter wild beasts as if they are wild beasts themselves. They are often represented

“wearing the skins of fawns or leopards” (Seaford, 2006, p. 24). In Chapter 6, we

witnessed the most extreme and gruesome examples of humans identifying with animals

in stories where Dionysos’s nature within them was resisted. For example––when Agave

and other housewives resisted Dionysos’s cult, they were identified as hounds who

hunted down and ripped apart her son because they imagined he was lion.

Identification with nature, as we have seen, is abundantly present within the myth

of Dionysos. It also plays a crucial role in Dionysiac ritual. Scenes depicted on vase

paintings––which are most likely inspired by the public processions that set the

Anthesteria festivals in motion––show men or boys dressed as satyrs, playing pipes, and

escorting a ship-shaped cart that transports Dionysos himself (who is represented by a

statue or citizen who acts the part). At the Great Dionysia festivals, chorus members of

satyric dramas were dressed as satyrs. And in mystery-cult, initiates were thought to

imitate Sileni, satyrs, rams, bulls, Nymphs, and Pans.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 184

Lastly, Seaford (2006) tells us that “nature itself joins in Dionysiac cult” (p. 25).

The rocks, rivers, and the very ground we walk upon become enlivened and engaged as

fellow players in anima mundi’s drama. Like Dionysos turned lion, bull, goat, vine, or

wine––like the human turned hound or Satyr––in Dionysiac cult the rock, river and

ground become figures of enactment playing roles in concert with nature’s other players,

transforming their prior identities. This dynamic is especially vivid in Euripides’ drama

“The Bacchae,” which depicts the establishment of Dionysiac mystery-cult in the city of

Thebes.

When the play opens, Dionysos has already entranced the Theban women and

driven them into the mountains at Cithaeron where they experience a strange and magical

coherence with nature. Here, a woman strikes a rock with her thyrsus and a fountain of

cool water bubbles up. Another drives her fennel into the earth and a spring of wine pours

out. Others, who desire milk, scratch at the soil with bare fingers as white milk and honey

emerge and spurt from the earth’s floor. The Dionysiac women thus display seemingly

wondrous powers, but Seaford’s view that “nature itself joins in Dionysiac cult” (p. 25)

suggests that the rocks, the earth, and the soil might be imagined as creatures who

transform their identities via enactment just as the god’s other followers are prone to do.

The soil thus comes to know herself as a hybrid creature––part mother, part bee––nursing

her infant with milk and honey; the rock, in turn, embodies the fountain gushing forth

with water. The earth plays winemaker; thyrsus plays god; and who is to say, whom

amongst them, authored the play that they all take part in? Dionysos is, after all, the

Undivided.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 185

In “The Bacchae” we see this coherence intensify when a group of cowherds and

shepherds decide to win the favor of the king by hunting down the Dionysiac revelers.

Now the whole of nature seems to rise up against these schemers in support of the

women. A messenger reports that the devotees cried aloud “until the beasts and all the

mountain seemed wild with divinity. And when they ran, everything ran with them”

(Euripides, trans. 1959, 725-730).

Two themes which inform our emergent vision of an artist–mystic theatre.

Considering Dionysos’s relationship with nature, in terms of how it might inform

the idea of a current day non-elitist artist–mystic theatre, we would like draw upon two

salient themes from the discussion above. The first theme, which finds its expression in

the cultivation of raw nature and the synthesis of nature and culture, is essentially about

Dionysos’s capacity to transform himself and the world he inhabits. The second theme is

identification. In the Dionysiac world, fulfillment of the first of these is made possible via

the activity of the second. Transformation (as the cultivation of raw nature and the

synthesis of nature and culture) occurs, in other words, when nature’s others are

embodied and known from within their reality. An artist–mystics’ theatre informed by

these themes and by their correspondence with the god’s relationship to nature, might

thus foster an environment where plants, animals, humans, the elements and forces of

nature, as well as gods and hybrid creatures could be embodied and or addressed as

characters that constitute and are constituted by the world which they inhabit (the world

of the play). Going forward, these two themes––transformation and identification––will

be explored as they apply to the Dionysiac world more broadly.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 186

Communality

The content of Seaford’s key themes (nature, communality, epiphany, mystery-

cult, death, and theatre) overlap and incorporate each other. Dionysos’s associations and

identifications with nature are present within the theme of communality, and certain

Dionysiac patterns or aspects which have surfaced in exploring the god’s relationship to

nature will emerge again as we investigate the other key themes. We would like to

suggest that these recurring patterns or aspects might prove instructive as we imagine the

making of a current day artist–mystic theatre. In our section on nature, we learned that

Dionysiac festivals provided structures in which raw nature could be cultivated, and

containers in which nature’s ambiguous powers could be embodied and benefitted from

through a balanced approach inherent to the god’s own nature. These festivals also

provided a structure and container in which Dionysos’s “overwhelming power to inspire

communality” (Seaford, 2006, p. 26) could be engendered, promoted, and developed via

enactment (which is a form of identification). Identification (or enactment) is thus an

essential aspect of the god’s relationship with both nature and communality. Another

aspect of Dionysos’s correspondence with nature, which is reiterated by his

correspondence with communality, is ambiguity. These three topics––enactment,

ambiguity, and the festival––will play a central role in our discussion of Dionysiac

communality.

Seaford (2006) defines communality as “the sum of the feelings and actions of

several individuals that promote and express their simultaneous belonging to the same

group” (p. 26). Historically speaking, communality has variously expressed itself in

accordance with the issues, circumstances, and concerns particular to the inhabitants of a
PSYCHE’S STAGE 187

given space and time. In the context of our discussion above, we can imagine that

Dionysiac inspired communality arose initially as a human defense against the potentially

life threatening forces of nature, and a corresponding collaborative effort to cultivate

nature for the good and safety of a group of individuals and families as a whole. Seaford

tells us that “communality breaks down individual self-containment and may replace it

with a sense of wholeness” (p. 26). During the classical period the contextual “whole” or

group to which Dionysiac inspired communality refers, is the Greek city-state polis,

characterized by Athenian democracy which “emerged from tyranny at the end of the

sixth century BC” (p. 37). Dionysiac festivals thus played a crucial role in expressing,

promoting, and displaying the unity and strength of the polis to its citizens and others

who might have otherwise felt compelled to threaten it.

Inclusion of the weak and marginalized classes.

Dionysos’s power to inspire communality is associated “with the celebrations of a

whole community” (Seaford, 2006, p. 27), even its marginalized citizens. At the

Anthesteria, for instance, children and slaves were included in the wine drinking (p. 18),

and during the City Dionysia (a spring festival important to the genesis of Greek

tragedy), it is said that prisoners were released from jail, and “the freeing of the slaves

was announced in the theatre” (p. 29).

Tales from the god’s myth show us that Dionysos is both identified and associated

with members of the weak and the marginalized populations. First, we might recall the

child god who is literally torn apart by the Titans. And then we might remember the

young deity who is displaced and disguised again and again for his own protection from

the jealous Hera’s plots to destroy him. And later, as a youth, Dionysos is so frightened
PSYCHE’S STAGE 188

by the violent pursuits of King Lykourgas that he leaps into the sea to avoid capture. He

is also a god who experiences madness. Each of these cases are examples of the god as

weak or marginalized. Dionysos is portrayed as having humanlike vulnerabilities: to such

a degree, that he––like all humans––is even subjected to death.

A tale of Hephaistos and Dionysos further exemplifies the god’s association with

the marginalized classes. Hephaistos was initially introduced during our discussion of

Hillman’s speculations on beauty. As established there, he was considered an inferior

god, but paradoxically he was married to Aphrodite––the goddess of love and beauty. A

mere craftsman, a metalworker, and a weapons maker, “he was solitary, lamed, and ugly,

a marginal Olympian” (Hillman, 2016, p. 322). In the version of his story entertained

here, Hephaistos is born lame. His mother, the goddess Hera, who is shamed by his

deformity, casts him out of Olympus and throws him down to earth. The justifiably bitter

Hephaistos then crafts a throne of gold equipped with concealed fetters designed to bind

whomever sits upon it, and sends it anonymously to his mother as a gift. Predictably,

Hera sits upon the throne. Bound to it by her hands and feet, she is instantly trapped. No

one, except Hephaistos, is capable of releasing her, so the Olympians recall him back to

Olympus, but he stubbornly rejects the summons. Dionysos, the god who dissolves

differences, is sent to fetch him. And so the story goes that Dionysos makes Hephaistos

drunk. When the emotionally hardened castaway is sufficiently loosened by the socially

integrating power of the wine, Dionysos sets the once dejected god upon a mule who

returns him home to Olympus.

Dissolving the societal boundaries by which some are privileged and others are

marginalized, be it in heaven (i.e. on Olympus) or on earth, Dionysiac consciousness

PSYCHE’S STAGE 189

acknowledges the necessity for that which is generally discounted and rejected. This

consciousness is present in Seaford’s vision of the god’s capacity to inspire communality

via the transformation of individual identity, and in Hillman’s vision of a reimagined

feminine. Associating the tale of Hephaistos’s return to Olympus with Dionysos’s

practical role inspiring communality in the Greek city-state polis, Seaford (2006) reminds

us that craftsmen (though marginalized) “are necessary, and so their political exclusion

threatens the community” (p. 30). In this reminder, we hear an echo of Hillman’s stance

that the marginalized feminine characteristics which our excessively dominant Apollonic

society would annihilate if it could, are also necessary.

If we were to speculate on the theme of communality in respect to the genesis of a

current day artist–mystic theatre based on our discussion up to this point, we would

venture to say that special care should be taken to assure the inclusion of marginalized or

weak individuals and classes of people, as well as their concerns. As we continue to

explore the theme of communality we shall see how Dionysos’s “inclusiveness” (Seaford,

p. 27) relates to the topics identified above: ambiguity, identification, and the festival.

Dionysos’s inclusiveness has a contradictory, paradoxical, ambiguous side to it.

His inclusiveness includes, in other words, an element of exclusiveness. In Euripides’

“The Bacchae,” which “dramatises the ‘aetiological myth’ of the cult” (Seaford, 2006, p.

33), the god’s intention is to gain the praise of all Theban citizens. His desire is for the

young and old alike to join his dances. The character of Teiresias says Dionysos “desires

his honor from all mankind. He wants no one excluded from his worship” (Euripides,

trans., 1959, 208-209), but the Theban women who dance in the mountains of Cithaeron

and the chorus of Asian Bacchae who joined the god during his travels in distant lands,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 190

represent an exclusive band of Dionysiac female followers. This paradox also expresses

itself in a common characteristic of Dionysiac festivals, in general, where public rituals in

which the entire community participated were celebrated along with separate secret

rituals performed by a select group of female mystery-cult initiates and initiands.

We shall now look to the Anthesteria festival as a means of further imagining how

Dionysos’s association with the marginalized classes, and his ambiguous inclusiveness

manifested themselves in practice. Here again, we shall see that enactment

(identification) plays a primary role.

Thiasos and the procession.

Dionysos’s power to inspire communality, which includes the entire polis, is

mythically evoked by the cortege that accompanies him: his thiasos. In practice, the

concomitant diversity and unity expressed by Dionysos’s ecstatic train of revelers was

embodied in public processions that led the entire polis to a central location where the

festivals that honored the god commenced. These processions incorporated music, dance,

costumes, role play, and even functional scenery. Piping boys and men dressed as satyrs

marched victoriously from the sea or outskirts of town into the city’s center flanking a

ship shaped cart on wheels carrying Dionysos who was embodied by a statue or citizen

dressed for the part. In vase paintings depicting this event, Dionysos is seated in the

processional cart holding a vine in the sky that spans the length of the ship, like a canopy,

with bunches of grapes that dangle from its stem. Scholars have suggested (based on

these paintings) that the Anthesteria processions commemorated the god’s epiphanic

victory over the pirates who kidnapped him and his victorious arrival on land thereafter.

(We recalled this story in Chapter 6). Festival processions have thus been imagined as
PSYCHE’S STAGE 191

reenactments of the god’s own procession to the city center, accompanied by his

characteristic exotic train of wild animals and mythical creatures, announcing his return.

His triumphant arrival on land from the sea has been interpreted as a return from death,

and a rebirth signifying the transformation from the suffering and persecution in the

second phase of his life into the joyful transcendence and immortalization of the third.

Transformation of the marginalized via the enactment of myth.

As we have just seen, Dionysiac processions have been viewed as

commemorations and reenactments of myth. The commemoration and reenactment of

myth has also been attributed to various secret mystery-cult rituals. One such ritual

provides us with an intriguing example of Dionysos’s astonishing power to dissolve

differences between the marginalized and ruling classes. It has been imagined that a

secret ritual, which followed the Anthesteria public processions, involved a select group

of women and the sexual union between Dionysos and the wife of the king (in actuality,

the magistrate) at the royal house. This ritual resembles a myth in which King Oeneus of

Calydon is rewarded with the gift of wine after respectfully withdrawing while Dionysos

has sex with his wife (Seaford, 2006, p. 19; Kerényi, 1976, p. 76). Here the social

boundaries that divide the ruling and marginalized classes are dissolved via enactment

and role reversal. Coveted privileges of the powerful are ritually withdrawn from those

who are advantaged and embodied by the disadvantaged. Dionysos thus promotes the

unity of the polis in playing the role of leveler. In Seaford’s (2006) words: “This

symbolic limitation on the autonomy of the royal household benefits––as does the

opening of new wine––the community as a whole” (p. 19).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 192

Tension between communalities.

In the discussion above, we identified a seemingly contradictory aspect to the

communality inspired by Dionysos, which is exemplified in the contrast of both inclusive

and exclusive activities characteristic of his cult. Perhaps the contradiction is an essential

given, necessitated by the a priori conditions of our earthly existence. As the Mazdeans

might say: we live in a world of mixture. In a world of mixture, we naturally belong to

multiple groups, and sometimes the interests of one seemingly conflict with those of

another. The customary responsibilities and expected benefits of household communality,

for instance, might be trumped by those of the more encompassing polis and whole to

which Dionysiac inspired communality in the classical period refers. The mystery-cult

enactment of Dionysos copulating with the king’s wife ritually resolves this

contradiction.

A similar paradox is exemplified by a general practice in which the women of

various city-states temporarily left their homes and household duties to gather in the

mountains where they “sacrifice[d] and hymn[ed] the presence of Dionysos in imitation

of his ancient companions the maenads” (Seaford, 2006, p. 34). Seaford refers to this

contradictory dynamic as a “tension between communalities” (pp. 35-36). In a discussion

to follow, we shall explore his argument that “the opening up of the mystic ritual to the

whole polis at the City Dionysia, was a factor in the genesis of tragedy” (p. 35).

Performance of Greek tragedy (as well as other dramatic genres) might thus be imagined

as a form of non-elitist mystic practice with the affirmative strength of historically

informed imagination to back it.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 193

Epiphany

In the American Heritage Dictionary, epiphany has been generally defined as a

“revelatory manifestation of a divine being” (Epiphany, 1992, p. 619). Angelophanies

and theophanies (frequently discussed in Corbin’s works) are, as such, also epiphanies.

Visions too, are epiphanies. Sightings of these phenomena are most often associated with

a gifted few, who are designated as mystics (and sometimes madmen). Throughout this

dissertation, however, we have continually expanded our definitive sense of these

concepts, allowing them to penetrate our perception of the everyday terrestrial world and

person. Seaford’s insights on epiphany serve this intent as well. In our discussion above

we learned that Dionysiac festivals are often characterized by a combination of public

rituals, on the one hand, in which the entire community participates, and private mystery-

cult rituals on the other which are secret to all but a select group of women. Two types of

epiphany respectively correspond with these distinct classes of ritual activity. For the

moment, we direct our attention to epiphany’s more public face. This face lends itself

more easily to less literal views of vision. It smiles more readily and inclusively at the

layman mystic. We shall return to the more literal and exclusive epiphanic vision,

characteristic of mystery-cult, later. Seaford (2006) says:

Epiphany occurs when deity (or its manifestations) is perceived by one or more of

the senses. It will include for instance even the arrival of a statue of a deity in a

procession, in so far as the onlookers imagine themselves to be seeing the deity.

(p. 39)

This passage, when taken within the context of our discussion on Anthesteria

processions, tells us that the public reenactment of myth by the whole community serves
PSYCHE’S STAGE 194

as an invocation to the god whose consequential epiphany is variously sensed, imagined,

and experienced by its citizens. The communal re-creation and embodiment of

Dionysos’s world, person, and story seemingly call him forth. Seeing him becomes an act

of imagining that he is sighted, while simultaneously creating the conditions in which this

sighting would be likely to occur.

Of all the Greek deities Dionysos has been considered the “most manifest” of the

gods, “the most given to epiphany,” the most likely “to manifest himself among

humankind; and to do so in various forms” (Seaford, 2006, p. 39). It has even been

thought that Dionysos is “present within his worshippers” (p. 39). Seaford says that “the

miraculous appearance of ivy or vine, or of wine seem to indicate his presence, or even

his embodiment in what appears” (p. 39). This statement reminds us of Hillman’s

description of beauty as the mere appearance of things––as the very fact that they appear

at all, and appear as they do. This remembrance gives way to another: Hillman’s image of

beauty as the shining forth of Aphrodite’s smile in the face of things. And from here we

are carried back to Ariadne’s identification with Aphrodite. These free associations, taken

together seem to imply the presence or embodiment, not only of Dionysos, but also of

Ariadne in that which appears. Perhaps this is an intimation that beauty and love play an

integral part in epiphany.

Epiphany as responses to ritual and crisis.

Seaford (2006) discusses two main contexts in which epiphanies tend to occur:

ritual and crisis. He tells us that both of them are “occasions for the enactment of human

control over disorder” (p. 40). These contexts are not necessarily distinct from each other;

they often interpenetrate. In the context of ritual, one might seek control over actual
PSYCHE’S STAGE 195

disorder or potential disorder. Sometimes, in the context of crisis, epiphany occurs

spontaneously. But the pursuit for control over disorder during crisis, can be consciously

sought through ritual as well. Temporary crisis can also be intentionally effectuated in

rituals designed to prepare an initiand for situations of anticipated potential disorder. This

appears to be the case with mystery-cult initiation which prepares the initiand for “life”

beyond death. Here a crisis is simulated to create the conditions by which epiphany and a

corresponding transformation has been known to occur spontaneously. Seaford likens this

ritually imposed crisis and resultant transformation to a death rehearsal through which the

initiand overcomes the fear of death.

Epiphany as a response to invocation.

Epiphany might also “occur in response to invocation” (Seaford, 2006, p. 40).

Rituals are, in other words, mediums through which the god might be invoked. As we

have seen, in the case of Dionysiac processions, and as we shall see with mystery-cult,

and then with the dramatic performances of Greek tragedy, rituals are often based upon

myths that serve as models of transformation. The dramatization of myth is, as such, a

form of invocation––a means of calling upon a god or gods––and concomitantly a form

through which the god or gods might appear in response. From this viewpoint, the

dramatization of myth––because it constitutes an intermediary space between matter and

spirit––might also be called imaginal.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 196

Chapter 11
Seaford on Mystery-Cult

Our earliest detailed evidence of mystery-cult (which in this case refers to

Eleusinian initiation) is provided by The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, composed sometime

between 650 and 550 BC. Intimations of Dionysiac mystery-cult in particular, have been

observed by Isler-Kerényi in Attic vase paintings of the sixth century BC, and inscription

evidence gathered by Seaford (2006) suggests that it existed at least by the 5th century

BC. Shrouded in secrecy at the time––our knowledge of Dionysiac mystery-cult (and

mystery-cult in general) remains limited, even today. Seaford’s analysis of the topic is

based on evidence gathered from a variety of literary and visual sources in multiple

disciplines. His visual resources are illustrations of Dionysiac scenes which seemingly

correspond to the initiatory practices, philosophies, and beliefs of the cult. These scenes

are depicted on various mediums including: Attic vase paintings from the sixth century

BC, various works of art from the imperial period of Roman Italy, terracotta plaques from

the mid-first century to the mid-second century AD, and Roman Empire sarcophagi from

the first to the fourth centuries AD. Of particular note, in respect to the research at hand,

is the frequent “presence of mythical followers of Dionysos . . . . [and] of masks” (p. 64)

in these initiatory renderings. It is also of note that several representations depict the

initiands as children. The significance of these observations will become clear in what

follows.

Seaford also draws from various forms of inscription evidence dating from the

fifth century BC into the third century AD. Among these are inscriptions found on small

bones plates, which appear to be tokens given to the initiated. Three of these, “dated to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 197

the fifth century BC, contain various inscriptions including the name of Dionysos, and

the words ‘life death life’, ‘peace war’, and ‘truth falsehood’” (Seaford, 2006, p. 52).

Further evidence has been found on “so-called gold leaves, small inscribed strips of gold

buried with the dead” (p. 54). These tokens have been viewed as records of what initiates

learned about the underworld during initiation. Some inscriptions indicate that the

performance of drama or at least the enactment of myth was involved in Dionysiac

mystery-cult initiation and ritual. In one such inscription various persons are designated

with the title “nurse of Dionysos” (p. 68). Seaford says that this suggests “either the

performance of a drama about the infancy of the god or at least dressing in costumes of

the Nymphs or Silens who were his nurses” (p. 68). Another detailed inscription puts

forth the rules for admission and the disciplinary requirements related to the feasts of an

all-male association called Iobakchoi. This inscription tells us that participants are

required “with all good order and calm to speak and perform the parts (merismous) under

the direction of the archibakchos” (p. 68). This evokes, from our viewpoint, an image of

the relationship that exists between a cast of actors and the director who guides them for

the sake of the play as a whole. We also learn that “the archibakchos is to perform a

sacrifice and libation” (p. 68) on the tenth of the month of Elaphebolion. This timing

coincides with the first day of the City Dionysia––a festival in which drama was

performed. (We shall speak of this festival again regarding its importance to the

development of Greek tragedy.) In several inscriptions from the first and second centuries

AD there is mention of an association called “the assembly of technitai (i.e. actors)” (p.

68). Other inscriptions and multiple visual sources “seem to indicate the impersonation of

satyrs and silens” (p. 68). One inscription from the third century AD which refers “to a
PSYCHE’S STAGE 198

water-organist awakening the god may suggest a ritual in which the experience of the

initiate returning from death is modelled on the awakening of Dionysos” (p. 69). This

sampling of inscription evidence suggests that Dionysiac mystery-cult initiation involved

dramatic performances or mythical enactments in which the themes of birth, death, and

rebirth were central. Other sources support this theory as well. Seaford tells us that an

epitaph from southeast Bulgaria suggests that the deceased woman to which it refers may

have been involved in a mystic ritual in which she was imagined to have participated “in

the death and apotheosis of Semele” (p. 69). In an anonymous Orphic Hymn composed

for the use of initiates somewhere in western Asia Minor, there is mention of a ritual in

which “Semele’s birth-pain for her son Dionysos” (p. 70) is re-enacted every other year.

Seaford’s research draws from Euripides’ “The Bacchae” as its richest literary

source. As a dramatization of “the aetiological myth of the Theban cult of Dionysos, i.e.

the myth that explains and narrates its founding” (p. 54), this tragedy prefigures the

secrets of Dionysiac mystery-cult initiation, and the festival which is open to all. This

resource, when properly understood, is “invaluable evidence of the subjective experience

of the Dionysiac initiand” (p. 52). Many characteristics of Dionysiac initiation, as

depicted in “The Bacchae,” are strikingly analogous to various aspects of Corbin’s

interpretations of mystic doctrines, especially those elaborated in his book The Man of

Light in Iranian Sūfism. As such, we shall explore these similarities and simultaneously

imagine the world of Dionysiac mystery-cult initiation through the lens of this tragedy.

Our hope is that this approach will further our hierohistorical sense of correspondence

between Corbin’s Iranian inspired mysticism and the universe where Dionysos dwells,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 199

while concomitantly enhancing our vision of a non-elitist artist–mystic theatre for today’s

world.

Seaford (2006) says that mystery-cult initiation is a “rite of passage,” in other

words, “a ritual that changes fundamentally the state or status” (p. 49) of a person. In his

view, “mystery-cult involves the incorporation (or ‘initiation’) of an individual into a real

or imagined group which belongs at least in part to the next world” (p. 49) The successful

completion of initiation begins with the initiand’s choice to undertake a “secret and

frightening ritual” which ultimately “consists of a transition from the anxious ignorance

of an outsider,” through a death-like experience, “into a new blissful state as an insider

(initiate)” (p. 49). This is a broad definition which does not apply to mystery-cult in all

cases, but it does describe a basic structure for ritual enactments that honored various

deities for many centuries (including Dionysos, Demeter, Isis, and Attis).

The plot of “The Bacchae” can be interpreted as a dramatized initiation in itself.

Seaford tells us that the odd behavior and experiences of King Pentheus correspond with

those attributed to the anxious reluctance, resistance, and fear of the paradigmatic

initiand. Additionally, the conditions by which the young king’s responses are incited,

correspond with the transformative methods used in mystery-cult initiation rituals. Many

of these experiences and methods metaphorically parallel aspects of Corbin’s mystic

translations as well. These, in particular, shall be given our special attention.

Resistance, Confusion, Disorientation, Anxiety, and Fear in Mystery-Cult

Ritual often includes the characteristic resistance of a potential initiate. By

including resistance in the process of ritual, a space which allows for the possibility of

overcoming it, is created. This phase is represented in “The Bacchae” in a number of

PSYCHE’S STAGE 200

ways. At the outset of the play, Dionysos has recently arrived in the city of Thebes (his

birth place) after several years of foreign travel establishing his mysteries and rites in

Lydia, Phrygia, Persia, Bactria, Media, Arabia, and Asia. Upon arrival, the god is

disguised as a Dionysiac priest, and accompanied by his female devotees––the Asian

Bacchae––amassed from this journey. These followers––who serve as the contemporary

equivalent of the god’s original mythical thiasos––are represented by the chorus. The

grave site where Dionysos’s mother, Semele, was struck by Zeus’s lightning some

sixteen or so years prior, still smolders in the background. From Dionysos’s opening

speech, the audience learns that he is offended by the royal house and Theban citizens

who stain his mother’s name, denying his status as a god and Zeus’s son. This city-wide

rejection of the god serves as a symbolic representation of the initiand’s characteristic

resistance expressed in the Theban civic body as a whole.

Prior to the opening scene of the play, Dionysos has cast a form of madness over

the Theban women. His aim is to restore his mother’s honor and establish his cult in

Thebes. The women have abandoned their homes in a frenzy and wandered into the

mountains of Cithaeron where Dionysos’s secret mystery rites and ecstatic dances have

captivated them. The tragic events which unfold during the course of the play have been

interpreted by a number of scholars (including Hillman and Seaford) as consequences of

the women’s initial resistance to the god. As we shall see in that which follows, the

character of Pentheus exemplifies, most explicitly, this resistance to the cult (and other

paradigmatic aspects of the initiatory process).

During the period in which the play is set, Cadmus (who was Semele’s father and

the king of Thebes at the time of her death) has abdicated the throne to his grandson
PSYCHE’S STAGE 201

Pentheus. Several mystery-cult methods for invoking confusion, anxiety, and fear in the

initiand are vivified in the plot that surrounds this character. Pentheus enters the stage for

the first time incensed by strange reports of the Theban women “frisk[ing] in mock

ecstasies among the thickets on the mountain, dancing in honor of the latest divinity”

(Euripides, trans.1959, 217-219).

“I have captured some of them” (p. 164) he says defiantly, “[And] my jailers have

locked them away in the safety of our prison. Those who run at large shall be hunted

down out of the mountains like the animals they are.” Regarding Dionysos (the

“charlatan” priest) he says: “By god, I’ll have his head cut off!” (Euripides, trans. 1959,

225-240). Here resistance takes the form of extreme and antagonistic denial.

Of particular note is the fact that Pentheus becomes the object of his very own

threats during the course of the play. It is Pentheus himself, who is eventually hunted

down by those so called animals like an animal and tragically beheaded by his own

mother. There is something characteristically Dionysiac in this turn of events. It

exemplifies the bothness and undividedness that we have come to associate with feminine

consciousness, Dionysos, and Islamic mysticism. Pentheus is both the creator of the

world he intends to create, and the creation itself. He becomes the substance of his

“vision” in becoming the hunted animal and the beheaded lion. His vicious “vision,”

which he would inflict on his very own mother, becomes her vision of him, and the birth

of his death. The Undividedness of the Creator and the created is expressed in a

labyrinthine back and forth of their exchanging visions and roles.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 202

The use of riddling language.

Seaford tells us that riddling language is used in an initial stage of mystic

transition to confuse and disorient the initiand. This tactic is represented in “The

Bacchae” during the first verbal exchange between Dionysos (disguised as a Bacchic

priest) and King Pentheus. The scene begins as several attendants approach the palace,

escorting Dionysos, whom they have captured at the king’s behest. By all rational

appearances, Pentheus should have the upper hand. As a king, his status certainly

outranks an itinerant priest’s. As a captor, his captive should be greatly disadvantaged. In

terms of sheer man power, his prisoner is unquestionably out-numbered by him and his

men. But the lines below, spoken by one of the king’s messengers shows us that the

“priest’s” demeanor defies all sense of this social hierarchy. With all due caution, the

messenger recalls the events which precede the scene currently unfolding:

We captured the quarry you sent us out to catch. But our prey here was tame:

refused to run or hide, held out his hands as willing as you please, completely

unafraid. His ruddy cheeks were flushed as though with wine, and he stood there

smiling, making no objection when we roped his hands and marched him here. It

made me feel ashamed. “Listen, stranger,” I said, “I am not to blame. We act

under orders from Pentheus. He ordered your arrest.” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 435-

443)

As we can imagine from the passage above, at this point in the play, everyone––except

the king himself––clearly sees that there is more to this stranger than meets the eye, and

crossing him could be exceedingly dangerous. From Pentheus’s perspective, the priest is

weaker and lower in status––but the disguised god’s quick, witty, riddling banter clearly
PSYCHE’S STAGE 203

gives him the upper hand from the audience’s point of view. Dionysos’s witticisms,

which prove in hindsight to be prophetic, are baffling to the king who expects a certain

decorum that reflects his noble status. Disoriented by the inexplicable sense of reversed

order in the socially established hierarchy between them, the king works all the harder to

display his power and ultimate control over the situation. Nevertheless, Dionysos’s easy

free-flowing quips that contrast with the exasperation and barked commands of Pentheus,

reveal him as the sharper threat despite the fact that the scene ends as the king’s

attendants lead him offstage with orders to imprison him in the dark stables below the

palace.

In the attendant’s speech above, Dionysos––like the Theban women––is imagined

as Pentheus’s “quarry” and “prey”. When viewed in hindsight, with knowledge of his

eventual fate as the quarry and prey of his very own quarry and prey, we might question

whether this recurring dynamic reveals an essentially Dionysiac principle. Perhaps the

power of Dionysos to transform individual identity and inspire communality relies on a

capacity to embody that which apparently separates one from something perceived as

other than oneself. In exercising this capacity, one might experience oneself as both and

undivided: as a moving and interchangeable part that serves the interests of a whole to

which each being belongs and plays a vital role.

In the case of Pentheus (as our example of a paradigmatic initiand), the use of

riddling language begins to throw his sense of identity and privileged status off balance

despite his resistance and denial of what is happening. The king’s relative lack of power

is amplified further when his attendant recalls a miraculous turn of events by which the

imprisoned Theban women are freed. “The chains on their legs snapped apart by
PSYCHE’S STAGE 204

themselves” he says. And then, “untouched by any human hand, the doors swung wide,

opening of their own accord” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 447-449).

The escalation of resistance, confusion, disorientation, anxiety, and fear into

epiphany.

In the scenes that follow, there is an escalation of Pentheus’s confusion,

disorientation, anxiety, and fear. The chorus of Asian Bacchae, who are now imprisoned,

evoke the god with their chanting cries.

The epiphanies that follow begin with the sound of Dionysos’s booming voice.

“Let the earthquake come! Shatter the floor of the world!” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 585),

it says.

The chorus of Bacchae now cheer in adoration of their god, as an earthquake

rocks the grounds, and the palace collapses.

The voice of the god roars again. “Launch the blazing thunderbolt of god! O

lightnings, come! Consume with flame the palace of Pentheus!” (Euripides, trans. 1959,

594-595).

And the lightning responds, flashing across the front of the palace. Flames burst

forth from Semele’s tomb and a great crash of thunder resounds. The chorus falls to the

ground bowing to the god and Dionysos enters smiling, “picking his way among the

rubble” (Euripides, trans. 1959, p. 181).

Relieved to see him freed from the clutches of the king, the women inquire after

his well-being, eager to hear about his escape from Pentheus. The god recalls the incident

as follows:
PSYCHE’S STAGE 205

He [Pentheus] seemed to think that he was chaining me but never once so much

as touched my hands. He fed on his desires. Inside the stable he intended as my

jail, instead of me, he found a bull and tried to rope its knees and hooves. He was

panting desperately, biting his lips with his teeth, his whole body drenched with

sweat, while I sat nearby, quietly watching. But at that moment Bacchus came,

shook the palace and touched his mother’s grave with tongues of fire. Imagining

the palace was in flames, Pentheus went rushing here and there, shouting to his

slaves to bring him water. Every hand was put to work: in vain. Then, afraid I

might escape, he suddenly stopped short, drew his sword and rushed to the palace.

There it seems, Bromius had made a shape, a phantom which resembled me,

within the court. Bursting in, Pentheus thrust and stabbed at that thing of

gleaming air as though he thought it me. And then, once again, the god humiliated

him. He razed the palace to the ground where it lies, shattered in utter ruin––his

reward for my imprisonment. . . . For my part, I left the palace quietly and made

my way outside. (Euripides, trans. 1959, 616-636)

As we shall see, Seaford’s (2006) assessment of these events (cited below), is strikingly

analogous to aspects of Corbin’s mystic hermeneutics. Seaford says:

During his unsuccessful attempt to imprison Dionysos in the darkness of his

house, Pentheus exhibits very odd behaviour, which corresponds in many details

to descriptions we have of the initial anxiety of the mystic initiand. For instance,

as the culmination of Pentheus’ anxiety there appears a miraculous light, which he

attacks with a sword, identifying it with the god (editors, not understanding the

mystic allusion, generally change the manuscript “light” to “apparition”). This

PSYCHE’S STAGE 206

corresponds with the mystic light (in the darkness) that brings salvation. Whereas

the isolated and terrified chorus-members greet Dionysos as “greatest light.”

Pentheus persists––horrifyingly––in his stubborn hostility. (pp. 52-53)

Seaford likens this light, which emerges from darkness, in mystic initiation to modern

day near-death experiences. A frequent core element in research on this topic is a “ ‘being

of light’, a wonderful light that transforms anxiety into bliss and is also somehow a

person” (p. 53). The identity of this “person” varies in accordance with the culture of the

individual witnessing it. In our exploration of Mazdaism, this figure was typified in the

Angel Daēnā who is the celestial “I” of a human soul.

Another element of Dionysos’s speech strikes us as oddly and qualitatively

Mazdean. There is a certain terrestrial–celestial twinship implied by the god’s

grammatical use of language. The character of Dionysos refers to Bacchus and Bromius

in the third person, yet both of these names are epithets that refer to Dionysos himself. It

is Bacchus, he says, who “shook the palace and touched his mother’s grave with tongues

of fire” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 623-624). And then he says that “it seems” as if Bromius

made a phantom that resembled him. In both statements Dionysos appears to be

delineating between himself as the god in a human form and a larger aspect of himself.

The indefinite language in the second statement even suggests that the god in human

form is incapable of fully knowing the actions of his larger self. One might argue that

Dionysos speaks of himself in the third person to maintain his disguise as a priest but this

argument is flawed, given the context of the scene. Here the god is speaking with his

intimate circle of initiated followers who know him as Dionysos, the son of Zeus and

Semele. He is no priest in their eyes, but the god himself.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 207

But most of all, we are struck by Seaford’s interpretation of Pentheus’s attack on

the “thing of gleaming air” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 632) amidst the darkness, as a

representation of “the mystic light (in the darkness) that brings salvation” (Seaford, 2006,

p. 53). This image is poignantly reminiscent (in our view) of the mystic concept of black

light as described in Corbin’s (1971/1994) The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism (pp. 99-

120). In Chapter 5, we mentioned Suhrawardī’s project to revive the ancient pre-Islamic

wisdom and theosophy of light, and Najm Kobrā’s work, which interprets the specific

colors of suprasensory light perceived in meditation as signs that reveal the mystic’s state

and degree of spiritual progress. These colors and corresponding spiritual stages vary to

some degree in the systems put forth by different mystics. For Najm Rāzī, black light

indicates the last stage in a system of seven spiritual states. It is “the sign of passionate,

ecstatic love” (p. 107).

The first six steps . . . correspond to the lights which Najm Rāzī describes as

lights of the attribute of Beauty, theophanic lights which illuminate. The “black

light” is that of the attribute of Majesty which sets the mystic’s being on fire; it is

not contemplated; it attacks, invades, annihilates, then annihilates annihilation. (p.

108)

Considering this passage through the lens of “The Bacchae” we might consider Dionysos

himself as a symbolic representation of the black light who sets the mystic’s very being

on fire. Let us remember: In the same scene where Pentheus battles the light in darkness,

he also rushes frantically about calling for water, believing his palace to be in flames. By

the end of this episode the palace is reduced to rubble, and the epiphany of Dionysos, has

taken a number forms: light beam, thunder, lightning, fire, and earthquake. While
PSYCHE’S STAGE 208

Pentheus continues to resist the truth, his human identity encapsulated by his title as king

and symbolized in the image of his palace, has certainly been annihilated.

While an in-depth discussion of black light as seen through the lens of this

philosophical spiritual lineage is beyond the scope of our work here, we feel compelled to

touch upon some further images that move the world of Dionysos and the worlds of

Corbin’s mystic focus enigmatically closer together, as we imagine them. Corbin

(1971/1994) has said that the “Water of Life” is found within this dark light. We imagine

this as further evidence of Dionysos’s hierohistorical correspondence with Corbin’s

mysticism, given Dionysos’s role as the god of all liquid growth. Corbin tells us that

“find[ing] this wellspring demands the penetration of the meaning of the twofold face of

things” (p. 114). Who embodies the twofold face of things better than Dionysos?

The black light’s association with death and annihilation in Sūfī mysticism (as

indicated in the passage from The Man of Light above) seems pertinent in the Dionysiac

world given Pentheus’s paradigmatically analogous experience, and Seaford’s view that

mystic initiation includes an experience which simulates death. According to Corbin,

1971/1994) “the black light is the light of the pure Essence in its ipseity, in its

abscondity” (p. 111). He tells us that the ability to see this light “depends on a spiritual

state described as ‘reabsorption in God’” (p. 111). Later he says that the supreme test of

reabsorption, in Najm Kobrā’s system, is marked by the visionary apperception of a “red

sun standing out on a black background” (p. 117). This test “comprise[s] an experience of

death and annihilation . . . . [it] marks [the mystic’s] hour of greatest peril” (p. 117). Fear

and death-like experiences, in other words, precede transformation for the Sūfī mystic

and the Dionysiac initiand alike.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 209

Corbin’s discussion of black light reveals another poignant connection between

the two initiatory processes. The test of reabsorption is dangerous. Corbin (1971/1994)

acknowledges two possible outcomes: on the one hand, the initiand might be “swallowed

up in dementia”; and on the other, he might “rise again from it, initiated in the meaning

of theophanies and revelations” (p. 117). In other words, the unprepared Sūfī mystic and

the Dionysiac initiand both face the possibility of madness.

But the danger of madness has not always been seen as wholly negative in the

sense that it is today. According to Plato’s (trans., 1961b) “Phaedrus,” madness was once

held as “a valuable gift, when due to divine dispensation” (244c). “The greatest

blessings” Plato says, “come by way of madness . . . that is heaven-sent” (244b). Later,

he draws distinctions between two kinds of madness “one resulting from human ailments,

the other from a divine disturbance of our conventions of conduct” (265). Then he

distinguishes between four types of divine madness ascribing them to different gods. The

type of madness ascribed to Dionysus is that of the mystic (265).

In the discussion above, two scenes from Euripides’ “The Bacchae” have served

as paradigmatic examples that correspond with an initial phase of mystery-cult initiation

whereby the evocation of confusion, disorientation, anxiety, and fear are used to effect

epiphanic (visionary) experiences. The first example pointed to the use of riddling

language to arouse a sense of confusion and disorientation. The second example

illustrated an exacerbation of this phase which culminated in a series of epiphanic

experiences that correspond with our section on various forms of Dionysiac epiphany.

These experiences were explored within the context of an analogous resonance with

various mystic interpretations of Corbin’s. In that which follows, we explore another

PSYCHE’S STAGE 210

method by which confusion and disorientation was evoked in cult initiation practice. We

then point to a possible implicit reference to this method in “The Bacchae.” Here again

we shall see images that carry us back to aspects of Corbin’s mystic works.

The use of mirrors in mystery-cult.

In addition to the use of riddling language, Seaford (2006) tells us that mirrors

were used in mystery-cult initiation to effect the “the transition from the phase of

ignorant anxiety to the phase of joyful knowledge” (p. 123). Both of these techniques

purportedly “gave an obscure image of what was subsequently revealed” (p. 123).

Ancient mirrors, he reminds us, were much more obscure than modern ones. The practice

of using them in mystic initiation is all the more intriguing given the importance of

“mirroring” and “unveiling” in Corbin’s interpretations of Sūfism and Islamic mysticism.

Seaford directs us to a fascinating line in “The Bacchae” that derives, in his opinion, from

the widespread use of the mirror to intrigue and confuse the initiand in mystery cult.

Seeing this piece of dialogue within the context of Corbin’s work, we are drawn to it on a

number of additional levels which deserve our further attention. But first it behooves us

to review the plot which leads us to this point in the story.

Following Dionysos’s account of the king’s failed attempt to imprison him (cited

on page 205), an infuriated Pentheus enters the stage, in search of his escaped prisoner.

Here, another round of banter between Pentheus and the god ensues. Dionysos’s use of

riddling language to befuddle the king continues, as does Pentheus’s refusal to

acknowledge his obvious lack of control over the situation. Soon, a messenger arrives

with updated reports of awful miracles performed by the Theban Bacchae in the forest.

His detailed account of these events reveals an extraordinary coherence and cooperation
PSYCHE’S STAGE 211

between the Bacchic revelers and the natural world that they inhabit. But the power of

this coherence makes for tragic results when Dionysos’s devotees are threatened by

cowherds and shepherds (the messenger, being one of them) who attempt to capture the

women in hopes of securing a sizeable reward from the king. Agave, who narrowly

escapes the messenger’s seizing arms, suddenly leaps away and cries aloud to the other

members of her dancing thiasos: “Hounds who run with me, men are hunting us down!

Follow, follow me! Use your wands for weapons.” (Euripides, trans. 1959, 730-732).

Here a dramatic exchange of roles takes place. The devotees’ thyrsi, (which, but moments

before, were magically coaxing wine from rocks, and milk and honey from the soil)

suddenly take the role of Weapon, and the hunted women embody the role of Hunter on

command. The messenger, who recalls these events to the king, reports that he and his

comrades barely escaped from being torn to pieces by the women, but the fate of their

cattle was less fortunate. He describes the horrific sight of calves, heifers, and bulls being

clawed, torn, and skinned by the bare hands of the Bacchae in graphic detail. “There were

ribs and cloven hooves scattered everywhere” he says, “and scraps smeared with blood

hung from the fir trees” (740). And then he says that the women, carried into the sky by

their own speed, “flew like birds” (748) over nearby fields, and swooped down on

neighboring towns snatching up children and piling plunder on their backs that stayed in

place untied. Magically, “flames flickered in their curls and did not burn them” (757-

758). And the spears of men who took up arms against them drew no blood from the

women, but the women’s fennel wands miraculously inflicted wounds upon their male

attackers.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 212

Even the report of these unfathomable horrors fails to inspire caution in the king

who responds by calling for an all-out war against the women, commanding his attendant

to rally his troops and collect his weaponry. Dionysos alerts Pentheus to the

consequences of waging war against a god, but he refuses to heed the warning. The god

then takes another tactic. Intuiting the king’s underlying curiosity about the Bacchae’s

“licentious” rituals in the forest, Dionysos offers to accompany him to the spot where the

women have gathered allowing him to view the revels in secret before attacking.

Pentheus is enthused by this prospect and Dionysos persuades him to dress as a maenad

for the occasion (a protective measure in the event that one of the women should spot

him). They now exit to prepare for the expedition.

When the two of them re-enter, Pentheus

wears a long linen dress which partially conceals his fawn-skin. He carries a

thyrsus in his hand; on his head he wears a wig with long blond curls bound by a

snood. He is dazed and completely in the power of the god who has now

possessed him. (Euripides, trans. 1959, p. 195)

Gazing (as we imagine it) beyond the fourth wall of the audience, Pentheus says: “I seem

to see two suns blazing in the heavens. And now two Thebes, two cities, and each with

seven gates” (Bacchae, p. 918-920).

Seaford (2006) believes that this line of dialogue is derived from the widespread

use of mirrors to confuse and disorient the initiand during the initial stages of mystery-

cult initiation (p. 54). Seen through the context of Corbin’s work, we find ourselves

reimagining this piece of dialogue in respect to its Mazdean sensibilities, and the mystic

phenomenon of black light in Najm Kobrā’s system. The visionary presence of two
PSYCHE’S STAGE 213

blazing suns, two cities, and two Thebes evokes our sense of that essential pairing and

relationship between terrestrial and celestial twins so crucial in Mazdaism. This essential

twinship exists in all things––including suns and cities. We are also reminded by the

presence of these double images, that the projection of the archetype-image of the

Mazdean soul on physical data, effects a transmutation of the material Earth and also

establishes an Imago Terrae that “reflects and announces” (Corbin, 1960/1970, p. 14) the

soul’s own Image to itself upon its passing from this world. Viewing the Dionysiac and

Mazdean worlds superimposed upon each other, we might imagine that Pentheus’s

double vision straddles both of these worlds in the moment before his death. Expanding

our view of potential overlap between these worlds, we might even imagine that

Pentheus’s twinned vision of “seven gates” relates in some way to the seven powers of

Light (the supreme Divine Heptad) in Zoroastrian Mazdaism.

Our sense that this line of dialogue expresses a correspondence between

Dionysiac and Corbinian mysticism extends beyond a mere intimation of its qualitatively

Mazdean imagery. The more explicit similarity between the images contained by this line

of dialogue, and the imagery in Najm Kobrā’s system of colored lights (introduced

above), is especially intriguing. Pentheus’s vision with “two suns blazing in the heaven”

(Euripides, trans. 1959, 918) superimposed on his earlier vision of light emerging in the

darkness, is strikingly reminiscent of the visionary apperception of a “red sun standing

out on a black background” (p. 117) described by Kobrā. And Pentheus’s vision of two

Thebes, “each with seven gates” (920) brings Kobrā’s system of seven spiritual stages

and corresponding colored lights to mind.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 214

As the presence of these mystic worlds blends in the presence of our captive

imagination, our writing is interrupted by the bursting forth of an enigmatically

synchronistic event in the physical world. This poignant offering is described below from

the perspective of an appropriately first person narrative.

The terrestrial world’s mirroring offering.

It is fire season in Southern California. My husband calls to say he is coming

home. “Go outside. Take a look at the sun,” he says. A giant fire is currently blazing in

the city of Santa Clarita, and the sky in Atwater Village is thick with a blackened

charcoal coloring. A red sun blazes on its background. I am stirred by its dramatic

presence and timing. I have never seen anything like it. When my husband arrives, we

walk to the river a few blocks away and the sun’s red globe dances on the wrinkles of the

dark water’s face. I have just witnessed two red suns (on sky and water) against black

backgrounds in the terrestrial world. Might I not imagine this phenomenon as part of a

collaborative effort between the multiple dimensions of this work?

The Role of Enactment in Mystery-Cult

Our focus in the section above was twofold. On the one hand, we discussed the

role of resistance, confusion, anxiety, and fear in mystery-cult initiation rites. On the

other, we concomitantly allowed various mystic presences from Corbin’s work to

penetrate our perception of Dionysiac mysticism by way of imagination and Euripides’

tragedy “The Bacchae.” Finally, these presences enigmatically penetrated our everyday

world as well. In this section, we focus on various aspects of enactment in mystery-cult

discussed by Seaford. These include: (a) the practice of dressing up as mythical figures of

the god’s thiasos, (b) gender reversal, (c) the use of masks, (d) the activity of dance, and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 215

(e) the enactment of death. Each of them plays a role in the later development of tragedy,

comedy, and satyr plays at Dionysiac festivals.

Dressing up as mythical characters.

An inherently dramatic aspect of Dionysiac ritual, as we have seen from our

discussion of public processions, is exemplified by illustrations of devotees dressed as the

original mythical companions of the god. Various works of art showing Dionysiac scenes

of initiation indicate that similar costuming practices were used in the secret rites of

mystery-cult as well. Plato (trans. 1961a) refers to dances called “ ‘mimic’ exhibition[s]”

performed by bacchanals “under the designations of nymphs, panes, [and] sileni, or satyrs

. . . as part of certain rituals and initiations” (815c). In “The Bacchae” the chorus (who

represent the god’s inner circle of initiates from Asia) are dressed in fawnskins and

crowned with ivy. They “carry thyrsi, timbrels, and flutes” (Euripides, trans. 1959, p.

157). The Theban women who dance at Cithaeron, and the characters of Cadmus and

Teiresias, who plan to join their secret revels, are all attired in this same manner. And

Pentheus, who becomes possessed by Dionysos, dresses as maenad.

Gender-reversal and transvestism.

Pentheus’s maenad costume illustrates another form of Dionysiac enactment in

mystery-cult. In Seaford’s (2006) view, Pentheus’s disguise as a female follower “reflects

the gender-reversal characteristic of rites of passage” (p. 53). He attributes Dionysos’s

manifest effeminacy and transvestism, at least in part, to “a projection of the practice of

transvestism in his ritual” (p. 53). This embodied practice of gender-reversal is intriguing

given Hillman’s suggestion that our culturally ingrained projections of inferiority onto

the female body might be lifted via a restoration of Dionysiac consciousness. It is also
PSYCHE’S STAGE 216

fascinating when viewed through the lens of Corbin’s work. In Mazdaism, we saw that

the human being, as Spenta Armaiti’s son, became her daughter in the eschatological

figure of Daēnā. In our exploration of Ibn ‘Arabī’s dialectic of love we were encouraged

to meditate on the godhead via an image of the Creative Feminine. In each case, a

traditionally masculine image is viewed as a feminine form. Mystery-cult apparently

takes this vision a step further in actively imagining the transformation via a dramatic

embodiment of it as a female body.

Masks.

Seaford (2006) tells us that “masks of satyrs and masks of Dionysos predate

drama” (p. 90). In his view the frequent presence of masks and mythical followers of the

god in various artworks depicting scenes of initiation, suggests that masks (and costumes)

were used to embody mythical roles in Dionysiac mystery-cult rituals.

In Otto’s (1960/1965) Dionysus: Myth and Cult, an entire chapter is devoted to

the symbolism of the mask. In his view, evidence (based on a series of vase paintings

assembled by Frickenhaus) shows that gigantic masks of Dionysos were also used “to

represent the god at his epiphany, all by themselves” (p. 88). Dionysos, himself, in other

words, was meant to appear in these masks (p. 87). In some of these vase paintings a

mask of the god is mounted on a column which is draped with a long robe giving the

“impression of a full-figured idol” (p. 86). In many, however, one and sometimes two

enormous masks are shown without the robe. The mask, in itself, seemingly evoked and

embodied the presence of the god. Many large-scale masks of Dionysos made from

lasting materials are still extant today. Otto tells us that one such “more than life size”
PSYCHE’S STAGE 217

mask made of marble from the second half of the sixth century BC “was obviously used

in the cult practices” at the sanctuary of Dionysos of Attic Icaria (p. 88).

In accordance with Seaford’s view, we might imagine that masks were used to

embody the mythical companions of the god and even the god himself in mystery-cult

initiation. Taking Otto’s perspective into account, we might also imagine that masks three

times the size of a human being were also used to evoke the presence of the god and his

enormity in these initiation rites. In both cases, masks are put into the service of a

dramatic enactment through which the world of humans and the world of gods seek

reunion.

Dance.

Seaford (2006) draws from various inscriptions and pieces of literature (pp. 69-

70) as evidence that the practice of “dancing in Dionysiac mystery-cult prefigured the joy

of the next world” (pp. 103-104). This connection between a dimension of reality beyond

our terrestrial existence and the activity of dance is also implied in the opening

monologue of “The Bacchae.” Here Dionysos says: “I taught my dances to the feet of

living men, establishing my mysteries and rites that I might be revealed on earth for what

I am: a god” (18-19). Seen in the context of Seaford’s evidence, the implication of this

line is that Dionysos’s dances––in contrast with those of living men––hail from a world

which is characterized by immortals: gods, in other words. But the world of which we

speak––by the very definition of mystery-cult––must, paradoxically, include the dead as

well.

Plutarch said “that the experience of the soul on the point of death is like being

initiated into the great mysteries, that after various kinds of anxiety and suffering there is
PSYCHE’S STAGE 218

a wonderful light, meadows, and (among other delights) dancing” (Seaford, 2006, p. 70).

Correspondingly, purification through mystic rituals, purportedly allowed one to

“continue playing and dancing in Hades” (p. 69). This association between purification

and dance in mystic initiation is implied by the following line from “The Bacchae” as

well: “Blessed are the dancers and those who are purified, who dance on the hill in the

holy dance of god” (Euripides, trans. 1958, 76-77). This line is spoken by the chorus––a

unified group of initiated women. In both of these examples from Plutarch and “The

Bacchae” it seems that dance is related to the joyful conclusion of the initiatory or death

experience which is characterized by rebirth. But Seaford (2006) tells us that “dance was

not necessarily restricted to this phase (at Eleusis it occurred in various phases of the

festival)” (p. 70).

The enactment of death and dismemberment.

In Seaford’s (2006) view “most of the forms of association between Dionysos and

death are derived, directly or indirectly, from the attempt by humans to control their

experience of death, in mystery-cult” (p. 76). This observation leads him to a supposition:

Perhaps Dionysos’s role in Ariadne’s death (as told in some versions of the myth) derives

“from mystery-cult, expressing a deep structure in which Dionysos imposes death as a

preliminary to immortality” (p. 77). In this same vein, Seaford claims that the myth of

Dionysos’s “dismemberment at the hands of the Titans, followed by his restoration to

life, is (at least in part) a projection of the experience of the mystic initiand” (p. 85).

In Ritual and Reciprocity: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State,

Seaford (1994) mentions the existence of various texts that refer to the enactment of

Dionysos’s dismemberment in initiation ritual (p. 283). These resources are rather
PSYCHE’S STAGE 219

vaguely dated by him as “much later” than Herodotus (who he references in the same

sentence on a related matter). “The Bacchae,” however, (given our view of Pentheus’s

role as a symbolic representation of the initiand’s experience) indicates that this practice

may have existed in some form much earlier. Seaford’s research suggests that the

enactment of Dionysos’s dismemberment and resurrection in mystery-cult may have

evolved from the use of animal sacrifice to evoke the fearful experience of death that led

to the initiand’s joyful transformation.

Animal sacrifice as a form of enactment.

In Reciprocity and Ritual, Seaford (1994) tells us that secret ceremonies which

were attended by an initiated group of women during Dionysiac festivals may have

involved the initiation of new members, and a sacrificial meal expressing the group’s

solidarity. It is also likely that initiands were associated at the outset of the ritual with the

sacrificial victim. This was apparently the case with certain Eleusinian rites where the

initiand sacrificed a pig that was “envisaged as a substitute for himself” (p. 282). There is

also “evidence of a mock sacrifice of the initiand” in Dionysiac initiation.

The significance of the association between the participants and the sacrificial

victim in Greek sacrifice more generally, is crucial to understanding its power in mystic

initiation rites. “The anxiety of the human participants is based at least partly on fellow-

feeling with the victim which is almost always a domesticated animal and so belongs in a

sense to the human community” (Seaford, 1994, p. 45). The characteristic closeness

between the opposing parties in the sacrifice is evoked by Seaford’s description of a

scene depicted in a fourth century relief. Here, a family group with three children stand at

an altar preparing to sacrifice a pig to Zeus Meilichios. All of them, including the pig,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 220

wear crowns, and each of them are sprinkled with sacred water “at which the victim may

nod assent to the sacrifice” (p. 286).

Drawing from scholarship on sacrifice, in general, Seaford (1994) compiles an

informed image of its more specific application in mystery-cult initiation. The initiand in

mystery-cult, he says, is associated with the victim like the human participants in general

sacrifice, but more-so “and to a further point in its transition” (p. 287) toward death. The

initiand, like the victim, “must be detached from his previous, everyday existence,

consecrated, brought into the sphere of deity [and] like the victim, he is adorned, at the

centre of attention, [and] isolated” (p. 287). Like the sacrificial animal: the initiand

submits to the unknown, ignorant of what awaits him, and lacking knowledge of what

other participants know about his fate. His closeness to the animal carries him into death

with the animal––almost, but not quite. Ultimately, the initiand’s “death” happens on a

different dimension. “Rather than being eaten, he becomes part of the [initiated] group

invigorated and united by killing and eating the very animal with which he had been

identified” (p. 287).

It has been said that human sacrifice was once practiced in Dionysiac cult, but

then replaced by animal sacrifice (Seaford, 1994, p. 294). Perhaps a similar shift occurred

when the practice of enacting Dionysos’s dismemberment was adopted (possibly as an

alternative to sacrificing a domesticated animal). Each of these approaches to the

evocation of a fearful deathlike experience in mystery-cult is shaped by a particular

historical and cultural context. Seaford (2006) attributes Dionysos’s survival throughout

antiquity, and beyond, to the “continuous adaptation of deity to evolving needs” (p. 146).

In our chapter on Greek tragedy, to follow, we explore the emergence of theatre at

PSYCHE’S STAGE 221

Dionysiac festivals as one of these adaptations. But first we return to the plot of

Euripides’, “The Bacchae”.

Our purpose here, is threefold. First, a summary of the events leading up to

Pentheus’s death will serve as a symbolic representation of the initiand’s dismembering

experience, with one noteworthy exception. In a successful initiation, the initiand

undergoes a deathlike experience which leads to epiphany and then to a joyful

transformation of identity––not to a literal death like Pentheus’s. Seaford suggests that

Pentheus’s mythical death may have served a practical function in mystery-cult. As we

have already learned, the desired transformation sought by initiation rites is elicited by an

extremely frightening experience. Since the myth of Pentheus’s death was known to the

public at large and mystery rites were secret, it may be that Pentheus’s literal death in the

myth was necessary to promote sufficient anxiety in potential initiates. If general

knowledge foretold a guaranteed happy ending, the initiatory process may not have

evoked the fear required to trigger an epiphanic transformative experience. In our view,

the myth of Dionysos’s dismemberment and consequent resurrection, taken together with

the myth of Pentheus’s literal death illuminates both the potential and the very real

dangers of close association with the god.

Secondly, in resuming our synopsis of “The Bacchae”, we aim to expand our

sense of the imaginal presence of Corbin’s mystically informed world within the

Dionysiac world via a continued exploration of images and plot points that populate both

worlds.

Thirdly, we intend to provide our reader with a context for understanding further

discussions related to “The Bacchae” in the chapter to follow.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 222

A Return to the Plot of Euripides’ “The Bacchae”

Previously, we broke from our narrative account of “The Bacchae” at the moment

when Dionysos escorts Pentheus offstage to spy on the mystic rites at Cithaeron. Shortly

thereafter, the king’s attendant arrives onstage with news of Pentheus’s death. A long

monologue ensues as the messenger recalls the horrific events leading up to it. In brief,

he says that a great voice cried out from the heavens and instructed Dionysos’s devotees

to take vengeance upon Pentheus for mocking the god’s mysteries. At the sound of this

voice the female votaries are overcome with madness, possessed by the god. Agave (who

is Pentheus’s mother) and her sisters are among them. Spotting Pentheus perched atop a

giant fir tree spying on their rituals, they attempt to attack him with rocks and thyrsus

spears but their target sits safely just beyond their reach. Then, circling round the tree, in

a joint effort, the Theban maenads miraculously uproot the giant fir with their bare hands,

and their victim falls to the ground with it. Deaf to Pentheus’s pleas for mercy, they

proceed to rend his limbs apart––again with their bare hands. Agave, thinking herself a

hunter and her son a lion, impales his head with a thyrsus and proudly marches off

toward town as if to flaunt the prize of the hunt.

Having grievously recalled these events, the messenger exits, and the chorus

rejoices over Dionysos’s victory.

Then Agave enters with some of her female accomplices. Still possessed, she

boasts of their successful hunt holding her thyrsus high in the sky with Pentheus’s head

perched atop it, for all to see.

Meanwhile, Cadmus, having heard of his grandson’s gruesome death by the hands

of his own daughters, has wandered throughout the forest reassembling the scattered
PSYCHE’S STAGE 223

limbs of Pentheus. Followed by attendants who bear the dismembered body on a bier, he

now enters. Agave’s madness gradually fades over the course of the scene, and

eventually she sees things as they are. Aghast by the sight of her son’s severed head, she

has no memory of the events that led to this calamity, and Cadmus is left with the heart-

wrenching task of telling her what happened.

Here there is a break of about fifty lines of lost text which have been

reconstructed from fragments and later materials which drew from “The Bacchae.”

Within this section: Agave expresses her grief and torment over what she has done. She

lifts each of Pentheus’s limbs, mourning each one, and asks for Cadmus’s help to piece

the body back together on the bier. Once finished, they place the head with the rest of the

body, attempting the best they can to make it whole again.

A Mazdean excursion.

Here we are struck, once again, by a similarity between the plot and imagery in

“The Bacchae” and certain details from Corbin’s writings. In this case, the image of

Agave reassembling the bones of her dead son in an effort to make him whole again

carries us back to the tale of Gayōmart from Corbin’s analysis of Mazdaism.

Let us take a moment, however, before we engage in Gayōmart’s story, to briefly

note the recurrence of these same patterns within different Dionysiac tales. Agave’s

sister, Autonoe, for instance, is made to reassemble the bones of her dead son, killed by

his own hounds while hunting. Analogously, Agave and her female accomplices

(including Autonoe) are “playing the role of hounds and calling out to the god as

huntsman and companion in the chase” (Kerényi, p. 262) during those fateful moments

when Pentheus is torn to pieces by them. This archetypal pattern is present in a version of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 224

Dionysos’s dismemberment as well. In this tale, the Titans tear the child god to pieces

and boil him, but Demeter (who is identified as his mother in this myth) gathers the limbs

together (p. 255).

As for the Mazdean Gayōmart, he too, might be viewed as the victim of a hunt

who is torn apart, dies, and is then reassembled by his mother. Corbin (1960/1977) tells

us that Gayōmart is “the primordial Man” (p. 46), who is “composed of pure ‘metal’ ” (p.

47). He is the son of Spenta Armaiti––the Archangel of the Earth. Because of Ahriman

(who we have previously identified with evil and pure negativity) Gayōmart is penetrated

by Death.

As formerly discussed, Ahriman has also been known as one of the two children

born to Zervān (who is unlimited Time). One of these children is Ōhrmazd––born of his

liturgies. The other is Ahriman, born of his doubt and fear that the child he longed for

would never be born. Seen in this context, Ahriman might be viewed as a seeker, always

doubting, as a hunter––a hound, who (like his father) tears the pregnant world apart with

his need to dissect it, to know it, and possibly to control it.

When Gayōmart dies, he falls on his left side, and seven metals emerge from him,

each proceeding from a part of the body corresponding to it. (Here we are reminded that

the Titans tore Dionysos into seven pieces and roasted them on seven spits [Kerényi, p.

254]). Gold, as an eighth metal––because of its preeminence––issues from Gayōmart’s

very soul and his seed. Spenta Armaiti collects this Gold for forty years at which time an

extraordinary plant is germinated from it, and from this plant the first human couple is

formed.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 225

Touching down on the enigmatic similarities between the two myths: Gayōmart

and Dionysos, both die. Both are essentially divided into seven pieces. And both undergo

a form of resurrection. In respect to Agave, Autonoe, Demeter, and Spenta Armaiti: all

are mothers who gather the dismembered parts of their dead sons in an attempt to make

them whole again. These observations continue to grow our sense that the Dionysiac

world and the mystic worlds represented by Corbin ineffably and imaginally correspond

with each other.

The final moments of “The Bacchae”.

Returning to the plot of “The Bacchae”: After Agave’s attempt to reassemble the

bones of her dead son, Dionysos appears in epiphany. He reiterates the story which has

just unfolded and announces its corresponding moral message declaring that Pentheus has

rightfully died for the wrongs he committed against the god. Then, Agave and her sisters,

(who denied that Dionysos was a god thus sullying his mother’s name) are banished.

Here the script returns to the original text. In short, each member of the royal

family, including Cadmus, is forced to leave the city and go their separate ways. Agave

and Cadmus, stricken with grief, stripped of their good name and status, filled with the

sorrow of parting from each other say goodbye and take their leave. The royal family is

thus replaced by the cult of Dionysos.

On this note, we are now prepared to begin the next chapter, exploring Seaford’s

view of the development of Greek tragedy.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 226

Chapter 12
From Mystery-Cult to Theatre

We have previously discussed the Anthesteria festival to exemplify characteristics

which apply to Dionysiac cult in general, but the theatre and sanctuary of Dionysos

Eleuthereus at City Dionysia provide us with the greatest context for the genesis and

performance of drama. While Anthesteria (the oldest known Dionysiac festival) was

centered around traditional seasonal and viticultural elements, a “more political aim of

displaying the coherence and magnificence of Athens (to itself and to others)” (Seaford,

2006, p. 88) was seemingly the bigger concern at City Dionysia. This Athenian festival

was considerably amplified (if not established) in the second half of the sixth century BC,

probably during the tyranny of Peisistratus. In 510 BC––a crucial time in the genesis of

tragedy––Athenian tyranny was overthrown and Athenian democracy emerged (p. 97).

In the midst of these circumstances, the need for a strong city-state presence and

sense of unity among the members of the polis was critical to discourage would-be

tyrants from future appropriation attempts. Seaford views the emergence of formalized

drama at City Dionysia as a response to the ambiguity of Dionysiac communality

expressed, on the one hand, by the god’s demand for the entire polis’s participation in his

cult, and on the other hand, by the seemingly contradictory practice of secret rituals

performed by an exclusive group of women. In his view, the performance of tragedy at

Dionysiac festivals represents an opening up of secret mystery-cult ritual to the entire

polis. According to Seaford (2006), “Greek ritual tends to enact its own aetiological

myth” (p. 90), and in his opinion, the first tragedies were probably “dramatisations of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 227

aetiological myths enacted in mystery-cult” (p. 90) just as “The Bacchae” was a century

later.

Dionysiac communality, which aims to dissolve the boundaries between the living

and the dead in mystery-cult, is expressed in drama as a corresponding human “need for a

community to feel itself united” (Seaford, 2006, p. 97). In each case the identity of an

individual is superseded by a larger sense of identity within a unified whole. Seaford

suggests that tragedy “develops the political significance latent in the Dionysiac myth”

(p. 97) Dionysos, he says,

had long been associated with the dissolution of boundaries inherent in the

communality of the thiasos or of the whole community, which required the

departure of the women from their households. And this departure was easily––

especially in the extremist logic of myth––imagined as rejection of the enclosed

household for the open space of communal celebration. Loyalty to thiasos or polis

seems to threaten loyalty to household. Further, the transformation of identity

required for joining the initiated community (thiasos) might require the individual

to be subjected, in the process of initiation, to a fictional death. These tensions,

between household and community and between individual suffering and the

well-being of the community, come to express something new––a political

transition from tyrannical rule to communal well-being of polis cult. (p. 97)

Viewing the performance of tragedy through this lens, the performance of tragedy

potentially becomes a response to our research question in two respects. First, if tragedy

is viewed as an opening up of mystery-cult to the entire polis, it dissolves the usual

boundaries between so called mystics and nonmystics. Second, the convergence of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 228

spiritual and political in tragedy (as viewed in the passage above) suggests that tragedy

constitutes a space that spiritualizes matter and physicalizes spirit. In other words, the

world of tragic performance (appropriately defined in accordance with the context of this

research) can be imagined as an imaginal world and expression of the active or creative

Imagination itself. The spiritual yearnings and principles that necessitate our manifested

being are put into dialogue with manifested beings.

In the discussion that follows, we explore similarities and differences between the

Anthesteria and City Dionysia. We identify aspects of mystery-cult that contributed to the

development of tragedy, and significant resemblances between the two disciplines. From

here, we address the question of whether Greek drama can be viewed as Dionysiac even

though Dionysos does not appear in the majority of extant tragedies. And finally, we

explore the implications of our findings in respect to the potential of a mystic-theatre for

today’s world that is informed by Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress.

From Anthesteria to City Dionysia: The Emergence of Formalized Drama

Seaford (2006) directs our attention to three significant similarities and two

differences between the Anthesteria and the City Dionysia festivals. In respect to the

similarities: First, both festivals were held in spring and both were attended by the entire

community. Second, both festivals apparently involved processions in which Dionysos

(represented by a statue of the god or a citizen dressed for the part) was escorted from the

outskirts or periphery of town to a centralized location. And third, the processions, in

both cases were associated with myth: at the Anthesteria, probably with the liberation of

Dionysos from pirates and his sexual union with Ariadne; at the City Dionysia, with his

original arrival from Eleutherai (p. 88).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 229

Regarding the differences between these festivals: the heart and center of the

Anthesteria involved secret mystery-cult rituals including a sacrifice performed by a

group of women at the royal house, and an enactment associated with the sexual union

between the queen and Dionysos (mentioned above). It also seems that the Anthesteria

involved large groups of men and boys dressed as satyrs. At the City Dionysia, the

omission of these practices is replaced instead by an absorption of them within the

development of drama. Evidence shows that the content of tragedies was at first about

Dionysos and the myths associated with him. Soon thereafter the scripts of tragedy turned

toward non-Dionysiac myths. The satyr play, “a burlesque drama with a chorus of

boisterous satyrs” (Seaford, 2006, p. 88), was then incorporated at the festival, apparently

to appease the audience’s sense of loss over Dionysiac characters in tragedy. According

to Aristotle’s (trans. 2013) Poetics, tragedy “began with the leaders of the dithyramb”

and “originally took shape out of improvisation” (5-15). The dithyramb is a hymn to

Dionysos, originally performed in procession. Evidence shows that a significant step in

the development of tragedy from the dithyramb was the transformation “from a

traditional processional hymn into a scripted song sung at a fixed point (the destination of

the procession, at an altar, in the city centre rather than at the periphery)” (Seaford, 2006,

p. 89).

Traces of mystery-cult exist in dithyramb, satyric drama, and tragedy. The

practice of mystery-cult at the Anthesteria was absorbed by the development of drama at

the City Dionysia in a number of ways. The most obvious of these is the use of enactment

to transform identity. According to Seaford, the activity of abandoning one’s everyday

identity to perform in a completely new one was very rare in pre-dramatic societies
PSYCHE’S STAGE 230

(outside of ritual). Mystery-cult and drama both made use of masks, costumes, the

evocation of ritual, and transvestism to facilitate transformation. The latter of these is

exemplified by the fact that male and female roles, including those of chorus members,

were played by men in Athenian theatre (Seaford, 2006, p. 89). Additionally, mystery-

cult and drama both involved the enactment of myth. In mystery-cult, the initiand––like

the tragic actor––might also undergo a fictional death. Elements of song and dance were

incorporated in both traditions too. In mystery-cult female votaries left their homes to

hymn and dance the presence of Dionysos in the mountains. In “The Bacchae”, the

chorus members also engaged in dance, and their dialogue (spoken in unison) has the

quality of dithyramb. Mystery-cult and drama share another characteristic; in each of

them, socially marginalized populations play a crucial role. We have previously provided

examples of this in myth and mystery-cult. In tragedy, the choral structure provides

another example. The people represented by the chorus are central to the tragic play but

the roles that constitute the group identity of its members are enacted on the periphery

from within the orchestra pit. In contrast with tragedy’s characteristic representation of

the “common” and “marginalized” souls amongst us, is its concomitant frequent portrayal

of epiphanic appearances. As Seaford says: “Much of what is imitated in tragedy is . . .

above the human level. Drama, like mystery-cult, tends to reveal important truths about

deities” (p. 102). When exploring Hillman’s work, we observed a similar dynamic in

archetypal psychology’s move of psychologizing or seeing through. Here all ideas of

literal actions were changed to metaphorical enactments thus allowing the gods in our

ideas to shine forth.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 231

Is Tragedy Dionysiac?

Tragedy, as discussed above, was derived in part from mystery cult and

performed along with rituals for Dionysos during his festival, at his sanctuary. While

evidence shows that there were a significant number of tragedies about myths that

Dionysos appeared in or was associated with, for the most part only fragments of this

material has survived. Comedy and satyric drama were also performed at Dionysiac

festivals. While Dionysos himself seems to have been largely absent from satyric drama,

the chorus always consisted of his thiasos of satyrs. In extant comedies Dionysos plays a

central role, and titles of lost comedies indicate that he appeared frequently in Old

Comedy. In the sixty to ninety estimated titles ascribed to Aeschylus the content in seven

of them are certainly about Dionysos and two others might have been. Nevertheless, with

the exception of Euripides’ “The Bacchae”, the content of the surviving tragedies has

little to do with the myth of Dionysos, explicitly speaking. This provokes Seaford to ask

whether tragedy is truly Dionysiac. Considering the lack of attention paid to Greek

tragedy by scholars that both Seaford and Hillman draw from––the question seems valid.

It is certainly crucial to this research, given our interest in the potential of theatre as a

mystic and archetypal practice. Dionysos’s connection to theatre and to mysticism is

apparent, and our discussion of Hillman’s perspectives on Dionysos has clearly shown

that he has much to offer to archetypal psychology. As such, it follows that tragedy, if it

is Dionysiac, should be considered as a form of mystic-theatre potentially contributing to

our re-visioning of the theatrical discipline for today’s world.

A brief definitive summary of our findings on Dionysiac mystery-cult and related

patterns in Dionysiac myths will provide the necessary context for understanding
PSYCHE’S STAGE 232

Seaford’s response to the question of whether tragedy is truly Dionysiac. Previously we

have discussed various themes associated with Dionysos broadly categorized under the

rubrics of nature, communality, epiphany, and death. Each of these plays a significant

role in mystery-cult ritual. Fundamental to Dionysiac mystic initiation is the radical

transformation of individual identity which leads to a group identity that inspires a

greater sense of belonging within a unified and more encompassing whole. This

transformation may be expressed in the temporary dissolution of boundaries between

vegetative nature, animal, and man––between male and female––individual and

household––household and polis––polis and autocratic family––life and death––and even

man and god. Initiatory dissolution, like death, is generally met with fear and resistance

on the part of the initiand and this phase of transformation is incorporated into initiatory

rites. The initial disorientation, confusion, anxiety, and fear evoked in ritual eventually

gives way (if successful) to an epiphany of the god which “serve[s] both as a focus for

the unity of thiasos or of community and as the embodiment of salvation for the terrified

initiand” (Seaford, 2006, p. 95). We have previously explored many characteristics of this

process in “The Bacchae” which serves as a symbolic representation of Dionysiac

initiation. Seaford directs our attention to yet another characteristic action of Dionysos in

“The Bacchae” (and other Dionysiac myths), which frequently occurs in tragedy, even

when Dionysos does not himself appear: Dionysos inspires a kind of frenzy and madness

in people who resist introduction to his cult, and this provokes them to kill their own kin.

In myth, this resistance to the cult is often represented by members of the autocratic

family whose “self-destruction (albeit inspired by Dionysos) . . . leads to cult for the

whole community” (p. 95). Seaford imagines that this pattern of action which is most at
PSYCHE’S STAGE 233

home in the earliest tragedies based on myths about Dionysos “was then transmitted to

subsequent tragedies in which Dionysos himself does not appear” (p. 96). Ultimately,

Seaford comes to the conclusion that

tragedy can be called Dionysiac (even where Dionysos is not mentioned) in the

limited sense that it often represents such processes as tend to be imagined as

caused by Dionysos: reversal of identity, the frenzied killing of kin (self-

destruction of the household), the (fictional) death of an individual surrounded by

a group (thiasos, chorus), leading to cult for the whole community. (pp. 96-97)

Such politicizing of Dionysiac mysticism (as with any attempt to view the physical world

through the lens of a spiritual one) is admittedly a risky move that potentially invites the

misuse of spiritual principles for personal gain and abuse of power. In Athenian

democracy (for instance) it was imagined that Dionysos, the god of communality,

subverted autocracy. Paradoxically, several autocrats throughout history (Mark Antony

being one among them) have cleverly identified or been associated with the god for this

very reason (p. 46). In other words: The powerful image of Dionysos––as a stranger, god,

and outsider who arrives at the center of town (from the periphery, by way of procession

accompanied by an intimate thiasos of devoted followers) offering gifts of wine and

dance that bring liberation and joy to all who worship him, has been manipulated to

promote autocratic rule because it projects the power of a unified group onto a single

controlling entity. The autocrat thus becomes a figure who is viewed as a god.

But tragedy, if approached with a mystic sensibility and intention, may offer us a

paradigmatic jumping off point for developing an imaginal practice that provides a check

and balance against such abuses of powerful spiritual imagery, while simultaneously
PSYCHE’S STAGE 234

giving body to the primordial yearnings and spiritual aspirations represented in Corbin’s

writings. Seaford’s (2006) view of the historical period and context when tragedy was

developing provides us with a glimpse of this potential. During this time, the advanced

city-states of Greece became “the first society in history to be pervaded (and so

transformed)” (p. 148) by the widespread use of money, largely due to the invention of

coinage. Dodds (1951), and other scholars, have viewed this era as a period characterized

by “growing emancipation of the individual from the old family solidarity” (p. 150).

Expanding upon this idea, Seaford (2006) suggests that the individualism which

characterizes the Greek archaic and classical eras “occurs in part as a result of the

isolating effect of monetization” (p. 148). In Reciprocity and Ritual (1994) he discusses

this theory in great depth. The passage below from Dionysos, encapsulates the role of

tragedy, as he imagines it, within this movement. Seaford (2006) says:

This brave new world of money is a very recent development in the experience of

the human species, and the first poetic genre to be created in it was tragedy, which

centres around an unprecedented individual known also from historiography and

philosophy: the tyrant, isolated from the gods and even from his own kin,

obsessed with money, a transgressor against the ancient moral codes of

reciprocity, the sacred, and kinship. Because money embodies interpersonal

power, and lends itself to individual possession, it promotes an unprecedented

degree of individual autonomy, and so it seems to loosen its possessor from the

old moral codes, even from dependence on kin and gods. The tyrant is the new

individual, the man of money, writ large. In the Dionysiac genre of tragedy the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 235

isolated autocrat is generally destroyed, whereas his opposite, the anonymous

choral collective, uphold traditional morality and survive. (pp. 148-149)

In viewing tragedy through this lens, we can imagine that it provided a space where new-

world innovations and movements could be embodied and questioned within the context

of longstanding communally held beliefs. It provided a place where part and whole could

be put into dialogue with one another––where the bond between them could be dissected

and “re-membered” time and time again within the context of the unstable changing

world of mixture. As Seaford has said: Dionysos, more than other deities, is likely to

embody that which has been lost.

We are also admittedly struck by the poignant correspondence between the world-

shaping effect of monetization in the Greek world during the historical period when

tragedy was being developed, and the overpowering influence of money that shapes our

experience of the world today. The godlike quality of “the dollar” looms larger now than

ever (or so it seems to us). The tyrant individual and “man of money writ large” is now

accompanied by invisible Persons who go by an assortment of institutional names like

Corporation and Wall Street. This correspondence between our world now and the Greek

world then (at least as it is imagined by Seaford) heightens our sense that today’s world

may benefit from a practice informed by tragedy. If the act of opening mystery-cult up to

the entire polis responded to a societally held need during a time in Greek history when

circumstances were much like our own, might this not be taken as an indication that a

theatrical practice informed by this tradition could serve us now as well?

Seaford argues quite convincingly that Dionysiac transformation of identity in

mystery-cult initiation rites contributed to the Greek developments of drama, and another
PSYCHE’S STAGE 236

discipline which we have yet to mention: namely that of philosophy. In short, he builds

an interesting case suggesting that mystery-cult might be “the context of ‘philosophical’

exposition of the deeper meaning of a mythical narrative” (Seaford, 2006, p. 111). This is

intriguing, given the significance of both philosophy and visionary experience in

Corbin’s interpretation of Islamic mysticism. “In the fifth century AD the Neoplatonist

philosopher Proclus regarded Plato as following the Orphic myths and interpreting mystic

doctrine” (p. 115). Since Dionysiac mystery-cult initiation rites contributed to the

Platonic philosophical tradition that influenced the mysticism of Ibn ‘Arabī’s Sūfism and

other related Islamic mystic traditions, might we not justifiably take the stance that

viewing the creative Imagination from within a Dionysiac world is a form of ta’wīl––in

other words, a means of carrying these mystic traditions back to an earlier source from

which they sprang (at least to some degree)? We might also say the same for depth and

archetypal psychologies since these disciplines draw from this same Greek philosophical

tradition that Dionysiac mystery-cult contributed to.

With this observation, we feel ourselves approaching the conclusion of this leg of

our research journey. Much of our work has focused itself on the process of unveiling

theatre’s potential as a numinous practice via an engagement with Corbin works;

Hillman’s writings and archetypal sensibility; and the Actress’s experience. Our initial

sense of purpose for putting Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress into dialogue with each

other did not emerge as a preconceived aim to make theatre our focus per se, but rather,

from a desire to discover what this dialogue might say about the creative Imagination in

Islamic Sūfism as it relates to nonmystics, in other words, as it relates to individuals who

lack access to so called visions in the literal apparitional sense of the term. One of the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 237

teachings which emerged from this dialogue is that the vision of a non-elitist mystic-

theatre for today’s world might rightfully serve the creative Imagination (as put forth in

Corbin’s works) and make a worthy contribution to the spiritual and psychological

lineages of Corbin and Hillman. In the course of our journey, our three-way dialogue was

surprisingly engulfed by a Dionysiac cosmos that incorporated each of their three voices

in some form or another. In our view, a mystic-theatre––informed by Corbin, Hillman,

the Actress, and the Dionysiac cosmos––could potentially serve the creative Imagination

itself, by following its lead: by mirroring its practices, principles, and intentions within

the context of our lived experiences here on earth. At moments throughout this

exploration we have hinted at how our findings might color the practice and entity of a

mystic-theatre for today’s world, but our focus––for the most part––has been on

establishing a healing fiction that justifies the very idea of this theatre. In some respects,

it seems as if the theatre itself needed this elaborative fiction to heal its own wounds. It

too, has become the victim of monetization’s godlike takeover. Perhaps the theatre, torn

from its mystic roots by the force of capitalism, wanted to be “re-membered.” Let us

imagine for a moment that the theatre, itself, needed soothing. Perhaps it longed for the

boosting balm and elixir of historically informed myth, compiled as a compassionate

fiction, to incite its return to the Angel from which is springs, and its eventual comeback

via the aspiration of a divine Name longing to be named in a concrete being.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 238

Chapter 13
Gathering the Bones and Parting Words

The time has come, it seems, to follow the path of Agave, Autonoe, and Spenta

Armaiti. Essentially, all are mothers who gathered the bones of their dead children in an

effort to make them whole again. We too, find ourselves, as a mother of sorts to this

work, in the position of gathering its bones with hopes of engendering a second birth and

vision of a non-elitist mystic-theatre. For the moment, we shall call this theatre Psyche’s

Stage. In retrospect, it seems that this gathering of bones has been our task throughout the

entire research journey. The somewhat fragmented and dismembered quality of our

narrative flow and progress appears to us now as the innards, limbs, organs, eyes, and

heart of a deceased child who is older than time itself yearning to be “remembered” and

born again. This child has had many mothers in the course of terrestrial and imaginal

history. We are but one of them, but all of us, in a sense are also one mother. In true

Dionysiac form, we feel ourselves as both the impregnated mother of this child and the

inchoate child itself.

A Retrospective of the Nature and Structure of this Study as a Whole

If we are to gather the bones of this research, it may behoove us to first reflect on

the nature and structure of the study as a whole. This move reflects the cyclical and

relational back and forth movement between an encompassing whole and its parts, which

is characteristic of the hermeneutic circle itself. In hindsight, it seems that the

hermeneutic ancestral lineage––as put forth in Chapter 3 on methodology––has much to

do with the labyrinthine, fragmented, and dismembered quality of our search, herein.

Taking an essentially panpsychic perspective informed by Gadamer, Romanyshyn,

PSYCHE’S STAGE 239

Corbin, and Hillman, we set afoot on the research path with minimal boundaries––giving

agency to the research topic itself––allowing the conscious and unconscious aspects of

the topic’s own questions to direct us throughout the process. The open-ended nature of

this approach was designated in the “Organization of the Study” section of Chapter 3.

Here, instead of mapping a chapter-by-chapter plan as might be expected, we simply

stated an intention to allow our relationship with the subject to steer the work in

accordance with the unfolding of its own needs and desires.

Veiled dimensions of the research question began to surface in the slow surrender

of cooperation with the unseen others of the work. This phenomenon aligns with

Gadamer’s view that the “right question” in hermeneutic studies emerges only through

immersion in the subject-matter. It is in this immersion that the work of art or text acts as

a medium through which the question that brought it into being presents and re-presents

itself in its present form.

Our primary and secondary research questions, as initially stated, were put forth

as follows:

How might a phenomenological engagement with and dialogue between

Hillman's work in archetypal psychology and Corbin's interpretation of the creative

Imagination in Persian mystic Sūfism further inform us about creative imagination for the

nonmystic? And furthermore, what forms of creative practice might emerge from the

understanding gleaned by this exploration?

Drawing from Romanyshyn’s alchemical or imaginal hermeneutic approach to

depth psychological research, a third figure (unnamed in the question as stated above)

was necessarily included in this dialogue from the outset. We have variously referred to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 240

her as the Actress and nonmystic. This archetypal figure has served as a reflection of our

own complex relations to the unfinished business and unanswered questions of the

research topic. Her Presence acknowledges and includes our own conscious and

unconscious voice as the wounded researcher within the depth psychological research

process. It is the yearning of this Wound that allowed us to detect her Presence within the

terrain of Corbinian and Hillmanian texts alike. It is Her desire to see Herself within these

worlds that unexpectedly led us to the world of Dionysos as a place where all three

worlds might dwell together. Inhabiting this desire, certain elements of our core texts

highlighted themselves in our presence. These lighted elements became the stepping

stones of our path––the emergent themes, images, and mythical plots as persons––who

unveiled their multidimensional presences across the various texts we landed in by their

direction.

Many of these elements made an explicit appearance in the preparatory stage of

the research (represented in first three chapters of this work) but others unexpectedly and

persistently forced themselves upon us thereafter. For example, we had no intention of

exploring the role of the feminine as part of our investigation and yet this exploration is

now clearly a sine qua non of this work.

Nor did we expect that the Dionysiac cosmos would encompass and engulf the

entire body of this inquiry. Dionysos––the Undivided––essentially became the answer to

our primary research question as it was initially expressed. The marriage of Dionysos and

Ariadne (who is identified with Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty) essentially

became our lesson about the creative Imagination for so called nonmystics. With this

marriage as our answer, our question implicitly shifted from its explicit focus on Corbin’s
PSYCHE’S STAGE 241

texts and Hillman’s texts to a focus that sensed their presences from within a focus on the

Dionysiac cosmos. Special attention, at this juncture, was given to Seaford’s work on the

evolution of tragedy from its roots in mystery-cult initiation ritual, and to Euripides’ “The

Bacchae”, as a dramatization of the myth that explains the foundation and practices of

Dionysiac mystery-cult. With this move, the theatrical element in Corbin’s and Hillman’s

texts could be explored through an explicit connection between mysticism and theatre.

Intriguingly, the piecemealing––the gathering––the revisiting experience of

recurrent creation gifted by our methodological approach, mirrored the contents of our

research material. For instance, our hermeneutic experience mimicked the mystic

initiation process before we even knew that mystic initiation would become a crucial

player in our inquiry. Additionally, our research process set us on a course of gathering

and piecing together a collection of scattered bones, and this process mirrored the content

of our findings in myth. We might ask ourselves whether one was the cause of the other,

or whether both belong to an encompassing whole and collaborative effort beneath our

level of conscious awareness. Perhaps both and all are true. Perhaps each of them caused

the other, and perhaps they are also part of an encompassing collaborative whole. This

response honors the thematic presences of bothness unveiled throughout this work.

In the conclusive exploration which follows we shall set on a course of collecting

the bones of our research herein, by reflecting on the narrative flow of our research

journey from Chapter 4 on. Along the way, we shall imagine how these bones might

contribute to our emerging vision of a mystic-theatre informed by Corbin, Hillman, and

the Actress. The form of this vision presents itself to us at this stage of our development,

in pieces, in dismembered fragments, in mere flashes, like the flashes of light that the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 242

mystic sees in the preparatory stages of his spiritual maturation which eventually lead to a

full figured apparitional vision of his Angel.

A Gathering of Mazdean Bones: Recapping Chapter 4

The first Mazdean bone: Envisioning theatrical practice as a spiritual

practice.

From the outset of this research our attention has been drawn to the theatrical

imagery and practices embedded in the texts of our core authors. In Chapter 4 on

Mazdaism, we explored this affinity through Corbin’s analogy of the Mazdean myth as

an eschatological dramaturgy which unfolds in the course of three great acts. The entire

human race, as we imagined it, was here unveiled as a world of players in Ōhrmazd’s

liturgy. Drama, as such, was seen as a form of prayer that aims to mirror the divine

Principles or Angels from which beings originate. The consummation of this process was

viewed as the transformation and immortalization of the human being symbolized in the

feminine Angel called Daēnā––the human’s celestial “I.” The script and plot of

Ōhrmazd’s dramatic liturgy enigmatically unfolded here as a battle––a battle with

Ahriman––variously interpreted as a Contrary Power, as the Negator, the doubt, and the

not-me-within-me.

Psyche’s Stage, informed by these images might thus be envisioned as a liminal

space in which individuation is sought: as a space where we, as individuals, can gather

with the soul-aim of unveiling the a priori yearnings that necessitate our being. On

Psyche’s Stage our human battles––like Ōhrmazd’s celestial battle––might be

metaphorically fought as a play. And like the Fravartis––who join the fight on terrestrial

Earth to protect the world of Light where Ōhrmazd dwells––humans might join in
PSYCHE’S STAGE 243

“fights” on Psyche’s Stage to protect the sacred dimension that penetrates the very world

we live in.

The second Mazdean bone: The mystic as a perspective.

Having imagined theatrical practice as a spiritual practice through the medium of

Ōhrmazd’s liturgy, we then turned to Corbin’s (1960/1977) essay on the Earth as Angel

to further our search on behalf of the nonmystic. This writing prompted us to address the

Earth and the beings and things of the Earth as Person: as “Who” rather than “what.” All

things were thus viewed as the epiphany of their Angels. Ordinary things in the terrestrial

world, as Persons, became visions, and our definitive sense of the mystic began to shift.

The difference between the mystic and the nonmystic became a matter of perspective,

and the mystic perspective emerged as one in which the Earth and beings and things of

the Earth were engaged with as epiphanic appearances of their Angels. In a preliminary

practice that incorporated this sensibility, we reimagined a lived event in our own life as a

reflection of our Angel from within a fictional style.

Psyche’s Stage might thus begin with similar exercises which apply our

reimagined definitive sense of the mystic to the development of its scripts and characters

from within the sensibility of fiction. Aligning with this perspective, all things and beings

of the Earth could be potentially engaged with and embodied as Persons and visions of

their Angels––visions which long to be known as such. Psyche’s Stage would thus

become a search that aims to unveil Earth’s Angels––its primordial essences and

yearnings. This search (because visions always appear to the mystic in a form which is

appropriate to his own level of development) would also be a search that aims to unveil

the mystic-actress’s own Angel––her own sense of purpose to herself.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 244

Finding blood in the idea of feminine consciousness.

Continuing our journey, we deepened our sense of Mazdaism, as it was once

practiced, through an exploration of Spendarmatīkīh (the process of assuming the mode

of being of Spenta Armaiti, Archangel of the Earth). We likened this discipline to the

actor’s preparation for embodying a character. The complex web of Spenta Armaiti’s

familial roles and relationships in this exploration hinted at the profound significance of

the idea of feminine consciousness which unfolded throughout our research from this

point forward. Here we saw intimations that the attainment of Daēnā was marked by a

transformation from masculine consciousness to feminine consciousness. This led to a

supposition that the difference between the wisdom of feminine consciousness and the

wisdom of masculine consciousness, as put forth in Corbin’s essay, had something to do

with the pure gaze of love attributed to the feminine. The themes of love, beauty, and

feminine consciousness (characterized by bothness and undividedness), played an

unrelenting role in our study thereafter.

In hindsight, these themes appear to us now as the life’s blood which flows

throughout the entire body of this research. As such, they most certainly have an essential

bearing on all visions of Psyche’s Stage.

The Bones of Avicennan and Suhrawardīan Lineages: Recapping Chapter 5

The first Avicennan bone: The soul’s sense of incompletion and aspiration to

the still Unrealized.

In Chapter 5, our brief sketch of Avicennism served our overarching purpose in

three notable respects. First, it acquainted us with an idea of the Soul that (from our

perspective) moves Corbin’s sense of soul closer to Hillman’s. In Avicennism, the

PSYCHE’S STAGE 245

intellectual desire attributed to the Archangel Intelligences is viewed as “the intellectual

act representing its good and its perfection to itself . . . thus actuating and realizing the

cosmic Order” (Corbin, 1954/1988, p. 71). In contrast, “the eternal motion imparted to

the sphere by the Soul expresses . . . an incompletion, an unfulfillment, an aspiration

toward the still Unrealized.” (p. 71). In our view, this description has intimations of

Hillman’s restless, unsatisfied, and even pathological soul––intimations of a soul forever

searching for something as yet undone, unseen, unmanifested. Seeing through this lens,

we imagine that the Soul’s purpose (even in Corbin) resides in Hillmanian trenches––that

tending these trenches is, in essence, the Soul’s job.

Psyche’s Stage, informed by these images and Hillman’s concern for soul, would

thus incorporate a sense of this unfulfillment and incompletion. It would embody our

imperfections and aspirations toward the still Unrealized including the pains, sufferings,

and distorted pathological leanings that necessarily accompany these aspirations.

Psyche’s Stage, placing itself between the at least partially eternally unknown reality of

our celestial selves, and the reality of our current existence, would aspire to move each of

them closer together, not by eradicating the one for the sake of the other, but instead by

discovering and tending to the shared yearning between them.

The second Avicennan bone: The return to source as a return to sovereign

Beauty and Goodness and primordial Love.

Corbin’s definition of the First Being of Avicenna as “sovereign Beauty and

Goodness and primordial Love” (Corbin, 1954/1988p. 57) provided us with a sense of

how this shared yearning between the Soul and the Archangel Intelligence might be

recognized. If Beauty and Goodness and primordial Love, as one, are viewed as the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 246

divine root and ruling Principle from which all beings spring, then the saving return of

ta’wīl is a return to the Beauty and Goodness and primordial Love that all things are

rooted in. The aim of ta’wīl might thus be imagined as an aspiration to embody, in

essence to become, this Beauty and Goodness and primordial love.

Informed by this perspective, Psyche’s Stage, in an effort toward bringing

celestial and terrestrial realities closer together, would endeavor to lovingly unveil the

Beauty and Goodness of the beings and stories it contains.

Bits of a Dionysiac bone in Avicenna: Dismemberment and “re-membrance.”

In sorting through the bones of our brief excursion into Avicennism, searching for

bits that most poignantly contributed to our vision of Psyche’s Stage, we stumbled upon a

hint of Dionysiac imagery embedded within it. Here in the procession of angelic

Intelligences of Avicennism, the Tenth Intelligence, lacking the energy to engender one

Intelligence, one Soul, and one heaven like those Intelligences who came before him,

splinters into the multitude of human souls and terrestrial matter. The human race, seen

through this lens, is as such, the dismembered Tenth Intelligence. We have also witnessed

this thematic presence of dismemberment in the myth of Gayōmart from Mazdaism. The

somewhat veiled images of this recurring dismemberment theme in Corbin provides us

with yet another sense of connection between the celestial imagery of his work and

harsher, more visceral correspondences in the Dionysiac world. Notably, in both worlds,

dismemberment is followed by re-membrance.

Psyche’s Stage can thus be imagined in terms of a cyclical process of

dismemberment and remembrance which simultaneously expresses itself on multiple

dimensions. These expressions might draw upon different styles of delivery: different
PSYCHE’S STAGE 247

rhythms, tones, types of movements, gestures, dialects, and linguistic personalities that

strip us of our habitual selves in the process of piecing together alternative ways of being

and seeing. These piecemealed constructions might then offer up new insights and fresh

perspectives that are potentially transformative for earthly and heavenly being alike.

Sifting through bones in the Suhrawardīan lineage.

Following our brief summary of Avicennism, we touched upon the Suhrawardīan

lineage and theosophy of light for two primary reasons. Regarding the first, our intention

was to engender a sense of personalized connection between the Actress and Corbin’s

mystic works by seeing our own lived experience of flashing lights in a meditation class,

through Corbin’s interpretation of the theosophy of light. Our second reason was to

become familiar with this mystic lineage as a preparation for exploring its seeming

correspondence with Pentheus’s experience in “The Bacchae” which symbolically

represents the experience of the mystic initiand.

This brief exploration of the Suhrawardīan lineage and theosophy of light

supported our vision of Psyche’s Stage by making archetypal connections between the

worlds of mysticism and theatre. These connections, as unveiled here, were related to a

practice of embodying compassion via a shared suffering between differentiated beings.

Psyche’s Stage might thus be imagined as a place where the actress becomes the mystic

in the act of embodying the world’s suffering as her own, while the world of the play

simultaneously embodies her suffering as its own.

The Dionysiac Boneyard: Recapping Chapter 6

In Chapter 6 we formally introduced Dionysos into our study. In our initial draft

of this dissertation, most of our focus up to this point had been on Corbin’s works. At the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 248

time, we viewed this chapter as a way of bringing Hillman and the Actress into the mix

via a topic that pertained to both of them. Given our prior explorations of theatrical

imagery and practices within the mystic focus of Corbin, this seemed appropriate.

Nevertheless, we had not anticipated that Dionysos would present us with such rich and

enigmatic correspondences to Corbin’s works. As Dionysos became more and more

significant to every aspect of the study, Chapter 6 became a means of introducing

Dionysiac themes, images, myths, and perspectives that would prepare the reader for

chapters 10 through 12 which focused on pertinent aspects of Seaford’s research on

Dionysos. It was here that mysticism and theatre would come explicitly together.

Initially, we resisted plunging into the depths of Ariadne’s role in the mythical

healing fiction that had begun to emerge via the paradoxically unifying myth of

Dionysos. The complexity of our unfolding plot had been growing to an overwhelming

extent since the moment we set foot on the research path and, quite frankly, we felt an

anxious need to contain it. But Ariadne simply would not allow us to diminish her role,

so our introduction to Dionysos necessarily included an introduction to Ariadne. It should

be obvious by now that her persistence was warranted. The figure of Ariadne has

emerged over the course of this journey as one of our primary bridges between the mystic

worlds of Corbin’s focus and the Dionysiac world.

With Ariadne in mind, we imagine Psyche’s Stage as a similar bridge between the

spiritual and physical worlds. Additionally, Ariadne––as the Mistress of the labyrinth––

has provided us with an image that mirrored our writing and researching experience. The

Ariadnean bridge and labyrinth both appear to us now as symbols that indicate how

Psyche’s Stage might appear and unfold in practice.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 249

In our exploration of Hillman’s writings on Dionysos we focused on themes that

overlapped with those of Corbin’s work. At the end of this discussion we called upon

Hillman’s (1972b) poetic image of a Dionysos who “rules the borderlands of our psychic

geography” (p. 275). We likened this psychic geography to the spiritual geography put

forth in Corbin’s work on the creative Imagination of Ibn ‘Arabī by way of a prominent

theme that poignantly populates both worlds. This theme can be variously expressed via

the words “bothness,” “the Undivided,” and “feminine consciousness,” as well as other

nuanced sophianic terms that dwell in the overarching idea that encompasses them.

The scattered bones in Chapter 6, as they relate to Psyche’s Stage, illuminated

themselves further in later chapters, most notably in Chapters 10 through 12 which

focused on Seaford’s interpretation of the Dionysiac cosmos. Based upon the

correspondences that unfolded from this point forward, we imagine Psyche’s Stage as an

environment where the meaning of bothness, of the Undivided, and of feminine

consciousness can be explored in embodied practices informed by Corbinian, Hillmanian,

and Dionysian perspectives.

Ibn ‘Arabīan Bones: Recapping Chapter 7

The first Ibn ‘Arabīan bone: Intimations of the dialectic of Love as a twofold

individuation process.

In Chapter 7, bothness and undividedness referred to “an essential community

between visible and invisible beings” (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 106), which is the principle

upon which Ibn ‘Arabī’s dialectic of love is grounded. This essential community is

eternally established in the act and phenomenon referred to as divine sympathy or divine

compassion. Definitively speaking, we described this sympathy and compassion as the

PSYCHE’S STAGE 250

reciprocal aspiration and interdependence between paired entities that connote a

relationship between the Creator and created beings. The divine Names and beings who

name them; the Beloved and the lover; and the Lord and his vassal are some of these

designated pairs. Divinity, at its very core, even from its all-encompassing position

beyond all being, was characterized as a twofold simultaneous and eternal yearning: as a

sadness and aspiration for self-knowledge through and in being (which is instantly

realized), and a concomitant nostalgic longing to return to the source beyond this being.

Allowing this overview to inform our vision of Psyche’s Stage, we imagine the

world of the play and the actress-mystic as one of these divinely yoked pairs. This

pairing, situated on stage between terrestrial and celestial world realities, would embody

potentialities that respond to both of these realms. The relationship between the world of

the play and the actress-mystic, modeled after the relationship between Creator and

created beings, would essentially emerge as a reciprocal aspiration and interdependence

which expresses a mutual sadness and yearning to know oneself. Seen through this lens,

the aim of Psyche’s Stage appears to us as a twofold individuation process for the actress-

mystic (who represents individual) and the encompassing play (who represents the

world).

The second Ibn ‘Arabīan bone: The Angel’s Presence is in that which we

love.

In Ibn ‘Arabī’s system we saw that the essential community between visible and

invisible beings was encountered first hand via the dialectic of love: an encounter through

which the mystic sees a vision of his god. Here we learned that Ibn ‘Arabī distinguished

between god in general and the particular Lord “personalized in an individualized and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 251

undivided relation with his vassal of love” (Corbin, 1958/1997, p. 94). The epiphanic

figure who appeared to the mystic as the culmination of the dialectic of love was this

particularized Lord and not the all-encompassing Divinity beyond all being. It was only

through knowing his Lord that the mystic knew God. And the mystic knew his Lord only

through knowing himself. The mystic, we were told, knew himself through that which he

loved.

We imagine that the participants in Psyche’s Stage, thus informed, would

approach its twofold individuation process via a perspective which gravitates towards

that which they love, so that they too might move closer to knowing themselves, their

Angels, and their relationship to God (the whole) in general.

A third Ibn ‘Arabīan bone: The Undivided as the player of both roles.

At a certain point within the process of the dialectic of love, the mystic’s soul

comes to realize that it loves not through itself but only through its Lord. From the soul’s

point of view its Lord of love is “the organ of its perception” (p. 151). But from His point

of view, “the soul itself is His organ of perception” (p. 151). The Lord is the organ of the

soul’s loving perception, and the soul is the Lord’s organ of perception. They see through

each other but both are none other than Him. He is the Lover and the Beloved. “It is in

His essence to be both one and the other . . . and the eternal dialogue between the two” (p.

152). As one (or shall we say, as the Undivided) both play both roles.

Informed by this snapshot of the dialectic of love, we envision Psyche’s Stage as

a space where actress-mystics have an affinity for switching roles––for discovering and

embodying the Angel in one character, then switching places with opposing characters––

embodying aspects of the Angel in and as each.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 252

A fourth Ibn ‘Arabīan bone: The image of the Feminine Creator.

Corbin has told us that the mystic prepares for the dialectic of love which

culminates as a vision of his Lord, through contemplation of an effective image of the

Godhead. He has said that the Image of feminine being––of the Creative Feminine or

Feminine Creator––is the most effective Image for this meditation because it incorporates

both of His active and passive, His creative and receptive aspects, while the Image of

masculine being embodies only one of the two. When the mystic successfully shapes his

entire being to the receptive and creative Image of the Godhead, a “second birth” occurs.

It is only in the sequel to this second birth that the mystic is invested with the secret on

which the divinity of his Lord depends.

Informed by this image, we imagine that the actress-mystic of Psyche’s Stage

embodies her character as its Creator and simultaneously as its child. In a similar vein,

she enters the world of the play as a child of that world and concomitantly as its mother-

Creator. It is from within this perspective that she might expect the twofold individuation,

which is the aim of Psyche’s Stage, to unfold.

Bones that join worlds.

Nearing the end of Chapter 7, we came to imagine the mutual presences of

bothness, of the Undivided, of the call for the restoration of feminine consciousness, and

of the image of a second birth (all of which populate both Corbin’s interpretation of Ibn

‘Arabī’s dialectic of love and the Dionysian cosmos) as an invitation to view these two

distinct worlds as different dimensions of one multidimensional universe, drama, and

story. With this move, we gifted ourselves with the license to call upon particularly

resonant aspects of either camp for guidance in accordance with their correspondences to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 253

the presences in our lives as they appeared in each moment. Psyche’s Stage, we imagine,

would be afforded with this same gift.

Ariadnean Bones: Recapping Chapter 8

The first Ariadnean bone: Joining worlds from within a fictional sensibility.

Ariadne, having presented herself as a particularly poignant bridge between the

higher and lower dimensions respectively tended to in Corbin’s and Hillman’s works,

became the focus of Chapter 8. This chapter eventually emerged as a series of voices who

variously explored Ariadne’s story from within a fictional sensibility. Our threefold

intention here, was to familiarize the reader with stories from the myth of Ariadne––to

bring the worlds of Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress closer together in a Dionysiac

world––and to evoke an awareness of fictional sensibility as a potentially imaginal

sensibility for nonmystics. Experientially, this was accomplished. The richness of the tri-

unified Dionysiac cosmos constituted by these exercises in fiction was deeply moving to

us.

We imagine that Psyche’s Stage would draw from this fictional sensibility

expanding upon the world-joining art of literary approaches via the spoken word and

embodied practices moving printed contents off the page and onto a stage as a play and

exchange with others.

The second Ariadnean bone: The center of the labyrinth

In this chapter, we also highlighted the significance of the labyrinth image within

the context our work. Kerényi’s interpretation of the labyrinth, as a place that opened to a

path of light when its inhabitant reached the center and turned, seemed to mirror our

experience of the research process. In some respects, the Ariadnean fictions, which held
PSYCHE’S STAGE 254

our three key dialogical voices together in a single world, struck us as a turning point: as

a moment through which we reached our center within the work and turned towards its

light. The labyrinth––as a dark, confusing, disorienting, life threatening place––and the

light at its center strikes us as analogous to the mystic light in darkness (or black light)

discussed in our chapter on mystery-cult. This association strengthens our sense of

Ariadne as a bridge that brings the worlds of Corbin’s focus and the Dionysiac world

together in a unified cosmos. Allowing these associations to work on us, the twofold

individuation process of Psyche’s Stage strikes us as a labyrinthine form in search of its

center and black light.

The Bones of Beauty: Recapping Chapter 9

Corbinian bones.

Throughout our inquiry, we have referred to the profound significance of beauty

in both Corbin’s and Hillman’s works. Chapter 9 was thus devoted to the meaning of

beauty seen through their perspectives. In Corbin, beauty is seen as a divine and spiritual

power that creates love in man. It carries the mystic beyond mere appearances to the

imaginal dimension which leads to self knowledge. It is “theophany par excellence.”

Corbin (1997/1958) tells us that, a “form of being which is invested with Beauty . . . is

the image of the divine Compassion, creator of the being by which it was itself created”

(p. 163). A being who is invested with Beauty is, as such, a “manifestation of the

Creative Feminine” (p. 166). The act of contemplating the sacral Beauty in things is thus

a meditation on the Godhead via an image of the Creative Feminine––which is a

meditation that Corbin recommends as a preparatory step to the dialectic of love wherein

the mystic sees a vision of his Lord. In Ibn ‘Arabī’s cosmology the divine Sadness and
PSYCHE’S STAGE 255

Hidden Treasure contemplates his beauty through the world of beings which He creates

as mirrors, and so it follows that we might mirror Him via a similar process––

contemplating our beauty (which is ultimately His beauty) in a theatrical world of beings

that we create as mirrors––that we create so that we too might come to know the Hidden

Treasure which longs to be known––which longs to be unveiled on every dimension of

being as Beauty. Here, it helps to remember that Corbin seemingly equated Beauty with

Goodness and primordial love in his treatment of Avicennism. The work of Psyche’s

Stage seen through this lens is thus the work of unveiling the Beauty and Goodness and

primordial love that exists in all things and necessitates their being.

The bone of fear and beauty.

Continuing our investigation, we discovered an enigmatic connection between

beauty and fear which is touched upon in the writings of both Corbin and Hillman. In

Hillman, this connection was explored in terms of the Sublime, as experienced in the

midst of extreme displays of nature. This fearful element of beauty seems especially

pertinent given Dionysos’s connection with dangerous elements in nature and our later

investigations of fear as it pertained to mystery-cult.

Attempting to enrich our sense of Corbin’s writing on the association of fear and

Beauty, we teased out the relationships between members of fear’s etymological family.

In this exercise, we learned that the definition given to the Indo-European root (per-3),

from which the word fear derives, is: “to try [or] risk” (Per-3, 1992, p. 2119). Other

important derivatives of this root are “peril, experience, experiment, expert, and empiric”

(p. 2119). Following Corbin and Hillman, it seems appropriate that we should take this

fearful aspect of beauty (and its linguistic family) into account when we think about
PSYCHE’S STAGE 256

Psyche’s Stage as a practice of unveiling the Beauty and Goodness and primordial love

that exists in all things. Fear, as we learned from our exploration of mystery-cult rituals,

has transformative properties and the aim of Psyche’s Stage, as a twofold individuation

process, is––after all––transformation. The process of embodying and unveiling the

Angel in the characters we play (especially those who mirror the egregious and

marginalized classes amongst us) is risky, on a number of levels. This unveiling

destructs, at least for the duration of the play and possibly beyond, the protective walls

upon which our society is built, by exposing the inequities that we support––sometimes

willingly, sometimes not––sometimes through our actions, and sometimes through a lack

of action. The unveiling of Beauty and Goodness and primordial love in all things is

threatening to those who seemingly profit from the veil and this potentially exposes the

exposers to danger. On a more personal level, the work of unveiling beauty’s depths is

demanding. It takes time, effort, and dedication. As is true with any profound learning

process, it exposes one to numerous vulnerabilities and potential humiliations. This

exposure is admittedly frightening.

Hillmanian bones of beauty.

Following our exploration of beauty’s association with fear, we directed our

attention to Hillman’s archetypal move in epistrophē, carrying the theme of Beauty back

to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Since Ariadne has been identified with

Aphrodite, and even a mention of Ariadne was scarce in our readings of Hillman’s work,

this move afforded us an opportunity to imagine Ariadne through the lens of Hillman’s

perspective by way of his writings on beauty and this goddess. Aphrodite was here

envisioned as both the soul itself, and the revelation of soul’s essence within things.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 257

Seeing through Hillman’s lens, Aphrodite became both visible and sensuous. The

goddess’s smile shined forth as the subjectivity of objects on the face of things bestowing

eachness (like Ariadne), in a pluralistic cosmos. Aphrodite was viewed as “the luster of

each particular event––its clarity its particular brightness.” (Hillman, 1992b, p. 43).

Hillman (1992b) has said that: “all things as they display their innate nature

present Aphrodite’s goldenness; they shine forth and as such are aesthetic” (p. 44).

According to his perspective, beauty is sense perception as it appears to the imagination.

“It is appearance itself” (p. 45). Likening beauty to an aesthetic instinct, Hillman

encouraged us to imagine it as a “sense of taste in relation with things” and as

“primordial aesthetic reactions of the heart” (p. 39).

These descriptions prove instructive when Corbin’s talk of celestial Angels,

Archangel Intelligences, Fravartis, and Daēnās seem far beyond anything that pertains to

us. They gift us with a way of seeing for the sake of soul, here on Earth, further

illuminating the unveiling work of Psyche’s Stage. They enrich our view of Ariadne’s

thread and light as it appears and steers us in our day-to-day life.

Continuing in this day-to-day vein, we turned to the myth of Hephaestus, as an

example of beauty’s appearance in the odd, unglorified, and marginalized. This myth

would significantly come to our attention in a later discussion on Dionysos’s association

with communality, but in this moment, it simply asked us to “imagine that beauty is

permanently given, inherent to the world in its data, there on display always.” (Hillman,

2006f, p. 178). This premise directed us to Hillman’s observation that beauty’s radiance

shines forth more brilliantly in certain events “that aim to seize it and reveal it, such as art

works” (p. 178). Our hearts skipped a beat as he suggested that a better understanding of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 258

Beauty might be gleaned by “enter[ing] the mind of the ‘different,’ long . . . approach of

the artist” (Hillman, 2016, p. 322). It was in the midst of this conversation that our

research explicitly called for a vision of non-elitist mystic-theatre which opened the role

of actor and mystic up to ordinary persons in a sacral practice. Here Ariadne’s thread and

light steered us back to the Dionysiac world where an explicit connection between

mysticism and theatre could be explored.

Dionysiac Bones in Seaford: Recapping Chapter 10

Three Dionysiac bones: Nature, transformation, identification.

In Chapters 10 through 12, we looked to Seaford’s research and Euripides’

tragedy “The Bacchae” as a means of exploring this connection. At the same time, we

continued to foster a space where Hillman, Corbin, and the Actress might find a home

within the Dionysian cosmos by acknowledging and deepening our sense of their

likenesses as they appeared within this exploration. In Chapter 10, we discussed three key

themes associated with Dionysos: nature, communality, and epiphany. Each of these

themes (along with the theme of death, discussed in Chapter 11) were absorbed in

Dionysiac mystery-cult and later in the development of drama at Dionysiac festivals. Our

investigation of these themes, and Seaford’s work in general, focused on aspects related

to the topic of enactment. In our exploration of Dionysos’s association with nature, two

pertinent themes arose: transformation and identification. In respect to the first, we

learned that Dionysos’s association with nature finds its expression in the cultivation of

raw nature and the synthesis of nature and culture.

Regarding the second, we observed that Dionysos has a tendency to become his

associations. He becomes the vine, the wine, the bull, the lion, the earthquake, and the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 259

lightning. His associations are his epiphanic appearances. Going forward, these two

themes––transformation and identification––were explored as they applied to the

Dionysiac world more broadly.

Psyche’s Stage informed by these observations would aspire to become a

comparable force of Dionysiac creativity––embodying that which currently is, sensing its

a priori nature––its uncultivated form as an essential yearning, and from this place of

knowing transform itself into the being that it longs to be.

The bone of communality: Inclusive and paradoxically exclusive.

In a section on communality we discussed Dionysos’s desire to initiate entire

communities into the worship of his cult. His characteristic inclusiveness, illustrated by

the embrace of weak and marginalized populations, was contrasted by the seemingly

contradictory practice of secret rituals which excluded all but an inner circle of female

initiands and initiates.

In our effort to imagine the tangible operations of Psyche’s Stage put into

practice, we find ourselves bumping up against a similar paradox. The intimacy and

concentrated devotion represented by Dionysos’s thiasos and inner circle of initiates

certainly offers something of value that a more general form of public communality

cannot. When we begin to imagine a non-elitist mystic-theatre that invites an entire

community to participate as actors and mystics, related concerns (further discussed in

what follows) arise. As former actresses, the particular quality of theatrical work matters

to us. Our vision of a theatre that opens the role of actress and mystic up to all, is not akin

to our perception of community theatre, various manifestations of activist theatre, or

volunteer productions as vehicles to raise money for charities. In many cases (not all, of
PSYCHE’S STAGE 260

course) these venues, lack an essential element that (in our experience) contributes to the

powerful and sacred potential of theatre. For now, we shall simply identify this element

as a concern for beauty.

The bone of epiphany.

A discussion of various private and public forms of communality prepared us for

a later exploration of Seaford’s view of tragedy as an opening up of mystery-cult to

members of the Greek city-state polis in general. Descriptions of epiphany in its public

manifestations supported our earlier inference that all vision can be viewed as visions––

as visionary entities. According to Seaford (2006), “epiphany occurs when deity or its

manifestations is perceived by one or more of the senses” (p. 39). Seeing through this

definitive lens, the arrival of a statue of Dionysos in a procession was viewed as an

epiphany as long as the spectators imagined themselves to be seeing the god.

Based on inscription evidence from the third century AD, Seaford (2006) has

characterized Dionysos as the god “most given to epiphany,” the god most likely “to

manifest himself among humankind and to do so in various forms” (p. 39). References to

Dionysiac possession (in “The Bacchae”, for instance) suggest that Dionysos may also

“be thought to be present within in his worshippers” (p. 39) and Seaford has suggested

that the miraculous appearance of the vine or wine in myths of Dionysos may “indicate

his presence, or even his embodiment in what appears” (p. 39). This suggestion reminded

us of Hillman’s view of beauty as the mere appearance of things. Taken together with

Aphrodite as the personification of beauty, and Ariadne as an identification of Aphrodite,

we imagined the couple (or marriage) of Dionysos and Ariadne as their presence or

embodiment in what appears.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 261

A further exploration of epiphany revealed two contexts in which it tends to

occur: ritual and crisis. We also learned that epiphany might occur in response to

invocation. Mystery-cult and performance which are based upon myths as models of

transformation, were thus viewed as a form of invocation––as a means of calling upon a

god or gods––and concomitantly as a potential medium for epiphany through which the

gods might appear in response. Psyche’s Stage, as we imagine it, would serve a similar

function.

Gathering the Bones of Mystery-Cult: Recapping Chapter 11

In Chapter 11, our discussion of mystery-cult began with a sampling of evidence

indicating that some form of dramatic performance was involved in Dionysiac mystery-

cult initiation. Based on this evidence, we compiled an idea of various aspects that may

have contributed to initiatory performances. In general terms, these included ecstatic

dance; the use of masks and costumes to embody and evoke the god and his mythical

companions; and dramatic enactments in which the themes of birth, death, and rebirth

were central. Further imagining the initiatory experience via an exploration of Seaford’s

research within the context of “The Bacchae”, we followed the character of Pentheus as a

symbolic representation of the paradigmatic initiand.

In Seaford’s view the aim of Dionysiac mystery-cult initiation ritual was to assist

the initiand in preparing for his eventual transition into the next world. This ritual was

characterized by the initiand’s exposure to a frightening deathlike tribulation as an

uninitiated outsider, which led to an epiphany of the god, and a blissful transformation

through which the initiand became an insider and initiated member of the group. During
PSYCHE’S STAGE 262

our exploration of this process we illuminated various stages and characteristics of it, as

exemplified within the text of “The Bacchae”.

The Bones of Resistance, Confusion, Disorientation, Anxiety, and Fear

From this investigation, we learned that the initiand’s characteristic resistance to

the cult was incorporated in the initiatory process. The evocation of confusion,

disorientation, anxiety, and fear was stimulated by various techniques including the use

of riddling language and mirrors. Intimations of both of these techniques were present in

the plot of “The Bacchae”. In the progression of this tragic text, the escalation of

Pentheus’s initiatory tribulation is expressed in epiphanic imagery that we associated

with aspects of Corbin’s work in The Man of Light. The mystic image of light in

darkness, referred to as black light by Corbin, was the central image from which other

related analogies were made. Pentheus’s vision of two red suns within the context of this

black light symbolically represented in a prior scene, was likened, for instance, to the

visionary apperception of a “red sun standing out on a black background” (Corbin,

1971/1994, p. 117) discussed by Najm Kobrā.

From here we engaged in a further discussion of various forms of enactment in

mystery-cult as described by Seaford. These included the use of masks, the activity of

dance, the practice of gender reversal, the custom of dressing up as mythical figures of

the god’s thiasos, and the enactment of death through animal sacrifice whereby the

initiand was identified with the sacrificial victim. In a later phase of the cult’s evolution

this transformation may have been sought in the practice of enacting Dionysos’s

dismemberment by the Titans followed by his subsequent rebirth.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 263

Chapter 11 concluded with a synopsis of “The Bacchae’s” remaining plot and an

excursion likening the story of Gayōmart in Mazdaism to dismemberment stories in the

Dionysiac cosmos. Each of these are characterized by mothers who were tragically put in

the position of reassembling the bones of their dead children.

Our discussion of mystery-cult’s potential influence on Psyche’s Stage will be

postponed until the conclusion of our brief recap of Chapter 12 which focused on the

evolution of Greek tragedy. The influence of these two topics will be explored in

aggregate since the key features of Dionysiac mystery-cult, as discussed here, were

absorbed in one form or another by formalized drama at the City Dionysia.

Gathering the Bones of Greek Tragedy: Recapping Chapter 12

In Chapter 12, we explored Seaford’s view that Greek drama performed at

Dionysian festivals developed, at least in part, as an opening up of secret mystery-cult

rituals to the citizens of the city-state polis in Athens. Dionysiac communality–expressed

in mystery-cult as a dissolution of boundaries between the living and the dead––was

expressed in drama as a corresponding human “need for a community to feel itself

united” (Seaford, 2006, p. 97).

The inclusiveness of human communities was also explored as paradoxically

exclusive, by the very fact that nonmembers of the so called unifying entity are

definitively excluded from it. The entity engendering a sense of wholeness and belonging

is, after all, only a subset of some larger wholeness, and the interests of one whole were

often seen as detrimental to a larger more encompassing one. A tension between

communalities could arise from this situation. These tensions could emerge between the

communality of a family household and that of the polis community, for instance. During
PSYCHE’S STAGE 264

a crucial time in the development of tragedy, this tension between communalities was

expressed in “a political transition from tyrannical rule to communal well-being of polis

cult” (Seaford, 2006, p. 97). In Seaford’s view, tragedy thus “develop[ed] the political

significance latent in Dionysiac myth” (p. 97).

Seeing tragedy through this lens, we envisioned the performance of tragedy as a

response to our research question in two ways. First, we imagined that tragedy, as an

opening up of secret mystery-cult rites to members of the polis at large, was a dissolution

of the boundaries between the mystic and nonmystic. Building upon on this idea, we

imagined that the convergence of the political and the spiritual in the tradition of tragedy

constituted an imaginal world through which the spiritual yearnings and principles that

necessitated our manifest being could dialogue with manifested beings. Then we explored

Seaford’s argument, which supports the stance that tragedy can be viewed as Dionysiac

despite the fact that Dionysos (with the exception of “The Bacchae”) does not appear in

the extant tragedies. Taking this stance, the adjectival sense of Dionysos surfaces, not

only in the myth of god, but also in the presence of Dionysiac archetypes or patterns as

they appear in other myths and life itself.

During this exploration, we were also struck by Seaford’s view of tragedy’s

mediating function during the historical period when widespread monetization in Greece

was having a profound effect on traditional values and customs. Within the tragic world

of the play, the tension between these traditions and contradictory innovations could be

embodied as one story from within the perspectives of all involved. The gains and losses

of societal movement could dialogue with each other. Perspectives of communality could

be expressed amidst the counter movement toward individualism and promotion of self
PSYCHE’S STAGE 265

interest. The synchronistic correspondence between the effects of monetization during

this period, and its manifestations in extreme capitalism today, heightened our sense that

the tragic form might have something to contribute to our current revisioning activities.

While our gathering of bones from chapters 4 through 10 provided us with mostly

philosophical and intentional support for a vision of Psyche’s Stage, the bones of

mystery-cult and Greek tragedy provide us with an additional sense of actual practices

and tools that potentially inform our vision. They make the vision more tangible––more

concrete. They provide us with ideas about how we might actually begin and what we

might actually do. They instill us with visions of what mystic-theatre productions might

actually look like. But it is only within the context of philosophical and intentional

support that these practices and tools become specifically oriented toward mystic-theatre.

In and of themselves, these practices and tools might pertain to theatre, in general. The

use of masks, dance, costumes, initiatory props, music, riddling language, mirrors, and

gender reversal; the practice of playing multiple roles; and the enactment of myth and

death do not make theatre mystic in and of themselves. The philosophic intention and the

tools are both necessary, and these specific tools are merely sources of inspiration. They

are not the requirements of Psyche’s Stage.

Having devoted this chapter to gathering the bones of our research as a means of

informing our vision of Psyche’s Stage, we now feel compelled to an additional

backwards glance for further support. In the section that follows, we return to an excerpt

from an essay written during the first quarter of our doctoral studies. At the time, we had

had minimal exposure to Hillman’s work and no knowledge of Corbin or Seaford, but the

theatrical space and practice that we actively imagined, even then, has many attributes in
PSYCHE’S STAGE 266

common with the vision which has unfolded throughout this research. At that time, we

called this space “The Sacred Stage.” We are including our description of it below, and

will follow with a discussion of its relevance to our exploration of mystery-cult and

tragedy.

Actively imagining The Sacred Stage: A narrative fantasy.

The sign outside a building reads “The Sacred Stage.” The playing space inside is

a theatre with seating for three hundred sixty five participants. The arena fans out like a

three-quarter round bowl that cups a thrust stage. There are seven aisles that lead down to

the seats. In addition to multiple design possibilities for exits and entrances via the

upstage backing, there are two vomitories that lead offstage from the downstage area and

into a basement. There is a camouflaged trap door in the floor mid-stage as well. The

lights are hung on a grid overhead and accessed via a catwalk. It is a fine theatre. This is

a place where “actors” and “audience” and “Jungian analysts” are all players––where

“actors” and “directors” and “analysts” simply set the scene and hint at possibilities. They

guide the movement in meaningful directions with exercises that tease out metaphoric

narrative. The performance here is not polished and perfected; it is process; it is always

rehearsal; it is always improvised; it is play. People attend––whether they intend to

actively participate or to watch––to be a part of the playing space.

On this particular evening, a woman descends from an audience seat into the pit

of the thrust stage. No one knows if she is an “actor” planted there or a “real audience

member.” She reads from a scrap of paper that tells of a dream she had the night before.

“My mother I and are walking down a village sidewalk,” she says. “We happen

upon a beaming father who opens his briefcase unveiling a baby. Wrapped from toes to
PSYCHE’S STAGE 267

neck in a blanket of knit and topped by a knitted hat––she looks like an egg with eyes.

My mother and I ‘ooh and ah.’ She lifts the child out of the briefcase. The eggshell

blanket, like a second skin, is left behind. I pick it up––its eggshell shape still perfectly

intact––and hold it up for the infant to see the soft pink knit insides and she giggles

sweetly.”

As the woman recites her dream, others begin to play with the images in

movement. She is handed a microphone and a piano player positioned upstage begins to

play in the background of her words. The lights swim like a dream and the woman turns

around a painting that she holds to her chest.

“I tried to paint the dream,” she says, “but I’m not an artist so I couldn’t do what I

wanted to do. By the time, I managed to get a picture I could live with, this is what it

turned into.”

The painting that she unveils depicts the upper torso and face of a young child

with red hair and a bright red and green jester’s hat framed by a white background shaped

like an egg and outlined with a framing reminiscent of gold leaf.

“The baby seems to have grown up,” she says, “And she kind of looks like a

he…don’t you think?”

The sound booth operator plays a dissonant offbeat song reminiscent of carnival

music and the players dance and contain the interplay of images that move them.

Someone runs diagonally across the stage with arms stretched out wide on either side like

a child pretending to be an airplane exclaiming “Weeeee!” as she leaps down the

vomitory ramp to her left, and exits into the basement. “Weeee!” Another person shouts,
PSYCHE’S STAGE 268

holding his arms straight up. “Weee!” Someone spins around. “Weeee!” “Weeee!” A

whole chorus of “Weees!” resound.

A man grabs a microphone center stage and sings a string of “wees,” beginning

with the giddy note of his companions’ “wees” and trailing into lower and lower notes.

Finally landing on a low and sober “wee,” he says, “Weee…are the ninety nine percent!”

He grabs a stick and militantly stomps it on the ground as he marches pulling his knees

upright and barking like a martinet, “We are the ninety nine percent; we are the ninety

nine percent.” Others join in and play along.

A spotlight operator, in the meantime, shines his light on the woman who had

earlier recited her dream. She sits on the steps that surround the perimeter of the stage,

staring quietly at her painting. Occasionally, she glances at the marching brigade, but she

keeps returning to the image of the child jester framed by an egg with gold leaf trim.

An audience member notices silent tears streaming down her face. He walks onto

the stage with a sense of command, and takes the microphone away from the ringleader

of the ninety nine percent chanters. “Quiet in the house”; he says, “Quiet in the house.”

Silence presides and the march turns to stillness as he walks downstage, and holds

the microphone up to the woman sitting on the sideline staring at her painting. She looks

up at him with wide wet eyes, and then she faces the painting out towards the audience as

if to put them in conversation with each other. A small childlike voice swallowing its

tears gulps and says, “I am not the ninety nine percent.”

Center stage, a woman repeats her. “I am not the ninety nine percent.” She pauses

then hops to her right and says, “But I am the ninety nine percent.” Then hops back, “I
PSYCHE’S STAGE 269

am not,” and jumps to the right again, “Yes, I am” Her arms reach right, then left, then

right.

A man nuzzles up to her back. His arms reach out from beneath her armpits to

become hers. She reaches right and he goes left. “Yes” she says, and he says, “No.” They

split as they reach in opposite directions and they dance the story of “yes” and “no” in

dialogue with each other. The man takes the painting and dances with it as his mask, and

the painter joins the dance. The painting looks to the audience and speaks again. “I am

both,” it says.

Our postscript comments to the fantasy: A continued imagining.

Directly following the narrative fantasy excerpted above, we included the

following commentary in our essay as a continued imagining of this theatrical medium.

I do not expect that this exercise in active imagination has explicitly

laid out the details or scrutinized the complexities of creating a Sacred Stage

where the soulful characters and questions of a community engage at playing

seriously together. I do hope, however, that it hints at possibilities. I imagine

small Sacred Stage workshops where people begin to learn the tools, etiquette,

and sensibility of intimate creative engagement within a group. As these students

enter into the larger performance space, I imagine them along with their teachers:

creative artists, directors, and Jungian analysts, encouraging and guiding the

audience by example and instruction. I imagine them setting the tone, and

educating others about the subtleties of holding a creative space in community. I

imagine this inchoate form of serious play discovering the contents of its tool box

in its predecessors’ practices, borrowing from a variety of expressive arts

PSYCHE’S STAGE 270

modalities, and therapeutic institutions that incorporate them. I imagine the

Sacred Stage, not as a novelty act to be experienced once like the latest Broadway

show, but as a practice––as a place where people enter into an individuation

process that becomes both personal and transpersonal––a place where the rational

and irrational discover the intimate expansive dance that tends to Anima Mundi.

“The fantasy of the Sacred Stage” in dialogue with Seaford’s research on

mystery-cult and tragedy.

In revisiting this fantasy of the Sacred Stage, we are struck by the uncanny

presence of our current research findings embedded within it. We are especially drawn, in

this moment, however, to its inclusion of both the specialist and the lay person as

participants. Ongoing “Sacred Stage” workshops which provide opportunities for

intensive learning, exploration, and innovative discovery are analogous in some respects

to mystery-cult rituals. Both offer the boon of a more intimate environment and support

for deepening one’s commitment in a concentrated practice. Just as mystery-cult

contributed to the discipline of public performance in Greece, we imagine that workshop

participants and specialists would contribute to Psyche’s Stage theatrical performances,

imbuing them with a sense of aesthetic instinct (beauty, in other words) and instilling this

sensibility in more novice participants by way of example and instruction. Beauty is key

to the effectiveness and draw of this theatrical medium because beauty lures us into love

and love is a mediating power through which transformation takes place.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 271

Implications of the Research and Suggestions for Further Methodological

Development

In this final chapter, we have gathered the bones of our research journey, viewing

them as visionary objects, as flashes of light that inform our inchoate vision of Psyche’s

Stage. These flashes make impressions, but the bones, as they appear to us now, are

rather illusive. They resist our efforts to shape them into a cohesive whole. They yearn

for an embodied approach to the archetypal, philosophical, spiritual gold they hold. All

our attempts to sum the vision up fail us. The writer within us is very uncomfortable with

this resistance but the Actress thinks it is altogether appropriate. The Actress says that

Psyche’s Stage longs to discover a more cohesive sense of herself in collaboration with

others through embodied exploration in workshop and production settings over time

through trial and error.

As we try to envision how this process might begin, an image of “The Bacchae”

comes to mind. We imagine that a performance workshop that explores “The Bacchae”

through the lens of this research, then moves to a larger venue inviting and encouraging

some form of audience participation may be a fascinating place to start. We are

particularly drawn to the idea of reimaging the choral structure of tragedy to encourage

participation among audience members in a way that concomitantly fosters an aesthetic

instinct and communality among the participants of Psyche’s Stage.

A key concern of ours, which warrants attention in future research, is the need for

discovering fresh ways of inspiring “non-actors” to embrace the participatory nature of

Psyche’s Stage on the one hand, and the need to instill a sense of aesthetic instinct in all

participants, on the other hand. Psyche’s Stage is, as we imagine it, is a medium for
PSYCHE’S STAGE 272

serious play that seeks the illumination of beauty in all things, as part of an individuation

process that reverberates on multiple dimensions of being. The fact that it emerges as an

image of non-elitist mystic theatre which opens the role of actor and mystic up to the

entire community, does not preclude the need for approaching it with a religious attitude

which requires a reverence for and sensitivity to its transformative power. This concern

admittedly emerges, in part, from a personal distaste as an audience member for various

forms of participatory theatre: including community theatre, theatre which aims for

reform in the arena of socially and politically oriented causes, and theatre produced by

volunteers primarily to support charitable causes. In our experience, the cause writ large

or layman casualness, tends to drown out the potentially transformative power of the

theatrical medium itself in these venues. The magic and special something that holds us,

engages us, transports us into an imaginal world that wants our attention becomes lost in

these environments.

This is not to say that Psyche’s Stage is nonpolitical. Tragedy, at least in

Seaford’s view, drew out the latent political significance of the Dionysiac. Our view of

this significance is informed by Hillman’s idea of political activism via an aesthetic

response to the world. Works of art that aim to seize and illuminate the beauty of the

world lure us into love with the world. While anger and fear might motivate us to fight

the wrongs of society temporarily, these activating emotions are prone to burnout. Our

efforts in love are more sustainable and enduring. Finding ways of luring the

nonprofessional into participatory action and concomitantly fostering a sensitivity to the

theatrical medium as an unveiling of beauty is, as such, a central concern for further

Psyche’s Stage research. This investigation would best be explored through

PSYCHE’S STAGE 273

experimentation in intimate workshop settings and followed by theatrical productions that

aim to include audience members in the making of the play.

Conclusion

This hermeneutic research journey began with the premise that the fruits of Jung’s

and Corbin’s works presuppose a literal visionary capacity which is far removed from the

experience of most people. In Corbin, this capacity is associated with an apparitional

imaginal world and creative Imagination depicted in Islamic Sūfism which is accessible

only to mystics. From within this perspective Imagination creates autonomous beings

who have existences that are not attached to the imaginer. Hillman’s writings in

archetypal psychology, which are profoundly influenced by both Jung and Corbin,

approach the world of imagination from a literary perspective which is potentially more

accessible to nonmystics. But Hillman’s intriguing references to Corbin, which are

metaphorically inclined, fall short of providing an explicit knowledge of Corbin’s

abstruse oeuvre. This research explored the works and hermeneutic approaches of Corbin

and Hillman with the aim of learning something about the creative Imagination for

nonmystics. Our dialogue between these two voices included a third figure, referred to as

the Actress, who played a twofold role as representative of the researcher’s own

experience and an archetypal presence reflecting the Actress’s more than personal

essence within the world at large. This archetypal figure was a representative of the

nonmystic whose connection to the numinous imaginal world of Corbin’s focus was best

described as an associative sense of numinosity experienced through acting. In the course

of this research journey, these three voices traversed the worlds of Mazdaism,

Avicennism, the Suhrawardīan theosophy of Light, and Ibn ‘Arabīan Sūfism. From the
PSYCHE’S STAGE 274

outset, the presence of theatre within textual images, mystical practices, and mythical

plotlines began to appear.

This trail led to Hillman’s writings on Dionysos, the god of Greek tragedy. As the

journey unfolded, profound correspondences emerged between the Dionysiac cosmos and

the distinct worlds where Corbin, Hillman, and the Actress were most at home. Our

threefold dialectic thus became an exploration of the Dionysiac cosmos that incorporated

their voices. This led to Seaford’s research on Dionysos as a resource for drawing explicit

connections between mysticism and theatre. In the course of this expedition our definitive

sense of the mystic and mystic practice was opened up to those who formerly considered

themselves nonmystics. A vision of mystic-theatre for today’s world, began to emerge in

the gathering of our findings along the way. We called this theatre Psyche’s Stage.

Psyche’s Stage, as informed by the vision of this research, has emerged as a space

which fosters a twofold individuation process for the actress-mystic (who represents the

individual) and the encompassing play (who represents the world). The essential aim of

this process is to unveil the beauty and goodness of the beings and stories contained

within the space of the play via love, and in so doing, to constitute a world of beings who

unveil the a priori yearnings that necessitate our being. The ultimate goal of this process

is based on an eschatological hope of manifesting our ideal selves. Psyche’s Stage, as

indicated by its name, always proceeds with a concern for soul in mind. The meaning of

soul, beauty, and goodness as viewed from within this theatrical world is informed by the

work of Corbin and Hillman. Psyche’s Stage, as a vision that emerges via a dialogue

between these authors and the figure of the Actress who represents our own experience,

is largely informed by a Dionysiac cosmos which is imagined as a place where the

PSYCHE’S STAGE 275

respective worlds of the mystic, the archetypal psychologist, and the actress come

together. This universe is given to certain themes, and an embodied reflection of their

meanings, informed by our cores authors (including Seaford). These themes include

bothness, the Undivided, feminine consciousness, and second birth (which might also be

phrased as rebirth).

This theatre has been imagined as space that opens the role of actress-mystic up to

the laity. The mystic, from within this paradigm, is characterized as a perspective which

views the Earth and beings and things of the Earth as persons and visions of their celestial

counterparts or archetypal images. All things are, as such, viewed and engaged with as

persons who are reaching toward the manifestation of a uniquely designated a priori

yearning. Following Corbin, we have also called these persons Angels.

Proceeding from this perspective does not mean that the scripts and plots of

Psyche’s stage are necessarily about literal Angels and other worldly dimensions depicted

in Corbin’s descriptions of the imaginal world. Psyche’s Stage can be imagined as a

space where the substance of our everyday battles are metaphorically fought through

enactment within the context of this mystic perspective. A literary approach, a

panpsychic engagement, and a fictional sensibility are key elements of this practice.

Psyche’s Stage is currently imagined as a practice that navigates between the

space of our realities as currently lived and the space of our celestial or ideal realities. It

is a process of discovering and tending to the shared yearning between soul and spirit in

accordance with the limits of our imagination as it comes to stand in the present moment.

Psyche’s Stage is further informed by Seaford’s research on Dionysos which

provides us with an explicit connection between mysticism and theatre. We imagine that
PSYCHE’S STAGE 276

key themes associated with Dionysos would naturally inform Psyche’s Stage productions

and approaches on multiple dimensions. These themes include nature, communality,

epiphany, mystery-cult, and death. Each of these themes encompass informative sub-

themes as well. Psyche’s Stage informed by Dionysos’s association with nature discovers

its affinity for the cultivation and synthesis of and between raw materials. Informed by

the theme of communality, Psyche’s Stage gives voice to marginalized persons. Informed

by the theme of epiphany, the presence of the gods in our ideas enters the play.

Our investigation of mystery-cult ritual herein revealed a methodological

approach to transformation through resistance, anxiety, confusion, disorientation, fear,

and a death-like experience leading to epiphany and rebirth. In myth and ritual this cycle

was embodied through identification or enactment. The themes of nature, communality,

epiphany, and death were incorporated in mystery-cult rituals which, in turn, contributed

to the development of tragedy. While the unifying dynamic of mystery-cult apparently

satisfied a human need to dissolve the boundaries between life and death, tragedy may

have satisfied a corresponding need to feel united as a community. Here, spiritual

principles were communally put into dialogue with the dilemmas of physical world

existence. Psyche’s Stage, informed by the mystical correspondence between mystery-

cult and tragedy, imagines itself as an imaginal and potentially transformative space that

mediates between physical world existence and our spiritually oriented aspirations.

Various forms of enactment used in mystery-cult and tragedy provide us with

tangible practices for imagining how we might begin to formulate a re-visioned theatrical

approach today, though Psyche’s Stage would not be limited to these forms.

Transvestism; the use of mirrors, riddling language, masks and dance; the act of dressing
PSYCHE’S STAGE 277

up as mythical companions to the god; the performance of myths; and the enactment of

death and rebirth via dismemberment and re-membrance are but a few forms of

enactment that have symbolic Dionysiac significance. These and other approaches might

be readily drawn from in the explorative process of discovering ways to support Psyche’s

Stage’s unique signature based on its intentions. But ultimately, we imagine that this

inchoate vision of mystic-theatre will best discover its many forms in workshop and

production settings.

We would like to close with a few brief observations on how this research

potentially contributes to the field of depth psychology. In redefining our sense of the

mystic, we have opened the doors of mystic gnosis, welcoming those who might have felt

excluded or intimidated by their seeming lack of visionary capacity (which is

presupposed in the works of Jung and Corbin). By engaging explicitly with many

nuanced details in Corbin’s mystic translations, we have deepened our sense of the

imaginal roots that so profoundly influenced Hillman’s work in archetypal psychology. In

tending to the theatrical presences that permeate Corbin’s and Hillman’s works, we have

begun to imagine how the medium of theatre might make further contributions to

archetypal psychology and the spiritual tradition. Finally, in imagining the possibility and

attributes of a mystic-theatre informed by Corbin’s and Hillman’s oeuvres, this work

potentially serves the depth psychological mission of discovering new ways for

expanding its consulting room practice into the world.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 278

References

Addison, J. (1996). The spectator. In A. Ashfield & P. de Bolla (Eds.), The sublime: A

reader in British eighteenth-century aesthetic theory (pp. 62-69). New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

Aeschylus. (trans. 1953). The Eumenides (R. Lattimore, Trans.). In D. Grene & R.

Lattimore (Eds.), The complete Greek tragedies: Aeschylus I (pp. 133-171).

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Aristotle. (trans. 2013). Poetics (A. Kenny, Trans. & Ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford

University Press.

Bamford, C. (1998). Esotericism today: The example of Henry Corbin. In H. Corbin, The

voyage and the messenger: Iran and philosophy (J. Rowe, Trans., pp. xiv-lx).

Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Bher. (1992). In The American heritage dictionary of the English language (3rd ed.).

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Cheetham, T. (2003). The world turned inside out: Henry Corbin and Islamic mysticism.

Woodstock, CT: Spring Journal Books.

Cheetham, T. (2005). Green man, earth angel: The prophetic tradition and the battle for

the soul of the world. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Cheetham, T. (2007). After prophecy: Imagination, incarnation, and the unity of the

prophetic tradition: Lectures for the Temenos Academy. New Orleans, LA: Spring

Journal Books.

Cheetham, T. (2012). All the world an icon: Henry Corbin and the angelic function of

beings. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 279

Cheetham, T. (2015). Imaginal love: The meanings of imagination in Henry Corbin and

James Hillman. Thompson, CT: Spring.

Chödrön, P. (2000). When things fall apart. Boston, MA: Shambala.

Coppin, J., & Nelson, E. (2005). The art of inquiry: A depth psychological perspective.

New York, NY: Spring.

Corbin, H. (1972). Mundus imaginalis or the imaginary and the imaginal. Spring, 1-19.

Corbin, H. (1977). Spiritual body and celestial earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shī ʽite Iran

(N. Pearson, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work

published 1960)

Corbin, H. (1983). Cyclical time in Mazdaism and Ismailism, R. Manheim (Trans.) & J.

Campbell (Ed.). In Cyclical time and Ismaili gnosis (pp. 1-58). London, England:

Keagan Paul International. (Original work published 1951)

Corbin, H. (1985). The Eternal Sophia (M. Tuby, Trans. & Ed.). Harvest (31), 7-23.

Corbin, H. (1988). Avicenna and the visionary recital (W. Trask, Trans.). Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press (Original work published 1954)

Corbin, H. (1989). Towards a chart of the imaginal: Prelude to the second edition, P.

Russell (Trans.). In Spiritual body and celestial earth: From Mazdean Iran to

Shi'ite Iran (pp. vii-xix). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Corbin, H. (1994). The man of light in Iranian Sufism (N. Pearson, Trans.). New

Lebanon, NY: Omega. (Original work published 1971)

Corbin, H. (1995). Comparative spiritual hermeneutics. In L. Fox (Trans.), Swedenborg

and esoteric Islam (pp. 35-149). West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation.

(Original work published 1964).

PSYCHE’S STAGE 280

Corbin, H. (1995). Mundus Imaginalis, or the imaginary and the imaginal. In L. Fox

(Trans.), Swedenborg and esoteric Islam (pp. 1-33). West Chester, PA:

Swedenborg Foundation. (Originally published in French 1971)

Corbin, H. (1997). Alone with the alone: Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī

(Mythos Ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work

published 1958)

Corbin, H. (1998a). Iranian studies and comparative religion. In J. Rowe (Trans.), The

voyage and the messenger: Iran and philosophy (pp. 3-31). Berkeley, CA: North

Atlantic Books.

Corbin, H. (1998b). Problem and method in religious history. In J. Rowe (Trans.), The

voyage and the messenger: Iran and philosophy (pp. 89-113). Berkeley, CA:

North Atlantic Books.

Corbin, H. (2014). History of Islamic philosophy (L. Sherrard, Trans.). New York, NY:

Routledge. (Original work published 1964)

Dennis, J. (1996). Rhapsody to rhetoric. In A. Ashfield, & P. de Bolla (Eds.), The

sublime: A reader in British eighteenth-century aesthetic theory (pp. 58-61). New

York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Dodds, E. R. (1951). The Greeks and the irrational. Berkeley, CA: University of

California Press.

Epiphany. (1992). The American heritage dictionary of the English language (3rd ed.).

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Epistemology. (1992). The American heritage dictionary of the English language (3rd

ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 281

Euripides. (1959 trans.). The Bacchae. W. Arrowsmith (Trans.). In D. Greene & R.

Lattimore (Eds.), The complete Greek tragedies (Vol. V, pp. 142-220). Chicago,

IL: University of Chicago Press.

Gadamer, H. G. (2013). Truth and method (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.).

New York, NY: Bloomsbury. (Original work published 1960)

Glaser, A. (2005). A call to compassion: The way of transformation. In A call to

compassion: Bringing Buddhist practices of the heart into the soul of psychology

(pp. 111-154). Berwick, ME: Nicolas-Hays.

Grimal, P. (1990). The Penguin dictionary of classical mythology, S. Kershaw (Trans.) &

A. Maxwell-Hyslop (Trans.). New York, NY: Penguin. (Original work published

1951)

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson (Trans.). New York,

NY: Harper and Rowe. (Original work published 1927)

Herodotus. (1952 Trans.). The history of Herodotus, (G. Rawlinson, Trans.). In R. M.

Hutchins et al. (Eds.), Great books of the western world (Vol. 6, pp. 1-341).

Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Hillman, J. (1972a). On psychological creativity. In The myth of analysis: Three essays in

archetypal psychology (pp. 11-113). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Hillman, J. (1972b). On psychological femininity. In The myth of analysis: Three essays

in archetypal psychology (pp. 215-298). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University

Press.

Hillman, J. (1975). Revisioning psychology. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 282

Hillman, J. (1980). On the necessity of abnormal psychology: Ananke and Athene. In

Facing the gods (pp. 1-38). Dallas, TX: Spring.

Hillman, J. (1983). Healing fiction. Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (1992a). Anima Mundi: The return of the soul to the world. In The thought of

the heart and the soul of the world (pp. 89-130). Putnam, CT: Spring

Publications.

Hillman, J. (1992b). The thought of the heart. In The thought of the heart and the soul of

the world (pp. 3-88). Putnam, CT: Spring Publications.

Hillman, J. (1997a). The soul's code: In search of character and calling. New York, NY:

Grand Central.

Hillman, J. (1997b). Suicide and the soul. Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications.

Hillman, J. (1999). The force of character and the lasting life. New York, NY: Random

House.

Hillman, J. (2004). A terrible love of war. New York, NY: Penguin.

Hillman, J. (2006a). Aesthetic response as political action. In R. Leaver (Ed.), The

uniform edition of the writings of James Hillman (Vol. 2, pp. 142-145). Putnam,

CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2006b). Aesthetics and politics. In R. Leaver (Ed.), The uniform edition of

the writings of James Hillman (Vol. 2, pp. 146-154). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2006c). The cost of the ugly. In R. Leaver (Ed.), The uniform edition of the

writings of James Hillman (Vol. 2, pp. 194-206). Putnam, CT: Spring.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 283

Hillman, J. (2006d). Justice, beauty, and destiny as foundation for an ecological

psychology. In R. J. Leaver (Ed.), The uniform edition of the writings of James

Hillman (Vol. 2, pp. 207-216). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2006e). Natural beauty without nature. In R. Leaver (Ed.), The uniform

edition of the writings of James Hillman (Vol. 2, pp. 155-171). Putnam, CT:

Spring.

Hillman, J. (2006f). The repression of beauty. In R. Leaver (Ed.), Uniform edition of the

writings of James Hillman (Vol. 2, pp. 172-186). Putnam, CT: Spring

Publications.

Hillman, J. (2006g). Segregation of beauty. In R. Leaver (Ed.), The uniform edition of the

writings of James Hillman (Vol. 2, pp. 187-193). Putnam, CT: Spring

Publications.

Hillman, J. (2007a). . . . And huge is ugly: Zeus and the Titans. In The uniform edition of

the writings of James Hillman (Vol. 6.1, pp. 143-154). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2007b). Apollo, dream, reality. In The uniform edition of the writings of

James Hillman (Vol. 6.1, pp. 320-335). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2007c). Hera, goddess of marriage. In The uniform edition of the writings of

James Hillman (Vol. 6.1, pp. 242-258). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2007d). The inside of strategies: Athene. In The uniform edition of the

writings of James Hillman (Vol. 6.1, pp. 74-79). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2007e). Pink madness or why does Aphrodite drive men crazy with

pornography. In The uniform edition of the writings of James Hillman (Vol. 6.1,

pp. 199-229). Putnam, CT: Spring.

PSYCHE’S STAGE 284

Hillman, J. (2007f). Wars, arms, rams, Mars. In The uniform edition of the writings of

James Hillman (Vol. 6.1, pp. 124-142). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2013). Peaks and vales: The soul/spirit distinction as basis for the differences

between psychotherapy and spiritual discipline. In G. Slater (Ed.), The uniform

edition of the writings of James Hillman (Vol. 3, pp. 67-90). Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2016). Beauty and war: An exploration. In E. Casey (Ed.), The uniform

edition of the writings of James Hillman (Vol. 8, pp. 315-330). Thompson, CT:

Spring.

Jung, C. G. (1967). Paracelsus as a spiritual phenomenon (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In The

collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 13, pp. 109-188). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press. (Original work published 1942)

Jung, C. G. (1969). Instinct and the unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al.

(Eds.), The collected works of C .G. Jung (Vol. 8, 2nd ed, pp. 129-138). Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1919)

Jung, C. G. (1969). Psychological factors determining human behavior (R. F. C. Hull,

Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8, 2nd ed,

pp. 114-125). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published

1936)

Jung, C. G. (1969). Psychological aspects of the mother archetype (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.).

In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vols. 9.1, 2nd ed, pp.

73-110). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published

1938)
PSYCHE’S STAGE 285

Jung, C. G. (1971). Definitions (R. F. C. Hull Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The

collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 6, pp. 408-486). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press. (Original work published 1921)

Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections (R. & C. Winston Trans.) (A. Jaffe,

Ed.). New York, NY: Vantage. (Original work published 1961).

Jung, C. G. (1997). Jung on active imagination, edited and with an introduction by Joan

Chodorow. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1970). Mysterium coniunctionis (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (H. Read et al., Ed.),

The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 14, 2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press. (Original work published 1956)

Kerényi, C. (1976). Dionysos: Archetypal image of indestructible life (R. Manheim,

Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Kerényi, C. (1980). The gods of the Greeks. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson.

Otto, W. F. (1965). Dionysus: Myth and cult (R. B. Palmer, Trans.). Bloomington, IN:

Indiana University Press. (Original work published 1960)

Palmer, R. E. (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthy,

Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Per-3. (1992). The American heritage dictionary of the English language (3rd ed.).

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Plato. (1961a Trans.). Laws (A. E. Taylor, Trans.). In E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Eds.),

Plato: The collected dialogues (pp. 1225-1513). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.
PSYCHE’S STAGE 286

Plato. (1961b Trans.). Phaedrus (R. Hackforth, Trans.) In E. Hamilton & H. Cairns

(Eds.), Plato: The collected dialogues (pp. 475-525). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.

Plato. (1961c Trans.) Philebus (R. Hackforth, Trans.). In E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Eds.),

Plato: The collected dialogues (pp. 1086-1150). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.

Plotinus. (1992 Trans.). The Enneads. (S. MacKenna, Trans.). Burdett, NY: Larson.

Ramberg, B., & Gjesdal, K. (Summer 2013). Hermeneutics, In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The

Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from

http://plato.standford.edu/archives/sum2013/entires/hermeneutics

Romanyshyn, R. (2007). The wounded researcher: Research with soul in mind. New

Orleans, LA: Spring Journal Books.

Seaford, R. (1994). Reciprocity and ritual: Homer and tragedy in the developing city-

state. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Seaford, R. (2006). Dionysos. New York, NY: Routledge.

Shakespeare, W. (1974). As you like it. In G. Blakemore Evans (Ed.), The Riverside

Shakespeare (pp. 365-402). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Tacey, D. (2012) James Hillman and the reanimation of the world. Ecopsychology, 4(3),

175-180.