Steve McQueen -
The Great Escape
(motorcycle scene)
The Battle of Endor
* It is of some real interest to note — particularly in relationship to the discussion of the dangers of Creativity presented in Rule I — that The Seekers chase The Snitch both inside and outside the playing field that provides boundaries for all the other players.
While outside, they can careen through the wooden foundation of the Quidditch stadium. This would not be a problem, if they weren’t simultaneously being chased by a Bludger, a solid, massive, flying ball capable not only of knocking them off their brooms, but of crashing through and seriously damaging that same structure.
If they succeed in catching The Snitch, as we have indicated, they generally attain Victory. But they risk damaging the very foundations of The Game while doing so — just as creative people do when they pursue their innovative yet disruptive visions.
* It is also of great interest to note, in this regard, that the metal Mercury can be used in the mining and purification of Gold —
Gold dissolves in Mercury, and Mercury can, therefore, be used to draw out the small amounts of the precious metal typically found in ores. The Mercury is then boiled off (it has a low boiling point) so that only The Gold remains.
The proclivity of Mercury for Gold has given rise to the symbolic idea that the liquid metal has an “affinity” for What is most precious : that Mercury will seek What is Noble and Pure and Incorruptible — like Gold itself, speaking symbolically once again — and concentrate it in usable amounts.
So, the fundamental idea is that The Pursuit of Meaning, guided by Mercury, Messenger of The Gods (The Unconscious, as far as modern people are concerned), will enable The Seeker to collect what is, like Gold, of The Highest Value.
For The Alchemists who created drawings like the one we are analysing, that Highest Value came to be the ultimate development of The Psyche, or Spirit, or Personality.
* This is part of the reason science developed so long after religion and ritual — so incredibly recently, and by no means everywhere at once.
* Furthermore, in the mythological world, unlike the objective, logical world, things can be one thing and their opposite at the same time.
And this representation in the mythological world is more accurate than the objective, in the experiential manner described previously : Nature, for example, is Creator and Destroyer, just as Culture is Protector and Tyrant.
It might be objected : Nature and Culture are not singular things. They can be differentiated, so that their paradoxical components are separated, understood, and dealt with.
This is all True : but the paradoxical components are often experienced simultaneously and so unified. This occurs when anyone is betrayed, for example, in a love affair.
Beast and Man, Medusa and Beloved-Woman are often united experientially in the same hypothetically unitary figure.
This can be a terrible discovery when made in real life.
* The same idea is expressed in Taoist cosmogony, when The Yin and The Yang differentiate themselves into the Five Elements : Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.
The ancient Greeks believed, similarly, that Earth and Sky (Gaia and Uranus) gave birth to The Titans, elemental deities of great Strength and Power.
* E pluribus unum.
* Ea makes Man from the blood of Kingu, the most terrible of Tiamat’s Monsters. A bright graduate student and later colleague of mine once suggested that this was because of all God’s creatures, only Man could deceive; only Man could voluntarily bring Evil and Discord into The World.
