Ouroboros

Damian is derived from the Greek name 

Δαμιανος (Damianos), 

from the Greek word δαμαζω (damazo), 

meaning “to tame” 

or “to master”.

Dave LISTER,

The Last Human—

Occupation : BUM :

[to baby]

For the longest time, you'll think like you were abandoned, but you weren't, man. 

You were put here to create a paradox, 

an unbreakable circle. 

With us going 'round and 'round in time, the human race can never beome extinct.

We're like... a kind of 

'holding pattern'.

LISTER reaches into the box and touches the baby's chin tenderly

LISTER:

 I'll see ya, son.

Quietly, LISTER approaches the pool table and, bending down, gently slides the box underneath. He steps away

The Grail castle is always just down the road and a turn to the left. If anyone is humble enough and of good heart, he can find that interior castle. Parsifal has had the arrogance beaten out of him by twenty years of fruitless searching, and he is now ready for his castle.

  THE SECOND GRAIL CASTLE

  Just down the road, turn left, and cross the drawbridge, which snaps closed ticking the back hooves of your horse. It is always dangerous to make the transition of levels that entry to the Grail castle involves.

Parsifal finds the same ceremonial procession going on; a fair damsel carries the sword that pierced the side of Christ, another damsel carries the paten from which the last supper was served, yet another maiden bears the Grai

itself. The wounded Fisher King lies groaning on his litter, poised between life and death in his suffering.

Now, wonder of wonders, with twenty years of maturity and experience behind him, Parsifal asks the question which is his greatest contribution to mankind: Whom does the Grail serve?

What a strange question! Hardly comprehensible to modern ears! In essence the question is the most profound question one can ask: where is the center of gravity of a human personality; or where is the center of meaning in a human life? Most modern people, asked this question in understandable terms for our time, would reply that I am the center of gravity; I work to improve my life; I am working toward my goals; I am increasing my equity; I am making something of myself—or most common of all—I am searching for happiness, which is to say that I want the Grail to serve me. We ask this great cornucopia of nature, this great feminine outpouring of all the material of the world—the air, the sea, the animals, the oil, the forests, and all the productivity of the world—we ask that it should serve us. But no sooner is the question asked than the answer comes reverberating through the Grail castle halls—the Grail serves the Grail King. Again, a puzzling answer. Translated, this means that life serves what a Christian would call God, Jung calls the Self, or and we call by the many terms we have devised to indicate that which is greater than ourselves.

Another language, less poetic but perhaps easier, is available. Dr. Jung speaks of the life process as being the relocation of the center of gravity of the personality from the ego to the Self. He sees this as the life work of a man and the center of meaning for all human endeavor. When Parsifal learns that he is no longer the center of the universe—not even his own little kingdom—he is free of his alienation and the Grail is no longer barred from him. Though he may come and go from the Grail castle during the rest of his life, now he will never be alien to it again.

Even more astonishing, the wounded Fisher King rises, healed, in triumph and joy. The miracle has happened, and the legend of his healing has been accomplished. In Wagner’s opera, Parsifal, the wounded Fisher King rises at this moment and sings a wondrous song of triumph and power and strength. It is the culmination of the whole tale!

Now who is the Grail King whom we have not heard mentioned before? He is the true king of the realm and he lives in the center of the Grail castle. He lives only on the Host and the Wine of the Grail. He is a thinly disguised figure of God, the earthly representation of the Divine, or in Jungian terms, the Self. It is humbling to learn that we hear of this inner center only when we are ready for it and when we have done our duty of formulating a coherent question.

The object of life is not happiness, but to serve God or the Grail. All of the Grail quests are to serve God. If one understands this and drops his idiotic notion that the meaning of life is personal happiness, then one will find that elusive quality immediately at hand.

This same motif appears in a contemporary myth, The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien; the power must be taken from those who would exploit it. In the Grail myth the source of power is given to the representative of God. In Tolkien’s myth the ring of power is taken from evil hands that would use its power to destroy the world and is put back into the ground from which it came. Earlier myths often spoke of the discovery of power and its emergence from the earth into human hands. Recent myths speak of returning the source of power to the earth or into the Hands of God before we destroy ourselves with it.

One detail in the story is worth special observation: Parsifal need only ask the question; he does not have to answer it. When one is discouraged and certain he will never have the intelligence to find the answer to insoluble riddles, he can remember that although it is the duty of the ego to ask a well-formulated question, he is not required to answer it. To ask well is virtually to answer.

Rejoicing bursts forth in the Grail castle; the Grail is brought forth, it gives its food to everyone, including the now-healed Fisher King, and there is perfect peace, joy, and wellbeing.

Such a dilemma! If you ask the Grail to give you happiness, that demand precludes happiness. But if you serve the Grail and the Grail King properly, you will find that what happens and happiness are the same thing. A play on words becomes the definition of enlightenment.

An identical theme is found in very different language in the “Ten Oxherding Pictures” from Zen Buddhism. This is a series of ten pictures prescribed for an artist to portray the steps toward enlightenment. In the first the young hero searches for the ox—his inner nature; in the second he sees the footprints of the ox; in the third he sees the ox. The series proceeds to the ninth picture in which the hero tames the ox, forges a peaceful relationship with it, and sits quietly surveying the scene. The question rises at this pointBehold the streams flowing, whither nobody knows; and the flowers vividly red—for whom are they? Author Mokusen Miyuki reflects that these words could be translated literally into “The stream flows on its own accord, and the flower is red on its own accord.” The Chinese term tsu, “of its own accord,” is used as a compound, tsu-jan, in Taoist thought. It can mean “naturalness,” an occurring of the creative spontaneity of nature, within and without. In other words, tsu-jan, can be taken psychologically as the living reality of selfrealization or the creative urge of the Self manifesting itself in nature.

The series of pictures culminates in the tenth when the hero, now perfectly at peace, walks unnoticed through the village streets. There is nothing extraordinary about him now except that all the trees burst into blossom as he passes by.

This questioning of the meaning of the stream or the redness of the rose from such a different source as Zen Buddhism enhances our understanding of this quest.

A Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, came to America more than a century ago and made some astute observations about the American way. He said that we have a misleading idea at the very head of our Constitution: the pursuit of happiness. One can not pursue happiness; if he does he obscures it. If he will proceed with the human task of life, the relocation of the center of gravity of the personality to something greater outside itself, happiness will be the outcome.

In this year of our Lord we are just beginning to ask the Grail question: do we have the right to cut down the trees, impoverish the soil, and kill all the pelicans? The answer is beginning to come clear; the first lisping syllables of the question are audible. If we can hear this old tale of an innocent fool blundering into the Grail castle for the first time and earning his way there a second time, we can find some sage advice for our own modern way.

Excerpt from : 

"He: Understanding Masculine Psychology" 

by Robert A. Johnson.

23 - Int. Gantry within Starbug ---------------------------------------]

[LISTER present]

[Enter KOCHANSKI]

<LISTER holds out the small in-vitro tube> 

LISTER

 This is for you.

 Just pop that in the uterine simulator in your medi-lab and... bingo.

KOCHANSKI

 Wow...

LISTER

 Our child...

KOCHANSKI

 I'll... you know.

LISTER

 I know.

KOCHANSKI

 As soon as it's old enough I'll tell it all about you -

LISTER

 Just make it understand why I'm not there, I don't want it ending up like

me.

KOCHANSKI

 What happenned to you was really rough. 

The pool table, no note, no explanation...

LISTER

 I think that's why I spent most of my early life drifting, y'know? I didn't have anything to look to cos I didn't know Who I Was, Where I Came

From. Just those two names they couldn't decide on calling me; 'Rob' or ‘Ross'.

KOCHANSKI

 Well... I'll look after it. You know I will.

LISTER

 Yeah, I know.

<They move to kiss>

[Enter KRYTEN, interposing himself between them to get to the gantry railing]

KRYTEN

 Excuse me, sir; just doing a spot of dusting here...

[-- 24 - Int. Starbug cargo bay -------------------------------------------]

[Enter LISTER, KOCHANSKI, KRYTEN]

KOCHANSKI

 Look, this is probably a long shot but if we can hit the right settings it may be possible to communicate trans-dimensionally.

<She hands LISTER a palm-size device, similar to a portable phone>

LISTER

 See ya...

KOCHANSKI

 Bye.

[Exit KOCHANSKI]

[Enter CAT, struggling with a large box. LISTER takes one of the handles

 and they hold it between them]

LISTER

 What's this?

CAT

 Supplies from Bud-Babe's ship.

LISTER

 No, *this*

<LISTER indicates a marking on the top of a box>

KRYTEN

 Well, it's the symbol for 'infinity', sir. The snake, eating it's own tail and thus completing the everlasting circle of life that has no

beginning or end.

LISTER

 What's it doing on 'ere?

KRYTEN

The crate used to contain batteries, sir. 

Ouroboros batteries — Everlasting.

LISTER

 Ourobo-what??

<LISTER takes the box from CAT and places it down, looking at it intently>

KRYTEN

 Ouroboros, sir - it's the name of the symbol.

<LISTER rubs his hand along the top of the box, revealing the "Ouroboros Batteries" legend stencilled on it>

CAT

 What is it, bud?

LISTER

 Ouroboros... It wasn't 'Our Rob or Ross', it was Ouroboros..!

CAT

 What was?

LISTER

 The message that was written on the side of my box!

CAT

 You came in a box? That explains everything.

LISTER

 I know who my parents are... I know who I am... I understand, now!

KRYTEN

 Explain, sir!?

LISTER

 The in-vitro tube, the one that Kochanski's got. The frozen embryo - it's me! 

At some point after the baby's born, we must go back in time and leave me under the pool table at the Aigburth Arms. 

We wrote Ouroboros on the box to explain! 

I'm me own father...! And Krissy is my ex-girlfriend and me Mum!

CAT

 You should write a letter to Playboy, bud. 

I bet you anything it'd get printed!

LISTER

 I've gotta get that test tube back.

[LISTER sprints out after KOCHANSKI, CAT and KRYTEN following]

[-- 25 - Int. The Way ----------------------------------------------------]

[P.LISTER, P.KRYTEN, KOCHANSKI, P.CAT present]

[Enter LISTER, running to catch up]

LISTER <shouts>

 Mum! Wait!

<The Parallel crew turn around>

KOCHANSKI

 What?

LISTER

 I need the in-vitro tube! It's me!

[The Parallel crew are too far away to hear properly]

KOCHANSKI

 It's what??

[Enter KRYTEN, CAT]

<Without warning, sparks burst from the roof of the Linkway>

KRYTEN

 The Gelfs are back!

<Cutting out into non-space, we see a companion Gelf ship has tracked down

 the Dwarfers and is doing all in its power to break the trans-dimensional

 connection. It fires a second shot and the tortured Linkway shudders and

 tears apart, again stranding the unfortunate Kochanski in the wrong

 Dimension. This time, she isn't going to put up with it. Setting her

 sights on the ragged ledge of the linkway that floats temptingly just feet

 away, she shrugs off her jacket and unclips her heavy belt>

LISTER

 What are you doing?

KOCHANSKI

 I'm gonna jump!

<With that, KOCHANSKI springs forward and sprints for the tear>

CAT

 You'll never make it!

LISTER

 Chris, no!!

<KOCHANSKI takes a wild leap, fingers stretching for the lip of the linkway.

 Spread almost flat, she falls short by mere centimeters and plummets into

 the blackness of non-space>

P.LISTER

 Christine!!

KRYTEN

 We've lost her, sir.

LISTER

 No.

 No!

P.LISTER

 Christine!!

<LISTER's communicator suddenly emits a bleep. He fumbles it out>

LISTER

 Yeah?

KOCHANSKI [Mic.]

 Hi, it's me.

LISTER

 Hi -

KOCHANSKI [Mic.]

 I've decided to stay; just, one proviso -

LISTER

 Yeah?

KOCHANSKI [Mic.]

 Save my life, okay?

[-- 26 - Int. Starbug cargo bay -------------------------------------------]

[Enter LISTER, CAT, KRYTEN, running to the cargo stores and tearing lids

 off containers as quickly as possible]

LISTER <into Communicator>

 Cargo bay; looking now!

LISTER <pulling a weapon of some kind out of a box: to KRYTEN>

 What's this??

KRYTEN

 It's mountaineering equipment from Miss Kochanski's ship, sir.

LISTER

 A crossbow?

KRYTEN

 I thought it might come in handy next time we run into your wife.

KOCHANSKI [Mic.]

 You've got about 20 seconds before I'm out of reach!

<Behind them, CAT pulls out several lengths of rope from another box>

CAT

 Rope?

<LISTER grabs the crossbow and rope>

LISTER

 Yes! Yes! Yes!

[LISTER sprints OOV]

[-- 27 - Int. The Way -----------------------------------------------------]

KOCHANSKI [Mic.]

 I'm getting a *mite* panicky, here..!

[Enter LISTER, CAT, KRYTEN]

<LISTER runs to the lip of the Way, attaches the rope to a crossbow bolt and takes careful aim through the telescopic sight. Sweat beading on his brow, his finger tenses; he knows that a stray shot will end the life of the only woman he has ever truly loved - in more ways than one.

 He pulls the trigger, and the bolt hurls itself into the abyss. The pile of rope uncoiles with dizzying speed as the the bolt arcs through the blackness - until it embeds itself solidly, clear through Kochanski's right

 thigh>

 

KOCHANSKI

 Aaarg!

<She gasps in agony and stares at the bolt protruding redly through both sides of her leg>

KOCHANSKI

 Bastard!

<As LISTER and CAT struggle with the rope, LISTER's communicator bleeps, and

 KRYTEN takes it from his pocket. KRYTEN listens, his eyes widening>

KRYTEN

 It's an obscene phone call, sir. I think it's for you.

<He holds the device up to LISTER, who cringes>

[-- 28 - Int. Starbug medi-bay --------------------------------------------]

[KRYTEN, KOCHANSKI present]

KRYTEN

 I've brought you a drink, but don't think for one minute it means I've gone all mushy on you.

 

KOCHANSKI

 I'm gonna get up, and work out a way of re establishing that linkway.

KRYTEN

 It's too late ma'am, the rift's self-repaired...

[His voice again becomes tearful and high-pitched]

KRYTEN

 We're *stuck* with you!

KOCHANSKI

 I'm gonna try, *anyway*.

<KOCHANSKI slides off the bed awkwardly, and pads over to the door.

 Standing, KRYTEN sees that the back of her gown has got fastened in the

 waistband of her undershorts>

KRYTEN

 Oh, ma'am -

KOCHANSKI

 Yes, Kryten?

<KRYTEN hestitates>

KRYTEN

 Welcome aboard...

<KOCHANSKI smiles gratefully>

KOCHANSKI

 Thanks, Kryten.

<KRYTEN turns away and grins>

[-- 29 - Int. An empty pub ------------------------------------------------]

[The scene is an old, circa 22nd century English pub, in the foreground is

 a zero-g pool table. A flash of red lighting arcs down to the floor and

 LISTER appears, holding a cardboard box in which is a baby, wrapped in

 blankets. A single word written in black marker pen adorns the side of the

 box, and reads: 'Ouroboros']

[A caption appears on screen and reads: "EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER"]

Dave LISTER,

The Last Human —

Occupation : BUM :

[to baby]

For the longest time, you'll think like you were abandoned, but you weren't, man. 

You were put here to create a paradox, 

an unbreakable circle. 

With us going 'round and 'round in time, the human race can never beome extinct.

We're like... a kind of 'holding pattern'.

<LISTER reaches into the box and touches the baby's chin tenderly>

LISTER:

 I'll see ya, son.

<Quietly, LISTER approaches the pool table and, bending down, gently slides the box underneath. He steps away>

Just down the road and a turn to the left.

Papa Fury: 

One of our tech boys flagged this, 

splashed down in the Banda Sea. 

Could be the Quinjet. 

But with Stark's stealth tech, 

we still can't track the damn thing.

The Widow :

Right.

Papa Fury: 

Probably jumped out and swam to Fiji. 

He'll send a postcard.

Natasha Romanoff: 

"Wish you were here." 

You sent me to recruit him, way back when. 

Did you know then what was going to happen?

Papa Fury: 

You Never KNOW — 

You Hope for The Best 

and 

Make Do 

with What You Get. 

I got A Great Team.

The Widow :

Nothing lasts forever.

Papa Fury: 

Trouble, Miss Romanoff. 

No matter who wins or loses, 

Trouble still comes around.

“The Grail Castle is always just down the road and a turn to the left. If anyone is humble enough and of good heart, he can find that interior castle. Parsifal has had the arrogance beaten out of him by twenty years of fruitless searching, and he is now ready for his castle.

  THE SECOND GRAIL CASTLE

  Just down the road, turn left, and cross the drawbridge, which snaps closed ticking the back hooves of your horse. It is always dangerous to make the transition of levels that entry to the Grail castle involves.

Parsifal finds the same ceremonial procession going on; a fair damsel carries the sword that pierced the side of Christ, another damsel carries the paten from which the last supper was served, yet another maiden bears the Grail itself. The wounded Fisher King lies groaning on his litter, poised between life and death in his suffering.

Now, wonder of wonders, with twenty years of maturity and experience behind him, Parsifal asks the question which is his greatest contribution to mankind: Whom does The Grail serve?

What a strange question! Hardly comprehensible to modern ears! In essence the question is the most profound question one can ask: where is the center of gravity of a human personality; or where is the center of meaning in a human life? 

Most modern people, asked this question in understandable terms for our time, would reply that 

I am the center of gravity; 

I work to improve my life; 

I am working toward my goals; 

I am increasing my equity; 

I am making something of myself—

or most common of all—

I am searching for happiness, 

which is to say that 

I want the Grail to serve me. 

We ask this great cornucopia of nature, this great feminine outpouring of all the material of the world—the air, the sea, the animals, the oil, the forests, and all the productivity of The World—we ask that it should serve us. But no sooner is the question asked than the answer comes reverberating through the Grail castle halls — the Grail serves the Grail King. 

Again, a puzzling answer. 

Translated, this means that life serves what a Christian would call God, Jung calls the Self, or and we call by the many terms we have devised to indicate that which is greater than ourselves.

Another language, less poetic but perhaps easier, is available. Dr. Jung speaks of the life process as being the relocation of the center of gravity of the personality from the ego to the Self. He sees this as the life work of a man and the center of meaning for all human endeavor. 

When Parsifal learns that he is no longer the center of the universe—not even his own little kingdom—he is free of his alienation and the Grail is no longer barred from him. 

Though he may come and go from the Grail castle during the rest of his life, now he will never be alien to it again.

Even more astonishing, the wounded Fisher King rises, healed, in triumph and joy. The miracle has happened, and the legend of his healing has been accomplished. 

In Wagner’s opera, Parsifal, the wounded Fisher King rises at this moment and sings a wondrous song of triumph and power and strength. It is the culmination of the whole tale!

Now who is the Grail King whom we have not heard mentioned before? He is the true king of the realm and he lives in the center of the Grail castle. He lives only on the Host and the Wine of the Grail. He is a thinly disguised figure of God, the earthly representation of the Divine, or in Jungian terms, the Self. It is humbling to learn that we hear of this inner center only when we are ready for it and when we have done our duty of formulating a coherent question.

The object of life is not happiness, but to serve God or the Grail. All of the Grail quests are to serve God. If one understands this and drops his idiotic notion that the meaning of life is personal happiness, then one will find that elusive quality immediately at hand.

This same motif appears in a contemporary myth, The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien; the power must be taken from those who would exploit it. In the Grail myth the source of power is given to the representative of God. In Tolkien’s myth the ring of power is taken from evil hands that would use its power to destroy the world and is put back into the ground from which it came. Earlier myths often spoke of the discovery of power and its emergence from the earth into human hands. Recent myths speak of returning the source of power to the earth or into the Hands of God before we destroy ourselves with it.

One detail in the story is worth special observation: Parsifal need only ask the question; he does not have to answer it. When one is discouraged and certain he will never have the intelligence to find the answer to insoluble riddles, he can remember that although it is the duty of the ego to ask a well-formulated question, he is not required to answer it. To ask well is virtually to answer.

Rejoicing bursts forth in the Grail castle; the Grail is brought forth, it gives its food to everyone, including the now-healed Fisher King, and there is perfect peace, joy, and wellbeing.

Such a dilemma! If you ask the Grail to give you happiness, that demand precludes happiness. But if you serve the Grail and the Grail King properly, you will find that what happens and happiness are the same thing. A play on words becomes the definition of enlightenment.

An identical theme is found in very different language in the “Ten Oxherding Pictures” from Zen Buddhism. This is a series of ten pictures prescribed for an artist to portray the steps toward enlightenment. In the first the young hero searches for the ox—his inner nature; in the second he sees the footprints of the ox; in the third he sees the ox. The series proceeds to the ninth picture in which the hero tames the ox, forges a peaceful relationship with it, and sits quietly surveying the scene. The question rises at this pointBehold the streams flowing, whither nobody knows; and the flowers vividly red—for whom are they? Author Mokusen Miyuki reflects that these words could be translated literally into “The stream flows on its own accord, and the flower is red on its own accord.” The Chinese term tsu, “of its own accord,” is used as a compound, tsu-jan, in Taoist thought. It can mean “naturalness,” an occurring of the creative spontaneity of nature, within and without. In other words, tsu-jan, can be taken psychologically as the living reality of selfrealization or the creative urge of the Self manifesting itself in nature.

The series of pictures culminates in the tenth when the hero, now perfectly at peace, walks unnoticed through the village streets. There is nothing extraordinary about him now except that all the trees burst into blossom as he passes by.

This questioning of the meaning of the stream or the redness of the rose from such a different source as Zen Buddhism enhances our understanding of this quest.

A Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, came to America more than a century ago and made some astute observations about the American way. He said that we have a misleading idea at the very head of our Constitution : The Pursuit of Happiness. One can not pursue Happiness; if he does he obscures it. If he will proceed with the human task of life, the relocation of the center of gravity of the personality to something greater outside itself, happiness will be the outcome.

In this year of our Lord we are just beginning to ask the Grail question : Do we have the right to cut down the trees, impoverish the soil, and kill all the pelicans? The answer is beginning to come clear; the first lisping syllables of the question are audible. If we can hear this old tale of an innocent fool blundering into the Grail castle for the first time and earning his way there a second time, we can find some sage advice for our own modern way.

Excerpt from : 

"He: Understanding Masculine Psychology" 

by Robert A. Johnson.

There is No Such Thing as Absolute Love or Absolute Hate, as Distinguished from Each Other.

“Love and “Hate" are generally regarded as being things diametrically opposed to each other; entirely different; unreconcilable. 

But we apply the Principle of Polarity; we find that there is no such thing as Absolute Love or Absolute Hate, as distinguished from each other. 

The two are merely 

terms applied to 

the two poles 

of 

the same thing. 

Beginning at any point of the scale we find "more love," or "less hate," as we ascend the scale; and "more hate" or "less love" as we descend this being true no matter from what point, high or low, we may start. There are degrees of Love and Hate, and there is a middle point where "Like and Dislike" become so faint that it is difficult to distinguish between them. Courage and Fear come under the same rule. The Pairs of Opposites exist everywhere. Where you find one thing you find its opposite-the two poles.

And it is this fact that enables the Hermetist to transmute one mental state into another, along the lines of Polarization. Things belonging to different classes cannot be transmuted into each other, but things of the same class may be changed, that is, may have their polarity changed. Thus Love never becomes East or West, or Red or Violet-but it may and often does turn into Hate and likewise Hate may be transformed into Love, by changing its polarity. Courage may be transmuted into Fear, and the reverse. Hard things may be rendered Soft. Dull things become Sharp. Hot things become Cold. And so on, the transmutation always being between things of the same kind of different degrees. Take the case of a Fearful man. By raising his mental vibrations along the line of Fear- Courage, he can be filled with the highest degree of Courage and Fearlessness. And, likewise, the Slothful man may change himself into an Active, Energetic individual simply by polarizing along the lines of the desired quality.

The student who is familiar with the processes by which the various schools of Mental Science, etc., produce changes in the mental states of those following their teachings, may not readily understand the principle underlying many of these changes. When, however, the Principle of Polarity is once grasped, and it is seen that the mental changes are occasioned by a change of polarity-a sliding along the same scale-the hatter is readily understood. The change is not in the nature of a transmutation of one thing into another thing entirely different-but is merely a change of degree in the same things, a vastly important difference. For instance, borrowing an analogy from the Physical Plane, it is impossible to change Heat into Sharpness, Loudness, Highness, etc., but Heat may readily be transmuted into Cold, simply by lowering the vibrations. In the same way Hate and Love are mutually transmutable; so are Fear and Courage. But Fear cannot be transformed into Love, nor can Courage be transmuted into Hate. The mental states belong to innumerable classes, each class of which has its opposite poles, along which transmutation is possible.

The student will readily recognize that in the mental states, as well as in the phenomena of the Physical Plane, the two poles may be classified as Positive and Negative, respectively. Thus Love is Positive to Hate; Courage to Fear; Activity to Non-Activity, etc., etc. 

And it will also be noticed that even to those unfamiliar with the Principle of Vibration, the Positive pole seems to be of a higher degree than the Negative, and readily dominates it. The tendency of Nature is in the direction of the dominant activity of the Positive pole.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that’s what it did do. Love was a divine visitation, and that’s why it was superior to Marriage. That was the troubadour idea. If God is Love, well, then, Love is God, okay.

BILL MOYERS: There’s that wonderful passage in Corinthians by Paul, where he says “Love beareth all things, endureth all things.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, that’s the same business. 

Love Knows No Pain.

BILL MOYERS: And yet, one of my favorite stories of mythology is out of Persia, where there is the idea that Lucifer was condemned to hell because he loved God so much.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah, and that’s a basic Muslim idea, about Iblis, that’s the Muslim name for Satan, being God’s greatest lover. 

Why was Satan thrown into hell? 

Well, the standard Story is that when God created the angels, he told them to bow to none but himself. 

Then he created Man, whom he regarded as a Higher Form Than The Angels, and he asked The Angels then to serve man. 

And Satan would not bow to Man. 

Now, this is interpreted in the Christian Tradition, as I recall from my boyhood instruction, as being The Egotism of Satan, he would not bow to Man. 

But in this view, he could NOT bow to Man, because of his Love for God, he could bow ONLY to God. 

And then God says, “Get out of my sight.” 

Now, the worst of the pains of hell insofar as hell has been described is The Absence of The beloved, which is God. 

So how does Iblis sustain the situation in hell? By The MEMORY of The Echo of God’s Voice when God said, “Go to hell.” 

And I think that’s A Great Sign of Love, do you agree?

BILL MOYERS: Well, it’s certainly true in life that the greatest hell one can know is to be separated from the one you love.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

That’s why I’ve liked the Persian myth for so long. Satan as God’s lover.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah. And he is separated from God, and that’s the real pain of Satan.

BILL MOYERS: 

You once took the saying of Jesus. 

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” 

You once took that to be the highest, the noblest, the boldest of the Christian teachings. 

Do you still feel that way?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, I think the main teaching of Christianity is, 

“Love your enemies.”

BILL MOYERS: 

Hard to do.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

I know, well, that’s it — I mean, when Peter drew his sword and cut off the servant’s ear there, in the Gethsemane affair, and Jesus said, “Put up your sword, Peter,” and put the ear back on, 

Peter has been drawing his sword ever since. 

And one can speak about Petrine or Christian Christianity in that sense. 

And I would say that the main doctrine of Christianity is the doctrine of Agape, of true love for he who is yours, him who is your enemy.

BILL MOYERS: 

How does one love one’s enemy without condoning what the enemy does, accepting his aggression?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, I’ll tell you how to do that. “Do not pluck the mote from your enemy’s eye, but pluck the beam from your own,” do you know?

Now, I have a friend whom I met by chance, a young Buddhist monk from Tibet. You know, in 1959 the Communists crashed down and bombed the palace of the Dalai Lama, bombarded Lhasa, and people murdered and all that kind of thing. And he escaped, he escaped at the time of the Dalai Lama. And those monasteries, I mean, there were monasteries with 5,000 monks, 6,000 monks, all wiped out, tortured and everything else. I haven’t heard one word of incrimination of the Chinese from that young man. There is absolutely no condemnation of the Chinese here. And you hear this from the Dalai Lama himself. You will not hear a word of condemnation. This recognition of the way of life through which that vitality of the spirit is moving in its own way. I mean, these men are sufferers of terrific violence, and there’s no animosity. I learned religion from them.

BILL MOYERS: 

Do most of the stories of mythology, from whatever culture, say that suffering is intrinsically a part of life and that there’s no way around it?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

I think I’d be willing to say that they do. I can’t think of anything now that says if you’re going to live, you won’t suffer. 

It’ll tell you how to understand and bear and interpret suffering, that it will do. And when the Buddha says there is escape from suffering, the escape from sorrow is nirvana. Nirvana is a psychological position where you are untouched by desire and fear.

BILL MOYERS: 

But is that realistic? Does that happen?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes, certainly.

BILL MOYERS: 

And your life becomes what?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Harmonious, well-centered and affirmative of life.

BILL MOYERS: 

Even with suffering.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Exactly. There’s a passage in Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, isn’t there? 

Be as Christ, for Christ did not think godhood something to be hung on to, to be clung to, but let go and came down and took life in the form of a servant, a servant even unto death. 

Let’s say, come in and accept the suffering, and affirm it.

BILL MOYERS: 

So you would agree with Abelard in the 12th century, who said that Jesus’ death on the cross was not as ransom paid, as a penalty applied, but it was an act of atonement, atonement at one with the race.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s the most sophisticated interpretation of why Christ had to be crucified. Abelard’s idea was that this … oh, this is connected with The Grail King and everything else … that The Coming of Christ to be crucified and illustrating thus The Suffering of Life, removes Man’s Mind from commitment to the things of This World in compassion. It’s in compassion with Christ that we turn to Christ, and so the injured one becomes the savior. It is the suffering that evokes the humanity of the human heart.

BILL MOYERS: 

So you would agree with Abelard that mankind yearning for God and God yearning for mankind in compassion met at that cross.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes. And by contemplating the cross, you are contemplating the true mystery of life. And that love for this experience, no matter how horrific the experience, the love for it

BILL MOYERS: 

So there’s joy and pain in love.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah, there is. Love, you might say, is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. And the stronger the love, the more that pain, but love bears all things. Love itself is a pain, you might say, but is the pain of being truly alive.

BILL MOYERS: 

As Joseph Campbell pursued his quest across Europe for the stories of love and chivalry, he paused often to visit the great cathedrals. 

They too reflected the glory of love, the love of Mary, mother of God. 

Reverence for the power of the female is another grand theme in ancient mythology. In the primitive planting cultures, woman contributed importantly to the economic life of the community by participating in the growing and reaping of crops. 

And as the mother and nourisher of life, she was thought to assist the earth symbolically in its fertility. 

In fact, some believe there was even a golden age of the goddess until she was driven from the imagination by the emergence of patriarchal authority.

Of late, however, scientists have resurrected the name of an ancient goddess, Gaia, to express the idea of Earth as a living body on which we depend for life. In the last half of this conversation with Joseph Campbell, he takes us back to the time when the love of God meant the love for mother goddess, and he unites these themes in one image, the virgin birth, which to him represents the birth of spirit from matter, the birth of compassion in The Heart.

(interviewing) The Lord’s Prayer begins, “Our Father which art in heaven.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes.

BILL MOYERS: 

Could it have begun, “Our Mother”?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: This is a metaphorical image, this is a symbolic image, and to make the point that it’s not your father, your physical father, we have “Our Father who art in heaven.” But heaven again is a symbolic idea, where would it, heaven, be? It is no place. All of the references of religious and mythological images are to planes of consciousness or fields of experience potential in the human spirit, and these are to evoke attitudes and experiences that are appropriate to a meditation on the mystery of the source of your own being, I would say. So there have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, the source, and she’s really a more immediate parent than the father, because one is born from the mother, and then the first experience of any infant is the mother, so that the image of woman is the image of The World. You might say that mythology is simply a translation of The World into a mother image. We talk of Mother Earth and so forth.

BILL MOYERS: 

But what happened along the way, Joe, to this reverence that in primitive societies was directed toward the goddess figure, the great goddess, the Mother Earth? 

What happened to that?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That comes in primarily with agriculture and the agricultural societies.

BILL MOYERS: 

Fertility and all of that?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It has to do with the earth, the human woman does give birth as the earth gives birth to the plants. She gives nourishment as the plants do. So woman magic and earth magic are the same, they are related. And the personification, then, of this energy which gives birth to forms and nourishes forms is properly female. And so it is in the agricultural world of ancient Mesopotamia, the Egyptian Nile, but also in the earlier planting culture systems, that the goddess is the mythic form that is dominant.

BILL MOYERS: 

Because of this obvious perception of creation issue, fertility.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s right, and when you have a goddess as the creator, it’s her own very body that is the universe. She is identical with the universe. And in Egypt, you have the mother heavens, Nut, the goddess Nut, who is represented as the whole heavenly sphere.

BILL MOYERS: So it would be natural for people trying to explain the wonders of the universe to look to the female figure as the explanation for what they saw in their own lives.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Not only that, but then when you move to a philosophical point of view, the female represents what in Kantian terminology we call the forms of sensibility. The female represents time and space itself. She is time and space, and the mystery beyond her is beyond pairs of opposites, so it isn’t male and it isn’t female. It neither is nor isn’t, but everything is within her, so that the gods are her children. Everything you can think of, everything you can see, is the production of the goddess.

Oh, this is a wonderful story. The Vedic gods are together and they see a strange son of amorphous thing down the way, like a kind of smoky fog. And they say, “What’s that?” They don’t know what it is. And Agni, the god of fire, says, “I’ll go find out who that is.” So he goes up to this smoky thing and he says, “Who are you?” And from the smoky thing the voice says, “Who are you?” And he says, “I’m Agni, I’m the lord of fire, I can burn anything.” And out of the fog there comes a piece of straw, it falls on the ground, it says, “Let’s see you burn that” He can’t burn it. He goes back, he says, “This is strange.”

Well, Vayu, the lord of winds, says, ”I’ll try.” So he goes and the same thing, “I can blow anything around.” Throws it down, “Now, let’s see you blow that” Well, he can’t. He goes back. Then a woman arrives, a beautiful, mysterious, mystic woman. And she instructs the gods and tells them who that is. “That is the ultimate mystery of being, from which you boys have received your strength. And he can turn it on or off for you,” you know. And there she comes as the one who illuminates the gods themselves concerning the ultimate ground of their own being.

BILL MOYERS: 

It’s the female wisdom.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It’s the female as the giver of forms. 

She is the one who gave the forms and she knows where they came from.

BILL MOYERS: 

I wonder what it would have meant to us if somewhere along the way, we had begun the prayer “Our Mother,” instead of “Our Father.” 

What psychological difference would it have made?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, it makes a psychological difference in the character of the cultures. You have the basic birth of civilization in the Near East with the great river valleys then as the main source areas, the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, and then over in India, the Indus valley and later the Ganges. This is The World of the goddess; all these rivers have goddess names finally.

Then there come the invasions. These fighting people are herding people. The Semites are herders of goats and sheep, and the Indo-Europeans of cattle. They were formerly the hunters. They translate a hunting mythology into a herding mythology, but it’s animal oriented. And when you have hunters you have killers, and when you have herders, you have killers, because they’re always in movement, nomadic, coming into conflict with other people and they have to conquer the area they move into. This comes into the Near East, and this brings in the warrior gods, like Zeus, like Yahweh.

BILL MOYERS: The sword and death, instead of fertility.