Alchemy Part Two: The Characters
We start with the ego. In its unhealthy space we have already called it YHVH. In the outer world it is represented by people as devastating as Hitler or as passive and self destructive as the Cowardly Lion. It is the sleeping giant in its cave as the dragon or the tyrant on his throne as the Senex. One passive and the other aggressive.
The ego has four personalities. The King/Queen, the Warrior/Dorothy, Mystic/Venus, or Magician/Fairy Godmother. The King coordinates the balance logically as his feminine half analyzes the emotional properties.
The warrior is the assertive force tempered by feminine intuition. The Magician makes the the artifacts the hero and king needs to bring change. As his counterpart brings the knowledge of fate for that change. But the Mystic is the one who ponders how to create the artifact as his feminine side enjoys the art of creation and all that goes with it and binds us together. All this makes a healthy conscious mentality. This is the realm of Midgarth. Our waking concrete reality. But when they are developed out of accord with one and another, they become separated.
The King becomes the tyrant. If he is passive, he may fall victim to his evil vizier. The vizier holds regent of the undeveloped boy King. It is the voice of either of your parents that rules you throughout your adulthood. It is the sleeping Dragon. When it is awaken, it is Smog who devastates the Lake People. Hitler the child of his father's abuse and his mother's weakness, pulled like a marionette by Himmler and the major industries of Germany. Most of the time it is the decadent Herod Antipas or our dear President Bush. It is the King who retreats into the subconscious, repressed from the waking mind. Quick to temper, and quick to remove itself once the threat is removed. It strikes like a snake. If it is Aggressive, it thinks itself to be separate and greater than everything. Quick to the bark, quick to the fight. It is constantly threatened, so it attacks first. It takes easy prey. But soon as the squirrel turns on it, it cowers back to the Dragon cave. Like King John in the Disney Robin Hood who calls out for his mother when ever threatened. For the Tyrant is the twin brother of the Dragon. This is the High Chair Tyrant. This is the Senex. This is Darth Vader. It is papa Bush....
When the King is too masculine it is justice without mercy. It is the letter of the law. There is crime and no criminal, acquittal, crime and punishment, crime and forgiveness, and crime and pardon. With the overly masculine King there is only crime and punishment. With the overly Feminine, there is the door mat. They temper each other. One is also exacting on the punishment and feels one crime at a time and justice hits like an arrow. The other feels the general aspect of the crime and can be as destructive and broad as a tidal wave or a flood. This too must be in accord or else the King/Queen aspect can be taking pot shots at everyone or be yelling off with their heads at any given chance.
The Hero is the side of the ego that goes into the forest of the world and that of the mind. He is Luke Skywalker and Frodo. The hero is also tempered by compassion of Dorothy. It goes forward into the community making its way in society, but not forgetting that it is not alone in this world. When this is out of balance it is Perceval acting out as the fool as he steals kisses and food from a maiden that brings her ruin. When it is in accord, it is Perceval mourning the death of his mother at his own impetuousness. It is also the side of him that follows his instincts that Dorothy brings and asks the question of Compassion on the Maimed Fischer King that wins him the Grail. "What happened, and where does it hurt?" When it is out of balance it leaves the wife behind for years and conquerors knight after knight and gets no where. All under the premises of doing it for the wife. It is the goal oriented CEO who puts in 70 hours a week at the office and five waking hours with his children and wife a week. It is the hero who seeks only the Grail, but misses the journey. The man who wakes up one day, and asks where is my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife, where did my life go? This is his over achieving side. When in balance it is the hero, that when he gains, the community gains. The returning Man who brings the light to Plato's cave.
The passive hero is Ulysses stuck on the Island of Calypso. Here is inactivity almost cost him his wife for she was being pursued by other courtiers. Here is the arm chair hero. The day dreamer. The only ifs. He is the Scare Crow, Lion, and Tin man. He is the majority. He is the country folk or the farmer rich in common sense, but no city like college smarts. Or the Tin man who has learned some technical trade of the machine world, cut off from nature, who can not make sense of what his own heart tells him. Then we are the cowardly lion who has mastered ideas for great social gain, but lacks the courage or gumption to act upon them. But all of them lack faith that any one of them matters or can make a difference. Or in its feminine it cuts us off from the world that does not some how satisfy our base natures. Either it be drink, drugs, sex, or food; these things keep us from seeing the larger world or being active in it. Either it be too scary and we need things to dull or blur it. Or too delicious to find anything else in it. But in its positive aspect Venus can bring the love that is needed to act as the three see Dorothy fallen in the field. It is Love that makes them act and become the assertive hero. To make them realize they need the instinct of the farmer, the learning of the Tin Man, and the Creativity of the Lion to be the Hero. We all think what if and talk over our bar stools, but most leave it at that because they feel they can not make a difference. These need to go to Oz once more and back. Are they going to let a little girl show them up? If they take too long, they will be like Cuhulan,. After remaining in the Sidhe for a hundred years, he drops his sword and leans over to pick it up touching ground turns to dust. It is being the desk jockey who scours the Internet for that adventurous vacation, who is too out of shape or lazy to leave the job he hates.
The Magician is the one who makes the sword, shield, magic wand, or invention to facilitate the hero on his journey to benefit society. In its negative it is the merchant, big business, who takes control of the King and silences the Vizier. The Vizier is only after control. The negative magician is after wealth and acquisition. It is Jacob Marley counting his coins. It is Bill Gates that controls the world just to see his numbers in his portfolio rise. It is production and gathering for its own benefit. It will prevent anything from blocking it. It is looking for satisfaction and love from the King/Queen. It is the Grinch who thought Christmas was in the gifts that were wrapped. It is the person trying to love himself by having the coolest toys or fastest car. It is also the sick priest who is looking for love out of obedience. It is the one who forces a way of life that strives for Gods love upon you, so its life does not become a life filled with self denial that followed a lie. These two make up the Christian Right and Big Business. They are the ones who have lost sight.
When these all work together in concert, we do not notice them. We have one personality. But a personality, like Brahma. Hindu religion is a monotheist religion. Where Christianity has angels, demons, and saints under one God; Hindu's see all of them part of one God with many faces that enjoys all of its moods and parts. A healthy ego is like your body, most of the time you do not notice its parts unless you stub your toe or you have a stomach ache. When your ego is not healthy, it is like taking blood samples of cells and bacteria in your body that is too small to see to analyze. The subtly is the same. Either psychosis or Cancer, it is something subtle at the root. With cancer it could be the fact that your father smoked, so did you in his example. Or you beat your wife, because your father beat you or your mother. Or more subtle, your father worked a job he hated as he sculpted beautiful Italian marble in his basement. As you play guitar in your attic to get your mind of the job you wish death would not come too late for you. But when we ignore any of these sides, it is like the diabetic who ignores his sugar to loose his foot that brings his death. Something that could of been simply avoided.
These are the Archetypes that an adolescent follow s in the Hero' Journey and the Fairy Tales that guide us. They are of the conscious world.
When they are out of sorts, they are repressed along with the memories we can not bring ourselves to face. Never less Change. It is the Damsel's bleeding Key in the Bluebeard's castle. The skeletons in the closet. It is also the princess or magic child guarded by the Dragon. Our old ways keep us from our potentials it does not know how to use. When we activate the positive aspects of the ego, they free our potential in the magic child and raise him to leave behind his desires safe in the cave guarded by our friendly protective dragon as we soar into the heights to aspire for our greatness. There we meet Christ. But before we fly we must climb the mount of Dante's Purgatory. Hopefully, we did not begin our Journey from the icy Bottom of Hell. But everything rises once opposition is removed. Every thing follows the coarse of least resistance once it get out of its own way!
Next we will see the guides that come beyond our world that the primitive brain stem the Hypothalamus allows us access to. Also the stages of the journey they bring us upon.
