Click here for previous Fairytale Sunday (it’s about Sleeping Beauty – she’ll be waking up here too later).
Please don’t be put off by the length of this one, by the way – it’s kind of in two parts, as you’ll see, and you don’t necessarily have to read the second part (it’s one of my old philosophy essays). That’s the bit behind the paywall.
But – please enjoy the lovely artwork, and don’t forget to like, comment, and definitely share, if you are so minded!
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861)
For some whimsical reason, possibly provoked by writing this Orphic story a few weeks ago from the Lunar Awards prompt quest, I recently revisited some of my old philosophy essays from my time as an undergraduate (about 30 years’ ago – hmm, now I feel old), and I uncovered the one you will find beneath this intro, which is about Herbert Marcuse’s Eros & Civilisation (all the image-quotes are from that book, by the way - here’s a credit, with a lovely voice). I think it’s rather good, and re-reading it reawakened my self-awareness of where most of my worldview comes from. Some of you may wonder what this has to do with fairytales (in which case you shouldn’t second guess me, because that’s naughty, reader dear). I would answer it has everything to do with fairytales, for reasons which I hope shall become clear. Simply on an autobiographical level, whilst in my philosophy I was delving into the pre-Socratics, with a generous helping of Nietzsche on the side, amply complemented by a dose of the mystical or occult (my own-self-initiation into the mysteries, perhaps), over in my German studies at the same time I was joyfully lost in a forest with a little red cap (of course there’s a double meaning in there! Who do you think I am!).
The essay, then, goes to the root of my own understanding of what is wrong with the world. In fairytale terms, it’s the repression of the magical. For the ancients, after all, the magical was the real. The real world – let us call it nature – was fully infused with the spirit. The ‘ego’ of prehistoric man was fully engaged and out there. Just as today, after modernism, the fairytale has arguably been dumbed down by Disneyfication, so too has the intrinsic spirit of nature herself been repressed. For Exhibit A, I give you this lifeless and dirty name ‘Earth’ which everyone uses for a planet which, in actual fact, has an intelligence and an essence. As the Greeks called her Gaia, the Atlanteans called her Danuih.
This, I would argue, is the fundamental reason for the pandemic of mental illness which, I might also argue, threatens to extinguish humanity (or turn it into a monstrous caricature of its former self – which is perhaps worse). Without the spirit, human beings are enslaved. Historically, if we’re going to get conspiracy theory about it, one might also point out that the ‘grand conspiracy’ of ‘world domination by a minority group of monsters’ could fundamentally not succeed without such repression. Look back in history and you will readily discern the roots of this. No graven images.
Freud put it thus in Moses & Monotheism – ‘the compulsion to worship a god whom one cannot see’. Deny the ‘images’ from humanity and they are lost. Blind. This is fundamentally, by the way, why his conclusion that Moses equals Akhenaton was the opposite of the truth. Akhenaton promoted the visible sun disc, as opposed to the ‘hidden one’ Amun – and despite disingenuous modern orthodoxy, he was absolutely not a monotheist (as evidenced by self-portrayals, together with his consort Nefertiti, identifying with deities such as Shu and Tefnut; not to mention highlighting the importance of Ma’at – Dike, in the Greek), but utterly opposed to the creeping Establishment – but this is another story.
And what do we mean by ‘images’? We mean imagery; we mean allegorical symbols; we mean the right kind of stories. Fairytales, from a certain point of view, are a pagan rebellion against that repressive prohibition (and no wonder the puritans initiated witch-hunts). We are, then, touching once again on narrative theory – since, as I have said elsewhere, human beings see and understand the world through stories. Ancient ‘religions’ were rich with symbolism and mythical narratives, all of which generated a navigable harmonia with the world, with reality, with each other. The so-called monotheistic ideologies have, being a conspiracy, removed and repressed and destroyed all of that – deliberately so, in order to render blind and enslave.
The initiate, by contrast, says do eat the apple.
Now you can understand how much I like Nietzsche, eh.
At the same time, my understanding in this comes from two other places – on the one paw, an understanding of the mysteries, on the other, an understanding of psychology.
And I would venture this;- no true liberation or ultimate revolution can proceed, let alone succeed, without this understanding. The organic revolution should and must not solely consist in some kind of anarchic dismantling of the modern world. Any genuine ‘return to nature’ must at once include a return to the mystical, the magical, the One Truth. Without that, humanity will continue to be lost in the woods. Without that, you are left only with ‘bioessentialism’. Which is an empty shell, devoid of essence.
John William Godward - A Priestess of Bacchus (1890)
I’m on quite a roll here, I think. Bear with me.
There is, in my view, very little difference between ancient mythologies and fairytales. Both are designed, at least in part, to facilitate individuation. The maturity of the individual into a full and complete appreciation of the richness of the real world, to allow the child who becomes the adult to retain their innate understanding of magic, mystery, and spirit. Of course there are life-lessons, moral fables, cautionary tales and such, but if we only perceive those mundane aspects we risk losing the big picture – in terms of content both myths and fairytales are infused with the otherworldly. In the same way that life itself, reality itself, was infused with the ‘supernatural’ as a matter of course. It was real to the ancients, in other words. Just as it is real to children.
The modern, the atheistic, the monotheistic – all these fundamentally seek to exorcise these wonders from a child, from life itself. Perhaps they do so out of some projected fear, but more than likely, I will stick to my original proposition – it is the root and foundation of the Grand Conspiracy itself. A conspiracy against the very soul of humanity itself. It is anti-human and anti-spirit.
But I shall leave that hanging there.
Why have I subtitled this ‘The New Orphic Youth’? Because that’s what Katrina’s first album was titled. Her band name was Bacchae, which refers to the female followers of Dionysus, the god of wine, women and song (‘my three favourite things’; in modern parlance one might say ‘sex, drugs & rock n’ roll’ – Katrina always wondered why no one else had ever thought of that obvious name for a band). The Bacchae, it should be noted, whilst we are on the subject of the Orphics (which is what this article is all about), were the ones who tore Orpheus apart following his rejection of them (by some accounts, rejection of Dionysus in favour of Apollo). So there’s a taste of Katrina’s postmodern mischief there.
But she had a deeper purpose, of course. Simply by employing those two names and becoming popular and successful she aroused the curiosity in the modern youth to simply ask ‘what does Bacchae mean’ and ‘what’s Orphic’ - thus leading themselves to learn about all this, to study it for themselves, and in turn to rediscover the mysteries and overcoming the repression of modernity. A revolutionary liberation, in other words.
Notice how this is entirely lacking in modern pop or youth culture (let alone the ‘education’ system). Instead the youth are served an incessant diet of insipid manufactured vacuous clones twerking about the stage to AI-generated rubbish. That’s not even art, let alone inspiration. One might call it degenerate, even. That, too, is a deliberate conspiracy. One might add it has been thus since the birth of popular culture in the mid-fifties, when the ‘commercial’ corporations would voraciously gobble up and dumb down any new youthful musical innovation, thus provoking a cycle of new reactionary waves. Not so much the case now they’ve captured the entire industry with streaming and algorithms and suchlike. There can’t be that many young people nowadays with a great record and a sense of stylus. Likewise the conspiracy theory about all these innovative musicians being some kind of ‘controlled opposition’. Laurel Canyon and all that jazz, you know. If you think they were part of a conspiracy, their counter-culture revolutionary thought will be discredited in your mind.
But I digress.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadera - A Dedication to Bacchus (1889)
The Orphic mysteries have much to offer for the young initiate. Simply study the symbolism of the stories. For those interested in fantasy writing there is, likewise, a Hades of a lot of material there. Ask the likes of Neil Gaiman – he’d understand. Indeed, I believe Orpheus himself did show up in the Sandman at one stage. It’s been a while, so correct me if I’m wrong there.
No, I’m right. Thought so. The similarity with ancient storytelling, of course, being the personification of archetypes. Characters which resonate with a reader.
Likewise for the youthful student of the occult, or psychology, even (the study of the psyche), one will find these ancient stories replete with archetypes. The Tarot, for example (along with its complement, astrology), can be seen simply as a lexicon of archetypes, with astrology highlighting personality traits. Numerology, then, would perhaps further complement these with an understanding of chronological progression, of an evolutionary path or journey. Those are the three I would advise the neophyte to start with. The life story of Orpheus can be viewed in the same way, as perhaps starting with the archetypal young ‘fool’ of the Tarot, who will then later journey into the Underworld (the unconscious, or deeper spirit) to recover knowledge of his ‘anima’ (to use the Jungian term). He then ‘leads it out’ (i.e. ‘educates’) back into the ‘real’ world of the living/awake (similar kinds of progress are found in fairytales, of course – the main character maturing). It is likely, in my view, that the story, or at least one version of the story, disseminated and discussed/contemplated amongst the initiates (Orpheotelestai), involved a successful outcome to the Orpheus & Eurydike narrative. Likewise there is an element of reincarnation here, along with one of the aspects that appealed to me the most, namely the advice to the initiate to refuse a drink from Lethe (the river of forgetfulness), instead choosing to drink a large draught from Mnemosyne (the river of memory), thus enabling past life memories and thus a more enlightened and self-aware spiritual evolution.
It's all there, in other words.
There’s a further archetype in the similarity with the Sleeping Beauty fairytale. By virtue of an enchantment, the female (anima) falls asleep/dies. The male (animus) must then go on a quest/journey to wake her up and lead her out again (see also the medieval romances, and Sir Orfeo – which has a happy ending, by the way). These are archetypes of maturation. The modern world is ignorant of the symbolism, of course. Both Eurydike and Sleeping Beauty fall under the enchantment because of a piercing of the skin. In the former’s case it is a snake – symbol of wisdom in the ancient world. In the latter, it is the needle from a spinning wheel. The Fates, of course, being personified as spinsters, weaving a rich tapestry and such.
In a similar sense, the journey of Orpheus into the Underworld is a representation of the ‘hero’s journey’, just as it mirrors the shaman’s.
There are likewise parallels with the Egyptian Osiris. Just as Orpheus is torn apart, so is Osiris (Dionysus too, for that matter). The head of Orpheus is then recovered by a nymph and taken to Lesbos. Osiris, meanwhile, is also rescued by a female (Isis) and with the help of magic, resurrected. We thus see narrative representations of the life cycle, both of an individual and the seasons. Just as fairytales themselves are essentially nature stories. We are looking at a sun, amongst other things.
Whilst the mysteries themselves may not have survived the repressions of Judaeo-Christianity (at least not without trauma), the narratives did. In orthodox – meaning public – Greek religion, it was something of a heresy for a human to identify with a god (for the initiate, however, identification was a purpose). Perhaps leading to the Heraclitean psychological insight, ‘the soul of a man does and does not wish to become Zeus’ (Fragment 32, I believe). Just as Judaeo-Christianity not only describes, but advocates a separation of man and the divine. Despite Jesus saying ‘the kingdom of God is within’ – meaning ‘look from God, not at God’. Jesus, it should be recalled, spent his formative years in Egypt – almost certainly studying the mysteries. Before, one might add from the imagined Gospel of Mary, foolishly deciding to go back home and liberate the people from whence he came – with a predictable result. But what is a mother to do, but accompany her foolish son?
So those archetypes did, indeed, survive the repression of ‘Christianity’ to find expression in fairytales and folk tales. Perhaps that shows the vigour and determination of the human spirit. Who knows.
But this is why we need to preserve these tales and, I would further venture, have them prominently in a national curriculum, if not in popular culture. And for those minded to be speculative fiction writers, whether of fantasy or science fiction, we would do well to bear in mind these archetypes – they are so embedded into the human psyche from aeons of evolution in a world fundamentally infused with the supernatural, with magic, that you only need to mention them to awaken that innate memory in a reader (what Jung termed the collective unconscious). But they should certainly be preserved for and disseminated amongst the youth.
Likewise, this new Orphic understanding of Fairytales, beyond this modernist analysis, whether Freudian or pseudo-feminist, is a liberating force.
I would also speculate, if I may, that seeing as the One Truth is universal, its expression only differing according to culture, that any intelligent extraterrestrials you may encounter would have recognisable mythologies. Communication, therefore, will be a lot easier than you may have thought.
Edward Burne-Jones - The Heart Desires, 2nd series, Pygmalion (1875-78)
I will endeavour to cease rambling now. That’s already a lot to take in. I will now present you with my thirty-year old essay. Like I say, this was from a time when I was getting totally enthused by ancient philosophy and, having studied the occult first, it all made perfect sense to me. At that time the general consensus of academic philosophy was that we didn’t really know much about what the pre-Socratics thought, especially the Pythagoreans (plus it was dismissed as ‘not philosophy, but mysticism and superstition’ – which is the kind of ‘temporal racism’ you often find in modernity). Read any textbook from the time and you will only find fragments. I strongly disagreed with all that and subsequently set out to prove them wrong by writing my dissertation presenting a full and complete picture of Pythagorean philosophy. The Pythagoreans, I should point out, were intimately related to the Orphics. My principle insight was that if you don’t understand the occult, or the mysteries, or you are simply a modern materialist (let alone an analytical philosopher), of course you won’t understand a damn thing about ancient philosophy. And likewise psychology.
But first came this essay.
This one is predominantly psychological, concentrating as I did, for once in my student life, on the actual essay question. That question starts with a quote from Herbert Marcuse’s book ‘Eros and Civilisation’, which is, if I recall correctly (I no longer have it, unfortunately), a laudably vociferous attack on Freud. Given I always hated Freud, this obviously appealed greatly to me. Where Freud essentially said ‘if you have a mental illness caused by society then you’re the problem, not society’, thus internalising and reinforcing the problem, Marcuse recognises that society is the cause (thus, society must be changed, not the individual). The modern equivalent would perhaps be something like ‘cognitive behaviour therapy’, which essentially attempts to make the patient ‘well-adjusted to a sick society’ – in other words, it, like Freud, ignores the very cause of mental illness, which is a fundamentally unnatural social environment (and devoid of mystery and magic – the ‘enlightenment’ thinkers rejected monotheism but replaced it with its complement, atheism – they rejected all magic and supernature, thus soul-destroying). This is also why I say an understanding of all this, and on this level, is a necessity for anarchists and revolutionaries.
Marcuse, in the section I looked at, is talking about the Orphic concept of Eros (love, obviously, but personified as a ‘daemon’ – i.e. a bridge between the two worlds), and Narcissus. Today, of course, the word ‘narcissus’ and its offshoots (or discontents, perhaps) has been imbued with negative connotations. For the more puritan of the ancients, that may also have been the case. For one such as Nietzsche, however, or the initiate, even, one would say that ‘self-love’ is surely a prerequisite for enlightenment and the love of others. It is a positive attribute, in other words. In the Orphic sense, it can simply mean ‘self-reflection’, or self-understanding. When we meditate on these stories, after all, we discover. These stories all have some point.
Contrast this with, say, Pygmalion, who spurns women and falls in love with his own creation. He silently wishes for a bride who could be as perfect as his statue, a wish that is ironically granted by Aphrodite (perhaps to mischievously teach him a lesson). This, to me, seems somewhat more narcissistic than Narcissus. And yet the Goddess rewarded him.
That would never happen today, eh.
Anyway, as I say, I like this essay. If it has its faults, then the one I would highlight, aside from stylistic considerations (I’ve not edited them, by the way, so you don’t have to feel too bad about your own juvenilia), is that it kind of assumes the reader knows as much as I did at the time about the subject. I was, after all, supposed to be writing it for a professor of philosophy who you would expect would, indeed, know at least as much as I did. Clearly, however, not, as if I recall I only got 50-something for it! Likewise when I wrote my dissertation on the Pythagoreans it must’ve been clear I knew way more than that professor. So, perhaps professional pride (or narcissism?) prevented that prof from awarding the student their just rewards. I think I got 60-something for that one. So in the end I came away with a Desmond. Not bad, though, seeing as it was only in this, my final year, that I actually bothered to do some work. Coming out of my own Underworld, which had a lot to do with something called ‘amphetamines’, also helped.
I very much doubt the rich experiences I had at university would likely be able to be had by today’s repressed youth.
Which is a tragedy.
Well, there’s my long intro. I should say at this stage that this essay runs in at around 3,700 words, and like I also mentioned the flaw is that it assumes the reader is fully versed in the subject matter. If this is not you, then remember you really don’t have to read it! I’m hoping in that case I’ve already given you a fair amount of thoughtforms to play with in your own time.
For those who do wish to read the essay, but do require familiarity with the subject (namely the Orphics, plus a sprinkling of Plato perhaps), then I found two excellent summaries of Orphism/the Orpheus myth, which you can find here, and here (they both have a ‘reject all’ button for the cookies, by the way – I checked). Both of these sites also contain some wonderful paintings from the history of art inspired by the Classics. As some of you may know, I have recently rekindled another love of mine, namely the pre-Raphaelites, and there’s a fair amount of that there.
But I will not hold anything against you if you wish to leave things here, and decline to read the essay (or perhaps leave it for another time). I append it anyway, though, so at the very least, it’s out there, as it were.
The Dance of the Bacchantes - Charles Gleyre (1849)
