Father of Lies, Part III

We've seen that the teachings of the Mysteries conceived of our material world in a real sense the world of the Dead, with the God of the Dead as its ruler. And we've seen that, as long as we abide here, under Death's dominion, we are, in a certain sense, ghosts or phantoms. It remains to discuss the matter of our escape.

But in order to do that, we need to look again at the reason for our descent.

Plotinus tells us that we begin our existence still in the presence of God. This is why he can ask, "What can it be that has brought the souls to forget the father, God, and, though members of the Divine and entirely of that world, to ignore at once themselves and It?"

The Barddas of Iolo Morganwg also teaches this:

God made all living beings in the circle of Gwynvyd at one breath

So why is it that, having been created in the presence of God, who is all Life, we have fallen to this world of Death?

Plotinus gives the answer as "self-will." Now, the Greek word here is tolma, and it has a very particular meaning in this context. Its ordinary meaning is something like "audacity." In the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, this sort of audacity prompts the generation of the Dyad from the Monad, the Two from the One. Geometrically, the generation of the Two from the One is the generation of the Line from the Point.

This can be a difficult idea to grasp, because, to our our ordinary way of thinking, there's nothing especially wrong with drawing a line rather than a point. And yet, the Pythagoreans of Plotinus's day identified the Dyad and the generation of the Line with the departure from God and the very origin of Evil!

How can this be?

I believe the answer is simple: Tolma is the state of affairs in which the higher part of the soul, the nous, is enslaved to the lower parts, the desires and appetites. In this condition we are driven here and there by our desires, conscious after a certain fashion but never in control of ourselves. We are, in effect, akin to ghosts or phantoms, or the figures of a dream. And the world in which we find ourselves is itself a kind of dream-world, or ghost world, entirely illusionary.

More on the Mysteries

There were many mystery schools in the ancient world. The Eleusinian is well known, and so are the Bacchic, the Orphic, and the Mysteries of Ceres.

The Mysteries were universally schools of initiation, in which the aspirants went through a series of personal purifications over a length of time, tyupically including abstinence from food, wine, and sex, and then enaced a ritual drama over the course of one or more days. The ritual drama was based on a myth and consisted of the re-enactment of that myth, and the myth was typically concerned with the descent of a deity into the Underworld and his or her restoration to life.

In the work of the Mysteries, and also in the work of Philosophy, we discover the truth about our condition. We encounter the God of this World and we transcend him. And in so doing, we can cease to see him as an enemy, or as a jailer, and start to see him, and his world, as a teacher. In the work of discovering our condition and reversing it, we cease to be subjective beings or ghosts, lost in a Dream World. We wake up from the dream, we die to this world, and we learn to function as human beings.

In ancient times, one Mystery School began to eclipse the others, due at once to its effectiveness, the enthusiasm of its initiates, and the ruthlessness of some of its leaders. But that it was a Mystery School like the others we may learn from the words of one of its great initiates:

 

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.

 

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Christian Mysteries and Druidry

Iolo again:

...but they would be gods, and attempted to traverse the Ceugant. This, however, they could not do, wherefore they fell down to Annwn, which unites with death and the earth, where is the beginning of all living owners of terrestrial bodies.

In another section of the Barddas we read the following:
 

Teacher. Dost thou know what thou art?

Disciple. I am a man by the grace of God the Father.

T. Whence earnest thou?

D. From the extremities of the depth of Annwn, where is every beginning in the division of the fundamental light and darkness.

T. How earnest thou here from Annwn?

D. I came, having traversed about from state to state, as God brought me through dissolutions and deaths, until I was born a man by the gift of God and His goodness.

T. Who conducted that migration?

D. The Son of God, that is, the Son of man.

T. Who is He, and what is His name?

D. His name is Jesus Christ, and He is none other than God the Father incarnate in the form and species of man, and manifesting visible and apparent finiteness for the good and comprehension of man, since infinitude cannot be exhibited to the sight and hearing, nor can there, on that account, be any correct and just apprehension thereof. God the Father, of His great goodness, appeared in the form and substance of man, that He might be seen and comprehended by men.

Conclusion

Here is the picture that emerges from all of this.

We have, all of us, our origin in the Divine. But we-- beings like us-- begin our existence as phantoms or ghosts, driven about by the winds of desire. This drives us to descend into the limits of the universe, which is material incarnation. In the language of mythology, this is described variously as Adam (Nous) and Eve (Life) succumbing to the temptation of the serpent (Desire), eating from the Tree of Knowlege, and descending into the material world (Skins of Animals), ruled by Sin and Death (Sublunar Demiurge); the rape of Persephone (Soul) while gathering flowers (material desires) by Hades (the Sublunar Demiurge) and her descent into the Underworld (material incarnation); the descent of Pwyll (mind) into Annwn (world of the Dead) and his agreement with Arawn (Lord of the Realm of the Dead, Sublunar Demiurge). 

Iolo describes Jesus Christ as he who "conducts our migration" through Abred, as he is "God in the form of a Man." Now this makes sense of the teaching of Christ as the "Second Adam"-- he is literally Adam himself, having descended utterly into matter and risen, by slow degrees, to be restored to the spiritual realm; he stands in for and is all mankind, but he is also eternally God and eternally beyond material existence. In the same way, Perseophone is the Soul Itself, who must be restored to her mother, Ceres, the higher part of the Soul. Pwyll is the mind descending into Annwn, and in his triumphant return to his seat of Dyfed he demonstrates the way of ascent from Annwn/Abred into the light of Gwynfydd. Each of these figures may "conduct our migration." Each demonstreats the principles, and we may follow them by initiation into their mysteries, by cultivating virtue, and by spiritual practice including meditation and prayer. But follow we must.