CHAPTER 2: The Symbolism of Desire
Part 2: The Virgin Birth
The Fall was caused by the influence of Desire. In the Return or Redemption the factor of Desire is absent. This is expressed in the myths of the “immaculate conception” and the “virgin birth” of Gods, heroes and redeemers, all representing aspects or forms of the saving function in the human soul.
The old traditions present a variety of forms of the Virgin Birth. The Goddess Athênê is born from the head of Zeus. She is the Virgin Goddess of Wisdom, presiding over the War between the powers of life and death within the psyche. That is, she represents the Tradition, the Voice that issues from the Head. The version of the “virgin birth” from the head of Zeus has its parallel in Hindu tradition in the Birth of beings from “the mind of Brahmā”. These are called “the mind-born sons” of the Creator.
When Kronos mutilated his father Uranus, he threw the organ into the Ocean. This symbolizes the isolation and dissolution of Desire. Out of the foam thus caused on the surface of the Ocean, the Goddess Venus Urania, “the Heavenly Venus”, was born. Begotten “without passion”, she represents the higher Love which contributes to the salvation of the soul from Desire and its consequences in the Fall.
The Mexican Quetzalcoatl was born of a Virgin. Perseus was born of the Virgin Danaë, after Zeus showered on her in the form of gold. The substitution of Divine Father for a human father is a common element in myths pertaining to the Birth of a “hero”, symbolizing the spiritual function, which comes to perform heroic deeds in life. Zeus or Jupiter was said to be the Father of many heroes, as, for instance, Perseus and Hercules. He correspond to the Hindu “Guru” and is the Enlightener, presiding over the essential function of faith and insight, who leads his son and disciple back to “” obedience” and the enjoyment of true Manhood. During his trials and deeds, representing the stages of the Spiritual Path, the spiritual hero learns the lessons and obtains mastership over himself on the various planes of his soul, one by one, till ultimately he comes to enjoy the peace and bliss of Heaven and becomes divine.
In Buddhist tradition the Virgin Birth is called “the birth from a lotus-blossom in the Tushita Heaven”. It implies the divine birth, without reference to a womb, this being considered impure. The Tushita Heaven represents the Moon-Sphere.
The Birth of Kārttikeya. The myth of the Virgin Birth of the Hindu God Kārttikeya gives some very significant details. According to tradition, Śiva, the Lord of Yogîs, was at one time immersed in blissful contemplation on Mount Kailāsa, the sacred Abode of the Gods. He corresponds in this aspect to Uranus, the Heavenly Father. The Devas, wishing that Śiva should generate progeny to aid in the scheme of Genesis, sent Kāma, the God of Desire, to him in order to excite him to approach his wife, the Goddess Umā or Pārvatî, the All-Mother. Pārvatî had had to undergo severe spiritual practices for the purpose of winning him for her husband at all. When the God of Desire came near, Śiva refused to stir from his meditation and leave his state of Bliss. Like Uranus, he refused to generate progeny. After a while, irritated by Kāma’s behaviour, he opened his Third Eye, the frontal Eye of Illumination. By the Power of this Eye the God Kāma was burned to ashes, for Illumination dissolves earth-bound desire. But even Enlightenment must work its way and be worked out in the world of Manifestation, or, in other words, must “be born in this world”. Therefore the myth continues. Later the Devas sent Agni, the God of Fire, to Śiva. It will be seen later, that he represents an aspect of Mars Ruler of the Sign of Manifestation in the Zodiac, Aries. Agni visited Śiva and obtained “a germ” of Śiva in the form of six-fold spark of Fire from his Third Eye. As he was bringing it away, it fell out of his hold into the Heavenly River Ganges, from where it passed into the Himalayan Lake Saravana. The Heavenly Ganges, into which the germ of Śiva fell, corresponds to the Ocean, into which fell the generating power of Uranus. The Heavenly Ganges represents in the Zodiac Aquarius and Pisces. It comes into Manifestation as the first of the Ten Rivers in Aries, as will be shown later (see Diagram 7). Agni’s Sign is also Aries (see Diagram 7), and the issuing of Fire from Śiva’s Eye is traditionally also connected with Aries.
After the Child had been “virgin-born” out of the Water, beautiful as the Moon and bright as the Sun, six daughter of Kings, married to six of the Seven Rishis, offered him their breast. One myth teaches that he developed six mouths so that he could suckle each of them. Another tradition runs that the six sparks at first were each a babe, and that the six babes became one on being fondly clasped by Umā, the Consort of Śiva, who became the Child’s Mother. The six others who suckled him are found in the Heavens in the form of the six Krittikās or Pleiades. Their constellation is situated in Taurus, the Sign following on Aries. The name “Kārttikeya” is derived from “Krittikās”. The six foster mothers symbolize the creative aspects of the six Spheres of Moon, Ether, Air, Fire Water and Earth, and also the six stages of the Path, represented by the Six Days of Genesis.
Kārttikeya has often been called “the Hindu Mars”, an identification which may easily lead to crude misconceptions. It will be seen later that Mars is not just “God of war”, but that he is the God presiding over the Battle of Life and the Resurrection. The same applies to Kārttikeya. He is the Solar Hero in the human soul. The six stages of the Battle of Life on his Path will be dealt with later. It is a version of the ultimate Battle between the powers of Wholeness or Holiness and the powers of Ahaṅkāra, which comes at the end of the long War that rages within every soul.
The Vāhana or riding animal of Kārttikeya is the Peacock, which as bird represents the intelligence of the Element Air; the peacock’s tail symbolizes the starry heavens that are spread out in beauty. Kārttikeya twelve hands represent the twelve Signs of the Zodiac. He is worshipped in South India under the Sanskrit names of Subrahmaṇian and Kumāra or under the Tamil name of Murugan. In the South he is generally represented as an immortal youth, in a simple human form, naked but for the small cloth worn by ascetics. He holds a staff in his hand, which is the same as the lance of the fierce Kārttikeya. According to tradition, it is a symbol of Viveka. Viveka is a synonym of Buddhi and means discrimination between the Real and “the unreal”. That is, the apparent reality of the world. He further holds an ascetic’s waterpot in his hand, symbolizing the Grace of the Water of Life. It is a mighty achievement if the psychical function belonging to the Element Fire becomes “ascetic”. Subrahmaṇian is the Patron of many who seek Good-Reality or Self-realization. The symbols of Kārttikeya will later be considered at greater length in connection with his Battle with the Titans. His main festivals in South India are celebrated in the periods of Aries, the Sign of Sunrise which is ruled by Mars, and Taurus, the Sign of “the Mothers”, represented by the Pleiades, which is ruled by Venus. His Victory over the Ahankāric powers is celebrated in the period of Libra.
The Virgin Birth of Christ. The most recent, and for the present time most appropriate, instance of the Virgin Birth is that of Christ. No Eros approached the Holy Virgin (St. Luke 1; 34). The Angel of the Annunciation, announcing the Immaculate Conception, was Gabriel, the Voice of God. He is the Angel of the Moon-Sphere (see Diagram 1). It is by the Moon-Sphere that the Ether-Sphere comes into existence. The Voice gives birth to the Word, as we shall see presently. The Ether is the realm of Light and Enlightenment, ruled by the Guru, the Enlightener. The Holy Virgin, like Isis, Venus Urania, Athênê and the virgin Diana, represents the Moon-Goddess, that is, the Power of Consciousness in its aspect of the Tradition, ever virgin and ever young, and ever giving birth to the power of faith and insight into the mystery of life. The Holy Virgin is “Queen of Heaven”, “Queen of the Stars” and to give her an ancient title — “Mother of the Aeons”. Much of the ancient symbolism of the Moon-Goddess, Queen of the Night, has become associated with the Holy Virgin. In early times the seers knew well whom she represented. The Virgin’s Mother, Anna, has also been identified with the Primal Mother. An Ethiopian manuscript of the early Abyssinian Church contains a prayer to Anna: “Hanna, thou who art the Morning… brilliant pearl, wherefrom went forth Mary the Virgin, who gave birth to the Flame … She shall bring forth the blessed Moon (who shall give birth to the Sun). Praise, salutation, and homage to Hanna, the mother of the mother of Adonāi, who made rise a second Sun … my Lady Hanna, thou bride of the Heavenly Father … thou saviour of Adam.” Adonāi is the Lord.
Since early times Christian thought has not made a clear distinction between the symbolism of the Christ Myth and the Facts of the life of the historical Jesus. In the myth the Virgin Mary represents the “Moon-Goddess” who gives birth to the Son of God in human hearts all over the world. The mother of Jesus was a woman like other women, except that she was spiritually highly advanced. In spite of her advanced spiritual development, however, she served occasionally as a symbol of “the world” (as, for instance, St. Matthew 12:47–50 and St. John 2; 4). The Virgin Mother of Christ is the Moon-Goddess, Queen of Heaven — the most exalted form of Deity, for as regards the Father, no one can speak of “form”. The Mother is traditionally “the form” and “the power” of the Father. In the Apocryphal “Gospel according to the Hebrews” Jesus spoke about “My Mother the Holy Spirit”.
“The Son of man”. The dogma that Joseph was not the father of Jesus takes away one of the most significant element in the Gospel teachings. It implies the denial that Jesus was an ordinary human being, however spiritually matured, and hence the denial of the attainment of God-realization from a basis in the human condition. This forms a very great element of hope and promise. If we know of an Angel or God who is liberated from sin and sorrow and has attained Salvation, it is not of much use to us. But if we see a man who has attained this, it gives us hope and comfort, for it assures us that we may attain it ourselves. It may biologically, under special circumstances, be possible for a woman to bring forth a child by herself, without impregnation, but such an abnormal phenomenon would be an unnatural one, unsuited for a great Saviour, whose importance for humanity lies in the fact that he is one of them and one like them in every way, and that, in spite of this, he achieves the state of Being and Consciousness in which he can proclaim: “I and the Father are One.”
The title “Son of man” means son of Joseph, and the title “Son of God”, implying the Virgin Birth, is symbolical. Jesus was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1; 3). The historian Josephus and the Church-historian Hegesippus have referred to the brothers of the Lord, especially James the Just, to “Symeon, the son of the Lord’s uncle, Clopas”, and to other relatives. James the Just, or, the Righteous, was the first Bishop of the Church and Symeon the second.
Tradition carefully stressed the fatherhood of Joseph by giving the ancestors of Jesus from Abraham and David downward, in St. Matthew 1; 1–16. The last verse is: “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” Because the mythological material referring to the Virgin Birth was inserted immediately after these verses, the words “the husband of Mary” were also inserted in the 16thverse. It is hard to understand why all the trouble should have been taken to record the ancestry of Jesus if Joseph were not his father. And actually, it has been proved from the so-called Sinai-Palimpsest, discovered in 1892 that the original text had “Joseph begat Jesus”, instead of “Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus”.
The tradition of the Virgin Birth was derived from other than the common Jewish sources. But though “the Son of man” should be taken to mean “son of Joseph”, it has also symbolical implications. For, as we shall see later, “ancestors” should also be understood in a symbolical sense. Furthermore “man” has reference to the stage of the Path in which Manhood is attained, while “Son of man” applies to the stage following on that. (This will at once be clear to readers of “The Key to the First Chapter of Genesis”. It will also be explained in this book).
Those who hold to a literalistic interpretation of Scripture and fail to recognize the existence of symbolism, cannot benefit from the rich details of the traditional teachings.
The devout among Christians can only object to the mention of “the Christ Myth” as long as they use that word in the modern, contemptuous, sense. One who understands what a myth really is, cannot but regard it as a most valuable, beautiful, intellectual, inspiring and sacred traditional treasure.
From the little material that has been adduced, it is already evident that the Virgin Birth is the symbolic or spiritual birth or renewal and has no reference at all to the subject of conception and sex. This “birth” exactly opposes and follows from the state of symbolic or spiritual “death” of the Fall (see Genesis 2; 17). There is, as we shall see later, a different meaning in the Virgin Birth of Men and of Virgins themselves.
The winter solstice. The spiritual and symbolic birth is traditionally associated with the time of the winter solstice, because from that time onward the light of the sun becomes stronger and the sun seems to return on its course. This “return” marks the beginning of the Spiritual Path or Path of Return. It constitutes the “conversion”, literally, the turning about, of the soul.
The darkness of the time of the year is a symbol of the state of the soul of the Fallen Man. From that time on, the darkness is dispelled by light. Therefore older traditions celebrated the Birth of Dionysos and Mithras on December 25th and the Birth of Osiris on December 27th, and therefore, also, the Birth of Christ is celebrated on December 25th. The Lord of Light is, moreover, conceived to be born at midnight. There is a symbolic correspondence between the stages of the year-cycle and the stages of the day-cycle, and herein midnight corresponds to the winter-solstice (see Diagram 1a).
The sacred teachings of old are universal and all-embracing. The Light is born in the heart-cave of every human being, Christian or otherwise, when the time for its conversion on the Path of Ahaṅkāra has come. It matters very little what name is associated with it. When the Light is born in the soul, the Ahaṅkāra, “the old Adam” passes away.
The meaning of the symbols and myths of old, whether of the East or of the West, has been long forgotten. We shall see that it is taught in the myths and scriptures of several faiths that their meaning will once more be revealed and understood. The Lord has long remained hidden in the tombs of dogmatic theologies and in the sepulchres of numerous sects. Tradition teaches us about his Re-birth and Resurrection. That implies the renewal of insight into the meaning of the teachings of the Tradition and of life itself, at the hand of these teachings.
The winter solstice is when the sun moves from Sagittarius to Capricorn. The old cycle ends in Sagittarius and the new begins in Capricorn. In those connections in which the old cycle is conceived as one of psychical and cultural disorder, darkness and emptiness (all three important symbolical conceptions, as we shall see later). The end of the cycle is presided over by a Divine Judge, who holds his Court and weighs the deeds or the heart of man in the Balance. The different traditions have given him many names and titles — the Angel of Life and Death, Saturn, Yama, Dharma-Rāja, Osiris, Forsete, Christ. According as one side or the other of the Balance falls, it is determined whether the “here-after” will take the form of a heaven or a hell. The here-after implied does not refer in the first instance to the stage to follow after the death of the physical body, but to the state following on the symbolic or spiritual death of the Fall — during the life-time of man. For the heaven and hell of man’s making are in “this world”.
The Titans. The myths of Genesis of various faiths do not contain meaningless explanations of the creation of the material universe and man, or a theatrical allegory to explain natural phenomena. Their object is spiritual enlightenment and they deal with that very subject. They discuss the stages of the Spiritual Path and form the basis of all the more detailed, later, teachings.
In Greek tradition the first Gods are the Titans. The Titans and Gods are the Daemons — a word originally meaning Angels or Gods. Diotima, the prophetess of Mantinea, taught Socrates that Eros is “the intermediate being between mortals and immortals, a great Daemon, dear Socrates, for everything demoniac is just the intermediate link between God and man”. It is Desire that leads to the Fall, and it is also Desire that leads the way back to God-Reality. Therefore Desire has a special place in Capricorn, the stage in which the cycles meet.
The Twelve Primordial Titans came forth from Uranus, the Heavenly Father, who is apprehended or approached in the Zodiac in the stage of Capricorn and Aquarius. They symbolize the first order arising out of Khaos — which does not represent a state of the material universe, but symbolizes the state of disorder in the soul of a man at the depth of the Fall : “And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1; 2). It should be noted that the order of the Twelve Titans is the same as that of the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac in the direction of the Spiritual Path (see Diagram 1b). The last of these Primordial Titans, called Kronos or Time by the Greek and Saturnus by the Romans, was the first of the Gods. Saturn is the God of the Element Earth, the physical plane. He is the Ruler of Capricorn and Aquarius, and is, therefore, watching over the beginning and end of both the Fall and the Return. The Titans represent the world of form and the Gods which follow them, the world of life. The Titanic and the Divine are never entirely distinct, for form and life are never fully separated.
The outlooks of science and the sacred psychological traditions of old are opposed to each other and related as form to life. In practice they can never be entirely distinct. The Gods must rule the Titans — science must be subservient to the Tradition.
Before the light of insight can come in the life of a man, to guide him on the Spiritual Path, a certain orderliness regarding the form-aspect of things, should arise in his mind. The Titans represent this orderliness. They further represent the powers of evolution — without reference to a spiritual path, implying the retracing of a downward path.
By itself the creation and evolution of form is pure and right, but through the interference of the Ahaṅkāra, the Ego-factor, they become impure, “sinister” and ultimately devilish. The Titans, at first the great creators, manifesters and upholders of form, become within the psyche of the Fallen Man, ruled by Ahaṅkāra, adversaries of the higher functions, and demons.
Originally Tîtan and Tîtānius were names of the Sun-God and a son or brother of the Sun. His or their descendants, the Titans. Rose against the Gods and were precipitated into the Underworld, that is, the world of the Fall. This myth illustrates how the creators and evolvers of form, or, in other words, the “elemental powers” of the mind, became involved in the Fall. The parallel traditions in Genesis (6:4–5) and other religions will be dealt with later.
The Titans, called in Hindu tradition by the name of Daityas or Asuras, are not in any way “evil” by themselves. The creative powers of the mind only become “evil” when they become servants of the Ahaṅkāra and cease to be obedient to the higher functions of the soul. When that is the case, the War between the Gods and the Titans begins, with either of the two groups having predominance, according as the soul chooses one or the other of the Two Paths. At the greatest depth of the Fall the Titans are condemned to live in the Underworld, where they suffer the consequences of their deeds of disobedience. That state is Tartaros, the Deep (Genesis 1:2) and Hell.
The Spiritual Path begins there. The first glimpse of light from above penetrates into the darkness of the Abyss. At the end of the Spiritual Path the fallen powers are liberated from their bondage. Thereby the mental powers of orderliness can again perform their creative task in obedience to the higher functions of the psyche.
