THE WISDOM OF THE MYSTERIES AND THE MYTH
The Mystic sought forces and beings within himself which are unknown
to man as long as he remains in the ordinary attitude towards life. The Mystic puts the great question about his own spiritual forces and the laws which transcend the lower nature. A man of ordinary views of life, bounded by the senses and logic, creates gods for himself, or when he gets to the point of seeing that he has made them, he disclaims them. The Mystic knows that he creates gods, he knows why he creates them, he sees, so to say, behind the natural law which makes man create them. It is as though a plant suddenly became conscious, and learned the laws of its growth and development. As it is, it develops in lovely unconsciousness. If it knew about the laws of its own being, its relation to itself would be completely changed. What the lyric poet feels when he sings about a plant, what the botanist thinks when he investigates its laws, this would hover before a conscious plant as an ideal of itself.
It is thus with the Mystic with regard to the laws, the forces working
within him. As one who knew, he was forced to create something divine
beyond himself. And the initiates took up the same attitude to that
which the people had created beyond nature; that is to the world of
popular gods and myths. They wanted to penetrate the laws of this
world of gods and myths. Where the people saw the form of a god, or a
myth, they looked for a higher truth.
Let us take an example. The Athenians had been forced by the Cretan
king Minos to deliver up to him every eight years seven boys and seven
girls. These were thrown as food to a terrible monster, the Minotaur. When the mournful tribute was to be paid for the third time, the king's son Theseus accompanied it to Crete. On his arrival there, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos interested herself in him. The Minotaur dwelt in the labyrinth, a maze from which no one could extricate himself who had once got in. Theseus desired to deliver his native city from the shameful tribute. For this purpose he had to enter the labyrinth into which the monster's booty was usually thrown, and to kill the Minotaur. He undertook the task, overcame the formidable foe, and succeeded in regaining the open air with the aid of a ball of thread which Ariadne had given him.
The Mystic had to discover how the creative human mind comes to weave
such a story. As the botanist watches the growth of plants in order to
discover its laws, so did the Mystic watch the creative spirit. He
sought for a truth, a nucleus of wisdom where the people had invented
a myth.
Sallust discloses to us the attitude of a mystical sage towards a myth
of this kind. "We might call the whole world a myth," says he, "which
contains bodies and things visibly, and souls and spirits in a hidden
manner. If the truth about the gods were taught to all, the
unintelligent would disdain it from not understanding it, and the
more capable would make light of it. But if the truth is given in a
mystical veil, it is assured against contempt and serves as a stimulus
to philosophic thinking."
When the truth contained in a myth was sought by an initiate, he was
conscious of adding something which did not exist in the consciousness
of the people. He was aware of being above that consciousness, as a
botanist is above a growing plant. Something was expressed which was
different from what was present in the mythical consciousness, but it
was looked upon as a deeper truth, symbolically expressed in the myth. Man is confronted with his own sense-nature in the form of a hostile monster. He sacrifices to it the fruits of his personality, and the monster devours them, and continues to do so till the conqueror (Theseus) awakes in man. His intuition spins the thread by means of which he finds his way again when he repairs to the maze of the senses in order to slay his enemy. The mystery of human knowledge itself is expressed in this conquering of the senses. The initiate knows that mystery. It points to a force in human personality unknown to ordinary consciousness, but nevertheless active within it. It is the force which creates the myth, which has the same structure as mystical truth. This truth finds its symbol in the myth.