in habentibus symbolum facilior est transitus

8/7/2019 In Habentibus Symbolum Facilior Est Transitus

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IN CONFERENCE HOW 2

In Habentibus Symbolum Facilior Est Transitus

by Dr. Nesrin Eruysal

During the London Blitz, H.D. found herself in a city which corresponded to the chaotic

world described by Hans Jonas in his book about Gnostic religion, a "world of darkness,

utterly full of evil ... full of devouring fire ... a world of darkness without light ... a world of

death without eternal life and a world in which the good things perish and plans come to

naught." (57) In her books, H.D. borrowed images from a variety of heretical discourses with

roots in ancient Gnostic teachings. She melted these images in the alchemical vessel in which

base metals are transformed into gold. She aimed at transforming herself mentally and her

labor Sophiae "an alchemical encounter with the unconscious" as Jung put it in Alchemical

Studies" (171) was an attempt to resuscitate the alchemical axiom: "Transform yourselves

from dead stones into living philosophical stones!" In order to make the transition possible,

the poet required images in which inner meanings could be deciphered via transformation.

In his lecture on Nietzsches Zarathustra, Jung talked about how he discovered a passage in

the 16th century Hermetic text in which the philosopher makes an interesting statement: "For

those who have the symbol, the passing from one side to the other, the transmutation is easier.

(In habentibus symbolum facilior est transitus)" (1248). Jung went on to speculate on this

statement and reached the conclusion that "This is the condition by which any man in any

time can make a transition: with the symbol he can transmute himself ... It's the system or thesymbolic formula to apply when the soul is in danger" (1249). In wartime London H.D. felt

that the soul was in jeopardy and she sought to revivify it by delving deep into her personal

unconscious laden with images and ultimately returning with a Jungian "union of opposites,"

or, in other words the final reunion of anima and animus as a pair of opposite archetypes. As a

syncretist, she borrowed her images from ancient religions in which she discovered a central

theme: the exile of the goddess from the realm of God and her final reunion with Him. Albert

Gelpi, in his introduction to H.D.'s "Notes on Thought and Vision," wrote that H.D. and Jung

could have reached a better understanding. I also think H.D. and Jung had a similar

perspective.

Echoing H.D.'s announcement in "Notes on Thought and Vision" that "today there are many

wand bearers but few inspired," Jung, in Symbols of Transformation, claimed that only the

poet could understand the origin of words which have a healing power. As he put it: "It's as if

the poet could still sense, beneath the words of contemporary speech and in the images that

crowd in upon his imagination, the ghostly presence of bygone spiritual worlds, and possessed


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the capacity to make them come alive again" (30). In "Notes on Thought and Vision," H.D.

emphasized this mission of the poet and stated that "the minds of men differ but the

overminds are alike" (12). In other words, the personal unconscious differs but the collective

unconscious is shared by all of us and the poet has the power to excavate these buried images.

H.D. found these images in three heretical discourses: Gnosticism, Kabbalah and Alchemy.

In Gnosticism, she found Sophia, the feminine counterpart of God who is sent into exile, since

he cannot bear his own feminine side. Only Christ can liberate Sophia after fusing the

masculine and feminine aspects of his self. In the Kabbalah, the most striking idea is the

dualism in the godhead which comprises both masculine and feminine aspects. The Shekhinah

is a feminine dimension of God which he disowns. Therefore, the Gnostic symbol of Wisdom,

Sophia, and the Shekhinah have certain features in common. Both of them are anima figures,

companions of a God animus who sends them into diaspora. The human psyche is God's

bride. Adam's violation of the unity between God and His bride makes the Shekhinah fall.

When God and the Shekhinah unite, all dualities will disappear. One of the symbols which the

alchemists used at different stages of the alchemical operations is Luna (The Moon is also the

Shekhinah) whose spiritual marriage to Sol is intended to help cease the masculine and

feminine duality. They are also, alternatively, personified as King and Queen, Rex and

Regina, Sulphur and Mercury. Their union is a symbol for the transformation of man into a

higher being or a living stone. These are the figures that H.D used in order to constitute the

central theme of her poetry: the separation and the final reunion of masculine and feminine

forces in one's nature.

In the opening lines of "The Walls Do Not Fall," the first part ofTrilogy, one can feel the

dissolution of profane time. Mircea Eliade describes this process as a projection into

"mythical time in illo tempore when the foundation of the world occurred. Thus the reality

and the enduringness of a construction are assured not only by the transformation of profane

space into a transcendent space (the center), but also by the transformation of concrete time

into mythical time" (20). This transformation dominates the whole poem. The image of the

temple stands for the discontinuance of concrete time. In the opening lines, the shrine lies

open to the sky and is transformed into what Eliade calls an "axis mundi." The ruin and the

tomb are images that appear in the Rosarium Pictures, twenty woodcut illustrations depicting

the alchemical process. The rain, or alchemical aqua permanens (water of life), falls upon the

shrine and the poet finds herself on the verge of a religious transformation or an individuation

process (in Jungian terms). Like the Gnostic alien, the poet or the soul ascends, transcending

the barriers erected by the archons, the rulers of the world. The road is full of dangers, but the

poet is strong as she can decipher the meaning of archetypes and the hidden patterns of her

own unconscious, as well as the collective unconscious of her age. The sliced wall represents

the gate opening unto the unconscious where there are otherwise no walls, no doors. Seeking


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to discover the "inner hall or cellar to Mary" H.D. passes on to another sliced wall "where

poor utensils show / like rare objects in a museum"(510). In the Old Testament, the Fourth

Book of Moses Commonly Called Numbers (4:7), I came across a similar description of the

Presence and the utensils. The Presence advises Aaron and Moses to take away the ashes and

lay a purple cover on the altar and asks them to put on it all the utensils. The words of the

Lord and H.D.'s description of the utensils also resurrect the Gnostic "Hymn of the Pearl,"

Moses, Aaron and the Prince in quest for the pearl accompany H.D. "in a dream parallel."

H.D.'s dream "merges the distant future with most distant antiquity" (526).

Like the Wisdom Sophia of the Shekhinah, the poet wants to go back home which is a

beautiful place where the grasshopper says "Amen." In the Kabbalistic philosophy the

grasshopper is a symbol of God worship. Besides the grasshopper, the fish appears as a

symbol for the Lapis-Christos parallel. In alchemistic literature, the two fishes in the sea are

Soul and Spirit. Soul is the inward individual spirit; Spirit is the universal soul in all men.

Their endeavor to come together will end in a wedding ceremony or the mysterium

coniunctionis of alchemy. H.D. defines this marriage as a clash of opposites and uses Osiris

and Isis as archetypal figures whose marriage stands for the clash between the masculine and

feminine forces in nature. The answer to H.D.'s question at the end of "The Walls Do Not

Fall" is nothing less than the union of opposites: "O sire,/ is this union / at last?" (542).

"Tribute to the Angels" opens with the declaration of Hermes Trismegistus as the patron of

alchemists. The angels Azrael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel are gathered in the domain of

poetry and in the imagination of the poet. The line "the levelled wall is purple as with purple

spread upon an altar" (551) takes us back to the beginning of "The Walls Do Not Fall," when

the emergence of the Presence brings to mind a scene in the Old Testament where Aaron and

Moses lay a purple cover on the altar. The color signifies an important stage in the process of

reaching the magnum opus, the Great Work of the alchemists. Although the Lord has declared

that they shall not look upon the holy things, the poet does enter the divine realm and she

wonders "how is it that we dare / approach the high-altar?"(558). She melts the words and

reaches Mary, the mother of the philosopher's stone. H.D. asks: "what is this mother-father /

to tear at our entrails ? / what is this unsatisfied duality / which you cannot satisfy?" (522).

At the end of the alchemical operation, the jewel is attained; the poet passes through fire andenters a shrine where she finds the eternal image of the female awaiting her. She asks herself:

"was it the may-tree or apple" (558). Gershom Scholem interprets the apple tree as a Zoharic

symbol which stands for the Shekhinah. After the King and Queen are united, a tree appears

and the united eternal body is resurrected. This is the final stage of the reintegration process

called Tikkun in Kabbalistic symbolism. It is this resurrection which H.D witnesses: "This is

the flowering of the rod / This is the flowering of the wood"(561). The Lady or the apple-tree


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After creating several different manifestations of the Eternal Feminine in Trilogy, H.D. wrote

Helen in Egypt, where she revived the legendary figure of Helen. The composite figure Helen

/ Hell / Hel or Hilda, the Germanic Goddess of the Underworld knows underworld images and

lets H.D. discover the image of the mother in the course of her own individuation process.

H.D. recreates this image in the form of the legendary figure of Helen. Jung describes this

process of moulding as follows: "The unconscious yearning of the artist reaches back to the

primordial image in the unconscious which is best-fitted to compensate the inadequacy and

onesidedness of the present. The artist seizes on the image, and in raising from deepest

unconscious he brings it into relation with conscious values, thereby transforming it until it

can be accepted by the minds of his contemporaries according to their powers" (83). Helen

(Selene/ Moon) is an image of the fallen soul like Sophia and the Shekhinah and has a lunar

origin. Helen's words echo Sophia Prunikos' lamentations when she admits: "I'm a woman of

pleasure" (12). Helen and Achilles ( Sophia and God / the Shekhinah and God / Regina and

Rex) undergo a process of reconciliation of opposites in the self. Achilles is wounded and

needs Helen to complete his being which suffers from anima-possession and Helen needs his

cooperation in order to cut off the bonds repressing Eros. Troy is the place of the skull like

Golgotha. Helen and Achilles try to escape. Their escape brings to mind Mary and Christ's

escape from the place of skulls. After their marriage and the birth of their child, Helen

witnesses the flowering of the pomegranate and she remembers that she has to return to the

underworld, yet the apple trees (the Shekhinah) also bloom. Leuke is as white as the moon

and Helen feels that "the wheel is still." The birth of the child / lapis philosophorum (the

philosopher's stone) finishes the cycle of transformation reintegrating the opposing forces in

Helen's / Hilda's self. Thus H.D. unites the opposites in her self and reaches Matrepater, a

union of Mother and Father as they exist together in Moravian hymns.

Works Cited

Doolittle, Hilda. Collected Poems (1912-1944). New York: New Directions,

1983.

-. Helen in Egypt. New York: New Directions, 1974.

-. Notes on Thought and Vision and the Wise Sappho . San Francisco: City

Lights Books, 1982.

Eliade, Mircea. The Mystery of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History.

London: Arkana, 1983.


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Greenlees, Duncan. The Gospel of the Gnostics The World Gospel Series.

Adyar Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1958.

Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.

Jung, Carl Gustav. Symbols of Transformation. New York: Pantheon Books,

1956.

-. The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. New York: Pantheon

Books, 1959.

-. Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of

the Psychic Opposites. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963.

- . Alchemical Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967

-. Notes for Seminar Given in 1934-39 on Friedrich Nietzsches

Zarathustra. Bolingen Series XCIX. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988.

Scholem, Gershom. Kabbala. New York: Dorset Press, 1974.

in habentibus symbolum facilior est transitus

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