Posts
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
PARSIFAL -- masculinities -- Parsifal as championing celibacy
Speranza
Opera, Sex and Other Vital Matters - Pagina 145 - Risultati da Google Libri
books.google.com/books?isbn=0226721833
Paul Robinson - 2002 - Literary Collections
Parsifal, of course, champions celibacy. It is the guilty recantation of a libertine entering male menopause, the sort of renunciatory gesture that has become a ...PARSIFAL -- masculinity
Speranza
All the male knight characters emerge from this circle; Kundry never crosses the river. ... He becomes a sexual ascetic after refusing Kundry's seduction.
All the male knight characters emerge from this circle; Kundry never crosses the river. ... He becomes a sexual ascetic after refusing Kundry's seduction.
Forbidden Parsifal -- masculinity -- the 1939 ban
Speranza
The 1939 Ban on Parsifal
www.monsalvat.no/banned.htmCopia cache - Simili - Traduci questa paginaCondividi
Why were performances of Wagner's 'Parsifal' either forbidden or ... renounce sexual union with a woman and join an enclosed, all-male, religious community.
Condiviso su Google+. Visualizza il post.
MASCULINITY -- PARSIFAL -- the chaste hero -- the hero's heterosexual chastity as the basis for his virtue
Speranza
Painted Men in Britain, 1868-1918: Royal Academicians and ... - Pagina 90 - Risultati da Google Libri
books.google.com/books?isbn=1409400085
Jongwoo Jeremy Kim - 2012 - Art
Royal Academicians and Masculinities Jongwoo Jeremy Kim. Parsifal offers a model of a hero whose heterosexual chastity is the basis of his virtue. Yet, in ... bloom of peach or purple grape" do not have conventionally masculine associations.HE: PARSIFAL
Speranza
He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, Based on the Legend of Parsifal and His Search for the Grail, Using Jungian Psychological Concepts.
Johnson
He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, Based on the Legend of Parsifal and His Search for the Grail, Using Jungian Psychological Concepts.
Johnson
PARSIFAL: Masculinities -- TENORE EROICO -- related to debates on MASCULINITY
Speranza
Our future historians will cull from still unpublished letters and memoirs ... the idea that the performances at Bayreuth had really much the status of religious rites and that their effects were not unlike what is technically called a revival.
--Vernon Lee (1911: 875)
The idea that there is something religious about Bayreuth is not new, and goes well beyond cliches about opera houses as the "cathedrals of the bourgeoisie."
The words used to describe the festival by Wagnerians and anti-Wagnerians alike have often been consciously religious.
One makes a pilgrimage to the holy site, there are acolytes who serve the holy work and the orthodoxy, heretics are excommunicated--the comparisons are all too obvious. Friedrich Nietzsche referred to this phenomenon in a letter to his friend Malwida von Meysenburg when he suggested that "all this Wagnerizing" was "an unconscious emulation of Rome" (Fischer-Dieskau 1974:202). Even in more recent times, after the moral, ideological, and organizational disasters that the festival was caught up in during the twentieth century, the skies above the Festspielhaus were scoured for signs of the white smoke announcing which member of the dysfunctional clan was to succeed the composer's grandson Wolfgang Wagner.
If this musical Vatican has a central rite, it is surely Parsifal.
Not an opera or a music drama but a "Buhnenweihfestspiel" (a "stage-festival-consecration-play" -- or "dramma mistico in tre atti", as the metrical translation goes), Wagner's last work leaves the cheerful paganism of the Ring far behind. (1) The composer had toyed with aspects of Christianity as far back as Tannhauser, but in Parsifal he went much further, almost to the point, many believed, of creating opera as sacrament. Since the Second World War, controversies about the piece have been essentially political, but it was its religious content that most engaged contemporaries.
At the time of the 1882 premiere much ink was spilt about whether the piece was Catholic or Protestant, or even Christian at all. There were plenty of Wagnerites who saw it as a profound new kind of religious experience, but other observers saw the work as heretical at best and out-and-out pagan at worst.
The plot of Parsifal certainly offered Christian and secular critics a lot to talk about.
Amfortas, the king of the Grail Knights, has been stabbed in the side (testicles) by the magic spear that pierced Christ's side on the Cross.
This morbid penetration is a symbolic punishment for his weakness in the face of seduction by Kundry, a kind of female Ahaserus, a woman doomed to wander the earth after mocking Christ's Passion.
The Knights guard the Holy Grail, but, as with the legend of the Fisher King, their kingdom is as sick as their king.
Only the "Pure Fool" (as the erroneous etymythology from Arabian reads) can bring redemption.
In the first act Parsifal stumbles upon the Grail Kingdom, experiences the ritual of the unveiling of the grail, but does not yet understand its message.
In the next act he resists Kundry's attempts to seduce him, achieving compassionate wisdom at the moment they kiss.
Parsifal then takes the spear from Klingsor, the castrated evil wizard whom Kundry serves, makes the sign of the cross and destroys his castle.
In the third act, Parsifal returns to the Grail Kingdom on Good Friday after many years of wandering. Kundry washes his feet and the oldest of the Grail Knights, Gurnemanz, anoints him the new King of the Grail.
In the final scene, Amfortas refuses to reveal the grail and begs to be killed, but Parsifal heals and redeems him with the spear, orders the unveiling of the grail, at which point Kundry dies, redeemed, and a white dove descends above Parsifal's head. Thus, although Jesus is never named as such, Christian imagery suffuses the whole work.
The debate on the work's religious character occurred in the context of a fierce ideological struggle between church and state in the aftermath of the so-called Kulturkampf, which Bismarck had launched to establish the supremacy of the Protestant Prussian order over a united German Reich that had a very large Catholic population, including French and Polish minorities.
The new state demanded that priests pass state exams, made church weddings legal only when registered with the state, and excluded the Jesuits from Germany. This "Culture-War" was arguably the most important political issue in Germany in the 1870s and 1880s, with dozens of Catholic priests imprisoned for refusing to accept the authority of the state in Church affairs. (2) There was even an assassination attempt against Bismarck by a Catholic. The death of Pius IX in 1878 calmed the atmosphere to some extent, but relations with the Vatican were only re-established in 1882. There was a strong ideological dimension to this struggle, as the progress, masculinity, and rationality associated with Protestantism were contrasted with the supposed reactionary, effeminate, and mystical nature of Catholicism and other "irrational" creeds. The medical profession, and psychiatry in particular, was one element in the new secular/Protestant Germany that was especially hostile to religious enthusiasm (Schwarmerei), particularly within the Catholic Church. "Rational" Christianity, as a bulwark of moral behavior, was all very well, but religious enthusiasm was scorned by mainstream medicine.
Thus, far from simply making Wagner more respectable, Parsifal's religious tone also gave it dangerous associations.
It became a key element in the emerging medical-moral critique of Wagner's operas as degenerate, which can be seen in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Nordau, Eduard Hanslick, and many other writers, journalists, and psychiatrists, and which later provided the psychiatric rhetoric for the Nazi concept of degenerate music. In this context it is striking that although the debate was ostensibly about religion and pathology, issues of willpower and masculinity were never far away. The strange lack of willpower of Parsifal, the "Pure Fool," and the opera's Schopenhauerian renunciation ethic seemed to compare unfavorably with the straightforward "healthy" manliness of Siegfried. Combined with the opera's sensual and mystical ritualistic pomp, and its touch of occult art-religion, this led again to imputations of effeminacy and references to the developing medical discourse on homosexuality in discussions of Parsifal.
Anxiety about masculinity is at the heart of the "diagnosis" of the religious character of Wagner's last work as degenerate, as the expression of a pathological mystical outlook.
We look at this important and neglected aspect of Wagner reception, examining the complex relationship between medicine, religion, and Parsifal.
In considering the religious aspect of the debate on Parsifal, we are in line with broader trends in historiography.
Whereas twentieth-century scholars tended to downplay the influence of religious ideas on events, contemporary historians (who have seen the supposed decline of religion as a historical force dramatically reversed) are increasingly taking religion more seriously.
The first section looks at the debate on the denominational character of the piece, its odd mixture of Catholic sensuality and ritualism and Protestant elements.
This is followed by an analysis of the way that Parsifal's Catholic elements gave it associations of degeneration and effeminacy for contemporaries.
Next, we discuss the position of Parsifal's religiously-tinged Schopenhauerian Pessimism in the light of psychiatry and Nietzsche's notion of the will, both of which used medical language to denounce its renunciation ethic as pathological and effeminate.
Finally, I will look at the way that Wagner's own "art-religion" was received in esoteric circles, and how that too was related to debates on masculinity and degeneration.
How Catholic is Parsifal?
Wagner's last work is his most theatrical ... the art of the theater is already baroque, it is Catholicism, it is the Church; and an artist like Wagner, used to dealing with symbols and elevating monstrances, must have ended by feeling like a brother of priests, like a priest himself.--Thomas Mann ([1933] 1985:94-95)
Wagner himself was brought up as a Protestant and his letters and prose are full of verbal assaults on the Catholic Church, especially the Jesuits. For him, as for many "progressive" Protestants of the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church represented political reaction and obscurantism. Even in 1878, Wagner said it was a "scandal" that the Catholic Church still existed, and called it the "plague of the world" (C. Wagner 1977, vol. 2:224-25). (3) Nevertheless there are parts of Wagner's work that clearly show Catholic influence, if not as an ally, then perhaps as a rival. As Wagner makes clear in Mein Leben, he had been accused of Catholic tendencies long before Parsifal, especially at the time of the premiere of Tannhauser:
It was just at that time when the German-Catholic agitation, set in motion by Czersky and Ronge as a highly Liberal and meritorious movement, was causing a great commotion. It was made out that by Tannhauser I had provoked a reactionary tendency, and that precisely as Meyerbeer with his Huguenots had glorified Protestantism, so I with my latest opera would glorify Catholicism. The rumor that in writing Tannhauser I had been bribed by the Catholic party was believed for a long time. (Wagner [1870-1880] 1963:378)
This lack of clarity in questions of doctrine is borne out in Cosima's comments on Wagner's religious beliefs. On January 30, 1880, she recorded in her diary that Wagner admitted to a Christianity "released from all denominations" (1977, vol. 2:224-25)4 Such ecumenical aspirations would prove especially difficult at a time when confessional divisions were extremely politicized in the Kulturkampf, as Protestantism in discourse established itself as the patriotic and masculine denomination, in contrast to the effeminate and ultramontane (i.e., pro-Vatican) tendencies of Catholicism.
Wagner was told all about Catholic Mass by a Benedictine monk in Munich, who later outlined the experience in his book Die Errinnerungen des Paters Petrus Hamp. Parsifal's emphasis on the symbol over the word, and of the grail over any doctrine, has clear connections to Catholicism, as does its dialectic of shame and grace--the core of much of the Catholicism espoused by self-declared decadents in particular. Some Catholics viewed Parsifal very positively, and without appealing to decadent elements in any way. For example, Abbe Marcel Hebert's Das religiose Geftihl im Werke Richard Wagners (1895) and Michel Domenech Espanyol's L'apotheose de la religion catholique: Parsifal de Wagner (1902J both strongly argued that Parsifal was a Catholic work in the most positive sense.
The Protestant critic Johannes Hermann Wallfisch agreed that it was a Catholic piece, but took a much more hostile view, seeing the adoration of the grail as nothing but Catholic idolatry. He asked, "What do we children of the Reformation, the Bible in our hands, want with the grail?" (1914:9). (5) Similarly, an anonymous Social Democrat in the Frankische Tagespost in 1882 accused Wagner of siding with the Jesuits in Parsifal (Grossman-Vendry 1977-83:67), and in the Anglo-Irish writer George Moore's novel Evelyn Innes Monsignor Martyn denounces Parsifal as "a parody of the Mass" (Moore 1898:298).
Wagner's most famous critic (and former acolyte), Friedrich Nietzsche, reserved his greatest hostility for Wagner's last work, in which he sensed not only an ascetic Pessimism, but also "a certain Catholicism of feeling," not a positive thing for the son of a Protestant pastor (1973:135).6 A poem in Der Fall Wagner gets straight to the point:
Is that still German?
Did this sensuous screech come from a German heart?
This tearing-oneself-apart from a German body?
This priest's hands spreading, German?
The incense sensuality?
German this falling, faltering, dizzying
This sugar-sweet ding-donging?
This nun's ogling, ave bell-ringing?
This entirely wrong over-heavening of heaven?
Is that still German?
Think! You are still at the gate ... What
you hear is Rome, Rome's faith without words! (7)
Nietzsche did not necessarily believe that Wagner's "new" Christian faith was sincere. At heart he suspected Wagner of kowtowing to the weaknesses of the German public.
Our future historians will cull from still unpublished letters and memoirs ... the idea that the performances at Bayreuth had really much the status of religious rites and that their effects were not unlike what is technically called a revival.
--Vernon Lee (1911: 875)
The idea that there is something religious about Bayreuth is not new, and goes well beyond cliches about opera houses as the "cathedrals of the bourgeoisie."
The words used to describe the festival by Wagnerians and anti-Wagnerians alike have often been consciously religious.
One makes a pilgrimage to the holy site, there are acolytes who serve the holy work and the orthodoxy, heretics are excommunicated--the comparisons are all too obvious. Friedrich Nietzsche referred to this phenomenon in a letter to his friend Malwida von Meysenburg when he suggested that "all this Wagnerizing" was "an unconscious emulation of Rome" (Fischer-Dieskau 1974:202). Even in more recent times, after the moral, ideological, and organizational disasters that the festival was caught up in during the twentieth century, the skies above the Festspielhaus were scoured for signs of the white smoke announcing which member of the dysfunctional clan was to succeed the composer's grandson Wolfgang Wagner.
If this musical Vatican has a central rite, it is surely Parsifal.
Not an opera or a music drama but a "Buhnenweihfestspiel" (a "stage-festival-consecration-play" -- or "dramma mistico in tre atti", as the metrical translation goes), Wagner's last work leaves the cheerful paganism of the Ring far behind. (1) The composer had toyed with aspects of Christianity as far back as Tannhauser, but in Parsifal he went much further, almost to the point, many believed, of creating opera as sacrament. Since the Second World War, controversies about the piece have been essentially political, but it was its religious content that most engaged contemporaries.
At the time of the 1882 premiere much ink was spilt about whether the piece was Catholic or Protestant, or even Christian at all. There were plenty of Wagnerites who saw it as a profound new kind of religious experience, but other observers saw the work as heretical at best and out-and-out pagan at worst.
The plot of Parsifal certainly offered Christian and secular critics a lot to talk about.
Amfortas, the king of the Grail Knights, has been stabbed in the side (testicles) by the magic spear that pierced Christ's side on the Cross.
This morbid penetration is a symbolic punishment for his weakness in the face of seduction by Kundry, a kind of female Ahaserus, a woman doomed to wander the earth after mocking Christ's Passion.
The Knights guard the Holy Grail, but, as with the legend of the Fisher King, their kingdom is as sick as their king.
Only the "Pure Fool" (as the erroneous etymythology from Arabian reads) can bring redemption.
In the first act Parsifal stumbles upon the Grail Kingdom, experiences the ritual of the unveiling of the grail, but does not yet understand its message.
In the next act he resists Kundry's attempts to seduce him, achieving compassionate wisdom at the moment they kiss.
Parsifal then takes the spear from Klingsor, the castrated evil wizard whom Kundry serves, makes the sign of the cross and destroys his castle.
In the third act, Parsifal returns to the Grail Kingdom on Good Friday after many years of wandering. Kundry washes his feet and the oldest of the Grail Knights, Gurnemanz, anoints him the new King of the Grail.
In the final scene, Amfortas refuses to reveal the grail and begs to be killed, but Parsifal heals and redeems him with the spear, orders the unveiling of the grail, at which point Kundry dies, redeemed, and a white dove descends above Parsifal's head. Thus, although Jesus is never named as such, Christian imagery suffuses the whole work.
The debate on the work's religious character occurred in the context of a fierce ideological struggle between church and state in the aftermath of the so-called Kulturkampf, which Bismarck had launched to establish the supremacy of the Protestant Prussian order over a united German Reich that had a very large Catholic population, including French and Polish minorities.
The new state demanded that priests pass state exams, made church weddings legal only when registered with the state, and excluded the Jesuits from Germany. This "Culture-War" was arguably the most important political issue in Germany in the 1870s and 1880s, with dozens of Catholic priests imprisoned for refusing to accept the authority of the state in Church affairs. (2) There was even an assassination attempt against Bismarck by a Catholic. The death of Pius IX in 1878 calmed the atmosphere to some extent, but relations with the Vatican were only re-established in 1882. There was a strong ideological dimension to this struggle, as the progress, masculinity, and rationality associated with Protestantism were contrasted with the supposed reactionary, effeminate, and mystical nature of Catholicism and other "irrational" creeds. The medical profession, and psychiatry in particular, was one element in the new secular/Protestant Germany that was especially hostile to religious enthusiasm (Schwarmerei), particularly within the Catholic Church. "Rational" Christianity, as a bulwark of moral behavior, was all very well, but religious enthusiasm was scorned by mainstream medicine.
Thus, far from simply making Wagner more respectable, Parsifal's religious tone also gave it dangerous associations.
It became a key element in the emerging medical-moral critique of Wagner's operas as degenerate, which can be seen in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Nordau, Eduard Hanslick, and many other writers, journalists, and psychiatrists, and which later provided the psychiatric rhetoric for the Nazi concept of degenerate music. In this context it is striking that although the debate was ostensibly about religion and pathology, issues of willpower and masculinity were never far away. The strange lack of willpower of Parsifal, the "Pure Fool," and the opera's Schopenhauerian renunciation ethic seemed to compare unfavorably with the straightforward "healthy" manliness of Siegfried. Combined with the opera's sensual and mystical ritualistic pomp, and its touch of occult art-religion, this led again to imputations of effeminacy and references to the developing medical discourse on homosexuality in discussions of Parsifal.
Anxiety about masculinity is at the heart of the "diagnosis" of the religious character of Wagner's last work as degenerate, as the expression of a pathological mystical outlook.
We look at this important and neglected aspect of Wagner reception, examining the complex relationship between medicine, religion, and Parsifal.
In considering the religious aspect of the debate on Parsifal, we are in line with broader trends in historiography.
Whereas twentieth-century scholars tended to downplay the influence of religious ideas on events, contemporary historians (who have seen the supposed decline of religion as a historical force dramatically reversed) are increasingly taking religion more seriously.
The first section looks at the debate on the denominational character of the piece, its odd mixture of Catholic sensuality and ritualism and Protestant elements.
This is followed by an analysis of the way that Parsifal's Catholic elements gave it associations of degeneration and effeminacy for contemporaries.
Next, we discuss the position of Parsifal's religiously-tinged Schopenhauerian Pessimism in the light of psychiatry and Nietzsche's notion of the will, both of which used medical language to denounce its renunciation ethic as pathological and effeminate.
Finally, I will look at the way that Wagner's own "art-religion" was received in esoteric circles, and how that too was related to debates on masculinity and degeneration.
How Catholic is Parsifal?
Wagner's last work is his most theatrical ... the art of the theater is already baroque, it is Catholicism, it is the Church; and an artist like Wagner, used to dealing with symbols and elevating monstrances, must have ended by feeling like a brother of priests, like a priest himself.--Thomas Mann ([1933] 1985:94-95)
Wagner himself was brought up as a Protestant and his letters and prose are full of verbal assaults on the Catholic Church, especially the Jesuits. For him, as for many "progressive" Protestants of the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church represented political reaction and obscurantism. Even in 1878, Wagner said it was a "scandal" that the Catholic Church still existed, and called it the "plague of the world" (C. Wagner 1977, vol. 2:224-25). (3) Nevertheless there are parts of Wagner's work that clearly show Catholic influence, if not as an ally, then perhaps as a rival. As Wagner makes clear in Mein Leben, he had been accused of Catholic tendencies long before Parsifal, especially at the time of the premiere of Tannhauser:
It was just at that time when the German-Catholic agitation, set in motion by Czersky and Ronge as a highly Liberal and meritorious movement, was causing a great commotion. It was made out that by Tannhauser I had provoked a reactionary tendency, and that precisely as Meyerbeer with his Huguenots had glorified Protestantism, so I with my latest opera would glorify Catholicism. The rumor that in writing Tannhauser I had been bribed by the Catholic party was believed for a long time. (Wagner [1870-1880] 1963:378)
This lack of clarity in questions of doctrine is borne out in Cosima's comments on Wagner's religious beliefs. On January 30, 1880, she recorded in her diary that Wagner admitted to a Christianity "released from all denominations" (1977, vol. 2:224-25)4 Such ecumenical aspirations would prove especially difficult at a time when confessional divisions were extremely politicized in the Kulturkampf, as Protestantism in discourse established itself as the patriotic and masculine denomination, in contrast to the effeminate and ultramontane (i.e., pro-Vatican) tendencies of Catholicism.
Wagner was told all about Catholic Mass by a Benedictine monk in Munich, who later outlined the experience in his book Die Errinnerungen des Paters Petrus Hamp. Parsifal's emphasis on the symbol over the word, and of the grail over any doctrine, has clear connections to Catholicism, as does its dialectic of shame and grace--the core of much of the Catholicism espoused by self-declared decadents in particular. Some Catholics viewed Parsifal very positively, and without appealing to decadent elements in any way. For example, Abbe Marcel Hebert's Das religiose Geftihl im Werke Richard Wagners (1895) and Michel Domenech Espanyol's L'apotheose de la religion catholique: Parsifal de Wagner (1902J both strongly argued that Parsifal was a Catholic work in the most positive sense.
The Protestant critic Johannes Hermann Wallfisch agreed that it was a Catholic piece, but took a much more hostile view, seeing the adoration of the grail as nothing but Catholic idolatry. He asked, "What do we children of the Reformation, the Bible in our hands, want with the grail?" (1914:9). (5) Similarly, an anonymous Social Democrat in the Frankische Tagespost in 1882 accused Wagner of siding with the Jesuits in Parsifal (Grossman-Vendry 1977-83:67), and in the Anglo-Irish writer George Moore's novel Evelyn Innes Monsignor Martyn denounces Parsifal as "a parody of the Mass" (Moore 1898:298).
Wagner's most famous critic (and former acolyte), Friedrich Nietzsche, reserved his greatest hostility for Wagner's last work, in which he sensed not only an ascetic Pessimism, but also "a certain Catholicism of feeling," not a positive thing for the son of a Protestant pastor (1973:135).6 A poem in Der Fall Wagner gets straight to the point:
Is that still German?
Did this sensuous screech come from a German heart?
This tearing-oneself-apart from a German body?
This priest's hands spreading, German?
The incense sensuality?
German this falling, faltering, dizzying
This sugar-sweet ding-donging?
This nun's ogling, ave bell-ringing?
This entirely wrong over-heavening of heaven?
Is that still German?
Think! You are still at the gate ... What
you hear is Rome, Rome's faith without words! (7)
Nietzsche did not necessarily believe that Wagner's "new" Christian faith was sincere. At heart he suspected Wagner of kowtowing to the weaknesses of the German public.
MASCULINITIES -- Tenore eroico -- PARSIFAL -- GOURNAMOND --
Speranza
He: Understanding Masculine Psychology (Perennial Library) [Paperback]
Robert A. Johnson
He, by Robert A. Johnson
A fascinating discussion of the male maturation process, using the story of Parsifal and Jungian concepts.
“
The writer has a gift of explaining abstract concepts in lay language. ”
This small book actually began with 10 lectures given by Robert Johnson at an Episcopal Church.
Thus they are concise and do not offer a broad array of examples.
We found the book to be excellent and found it much more to the point that Emma Jung's long study of the Holy Grail myth in all it permutations.
Of course, as a Jungian, Johnson sees mythology as reflecting underlying psychological and spiritual processes that take place in the human psyche.
These myths are spontaneous images from the unconscious and contain both psychological and spiritual truths.
Myths allow the interaction of archetypes, which are patterns of life that are universally true for humans. Myths are to mankind as dreams are to an individual.
Therefore a dream shows the dreamer a truth about themselves whereas the myth shows mankind a truth that applies to all of us.
Individuation is a process that Jung describes as a life long movement toward wholeness and completion. It involves the life long expansion of consciousness and the ability of the conscious ego or personality to reflect the total self.
One interpretation of Jesus Christ is that of a man who has been able to allow the unconscious to fill up the self and be always present in the personality. Because God the Father moves through and emerges in the world through the human unconsious, Christ may say that he and the Father are one.
A primary first step in the individuation process is the confrontation with the Shadow. Actually the confrontation with various aspects of the Shadow continue throughout a lifetime, but the first encounter is usually of great psychological power.
The negative repressed side of the personality, that longs for acceptance and integration, continually follows the ego until the strength is mustered to face the shadow, accept the shadow, and then integrate the shadow into the personality which increases the energy and strength of the personality/psyche because energy is no longer used to suppress the shadow.
After the shadow is integrated, many people then may develop to the point where they can integrate the anima/animus, which is the characteristics of the opposite sex into their more complete psyche.
*****************************************
It is here that Johnson points out the Parsifal and
his quest for the Holy Grail is in fact a myth of the
male reconciliation with the anima who becomes a
guide and leads him to the Grail.
*****************
Here Emma Jung and Robert Johnson would have slightly different interpretations of the Holy Grail myth.
Whereas both see the anima as being essential to reaching the Grail, Johnson believes the integration of the feminine, the Anima, is a major and tricky task for young men.
Also, whereas Emma Jung saw the grail as serving mankind as an expanded consciousness through which much psychic material may now flow; Johnson sees that the grail serves mankind through and expanded consciousness but also serves God because it is through this expanded consciousness that God flows into human interactions and becomes real and active in the world. This is a philosophical and theological issue of great importance.
The first question is: Is God an active participant in the world and in the lives of men? Johnson goes beyond Deism, which would acknowledge God acting through nature, and would assert that God acts through the unconscious of mankind and it is through expanded and integrated consciousness that God becomes real in the world of men.
Thus the Grail, the symbol of the accessible unconscious, serves man and God. This is the key to both Emma Jung's and Robert Johnson's work. She would emphasize that the Grail serves man and Johnson would emphasize that the Grail serves God, but both would acknowledge that the Grail serves both.
This is the point of Johnson's book but he takes you down many fruitful trails to reach this point.
We will point out some of these paths:
The Fisher King (Amfortas) has wounds (in the testicles) so severe that he cannot live, yet he is incapable of dying.
The kingdom is dependent on the virility and power of its rule.
As an adolescent, the Fisher King is burned on the fingers when he tries to eat hot broiled Salmon.
He touches the divine part of his own unconscious but it is too hot for his consciousness to handle.
He touches his individuation but can not hold it.
His life becomes barren, his wound in the testicle never heals, and he can not cure himself even though he and the Grail are in the same castle.
The fool must come to cure the king.
Parsifal is the holy fool, the innocent, who emerges from the forrest nieve and full of creative possibilities.
He is entraced by the knights and longs to become one.
He must break with his poor heartbroken mother, Heartsorrow, on his journey to be a man.
All men must be somewhat disloyal to their mother on the path to manhood and toward individuation.
His first quest is to fight the Red Knight and gain his armour.
He kills the Red Knight and thus takes on masculine power,
courage and virility.
However when he gets on the Red Knights' horse, he can't steer or stop it but must let it run its course.
This is the symbol of a young man's first forray into the world of power where forces can be let loose which no one can control.
Johnson points out that a boy gets his red Knight armour by taking it from someone else.
This is the way of young male competetion.
But a man must not carry the young male competitiveness throughout life, he must move beyond the Red Knight.
A young male moves beyond the red Knight when he learns to master his own aggression.
So every young man must defeat the Red Knight, take on the armour of power, aggression, virility, strength, courage, but must also not let these attributes consume the entire psyche.
Parsifal gets a mentor
-- Gournamond -- who teaches him chivalry and the skills of knighthood.
He also tell Parsifal that he must seek the Holy Grail, the ture vocation of all knights, that he must not seduce or be seduced by a woman, and that he must ask "Whom does the Grail serve?" at the right moment in the castle of the Fisher King.
There are many women in the story who play various aspects of the Anima, but it is White Flower and the Ugly Hag (whose veil Perceval pierces) who play critical roles as the positive and negative anima, each with a part to play.
The book ends with a really good explanation of why the Holy Grail serves the Grail King (God) and also serves Parsifal. Parsifal asks the question and the Fisher King is healed immediately, he becomes whole.
But God now has a path, a window, into the world of Man and thus the Grail ultimately served God's purposes.
Even though this interpretation of the Holy Grail story is more Christian in interpretation than that of Emma Jung, both are fantastic and insightful reading.
A very pleasant and quite interesting little book analyzing the story of parsifal and the castle of the grail through the lens of male psychology.
Though it's treatment of the mythological story seems quite conscise it seems to fail to really bind this and it's psychological interpretations to any tangible real world experience of my male psyche. In a way it is to abstract, not tying things back to reality.
Thus it offered so far (finished it a few hours ago) no real insights or answers.
How many questions and different ways to look at things and approaches to take as well as those experiences of catching your inner world tricking you it will induce will have to be seen.
All in all at 80 pages and it's small format a very pleasant and worthwile read.
A note about another reviewer's complaint about it being heavy on preachy christianism. I am normally quite allergic to christian preachyness in 'unrelated' books like these. And though I have noticed slight hints thereof, it is by no way as bad as the reviewer makes it look like.
Robert Johnson is a life changer. I have read everything he has done several times. HE and SHE should be a required read for everyone.
I recommend you read the book on your own sex first so that you become familiar with Johnson's style before prying into the opposite sex's mind. :)
If you find some of the other self help books too trite and not very thought provoking, Robert Johnson is for you!
an eye opener for those who are willing to look deep inside, could not put down the book. Very thought provoking.
You know the saying that the best gifts come in small packages? Well this is very true about this book. In fact many of his books. Read more
Myths and legends form powerful expressions of our humanity. It would seem that the most enduring of them are likely so powerful because they tap into some elemental truth of our... Read more
The mythic adventure of the hero
I have enjoyed Robert A Johnson's other books -- She: Understanding Feminine Psychology; Inner work: Using active imagination; and Owning your own shadow. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Cammy P
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful
As a 30 year old male this is one of the simplest and best self-help books I've read.
Not that its a problem but a lot of other self help is steeped within the... Read more
3.0 out of 5 stars Understanding happiness muddled by occasional religious blather
I found the basic teaching of this book about happiness enlightening. Understanding we cannot find or pursue happiness. We simply choose happiness by living in the "happening. Read more
Published 19 months ago by anon
5.0 out of 5 stars He - Understanding Masculine Psychology
Robert Johnson's review of masculinity in this book is critical to any person pursuing a transformation of their masculinity.
Published 20 months ago by San Francisco Therapy
4.0 out of 5 stars Short but Provocative Read
I found this very brief book quite provocative.
Some of the myth's metaphors are well-explained while others are only mentioned in passing. Read more
Published on January 10, 2011 by T. R. Corcoran
2.0 out of 5 stars At least it's short
This book doesn't speak to me at all. I agree with Robert A. Johnson that legends and myths, as well as great works of literature, correspond to the human condition--after all,... Read more
Published on September 19, 2010 by David Bonesteel
4.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating
The Arthurian legend, the quest for the Holy Grail, and particularly that of the Knight Parsifal, illustrate the patterns of male psychology, the journey we go through, the twists... Read more
Published on July 18, 2009 by L. Power
Search Customer Reviews
He: Understanding Masculine Psychology (Perennial Library) [Paperback]
Robert A. Johnson
He, by Robert A. Johnson
A fascinating discussion of the male maturation process, using the story of Parsifal and Jungian concepts.
“
The writer has a gift of explaining abstract concepts in lay language. ”
This small book actually began with 10 lectures given by Robert Johnson at an Episcopal Church.
Thus they are concise and do not offer a broad array of examples.
We found the book to be excellent and found it much more to the point that Emma Jung's long study of the Holy Grail myth in all it permutations.
Of course, as a Jungian, Johnson sees mythology as reflecting underlying psychological and spiritual processes that take place in the human psyche.
These myths are spontaneous images from the unconscious and contain both psychological and spiritual truths.
Myths allow the interaction of archetypes, which are patterns of life that are universally true for humans. Myths are to mankind as dreams are to an individual.
Therefore a dream shows the dreamer a truth about themselves whereas the myth shows mankind a truth that applies to all of us.
Individuation is a process that Jung describes as a life long movement toward wholeness and completion. It involves the life long expansion of consciousness and the ability of the conscious ego or personality to reflect the total self.
One interpretation of Jesus Christ is that of a man who has been able to allow the unconscious to fill up the self and be always present in the personality. Because God the Father moves through and emerges in the world through the human unconsious, Christ may say that he and the Father are one.
A primary first step in the individuation process is the confrontation with the Shadow. Actually the confrontation with various aspects of the Shadow continue throughout a lifetime, but the first encounter is usually of great psychological power.
The negative repressed side of the personality, that longs for acceptance and integration, continually follows the ego until the strength is mustered to face the shadow, accept the shadow, and then integrate the shadow into the personality which increases the energy and strength of the personality/psyche because energy is no longer used to suppress the shadow.
After the shadow is integrated, many people then may develop to the point where they can integrate the anima/animus, which is the characteristics of the opposite sex into their more complete psyche.
*****************************************
It is here that Johnson points out the Parsifal and
his quest for the Holy Grail is in fact a myth of the
male reconciliation with the anima who becomes a
guide and leads him to the Grail.
*****************
Here Emma Jung and Robert Johnson would have slightly different interpretations of the Holy Grail myth.
Whereas both see the anima as being essential to reaching the Grail, Johnson believes the integration of the feminine, the Anima, is a major and tricky task for young men.
Also, whereas Emma Jung saw the grail as serving mankind as an expanded consciousness through which much psychic material may now flow; Johnson sees that the grail serves mankind through and expanded consciousness but also serves God because it is through this expanded consciousness that God flows into human interactions and becomes real and active in the world. This is a philosophical and theological issue of great importance.
The first question is: Is God an active participant in the world and in the lives of men? Johnson goes beyond Deism, which would acknowledge God acting through nature, and would assert that God acts through the unconscious of mankind and it is through expanded and integrated consciousness that God becomes real in the world of men.
Thus the Grail, the symbol of the accessible unconscious, serves man and God. This is the key to both Emma Jung's and Robert Johnson's work. She would emphasize that the Grail serves man and Johnson would emphasize that the Grail serves God, but both would acknowledge that the Grail serves both.
This is the point of Johnson's book but he takes you down many fruitful trails to reach this point.
We will point out some of these paths:
The Fisher King (Amfortas) has wounds (in the testicles) so severe that he cannot live, yet he is incapable of dying.
The kingdom is dependent on the virility and power of its rule.
As an adolescent, the Fisher King is burned on the fingers when he tries to eat hot broiled Salmon.
He touches the divine part of his own unconscious but it is too hot for his consciousness to handle.
He touches his individuation but can not hold it.
His life becomes barren, his wound in the testicle never heals, and he can not cure himself even though he and the Grail are in the same castle.
The fool must come to cure the king.
Parsifal is the holy fool, the innocent, who emerges from the forrest nieve and full of creative possibilities.
He is entraced by the knights and longs to become one.
He must break with his poor heartbroken mother, Heartsorrow, on his journey to be a man.
All men must be somewhat disloyal to their mother on the path to manhood and toward individuation.
His first quest is to fight the Red Knight and gain his armour.
He kills the Red Knight and thus takes on masculine power,
courage and virility.
However when he gets on the Red Knights' horse, he can't steer or stop it but must let it run its course.
This is the symbol of a young man's first forray into the world of power where forces can be let loose which no one can control.
Johnson points out that a boy gets his red Knight armour by taking it from someone else.
This is the way of young male competetion.
But a man must not carry the young male competitiveness throughout life, he must move beyond the Red Knight.
A young male moves beyond the red Knight when he learns to master his own aggression.
So every young man must defeat the Red Knight, take on the armour of power, aggression, virility, strength, courage, but must also not let these attributes consume the entire psyche.
Parsifal gets a mentor
-- Gournamond -- who teaches him chivalry and the skills of knighthood.
He also tell Parsifal that he must seek the Holy Grail, the ture vocation of all knights, that he must not seduce or be seduced by a woman, and that he must ask "Whom does the Grail serve?" at the right moment in the castle of the Fisher King.
There are many women in the story who play various aspects of the Anima, but it is White Flower and the Ugly Hag (whose veil Perceval pierces) who play critical roles as the positive and negative anima, each with a part to play.
The book ends with a really good explanation of why the Holy Grail serves the Grail King (God) and also serves Parsifal. Parsifal asks the question and the Fisher King is healed immediately, he becomes whole.
But God now has a path, a window, into the world of Man and thus the Grail ultimately served God's purposes.
Even though this interpretation of the Holy Grail story is more Christian in interpretation than that of Emma Jung, both are fantastic and insightful reading.
A very pleasant and quite interesting little book analyzing the story of parsifal and the castle of the grail through the lens of male psychology.
Though it's treatment of the mythological story seems quite conscise it seems to fail to really bind this and it's psychological interpretations to any tangible real world experience of my male psyche. In a way it is to abstract, not tying things back to reality.
Thus it offered so far (finished it a few hours ago) no real insights or answers.
How many questions and different ways to look at things and approaches to take as well as those experiences of catching your inner world tricking you it will induce will have to be seen.
All in all at 80 pages and it's small format a very pleasant and worthwile read.
A note about another reviewer's complaint about it being heavy on preachy christianism. I am normally quite allergic to christian preachyness in 'unrelated' books like these. And though I have noticed slight hints thereof, it is by no way as bad as the reviewer makes it look like.
Robert Johnson is a life changer. I have read everything he has done several times. HE and SHE should be a required read for everyone.
I recommend you read the book on your own sex first so that you become familiar with Johnson's style before prying into the opposite sex's mind. :)
If you find some of the other self help books too trite and not very thought provoking, Robert Johnson is for you!
an eye opener for those who are willing to look deep inside, could not put down the book. Very thought provoking.
You know the saying that the best gifts come in small packages? Well this is very true about this book. In fact many of his books. Read more
Myths and legends form powerful expressions of our humanity. It would seem that the most enduring of them are likely so powerful because they tap into some elemental truth of our... Read more
The mythic adventure of the hero
I have enjoyed Robert A Johnson's other books -- She: Understanding Feminine Psychology; Inner work: Using active imagination; and Owning your own shadow. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Cammy P
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful
As a 30 year old male this is one of the simplest and best self-help books I've read.
Not that its a problem but a lot of other self help is steeped within the... Read more
3.0 out of 5 stars Understanding happiness muddled by occasional religious blather
I found the basic teaching of this book about happiness enlightening. Understanding we cannot find or pursue happiness. We simply choose happiness by living in the "happening. Read more
Published 19 months ago by anon
5.0 out of 5 stars He - Understanding Masculine Psychology
Robert Johnson's review of masculinity in this book is critical to any person pursuing a transformation of their masculinity.
Published 20 months ago by San Francisco Therapy
4.0 out of 5 stars Short but Provocative Read
I found this very brief book quite provocative.
Some of the myth's metaphors are well-explained while others are only mentioned in passing. Read more
Published on January 10, 2011 by T. R. Corcoran
2.0 out of 5 stars At least it's short
This book doesn't speak to me at all. I agree with Robert A. Johnson that legends and myths, as well as great works of literature, correspond to the human condition--after all,... Read more
Published on September 19, 2010 by David Bonesteel
4.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating
The Arthurian legend, the quest for the Holy Grail, and particularly that of the Knight Parsifal, illustrate the patterns of male psychology, the journey we go through, the twists... Read more
Published on July 18, 2009 by L. Power
Search Customer Reviews
Giorgio Grossi, "PARSIFAL" -- masculinity
Speranza
Ofelia e Parsifal. Modelli e differenze di genere nel mondo dei media
di Giorgio Grossi, Elisabetta Ruspini
Parsifal: wounded masculinity
Speranza
By courtesy of Richard A. Sanderson M.Ed., B.A (Psych).
There is a particular soul need in western minds for good to triumph over
evil in our external world.
Seldom do we internalize this soul need in terms of our own daily actions, thoughts and feelings.
The mythic underpinnings of today's western world can be found in legends and myths of the 12th century.
The medieval knights, their chivalry and heroic duty was to find out evil doers and run them through with their sword of righteousness.
"Good" versus "Evil", no less!
Dragons and particularly the "infidel" (unbaptized men) were specifically targeted as the foe as they were usually holding a land or castle under tyranny.
This sounds so familiar in light of the "Manhattan terrorist attack", September 11, 2001.
The task of our work is to take the current suffering of man as an interior event (as something all men have in common) and not to blame someone outside for this or that.
Without looking first at ourselves as men, there is little chance of enhancing man's consciousness and ability to relate wholly to one another.
A retelling of the most famous and effective myth of "Parsifal and the
Fisher King" (that Wagner sets to music, as it were) is the backdrop for this intended healing work.
Original medieval
versions of "Parsifal" by Chretien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach have
echoed down through time and many versions have been written such is its
attraction.
The myth of Parsifal (or Per-kyfaill, if we must speak Gaulish) perennially enlivens mans consciousness, fuels his desire
to be whole and is called a "living myth".
In the retelling we have not found it
necessary to look at each incident and adventure of Parsifal, but to choose
those aspects pertaining to healing hero's MASCULINITY.
We undertook this work as
part of our ongoing healing journey and out of disappointment that there are so
few healthy models for boys and men to emulate!
A contemporary man's whole sense of self-worth and potency in this world is
often based on his own and others perception of his masculinity-sexuality.
James
Wyly (1987) discusses that the central core to most men is
"his phallus, his
libido, his sense of potency and ability to potentiate his own destiny, to
create himself in accord with his inner image".
*********************
The Parsifal myth is a medieval
"man's story"
of restoring unity to misaligned masculinity
and for men to start
filling the emptiness that
results from adherence to collective sexual values.
************************
The myth is a tale so worth retelling and reading for today's modern man.
Women
will go "ah ha"!
The quest, or striving to merge with the fountain of one's life, is our
innate desire to be wholesome and happy.
In this sense we are all on the same
quest as our hero Parsifal.
Men are indeed modern heroes as each day we set off
on this quest to be happy.
The main players in the myth:
The main players are Parsifal, a young man from Wales, if you must. Gaulish: Per-kyfaill.
The Fisher King the
king of the Holy Grail Castle.
Kundry, the queenly, mysterious, mystic woman (a
female counterpart of Merlin).
Parsifal's mother Herzeleide, who carries the
sorrow of Parsifal's father's actions.
Parsifal's father, Gamuret, a man equally
wounded and absent in Parsifal's life.
The Holy Grail (a unity with God), that
bestows life and love upon the kingdom.
The Grail Castle, a castle and kingdom
"hidden" amidst the mists from all whom cannot see.
Lastly, the forces of
destruction "the dark side", that strives to pervert the flowing of The Holy
Grail.
At the heart of the Grail Castle a Holy Spear and a Holy Chalice lay.
The
two divine implements are needed daily for The Holy Grail enactment, the eternal
task of bringing light into the kingdom.
For that light is the source of the
cycle of life and death.
The two divine implements represent the masculine and
feminine principles which when combined in perfect wholeness produce light into
the kingdom of the Fisher King.
The Holy Chalice represents the feminine aspect
of feeling and beauty that both contains and transforms.
The chalice in
christianized versions is that which Jesus used at the Last Supper, containing
the wine and later his blood.
----
Longinus's Spear.
The Holy Spear represents the masculine strength
required to stand ‘erect' and guard the precious Grail.
The Holy Spear in
Christianized versions, is the same spear that pierced the side of Christ on the
cross (perhaps it pierced Christ's testicles?).
Each day every knight of the
inner order (of the Arthurian tradition) would renew his oath to defend the
Grail with his very life and affirm his service to the Holy Grail.
The Grail Castle has fallen upon hard times.
The spear has been stolen.
The
Fisher King was wounded in his TESTICLES by the Holy Spear as it was being
stolen.
The King was described as being henceforth ‘too ill to live but not ill
enough to die' (the modern malaise).
In some versions of the Parsifal myth it
speaks of Grail Castle disunity, as specific knights use all manner of trickery,
temptations and illusions to corrupt specifically The Fisher King and ultimately
The Holy Grail (the unity with God).
Kundry, the mysterious sorceress within the
Grail Castle was also corrupted and trapped as a result of the demise of the
Grail Castle.
Kundry was then used to help overcome good knights, using such
weapons as temptation and other alluring appeals.
As myth had it, many knights
had tried to win back the spear but were all corrupted by the forces of the
"dark side".
The wound to The Fisher King, via a spear through his testicles (to the
tenderest part of the male anatomy), signifies a wounding to man's sense of
potency and his self-esteem.
The wounding in this "private part" of himself will
not heal and equates to The Fisher Kings "Fall from Grace" (the noble part of
the king has fallen from grace).
The Fisher King is metaphorically expelled from the Garden
of Eden (The Holy Grail).
Interestingly, The Fisher King only gets relief from
his pain when he is fishing, meaning, doing reflective work on himself.
The
Fisher King's kingdom has been laid to waste, the meadows and flowers are dried
up and the waters shrunken.
The suggestion is that any malaise to the king is
mirrored in his kingdom.
This implies that if there is a wound to the
"kingly-inner man", then the whole personality (his whole world) will be
troubled!
As if by magic, whenever the Fisher King is healed the lands
surrounding the king will be healed instantly.
The healing of the king and kingdom will only take place with the coming of
"the good grail knight" an "innocent fool" (Parsifal, according to an erroneous etymythology from the Arabian that Wagner followed) who will restore health to
the Fisher King, his land, its people by asking a specific question.
Merlin is
thought to have prophesied that a pure knight who will do mighty deeds of arms,
of bounty and of nobility will ask the perplexing question "whom does the grail
serve"?
We wish to emphasize that Parsifal was attitudinally innocent and pure
and NOT PHYSICALLY PURE IN A CELIBATE SENSE or way.
Parsifal was brought up in the
instinctual realm of the forest and would not have acquired puritanical
injunctions against the beauty and naturalness of sexual activity.
Should the
"pure knight" fail to ask the question, then everything will remain wasted and
the knight in question will have to leave the Grail Castle to search and learn.
Should Parsifal finally learn, then again he may return to The Grail Castle and ask
the question.
The king and kingdom will then be restored to health, as the
waters of life will run.
The spear that caused the wounding is so integral to this myth and
the healing process for men.
The spear represents the masculine integrity and
feeling aspect which has been stolen and without it there is no protection, no
"holding" for the Holy Grail to re-emerge.
In psychology, author Robert Johnson
has observed that
"the Fisher King's wound [to his testicles] is symbolic of
men's difficulties in directly intimate and sexual matters."
What's in a name:
Why the Fisher King name?
The fish is such an ancient symbol of the
spiritual mysteries of life, the sign of Christ, Christians and "disciples"
being "fishers of men".
In Celtic myth, a strong link occurs between the salmon
and knowledge.
At breeding time, the salmon returns to the place of its origin,
fighting against the flow of the river, in order to breed (to create).
The crude
expression ‘that man is born out of the vagina and spends the rest of his life
trying to get back in there' (return to wholeness) takes on a new significance
in this light.
This is understood as a troubled human soul (in man), perpetually
struggling to reconcile itself to itself.
Astrologically the myth is also set in
the dualistic Piscean Age (symbolized as two fishes) of man's current stage of
evolution on this earth.
Parsifal's mother, Herzeleide was a "queen of two kingdoms," supposedly
North and South Wales, which may have meant of spiritual and material realms.
Wales had retained integrity and honor long before the English Knights emerged
with their codes of chivalry.
Herzeleide was just widowed when she gave birth to
her son Parsifal.
Herzeleide, meaning "heart's sorrow" left her noble home to
live in a forester's cottage far away.
She feared that a fate, which killed her
husband, would overtake her son, so she raised him to know nothing of knighthood
and to be ignorant of his name and heritage.
How many mothers try to instil in
their son's integrity,
to guard them from the foolhardiness of their fathers?
She specifically instructed him to be courteous to all women and not to ask too
many questions!
There is mystery surrounding the identity and heritage of Parsifal's father
and Parsifal grew up without a father (an absent father), which is often the
case for today's youth.
However, Parsifal's father was allegedly Gamuret and
some versions say he was the Fisher King's brother.
The young knight Gamuret
decided to journey to the Middle East to seek his glory and fortune, as was the
want of many a true knight.
After winning a great victory in a tournament he
attracted Belakane, the dusky Queen of Zazamanc.
They fell in love and were
married.
He shared the throne of Zazamanc for a time, but peaceful court life in
a foreign land was not suited to the young warrior and he stole away (ran away).
Following this, Belakane gave birth to Gamuret's first son, Feirefiz, the
"piebald" (half-cast), Parsifal's half brother.
Mythically the relationship
between Feirefiz and Parsifal implies the great brotherhood of man between all
races and cultures.
Gamuret arrived back in Europe and while jousting, his gallantry won him the
heart of Herzeleide, Queen of Wales. How many women fall for the exterior
gallantry to this day? Herzeleide eventually convinced Gamuret that he should
give up the love of the ‘unbaptized/infidel… Queen Belakane' and they were
married. Word then reached Gamuret that his old lord, in the Middle East, was
facing an invasion by the Babylonians. He returned with glee to assist his old
friend and while fighting in the intense heat, Gamuret paused to rest, briefly
removing his "charmed" head shield to drink. A lance blow pierced his head. When
Queen Herzeleide heard of this, she went to live alone in the forest and gave
birth to Parsifal while still mourning for her husband. Herzeleide's, ‘mourning'
was in knowing that her husband loved another and was married "albeit illegally
to Queen Belakane. His gallantry had amounted to nothing and resulted in grief
to all and ultimately death to himself. His "gallantry and charm" was bravado
and empty, as there was no relatedness to either, Herzeleide in Europe, Belakane
in the Middle East, or to his young sons!
Then Parsifal comes of age.
During Parsifal's upbringing, his youthful years were spent in the forest.
"He grew up handsome, strong, athletic, but with his rational thinking largely
undeveloped".
"He was later called "simple" or "innocent fool", not because he
was indeed unintelligent, but for his guileless innocence, his simple
perceptions and faith" (Oderberg, I.M., 1978).
It is also speculated that being
brought up in the forest with such a ‘queenly' mother, that he was able to see
into the mysteries of the "inner" world. Ultimately he would bring his
instinctual knowing into the every day realities of ‘the outer' world.
No sooner had Parsifal "come of age" when he encountered knights riding
through the forest.
He was so taken by their godlike appearance, that he
immediately wished to become one of them.
He told this to his mother and she
wept as she had tried to protect him from the wiles and ways of knights. She
begged him to stay with her; but his heart was set, and at last she gave him her
blessing to go. Sadly, some versions have it that Herzeleide, Parsifal's mother
died shortly after he left.
So off went Parsifal into the world where his naiveté and sincere enthusiasm
atoned for his social blunders. He rescued a fair maiden, Blanchfleur, fell in
love and "stole her ring". Deflowering of a lovely maiden no less!
Additionally,
Parsifal encountered, fought and overcame the infamous red knight. Parsifal did
so because the red knight had embarrassed King Arthur and because Parsifal
‘liked the look of his armour'. Parsifal wanted a façade, to bolster his ego and
to make a favorable impression. The "facing" of the red knight is the step that
young men take, symbolically standing up to the father image, the authority they
question and to exert their own emerging masculinity.
However, Parsifal wore his
mother's "homespun" garment underneath his ill-gotten armour, which indicates
that he had acquired only a knightly exterior! His own inner sense of maleness
was still shaky and adolescent! His overcoming of the red knight won him favor
and so it was that against all convention, King Arthur eventually knighted
Parsifal. However, his simplicity and grace remained intact largely due to his
mother, unconventional upbringing and early life. Many adventures subsequently
took place for the young knight and eventually ‘as if by chance' he found
himself at the bridge leading to the mysterious Grail Castle.
Parsifal is wounded in the Grail Castle.
Youthful enthusiasm, charm and early masculine accomplishments got Parsifal
to the drawbridge of the Grail Castle.
He had earned the right to enter the
castle and with young eyes filled wide with hope he walked in! Fueled with his
desire for fulfilment as a knight and to manifest his deepest hopes, Parsifal
enters the magical realm of the Grail Castle. Remember the Grail Castle is an
actual mystical experience "hidden" (like the castle itself) amidst the mists
from all that cannot see.
It is written in myth that men get two opportunities to enter the Grail
Castle.
The first time as youths, a "gratuitous" gift, (given by God?) to let
young men experience the potential of their "numinous self". The second Grail
Castle opportunity is not gratuitous and coincides with man's mid-life crisis; a
time when men re-evaluate their whole lives and hopefully re-discover meaning
and potency. To seek the actual outer location of the castle is to miss the
point, as it is always near and the two worlds (mystical-inner and outer world)
do cross at specific moments through meaningful coincidences and at specific
locations.
Inside the castle, Parsifal was astonished at the majesty he saw and he did
not understand what was going on. He tries to behave in a fashion according to
his mother and knighthood teachings, after all this is the rational way to
proceed. There was a hushed expectancy inside the castle, as everyone knew that
an "innocent fool" was prophesied to ask the healing question to revive the king
and The Grail. A knight asked Parsifal if he knew of the significance of what he
had just seen? Other knights chanted as one to themselves for "fulfilment of the
prophecy"; that would restore the Holy Grail to there midst. All attention and
compassion was focused upon Parsifal and he felt a great stirring within him to
speak, but alas he said nothing! He heard the ‘ladies of the court' snigger "he
is just a pure fool", laughing audibly and gazing upon a dumbfounded Parsifal.
Surely he was not the chosen one they mused! Parsifal again stood motionless and
speechless. Another knight rebuked Parsifal with the words "you are just a
common simpleton, get gone from here"!
Parsifal had repressed his instinct (his inner voice) to enquire what this
entire mysterious world was about; he was just overwhelmed by it all? His mother
had taught him not to ask too many questions and Parsifal believed that
obedience was a virtue. Remember Parsifal still wore his mother's homespun
garment underneath his armour! Parsifal now knew that obedience to his mother's
advice and collective opinion had failed him, so he vowed not to ignore his own
intuition and instinctual knowing again! But what youth at puberty can do that?
Parsifal was ridiculed and deeply wounded by the Grail Castle experience. A
heavy blow was taken to his masculinity, his early knighthood dreams of glory
and his whole sense of worth as a man. The Grail Castle vanished into the mists
and Parsifal found himself back in the world of time and space, on the edge of a
forest ‘licking his wounds'.
Every man shares this wounding experience.
How many young men come to this same point as Parsifal in their youth?
Seemingly, every young man experiences a wounded-ness to his masculinity at the
time of puberty; a sexual Fisher King wound, one could say?
"It is painful to
watch a young man realize that his world is not just joy and happiness, to watch
the disintegration of his childlike beauty, faith, innocence and trust"
(Johnson. R. 1989).
This step into maleness, into daily "work related" life is
so difficult and often so harsh.
To leave, in a sense, the wonders of a maternal
- primordial inner fairy-tale world or internal paradise for a "reality" that is
competitive and demanding is a rigorous transition. Puberty initiations in
tribal cultures, when boy becomes a man and viable member of the tribe are often
via severe and painful rites of passage. Puberty for western young men is an
unmarked "rite of passage"; therefore a painful and mainly unguided period of
adjustment to early manhood!
The onset of puberty in boys brings them face to face with the physical
reality of being a man.
Newly found biological urges and cultural fantasies
impact enormously on his sense of self. As boys grow up, their erotic self
(largely masturbation) is indirectly condemned to the toilets, posters,
pornography and fantasies of his life. This is due to masculine sexuality not
being successfully integrated by our cultural structures, family, schools,
professional training, religious instruction, etc. This sends sexuality
underground into the hidden, shadow, shady part of boy's life. There is often
such silence (no healthy discussion about his emerging sexuality) for young men
at this time and their sexuality may often be self perceived as being dirty,
sinful, disgraceful and hidden from his family's knowing.
"There is a bizarre
assumption that masculinity on one level excludes sexuality" (Wyly, J, 1989), as
his sexuality is not "openly acknowledged, integrated and clear!"
As a result,
young men split-off from themselves and start to act out their sexuality in the
shady shadows of their life.
It is speculated here that a boy's puberty
experience and wounding stays with him through life, to eventually be
consciously redeemed!
Other woundings around the time of puberty further impact on a young man's
fragile sense of masculinity.
Such ‘other woundings' are:
boys first love or
loneliness, first sexual encounter (often a disaster), parental or ‘authority'
sexual abuse, separation/divorce of parents, parental drivenness for them to
succeed, being rejected…. not one of the boys, a non-conformist attitude to
collective "male standards", being sensitive, different, a non-sporting person
in a sports mad country…etc!
Each man has his own story!
By courtesy of Richard A. Sanderson M.Ed., B.A (Psych).
Seldom do we internalize this soul need in terms of our own daily actions, thoughts and feelings.
The mythic underpinnings of today's western world can be found in legends and myths of the 12th century.
The medieval knights, their chivalry and heroic duty was to find out evil doers and run them through with their sword of righteousness.
"Good" versus "Evil", no less!
Dragons and particularly the "infidel" (unbaptized men) were specifically targeted as the foe as they were usually holding a land or castle under tyranny.
This sounds so familiar in light of the "Manhattan terrorist attack", September 11, 2001.
The task of our work is to take the current suffering of man as an interior event (as something all men have in common) and not to blame someone outside for this or that.
Without looking first at ourselves as men, there is little chance of enhancing man's consciousness and ability to relate wholly to one another.
Longinus's Spear.