Steiner
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Greek mythology told
of three Gorgons, all terrifying female beings with serpents for hair,
the most famous of which was, of course, Medusa,
who was slain by Perseus. (The
great hero had, of course, avoided being turned to stone by her frightful
countenance by wielding his sword against her with the assistance of a
mirror.)
Barfield evokes the
Gorgon myth in "Dream, Myth, and Philosophical Double Vision" to illuminate
an important stage in the evolution
of consciousness:
If we hold
. . . that the myths (with or without the help of Schelling) "disclose
the ties uniting man [with] the primary processes of world-creation and
formation," we are likely to see in that unforgettable picture of the Gorgon's
head, with serpents writhing about it instead of hair, that turns to stone
all who look on it, not only an image of ordinary consciousness cut off
from extraordinary consciousness, but also (and here I am indebted . .
. to Rudolf Steiner) an image of the writhing
convolutions of the physical brain in process of formation, before the
consolidation of matter.
. . . Those of us
in the West who feel a special interest in myth and dream are mostly impelled
thereto by a feeling that the world in which we reside with our ordinary
consciousness, and which is correlative to that ordinary consciousness,
is precisely that world that has already been blasted by Medusa. (RM
28-29)
See in particular
"Dream, Myth, and Philosophical Double-Vision" (RM 22-31). |
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