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Medieval Enchantment

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NIGEL JACKSON

About Nigel Jackson

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RETURN TO THE

ARCHETYPE

Return to the Archetype

RETURN TO THE ARCHETYPE

'...and I knew the Golden Age was all about me, and it waswe who had

beenblind to it but that it had never passed away from theworld.'

George Russell, 'The Candle of Vision'

During the last two centuries a predominant andover-arching paradigm defines and characterizes the

world-view of modernism: the myth of Evolution.

'Evolutionism', the doctrine of the progressive one-way emergence of superior forms from primitiveorigins, of consciousness from matter, of the greaterfrom the lesser, pervades modern culture both overtlyand subliminally, consolidating and focussing thegreat myth of the forward march of progress born ofthe 18th century 'Aufklarung' - in short the serial-

evolutionary idea is the core-concept of the'Scientism' which dominates the post-Enlightenmentmindset.

But in the ontological and cosmological teaching ofthe Primordial Tradition a different and quitecontrary world-view is articulated, for example in theNeoplatonic and Cabalistic streams: there the cosmiccycle of creation is defined by a process ofemanations from the One, of plenary overflow and ofincreasingly impure and fugitive reflections devolvingby many stages and removes from a world ofeternally perfect and pure Archetypes, the World of

Light or Mundus Archetypus, the timeless and ever-pristine Ideas in the Divine Mind. In thecosmosophy of 'eternal return' (Anakuklosis) whichcharacterizes for example the Indian notion of the

Yugas and Manvantaras, and of the progressivelycoarsening Ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Leaddescribed in Hesiod's 'Theogeny' we can see that the

Age of Gold as the Edenic or paradaisal statecorresponds to the original reign of Saturn and here

we recall the profound teaching of that great masterPlotinus who in his 'Enneads' expounds the esotericetymology of Saturn as Kronos interpreted as Koros-Nous, the 'Abundance of Divine Mind', the pleromic

infinity of the Noetic World which he mysticallyequates with the Age of Gold, identical with theBiblical Eden, the Tep Zepi (First Time) of the

'That archetypal world is the true

Golden Age, age of Kronos, who is

the Intellectual-Principle as being

the offspring or exuberance of God.

For here is contained all that is

immortal: nothing here but is Divine

Mind; all is God...'

Plotinus
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ancient Egyptians, the Krita-Yuga of Indian lore, theblissful golden 'morning of the gods' remembered inmany different cultures. As Plotinus says in the 1sttractate of the 'Fifth Ennead':

'That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, ageof Kronos, who is the Intellectual-Principle asbeing the offspring or exuberance of God. For hereis contained all that is immortal: nothing here but

is Divine Mind; all is God; this is the place ofevery soul. Here is rest unbroken: for how can that

seek change, in which all is well; what need thatreach to, which holds all within itself; whatincrease can that desire, which stands utterlyachieved? All its content, thus, is perfect, that itselfmay be perfect throughout, as holding nothing thatis less than the divine, nothing that is less than

intellective.'

The departure from that paradaisal Golden Agecomports the mysterious drama of man's descentinto death, time, materiality and mortality, themythos of the Fall: the sucession of the Hesiodic

Ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Lead/Ironlikewise epitomize the Spring, Summer, Autumnand Winter of the Platonic 'Great Year'. Many yearsago during meditations upon the circle therealisation came to me that the ancient colours ofthe directions and seasons preserved in north-western Europe resumed an alchemical mystery. If

one followed them counter-clockwise from thenorth a mystical way of return was expressed whichwent 'against the current' and which linked with thesequential stages of the Great Work of theAlchemists as described by the medieval adepts oftheArs Regia.

In the North the black stage of the primal matter asthe Toad bearing the secret jewel within it's head,the Black Stone and the Crow's Head (CaputCorvus), the leaden state of fallen time, the Crow'sWing represented by Blackness. Moving into theWest and the colour Green we come to the stage ofthe Peacock's Tail (Cauda Pavonis), a verdant or

polychromatic ferment heralding transmutations.Passing into the South we see the stage of'Whitening', or Albification represented by the Lily,the Hermetick Swan or White Eagle, themanifestation of the White Tincture. Finally moving

into the East the Alchemist-Magus beholds theRubification or 'Reddening' which is symbolised by

the Red Eagle or Phoenix rising from the flames inregeneration, the Aurora Consurgens. In essence thealchemical Magnum Opus involves a counter-movement or spiral going 'against the current' or'against the grain' which eventually attains thesacred centre, the timeless heart of the UnioMystica, union with the One. Julius Evola alluded

to this counter-current in the Great Work in repectof the Hesiodic conception when he wrote that'resurrection in turn is equivalent to the backwardmovement "sub specie interioritatis" through the the

three eras that preceded the "Age of Iron" until wearrive at the Golden Age of Saturn.' ('The HermeticTradition', ch. 22) Thomas Vaughan in the 17th


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century also taught that alchemical transmutation isnothing other than spiritual regeneration, themystery of Palingenesis via Divine Mind which

Hermes Trismegistus reveals. The backward orcounter-movement is the way of return to theArchetype: the 'ripening' or 'maturation' of whichthe alchemists spoke is not any kind of'evolutionary' process but a spiritual returnAd

Fontes to the Noetic World of the Golden Age just

as the philosopher-magi of the Renaissanceenvisaged, a movement 'against the current' which

paradoxically accelerates the cycle by the magicalpower of the Ignis Innaturalisand reverses it intotal transcendence. The exalted teachings ofHermes Thrice Great make clear reference to thisgoing 'against the current':

'Suffer not yourselves then to be borne along downstream by the strong current, but avail yourselvesof a backflow [,], those of you who are able to reach thehaven, and cast anchor there, and seek a guide to

lead you to the door of the House of Gnosis. Thereyou will find the bright Light which is pure from

darkness.' (Libellus VII, Corpus Hermeticum).

In the vertical plane this connotes mystical ascent,the reversal of the current: just so we find the inthe Gnostic mysteries the cryptic teaching about the'backward-flowing Jordan' or 'upward-flowing

Jordan'. It is related that when St. John baptisedChrist in the waters of the river Jordan and theHoly Spirit descended, at that moment the currentof the river was reversed and flowed backwards toits source, i.e. the current of consciousness, lightand spirit ceased to descend into manifestation in

the lower world of death, sleep, time and mortalitybut instead was redeemed, reversed and ascendedupward into the eternal Kingdom of Light: thiscomports both a profound arcanum of Gnosticsoteriology and an inner secret of the Erosophy ofthe Hermetic initiates.

A related motif is the Manichaean mystery of the

'Column of Glory', termed in Chinese texts fromCentral Asia the 'Diamond-Column of Glory'(Jingang Xiangzhu), through which the Light-Soulsof those redeemed by theNous are distilled anddrawn up in ascent, rising through the Moon, the

Sun and finally into the Paradise of Light. The'Diamond-Column of Glory' is called the 'Perfect

Man', recalling the HermeticAnthropos Teleios,which we can identify with the same esoteric themeexpressed in the Gnostic concept of theincorruptible 'Standing One' (Ho Estos) and the

Nordic and Atlanto-Hyperborean Rune 'Man'signifying the deathless principle of spiritual Lifeand Noetic Resurrection. In the Stoicheia of

Graeco-Alexandrian Cabala this symbol is resumedin the letter Psi, the letter of pure Spirit (Pneuma)and the Human of Spirit (Pneumatikos).

It is as George Russell wrote: 'I would cry out toour humanity, sinking deeper into the Iron Age,

that the Golden World is all about us and that

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