Chapter Eleven


    IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD II
    ~ In the Court of the Crimson King ~




    - chapter 11 index -
    pg. 1 - Moonchild | pg. 2 - The Dream The Illusion
    pg. 3 - The Court of the Crimson King | pg. 4 - The Purple Piper
    pg. 5 - Three Lullabies | pg. 6 - Orpheus
    pg. 7 - The Keeper of the City Keys | pg. 8 - The Pilgrim's Door
    pg. 9 - The Gardener | pg. 10 - The Yellow Jester
    pg. 11 - The Dance of the Puppets | pg. 12 - Dionysus
    pg. 13 - The Fool | pg. 14 - Logos
    pg. 15 - The Magician | pg. 16 - Finis

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    The Pattern Juggler | The Grinding Wheel


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    "The gardener plants an evergreen
    Whilst trampling on a flower."

    The trampled "flower" is Eros (recall that the Moonchild gathered flowers in her garden). The "evergreen", therefore, is Logos. Just as he stands outside (himself) and can see that he is the keeper of the city keys (the master of his destiny) he also stands outside himself and sees that he is the gardener.

    "Shamanic Ecstasy, from the Greek 'ekstasis', ecstasy literally means to be placed outside, or to be placed. This is a state of exaltation in which a person stands outside of or transcends his or herself."

    - The Shamanism FAQ

    "I know that I hung on a wind-rocked tree, nine whole nights,
    With a spear wounded and to Odin offered -- myself to myself --
    On that tree of which no one knows from what root it springs."

    - Odin's Rune-Song from the Scandinavian Eddas

    "I chase the wind of a prism ship
    To taste the sweet and sour."

    A prism bends light. When one looks through a prism, images are distorted or changed. A new perspective is attained. The ship indicates a spiritual journey or pilgrimage carrying one toward the goal of wholeness. The next line, too, indicates the desire for enlightenment, for wisdom through experience. It also indicates an awareness of the duality of material existence, "the sweet and sour", right and wrong, light and dark, good and evil (etc.) of life.
    Because the narrator can say he has only "chased the wind" of new perspective, we know he realizes the futility of past approaches. He can chase the wind of enlightenment (develop intellectual conceptions of what it is) but he cannot truly experience it. He knows he has been overly cerebral (trying to think his way out of his dilemma) to the exclusion of his feelings and intuition.


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    "The pattern juggler lifts his hand;
    The orchestra begin."

    Magus - Thoth tarot The Juggler tarot card (more commonly known as The Magician card):

    "The French title of this card in the medieval pack is "Le Bâteleur", the Bearer of the Bâton. Mercury is pre-eminently the bearer of the Wand: Energy sent forth. This card therefore represents the Wisdom, the Will, the Word, the Logos by whom the worlds were created. It represents the Will. In brief, he is the Son, the manifestation in act of the idea of the Father.
    In the traditional card the disguise (of Mercury) is that of a Juggler. He bears a wand with a knob at each end, which was probably connected with the dual polarity of electricity; but it is also the hollow wand of Prometheus that brings down fire from Heaven.
    Being the Word, he is the law of reason or of necessity or chance, which is the secret meaning of the Word, which is the essence of the Word, and the condition of its utterance. This being so, and especially because he is duality, he represents both truth and falsehood, wisdom and folly. Being the unexpected, he unsettles any established idea, and therefore appears tricky. He has no conscience, being creative. If he cannot attain his ends by fair means, he does it by foul. The legends of the youthful Mercury are therefore legends of cunning. He cannot be understood, because he is the Unconscious Will."

    - The Book of Thoth

    The "Unconscious Will" is Intuition. And so Hermes, the pattern juggler, still in charge (conducting the orchestra), represents two types of cognition, conscious (Thinking) and unconscious (Intuition). As "the Son", Mercury (the Juggler) represents the new idea (the epiphany) borne out of the integration of psychological functions experienced in the dream state.


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    "As slowly turns the grinding wheel
    In the court of the crimson king."

"At the corners of this Tarot are the mystical animals mentioned in the Bible (Ezekiel 1:10, Revelation 4:7). They correspond to the fixed signs of the zodiac: the bull to Taurus; the lion to Leo; the eagle to Scorpio; the man or angel to Aquarius.

They typify unchanging reality in relation to the ever-turning wheel. That which was, is, and ever shall be remains the same; rotation of events goes on within it. The laws of cause and effect are always operative.

The evolution of consciousness from lower forms to higher is represented by the jackal-headed Egyptian God, Hermes-Anubis, while on the left side of the wheel the serpent of cosmic energy flows into form.

The Sphinx is the equilibrating principle, the eternal self of man behind the veil of personality. The word TARO is interspersed around the wheel with the alchemical signs for mercury (above), sulphur (right), salt (left), and Aquarius, symbol of water (dissolution), below.

- Wheel of Fortune

"Crowley and Case associate the three upper stations of the Wheel with the three alchemical principles and with the three Gunas of Hindu philosophy. Mercury is on our left (Fortuna's right), Sulphur on the top, and Salt on the right. Mercury is associated with the Guna called Sattva, which Case and Crowley explain as consciousness, intelligence and balance; it corresponds to Jung's Thinking function. Sulphur is associated with Rajas, representing passion, activity, restlessness and brilliance; it corresponds to Jung's Feeling function. Salt is associated with Tamas, representing stability, inertia and ignorance, which might be identified with Jung's Sensation.

- The Pythagorean Tarot by John Opsopaus
    As primitive as it may be, the grinding wheel is also a symbol of technology. Its slow turning symbolizes the thought processes and the inexorable "progress" of science and technology (an issue dealt with in Twenty First Century Schizoid Man and Epitaph ). It is, of course, also a symbol of the impending death of the Crimson King (the differentiated Thinking function).



The Pilgrim's Door return to
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In the Beginning was the Word II ~ The Yellow Jester



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