The Prometheus Myth

MBM  Single Talk  April 14, 1931

 

(See Galey’s “Classic Myths, for the story.)

     Prometheus, a myth, as far as Creation concerns man.  Prometheus means fire-bringer, or fire-getter, or fire-robber.

     Myths are growths with the development of the human race.  Prometheus as the figure-head.  Fire: associated, first, with sex; second, with the sun; and third, with whatever was called Deity, especially rays.  The Prometheus myth appears in all the races.

     What preceded the age of Prometheus?  Greek mythology is the story of Creation and the various stages through which it moves before humankind dominates the Titanic forces of the early stages.

     One of the Titans had a son, Prometheus.  He (represents) a later stage, after cataclysmic stages permitted man to begin his sojourn here.  There were men before Prometheus, but Prometheus was the real man, –mind.  Prometheus represents man as thinker.  Prometheus represents the struggles of man with dawning mind.  He is the hero because he succeeds in accomplishing what the story marks as the good.  Put the getting of the fire as second to the overcoming of the gods.

     Prometheus tried to attain mind; was not content with the lower stages, is striving now for the higher.  His ambition is to climb the Heights.  He has never yielded to failure in himself — hence is chained to a mountain — a place difficult to ascend.  It represents a distant goal.  Being loyal to that idea of the ascent, he is forever chained to that mountain.

     He steals from heaven that which the gods have.  But he who develops himself pays a penalty — pays the penalty for stealing the fire.  (There is the theft of the apple in the Garden of Eden story.)  Much the same as the apple in that Garden — a way to knowing – a beginning of man’s knowing.  In Prometheus, fire is the beginning of man’s mind.  In both cases there is a “prohibition” against the taking of it.

     Do not look upon it as sin; it represents the difficulties which anyone pays when they set out on the path of differentiation.  Prometheus pays the price of being chained to the rock.  He could not go back to the Garden of Eden, nor to the sun.  Hence he is chained to the rock.  The rock is Law — so substantial that it is to be (?) Deity.

     The vulture eating his liver is the emotions, the desires, that which eats the self, the lower man.  Those are destroyed in each one during the time when the mind and soul are clearest, which is daytime.  When you no longer remember the heights of Olympus those desires grow in you.

     Jupiter means the Law, Deity — the Law which emanates from the Great Source watching over the process of the making of man.  Hence, the vulture, which is the transforming power, and eats up what is decaying and transmutes it into the bird, that which ascends, are (is) sent down, from Jupiter.  In the daytime of the soul and mind destroys the lower nature of Prometheus.  Continues (this) up to the thirteenth generation.

     What is the Thirteenth Man?  Hercules and the Twelve Labors, another aspect of the self of Prometheus.  It represents the self which has been enduring through the liver-eating and liver-growing stages.  Represents that which has been enduring through the twelve stages.  The twelve stages are marked as twelve powers, or capacities, which the evolving self must develop and attain in order to become the thirteenth.  Overcoming and becoming the hero in each of the twelve signs.

     Prometheus represents the pilgrimage of the powers which can be obtained, are won, through a successful pilgrimage through the twelve houses.  When they are won the conquering hero is the Thirteenth.  Like Jesus and the twelve disciples.  Hercules rescues the other portions of the self, chained to the mountain.  Correspondences between higher and lower areas.

     The “fire brought in the tube,” said to be the penis.  Rather, it is the ray, – philosophically, – meaning the way in which he brought down the fire.  Analytic study mutilates it.  The ray symbolizes the method by which the fire was brought down; makes it a logical, rational process.  What corresponds to the visible ray?  On more philosophical levels the correspondence is to the link between mind in the individual embryo man, the man who is becoming the hero, Prometheus, and the Source, the seed-ground, from which he draws the fire.

     From that we can understand the prohibition of Jupiter, and his secret; and why that secret threatens the supremacy of the gods.  It is through the development of mind that the link is made between earth and heaven, or between earth, water, fire, air.  Man, as he develops it, becomes as the god.  That is what the serpent forces said to Eve.  The promise that knowledge brings about godliness.

     There must be the difficulties attendant upon it.  There must be a struggle between the two levels as the one attains the other. (illustration of) Niagara.  (re Lake Niagara, I believe. GB.) the threat that it will ascend to that level as the lake strives to attain the height from which it proceeded.. . . . .(something about relativity, which I didn’t get. GB.)

     If Prometheus will (or would) give back the power which he has won (which he can’t do, because he is chained) if he would restore the light, the liver would not be eaten.  He is dependent on the eater for the (or by the) transforming power of the light from above.  He cannot, because he has seen, and heard, and dares to endure.  And evolving man does dare to do so.  Until his higher mind is developed fully and he becomes at-one-d with the Cosmic areas.

     What the Fire really means: It is the supreme Element.  It is Light from which comes Life.  It is Light from which comes all illumination.  It is the core of all being.  The will of the Cosmic Creative Forces.  From another angle, it might be seen as Love, the Cosmic attractive Fire.

     From another point, it might be seen as all that is involved in divinity — all that is involved in Deity.

     It is potential.  It lies inert in man.  The fire which Prometheus steals is the Will and Wisdom that is from the Source, which is fundamentally All-Binding, because its bindingness is not infantile, as is man’s, but is fertile, it requires of man a going through the stages dramatized by Prometheus chained on the rock.

     Each goes through those rhythms, while striving day and night, till he attains the state of Hercules, the thirteenth generation, which has accomplished the twelve labors, the Sun Hero.  Hercules and Prometheus are one being.

     The lower self has now attained the Heights, through Hercules, and is now released, because he has attained.  He could not attain Cosmic stature without being tried to the nth degree.

     Epimetheus.  Why did he get Pandora as wife?  Pandora represents the serpent forces (of Eden) the psychic worlds — desires, appetites, interests.  And the jar she breaks is like the apple in Eden.  Eve is Pandora — the desire nature, which sought to know, and brought down suffering, breaking the box (or jar.)  But it led to wonderful results; they are still going.  Pandora marries the one who had not yet awakened, the outer man.

     One thing was left: hope, equated with faith in the Greek.  He finally wins through.

     Epimetheus develops Prometheus.  The psychic world is to be controlled, not to be eliminated.  Faith, or hope, are not eliminated, but corrected by mind.  Intelligence is not removed.