Torment of the Living
Jesus Carrying the Cross as portrayed by El Greco 1580
And when she spoke these words, she raised her voice and evoked the dead in my name:
”You dead, I call you.
”You shades of the departed, who have cast off the torment of
living, come here.
”My blood, the juice of my life, will be your meal and your drink.
”Sustain yourself from me, so that life and speech will be yours.
”Come, you dark and restless ones, I will refresh you with my blood, the blood of a living one so that you will gain speech and life, in me and through me.
”The God forces me to address this prayer to you so that you come to life. Too long have we left you alone.
”Let us build the bond of community so that the living and the dead image will become one and the past will live on in the present.
”Our desire pulls us to the living world and we are lost in our desire.
”Come drink the living blood, drink your fill so that we will be saved from the inextinguishable and unrelenting power of vivid longing for visible, graspable, and present being.
”Drink from our blood the desire that begets evil, as quarrel, discord, ugliness, violent deed, and famishment.
”Take, eat, this is my body, that lives for you. Take, eat, drink, this is my blood, whose desire flows for you.
”Come, celebrate a Last Supper with me for your redemption and mine.
”I need community with you so that I fall prey neither to the community of the living nor to my desire and yours, whose envy is insatiable and therefore begets evil.
”Help me, so that I do not forget that my desire is a sacrificial fire for you.
”You are my community. I live what I can live for the living. But the excess of my longing belongs to you, you shades.
We need to live with you.
”Be auspicious to us and open our closed spirit so that we become blessed with the redeeming light.
May it happen.
”Shield men from her, and her from men. Listen to what she wails and sings in prison but don’t let her escape, as she will immediately turn whore. As her husband you are blessed through her, and therefore cursed. She belongs to the daimonic race of the Tom Thumbs and giants, and is only distantly related to humankind. If you seek to grasp her in human terms you will be beside yourself The excess of your rage, your doubt, and your love belong to her, but only the excess.
If you give her this excess, humanity will be saved from the nightmare. For if you do not see your soul, you see her in fellow men and this will drive you mad, since this devilish mystery and hellish spook can hardly be seen through.
”Look at man, the weal( one in his wretchedness and torment, whom the Gods have singled out as their quarry-tear to pieces the bloody veil that the lost soul has woven around man, the cruel nets woven by the death-bringing, and take hold of the divine whore who still cannot recover from her fall from grace and craves filth and power in raving blindness. Lock her up like a lecherous bitch who would like to mingle her blood with every dirty cur. Capture her, may enough at last be enough. Let her for once taste your torment so that she will get to feel man and his hammer, which he has wrested from the Gods.
”May man rule in the human world. May his laws be valid. But treat the souls, daimons, and Gods in their way; offering what is demanded. But burden no man, demand and expect nothing from him, with what your devil-souls and God-souls lead you to believe, but endure and remain silent and do piously what befits your kind. You should act not on the other but on yourself unless the other asks for your help or opinion.
Do you understand what the other does? Never-how should you? Does the other understand what you do? Whence do you take the right to think about the other and act on him? You have neglected yourself your garden is full of weeds, and you want to teach your neighbor about order and provide evidence for his shortcomings.
”Why should you keep silent about the others? Because there would be plenty to discuss concerning your own daimons. But if you act on and think about the other without him soliciting your opinion or advice, you do so because you cannot distinguish yourself from your soul.
Therefore you fall victim to her presumption and help her into whoring. Or do you believe that you must lend your human power to the soul or the Gods, or even that it will be useful and pious work if you want to bring the Gods to bear on others? Blinded one, that is Christian presumptuousness. The Gods don’t need your help, you laughable idolater, who seem to yourself like a God and want to form, improve, rebuke, educate, and create men. Are you perfect yourself?-therefore remain silent, mind your business, and behold your inadequacy every day.
You are most in need of your own help; you should keep your opinions and good advice ready for yourself and not run to others like a whore with understanding and the desire to help. You don’t need to play God. What are daimons, who don’t act out of themselves? So let them go to work, but not through you, or else you yourself will become a daimon to others; leave them to themselves and don’t pre-empt them with awkward love, concern, care, advice, and other presumptions. Otherwise you would be doing the work of the daimons; you yourself would become a daimon and therefore go into a frenzy.
But the daimons are pleased at the raving of helpless men advising and striving to help others. So stay quiet, fulfill the cursed work of redemption on yourself for then the daimons must torment themselves and in the same way all your fellow men, who do not distinguish themselves from their souls and let themselves be mocked by daimons. Is it cruel to leave your blinded fellow human beings to their own devices? It would be cruel if you could open their eyes. But you could open their eyes only if they solicited your opinion and help. Yet if they do not, they do not need your help.
If you force your help on them nonetheless, you become their daimon and increase their blindness, since you set a bad example. Draw the coat of patience and silence over your head, sit down, and leave the daimon to accomplish his work. If he brings something about, he will work wonders. Thus will you sit under fruit-bearing trees.
”Know that the daimons would like to inflame you to embrace their work, which is not yours. And, you fool, you believe that it is you and that it is your work. Why? Because you can’t distinguish yourself from your soul. But you are distinct from her, and you should not pursue whoring with other souls as if you yourself were a soul, but instead you are a powerless man who needs all his force for his own completion. Why do you look to the other? What you see in him lies neglected in yourself You should be the guard before the prison of your soul.
You are your soul’s eunuch, who protects her from Gods and men, or protects the Gods and men from her. Power is given to the weak man, a poison that paralyzes even the Gods, like a poison sting bestowed upon the little bee whose force is far inferior to yours. Your soul could seize this poison and thereby endanger even the Gods. So put the soul under wraps, distinguish yourself from her, since not only your fellow men but also the Gods must live.” Carl Jung, Red Book, Pages 342-343
