You are, Oh master, here in the world of men.
I met you in the garden, beloved. The sins of the world have conferred beauty upon your countenance.
The suffering of the world has straightened your shape.
You are truly a king. Your crimson is blood, your ermine is snow from the eternal cold of the poles, your crown is the heavenly body of the sun, which you bear on your head.
Speak to me, my master and beloved!
The Shade: Oh Simon Magus, who hides in Philemon, are you in my garden or am I in yours?
Philemon: : You are, Oh master, in my garden. Helena and I are your servants.
You can find accommodation with us, because Philemon and Baucis have become what Simon and Helena were the hosts of the Gods.
We granted hospitality to the terrible worm. And since you came forward, we took you in.
It is our garden that surrounds you.
The Shade: Am I not the master? Is this garden not mine? Is not the world of the heavens and of the spirits my own?
Philemon: You are, Oh master, here in the world of men. Men have changed.
They are no longer the servants and no longer the swindlers of the Gods, but they grant hospitality to the Gods.
Your brother came before you, Oh master, the terrible worm, whom you dismissed, when he gave you clever counsel on the mountain in the desert with a tempting voice.
You took the counsel, but dismissed the worm. He found a place with us. But where he is, you will be also, since he is your immortal brother.
When I was Simon, I sought to escape him with the ploy of magic and thus I escaped you.
Now that I gave the worm a place in my garden, you come to me.
The Shade: Did I fall for the power of your trick? Have you secretly caught me?
Philemon: Recognize, Oh master and beloved, that your nature is also of the serpent! Were you not raised on the tree like the serpent of Moses?
Have you laid aside your body, like the serpent its skin? Did you not go to Hell before your ascent?
And did you not see your brother there, who was shut away in the abyss?
The Shade: It is true. You are not lying. Even so, do you know what I bring you?
Philemon: This I know not. I know only one thing, that whoever hosts the worm also needs his brother.
What do you bring me, my beautiful guest? The worm brought me ugliness.
Do you bring me beauty?
The Shade : I bring you the beauty of suffering. That is what is needed by whoever hosts the worm. ~The Black Books, Vol. VI, Page 245-247
Our World has become Dehumanized
“Through scientific understanding, our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos. He is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional participation in natural events, which hitherto had a symbolic meaning for him. Thunder is no longer the voice of a god, nor is lightning his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree makes a mans’s life, no snake is the embodiment of wisdom and no mountain still harbors a great demon. Neither do things speak to him nor can he speak to things, like stones, springs, plants and animals.” – Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 585
Far from being a material world, this is a psychic world
Carl Jung – Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche CW 8
Far from being a material world, this is a psychic world, which allows us to make only indirect and hypothetical inferences about the real nature of matter.
The psychic all forms of the psychic, even “unreal” ideas and thoughts which refer to nothing “external.”
We may call them “imagination” or “delusion,” but that does not detract in any way from their effectiveness.
Indeed, there is no “real” thought that cannot, at times, be thrust aside by an “unreal” one, thus proving that the latter is stronger and more effective than the former.
Greater than all physical dangers are the tremendous effects of delusional ideas, which are yet denied all reality by our world-blinded consciousness.
Our much vaunted reason and our boundlessly overestimated will are sometimes utterly powerless in the face of “unreal” thoughts.
The world powers that rule over all mankind, for good or ill, are unconscious psychic factors, and it is they that bring consciousness into being and hence create the sine qua non for the existence of any world at all.
We are steeped in a world that was created by our own psyche. ~Carl Jung CW 8, Para 747
