The Eleventh Labor: The Golden Apples of the Hesperides (revised
version, spring 2016)
The
last two labors are “extra,” making twelve instead of the original ten. King
Eurestheus discounted two earlier ones, because Hercules had had some help.
Knowing how myths evolve over time, this probably means some clever philosopher
thought up two really great new tasks for Hercules to perform, and had to alter
the back story to make room for them. They certainly add extraordinary new
dimensions to the tale. The number twelve is also significant, and allows the
labors to bear correspondence with the zodiac, as noted earlier. Dr. Mees has
related the zodiac to stages of the spiritual path in his Revelation in the Wilderness.
The
story of Hercules’ retrieval of the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, relating
his entry into a virginal paradise after a long struggle, is intriguing from
start to finish. Let’s take a closer look.
The
highest aspiration of humans is for spiritual awakening. This usually comes at
the end of a trying and convoluted journey of discovery. It is only attained by
those who thirst for the meaning of life and are committed to finding it
despite the obstacles. In such an endeavor, expert help from those who know at
least part of the way is indispensible.
Hercules’
Eleventh Labor is close kin to a universally known myth at the very foundation
of Western civilization, as we shall see. Eurestheus ordered him to fetch three
Golden Apples from the paradisiacal Garden of the Hesperides, whose streams
flow with ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, said to confer immortality. The
Apples are a glowing substance with some very un-applelike qualities. Adding to
their mystique, they grew on a tree that was a gift of Gaia, the Earth goddess,
on the occasion of the marriage of Zeus and Hera, the primeval male and female.
Something about the apples made them highly covetable. It is likely they were,
in fact, psychedelic substances with powerful mind-altering abilities.
To
protect the special “Apples” from surreptitious truth-seekers eager to taste their
magical elixir, Hera assigned three nymphs known as the Hesperides to care for
the tree, but because they sometimes pilfered the apples themselves, Hera also
brought in a monstrous serpent to guard it. This was no ordinary snake: it was
a hundred-headed dragon, each of whose heads spoke a different language.
It’s
hard to miss the similarity with that other paradise myth in which the original
man and woman were named Adam and Eve instead of Zeus and Hera. They appear to
be two versions of the same tale, coming down to us from the drowned depths of
time, back when communion with the “gods” (whatever that may mean) via
psychedelics was a normal and essential part of becoming a properly prepared
member of the community.
If
this is true—and there is every reason to believe it is—our human heritage has
been far more profoundly influenced by the insights gained from taking
enlightening drugs than we have been led to believe by the official historians!
The
Garden of the Hesperides duplicates the Eden myth in that in addition to being
paradisiacal, both contain highly alluring Apples guarded by serpents. I
contend that these mysterious fruits were most definitely psychedelic
substances, and that the ancient storytellers were advocating for their
educational use in a spiritual setting. Where the pervasive Puritanism of the
present day recoils in horror at the thought, those of us who have defied its
prohibitions have been granted a glimpse of “immortality” by its divine Apples,
and most of us are elated to have had the privilege.
Hercules
underwent many adventures en route to the Garden, a couple of which are well
worth recounting. At first he had no idea where the Garden was, so he sought
out Nereus, a god of the sea who was reputed to know where it lay. Like the sea
itself, Nereus was a shape shifter, but Hercules held him tight as he swiftly
changed from one creature to another (or in one version, back and forth between
fire and water), not letting go until Nereus revealed the location. The
shape-shifting sea god is reminiscent of the ego, which shields us from the
“threat” of realization in order to maintain its precarious perch in the
driver’s seat. The ego doesn’t want us to know where Paradise may be found, out
of fears it would then be superseded by a superior intelligence.
As
recent neurological observations have shown, our surface consciousness plays a
minimal role in directing our life, despite its all-wise aspirations.
Neuroscientist David Eagleman likens it to a stowaway on an ocean liner, along
for the ride but with no influence over the course of the cruise, though it
probably has a wee bit more effect than that. In any case we have very limited
leverage in a life that only appears to be ours to control.
The
sea symbolizes our ever-changing emotional state, which can easily deflect us
from accomplishing our goals, its currents sweeping us up blind alleys of
conformity. We have to be firm in whatever path of growth we choose if we want
to make something worthwhile out of it. Our ego would just as soon pay lip
service to admirable aims, without actually doing anything laborious. Being
borne by the tide is far less arduous than bucking trends.
In
intense confrontations where the conscious mind enters the unconscious realms,
as with dying or the surprises wrought by psychedelic traveling, the first
stage includes evasion, where the ego tries to shut out the unsettling
awareness of its predicament by denial or displacement. As soon as you catch on
to the ego’s desperate deception, it shape shifts into another, and another. A
spiritual aspirant must remain steadfast and not be thrown off, and only then
can they penetrate to the boundless lands beyond. Hercules’ encounter with
Nereus demonstrates how we must hold on heroically to our focus when
confounding maneuvers threaten to divert our attention.
One
other adventure en route is of preeminent importance: Hercules went out of his
way to free Prometheus, a Titan who symbolizes the urge to know and progress, by
breaking his chains. In it there is a curious convergence of Indian and Greek
myths. In Indian mythology the divine eagle Garuda brought the nectar of the
gods, soma, from heaven to earth. According to the Greeks, in a parallel move,
Prometheus smuggled the divine fire to earth. Because he had revealed the
secret of immortality to humanity a furious Zeus had sentenced him to be
tortured daily. His punishment was to be chained to a rock and have his liver
regularly consumed by… an eagle.
We
can certainly interpolate a connection between these stories of the remote
past. Both myths feature an eagle and depict the transmission of something
special from the gods to humans. In the Western version it engenders terrible
consequences, but in the Indian version it is an event to celebrate. Their gods
of old loved soma dearly, and drank it whenever they could, but they didn’t
want to share it with humans any more than their Western counterparts did. Yet
after Garuda delivered the soma to humanity, no one was castigated. In the
West, no good deed goes unpunished.
In
both cultures the eagle was considered a divine messenger able to fly between
the high and low realms, and heavenly nectar and divine fire might well refer
to the same substance, which has often been called a gift of the gods by those
who partake in it. Toxic alkaloids present in the nectar could have a ferocious
impact on the liver, too. The pain they cause might well feel like being gnawed
by a raptor’s beak.
Going
out of his way to the ambrosia-filled Garden of the Hesperides, Hercules shot
the ravening eagle and freed Prometheus from his chains. In gratitude for his
release, Prometheus told Hercules how to safely fetch the apples out of the
garden. Though this is somewhat tangential to the official labor, the spiritual
meaning is readily apparent. Being freed from whatever is gnawing at your
vitals while breaking the chains of your conditioning is the primary purpose of
a spiritual enterprise.
As
a side note, this is supposedly where the olive wreath originated, which
Hercules later made the prize of the Olympic Games. Since Zeus had decreed
eternal punishment for Prometheus, Hercules had to devise a symbolic
continuation of it after he released him, and the wreath symbolizes Prometheus’
chains of bondage.
And
what exactly is this divine fire? A substance that confers the intelligence of
the gods must be more than simple flames of oxidation on a stick. Fire
symbolizes the principle of illumination. The effect of even a single spark of
the divine fire was to stimulate creative thinking and activity in mortals,
along with spiritual vision. The Greek version of soma, perhaps. It’s hard to
imagine any gods getting upset about humans obtaining ordinary fire, which at
current estimate has been around for a couple of million years (give or take a
few decades), but expanded consciousness is another matter entirely. That seems
quite recent, as far as we can make out, and may well have been the spark that
propelled humanity’s evolutionary leap to conscious decision making. Staring
into a campfire is a good meditation, but a dose of divine fire will really
take you places!
Mundane
thinkers assume that Prometheus just brought back ordinary fire for heating and
cooking, but it seems clear enough that that would hardly constitute a serious
transgression of divine decree, punishable by eternal torment. It was more
likely to have been something quite special, perhaps a substance that would
confer immortality, a thing the gods were very jealous about keeping to
themselves, as many myths indicate. You may recall that the god (or gods—elohim
is a plural word) of the Bible was extremely jealous of the fruit of the
sacred tree in the Garden of Eden, and warned Adam and Eve away in no uncertain
terms.
Immortality
is an interesting concept. The common assumption is that it means living
forever, but that is once again a materialist viewpoint. Immortality means the
opposite of mortality, of death. Spiritual or psychological death occurs when
we become docile victims of the social tides, conditioned to accept our lot
without question. Rebirth is when we wake up to our inner sense of purpose, and
in the process break the chains that bind us to the rock of unquestioned
assumptions. Immortality, then, means reawakening the divine intensity, the
divine fire, which ignites our enthusiasm to live well and fully, for however
brief a span we are physically alive.
Enthusiasm
is exactly the right word here, by the way. En
thuse is a corruption of en theos,
meaning the god within. Entheogens or psychedelics reconnect us with our inner
divinity, and enthusiasm is the indicator of being alive to its presence. One
of the greatest benefits of entheogens is that they reawaken the enthusiasm
that tends to be stamped out in the process of growing up and becoming
socialized. They are an antidote to the mind-numbing conformity that ejects us
from paradise and tacks a “Closed” sign on the gate.
Just
as the divine fire is more than plain fire, the Apples are more than ordinary
fruits. Eating of them confers immortality. Immortality is not about living
forever, it means seeing the unity underlying multiplicity, the divine or
cosmic nature of all existence, which confers Blake’s “eternity in an hour.” The
joy of living is associated with freely chosen activity, and if you don’t have
any, and just live your life out as a slave to the dictates of others or to the
patterns laid down in musty tomes, you are squandering your immortal
birthright.
In
the Indian context, our true birthright is the amrita, the immortal nectar of pure existence. Mrita is death, a-mrita
is the opposite of death. Interestingly, amrita is associated with the soma
plant, which is a “food of the gods,” that allows you to truly see. Ambrosia,
the nectar that waters and
nourishes the Garden of the Hesperides, is a closely related word that means
exactly the same thing as amrita. It
is quite possible that amanita of the
amanita muscaria mushroom is also a related word, though that’s purely
speculative—the kind of musing that munching a magic mushroom motivates.
Clearly
the Biblical Garden of Eden is the same tale as the Garden of the Hesperides,
separated in time and space. There are significant differences, too, especially
that the serpent protected the Apples in the Greek version, while it invited
humans to partake of them in Eden. There is a common thread, shared with many
traditions, that the gods are jealous of humans obtaining enlightenment or
knowledge that raises them up to their level. Wisdom is a serious, nontrivial
affair. Like the red pill in the movie The Matrix, wisdom irreversibly changes
the trajectory of life. That’s what God meant in Genesis, too, when he
counseled Adam that he would surely die if he ate the divine fruit. He didn’t
mean literally die; as we know, Adam
lived to be 930 years old. But Adam and Eve died to their innocence, their naïveté. As the serpent expressed it, “in the day
ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil.” When our eyes are opened, it never quite works to shut
them again. The genie has been let out of the bottle. We may well try to
forget, but at least an inkling remains of what we learned. And for the brave
heroes among us who have partaken in something like the Golden Apples of
immortality, living with eyes wide open becomes their natural state, which they
would never surrender no matter what pressures they faced, divine or otherwise.
This is something the psychedelic community holds in common trust today, and we
are very fortunate to be alive at the end of the long dark age in which eye
opening substances were nearly eradicated from human awareness, in an attempt
to glue our eyelids permanently closed.
Eden
had its forbidden fruit that dispels childish ignorance, and there is an
undercurrent of divine elixir in the symbolism of the Golden Apples too. Just
as the divine fire is more than plain fire, the Apples are more than ordinary
fruits. Eating of them confers immortality. It wakes the eater up from a state
of childish innocence to a state of adulthood where we can be quite certain,
with Hamlet, that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy.” It is a great blessing, yet one that may cause
discomfort and anxiety, to know that what we are normally aware of pales to
insignificance compared to the vast cosmos in which we live. This is not just a
desiccated idea, the myths are referring to a living reality of direct
experience. And that is exactly what psychedelics are capable of transmitting
to us.
Assuming
our hypothesis is correct, Dr. Mees throws light on why the Golden Apple tree
was a gift for the mystic marriage Zeus and Hera, as well as its importance in
conferring higher consciousness:
These fruits correspond to the
Apples of Immortality of Idunn and to the Ambrosia and Amrita, and symbolize
the Treasure of God-realization. (iii, 207)
Amrita
is the mythical Elixir of Immortality.
Soma
was said to be born “between the two sacred stones that were used to press it
out,” symbolism referring to the union of Father and Mother, or God and his
Creative Power, resulting in Enlightenment, and reflected in the preparation of
the unfermented wine that was used in rituals. It is the Jnanavari, “the Water
of Gnosis” of the Hindu tradition dealing with Knowledge. It is the Elixir of
Life, the production of which was the aim and end of the Great Work of the
Alchemist. It is further the Rasa of the Hindu tradition dealing with Bliss. In
the Rig-veda (IX, 63.13; 65.15) the Rasa is the juice of the Soma-plant. The
Rasa is the blissful essence of life. In the Taittiriya Upanishad (II, 7.1) and
the Maitri Upanishad (V.2) it is self-luminous consciousness, ecstasy, and the
perfect taste or realization of life. (i, 189)
Indra is the helper of the poor,
a deliverer and comforter, the bringer of benefits and wealth, the thresher of
foes. He is the most faithful of friends, but he grants his friendship only to
those who drink Soma. He “will have nothing to do with the wretch who does not
press the Soma”, that is to say, with the man who has no Culture and does not
know the inspiration of the Tradition and the ecstasy of its fulfillment. Indra
can also “bless with treasure.” The greatest Treasure is Self-realization.
(III, 52-53)
When
Hercules arrived at the edge of the magical garden he met Atlas, a Titan who
holds the world and sky on his shoulders. Hercules offered to take the heavy
burden if Atlas would get the apples for him, and Atlas agreed, thinking he
would leave him holding the weight of the world forever. He brought out the
apples and told Hercules he was taking them to the king himself. But Hercules
tricked him back: he begged Atlas to hold the world for just a moment while he
got more comfortable. Atlas obliged, and Hercules gathered up the apples and
took off for home.
In
the two main versions of the myth, either Hercules got the Apples himself or he
took over the sky burden while Atlas did the deed. The serpent was killed and
three apples obtained. The Nymphs were nowhere in sight. They were probably
sleeping off the effects of partaking in an Apple or two.
The
hundred-headed serpent is reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, as each head
speaks a different language. The unity represented by the Apples is defended
from intrusion by multiplicity, which can be quite ferocious. Outward
appearances forever divert us from the subtle beauty at life’s core.
Multiplicity stands for perfect selfishness, or the orientation toward
materialism, which has to be overcome for the goal to be achieved.
Anyone
making a serious attempt to realize their spiritual self has very likely been
accosted by all sorts of hostile comments by nay-sayers, cynics, and doubters
of all stripes, not to mention their own qualms. Scornful thoughts and opinions
have a corrosive effect on a person’s determination that does its work mainly
in the subconscious, and halfhearted seekers will often find themselves losing
their resolution without knowing why. It’s curious that so many humans not only
do not support idealism, but are downright subversive of those who aim for
lofty goals.
Being
a heroic type, Hercules was able to overcome this last defense of Immortality
and retrieve the Apples. We are encouraged to stick to our ideals, even as we
are assailed by doubts, so that we can complete our task, whatever it might be.
Doubts are important at the beginning, to make sure the task is worthwhile, but
after that they must be swept aside, or “killed.” The diversions of sensory
appearances must also be overcome before the light they are guarding can shine
forth.
Successful
at last, Hercules presented the Apples to Eurestheus, who simply gave them back
to him. Hercules then placed them on the altar of Athene. As Dr. Mees puts it,
“The Treasure of Immortality, once obtained, is only for giving away.” He
continues:
As likely he had enough wisdom
not to dare taking them for his own, Herakles wisely offered them to the Virgin
Goddess of Wisdom, who acted in accordance with the Tradition she represents,
in taking them back where they belonged. Immortality belongs to all. It is for
the taking of all who will strive sincerely, one-pointedly and perseveringly,
to obtain it. Having obtained it, they will give it for the benefit of others.
The Supreme Treasure of God is obtained by renunciation… and is held only by
ever-renewed renunciation. When people advance on their spiritual path and
experience “a flash of Illumination” or “a glimpse of Reality,” or “taste
Bliss,” they make the mistake of wanting to hold it, that is to say, hold it
for their own. And then they are miserable when they lose it again. When they
learn that “the only way to hold is by letting go,” they will have learned the
secret of the renunciation connected with the Ultimate…. When the soul manages
to give everything, it obtains the All. (iii, 207-8)
We
have a modern day cautionary tale that verifies Mees’ insights. Some of those
who have taken psychedelics and experienced an intensely liberating state of
mind have wanted nothing more than to hold on to it, to remain in that state.
There has been a tendency to keep getting high with the drug, and it has led to
some dire consequences. The ancients knew that the safest approach was to
garner the vision, and then strive to bring it to life without endlessly
drinking the ambrosia. Of course you want to share the divine vision with the
world, but you must pass it on, and not simply hold it. Giving away what you
have gotten is the nature of a true gift, which the Apples were from the very
beginning.
India
has a lesser-known myth of the three Ribhus, recounted by the estimable Dr.
Mees. They were pupils of Tvashtri, the divine craftsman who shapes beings in
the womb, and whose Amrita confers immortality. The three Ribhus were told by
the fire god Agni to make four cups of soma out of the one he gave them, and if
they could they would be honored as gods. They succeeded, and then drove
straight to heaven, where they were granted immortality, along with the right
to drink the heavenly soma. Tvashtri was angered by their boldness, and urged
the gods to kill them before they could drink the amrita. But the Ribhus were
allowed to live because they had fulfilled their task of making four soma cups
out of one. Mees points out that the soma cup is the moon vessel, the Holy
Grail. Multiplying the soma cup in all four directions means making it widely
available, similar to Jesus feeding the multitude with five loaves. There may
well be an echo of this in the Eden myth also, in the verse “And a river went
out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into
four heads.” [Gen. 2.10] In all these cases there is a single unitive source
that is transformed into something that ordinary people can partake of, and
thus be nourished in the depths of their soul. Hercules has shown us the way to
it.
Because
of the challenges, a trip to paradise is not for everyone. Hercules had to
overcome the many-headed serpent to retrieve the Apples. There are a thousand
reasons for us to avoid a visit to immortality, but if the determination is
there, it can be done. Hercules “took” the Apples, but then he passed them on,
which is the righteous thing to do. In India, soma was an integral part of
mainstream spiritual discipline for centuries if not millennia, but as in the
West, it also faded from view eventually. We should always be seeking and
finding new ways to open our eyes, and then share our insights and the kindness
they inspire with our fellow beings. The wise seers of the ancient world have
sent us that message in many guises through their myths, in hopes that we will
keep alive the tradition of learning to see. The psychedelic community is the
inheritor of a great and noble tradition, and it is right for it to stand tall
against all the opposition mounted by those who seek to crush the human spirit
and punish those who revel in the divine fire. The Apples are so tempting! They
dangle from their branch so tantalizingly close to our fingertips. Is it any
wonder that we should want to pluck one and eat it?
