Superbia
There are those who begin to feel very spiritual. You run into them in ashrams. They walk a little above the ground. For them, life is vulgar. I’ll never forget my experience the first time I was in an ashram, years and years ago. It was a beautiful place with deer grazing on the lawns and girls in saris on bridges looking down at the goldfish swimming in the pools. It was simply ravishing. Then some vulgarian came into the group. We thought, “How can we tolerate this gross body?” So when you think of your spiritual life as relieving you of the physical, you are going up this track. You are going to have a great disappointment somewhere along the line because your body is still there. This is known as manic-depressive experience. You’ve identified yourself with the subtle body, but you’re still gross. You’re trying to become immortal while you are still on earth. TMTT 140
As a theriomorphic symbol of
Mercurius, the stag
carries the archetype
of the Self and the
principle of
individuation. There are numerous representations in
which the stag literally bears the quaternity symbol of the cross in its antlers
and points the way as a guide. In the monastery of
Fischingen, it appears beside
The
Black Knight is really the sought-for
Anthropos aspect which
Perceval should
integrate, while the White Knight, the bright hero, turns into the enemy who
tries to impede the task set by the Star Woman. Perceval
defeats him in the end, which no doubt means that he succeeds in overcoming the
shadow of Christianity, namely its superbia, which is so estranged from
nature. TGL 275