I'm not a robot

CAPTCHA

Privacy - Terms

reCAPTCHA v4
Link



















Original text

From the author: A course of lectures given in 2008-2009. A total of 10 lectures (to be continued) Lecture 7 “I was a man in this world That means I was a fighter” Goethe The pathos of the words of the epigraph, I think, will pass through throughout today's lecture. Approaching this lecture, I immediately had to take a month’s break in order to consider from different sides the pathos of Raskolnikov’s phrase “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right.” In preparation for the lecture, it took not two weeks, as usual, but a whole month. For me this is quite a long time. You can smile skeptically, they say, for such questions not only a month, but also a year is not a long time. But I dare to answer that with the degree and intensity of life in which I have been living lately, this is a very long period of time, during which a colossal number of meanings are lived. Therefore, a lot was digested in a month. We will start from afar, with Goethe, with Faust. Moreover, in Faust Goethe reflected a very important point. After all, the subject of Faust, as a work, was not just one life conflict, but, let’s say, a consistent and inevitable chain of deep conflicts throughout a single life path. Here we are already approaching the position of the dramaturgy of life’s path. The path of life is like a whole story of numerous contradictions, conflicts, passing one after another, during which the soul grows. I will not retell the entire storyline of Faust, but this is not necessary. I will only say that the plot of Faust is given in the prologue, when the praise of the archangels begins, etc. Here Mephistopheles interrupts these praises, claiming that only hopeless darkness reigns on earth. And then there are his lines: “The poor man is so bad that even I spare him as long as …”. Next, Mephistopheles certifies himself to Faust and says “I am part of that power that is without number, I do good, desiring evil for everyone.” It is clear that Mephistopheles here appears as one of the faces of Lucifer, perhaps not the most powerful, but precisely related to Lucifer. And it is precisely the issues related to the possession of soul figures by Lucifer, precisely this deity or “luminous angel” who challenged his father, separated, and this whole story is described in sufficient detail. When Mephistopheles says that he does good, desiring evil for everyone, he, of course, is also disingenuous. After all, under the so-called good, he sarcastically understands his merciless nihilism. “I am a spirit,” he says, “always accustomed to denying,” and with reason, nothing is needed: “there is no thing in the world worth sparing, creation is no good.” What pathos these words have – “the creation is no good”! Here comes a flatter, horizontal challenge. Just like Ivan Karamazov, who claimed that he accepted God, but not God’s creation, opening up to his brother Alyosha. Although at first he seemed to be a complete atheist, but then he opens up to Alexei - yes, I accept God, but I don’t accept God’s world (that is, creation). And this is how he justifies this, Dostoevsky puts the following words into his mouth: “So, I accept God and not only willingly, but, moreover, I accept both his wisdom and his purpose, which are completely unknown to us, I believe in order, in the meaning of life, I believe in eternal harmony, in which we all seem to merge, I believe in the word towards which the universe strives and which is God itself, and so on, and so on, etc. into infinity. A lot of words have been written about this. Looks like I'm on a good road, huh? Well, imagine that in the final result I do not accept this world of God, and although I know that it exists, I do not allow it at all. I don’t accept God, understand this, I don’t accept the world he created, God’s world, and I can’t agree to accept it. I’ll make a reservation: I am convinced like a baby that suffering will heal and smooth out, that all the offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear like a pathetic mirage, like a vile invention of the weak and small as an atom of the human Euclidean mind, that finally in the world finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, it will happen and appear something so precious that there is enough of it for all hearts,there will be enough to quench all indignation, to atone for all the atrocities of people, for all the blood they have shed, so that it will not only be possible to forgive, but also to justify everything that happened to people - let it all be and appear, but I I don’t accept this and don’t want to accept it!” With despair, with deep despair, this unacceptability of the world. Indeed, we can encounter this motif of Ivan Karamazov almost every day. We can say that we accept God, but at every step we do not accept many of the events that happen, the qualities of the people around us, etc. – this is the rejection of the world, the rejection of creation. Creation is imperfect, and here Mephistopheles really turns out to be right in his own way. Or you can look at this from the other side - Mephistopheles (or Lucifer), acting in us, distorts our perception in such a way that for some reason we do not accept creation. Because this rejection of creation has a deep meaning. After all, it is no coincidence that Mephistopheles says that he does good, desiring evil for everyone. This is non-acceptance, i.e. no matter how evil, it still turns out to be good, it is needed for something. For what? This is what we have to understand today. Let's look: Mephistopheles is entrusted with a certain, let's say, positive task. He is truly part of the force, part of Lucifer, creating the so-called against his will. good, good. We will also touch upon this category, which Plato first posed, and this is no longer the category of good or evil, it is the category of good. What is good for a person. There are things that are not good, there are those that are absolute good. For example, the absolute good is a single, whole, spirit. The disappearance of the spirit is not a good thing, but we will encounter this later. What does Mephistopheles do? He destroys the illusions of Faust - the illusions that come. Constantly destroys. He pushes him into new and new situations in which Faust is faced with the rejection of the world, and helps him resolve these illusions. And thus, this series of conflicts that Faust goes through helps him in his constant search for truth. The result is a tragedy. Having gone through many and many conflicts, large and small, he comes to the next great discovery for himself, and I believe, a great discovery for many human souls: “I am devoted to this thought! The years of life have not passed in vain; The final conclusion of earthly wisdom is clear to me: Only he is worthy of life and freedom, Who goes to battle for them every day! All his life in a harsh, continuous struggle, let the Child, the husband, and the elder lead, So that I can see in the brilliance of wondrous power A free land, my free people!" Here it is - struggle, danger, success, defeat - these adult categories. Categories of adventurous life. Adventurous because life has no guarantees. We expect guarantees from her, we rely on lawyers, legislation, doctors, and something else, but there are no guarantees! Life is an adventure, a dubious undertaking in which success and failure await us with equal probability. And all that remains for us is the struggle, the battle for life, which Faust talks about. And this task is immeasurably great, it requires enormous efforts. Every moment of this meaningful inner work, sanctified by a great goal, is worthy of exaltation. At this moment, when he pronounces this monologue, he also utters the fateful words “stop a moment.” Mephistopheles has the right to consider them a refusal to further strive for an endless goal. He has the right to interrupt Faust's life according to their old agreement. Faust dies, and this makes enormous sense. Having learned the value of struggle, challenging the gods and people, going through these contradictions, he comes to the finitude of his life. Comprehends its limb. Life cannot be endless, it finds its completion and its meaning - death. But in essence, Faust is not defeated. In fact, the one who, like Faust, is able to find this meaning is not defeated, because this rapture is not instantly bought at the price of abandoning the continuous improvement of humanity and man. The present and the future merge here in a kind of higher unity. Faust seems to have twosouls, like each of us: contemplative and active. And these two souls are reunited. At the very beginning of the tragedy, when Faust sat down to translate the Bible, he decided to translate the first lines of the Gospel of John not “in the beginning was the word,” but “in the beginning was the deed.” Very wise, in my opinion. This matter led Faust to the knowledge of the highest goal of human development. And that craving for denial that Faust, like any of us - realize this - any of us has through ancestral roots, through the process of birth and birth trauma, through the trauma of the appearance of the image of I (the split into “I” and “Image of I” , which we will study together with the philosophical-psychoanalytic system of Jacques Lacan). We all have this denial, we are all complicit in Lucifer, one way or another. There is no use in denying this. Each of us, if we lived in the Middle Ages, including the Pope, the Patriarch of All Rus', the Dalai Lama, etc., could be burned at the stake as being involved in Lucifer. As having a craving for denial. Perhaps, according to legend, Buddha overcame this craving by integrating all the contradictions and entering the state of nirvana, but this state is also strange. And I think that nirvana is the same samsara, after all. And so the craving for denial, which Faust shared in himself with Mephistopheles (or with Lucifer), finds the necessary counterbalance in a positive ideal - in the ideal of struggle. Why do I say a positive ideal - fighting is not necessarily a positive ideal (here we can also see the archetypal figure of Ares). You can do without Ares, but nevertheless, in my opinion, this obsession with denial - we can find a counterbalance to it precisely in the fight. In a struggle that allows us to integrate every negation. This is the work of the soul. And that is why Faust is still awarded that apotheosis with which Goethe ends his tragedy - he is saved. A slight distraction - the fact is that at the moment of his highest insight, when Faust looks at the valley and sees the free people there who work, in this At the moment he is already blind. And why does Goethe make him blind at this moment? This circumstance is hardly accidental - Goethe was, after all, the greatest realist and did not want to convince anyone that Faust’s grandiose vision somewhere on earth had already become a reality. What is revealed to his blind eyes is not the present, it is the future. Faust sees the inevitable path of development of reality. And his vision of the future does not lie on the surface, it is not perceived sensually with the eyes, it is perceived by the clairvoyant mind. Lemurs swarm in front of Faust, symbolizing certain dark forces of history that do not allow the world to get to its goal as quickly as he thinks and hopes - and thank God, because experience accumulates. More and more new paths are being laid in the labyrinth of the Rhizome, in the labyrinth of the soul, or in the labyrinth of the World Soul. These demons of inhibition, which are presented in the form of lemurs, in the finale do not drain the swamp, as Faust sees it, but dig his grave. Free people will then work in this field, this swamp will be drained, and this sea of ​​historical contradictions will be swallowed up by the water of the dam. And this is the idea of ​​Faust’s insight, the idea of ​​his path, which can be called the basis of the historical drama that Goethe reflected - the drama about the fate of humanity. Accordingly, Mephistopheles, who relied on the finitude of Faust’s life, is put to shame. But here shame can also be understood in two ways: it is not necessarily a shame, in this case Lucifer, who acts through Mephistopheles, actually helps a person learn this lesson. And he needs to play to lose. This is a difficult lesson, and in order to come out of participation in the spirit of denial and participation in Lucifer, we need to go through many conflicts, as shown in Goethe. Because Faust, according to Goethe, manages to live the life of all humanity, including future generations, and a person is measured by the scale by which he lives, no matter who he is, a janitor or the president of the country, a scientist, a musician or someone else. Everything depends on the context in which he thinks, feels and experiences himself. It maybe the context of a small, cozy, handy world. Remember, as the philosopher Alexey Fedorovich Losev said - the whole world is a myth, it’s only one thing whether it’s a myth of a handy little world, or it’s the world of the Universe. A person like Faust is an image of real spiritual growth, striving from the particular to the whole. Now a whole “pink” direction of spirituality has appeared, which is completely absorbed by consumer society (by OP I don’t mean people, but an archetype). Religion, esotericism, the notorious New Age, science, culture, medicine - all this has become part of the values ​​of the consumer society. And they forgot what spirituality is. Spirituality is a movement from the particular to the whole. Now the opposite is happening - a movement from the whole to the particular, to the illusion of an individual guarantee of security, peace of mind, stability, money, well-being, health and other utilitarian values, who are helped by all kinds of psychologists, healers, sorcerers, psychics and other so-called. "oven" people. This is not spirituality - this is a completely opposite movement. Here is the person I want to talk about next, and a fragment from one work, which I will also give - he has the right (in the very sense in which we will further comprehend Raskolnikov’s words “I am a trembling creature or I have the right"). This is a man who lived in a fantastic degree, in a fantastic tension of exposed nerve. Managed to challenge, through the spirit of denial, which in him reached the limit point - managed to overcome it, despite all the tragedy of his life. Anyone who knows the biography of Friedrich Nietzsche, whom I will talk about, knows that he could only work 2-3 days a month. The rest of the time, starting from his youth, he was plagued by headaches, a state of weakness - a virtually insurmountable illness. And yet, 2-3 days a month he worked with the deepest clarity, and at that time, as soon as he could sit down and write, he wrote, and wrote amazing things, and his spirit worked grandly. So, he, possessed, having reached the highest degree of obsession with the Luciferian spirit of denial, was able to overcome it. And he has the right to write what I will read next. I believe that Nietzsche still became himself, despite the tragic ending - the so-called. the madness that ended his life. I do not believe that this gives us the right to draw any conclusions that he did not become himself. Fragment from F. Nietzsche (Esse Homo or how one becomes oneself) “I do not create new idols. My craft is rather to overthrow idols - that’s what I call “ideals”. To the extent that we invented an ideal world, we robbed reality of its value, its meaning, its truth... “The true world” and the “apparent world” - in German: the lied world and reality... The lie of the ideal was before Until now, with the curse that weighed on reality, humanity itself, imbued with this lie, has been perverted down to its deepest instincts, to the deification of values ​​opposite to those that would ensure development, the future, the highest right to the future. Among my works, my Zarathustra occupies a special place. With it I gave humanity the greatest gift of all that have been given to it so far. This book with a voice that resounds over millennia is not only the highest book that has ever existed, a real book of mountain air - the very fact of man lies in the monstrous distance below it - it is also the deepest book, born from the innermost depths of truth, an inexhaustible well from which every submerged bucket returns to the surface full of gold and goodness. It is not a “prophet” who speaks here, not one of those terrible hermaphrodites of disease and the will to power who are called the founders of religions. Here it is not a fanatic who speaks, here they do not “preach”, here they do not require faith: from the infinite fullness of light and depth of happiness drop after drop falls, word after word - gentle slowness is the tempo of these speeches. Such speeches reach only the most chosen; to be a listener here is an incomparable advantage; not everyone has ears for Zarathustra... Nevertheless, is not Zarathustra a seducer?.. But what does he himself say,When does he return to his loneliness for the first time? Exactly the opposite of what some “sage”, “saint”, “savior of the world” or some decadent would say in this case... He not only speaks differently, he himself is different... My students, now I'm leaving alone! Go away now, you too, and alone too! That's how I want it. Get away from me and defend yourself from Zarathustra! Or better yet: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you. A man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, but be able to hate even his friends. He repays the teacher poorly who forever remains only a student. And why don’t you want to pluck my wreath? You respect me; but what will happen if your respect ever falls? Be careful that the statue doesn't kill you! You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what is the use of Zarathustra? You are those who believe in me; but what is the use of all believers! You were not yet looking for yourself when you found me. This is what all believers do; That’s why faith means so little. My praxis of war is expressed in two positions. First: I attack only things that are victorious - I wait for them to be victorious on occasion. Secondly: I attack only things against which I would not find allies, where I stand alone - where I only compromise myself... I do not know a more soul-tearing reading than Shakespeare: what a person must suffer in order to feel the need become a jester! - Do they understand Hamlet? Not doubt, but certainty is what drives you crazy...” - here I will allow myself to retreat. Listen to these lines: “it is not doubt, but certainty that drives you crazy.” Freud's great student, Alfred Adler, built his psychoanalysis based on the so-called. inferiority complex, but few people understand, and few have studied Adler’s works in detail to understand what an inferiority complex is. A person is initially defective, and it is a healthy person who is a defective person. The more a person realizes and accepts his inferiority, the more mentally healthy he is. As soon as he has some beliefs, some convictions, neurotic defenses appear after them, because the state of inferiority, uncertainty, instability is a very precarious state, it is difficult to stay in it, and it is necessary to make colossal efforts, to fight for it. in order to resist this and not fall into neurosis or psychosis and the subsequent paranoia, no doubt. Therefore, the spirit of doubt, the spirit of Lucifer by the way, contributes to mental health up to a certain point, leading a person through these doubts to many conflicts. Necessary conflicts in which the soul grows. This is the function of Lucifer. I am not calling for Satanism and devil worship, I am talking about something completely different. I repeat that we are all already involved in Lucifer, and should have been burned at the stake if we had lived during the Inquisition. All as one. There is this spirit in all of us - the spirit of doubt. Many flee from it, undoubtedly into paranoia. They gain stability at the cost of giving up their soul. And further Nietzsche writes: “But for this one must be deep, one must be an abyss, a philosopher, in order to feel this way... We are all afraid of the truth... What humanity has so far seriously assessed were not even realities, but simple chimeras , speaking more strictly, lies born from the bad instincts of sick, in the deepest sense, harmful natures - all these concepts of “God”, “soul”, “virtue”, “sin”, “other world”, “truth”, “eternal life” “... In them they looked for the greatness of human nature, its “divinity”... All questions of politics, social order, education were distorted to the core by the fact that the most harmful people were mistaken for great people - that they were taught to despise “small” things, became be, the basic conditions of life itself... When I compare myself with people who have hitherto been revered as the first people, the difference becomes palpable. I don’t even consider these so-called first people to be people in general - for me they are the scum of humanity, degenerates of diseases and vengeful instincts: they are all unhealthy, basically incurablemonsters taking revenge on life... I want to be their opposite: my advantage lies in the most subtle understanding of all the signs of healthy instincts. My formula for the greatness of man is amor fati: not wanting anything other than what is, neither ahead nor behind , not to all eternity. It is in this vastness of space, in this accessibility to contradictions, that Zarathustra feels himself to be the highest manifestation of all that exists; and when they hear how he defines this, they will give up the search for his equal. The soul, which has a very long ladder and can sink very low, is the most extensive soul, which can run far, wander and rush about within itself; the most necessary, which throws itself into chance for the sake of pleasure; the existent soul, which plunges into becoming; the possessive, who wants to enter into will and desire; running away from itself and catching up with itself in wide circles; the wisest soul, which madness quietly invites to itself, the most self-loving, in which all things find their flow and their countercurrent, their ebb and flow. But this is the concept of Dionysus himself. I know my lot. Someday my name will be associated with the memory of something monstrous - about a crisis that has never happened on earth, about the deepest conflict of conscience, about a decision taken against everything that was previously believed in, what was demanded, what was considered sacred. I'm not a man, I'm dynamite. And despite all this, I have nothing in common with the founder of religion - every religion is the work of the mob, I am forced to wash my hands after every contact with religious people... I don’t want “believers”, I guess I’m too evil to believe in myself myself, I never speak to the masses... I don’t want to be a saint, rather a buffoon...” In order to understand Nietzsche, you need to understand a lot. I, too, could not understand it for a very long time, and I cannot say that I fully understood it until now. Next I want to give examples of obsession with Lucifer, which ends in defeat. If the case of Faust and Nietzsche, I think, ends in victory, then there are examples of defeats. Why do they end in defeat - but because of an attempt to kill. If we remember that the heroes of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, ancient myths and all the classics are not just literary heroes, they are our inner parts of the soul. When Claudius kills the elder King Hamlet, or Macbeth kills King Duncan, what does this mean for us? This means repressing the best part of your personality into the shadows. This was King Hamlet the Elder. Let us remember the lines from Hamlet, where in his hearts before Gertrude he compares Claudius with Hamlet the Elder, pointing to his portrait: “here is a collection of qualities, each of which bears the stamp of some deity, giving the right to be called a man.” And this is the mistake of our inner Claudius and our inner Macbeth, when he kills - he pushes his best qualities into the shadows. And here the obsession with Lucifer plays a really cruel joke. In principle, I have a desire to analyze these things, in particular Hamlet and Macbeth - they are different, they have different colors, despite the general line of repressing the best part of one’s personality into the unconscious, there are many subtle details, each of which is worth its own analysis . But it’s not this time, and God willing, we’ll get to it. Let’s listen to the monologue of King Claudius, who killed his older brother Hamlet and took his wife Gertrude as his wife, which is where the whole plot of the tragedy Hamlet began. And then the monologue of Macbeth, who has not yet killed, but gets ready and then kills King Duncan - also a man of very high qualities and high virtue. Each line here can be savored and its subtexts can be found, but today we have a different goal, so I’ll just read these monologues. "Hamlet". Monologue of Claudius (Act 3, scene 2) Suffocating the stench of my villainy. The seal of the most ancient curse is on me: The murder of my brother. I am burning with thirst, I am eager with all my heart, but I cannot pray. There is no such guilt as a pardon. Like a person with a wavering goal, I don’t know how to start and I don’t do anything. If only I were covered in my brother's blood, would Ithen heaven is not able to wash these hands? What would goodness do without villainy? Why would mercy be needed? We pray that God will not let us fall, or rescue us from the depths of our fall. It is too early to despair. Look higher! I fell to rise. What words should I pray here? “Forgive me for the murder?” No, that’s not possible. I did not return the spoils. I have with me everything why I killed: My crown, land and queen. Why forgive someone who is firm in sin? With us, the criminal often hushes up the case with a handful of gold in his hand, And the very fruits of his crime are a ransom from the rule of law. But that's up there. There, in naked authenticity, our deeds lie without embellishment, And we must confront the past with an answer. So what? What should I do? Repent? Repentance is omnipotent. But what if you can’t even repent! Torment! O chest, blacker than death! O puddle where, floundering, the soul gets deeper and deeper! Angels, help! Quickly bend your knees! Hearts of steel, Become soft, like the cartilage of newborns! Everything can be fixed... Words soar, but feelings bend downward, But words without feelings are not recognized above... “Every line is a pearl! “Words soar, but feelings bend downwards, and words without feelings above are not recognized...” or “There, above. There, in naked authenticity, our deeds lie without embellishment.” Where is it up? Yes, in our soul. And each of us fully knows what he is doing. There is an observer in us from whom we cannot hide, and we know perfectly well when we do what and how we act. Apparently, at the moment of peak and mortal experiences, these deeds are revealed to a person. The second monologue is Macbeth. The murder has not yet been committed, he hesitates. A dagger appears in front of him - a vision. He addresses him: “Macbeth.” Macbeth's monologue (Act 2, scene 1) “Where are you from, dagger, appearing in the air in front of me? Your hilt is turned towards me, To make it easier to grasp. I grab - and you are gone. The hand is empty. And still I don’t stop seeing You with my eyes, although I didn’t feel it with my hand. So, it means that you are a delusional dagger of consciousness And generated by an inflamed brain? But no, here you are, indistinguishable from the one I took out of the sheath. You are my road sign, a reminder of Where to go and what should I capture. Am I deceived by myopia, or on the contrary, I see far away, But you loom again before my eyes, In blood that was not there before, A deception that does not exist, If only I could clearly embody the bloody step that I had planned. -Half the world is asleep, nature has stood still, And dreams tempt the sleeping. The forces of witchcraft have stirred and glorify the pale Hecate. Hearing a wolf howl from afar, Like the call of one’s own sentry, Murder directs the step towards the goal, Creeping up on the victim, like Tarquin. A securely established earth! Don’t listen to my steps , so that the stones, Having spoken, do not give me away And do not lighten the oppression of silence. But I threaten, and the doomed is alive, And speeches cool my impulse...” A person in whom the inner Macbeth has spoken imagines that he must force out of himself some his qualities, which he currently considers unnecessary and harmful. Kill them, drive them out. But even from the unconscious they will remind him of themselves, as they reminded Claudius, and eventually reminded Hamlet, killing him. Yes, and it was reminiscent during the performance of the actors who showed the scene of the murder of Gonzago. So Macbeth will not find peace for himself, and his wife, who directed him to this murder, will eventually go mad. These are very deep archetypal plots that work in each of us in one context or another, in a big or small way. When a person undergoes a long psychoanalytic course, he finds these plots in himself when he acts like Claudius or Macbeth. In some, even a small context, this happens, or happened in childhood, or at a young age. This, I repeat, is an obsession with Lucifer that leads to defeat. To defeat, again in one context or another. But this does not mean that every defeat is a defeat forever. This defeat is also a lesson, perhaps hiding even deeper conflicts, and allowing one to plunge to an even greater bottom of one’s soul, to an even greater hell of one’s soul, in order to emerge from there, as if from purgatory, purified and transformed. We can't nowto say that this is an absolute defeat. But there is another story - Dostoevsky describes it. This is Raskolnikov’s murder of an old pawnbroker. This is also being pushed into the shadows, because our inner schismatic is killing someone. Who is he killing? Who is he pushing into the shadows, and what does this lead to? And what is the meaning of this phrase, which became an eternal question for Dostoevsky himself, over which he hesitated in all his works. And in The Brothers Karamazov, as the pinnacle of his work, this question sounds even more intense. And throughout his life. And he rushes about - he cannot answer this question. This question is archetypal. Dostoevsky only voiced it, because it is present to one degree or another in the life of every person: “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?” But what is the meaning of this question? What is its pathos? Of course, the question is again colored by Lucifer. And through thorns it leads to nothing other than the growth of the soul. This is what the novel “Crime and Punishment” is about, the title of which is worldly: in its symbolic essence there is neither crime nor punishment, but there is a sharp nerve of struggle. That same Faustian struggle, a challenge to God, and the subsequent breakthrough to understanding one’s human nature. Let's see how the heroes of Crime and Punishment appear in our inner world. Here is the old pawnbroker, the key figure. If she is a pawnbroker, everyone owes her. Who do we owe everything to? We all owe death. And it is the old money-lender who symbolizes death. Thus, our inner Raskolnikov is trying to gain immortality, denying death, killing it in himself. Together with her, he kills Lizaveta. This seemingly innocent victim. What Lizaveta is – this is Memento mori, the existential experience of one’s own mortality, this is what fills life with meaning. And they are sisters, by a strange coincidence! In Dostoevsky's novel, what would seem to be common between Alena Ivanovna and Lizaveta. It's okay, but they are sisters. Both death and memento mori cannot exist without the other. So Raskolnikov, I mean, our inner Raskolnikov, as an archetype, is trying to deny death, trying to push it into the unconscious, trying to challenge God, to become godlike, immortal. Yes, Sonya Marmeladova extends to him her stunted hand of supposedly eternal life, soaked through and through with the same Luciferian energy. Through repentance, but through a special repentance associated with religion. And we will see that religion is a completely Luciferian institution. And thus, the pathos of the question “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right” is as follows: this is a person’s attempt to become equal to God, to enter the host of immortals. Raskolnikov himself is partly an ego, but not a simple ego. It is also an ego, subject to inflation of the shadow in that part of it that is precisely connected with Lucifer. The plot begins with the mother, with Dunya - Raskolnikov’s sister, for whose sake he is trying to save them from need, from so that Dunya does not sacrifice herself, having married Luzhin. In part, there is also such a line there. What is a mother? A mother is a connection with society. And Dunya is the adaptive child, the “good girl” and “good boy” in us, Persona. And initially Raskolnikov tries with all his might to save the Persona, his image of a “good boy”, good, approved. Dunya “turns the dynamo” for Svidrigailov, and Svidrigailov is none other than a daimon. The daimon is a leader in life. Let us remember the daimon of Socrates. When he was brought to execution, he could have run away, and the friends who had gathered said that there was no special security, and you could run away at any moment, board a ship, sail away from Athens and remain alive. To which Socrates answered them that no, I hear the voice of my daimon, and this is my inner voice. A voice that says that everything is fine and I should take the dare here, drinking a cup of hemlock. There is no contradiction here for me. He listens, subtly listens to the voice of his daimon. The ego, appearing as Raskolnikov, possessed by the Luciferic shadow, rejects this daimon. He is afraid of him, and in the end the daimon disappears - remember that Svidrigailov,who by the way has done many noble deeds, he ultimately cannot defeat the Persona. And as a result, he leaves for America, as he calls it a “voyage”, but in essence he shoots himself, i.e. disappears from the stage. Another figure remains with the Persona - Raskolnikov’s friend, some nascent ego, or some nascent new daimon, who is a shirt-guy and helps him in everything, and a certain change occurs, a new storyline is born, a new round of fate. But it began precisely because Raskolnikov challenged the gods. Our ego challenges the gods, kills the old woman-pawnbroker, and with her Lizaveta. Marmeladov, who appears in the first part of the book, even before Raskolnikov commits the murder of the old woman-pawnbroker, and dies under the wheels of a horse. A drunkard, a marginal type, whom we can see as a part of the soul that is at the mercy of the superego, social rules and the father complex. And moreover, to the maternal complex, which is expressed. Through his wife Katerina Ivanovna, an absolutely terrible maternal complex. If we remember the possessed figure of Katerina Ivanovna, we will understand how in life it was she who drove Marmeladov to drunkenness, and not he who drove her into poverty. It is these women who are driven to drunkenness, and then complain and indignant, “How, how, how. My husband drinks. Doesn’t give me life and my children” - this is a typical manifestation of the maternal complex. After meeting with Marmeladov, after realizing the maternal complex in himself, Raskolnikov finally decides to kill. He sees this part of the soul in himself, and the contradiction between killing - not killing, displacing - not displacing, challenging the gods or not - he throws it. This is also a myth about the formation of a hero, in which there is a challenge to the mother complex, the father complex and equating oneself with immortals. And even more than the myth of the birth of a hero, here Raskolnikov goes further. It displaces death itself. Sonya Marmeladova - here we clearly see the features of the so-called. Black Anima, i.e. Anima, which still destroys a person. Why does it destroy? She is so innocent, so God-fearing, so described by Dostoevsky as good and willing to make any sacrifice. But a person familiar with the manifestations of the unconscious, familiar with psychoanalysis, knows that one does not simply become a victim. And this sadomasochistic radical, the victim complex, is even more colored by Lucifer. Here Lucifer comes from the other side, and not only Lucifer, there is also Hades and Persephone, who is also behind the Black Anima. Sonya has an aplomb to achieve eternal life through suffering. And ultimately, she tries to drown our hero. She also appears as the Great Mother, a worthy successor to her stepmother Katerina Ivanovna. But what happens in the end - repentance occurs. But what is repentance? On the one hand, Sonya in every possible way calls for repentance in a roundabout, Luciferian way. To suffer, and thereby achieve eternal life and return again to the bosom of the Great Mother. Dangerous path. Behind her stands not only Lucifer, and not only Hades, behind her stands Persephone as the expression of the Great Mother, great and terrible. On the other hand, Porfiry Petrovich, an investigator and a distant relative of Razumikhin, also calls for repentance. Let us note that he is a distant relative of Razumikhin, and we can say that this is a Genius (not in the sense of “talent”, but a Genius, as it was considered by the ancient Greeks, i.e. almost the same as Daimon). In principle, the ancient Greeks did not make a difference between Daimon and Genius, but we can draw this difference in this way: Daimon is what leads a person through events, Genius is what leads a person from idea to idea, directs him to the insight of a certain ideas. So, Porfiry Petrovich brings Raskolnikov into the mode of the real, as Lacan would say, fills him with existential meaning, and thus, Raskolnikov still does not repent as Sonya calls him, he repents as Porfiry Petrovich calls him. “Good thoughts, good beginnings,” he says, ending his last conversation with Raskolnikov. He does not imprison him, he calls him to come himself andconfess. Repent, that is, recognize your human finitude, repressed into the unconscious by death. And who among us has not tried to repress death into the unconscious! Didn't try to imagine himself immortal. Someone is trying to do this on a very large scale - to challenge the gods. This is Raskolnikov’s act of “I am a trembling creature.” Any trembling creature challenges, displacing death. Raskolnikov is trying to do this as if he has the right, and this is a very strong act. This leads to repentance, as a recognition of one’s human finitude, as a recognition of death and an existential confrontation with it. What happens? Through fighting against God, quite a few shadow aspects are illuminated, and a new quality emerges. The return of death, facing death, repentance. And at the same time, a way out of the power of the superego, a way out of the power of the mother complex, the father complex. A very capacious process and a very serious step on the path of individuation, this is what, in my opinion, was prescribed by Dostoevsky, what came out through him archetypically, the meaning that is relevant. Relevant for many of us. You can also remember Luzhin, also a fairly significant hero, because Luzhin is an adjustment to society. A good boy, or in this case, a Good girl Dunya, having rejected the claims of Svidrigailov, thereby rejecting the inner voice, Daimona, an adaptive child, she is led by Luzhin, who is an adjustment to society. Well, thank God, as a result of this whole story of Raskolnikov, the murder of the old pawnbroker, the associated illnesses and experiences, Dunya moves on to Razumikhin, to the new Daimon, and, accordingly, to a new storyline of fate. We come to the conclusion that a person inevitably crucified on the cross. And this cross, you can designate its four ends in this way: I am a slave, I am a king, I am a worm, I am a god. And all this at the same time, in one moment. It may seem to us that only “I am a slave.” Or you might wish that “I am only a king,” and in no case a worm. I want to be god, etc. But we cannot be one of them, we are chained to this cross. We are simultaneously god, slave, king, and worm. Worm and god are vertical, slave and king are horizontal, social horizontal. We cannot get off this cross, we must drink this entire cup, bring the opposite out of the shadows, out of the unconscious. If I consider myself a slave, I must admit that I am also a king. If I consider myself a god, I am necessarily forced to admit that I am a worm. I'm all in this together, I can't get out of this. I cannot be only a god, only a king, only a slave. This is man’s lot, a great lot, a great existential predicament. And this is what the human ego comes to, the human soul, which follows Raskolnikov’s scenario. A very powerful script. And I would add to this that only those who recognized and lived themselves as a trembling creature have the right!!! Those. the one who accepts himself as a worm becomes a god. The one who recognizes the slave in himself becomes a king. And vice versa. Nietzsche had this right, Faust had this right. Claudius and Macbeth did not live up to the task, they did not understand; on the contrary, they ousted someone from these parts. In K.G. Jung has a wonderful line that I want to read from his work “Psychological Interpretation of the Dogma of the Trinity.” The lines are as follows: “If God wants to be born a man and unite humanity in the community of the Holy Spirit, then he has to endure a terrible torture: he must shoulder the world in all its reality. This is his cross - and he himself is the cross. The whole world is the suffering of God, and every individual person who wants to at least get closer to his own integrity knows very well that this is his way of the cross.” This metaphor of the way of the cross, it naturally appeared after the Council of Nicaea in the 4th century AD, started Emperor Constantine and who knows what other forces behind him, is completely perverted, which we are still reaping today, and which is presented in the novel “Crime and Punishment” through the line of Sonya Marmeladova. This is “let us suffer and share in eternal life.” - Bullshit. To Dostoevskywe will come back and talk about the Karamazov brothers, in which the pathos of this issue also emerges, but in a slightly expanded context. Now, to get to this, and to get to other questions, I want to look at a larger question, such as "normality and pathology", which I touched on in connection with Adler's inferiority complex, and what Nietzsche said about doubt and certainty, and consider this in the context of the myth of Orestes. This myth is discussed by James Hillman. Here is what he writes: “To begin with the psychic means to perceive pathologization as an effective form of psychological expression, as a kind of self-sufficient metaphorical language, or as one of the ways in which the psyche legitimately and involuntarily represents itself. To understand this language, it must be placed within similar metaphorical contexts. Obscene, bizarre or morbid events and images of our mental life demand that they be examined not in terms of norms derived from corporeal nature or from metaphysical ideals, but in terms of that very imagination, to whose competence belong paralyzed arms, diseased miscarriages, monstrous dwarfs and in general all kinds of “distortions” that have an independent meaning. To understand what the anomalous psychology of an individual shows us, it is not at all necessary to turn to what is normal. Our norms themselves must have something in common with the material we wish to understand, they themselves must have the capacity to pathologize.” Hillman is generally a trickster, he destroys illusions, overthrows ideals, tries, and successfully, to reform the words of Jung. He argues with him, and it seems to me that in a number of contexts of these disputes, he wins. But this should happen in the process of evolution - he is his student, and in teaching he must in some way surpass the teacher. Imagine the archetype as an initially unspoiled, perfect form, without an inherent passion that binds his energy, or inflates it to the point of madness tension, withdrawal into isolation and persistent refusal of everything, without destructive injections and outbursts and the unfortunate vulnerability inherent in it, means to idealize and falsify the nature of archetypal reality, as it is given to us in myths. And if we look from the point of view of myth, each archetype there are their own pathologized themes, and vice versa, each pathologized phenomenon can be viewed in a certain archetypal perspective. The norms of myth give place to that which cannot find a place in academic psychology, medicine, religion and jurisprudence. Moreover: pathologization in myth is necessary for myth and cannot be removed from it without distorting the myth itself. For this truly heuristic, therapeutic reason, archetypal psychology again turns to mythology. The characters of myth - quarreling, deceiving, sexually obsessed, revengeful, vulnerable, killing, torn apart figures - demonstrate to us that the Gods are by no means only perfections, and all abnormalities, therefore, it is impossible to blame it only on people. Quite often we are faced with myths in which the appearance of the Gods is associated with actions that from a worldly point of view should be subsumed under the category of criminal pathology, moral deformity or personality disorders. Hillman notes: “Thinking about pathologization mythologically, we could say how This is what some people do, that the “world of the Gods” is anthropomorphic, that it imitates our own projections, including our pathologies. However, one could also start from the other end - from the imaginal world (mundus imaginalis) of the archetypes (or gods), and say that our secular world is at the same time mythical, serving as a kind of imitative projection of their world, including their pathologies. What the gods demonstrate in the imaginal sphere of the world is reflected in our imagination in the form of fantasy. Our fantasies reflect their fantasies, our behavior imitates theirs.behavior. We are not able to imagine or implement anything that would not formally already be the archetypal imagination of the Gods.” You and I discussed how the primary myth acquires details in connection with the landscape, geography, and ethnic groups. Hillman is essentially talking about the same thing, and this world contains initial deformations, the so-called. pathology. We call them pathology because we are confined within the framework of the so-called. social norms derived from science or theology, or medicine, or jurisprudence. But these sciences themselves are only a formality. They do not reflect the world as it is, they reflect the world as it supposedly should be. “If this is the case, then we find ourselves in the same degree of harmony with the archetypal sphere not only when we are healthy, but also when we are in a state of depression as well as a blissful state of transcendence. A person is in the form of gods and goddesses both when he is ridiculous, enraged or in torment, and when he smiles, and generally always. Since the gods themselves demonstrate unhealthy behavior, then our myth, our way of imitating God, is through illness, infirmity, ill health. Moreover, it is precisely this illness of the archetype that can be the sister of mercy for our self-division and delusions, for our mental wounds and extreme states, providing them with an appropriate way of expression, justification and experience of meaning.” That is why we go through the same spirit of denial, through obsession. Lucifer, who is both pathology and healing. Everything has its opposites. “Without this fantasy of archetypal illness, without returning to the gods all illnesses, including the illness called “normality,” we will never be able to find adequate contexts for explaining the phenomena of illness. If those confessional hierarchies of various faiths, which are concerned about the unenviable position of the current religion, wanted to return their god to a healthy life, then the first step in such an endeavor would be to remove from the Devil all the pathological burden that has been placed on him. If God died, it was precisely because of his own health; he has lost contact with the true illness of the archetype, and therefore with reality.” Hillman offers insight into the importance of a goddess whose name we rarely speak: the goddess Ananke. For Parmenides (Phrams 8 and 10) Ananke rules Being. In the so-called Pythagorean and Orphic thought, she is married to the enormous serpent Chronos, forming a kind of connecting spiral around the Universe. Here Ananke is the Great Lady (potnia) of the Underworld, an invisible psychic principle that irreversibly attracts to itself all things in our world, thereby pathologizing life. Further, in Plato we find the most fruitful and clear ideas regarding the relationship between Ananke-necessity and diseases of the soul . In the Timaeus, which presents Plato's cosmology, or structure of the universe, there are two main principles at work. The first of these is nous, logos, or intellectual principle, reason, order, mind - or whatever way you want to translate nous. The second beginning is ananke. Absolute irrationality. Necessity operates through deviations. We recognize it as irrational, irresponsible, devious. Or let us recall once again: necessity manifests itself in those aspects of the universe (let’s not forget that Plato’s universe is completely animate and always represents a psychic universe) that deviate from the norm. In addition, necessity is especially associated with that area that cannot be persuaded or does not obey the laws of reason. If anxiety is indeed related to Ananka, then, of course, it is impossible to “cope with it with the help of a rational will.” When anxiety overwhelms or attacks us, we are able to perceive it only as a break in rational continuity. This shows that anxiety is not subject to analysis; it will inevitably act in its own ways - until it is recognizedits necessity. We often see this in clinical cases. Jung also wrote that problems are not given in order to solve them, but so that we constantly and steadily work on them, acquiring new mental, spiritual experience, and come to the true task of man - the work of the soul. In this case can we perceive the experience of anxiety as a reflection of the actions of Ananke in the depths of the human being? Psychology tried to reduce its necessary movements to particular necessity: to sexual desires (Freud), to the fear of death and non-being (Heidegger), to original sin (Kierkegaard) or to physiological mechanisms. However, no rational theory of anxiety is possible. There is no reason for it except the necessity that lies within itself. The foundations of anxiety reside in necessity itself, which is constellated at a certain moment by the present suffering of the soul - where this soul is currently experiencing fear before the necessity that harnesses it to its fate. How does this happen? The connection between Necessity and the human condition becomes even clearer if we look at the very end of the Republic, where Plato describes the Moira (goddesses of fate). Each soul receives its special lot from Lachesis. Kyoto then approves it, and, with the help of the yarn coming off the spindle of Atropos, "the fabric of fate becomes irreversible." And there is no way out. It cannot be otherwise. “And then,” Plato continues his story, “the soul, without turning around, goes to the throne of Necessity and passes through it.” This is how souls enter the world. Each soul is born into the world, passing under the throne of Ananke. Despite the fact that Plato insists in all his works on the affinity of the soul with nous, he, in the same Republic, presents Ananke as the one who determines mental life from the very beginning. The difference between Nus and Ananke appears as a painful conflict in the soul of Orestes in the corresponding myth and in the tragedy "Oresteia", which tells us that Orestes committed a grave sin - the murder of his mother. But he didn't just kill his mother. She was an insidious woman, killed her husband, tried to destroy Orestes himself, and here Orestes follows the command of the God Apollo, who, in turn, is behind Zeus. That is, this is not a simple murder, there is a reason for it. Orestes kills a dangerous woman who has committed many crimes. Formally, Orestes committed an act that falls within the purview of criminal psychopathology: matricide. But we will not forget that Apollo and Zeus directed him to this. But since he has stained his hands with blood, he is relentlessly pursued on the heels of Erinyes, who in this case represent another way of talking about Ananka. They demand vengeance and the implementation of necessary laws. And they are the unknown causes of our misfortunes, because: “The aliens are destined to do this by everything that the human race lives on earth. Whoever their unkind gaze falls on does not know where the trouble came from...” They carry with them a noose that restrains a person - a noose, which, as we have already seen, is one of the characteristic attributes of Ananke. Orestes says (1.749): “Now it will be revealed what awaits me: a loop (agchones) or the light of the sun.” Erinnye or Apollo, Ananke or Nus (Zeus). When deciding the fate of Orestes, the votes were equally distributed. Then Athena considers it necessary to intervene. A tense dispute breaks out between her and the Erinyes, with a predominance of one side or the other. But in the end, Athena convinces Erinyes and wins back Orestes’ life. The key to her victory is persuasion, peitho, a word that is translated into our language as the art of persuasion, rhetoric. Rhetoric convinces necessity. The greatest of mythological tragedies ends with the reconciliation of Zeus and Fate, in what is another way of affirming Plato's principles - Nous and Ananke, Reason and Compulsion. What made this reconciliation possible? How did it happen? What does Athena do in order to resolve the discord between light and reason, on the one hand, and those unknown to us?causes of disasters and sorrows - on the other? Firstly, we know that Athena has a lot in common with Necessity, since Athena, among other things, invented tools that serve to limit and contain, teaching people pottery, the art of weaving and knitting, giving them to bridle horses, bridles and harnesses, yokes for oxen. She herself combines extreme opposites: she needs to reconcile the Nus of her father and the shackling power of Ananke, in collaboration with which he rules the world. However, the deeper key to the complete solution of this problem, and in general for this part of our study, is contained in the very expression of conviction: they convey the persuasiveness of Athena, the winning nature of her speech, and the charm of her words. Tragedy writers and philosophers have constantly emphasized that Ananke is inexorable, unpersuaded, and that the power of words has no effect on her. However, Athena finds a way to influence her: “Persuasion guided the speech that poured out of my mouth,” she says. The essence of Athena's speeches is that she offers the Erinyes - the frantic forces of necessity tormenting man, under the yoke of which Orestes found himself - a place within the divine order. Here it is chaos, in which already in the 20th century A.D. says Gilles Deleuze and the postmodernists. She offers them a kind of refuge, an underground chamber, an altar, where these forces could reside and be revered - and, nevertheless, remain strangers: or “guests permanently residing in the country,” as they are spoken of at the end of the tragedy. Having no image and nameless, they will be given a name and an image will be found. Sacrifices are also possible. Reconciliation occurs. And reconciliation also occurs between the deities themselves when Orestes and his patron Apollo leave the stage. And it is not Orestes, the suffering hero who occupies a central place in the play, who brings healing to everyone. Despite the fact that the problem tormenting Orestes is connected with his father and his mother, with their sins and the blood they shed, the content of this problem is not Orestes at all - neither as a specific person, nor as the archetypal protagonist of the human ego. The real problem of the play lies in the cosmic, universal agony that Orestes is overcome by. Returning to Greek myths, we get the opportunity to see our personal agonies in their impartial light. The finale of the Oresteia has often been interpreted in a political or transcendental spirit, seen as a reflection of changes in the Athenian polis, or viewed from the point of view of the contradictions between patriarchy and matriarchy, between the gods of the Upper and Lower worlds, between various types of duties imposed by law - however, you and I need to look at these problems from a psychological point of view. The tragedy is based on the suffering of the split soul of Orestes. It depicts the fundamental conflict between the mind within us and the forces of fate that are unable to listen to this mind, which cannot be understood or forced to change their irresistible course. The course of these forces is similar to our psychopathology, which I defined a little earlier as that part of our psyche that can neither be accepted nor repressed and cannot be transformed. Orestes is the figure of a soul torn between its origins. His psychology is both normal and abnormal. Like Oedipus, Orestes is a psychological man, a kind of mythical case history. But, unlike Oedipus, Orestes embodies the problem of general psychopathology, and not of its specific variety. “Oresteia” relates to the “Disasters of life that have fallen from no one knows where or why,” to chaos, and connects them with necessity itself. Oedipus's misfortunes ultimately relate to the heroic ego, to the blindness of the ego, to its mistakes and belated repentance, while Orestes suffers the cosmic conflict of a soul torn between the gods, a martyr to the necessary psychopathology of the universe. Why do words play such an important role in culture, and why has Athena's art of persuasion fallen into disuse among us? It didn’t work out, and words play a role. We will face this when...