That makes one think, for certain. Why is it that people cannot take the revalation without dying of despair?
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Posted by Ouroboros on 08/14 at 09:37 AM
I don’t know - perhaps it is the realisation that what they have taken for their ‘real’ self is false? In the story it is this ‘false’ self (ie not the one that is in the Pradise of Song) that dies so maybe it’s a good thing.
Perhaps the story shows us which ‘self’ we are living in, identified with?
It seems to me that these stories may have many levels of meaning and guess you find what is in it for you. There is no ‘absolute moral’ or anything like that, they are relative. Having said that - and I know I often rant against literalists - there are many tales which may have literal aspects or parallels.
In this case - as in the Mandaean conception also - unlikely as it seems, i’’m not so sure there aren’t literal parallels.
The phenomena of the doppleganger is a well known Fortean motif and has been attested by many responsible and sane people. Goethe saw his own double for example. This phenomena seems to be particularly connected with sufism in some way and there are many reports of Sufi masters being attested to be in two places at the same time so there may be some reference to this in the story.
Posted by on 08/14 at 01:05 PM
Thanks for the welcome and all. My blog has been going in since three years back, but my interest in Sufism and Middle Eastern traditions is probably 15 years old or something like that. One reason Corbin affected me were that he writes from a perspective which is informed by his own experiences and orientation, and in the midst of investigating these ancient masters, it is expanded and sometimes burst open. I have myself had experiences which sometimes tie in with these and other traditions, although I am perhaps more oriented towards the Christian Gnosis. The Twin is very important in that context - since the union of the two into one, at any moment, creates a whole and true human being; in effect - when the inner and the outer are consistent with eachother.
Posted by Terje Bergersen on 08/15 at 01:32 PM
Hi Terje, yes I have a lot of time for Corbin also. I think he was an honest scholar and really did search for truth in the academic sense (as well as other senses I’m sure).
The twin is a very important motif across all religions, I’m probably not as knowledgeable about the Christian Gnostic tradition as you are but it does seem to be an underlying theme - Jesus is said to have a twin in Gospel tradition and this is implied in the Qur’an crucifixion accounts also.
Of course there is the Chymical Wedding and marriage of the male and female in alchemical tradition too. I wish I had the time to explore all these different threads!
Posted by on 08/15 at 03:02 PM
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I’ve just checked my referrers and discovered a great new site that needs adding to the blogroll: inTerjeCted. This really is awesome and covers a wide range of material brilliantly. Btw, is it me or are really good Gnostic/Esoteric/Sufic blogs just appearing all over the place now or is it just that I’m only now noticing them? It feels a bit like we may be at the start of something here.
There’s a great post today quoting Corbin’s classic work The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism
and this is weird because I have been thinking of things related to this ‘spiritual doppleganger’ issue today - specifically in relation to the Zoroastrian tradition of the other self that meets the soul at the Chinvat Bridge on death but also in relation to the Sufi story The Paradise of Song which I post here after quoting the Corbin passage from the inTerjeCted post.