HEPHAISTOS - The Hermit
THE HERMIT HEPHAISTOS by Iona Miller
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Hephaestos (also sp. Hephaistos), God of the Forge, is the personification of subterranean and terrestrial fire, including human lustiness. The instinctive, libidinous "fire down below" is echoed by the Tarot attribution of the spermatazoic letter Yod, which means "hand" but represents the 'point' of the phallus, particularly the sperm which projects from it. It represents the longing for soul completion, or union through the sexual act. This is reflected in the mythic versions where cuckolded Hephaestos is married to Aphrodite. He also attempts the rape of Athena, but his seed falls to the earth depotentiated. Thus he embodies the betrayed and/or rejected lover.
The Hermit is solitary, but not lonely. When he seeks the antidote for isolation, he wants to seen, touched, reacted to, to be intimately close to another human being. Even that partner cannot walk his path with him, for we can only become self-realized alone. His worship is probably derived from the Vedic god, Agni. His dominion over primal fire ranges from the wild force of volcanic activity to the harnessed fire of metallurgy. He is the archetypal mechanic or engineer. Technological man has inherited his legacy, and his woundedness, and in this regard Hephaestos shares something in common with Prometheus who stole "fire" from the Gods.
The boon carries a bane inherent within its nature -- for one thing, he is preoccupied, even obsessed, with details. We see this today in the obsessive loner techno-geek type. Hephaistos was born of Hera alone. Some ancient authors say Hera invented the legend of his virgin birth because he was conceived before her marriage to Zeus. Others claim that he was conceived from Hera's brooding over Zeus' creation of Athena. Since Hephaistos is credited with striking the blow which released Athena from the cranium of Zeus, this account seems confused. Yet, the mythic dimension is non-linear. So when we compare accounts of exploits, there are discrepancies and variations on the theme from different regions and times.
Whether Zeus fathered Hephaistos or not, he rejected him forthwith. In one version, Hera abandoned him also, hurling her lame son into the sea from Olympian heights. This rejection and abandonment led him to judge himself as "imperfect" and his compensation was to achieve technological perfection through his work. Hephaistos was born with a birth defect; he was lame and twisted, and only learned to walk with great difficulty. His appearance disgusted Hera, and she tried to hide him from the Immortals.
He was raised by sea nymphs until the age of nine, when he made his existence known to the Olympians. Already an artistically gifted inventor, Hephaistos sent Hera a beautiful throne he made for her as a present. He was not only a craftsman, but a crafty individual--the throne concealed a trap for his mother. Hephaistos came back to Olympus on his own terms, demanding to know the secret of his birth and seeking the beautiful Aphrodite as his bride. Hera's heart softened when she saw her son, and she tempered her attitude toward him.
But Zeus never accepted him for how could he claim the imperfect as his own creation? Hephaistos always took his mother's side when they fought. Seeking to prevent Zeus from beating his mother, another tale recounts how Zeus hurled Hephaistos down to earth. He landed, half-dead, in the island of Lemnos where he was cared for by a guild of dwarfish miners and metal-workers. Here he took on his nature as the god of "earthy" fire. His name is said to mean 'fire' or ruler of fire. Other than the metaphor which associates him with lightning, he is distinguished from the celestial fire of Zeus. Earthy fire promotes civilization by giving us the ability to work metals.
Hephaistos thus became the archetypal blacksmith, characterized by his powerful upper body and the quality of his artistic and mechanical creations. In ancient Greece it was customary for lame men to become smiths. Hephaistos kindles within us his own primordial desire. His creative hand is "trying to grasp," both in the physiological and psychological sense. He tries to grasp his mother's abandonment, his father's rejection, and his own deformed nature.
He represents man as the tool user, equipped with an opposable thumb. It is the ability of the creative hand to grasp which links Hephaistos with Trump IX, THE HERMIT, which corresponds with the Hebrew letter Yod, which means "the hand," --specifically the creative hand. There are numerous ancient connections between Hephaistos and the pre-Olympian Great Mother.
Psychologically, this links the subterranean fire of the smith-God with the dark, internal energies of the Mother's creativity. He can't produce babies, so he copies the creativity of nature and produces things carefully wrought by hand. Some Jungians note that Hephaistian fire takes its light and energy from the central fires which are at the heart of nature's creativity.
Therefore, Hephaistos is a split-off animus of the Great Mother. He "mimics" the creative processes in the depths of the Mother and brings his works of art to birth by technological means. Even though he lacked physical symmetry and personal grace, his inventive spirit found an area in which he could excel--the working of metals. He is characteristically depicted as grasping his hammer and tongs in his hands, ready to work and temper the raw metal.
There was a STAR TREK NG episode where the android Data has a vision of his creator, Dr. Sung, forging a bird's wing. Data comes to realize that "he is the bird," and his imagination takes flight as he claims another level of his inheritance. Hephaistos was a prolific artist, creating artifact after artifact of great precision and beauty. Many appealed to him for his services.
Even the haughty Zeus came to him for help in punishing Prometheus and men for the crime of stealing the celestial fire--consciousness. Zeus commissioned Hephaistos to create the body of the first woman from water and clay, taking care to make her a resplendent beauty. Zeus breathed life into her. Pandora, a human-sized Great Mother with her magic box of evils, misery, suffering, and disease was loosed on the world.
The woes of physical life come along with corporeal existence. This myth about the origins of corporeal life coming from clay has been confirmed by modern science. It is more than a metaphor. In 1985, NASA scientists showed that clay gives off life-promoting bursts of ultraviolet radiation. It literally stimulates the growth of organic molecules.
Some clays respond likewise when exposed to gamma radiation. This discovery led to the proposal of a new theory of human origins--that we are the fruit of the soil. Other theories begin with "primordial soup" or interstellar "seeding." Yet, ordinary clay acts like a chemical factory by storing and transmitting energy. It can transform inorganic raw materials into more complex molecules from which life arises. In Genesis, Adam is formed of the "dust" of the earth.
Despite his own deformity and imperfection, or more likely because of it, Hephaistos yearned for pleasures and aesthetic beauty. Therefore, he sought and won the hand of Aphrodite. Their marriage symbolized his addiction to pleasures of beauty, even though she cheated on him. He also lusted after Athena, but again the pattern of his rejection prevailed, revealing his faulty anima relationship. As a result of his continual rejection, he is severely complexed. He has an unconscious longing to reunite with his mother in an incestuous relationship. This in is fact what cripples him -- his untransformed desire to return to the comforting bosom of his Great Mother.
Thus he fluctuates radically between lust and guilt. He would give too much to mother by serving her in a materialistic manner. He is too pragmatic for his own good. For her he rejects (as he was rejected) lofty abstractions and the impersonal fantasy world of the spiritual father principle. He takes refuge in the mother's realm of matter (mater=matter).
Really, he seeks the spiritual transformation both of his body, and by indirection, all matter. He seeks what he didn't have -- a father. As the projection of Hera's inner masculinity, he embodies the process of change or psychic transformation in his twisted, paradoxical body, which is half maimed, half robust. He has the introverted personality of a cripple.
His lame foot reflects his mother-complexed soul and his spirit's structural damage. Unlike the "handicapable," his spirit is where he is truly crippled. He is a son with an absent, rejecting father. Therefore, he vows to remain earthy, the very salt of the earth, with no celestial traits or aspirations. He must turn inward to hidden resources for comfort. In his introversion, he is always willing to go to the depths of the unconscious (realm of the Great Mother). He feels comfortable and "at home" in subterranean depths of the subconscious.
Since he had to be self-sustaining, he learned to prefer solitude, and is somewhat withdrawn and remote. His underground fire smolders with unresolved resentments. So, as well as the physical representations like mechanics and technology, Hephaistos is with us in such expressions as introversion, depression, union activity, and Marxist philosophy. Perhaps, most psychologically interesting, he is the motivating force behind the transformative processes of alchemy, which are steeped in cryptic protocols. Hephaistos, like THE HERMIT, seeks his illumination from within.
The secret impulse emerges as a vision which he holds to its manifestation in reality. It is a practical philosophy based on what works. His is one archetypal means of executing one's Will. Wisdom, prudence, and circumspection guide the will. He is fertile in his own particular way, which in its ultimate sense manifests as the fulfillment of THE GREAT WORK. He shares the alchemical world (the mysteries of life) and goals with Mercury, or Hermes. Prometheus stole fire from the gods -- the fire of technological or scientific knowledge. For this infraction he was chained to a mountain and his liver was pecked at for a seeming eternity.
The spiritual myth of Hephaestos in our society is the triumph of technology and modernization. But these are the most literal forms of its spiritual essence. In arcane lore, Hephaistos is the archetypal metallurgist or alchemist. Alchemy was the psycho-spiritual science which gave birth to modern chemistry. Alchemy arose among tradesmen who held guild secrets in common. Their silence and secrecy concerning their art showed their prudence, and harks back to the association of this archetype with Trump IX, THE HERMIT. Alchemy is concerned primarily with the work of refinement, on both the physical and spiritual level--in fact, both are synonymous.
The central problem in alchemy is expressed as the spiritual redemption of one's physical body. The practice of the art of alchemy centers on the spiritual redemption of matter and the body. Transforming lead to gold means that there is a process of refinement which applies to mankind as well as to the smelting of ores. Purifying and tempering the spirit is known as sublimatio. This indicates raising, ennobling, or channeling instinctual energies into creativity, both outer (art objects or artifacts) and inner (refining personality, soul-making). Physically, we are seeking to establish a relationship with our bodies and nature which creates optimal health or well-being.
Alchemy is known as the Great Work, because that which "works" is that which has the power to transform. Hephaistos sought to transform himself into an idealized spiritual being devoid of imperfections, much like his rather abstract "father," Zeus. Hephaistos seeks a personal immortality, either through his works or through his Great Work. His never-ending drive and energy comes from this internal motivating force. As an alchemist he conducts several of his experiments on himself, striving for a union of psyche and matter, or soul with substance. Alchemy strives for the experience of spiritual rebirth via the union of opposites, such as that represented by the marriage union of heavenly Aphrodite and earthy Hephaistos. Alchemy requires resurrection of the soul of body.
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