Now that we have built up a broader understanding of the Logos, Adam and Eve, the serpent, Lucifer, and Satan in part one and two of this series, we can begin diving into the mythology of Prometheus. I want to begin by discussing some correlations of Prometheus with Genesis chapter one. In my opinion, the reason why many scholars dismiss the universal dimension in most myths and spiritual allegories is because they lack an understanding of metaphysics.
I want to preface the information below with an idea for you to ruminate upon:
Could it be that the entire purpose for individual existence is to make that which is potential into the actual? To make that which is abstract on the higher planes, concrete through the lower planes? What if our earthly existence, with its complex aggregation of sensation, emotion, and mentality, is for the soul purpose of building a spiritual temple, which at first is an abstract reality (on the higher planes of consciousness), but made concrete (on the higher planes) through the fruits of lower experience? The Apostle Paul did say, “First in the natural, and then in the spiritual.” In this way Jacob’s ladder is descended and then ascended, and the ultimate mystery of Christ and the Church demystified. Let us now jump into the details of our study on Prometheus. I apologize in advance for the repetition of scripture and statements from earlier parts of the series, but repetition can be the best teacher 🙂
Parental Origin of Prometheus
“In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
Esoterically, heaven and earth are universal symbols for spirit and matter, or positive energy and lifeless (motionless) form. In the beginning, this earth (matter / form), was void and empty, but as the spirit hovers over it (symbolizing impregnation), the union symbolically births motion, or the Son.
“And Elohim said, let there be light” (Genesis 1:3).
This metaphysical Son, the primordial light, becomes time and motion.
“In Him we move, live, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
“In Him was life; and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4).
This light is the Son of Heaven and Earth, or the interplay of spirit and matter, thought and form. It is not natural light, although natural light is simply a physical reflection of it. This “light” is primordial consciousness, which spiritually evolves, eventually (and especially after the fall when man’s eyes “are opened”), as intelligence and the faint beginnings of freewill through mankind. This will be important to understand as it relates to Prometheus later, the bringer of divine fire from Heaven, just as Satan was kicked out of Heaven as lightning!
The important thing to note here is that the symbolic parents of this primordial light (heaven and earth / manifestation of the Logos), is the interplay between spirit and matter, and is stated in most ancient cosmogonies such as Genesis and the Prometheus myth.
Does Prometheus have the same progenitors? Yes! The very same “heaven” and “earth.” Prometheus was a Titan. The Titans were born from Uranus (Heaven), and Gaea (Earth). I don’t think the name Gaea needs any explanation. However, Uranus, sometimes Ouranus, was the primal Greek God of the sky, or Heaven. It can be argued etymologically that we can trace Uranus to mean, “the one standing on high,” and points to spirit, or divine thought.
(Side note: for serious students, yes, I understand that Prometheus, in Hesiod’s account, is the son of the Titan Lapetus, and is therefore really a grandson of Uranus, but we don’t have time to discuss how this is really just a variation of the Christian equivalent of Archangels, or the different emanations of divine thought as the Logos further differentiated itself into matter).
So Prometheus, the son of a Titan, is the symbolic son of Heaven and Earth, just as the primordial light is the symbolic Son of heaven and earth in Genesis.
The gospel of John restates this exact same principle in the Greek language, as the Logos.
“…this light was the life (movement, thought, intelligence) of men.”
So the philosophical parent of light then is the union of spirit and matter. What does this have to do with Prometheus and the Biblical correlate?
In the most popularized versions of the Prometheus myth, Prometheus is actually the creator of man. But this must be understood correctly. It is not that Prometheus is the creator of mankind in the traditional sense, but rather that he comes down from above to give the divine fire, the immortal thinking principle to the animal body, therefore birthing the individualized principle, or the immortal thinker, in man. The divine fire he brings down is the spark of that life of the soul, which, although is divine wisdom itself, is expressed through the lower nature as intellect and reason.
How can we further correlate parallels to Genesis?
In the Prometheus myth Zeus punished Prometheus the same way God punishes Adam and Eve for listening to the serpent, which opened their eyes by way of reason and intelligence through the lower nature of the flesh. Prometheus is punished by being chained to a rock. This rock symbolizes the body of flesh, which Prometheus becomes chained to by an iron (dual mental nature) chain. The same concept is in Genesis when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden with their newly made “coats of skin.” They are not chained to a rock, but the idea is the same, for:
“…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (Gen 3: 17).
The idea is the man now has to eek his way through life in suffering and sorrow. The ground symbolizes the lower nature here, or the body, the coat of skin, with its physical nature, its passions, desires, and appetites for things of the flesh, which brings on that suffering.
These allegories are explaining, in spiritual terms, that the primordial light becomes encased / trapped in the body or in matter for a time, until the primordial light rises within the soul.
The Zohar states: “The soul and form when descending on Earth put on an earthly garment.” Prometheus’ being chained to a rock (matter, the body) represents this, as well as Adam and Eve being given a physical body and kicked out of Eden.
This primordial light then is truly the spark of self consciousness, which becomes more self conscious as it has a body to become cognitized through. Jesus stated the Father (the passive first Logos) is greater than I. In other words, Jesus is telling us that the “I,” that we feel as separate, is subservient to the impersonal Self, which is a unity. However, the great secret that the church has utterly failed to understand, is this: you don’t save the personal “I,” by a belief system, you transform the personal “I” into a unity, the true “church,” or the body that is being built up. Jesus shows us the way by his unwavering commitment of selflessness. He who loves his brethren Loves God.
Spirit manifests as consciousness IN matter. We can say then, metaphysically, that consciousness is that universal symbol of light made manifest by the interplay of what we call spirit and matter, heaven and earth, the father emanating as the son (the son being the face of God, or the expression of the unmanifested). It is the potential to become actual, the darkness (where God dwells) becomes the light, for the sole purpose of illuminating itself. Darkness (the fullness) illuminates itself, gradually, through cosmic and self conscious evolution. The all becomes limited, and the limited rejoins the all, but with the addition of the experience of limitation and self consciousness.
The other great mystery that I believe religion has properly failed to convey is that one only finds his true Self by taking his focus away from his transient personality, and by aspiring upwards to that which is responsible for the transient (or journeying) personality. The I Am conscious spark RETAINS its individuality, not as the limited personal self, but now as a unity, the greater SELF.
Through the first Adam, the primordial light expresses itself as earthy, or in it’s lower nature through the flesh, but becomes the second Adam, or the risen Christ, as the flesh is symbolically crucified. It is the same idea as this: the original serpent brings knowledge (tree of knowledge of good and evil), and therefore the process of birth and death, or the logos in its lower form in the tomb of a body, but Moses must raise the serpent on a pole (the cross), and then intelligence is lifted up and within the higher mind manifests as wisdom, which brings healing to the entire individual.
Prometheus: the Development of Mankind
Prometheus also brought man culture, art, and the making of metals with that divine fire. Metals in scripture symbolize different aspects of the logos manifesting different aspects of the mind. Iron for example represents mental thought. We have the same idea repeated in Genesis with Tubal Cain, which as the offspring of Cain’s line, who was the first man to be a worker of metals! This symbolizes the awakenment of the mental nature through thought and reason in its lower aspect. Iron signifies the mental nature expressed through the lower aspect of the dual soul, as Cain, the lower nature within us all, killed the spiritual Abel.
Prometheus and Reincarnation
Now let us see how some of the finer details of the Prometheus story reveal this process.
As part of his punishment for helping mankind, and while he is chained to a rock (the same punishment Adam and Eve received by becoming beings of flesh outside of Eden / Heaven / the higher mental plane), an eagle comes down everyday which eats Prometheus’ liver. The liver then regenerates every night and the eagle comes to eat it again, over and over, as long as Prometheus remains chained to the rock, or the body of matter. Isn’t it interesting that in esoteric philosophy the liver represents the lower nature, and that it is the only organ which can regenerate itself when it is taken care of and cleansed?!
And what does this all signify? Reincarnation over and over in a body until Christ rises within.
In Revelations we have Jesus Christ whose vesture (outer garment) is dipped in blood. This simply means that he took on life in the flesh and overcame. The fruits of his labor through obedience to the Father allowed his spiritual temple to be built on the higher planes, through the efforts of the personality which was involved in the body of flesh, symbolized by the vesture (his outer garment) dipped into blood. Remember, the Torah tells us that the “life is in the blood.” In other words, the fruits of our labor through the trials and tribulations on earth, as sojourners in the wilderness, yield up life on the higher planes when that life is well lived.
More Detail on the Eagle and Prometheus’ Liver
What is the real meaning of an Eagle eating Prometheus’ liver?
Gaskell states this about the Eagle:
“A symbol of the Holy Spirit, which flies, as it were, through the mind (air) from the higher nature (heaven) to the lower nature (earth) and soars aloft to the Self (sun).”
Why would the Holy Spirit eat the liver of Prometheus? To answer this, let’s look at our definition for Liver, also from Gaskell:
“A symbol of the lower nature (flesh), or the lower qualities of the personality.”
In these two definitions we can easily derive our answer. The Holy Spirit is the higher mind, which operates above the mental plane, above the powers of reasoning and intellect. The eagle then, or higher mind, comes down to devour (digest, eat of, take in) of the experiences of life (symbolized by the liver) over and over (reincarnation). The lower mind which disciplines the body, sensations, and emotions, intellectual activities, etc., to higher and noble causes, during its early sojourn or pilgrimage in each incarnation, “gives up” to the higher mind it’s experience, which is in turn transmitted, or transmuted, by the higher mind into concrete self consciousness on the higher planes of conscious expression. When life’s experiences on this physical plane are more concerned with the transient personality, and are a slave to the body, passions, emotions, and even lower intellect, the eagle, or higher mind receives nothing. The eagle then comes back everyday after every night (death and rebirth) to take back unto itself what it can. A wasted physical life caught up in the seven deadly sins does nothing for the higher mind, or eagle, which flies back to the sun (higher self). But a positive life, filled with love, the seeking of wisdom, and things which are good always has something to “yield up” to the higher mind after each life. In such a case, the spiritual temple is being built through each life on the higher planes, until, one day, the resurrection of the Christ (which was dead) happens within the body of flesh, and the higher mind can manifest its potential on the higher planes of consciousness.
And hopefully now you understand my paragraph way back at the beginning of this post 🙂
Prometheus gets Delivered
Now who is Prometheus? Prometheus symbolizes our true individuality, which is seated in the higher mind as a potential at first. Prometheus cannot be delivered from his chain to the rock or body until something happens allowing him to be free in Heaven again. The true individuality, the thinker, cannot be raised to Heaven, until it gains the proper fruits of experience. Although it furthers its self conscious expression from these fruits of experience, it needs to gain a certain level of awareness. This is the true reason why Plato attributed the meaning to the name of Prometheus as “forethought.” Pro (before) + manthano (intelligence) + eus (suffix) = forethought. The forethought, or divine mind (Logos), manifested itself on the lower planes to be raised to the higher. And herein lies the meaning again to this scripture:
“And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13).
Jesus likened it to Moses who had to raise the serpent. Jesus stated that he must be raised in the same way. In other words, the serpent (desire mind) must be raised from its attachment to the personality through it’s desire towards gratifying the flesh, where it first recognized itself as a self-conscious entity. But it must be transformed, renewed, regenerated. In the Prometheus story, Prometheus is delivered by Hercules. Hercules symbolizes the pain and troubles of life which eventually uplift Prometheus back to his proper place. Interestingly, Zeus gives his blessing to Hercules to deliver Prometheus, even though he originally punishes him for it! Sometimes a picture represents a thousand words. Below is a picture of a bust of Heracles, that symbol of man’s strength who overcomes, taking hold of the serpent…
We don’t have time in this post to explore Hercules, the son of the Father (Zues) and his earthly mother (like Mary), but perhaps you can connect the dots here at least to the serpent of Genesis with more of the information presented so below.
Hesiod, the Greek poet who first speaks of Prometheus in the Theogony, stated that the outer man was the bond by which Zeus bound Prometheus.
Now we have to link this thought with the serpent of Genesis. The serpent gave man the gift of self consciousness. We know this because man’s eyes were opened, and he recognized himself as an identity.
This is scriptural proof that the LOGOS is the divine spark, or originator, of consciousness in men. In fact, as the scripture makes clear, not anything that was made (manifested) doesn’t contain this light. Everything was made by the LOGOS. We can conclude then that consciousness manifests in different grades through the complexity of which spirit unfolds as it impregnates matter.
We should also make an important note that the Church Father Augustine stated that God is the “Father of lights.”
So what does this have to do with the mythological story of Prometheus?
Prometheus was known as a trickster with high intelligence. He feels sorry for mankind and decides to steal fire from the Gods and bring it to Earth and give it to humanity to aid them in their evolutionary journey. But this fire is the fire of the Gods, stolen from their workshop. Men can now use this fire to produce metals. It must be remembered that this is a divine fire belonging only to the Gods, where apparently they had their own workshop to produce their own metals.
This should bring remembrance to the scripture, “Man has now become like one of us…”
What do Gods have for the use of a workshop to produce metals in? Are we talking about literal fire and metals?
No.
Metals are symbols for thought and the vehicle of thought. I apologize for repeating many concepts, statements, and scriptures in this series, but sometimes repetition is the best teacher 🙂
So why does Prometheus give this divine fire to mankind? What’s it really mean? It simply means that Prometheus is an allegory of the bringer of light, or intelligence and reason to mankind. He symbolically represents the LOGOS, just as Christ. Mankind can then produce the metals that they need with this divine fire, or conscious development from intelligence, to understanding, to wisdom (expressed in its highest form as universal love or ONENESS).
The Serpent, the Bringer of Knowledge to Adam and Eve
Consider the fact that the serpent, like Prometheus, is considered a trickster because of its cunning and wit. Another translation for the serpent being “more subtle” than any beast of the field is that it is more cunning than any beast of the field. But the fact is that the serpent brings knowledge to mankind. The Bible clearly states that the “eyes” (the lower nature in all its aspects) of Adam and Eve were “opened.” This means that mankind now developed a new faculty of the mind; mankind now knew the difference between good and evil, or he and she had the choice to choose between two opposing forces within his and her experience. For the first time in scripture, mankind has now become “as one of us,” or as an Elohim, meaning, mankind now had the ability of conscious choice, or the additional faculty of reasoning through the intellect.
The reason this new faculty brings spiritual death is because the mind no longer dwells on a plane of unity beyond the physical world, but now in the physical world (God clothed them with coats of skin, i.e., “flesh”), the mind is divided between thought and emotion, which is the war continually played out in the flesh which leads to corruption, or death. In other words, man, as a physical being, now has an intellect which provides for his or her survival in a world of opposites, or duality. The body dies because it is subject to reaping and sowing, karma. Thus the Eagle continually eats the liver of Prometheus, looking for the fruits of experience which it can take unto itself to further its spiritual temple on the higher planes as it metaphorically flies back to the sun (higher self).
The intelligence principle itself then leads to death, even though it is an additional faculty necessary to mankind’s development. So yes, the Serpent brings death, but also an illumination within the physical form. This illumination is thus: that mankind has developed the intellect to realize that there is a higher spiritual counterpart to his lower nature, which is the divine fire inside that needs to be set free from the physical body. This realization is first produced through the law (Moses and moral nature), but not complete, until the Christ, which not only fulfills the law completely, but supercedes it!
Back to our Riddle in Part One of this Series
I didn’t forget the riddle I posed to you back in the first post.
Can God create a rock that is even too heavy for he, himself, to lift?
The question itself is illogical, and the nature of the universe is always logical. There is a hint of this in the original meaning of the Logos. The question assumes that there is a personal God who creates things which exists in the limited world of duality. This is not the reality of things, just as sure as you can’t have a scientific theory that unifies all that we have thus learned about science from a material origin.
The unfolding power of the Logos develops through evolution in the world of duality or being. In theory, God emanates the idea of a rock that he cannot lift, then emanates the idea of something else that can. The real answer to this question then deals with the concept of unfolding potential into actuality through time (kronos). To pose the question at the beginning of this series as I did presents a fallacy in the concept of instantaneous manifestation. To come into being, something must go from infinite potentiality to limited manifestation, and back up again. When man first came about it could be said that it would be impossible for him to fly. But man then created a way through something other than himself to fly in, and therefore it can be said that he flies.
I know, I know. Such thinking presents many problems and possible scenarios. And that’s my point. The self-conscious higher mind must be built up as a spiritual temple 🙂
So what is the meaning then of Prometheus as the throne of the higher mind? Prometheus ultimately symbolizes the causal body, which is the seat of the higher mind on the upper mental plane. It is an abstract potential. It must be built up through the fruits of experience, some of that through suffering, on the lower planes of existence (think of the experiences of Job). The higher mind has to have a way of cognitizing or realizing itself through the lower vehicles. But it only takes in that which is true, noble, and that which we call godly. Those experiences, which we have the choice to consciously engage in, is what builds the spiritual temple above (Ezekiel’s Temple, the future temple). Those experiences engaged in the opposite (the seven deadly sins), are essentially a wasted life, which cannot add to the higher mind because they remain energetically connected to the lower self, which is only but a transitory expression of consciousness itself. It must die, as all physical life does. The physical body at death does not disappear, but is recycled into other elements which then use that energy again for life. This is scientific! Why not then metaphysical? Reincarnation, for example? But any aspirations of the physical life that retain an energetic signature in higher form, must remain. This is the secret to what the ancients considered, “immortality.” It is not the idea that one’s physical body attains immortality, but that one’s mind and self consciousness does, while IN the body. And this is the meaning of that Gnostic scripture of the Gospel of Thomas which states:
“If they do not receive the resurrection while they yet live, when they die they will receive nothing.”
The modern Christian teachings actually teach the opposite, which states that if you believe the right thing, when you die, you will receive the resurrection. Wow. How backwards has this understanding become!
And the epistle of John corroborates this when it states that he who believes Jesus did not come in the FLESH is Antichrist. Meaning, that the Christ nature must be developed in the flesh! The life and story of Jesus is a metaphor for our life. “Greater is He that is IN you that is in the world.” The world signifying, the serpent nature of desire, that is cursed to the ground.
Blessings!
