Myths of the Fall & Return
- the fall of lucifer and the emerald from his diadem - Parsifal grail myth and in ancient judeo-christian legends
- the fall of sophia - gnosticism
- the separation of the Son from the Father - as taught in a course in miracles
- the shattering of the vessels - kabbalah
- the fall of adam and eve by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge - hebrew/jewish and ancient mesopotamian myth
- the alchemical prima materia that is buried in the earth and through VITRIOL must be extracted and perfected to result in the crowning of the king
- The king drinks a potion of forgetfulness and becomes or dreams that they are a peasant. They believe and therefore perceive that they are a poor orphaned peasant. They must go on a long journey of awakening and remembering(or anamnesis) to recover and restore their lost divine, royal nature, heritage, and station. At the end they have gone through the entire journey and recovered everything, but now they are much wiser and more experienced and humble and conscious. Now he has mastered and integrated all aspects of life and his soul and is truly a total sovereign master and monarch.
- The Descent of Inanna: The goddess descends through seven gates, is stripped, judged, killed, hung, and then restored. This is an early formulation of the descent-as-initiation pattern. The stripping at each gate parallels the progressive removal of false identity.
- Osiris and the Dismemberment Myth: Osiris is killed and dismembered; Isis recovers the pieces; resurrection occurs. Alchemy explicitly models its Solve–Coagula cycle on this sequence: fragmentation, recomposition, reconstitution, coronation.
- Dionysus Zagreus and the Titans: Dionysus is torn apart by the Titans; the fragments produce humanity; the heart is recovered and resurrection occurs. An account of the fall of the soul into matter, the scattering of the divine spark, and the need for re-collecting.
- The Neoplatonic Doctrine of the Soul’s Descent: Plotinus and Proclus present the soul as emanating from the One, descending into matter, forgetting its origin, and returning by recollection (anamnesis).
All essentially saying that the human soul/being has fallen from heaven/perfection and gotten stuck in/on the earth - but that through the alchemical/spiritual path one can heal the separation, find the light, reverse the fall, perfect the stone and therefore return back to heaven/divinity/perfection.
This is really what the whole story is all about. The key insight is a gnostic one, that this world isn't really real, that we are a sleeping and dreaming fallen angel, that the whole point of this game is to awaken and return to Reality, back to our rightful place as God's beloved Son....
The Archetypal Pattern:
- A luminous, divine, or integrated state.
- An act of separation, pride, error, or rebellion.
- A descent, exile, forgetfulness, or fragmentation.
- A world that is experienced as diminished, unreal, or distorted.
- A path of purification, obedience, discipline, suffering, or initiation.
- A helper or guide (angel, wizard, Sophia, Hermes, Holy Spirit).
- A decisive ordeal involving death, dissolution, or confrontation with shadow.
- A recovery of the lost essence (stone, heart, name, identity, light).
- A return, resurrection, reintegration, or enthronement.
- A transformation of the protagonist into a higher, wiser, perfected form.
- A restoration of cosmic order.
- Ascension/Translation up into the Heavenly Kingdom
- A primordial Being of light exists in unity with the Creator
- Through a mistaken thought, act of pride, or desire for separateness, the Being falls or is exiled into division, darkness….
- The fall results in fragmentation, forgetfulness, and embodiment in a world that is not truly real.
- This world is experienced as exile, limitation, or darkness.
- The Being begins a long journey of remembering, purification, and initiation.
- The path involves confronting shadow, integrating opposites, and recovering lost light.
- Through guidance, ordeal, and inner work, the Being recovers knowledge of origin and identity.
- The lost essence (stone, spark, name, emerald, sophic light) is restored. Ultimately the work is completed within.
- The Being returns to unity, not as the naive innocence of the beginning, but as conscious mastery. He becomes a messenger, a teacher, a guide, an example….
- The return of the Being heals the cosmos itself, because the microcosm and macrocosm are mirrors.
- ….
- The Christed being completes the total atonement and returns to the Real World
Lucifer’s Fall - the metaphysical origin of the exile: the movement from unity to separation, from Sonship to the ego-constructed self-identity.
Sophia’s Fall - the cosmic fragmentation: the emanation that exceeds its proper limit and becomes entrapped in its own projection.
The Shattering of the Vessels - the structural condition of the fallen world: consciousness scattered, sparks buried, matter as a container of trapped light.
The Fall of Adam - the psychological interiorization: the human mind choosing separation, knowledge without wisdom, and entering fear-based perception.
A Course in Miracles - the experiential reality: the entire world as the dream of separation, the Son as mistaken about his identity, the healing as undoing.
Alchemy (VITRIOL) - the method of restoration: going inward, descending into the prima materia of the psyche, dissolving impurities, and producing the Stone.
The Forgotten Prince / Orphaned Prince - the personal narrative form: a being of royal origin who has forgotten himself and undergoes initiatory ordeals to regain his throne.
These myths are different facets on the same diamond. Different perspectives of the same multi-dimensional metaphysical story