The Fashioning of Angels
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THE FASHIONING OF ANGELS THE FASHIONING O F A N G E L S PARTNERSHIP AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE STEPHEN LARSEN AND ROBIN LARSEN Swedenborg Foundation Press West Chester, Pennsylvania ©2000 by Robin Larsen and Stephen Larsen All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher. Second printing, 2012 Library of congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Larsen, Robin. The fashioning of angels : partnership as spiritual practice / Robin Larsen, Stephen Larsen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index .ISBN 0-87785-390-8 1. Spiritual life. 2. Interpersonal relations—Religious aspects. 3. Man-woman relationships—Religious aspects. I. Larsen, Stephen. II. Title BL626.33. L37 2000 158.2-dc21 99-087311 Edited by Mary Lou Bertucci Cover design by Caroline Kline Interior design by Ox + Company, Haddonfield, New Jersey Set in Goudy by Sans Serif, Inc. Saline, Michigan Printed in the United States of America. Acknowledgments “Questions about Angels,” page xiv, from Questions About Angels by Billy Collins, ©1991. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. “Magic Words,” page 29, from Magic Words, copyright © 1968, 1967 by Edward Field. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc. “Come into Animal Presence,” page 37, by Denise Levertov, from Poems 1960–1967, copyright ©1961 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. “On the Other Side,” page 53, from The Collected Poems, 1931–1987 by Czeslaw Milosz and translated by Robert Haas. Copyright ©1988 by Czeslaw Milosz Royalties, Inc. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Excerpts from poetry of Ramprasad, pages 174 and 175, from Lex Hixon, Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment (Wheaton, Ill.: Quest Books, 1994). Reprinted by permission of the Theosophical Publishing House. Material from recordings of Joseph Campell’s lectures, used throughout chapter nine, courtesy of the Joseph Campell Foundation, San Anselmo, California (www.jcf.org). Swedenborg Foundation Press 320 North Church Street West Chester, PA 19380 www.swedenborg.com C O N T E N T S List of Illustrations ix Foreword by Jean Houston xi Introduction: Swedenborg’s Angels xv Part One ALL MY RELATIONS Introduction The Web of Life 3 c h a p t e r 1 The Great Dissociation 7 Dragonslaying 7 A Zulu Creation Myth 14 Angels and Aliens 17 Authority and Identity 19 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 22 c h a p t e r 2 The Soul of Human-Animal Relations 29 Healing Relations 29 Animals of the Soul 32 Animal Presence 36 Ambassadors of Nature 43 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 44 c h a p t e r 3 Divine Affinities and Antipathies 53 Comparative Angelology 54 Scriptural Angelology 59 Apocryphal Angelology 63 Eros and Psyche: A Divine Madness 69 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 74 Contents Part Two LITTLE PEOPLE, GHOSTS, AND DAEMONS Introduction The World of Little People 85 c h a p t e r 4 Ghosts and Little People 89 Little People’s Little People: Imaginary Companions 89 Death Among the Little People 91 Anima and Animus 95 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 102 c h a p t e r 5 Soul Mates 109 Mythic Soul Mates 109 Soul Mates on the Karmic Net 112 Soul Mates on the Internet 115 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 119 Interviews: Soul Mates in Action 122 Youth: Sarah and Jonathan 122 Maturity: Deborah and Carl 126 c h a p t e r 6 The Daemon Lover 133 The Daemongelic Root of the Soul Mate 134 Furskin: Surviving the Daemongelic 137 Tristan and Isolt and the Soul-Mate Theme 141 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 145 vi. Contents Part Three THE WILDNESS OF THE HEART Introduction The Wild Child 155 c h a p t e r 7 The Wild Child 159 Natural Wildness 159 The Shadowside of Wildness: Cruelty, Tyranny, and Perversion 164 Recovering Wildness: The Mythos 169 The Black Madonna 174 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 182 c h a p t e r 8 The Making of the Wasteland 193 Romancing the Chakras 193 The Gender Wars 200 The Origin of the Wasteland 205 The Wasteland Motif 208 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 212 c h a p t e r 9 The Redemption of the Wasteland 219 Spirituality and Creative Mythology 219 Parzival’s Journey 224 The First Failure of the Grail Task 231 Parzival and Gawain: Twin Initiations 235 The Golden Bough and the Underworld 245 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 256 c h a p t e r 10 Angelic Dialogues 263 Speaking Aquarian 263 Stephen and Robin in Dialogue 271 The Magic of Angel Making 279 The Magic of Commitment: Becky Bear and Eric Jackson 280 Creative Magic: Alex and Allyson Grey 285 Archetypal Magic: Ann Belford Ulanov and Barry Ulanov 291 The Magic of Ideas: Denise Breton and Christopher Largent 298 Synchronistic Magic: Ron Lavin and Penny Price 309 vii. Contents Epilogue 317 Experiential Exercises 321 Appendix 339 Notes 344 Bibliography 360 Index 367 viii. ILLUSTRATIONS Cover illustration: Edward Burne-Jones, The Days of Creation: The Sixth Day. Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop. Photo Credit: Rick Stafford. Image Copyright: ©President and Fellows of Har- vard College, Harvard University. Chapter 1: “Anima Mundi.” Alchemical image by M. Merian (from Robert Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi Historiam . , Oppenheim, 1610). Soul of the world connecting natural to divine through the terrestrial and celestial spheres. Chapter 2: The Lady of the Beasts. ©1995 by Hrana Janto. Reproduced by permission of artist. The paleolithic mother of “all our relations.” Chapter 3: Psyche and her sisters. Jean de Bosschère, 1923 (Apuleius, Golden Ass, William Adlington trans. (16c), London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, Ltd., 1923. From the col- lection of Robin and Stephen Larsen. Chapter 4: The Nixie of the Millpond. H. F. Ford, 1894 (Andrew Lang, The Yellow Fairy Book [New York: Dover, 1894, 1966]). The anima often appears as a numinous sprite or nixie; her imagery includes seduction and allurement, but she connects us with the watery abyss of the psyche. Chapter 5: Vision of the Empyrean. (Paul) Gustave Doré (illustration for Dante’s Divine Comedy, Paradiso, 1861). Dante and Beatrice behold the celestial mandala of union. Chapter 6: Deliver Us from Evil. John Flaxman, relief plaque. Property of Glencairn Mu- seum, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. Photo credit: Robin Larsen. Angelodaemonic and daemongelic energies struggle for the soul. ix. THE FASHIONING OF ANGELS Chapter 7: Lha-Mo, fierce black goddess of Tibet. Photo credit: Robin Larsen. In Mani Rimdu, Sherpa Buddhist masked dance (Cham) performed by lhamas at Thami Monastery, Solo Khumbu, Nepal, May 1976. Across a spectrum of world religions, “demonic” figures are often transmuted into defenders of the faith, like these “Eight Terrible Ones.” Chapter 8: Knights in combat. Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, 1903. Knights meet in combat, while Merlin, the Wisdom Principle, looks on. Chapter 9: Sir Gawain meets another beautiful lady. Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, 1903. Chapter 10: Kissing.©1983 by Alex Gray. Reprinted by permission of artist. Epilogue: Shiva Ardhanari. Shiva and Parvati in divine union. Shrine in sculpted relief, Elephanta Cave Temple, Bombay harbor, India. Photo by Stephen and Robin Larsen, 1976. Appendix: Portal: Alembic I. Personal shrine. Assemblage, Robin Larsen, 1984. x. FOREWORD Jean Houston In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes, the most comic of the participants, tells the most tragic of tales. He says that human beings originally consisted of two per- sons in one body, with two heads and four arms and legs. These beings were shaped like a ball, and, in their completeness and satis- faction, they rolled along in ecstasy, ready and able to do almost anything. The Ti- tans, fearful of the enormous power available to these extraordinary double beings, forced Zeus to split them in half, thus diminishing both their powers and their hap- piness. It is said that we spend our lives yearning to find our other half. This tragic-comic tale shows the twinned but divided self to be a major source of the sorrow and the yearning that haunts the human condition. The yearn- ing, however, is also the impetus that drives us in our journey toward wholeness. In this profound and original book, Stephen and Robin Larsen describe a new natural philosophy based on loving partnership as the creative force of evolu- tion. Their own marriage of over thirty-five years has been exemplary of the hope that is held in Plato’s allegory: two souls who have rediscovered each other and, through hard work, much searching, and rich intimacy, have created enterprises of mind and spirit as potent as they are therapeutic. Together, they have taken depth soundings of culture and consciousness, established a center for symbolic studies, written books, created art works, treated patients, taught college, traveled widely, and mentored many. They have not bored God! In fact, they have done what Swedenborg said was possible: the fashioning of an angel out of two lovers in con- sonance. And this particular Angel, Robin-Stephen, pours forth intellectual and spiritual matter that expands the horizon of the possible as it extends the boundary of the heart. In their intense conversations, we see that these are beloveds who have struck gold in each other’s soul. With their great friend Joseph Campbell as cata- lyst and Emanuel Swedenborg as principal guide, Carl Jung as provocateur and Rainer Maria Rilke as poetic muse, they explore the vast terrain of partnership, xi.