The Secret Tradition of the Soul by Patrick Harpur

Author:Patrick Harpur [Harpur, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-58394-345-8
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2011-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

The Vision of the Beloved

Whereas the vision of Nature seems to be available to everyone in all cultures, there is another kind of mystical experience that seems to be distinctive to Western culture. It might be called the vision of the Beloved. The English language is disadvantaged here because our word “love” has to stand for at least four distinct kinds of love, for which the Greek words are epithymia, which is, roughly speaking, synonymous with lust; philia, which is the mutual love of friends or family; eros, which is sexual love; and agape, which in ancient Greece signified a “love feast” or community of love, but which Christians adopted to indicate love between members of the Church and, notably, the pure love of God. So the vision of the Beloved might more accurately be called the vision of Eros.8

If the vision of Nature is the mystical experience of the multiple, nonhuman, impersonal Soul of the World, the vision of Eros is the mystical experience of a single, human person, like the very image of one’s individual soul. It can happen instantly—love at first sight—and its characteristic features are an experience of awe: the Beloved you revere is above you, and barely notices you, if at all. There is sexual desire, but not lust, in which, by definition, the Beloved is made an object and is therefore inferior.

This vision of love seems to have arisen among the medieval troubadours, who sang of a “courtly love” in which knights chastely adored and obeyed their ladies, who were placed on pedestals and worshipped from afar. Indeed, the beloved lady might not even know that she had a knightly lover, secretly performing noble deeds he dedicated to her. This kind of love later became the template for our modern idea of “romantic” love, which we believe transforms the lover’s character for the better. We also believe that it is available to everyone, almost that we all have a right to fall deeply in love, even though it is in fact a comparatively rare experience. Nevertheless its afterimage, so to speak, persists today for everyone who is tortured by unrequited love for some remote Beauty, from an unattainable movie star or pop icon, to an older boy or girl at school. Like courtly love there is no question of philia—love based on friendship, companionship, shared interests, and so on—which, mixed with eros, seems to give the best chance of a happy marriage.

In addition, our modern emphasis on falling in love is an experience unknown to tribal people and to Western culture before the medieval period. In other words, it is culturally determined, more the effect of the cult of courtly love than its cause. The most famous example is that of Dante. He sees Beatrice on the streets of Florence and is instantly smitten. A voice says, “Now you have seen your beatitude.”9 Her beauty is not like Plato’s idea of it, as if there were some objective and impersonal standard of beauty. On the contrary, Beatrice may or may not have been more or less beautiful than other girls.

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