Apollo
The Apollonian is the principle of differentiation and individuation – not the form itself, but the dynamic process by which form is acquired. Through the Apollonian, a thing acquires its distinct and clear identity, the quality that makes the thing distinguishable from other things, and therefore also the relation of the thing to other things. Thus, Apollo orders and structures, and through him are given hierarchy, rule and rigid form. The Apollonian is the principle of reason, of structured thinking. We conceptualize and become consciously aware of things and their properties – we name things and establish the connections between them. Apollonian knowledge is rational, cold and distant, arrived to through an ordered thought process. Because it deals in abstract conceptualizations, Apollonian knowledge is oracular – it concerns itself with things that are not seen, of sight beyond sight, with abstractions such as the future. It allows us to foresee and predict. Apollo is the god that reveals – the sun sees all. Through Apollo, man is not cognitively limited by the senses nor by the current moment. At its worst, the Apollonian is static, tyrannical or illusory. Caught in empty concepts, the senses and the instincts are deceived and repressed by the rigid mind. Where the light of Apollo shines, all things are revealed – but every object casts a shadow, and the concept formed can never truly capture the nature of the thing but must omit some of its characteristics.
In art, the Apollonian appears as order, harmony, measure and restraint. Because it possesses these characteristics, Apollonian art tends towards displaying a great measure of technical skill and tends to portray luminous idealizations or images of perfection. Plastic arts such as sculpture and architecture are particularly suited towards expressing the Apollonian. In poetry, Apollo reveals himself in meter and prosody. In music, Apollo is present as harmony and melody. In contrast to the Dionysian, Apollonian art can be appreciated from a distance – it is something that can be calmly contemplated. In natural beauty, the Apollonian is seen in the daytime sky, when the sun shines in full force on a blue sky with little cloudiness. Examples of the Apollonian in culture include Michelangelo’s David, the music of Telemann and the philosophy of Aristotle.
The Apollonian expresses itself in the body as athleticism, health, youth, symmetry and definition. While natural bodybuilding follows Apollonian principles, excessive muscularity moves away from the strictly Apollonian and into the realm of the Herculean, which shares some of its nature with the Apollonian. Apollonian pleasure is measured and restrained. In sexuality, Apollo reveals himself as chastity and homoeroticism – the latter distinguishing itself from homosexuality by it being distant and perceptive rather than participatory.
In myth and religion, Apollo is seen as a slayer of monsters and a founder of cities, bringing order and civilization to what is wild and untamed. He leads the Muses and so inspires the arts. He is a protector of the young and rules over health and sickness. In Plato’s Symposium, a tale is told of how Apollo fashioned the form of the male and female body when Zeus cut apart the androgynous form of the primeval humans. He is the divider of summer and winter due to his yearly travels to Hyperborea. Most importantly, Apollo oversees the Pythia and is the source of prophetic visions. In the eyes of the Greeks themselves, Apollo was the most Greek of the gods.
Dionysus
The Dionysian is the principle of direct experience – not the unconscious or formless substratum itself, but the dynamic principle through which things emerge from or sink back into it. Dionysus deals with the unordered, unfiltered experience of moment-to-moment awareness unaided by conceptualization. Thus, we experience things fully and without illusion, but can never know or describe them. Conceptual boundaries are dissolved and our structured mental categories are fused into a burning, pulsating, quivering whole. This is the animal state, and through Dionysus man becomes like the satyr. This is not the continual state of man, but a temporary suspension of our rational faculties. Dionysus is the God That Comes, that enters us at his discretion and dissolves our individuality, uniting with us in ecstasy and enthusiasm. Dionysian wisdom is inspired, instinctual and inherent. The Dionysian releases that which is kept restrained – unconscious impulses are left to influence us and we become vehicles for wild forces. Social control and structure are broken down – the Dionysian is a destructive force, a force that breaks domestication and evokes in us the image-sensation of Man-As-Beast. At its best, the Dionysian releases us from illusory conceptions and into the raw, blood-rushing force of life. At its worst, it dissolves us and leaves us at the mercy of instinct and madness.
While the instinctual aspect of Dionysus may be chaotic and disorderly, it is important to understand that he represents an equally powerful source of wisdom. When reason fails us, we may still find guidance in instinct. When Apollo leaves Delphi for Hyperborea, Dionysus oversees the Pythia in his absence.
In art, the Dionysian is more subtle than the Apollonian, and not as easily found or studied. This is due to a fundamental difference in the workings of the Dionysian in contrast to the Apollonian. Where Apollo allows a distant contemplation of beauty from an almost disinterested perspective, the Dionysian requires the participation of the subject. One contemplates Apollo, but partakes of Dionysus. As such, it appears far less often in plastic arts, but more often in music, dancing and other transient forms of art, or indeed, in any other art form that depends for its effect on the emotional dynamism of the subject. As such, awe-inspiring experiences that come about through intoxication (such as through psychedelics) or through peak experiences are Dionysian in nature. Being a god of vegetation, Dionysus appears in nature as the Arcadian beauty of woodlands, pastoral landscapes and wild places.
The art form most intimately associated with Dionysus is, of course, drama – an art form that owes its conception in the West to the rites of Dionysus. The central function of drama is the evocation of powerful emotions – traditionally comedic or tragic, reflecting the dual nature of Dionysus. In this sense, the Dionysian appears through the thespian actions of the players and joins with the audience who, while observers, still share in the visceral dynamism on display. Here we see Dionysus in his role as the God That Comes – imbuing actor and audience alike with dramatic enthusiasm. It is of special note here that elements of tragedy, comedy and vulgarity are all expressions of Dionysus – a god both tragic and joyous. While not classically connected with the god, the genre of horror likewise expresses the Dionysian through one of the most primal and basic of emotions – fear.
In the physical body, the Dionysian appears as fertility, animality and effeminacy. This is not to be confused with emasculation or transsexualism – that belongs to Cybele or Ishtar. When the Dionysian is present in the male body, it appears as graceful or sensual. Pleasure in the Dionysian is ecstatic and intoxicating; pain is primordial and essential. In sexuality, the Dionysian lacks the restraint of the Apollonian, appearing as heterosexuality, lust, fornication and fertility. While the Apollonian reflects the physicality of the body through athleticism, harmony and symmetry, the Dionysian appears instead as vital life and the instinctual knowledge hidden within the body.
In myth and religion, Dionysus is the Twice-Born god who was born first of the mortal woman Semele, then torn to pieces and eaten by titans, before finally having his heart stitched into the thigh of Zeus from which he was born again. He was raised by nymphs and mentored by figures such as Chiron and Silenus. Among his followers are the wild maenads and drunken satyrs who accompany him on his ecstatic processions through the wilderness. Often, his divinity is questioned or denied, and he brings terrible punishments to those who do so. In some stories, he is captured or restrained, but he frees himself without effort. Finally, Dionysus features prominently in Greek mystery religion. He was the god most foreign to the Greeks.
Hermes
Finally, we come to Hermes, who represents the principle of dynamism and liminality itself, of transition and transformation. He is the god of boundaries and the crossing of boundaries, the state-between-states, of flowing and moving. Hermes goes where he pleases, ties the human realm to the divine, the upper to the lower, the mortal to the immortal, the conscious to the unconscious. Hermetic knowledge is interpretative and marked by shifting perspectives. The Hermetic can present itself as disorientation, uncertainty, excitement and expectation. At best, Hermes acts as guide between states, a fellow traveller on one’s path. At worst, he is fickle, deceptive and confusing.
The Hermetic is present in liminal states and places. Boundaries between civilization and wilderness, between celestial and chthonic, between night and day, life and death, during travel or rites of passage – there, Hermes will be. He is the space between where-one-was and where-one-will-be. As such, the Hermetic is deeply connected to space and time in ways that the Apollonian and Dionysian are not – Hermes can invoke familiarity, foreignness or nostalgia. It is also a subtle force, as it is present wherever there is ambiguity or uncertainty. If the Apollonian expresses itself aesthetically as idealized image and the Dionysian as direct participation, the Hermetic expresses itself as juxtaposition. Often, this occurs in the contrast between familiarity and strangeness. Thus, the Hermetic gives rise to the eerie and uncanny but also to complex forms of nostalgia such as saudade or hiraeth. As an artistic force or dynamic, the Hermetic features prominently in postmodern aesthetics, which is not to say that it can only present itself there.
Because the Hermetic is the principle of the in-between, it facilitates communication. Communication requires a message to pass several intermediary stages between conception, sending, receiving and decoding – a process which can see the message distorted either deliberately or by accident. Hermes is the inventor of language, but also the god of trickery and deceit. The Hermetic in language represents language itself as a communicative medium, not definitions and syntax (which are Apollonian) or connotation and meaning (which are Dionysian).
In the body, Hermes appears in the changes of the body throughout life. From the growth and development of the body in youth, to the passage into adolescence and adulthood, to the passing away at the end of one’s life, Hermes is present. The Hermetic is likewise present in the motion of the body, in its capacity for movement, expressing itself in running, athletics and similar forms of physical activity and competition.
Through the Hermetic, it becomes possible to facilitate movement between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The tools that Hermes provides us are the drawing and crossing of boundaries as well as interpretation through shifts in perspective. By crossing boundaries he makes them dissolve – this invites the chaos of Dionysus, which then acts as a liberating and vital force in what would otherwise be stale structure. By drawing boundaries where there were none before, Hermes invites the order and structure of Apollo within rigidly defined space, allowing it to be understood and mastered. By being able to move an object between the states through the drawing of boundaries, Hermes can allow things to pass between the conscious and the unconscious. Through this process, we may become aware of and defeat unconscious drives that may otherwise dominate and lead us astray. It can also be used to internalize ideals until they become instinctive and self-perpetuating.
Through the Hermetic processes of interpretation and perspective, we can shift between Apollonian and Dionysian states. Interpreting behaviors that we observe as being the result inner drives and motives, we may make them conscious. Likewise, by identifying with an ideal we may begin to internalize it. Pleasure may be taken to intoxicating excess or it may be restrained – power can be felt as structured and centered or as wild and primal – pain may be seen as imposed or primordial. By utilizing the Hermetic to move between states, we can use these to consciously shape ourselves, adding or removing parts, strengthening or weakening instincts, establishing and breaking habits and rules.
In myth and religion, Hermes appears principally as the divine messenger of the gods. He is a god of travellers and merchants, a patron of athletics and commerce and a psychopomp who brings the dead to the afterlife. He is a protector of youths and presides over the passage into young adulthood and the initiatory aspects of war and hunting. Together with Apollo, he is a patron of the gymnasia and is likewise a slayer of monsters. A trickster and thief, Hermes is responsible for many acts of cunning and daring among gods and mortals alike. He is the swiftest of the gods, wearing the winged sandals. He also carries the caduceus – the staff with the winged snakes – which he uses to put others to sleep, and through which he is known as the bringer of dreams.
Crafters of consciousness
As I alluded to in the beginning of this essay, my intention with this piece is to offer a take on the Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy which is useful for introspection and which presents the forces as unified rather than opposed.
As such, I take special interest in Apollo, Dionysus and Hermes as the gods who craft consciousness.
Conscious existence is a prime example of a turbulent and changeable thing which shifts between states while still maintaining unity. We see in it a representation of how the triad comes into being, and in the triad itself we see the pattern of consciousness.
Through the Dionysian, empty unawareness is filled with the direct, unfiltered experiences of primordial reality. Sensual and emotional impulses from inside and outside the body, instinctual drives and yearnings, the inner Will, unconscious forces from within our psyche – in short, the animal consciousness – is continually brought forward by the Dionysian. Simultaneously, the Apollonian continually structures and orders this raw experience into a conceptual world of thought, form and image. As these two are dynamic forces, continually coming into being within the space of empty unawareness, they coexist in a manifold of intermediate and mixed stages, and the Hermetic serves as the connecting force which brings the other two into a unified whole.
And so, I leave you with this image of conscious existence as the interplay of the triune forces of the Apollonian, Dionysian and Hermetic as I have described them. I make no claim to this being the best, or only, or even most practically (or theoretically) useful interpretation of consciousness. But I do believe it has some value, and some truth to it. What I give you is the image of conscious existence as a dynamic, ever-moving, flame-like dance between reason, instinct and perspective; order, chaos and transformation; rational, instinctual and interpretative; foresight, inspiration and transvaluation. It is an image of the human consciousness as a unified multiplicity, as power under tension – surging, straining and discharging – like lightning through the clouds.