THE ESOTERISM OF DANTE
tinue the same symbolism. It is at the end of the second phase, that is to say while still in the Terrestrial Paradise, that we find the greatest abundance of animal symbols: it is necessary first to travel across the three kingdoms, which represent the various modalities of existence in our world, before passing on to other states, where conditions are quite different. [86]
We must still consider the points at the opposite extremities of the axis passing through the earth, namely Jerusalem and the Terrestrial Paradise. These are the vertical projections, as it were, of the two points marking the beginning and the end of the chronological cycle, which in the preceding diagram corresponded to the extremities of the horizontal diameter. If we let these latter represent opposition according to time, and those of the vertical diameter represent opposition according to space, we have then an expression of the complementary roles of these two principles, whose action is translated, in our world, as the two conditions, time and space. The vertical projection could be regarded as a projection into the 'intemporal', if we are permitted to use this expression, seeing that it is accomplished along the axis whence all things are envisaged in permanent, not transitory, mode; the passing from the horizontal to the vertical diameter therefore really represents a transmutation of succession into simultaneity.
But, one will ask, what is the relationship between the two points in question and the extremities of the chronological cycle? For one of them, the Terrestrial Paradise, this relationship is obvious; indeed, it really corresponds to the beginning
of the cycle. But, for the other, it must be noted that the Terrestrial Jerusalem is taken as the prefiguration of the Celestial Jerusalem described in the Apocalypse; symbolically, moreover, it is also in Jerusalem that one situates the place of the resurrection and judgement that end the cycle. The antipodal positions of these two points take on a new significance if we observe that the Celestial Jerusalem represents the very reconstitution of the Terrestrial Paradise, according to an analogy applied in an inverse sense. [87] At the 'beginning of time'-that is to say, of the present cycle-the Terrestrial Paradise was rendered inaccessible following the fall of man; the New Jerusalem must 'descend from Heaven to Earth' at the end of this same cycle to mark the reëstablishment of all things in their primordial order; and one can say that it will play the same role for the future cycle that the Terrestrial Paradise does for the present one. In fact, the end of a cycle is analogous to its beginning, and coincides with the commencement of the following cycle. What was only virtual at the start of the cycle is realized effectively at its end, and immediately engenders the potentialities that will develop in their turn in the course of the future cycle; however this is a matter on which we cannot dwell further without getting away completely from our subject. [88] We add only, for the sake of indicating yet another aspect of the same symbolism, that the center to which we
alluded above is referred to in the Hindu tradition as the 'City of Brahma' (in Sanskrit Brakmapura), and that several texts speak of it in terms almost identical to those we find in the apocalyptic description of the Celestial Jerusalem. [89] Returning finally to what more directly concerns Dante's journey, it is relevant to note that, if the crossing of the terrestrial world ends at the beginning point of the cycle, this alludes explicitly to the 'return to origins' that holds so important a place in all traditional doctrines, and on which, rather remarkably, Islamic esoterism and Taoism in particular insist. It is a question again of the restoration of the 'Edenic State', of which we have already spoken, and which must be regarded as a precondition for the conquest of the superior states of the being.
The point equidistant between the two extremities about which we have just been speaking-that is to say the center of the earth-is, as we have already pointed out, the lowest point; and it also corresponds to the middle of the cosmic cycle when this cycle is envisaged chronologically, or under the aspect of succession. We can in fact divide the whole into two phases: the one descending, proceeding in the direction of ever more
accentuated differentiation; the other ascending, returning toward the principial state. These two phases, which the Hindu doctrine compares to respiration, are to be found likewise in Hermetic doctrine, where they are called 'coagulation' and 'solution': by virtue of the laws of analogy, the 'Great Work' reproduces in abbreviated form the whole cosmic cycle. Here we can see the respective predominance of the opposing tendencies tamas and sattwa, which we have already defined: the first is manifested in all forces of contraction and condensation; the second in all expansion and dilation. In this regard we have again a correspondence between the opposite properties of heat and cold: the first dilating bodies, while the second contracts them; and this is why the last circle of Hell is frozen. Lucifer symbolizes 'the inverse attraction of nature', that is to say the tendency towards individualisation, with all the limitations inherent in it. His abode is therefore "il punto al qual si traggon d'ogni parte i pesi" [90], or, in other words, the center of the attractive and compressive forces represented by gravity in the terrestrial world; and the latter, which attracts bodies downward (that is, toward the center of the earth), is really a manifestation of tamas. We note in passing that this is contrary to the geological hypothesis of the 'central fire', for the lowest point must be exactly that where density and solidity are at their maximum. On the other hand, it is no less contrary to the hypothesis, envisaged by some astronomers, of an 'end of the world' by freezing, seeing that such an end can only be a return to indifferentiation. Besides, the last hypothesis is in contradiction to all traditional conceptions: it was not only for Heraclitus and the Stoics that the destruction of the world must coincide with its conflagration; the same affirmation is
found almost everywhere, from the Puranas of India to the Apocalypse; and we must note again the agreement of these traditions with the Hermetic doctrine, for which fire (being that part of the elements in which sattwa predominates) is the agent of the 'renewal of nature' or of the 'final restoration'.
The center of the earth therefore represents the extreme point of manifestation in the state of existence under consideration; it is a true pivot point, from which a change of direction occurs-the preponderance passing from the one to the other of the contrary tendencies. This is why an ascension or return toward the principle follows immediately upon a descent to the bottom of Hell; and the passage from the one to the other hemisphere is accomplished by going around the body of Lucifer, in a way that leads us to think that this central point is not without certain correspondences to the Masonic mysteries of the 'Middle Chamber', where it is also a question of death and resurrection. Here again we find symbolic expressions of the two complementary phases that, in initiation or in the Hermetic 'Great Work' (which are essentially one and the same thing), express the same universally applicable cyclical laws upon which, for us, rests the whole construction of Dante's poem.