Extra-Terrestrial Journeys in Different Traditions
One question that seems to have greatly preoccupied most of Dante's commentators is that of the sources to which it is fitting to link his conception of the descent into Hell; and this is also one of the points that most clearly highlights the incompetence of those who have studied these questions only in a quite 'profane' manner. This matter can only be understood in fact through actual knowledge of the stages of initiation, which we shall now try to explain.
If Dante takes Virgil for his guide in the first two parts of his journey, the main reason doubtless-as everyone recog-nizes-is his remembrance of the 6th canto of the Aeneid (which, we may say, is also no simple poetic fiction, but gives incontestable proof of initiatic knowledge). It is not without reason that the practice of sortes virgilianae (casting lots) was so widespread in the Middle Ages; and if people have wanted to make a magician of Virgil, this is only a popular and exoteric distortion of a profound truth, of which those who likened his work to Holy Writ-even if they did so for a divinatory usage of only very relative interest-probably had more a feeling than an understanding that they could clearly express.
On the other hand, it is not difficult to see that Virgil himself, as far as we are concerned, had some predecessors among the Greeks, and to recall in this connection the voyage of Ulysses to the country of the Cimmerians and the descent of Orpheus into the Underworld; but does the concordance we have noticed in all this prove nothing more than a series of borrowings or successive imitations? The truth is that what is involved here has a close connection to the mysteries of antiquity, and that the various poetic and legendary accounts are only translations of one and the same reality: the sprig of gold that Aeneas, guided by the Sibyl, goes first to pick up in the forest (that very 'selva selvaggia' where Dante also situates the beginning of his poem) is the same sprig that was carried by the Eleusinian initiates-which reminds one again of the acacia of modern Masonry, 'the pledge of resurrection and immortality'. What is more, a similar symbolism is found in Christianity: in the Catholic liturgy it is Palm Sunday [51] that opens Holy Week, which encompasses the death of Christ, his descent into Hell, and his Resurrection-to be followed shortly thereafter by his glorious Ascension; and it is precisely on Monday of Holy Week that Dante's account commences, as if to show that it is in undertaking the quest of the mysterious sprig that he loses his way in the dark forest where he meets Virgil; and his journey across the worlds will last until Easter Sundaythat is to say, until the Day of Resurrection.
On the one hand, death and descent into the hells; on the other, resurrection and ascension to the heavens: these are like
two inverse and complementary phases, of which the first is the necessary preparation for the second. This theme can easily be found again in the description of the Hermetic 'Great Work'. The same thing is clearly stated in all traditional doctrines. In Islam for example we encounter the episode of Muhammad's 'nocturnal journey', consisting of the descent into the infernal regions (isrâ), followed by ascension to the various Paradises or Celestial Spheres (mirâj). There is a striking similarity between this 'nocturnal journey' and Dante's poem, so much so that some have seen in it one of the principal sources of Dante's inspiration. Don Miguel Asin Palacios has shown the multiple relationships that exist, in respect not only of content but also of form, between the Divine Comedy (not to speak of some passages from the Vita Nuova and the Convivio) on the one hand and both the Kitâb al-isrâ (Book of the Nocturnal Journey) and the Futubat el-Mekkiyab (The Meccan Revelations) of Muhyiddin ibn 'Arabi on the otherworks that were written about eighty years before Dante's. He concludes that these analogies, taken together, are more numerous than those that other commentators have been able to establish between Dante's work and the literatures of all other countries. [52] Here are some examples:
In an adaptation of the Islamic legend, a wolf and a lion bar the pilgrim's route; similarly, the panther, the lion, and the shewolf force Dante to draw back... Heaven sends Virgil to Dante and Gabriel to Muhammad; each satisfies the pilgrim's curiosity during the journey. Hell is heralded in the two legends by identical signs: violent and confused tumult, blasts of fire... The architecture of Dante's Hell is modeled on the Muslim
Hell: both consist of an immense funnel formed by a series of levels, with circular steps or paths descending gradually to the extremity of the earth; each of them harbors classes of sinners whose culpability and affliction are worse the deeper they dwell. Each level is subdivided into several others, alloted to various categories of sinners; finally, both these Hells lie under the city of Jerusalem... In order to purify himself once out of Hell, and to ascend to Paradise, Dante undergoes a triple ablution. In the Islamic tradition, a similar triple ablution purifies souls: before entering Heaven, they are plunged successively into the waters of the three rivers that fertilize the Garden of Abraham... The architecture of the celestial spheres across which the ascension takes place is identical in the two legends: the souls of the blessed are ranged in the nine heavens according to their respective merits, and are gathered finally in the Empyrean or last sphere... Just as Beatrice stands aside that St. Bernard may guide Dante during the final stages, so does Gabriel abandon Muhammad near the throne of God, to which he will be attracted by a luminous garland... The final apotheosis of both ascensions is the same: the two travelers, raised to the presence of God, describe Him as a center of intense light surrounded by nine concentric circles formed by compact lines of innumerable angelic spirits who emit luminous rays; one of the circular ranks nearest to the center is that of the Cherubim; each circle encloses the circle immediately below it, and all nine turn unceasingly around the divine center... The infernal stages, the astronomical heavens, the circles of the Mystic Rose, the angelic choirs that surround the center of divine light, the three circles symbolizing the trinity of persons: all are borrowed word for word by the Florentine poet from Muhyiddin ibn 'Arabi. [53]
Such coincidences, extending to precise details, cannot be accidental, and we have many reasons for admitting that Dante was really inspired, to a considerable extent, by the writings of Muhyiddin; but how could he have known of them? We have in mind as a possible intermediary Brunetto Latini, who had lived in Spain; but this hypothesis hardly seems satisfactory: Muhyiddin was born in Murcia (hence his nickname 'El Andalusi'), but he did not spend all his life in Spain, dying in fact in Damascus; and though his disciples were spread throughout the Islamic world-primarily in Syria and Egyptit is unlikely that his works entered the public domain at that time; indeed, some have never yet been published. Muhyiddin was in fact anything but the 'mystical poet' that M. Asin Palacios imagines. It is worth mentioning here that he is referred to in Islamic esoterism as al-Shaikh al-Akbar-that is to say, the greatest of spiritual masters, the Master par excellence; that his doctrine is purely metaphysical; and that several of the main initiatic Orders in Islam, among them the highest and least accessible, derive directly from him. We have already indicated that such organisations were in touch with the Orders of Chivalry in the XIIIth century-that is to say, in Muhyiddin's own era-and for us this explains the transmission noted. Were it otherwise, and Dante had known of Muhyiddin through 'profane' channels, why did he never name him, as he did two exoteric philosophers of Islam, Avicenna and Averroës? [54] Furthermore, it is recognised that there were some Islamic influences at the beginnings of Rosicrucianism: it is to this that the supposed journeys of Christian Rosenkreuz to the East allude. But the real origin of Rosicrucianism, as we have already stated, lies precisely in the Orders of Chivalry;
and it was these that formed the true intellectual link between the East and the West in the Middle Ages.
Modern Western critics, who regard Muhammad's 'nocturnal journey' as nothing more than a poetic legend, claim that it is not specifically Islamic, or Arab, but of Persian origin, for an account of a similar journey exists in a Mazdean book, the Ardā Vīrāf Nāmeb. [55] Some think it necessary to go back much further, to India, where in fact one finds-as much in Brahmanism as in Buddhism-a multitude of symbolic descriptions of the various states of existence under the form of a hierarchically organized set of heavens and hells; and some even go so far as to suppose that Dante may have been directly influenced by doctrines from India. [56] For those who see in all this mere 'literature' such a way of looking at things is understandable, although it is rather difficult-even from the historical view-point-to admit that Dante could have known anything of India other than through the Arabs. For us however these similarities prove nothing more than the unity of doctrine in all traditions. There is nothing astonishing in finding everywhere expressions of the same truths; but in order not to be astonished one must first of all know that these are truths, and not more or less arbitrary fictions. We have identified similarities of a general order, but there is no reason to conclude from this that there must have been direct communication of some kind:
such a conclusion would be justified only if the same ideas were expressed under an identical form, such as is the case with Muhyiddin and Dante. It is certain that what we find in Dante is in perfect harmony with Hindu theories of the worlds and cosmic cycles, though it is not clothed in a properly Hindu form; and this harmony necessarily obtains among all who are conscious of the same truths, however they may have acquired this knowledge.