Sunday 22 March 2015

The Dark Wood of Error - (356)

Worldliness

Midway through his life (35 years old) Dante woke up to find himself alone in a dark forest. This forest symbolizes worldliness with all its passions and vices. Dante recounts that he being “so drugged and loose” with sleep entered that forest after deviating from the ‘true way’ - the path.

Leopard, Lion and She-Wolf

Dante searching for light, saw at the end of the dark forest a little hill glowing with light. As he began to climb the hill he was confronted by three savage animals: a leopard, a lion and a she-wolf, who symbolizing human weakness blocked his way and prevented him from climbing further.

She-Wolf

The she-wolf was the animal that drove him to despair the most, she was also the one that he could not surpass. To his aid came Virgil who offered to show him the way back to the light, which is the long, narrow and straight way of the Christ.

Leopard and Lion

Note, the three animals are symbolic, the leopard symbolizes malice and fraud, the lion violence and ambition and the she-wolf incontinence (lust, fornication, gluttony etc.). These three animals represent the broad structure of the infernal worlds.


Virgil tells Dante that he will lead him through the abyss where he will later ascend to the heavenly light. There is no remedy other than descending into the 9 regions of hell (the abyss) in order to ascend.





Conclusion

Dante at this point has not yet started his Epic journey through the inferno of the Earth and then to the Earth’s Heaven. This part of his book “The Inferno” is to inform us of how one deviated from the path and the obstacles that one finds. This was a stage at the very beginning of his path, perhaps before he began his initiations.

We say this based on what Master Samael says about Dante, in that he was an initiate and his trilogy the is really an initiatic text or map of the initiatic path left behind for the benefit of humanity or those amongst humanity that can understand it.

End (356).

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