Oracular Digs

By Astyages O’Theseustoo.

As always, the Pythoness received the party warmly, even displaying a polite gratitude for the gifts and tribute of the Lydian king. Servants unloaded the huge wagons while the herald, feeling the chill of a fear which made him catch his breath, so that from time to time he had to remind himself to breathe; entered the Shrine of the Oracle. Visibly trembling in the awesome presence of this living demi-goddess, the herald reverently approached the base of the raised dais which stood in front of the reputedly bottomless abyss where dwelt the earth-gods from whom the Pythoness received and relayed her pronouncements.

Silently the Pythoness spread her arms over the abyss; turning her face towards the heavens as she sought to enter the sacred trance in which she was able to hear the voices of the gods. After several long minutes of deep meditation, the demi-goddess turned around once more and looked not so much at, as through the visibly trembling herald; her glazed expression quickly changing into a cold, hard and fearsome visage as the god possessed her.

Her demeanour was haughty, imperious and intimidating as the Pythoness’ raised eyebrows now silently demanded of the messenger what he required of her. Finally mastering his fear, which the Pythoness’ display of mystical powers had only increased, by pushing them right down inside himself, the herald conquered his natural feelings of intimidation at the august presence of the gods within the Pythoness. Then, taking a deep breath in order to still his visible trembling, he bravely addressed the now god-possessed and trance-inspired Pythoness:

“Croesus, King of Lydia and several other countries,” he began, “believing that these are the only true oracles in all the world, has sent you such presents as your discoveries deserved. He now inquires of you how long his empire will flourish; he also wishes to know if he should go to war with the Persians and if so, should he strengthen himself by the forces of a confederate?”

The Pythoness nodded once silently and then turned her back on the messengers to commune once more with the spirits of the abyss. Presently she turned back again; her eyes now staring, blank and unseeing, into empty space, as from the edge of the abyss, she delivered her answer in a strangely masculine voice whose unnatural volume and deep echoing quality was, so the herald thought, the unmistakable sign of her possession by the god.

The Pythoness’ response, however, was delivered in an unknown tongue and the messenger could make nothing of it whatsoever, although he was personally familiar with several of the region’s languages. This must be the tongue of the very gods themselves, the messenger thought in awe, as he watched the Pythoness’ response being recorded by a scribe and interpreted by an acolyte, who wrote down its meaning on a piece of papyrus and passed it to him.

Suddenly he was startled out of his reverie, as he realized the acolyte was indeed actually speaking to him; in fact she was patiently explaining, for the second time, the oracle’s response, which was written on the small papyrus scroll the acolyte had just handed him.

“Tell Croesus of Lydia, the Son of Alyattes,” the girl was saying, “…that his empire will flourish until a mule sits on the throne of Persia; he must ally himself with the strongest of the Greeks and that if he attacks Cyrus he will destroy a mighty empire.”

Finally, when she had finished giving her answer, her eyes closed and the Pythoness’ head fell forwards onto her breast almost as if she had lost consciousness; yet she remained standing, apparently insensible to everything but her own inner voices as, in her still-entranced condition, she now contemplated the full meaning and significance of the new knowledge which had just been imparted to her by the god.

Taking the scroll from the acolyte as the goddess fell once more into her trance the herald realized almost immediately that the Pythoness was again lost in mystical contemplation. A few moments later, he realized that his audience with the oracle had ended and, bowing repeatedly to the apparently unconscious goddess, he backed quickly out of the temple to begin his return journey to Lydia. His master, he knew, would surely be very pleased with this news and was certain to reward him very generously, so he was eager to bring it to him as swiftly as possible.

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Python - or possibly the SBS test pattern

By Astyages or Theseustoo

Man, the Pythoness realized, was thus but an idea in the mind of God, who endlessly spun stories to amuse himself. Indeed, there were times when the pythoness suspected the gods of having a very strange sense of humour and actually deriving amusement from the delusions under which humans constantly suffered; misled as they almost invariably were by the illusions created for them by the very nature of their physical form; and deceived yet again by the unavoidable limitations of their merely physical means of perception. And on top of all of these illusions, they were oh, so eager to further mislead each other…

The presence of the spirits, which some called gods and others called ‘daemons’ or ‘teachers’, was, the Pythoness knew, imminent in and through all existence, corporeal and spiritual. She knew too that even these two concepts, the Physical and the Spiritual were in fact human constructions; and that in reality they were neither separate nor separable, except in the thought and speech of deluded human beings; rather they were two sides of the same coin. Every ‘thing’ was part of the Whole; and everything, she knew, implied its opposite; for everything becomes its opposite; and even the struggle to slow down or prevent this process only facilitates it. Even existence and non-existence implied each other; the one could not possibly ‘exist’ without the other.

The Pythoness shook herself out of her reverie; for it was time to deal with the physical realm once more. In any case, it was true, she reminded herself, as she frequently did, that the temple certainly benefited from the gifts the inquirers now traditionally brought as payment for her oracular services; and so the priesthood did not try too hard to enlighten them.

And if the Pythoness herself felt an occasional twinge of guilt at the manner in which the priesthood allowed such ignorant, if popular perceptions of the gods to persist; in spite of their superstitious nature; she did not allow it to take root too deeply in her soul. The gods, she knew, would enlighten poor benighted humanity in their own good time and nothing either she nor the priesthood could do would either hasten or delay that process by as much as the blink of an eye.

The persistent ignorance of her inquirers, and indeed, of humanity in general, was not so much the result of a lack of teaching, she knew; for humanity had always had teachers both human and daemonic; rather it was the lack of a desire to learn anything new. After all her years of experience as a counsellor, the Pythoness had finally understood that most people insisted on seeing things solely in the light of their own prejudices; that they habitually refused to see anything new. Even when a new thought or idea is clearly expounded; or clearly demonstrated and explained to them they would actually choose not see it; simply denying its existence at all; or else, when they could no longer deny its existence, they would call it ‘madness’; or ‘heresy’; or even ‘blasphemy’; and simply condemn new ideas out of hand before even giving themselves a chance to understand it.

Indeed, she knew that this recalcitrance was especially true whenever they had a problem. For, more often than not, the answers to their problems involved the inquirers doing things they did not want to do; and although she did her very best to point them in the right direction, she often knew right from the start that few, if any, of them would ever think about doing what was necessary, even if it were to save them from destruction.

How then, she had often wondered when she had finally donned the mantle of ‘Pythoness, could such recalcitrant folk as these ever hope to conceive of the true nature of God? She had eventually learned that the only means she could use in order to achieve a positive outcome to their problems; in cases where this was at least possible; was by deception: She must phrase her prognostications in such a manner that the enquirer would inevitably choose the road to their own spiritual progress in spite of themselves. It was a crude tool, she thought, but it often worked…

Clearly enough, the crude and unsubtle kind of mentality which imagines the gods can be bought for any price, could not possibly understand that a god is infinitely above and beyond all physical wants or needs; and not the least bit prone to either human vanity or human folly; so they neither feel nor respond to human emotions. Thus, she knew, they are not motivated by the same concerns as merely mortal human beings.

She sometimes wondered whether humankind would ever understand that, on those extremely rare occasions when the gods actually do intervene in the affairs of mortals, their interventions are usually the result of the infinite pity they feel for the incredible backwardness and recalcitrance of human nature…

Yet the Pythoness even empathized with all her inquirers’ weaknesses, which she realized were not always wilful, but often resulted from the limitations of their humanity. Indeed she felt compassion for all humanity, just as she had been taught in her mystical and entranced state, while communing with the god. She had compassion, even for all those who constantly deluded themselves with their own all-too-human ideas of just whom and what ‘the gods’ are for she knew that, in any case, the true nature of the gods could only ever be apprehended after many, many years of gruelling mental, physical and spiritual training; far beyond the capacity of most ordinary mortals, because it required a thoroughgoing and rigorous honesty about oneself and one’s own motives, of which most ordinary mortals are quite incapable.

But the Pythoness and her priesthood were not like most ordinary mortals. They were a special breed of human being; the messengers of the gods. As such they were obliged to be the most disciplined of all people; and the most ardent students of all matters, spiritual and mundane. These time-constraints imposed upon them by the requirements of their studies were far from the only restrictions imposed on the priestesses, scribes and acolytes: relationships with men, of course, were quite out of the question. Even their nearest relatives were discouraged from visiting them unnecessarily, as they tended to distract their attention from their studies.

Few indeed are the men and women who feel themselves drawn to such a cloistered and sedentary existence; but those who are drawn to it are very often absolutely devoted; and no-one was more devoted than the Pythoness herself.

Among even the best of these students, there were fewer still that had both the intellectual capacity and the personal discipline it took to study as broadly and as deeply as was necessary to even remotely approach the level of insight and wisdom necessary to perform as the Pythoness. Few indeed had the perseverance required to meditate on their lessons deeply enough to develop the great depth of philosophical insight which an oracle must have in order not only to see the regular patterns behind the almost infinite sequences of events recorded in Humanity’s history, but also to be able to understand those patterns and what they actually mean.

Only by developing a thorough knowledge and profound understanding of the past was it possible to understand the true meaning of the present moment in time; and only with a complete and thorough understanding of the present can it ever become possible to learn how to predict the future. And even then, any oracle must understand that the nature of any prediction was never that of an entirely fixed future, but of probable outcomes, which often largely depended on some determined action or other on the part of the inquirer for their fulfilment; or perhaps, for the avoidance of their fulfilment, in cases of predicted catastrophes.

Of course she was aware that this pitiful messenger from King Croesus knew nothing of all this, nor did he much care. So far as he was concerned, the Pythoness was a demi-god with the power to know and understand the minds not only of mere humans, but also of the very gods themselves. As such she was thus almost as far above his ability to conceptualise as were the gods themselves. Yet it behove a demi-god, she realized, almost as much as a god, to be gracious towards mere mortal humans in their frailty.

In reality, the Pythoness knew that humanity was neither Zeus’ intention nor his creation; they were in fact created by another Titan named Prometheus, who formed them out of the soil of the Earth, and who was eternally punished for his impudence. Yet they had always been such poor and frail creatures; unlike all the other creatures on Earth, they could not cope with extreme temperatures or conditions and fell prey not only to many other animals, but also to many kinds of ailments; the worst of which was folly.

Indeed Zeus thought of them at first as an abomination; yet they seemed to thrive in spite of the huge odds against them. Their abominable nature may have been forgiven but when Zeus discovered that Prometheus, out of his pity for humanity’s fear of the darkness, had stolen fire from his very thunderbolts, the rebellious titan incurred the All-Father’s wrath and was punished in the most horrifying manner for having done so. Yet at the end of time, which the gods can see as if it were today, Zeus, so they say, will finally forgive Prometheus and release him from the rock to which he has been chained for all eternity.

Indeed after watching the progress of humanity for several centuries even the gods themselves could only marvel at the progress they had actually managed to make, even in spite of themselves and all their folly. So finally Zeus had decided that since humanity did not actually ask to be created, it was not entirely to blame for its flaws, which he often managed to transcend anyway… Even Zeus had ultimately become quite fascinated by these unusual creatures; indeed it was as easy to admire humanity’s good qualities as it was to despise their bad ones. And Hera, the Mother of Heaven, and the Queen of Compassion, gave her bounty to all, and most generously to humanity, for she admired the courage they showed in the face of adversity.

Croesus - Claude Vignon

Chapter 8: Gifts for the Gods

by Astyages T2

The baggage-train was a dazzling sight; a dozen ox-drawn wagons, piled high with all kinds of valuable gifts, including many items made of gold, silver and purple, not only for the Pythoness herself, but also for her scribes and priestesses and even for all the people of Delphi. This colourful caravan was escorted into the broad courtyard of the Temple of the Oracle by a pair of temple guards and the herald whom Croesus had sent to Delphi to put the king’s questions to the oracle.

Seeing such a huge and wealth-laden baggage-train, the Pythoness realised immediately that Croesus was evidently hoping to purchase the favour of the gods by such lavish gifts. Mortal humans are so stupid in their conception of the gods, she thought to herself; as if they could be bought! The minds of the gods could be known – at least partially; that much she knew from her own personal experience; but they most certainly could not be bought!

Not that this attitude was uncommon, as the Pythoness had realized a long, long time ago; indeed, she knew that most people felt this way; and that her own thoughts on the nature of the gods were quite exceptional, not to say unique and these, her deepest and most private thoughts, she had long ago learned to keep to herself. Indeed, very early in her training she had realized that virtually all of the people, noble or commoner, who came to inquire of the oracle, were trying one way or another to purchase the gods’ favour for their own purposes; and they did not like to be told that this was impossible.

Although personally she knew perfectly well that such an attitude was both foolish and superstitious, the Pythoness felt not contempt, but rather compassion for those who came to inquire of the oracle. She realized that, superstitious or not, in such a harsh, unpredictable and uncontrollable world, it was not only understandable, but perhaps even inevitable that mortal humans should thus try to influence the actions of their gods; it made them feel a little less insecure to imagine that they actually had some chance to control their destiny.

As the bodily vehicle through which the oracle gave voice to its often highly enigmatic and occasionally impenetrably cryptic prognostications; the Pythoness would stand with her arms outstretched to receive the god, completely entranced as the spirit took possession of her, right on the very edge of the precipice over the bottomless pit in which dwelt the god.

It really was, she thought with amusement, a marvellous piece of theatre; and after a lifetime of training for the role, her performances never failed to impress. Speaking in the strange and incomprehensible tongue of the gods she would deliver the oracle’s response to the enquirers’ questions. These incomprehensible words, which came into her head directly from the very minds of the gods themselves, were then interpreted by one of the other entranced, priestesses and then written down on a small scroll of papyrus; finally the oracle’s miraculous pronouncement was given to the often dumbfounded inquirer.

The Pythoness’ own knowledge of the oracle was thus unique. Until her soul passed back into the void, when she would by replaced by another Pythoness who was even now training for the position, no-one else, she knew, would ever understand how intimate this relationship was; infinitely more intimate than any merely physical or corporeal union; psyche to psyche; mind to mind and soul to soul; with no physical sensation at all, only a spiritual awareness so deep that, as soon as any question was asked of her, its answer sprang directly into her consciousness.

She knew with absolute certainty that these were not her own thoughts, but the thoughts of the god; for in that instant, in the deepest ecstasies of her trance, her mind and the mind of the god met and were as one. It was the depth of this spiritual perception which alone enabled her to find in her heart the compassion she needed to ignore the greed and stupidity of almost all who came to her seeking her advice; and to phrase her answers in just such a way as would lead them into the best course of action in order to resolve their particular problem; or at the very least, to their spiritual advancement, in those all too frequent cases where what was wished for was not possible.

But it was only natural for mortal humans, she thought, to thus attempt to control the very gods themselves; after all, since they themselves were all too often influenced by just such trivial inducements as fame, power, material wealth or physical pleasures and comforts, it was perfectly natural for them to assume that the gods, too, could be swayed by such things, imagining the nature of men and the gods to be the same. What humanity didn’t seem to realize, however, was that the nature of the gods was vastly different from anything their mortal minds could possibly perceive; and that, from the perspective of the gods, nature was what humanity was put upon the Earth to rise above, although pitifully few of them ever rose to the challenge.

The Pythoness knew with absolute certainty that such trivial things as trinkets and baubles, more precious than life itself to mortal men, were meaningless to the gods. At some level, she knew, all ‘spirits’ were one; one Great Spirit, or ‘God’. But on earth the various and infinite aspects of this Spirit; this ‘God’, was, at least in appearance, separated and divided into the myriad forms of creation and the various natural and supernatural agencies which eternally govern the physical world; divided into both gods who both control and embody all natural phenomena; and the spirits of individual humans; who were invariably completely deceived by the illusion of their individuality and their apparent separation from both each other and from the Creation. Rarely, if ever, did they ever realize their fundamental spiritual unity with each other; let alone their even more fundamental unity with not only the Creation, but because that Creation was itself the physical manifestation of the Divine, with God himself.