Types of ascension stories
November 10th 2006 17:45
1. Classic ascension
Once you have a concept of heaven, the most desirable thing, you've going to ask how to get there. And the answers can be depressing: -- you can't be sure, but just do your best and pray (Christianity as customarily practised and taught); you're predestined or you're not (Calvinism); spend a few million years in purgatory (Catholicism).
Hence the dream of ascension – the short-cut, the direct route, the express ride, while you’re still alive, no questions asked.
Enoch: "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." (Genesis 5:24) "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." (Hebrews 11:5)
Elijah: "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." (2 Kings 2:11)
But how do you ascend? How do you gain or earn it? What are the pre-requisites for candidacy?
The matter is unclear. In Enoch's case, it's something to do with faith and pleasing God. In Elijah's, there could be the suggestions that: (i) it's a reward for hard work; (ii) it requires a special degree of faith or goodness or purity; (iii) it's end of journey; his mission was filled, his life perfectly complete; and (iv) Elijah was always a little otherworldly; he was destined to ascend -- there was always something of the divine in him.
These four are featured in the Galahad myth (for instance, Galahad was prophesied to complete the grail quest, and had an unnatural purity since childhood), though the factors that Malory’s version explicitly mentions (and these are said to also apply to Joseph, son of Joseph of Aramathea) are: that Galahad has seen the marvels of the Grail, and that he's a virgin ("and for thou hast bene a clene mayde as I have be and am").
In Garcia Marquez, it's seemingly factors ii and iv: Remedios has a strange innocence and otherworldiness -- she has supra-human abilities, and she sees the world differently, though people think her a simpleton.
And these four factors seem equally to apply to Christ.
But why is Elijah ascended whilst other perfectly-trusting-God miracle-workers are not? And one conclusion is that Biblical ascension is not something that you can gain or earn, but it's simply an inexplicable matter of God's plan -- that you were either born for it (you had that purity from childhood) or you weren't.
2. No real ascension
In many myths there is and there isn't ascension. And you often don't gain it, such as it is, through effort or special inner qualities (though you do gain it through external qualities, like strength or beauty -- or a magic potion).
There's such stories as Zeus taking a fancy to Ganymede and snatching him up to Olympus, Eos asking for immortality for Tithonus (but forgetting to ask for eternal youth -- he becomes a cicada), and people (and animals and objects) being changed into stars.
Ascension here, at its best, means gaining godlike qualities or powers.
But, as if to mock men's pretensions, no one in the Greek world really succeeds in becoming a god -- Achilles has his heel. And the plain fact is that many of these "ascensions" aren't particularly desirable -- being the gods' water slave, or being stuck in the sky (which usually happens just before, or just after, death -- with the implication that it's only slightly better).
Moreover, these “ascensions” are explicable in a way that Judaeo-Christian ascensions aren’t. They are everyday -- they lack a quality that is something like “incomprehensible grandeur”. (Monkey of Monkey Magic ascends by the straightforward action of eating a peach.) The gods have human traits; Olympus seems to be unexceptionally continuous with this world; and gifts of immortality and youth are part of the logic of the world.
For this reason, these “ascensions” are perhaps better viewed as “transformations”, of which Greek myths are notoriously full -- poetic auto-changes like Echo pining for Narcissus till she fades into a voice, Niobe weeping for her slain children until she turns to stone; or changes by some power -- Arachne into a spider for her arrogance, or Syrinx into reeds to save her from Pan.
And it should be unsurprising that the Greeks lacked ascension, for they also lacked a heaven, a concept of the most desirable. There's the Elysium Fields for heroes, and Tartarus for villains; and the grey indifference of the Asphodel Meadows for everyone else. The view is similar to older Japanese myths, where, regardless of your deeds in this life, we all have the same fate in the next -- which is to go to rot as a living corpse in the land of Yomi.
3. Enlightenment
So in Buddhism and Hinduism (and Scientology), you still have a concept of acquiring the most desirable thing. And there are short routes and longer routes. And the most desirable thing (depending on the particular system) amounts to any of: peace, happiness, knowledge, liberation from the physical world, liberation from the self, liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, liberation from suffering, a different sort of consciousness and sensory awareness, and special powers.
This is a different sort of heaven from the Biblical one, with different short-cuts. Enlightenment is not so much a reward as something that you work on to acquire; and it is definitely a shift in self rather than a shift (as in the Greek view) in geography.
Enlightenment is a quality change, a fundamental change in nature; you become a different type of being (and you don’t simply gain qualities like immortality and eternal youth). That is, ascension is a profound form of transformation -- a theme that is present in the Bible (angels are alien), but less explicit (heaven might simply be geographically elsewhere; Elijah seems to be physically lifted).
4. Sci-fi ascension
Across modern culture, all three ascension types are drawn on. For instance, Elijah's chariot of fire is become the spaceship of Close Encounters. There is Greek-type ascension in Hitchhiker's Guide, where an alien accidentally performs a never-to-be-repeated experiment involving a rubber band, and is rendered immortal. And there is Indian-type transcendence in Stargate or Star Wars.
There is both ascension of place and of
consciousness in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the concept of heaven is developed into the concept of the sublime -- the astronaut both goes somewhere else, and experiences something else. The physical trip is a spiritual trip.
But sci-fi ascension alters the old forms.
For instance, the concept is largely naturalised (cf the everydayness of Greek myths) -- it is explained in terms of our science: Stargate ascension is transformation into pure energy (and can be achieved by evolution or technology); immortality answers to physical laws; heaven is an alien world of advanced technology.
And ascension is humanized.
In Mission to Mars, the protagonist jumps into a billions-of-years-old transportation device that will take him to the aliens who first seeded Earth. But it is presented as a question like any other question and is mired in human concerns. -- Why do you want to go? It's not because ascension is what everyone automatically desires (or should desire), or that your days will be filled with pleasure. What's instead invoked are ideas about human curiosity and improvement and courage. -- Secondly, there are costs. It is likely a one-way trip, leaving behind everything you care for and that cares for you, without assurances. You don't know if you'll survive the trip, and you don't know what you'll find -- whether nothing at all, or something terrible.
But you are moved to stake your life on the gamble of finding something transcending everything you know. For whatever reason, you deeply need to see.
5. Disappearance
And there is arguably another type of ascension -- in Picnic at Hanging Rock, at the end of Ghostworld (Thora Birch simply disappears), and at the end of Being There (Peter Sellers simply walks off -- on water). And perhaps it’s in Virgin Suicides as well.
The characters go. In the first three instances, no one really knows where, why, or how. But perhaps they attain their heart’s desire; presumably they have gone to something like a different world (though not necessarily a better one); and presumably something in this world has triggered their sudden disappearance.
The final three of the Elijah reasons could apply.
(1) Some of these characters die young, fairly virginal, with childhood and childish minds intact -- too good or pure or innocent for this world.
(2) It is often end of journey, and there is completeness or contentment -- almost as if the world is done with you, or you are done with the world (perhaps you are enlightened, or have come to some realization). There is no longer any place for you -- so you are squeezed out of the world, you vanish, like a paradox that can’t exist.
(3) And there is otherworldliness.
The characters are usually dreamy figures, outsiders, and female. They see things differently; they’re marked.
Sellers’ character -- Chance the Gardener -- is as innocent a holy fool as Remedios. (So it seems that one of the only ways the modern mind can grasp Galahad-type purity is via the concept of mental health.)
They never really belonged to this world, and so cannot be part of it. They might even become more otherworldly as the movie progresses, or be given the choice between this world and something else. (In similar fashion, one might why Christ was ascended after the resurrection -- why he didn’t just stick around on Earth. And perhaps one answer is that he would no longer have fit -- he was too touched by the divine.)
But the main characteristic of these stories is that they inherit the inexplicability of the Judaeo-Christian and Buddhist types, and reinforce it -- instead of opting for the everydayness of Greek myths or sci-fi. They are like Gregor Samsa waking up, from troubled dreams, to find himself transformed, in his bed, into a giant bug. And they are fundamentally mysterious -- they are ascensions, not transformations -- they belong to the genre of the fantastic rather than the genre of fantasy -- they retain the God’s-plan idea of no logic that is humanly graspable.
Notes
-- This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia articles Ascension, Ganymede, Monkey (TV series), Echo (mythology), Buddha, Ascension (Stargate), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mission to Mars, Ghost World (film), Being There.
-- Thursday 25 February 2010: Recently reread the section in Malory on the Sangreal. Seems that my scholarship is dodgy, and I was quite mistaken. Galahad wasn't taken bodily up to heaven, but only his soul. His companions see his dead flesh, mourn him, and bury him.
Once you have a concept of heaven, the most desirable thing, you've going to ask how to get there. And the answers can be depressing: -- you can't be sure, but just do your best and pray (Christianity as customarily practised and taught); you're predestined or you're not (Calvinism); spend a few million years in purgatory (Catholicism).
Hence the dream of ascension – the short-cut, the direct route, the express ride, while you’re still alive, no questions asked.
Enoch: "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." (Genesis 5:24) "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." (Hebrews 11:5)
Elijah: "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." (2 Kings 2:11)
But how do you ascend? How do you gain or earn it? What are the pre-requisites for candidacy?
The matter is unclear. In Enoch's case, it's something to do with faith and pleasing God. In Elijah's, there could be the suggestions that: (i) it's a reward for hard work; (ii) it requires a special degree of faith or goodness or purity; (iii) it's end of journey; his mission was filled, his life perfectly complete; and (iv) Elijah was always a little otherworldly; he was destined to ascend -- there was always something of the divine in him.
These four are featured in the Galahad myth (for instance, Galahad was prophesied to complete the grail quest, and had an unnatural purity since childhood), though the factors that Malory’s version explicitly mentions (and these are said to also apply to Joseph, son of Joseph of Aramathea) are: that Galahad has seen the marvels of the Grail, and that he's a virgin ("and for thou hast bene a clene mayde as I have be and am").
In Garcia Marquez, it's seemingly factors ii and iv: Remedios has a strange innocence and otherworldiness -- she has supra-human abilities, and she sees the world differently, though people think her a simpleton.
And these four factors seem equally to apply to Christ.
But why is Elijah ascended whilst other perfectly-trusting-God miracle-workers are not? And one conclusion is that Biblical ascension is not something that you can gain or earn, but it's simply an inexplicable matter of God's plan -- that you were either born for it (you had that purity from childhood) or you weren't.
2. No real ascension
In many myths there is and there isn't ascension. And you often don't gain it, such as it is, through effort or special inner qualities (though you do gain it through external qualities, like strength or beauty -- or a magic potion).
The Rape of Ganymede by Rubens -- lifted to Olympus by Zeus in the form of an eagle
Ascension here, at its best, means gaining godlike qualities or powers.
But, as if to mock men's pretensions, no one in the Greek world really succeeds in becoming a god -- Achilles has his heel. And the plain fact is that many of these "ascensions" aren't particularly desirable -- being the gods' water slave, or being stuck in the sky (which usually happens just before, or just after, death -- with the implication that it's only slightly better).
Monkey!
For this reason, these “ascensions” are perhaps better viewed as “transformations”, of which Greek myths are notoriously full -- poetic auto-changes like Echo pining for Narcissus till she fades into a voice, Niobe weeping for her slain children until she turns to stone; or changes by some power -- Arachne into a spider for her arrogance, or Syrinx into reeds to save her from Pan.
Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse
And it should be unsurprising that the Greeks lacked ascension, for they also lacked a heaven, a concept of the most desirable. There's the Elysium Fields for heroes, and Tartarus for villains; and the grey indifference of the Asphodel Meadows for everyone else. The view is similar to older Japanese myths, where, regardless of your deeds in this life, we all have the same fate in the next -- which is to go to rot as a living corpse in the land of Yomi.
3. Enlightenment
So in Buddhism and Hinduism (and Scientology), you still have a concept of acquiring the most desirable thing. And there are short routes and longer routes. And the most desirable thing (depending on the particular system) amounts to any of: peace, happiness, knowledge, liberation from the physical world, liberation from the self, liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, liberation from suffering, a different sort of consciousness and sensory awareness, and special powers.
The Buddha has a bump on his head -- to contain the extra wisdom
This is a different sort of heaven from the Biblical one, with different short-cuts. Enlightenment is not so much a reward as something that you work on to acquire; and it is definitely a shift in self rather than a shift (as in the Greek view) in geography.
Enlightenment is a quality change, a fundamental change in nature; you become a different type of being (and you don’t simply gain qualities like immortality and eternal youth). That is, ascension is a profound form of transformation -- a theme that is present in the Bible (angels are alien), but less explicit (heaven might simply be geographically elsewhere; Elijah seems to be physically lifted).
4. Sci-fi ascension
When you ascend in Stargate, you transform into pure energy
There is both ascension of place and of
What the astronaut sees in 2001 -- with pure light to represent the unrepresentable
But sci-fi ascension alters the old forms.
For instance, the concept is largely naturalised (cf the everydayness of Greek myths) -- it is explained in terms of our science: Stargate ascension is transformation into pure energy (and can be achieved by evolution or technology); immortality answers to physical laws; heaven is an alien world of advanced technology.
And ascension is humanized.
So they find a giant sculpture of a face on Mars, protected by artifical winds that rip people apart...
But you are moved to stake your life on the gamble of finding something transcending everything you know. For whatever reason, you deeply need to see.
5. Disappearance
Thora Birch disappears, but Scarlett Johansson remains
The characters go. In the first three instances, no one really knows where, why, or how. But perhaps they attain their heart’s desire; presumably they have gone to something like a different world (though not necessarily a better one); and presumably something in this world has triggered their sudden disappearance.
The final three of the Elijah reasons could apply.
---
(1) Some of these characters die young, fairly virginal, with childhood and childish minds intact -- too good or pure or innocent for this world.
(2) It is often end of journey, and there is completeness or contentment -- almost as if the world is done with you, or you are done with the world (perhaps you are enlightened, or have come to some realization). There is no longer any place for you -- so you are squeezed out of the world, you vanish, like a paradox that can’t exist.
(3) And there is otherworldliness.
The characters are usually dreamy figures, outsiders, and female. They see things differently; they’re marked.
A one-joke film, but has to be one of Sellers' best roles
They never really belonged to this world, and so cannot be part of it. They might even become more otherworldly as the movie progresses, or be given the choice between this world and something else. (In similar fashion, one might why Christ was ascended after the resurrection -- why he didn’t just stick around on Earth. And perhaps one answer is that he would no longer have fit -- he was too touched by the divine.)
---
But the main characteristic of these stories is that they inherit the inexplicability of the Judaeo-Christian and Buddhist types, and reinforce it -- instead of opting for the everydayness of Greek myths or sci-fi. They are like Gregor Samsa waking up, from troubled dreams, to find himself transformed, in his bed, into a giant bug. And they are fundamentally mysterious -- they are ascensions, not transformations -- they belong to the genre of the fantastic rather than the genre of fantasy -- they retain the God’s-plan idea of no logic that is humanly graspable.
***
Notes
-- This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia articles Ascension, Ganymede, Monkey (TV series), Echo (mythology), Buddha, Ascension (Stargate), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mission to Mars, Ghost World (film), Being There.
-- Thursday 25 February 2010: Recently reread the section in Malory on the Sangreal. Seems that my scholarship is dodgy, and I was quite mistaken. Galahad wasn't taken bodily up to heaven, but only his soul. His companions see his dead flesh, mourn him, and bury him.
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Comment by katyzzz
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Ho hum!
Pictures were interesting!
Just paying more than my dues, and getting you started - worth heaps!
katyzzz
Comment by Adele
Lost Fanatic
Day Break TV
You have an interesting quote at the end: "So it seems that one of the only ways the modern mind can grasp Galahad-type purity is via the concept of mental health." I guess I'm struggling to understand what you mean by that. Surely Galahad's purity was through his actions and thoughts and both would fit in modern society.
Comment by Damo
There is a quicker path than Elijas method. Though it is much harder. It is called martadom. Of course that just open another can of theological worms.
Comment by spain01
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spain again
While your'e about it
Viva l'difference
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Cities dying of thirst.
It should be pointed out that you cannot be a Catholic unless you believe the doctrine of the Blessed Assumption. It is one of only a very few dogmas of its kind in Catholic belief. This is where Mary is said to have been the only person besides Christ who is taken up to haven body and soul. It is hard to apply any science to just how this works.
Comment by Lilla
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…timely, because I saw John Edwards last night in Brisbane and am writing an Ordinary life post about it over the weekend – hopefully – time is running faster this weekend for some reason…(?)
I think Ascension exists because it is human nature to want to better ourselves : or ascension was invented to encourage human beings to better themselves as a means of controlling them… hmmm, this is starting to sound the like chicken or the egg, isn’t it… and everyone knows who came first, don’t they….? Well, the rooster of course… so we are back to God and our way of getting back to Nirvana...
A nice post, again in your ineffable style…
Thanks for the interesting read,
Lilla…
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Dear Adele -- thanks for your kind words and thoughtful comment.
You write "Surely Galahad's purity was through his actions and thoughts and both would fit in modern society."
Well, I guess I'm saying that if Galahad came along today, we'd be inclined to understand him differently. I think that as a group we've lost the ability to grasp this sort of single-minded purity and devotion and disdain of worldly things and normal human concerns -- we can't comprehend such anomalous behaviour except as pathological -- or, perhaps, as eternally childlike. That is, we've lost belief in Galahad's ideals, and, in fact, in Galahads, but we've gained belief in psychology and sociology.
Similar fates have befallen the figures of the "courtly lover" (once an ideal; now a stalker/erotomaniac) and the monk (once courageously ascetic; now a crazy hermit or unhealthily repressed).
Bit of a generalization, I guess, but I think there's a core of truth. I mean, what sort of person (what type of mind that our worldview can explain) is able to be completely loving towards the world, or completely open?
In the Remedios extract, Garcia Marquez talks about how Remedios is so innocent that if you don't supervise her, she'll end up drawing little animals on the wall in her own excrement. -- But it's precisely this sort of naivete that saves her from, for instance, ever thinking ill of people or acting maliciously towards anyone. Garcia Marquez needed to make her this simple, in order that she'd comprehensibly be this pure. So that she's a perfectly pure candidate for ascension.
Dear Damo -- Matyrdom is an easier route, 'tis true. But, aside from its practical disadvantages, even matyrs might need to wait around in purgatory for a few million years, whereas Elijah gets to go to the head of the line.
Dear spain01 -- Thanks very much for the comment and artwork! I was wholly ignorant of that belief, and would have mentioned it in the post if I were aware of it.
Dear Lilla -- a ramble in reply...
I'm generally a bit sus about claims about human nature (one person claims human nature is x; another claims it's y, and on and on...). But I do think yours is a reasonable working hypothesis.
A friend once told me about being on ecstasy at a rave party, and thinking, "This is completely pleasurable." -- But then he thought, "But isn't there something more?".
"Improvement" is a noble word. Less noble words might be simple curiosity, or desire for new experience. But this exploratory, curious, feature of humans seems to be celebrated in various origin myths -- Eve with the apple from the tree of knowledge, Pandora opening the box...
Incidentally, your comment reminds me of one of the Star Trek movies. Jean-Luc Pickard and co travel back in time, to the 21st century, and they tell a wide-eyed native that, in the future, money has been done away with. "But what's there to do then, if you're not making money?" "Well," says Jean-Luc, "we spend all our energies improving ourselves." -- Which, I suppose, might only partly be true. After all, when people retire these-a-days, they only spend part of their time bettering themselves, and the rest they spend watching Jeopardy and playing Bingo...
Comment by katyzzz
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Adrian,
where is my reply?
katyzzz!
Comment by Adele
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
To be honest, I interpreted your comment as meaning that the post was ho hum, uninteresting, and that you were just visiting to pay your dues because I'd visited you first.
And I thought to myself that there was truth in that criticism (I'm rather surprised that anyone read this post actually), but that there really wasn't anything for me to say in reply; and if you were just visiting out of obligation then you probably didn't particularly want a reply.
But thank you for dropping by. I do appreciate the fact that you took the time to leave a comment. And if you do dislike the post, I perfectly respect that!
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
A similar instance that comes to mind is that the terms in which saints spoke about their religious experience or their love of God sometimes seem incredibly sexual to us now...
I can't remember if I read it in on Orble or somewhere else, or saw it in the Louvre or something, but I think that this was sometimes a matter of controversy even in the middle ages -- that certain paintings of saints in "religious" ecstasy were deemed to have crossed the line, and were therefore hidden from public view.
Comment by Lilla
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I remember that episode well
Lilla....
Comment by Lilla
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True or False (?)
Comment by Adrian
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Comment by Lilla
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Comment by Lilla
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In real life I usually opt for the safe way and "take the truth," never usually the dare...
... this is a bit uncharacteristic of me...bit scary...
Lilla...