Arguments are usually started by individuals; so also can peace be achieved
by the efforts of individuals. There is a famous story told of a child who
continually annoyed his father by giving him no peace. In desperation he
took a map of the world, tore it into many pieces and told his son to put
the jigsaw puzzle back together showing the map of the world. Hoping to
enjoy the rest of the evening, the father settled down with a good book. No
sooner had he made himself comfortable the son returned with the task duly
completed. In complete amazement the father asked how such a young person
could put the world together in such a short time.

The child’s answer is a message for all. He replied “On the reverse of the
map was a picture of a person. I put the person together and the world fell
into place.”

That’s over my head!

I’ve been reading about alchemy lately, and I can’t resist trying some of that thinking here, even though it might sound bizarre. The king and his PM are men (I presume; the king is, at least!). Masculinity, in the alchemal view, represents ratioanal, systematic thinking, what we might call reason or logic now (yes, it sounds sexist, but isn’t; women can have “masculine” aspects too. I take it as just a token word to represent the idea). Kings were often used as a symbol of this aspect. Grain, which is from the earth, has a feminine aspect. The king consuming grain can be viewed as an experiment in joining the male with the female. One of the aims of alchemy, the so-called “conjunction,” was to unify opposites like these. However, it was recognized there’s a danger to it. Physically (chemically), the experiment may fail; psychologically, the experimenter may go mad (alchemists, as noted by Jung and others, conflated inner psychological exploration with external matter, projecting their mental states onto the materials they were manipulating; many alchemal texts described a sort of meditation and ascetic lifestyle which went hand in hand with their material experiments). Greek mythology, for example the myths of Oedipus or Cybelle and Attis, also reflect the dangers.

From that perspective, we can view the king’s decision as heroic. He recognizes the need to unify in spite of the dangers, because ultimately it might lead to a transmutation in his kingdom. The mark is a sort of breadcrumb meant to remind him and the PM of their quest. When I first read this story, I imagined the mark was black, which is interestingly fitting and first led me to think of alchemy. Melancholy (’blacker than black’) was viewed as a necessary transient state in any transmutation. When lead is heated and melted, it apparently turns black until some other ingredient is added to it. Psychologically, meditation often leads to melancholy, a dangerous depression, before it yields any positive results. A black mark on the forehead might be thought of as representing this dangerous, though transient, state of mind.

Which, I think, speaks to the question of willfully bringing about destruction. Sometimes you have to break something in order to fix it. You have to disrupt the current equilibrium (enter a dangerous chaos) in order to reach a better one. This is an ancient pattern of thought, and I can’t help thinking this parable is speaking to the same idea. It’s a hopeful interpretation.

By the way, a random connection. Someone mentioned Isaac Newton. Newton studied alchemy through most of his life.

I’ve probably missed the point completely, it wouldn’t be the first time.

The king and his PM recognise their insanity by seeing the
marks on on each other’s forehead. But who are they to make
judgements on themselves as to their insanity? You cannot just
acquiesce to the definition of insanity by virtue of a label - even if
you have defined yourself as insane.

The gifted are often insane by normal measure. The greatest ever
advance in scientific knowledge was made by Isaac Newton - a man who
was clearly autistic. In more recent times, John F. Nash Jnr won a
share of the Nobel Prize for economics (1994). He is a schizophrenic
and he knows it. Here is a man who solved Fermat’s last theorem when
at high school. Many years of treatment, much of it against his will,
prevented him from thinking. Now, free of medication, he has placed
his insanity in a part of his mind that recognises that some of what
he thinks he sees is not physically tangible. So now he is free. You
must read his autobiography at:

http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1994/nash-autobio.html

Perhaps his comment about Zarathustra was a bit flip - even if it made
a relevant point.

However, I have to say this, and it contradicts what I said about
raising questions, but the moral tale falls apart with the king and
his PM keeping knowledge of their insanity to themselves. As a
gnostic, I feel strongly that knowledge is our only salvation.
Insanity, therefore, should be encouraged to increase our
understanding and insights. The king and his PM could have told the
people that insanity would beset them on eating the grain and
encourage them to mark their foreheads too. Who knows what gems would have revealed themselves with an entire nation becoming insane.

Peter-William