The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 35 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
Fourth Dialogue-b
He forms intelligible conceptions in his own way and proportions them to his capacity, so that they are received according to the manner of the recipient.
Tans.
And does he hunt through the operation of the will, by the act of which he converts himself into the object?
Cic.
As I understand: because love transforms and converts into the thing loved.
Tans.
Well dost thou know that the intellect learns things intelligibly— i.e.
, in its own way, and the will pursues things naturally, that is, according to the reason that is in themselves.
So Actæon with those thoughts—those dogs—which hunted outside themselves for goodness, wisdom, and beauty, thus came into the presence of the same, and ravished out of himself by so much splendour, he became the prey, saw himself converted into that for which he was seeking, and perceived, that of his dogs or thoughts, he himself came to be the longed-for prey; for having absorbed the divinity into himself it was not necessary to search outside himself for it.
Cic.
For this reason it is said "the kingdom of Heaven is in us;" divinity dwells within through the reformed intellect and will.
Tans.
It is so.
See then, Actæon hunted by his own dogs—pursued by his own thoughts—runs and directs these novel paces, invigorated so as to proceed divinely and "more easily," that is, with greater facility and with refreshed vigour "towards the denser places," to the deserts and the region of things incomprehensible.
From being such as he first was, a common ordinary man, he becomes rare and heroic, his habits and ideas are strange, and he leads an unusual life.
Here his great dogs "give him death," and thus ends his life according to the mad, sensual, blind, and fantastic world, and he begins to live intellectually; he lives the life of the gods, fed on ambrosia and drunk with nectar.
Next we see under the form of another similitude the manner in which he arms himself to obtain the object.
He says: 19.
My solitary bird!
away unto that region Which overshadows and which occupies my thought, Go swiftly, and there nestle; there every Need of thine be strengthened, There all thy industry and art be spent!
There be thou born again, and there on high, Gather and train up thy wandering fledglings Since adverse fate has drawn away the bars With which she ever sought to block thy way.
Go!
I desire for thee a nobler dwelling-place, And thou shalt have for guide a god, Who is called blind by him who nothing sees.
Go!
and ever be by thee revered, Each deity of that wide sphere, And come not back to me till thou art mine.
The progress symbolized above by the hunter who excites his dogs, is here illustrated by a winged heart, which is sent out of the cage, in which it lived idle and quiet, to make its nest on high and bring up its fledglings, its thoughts, the time being come in which those impediments are removed, which were caused, externally, in a thousand different ways, and internally by natural feebleness.
He dismisses his heart then to make more magnificent surroundings, urging him to the highest propositions and intentions, now that those powers of the soul are more fully fledged, which Plato signifies by the two wings, and he commits him to the guidance of that god, who, by the unseeing crowd, is considered insane and blind, that is Love, who, by the mercy and favour of heaven, has power to transform him into that nature towards which he aspires, or into that state from which, a pilgrim, he is banished.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The common man is transformed into a rare and heroic being through spiritual transmutation.
Ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine figured as drunkenness — Plato's symposium wine, Rumi's sukr, Eckhart's 'sober drunkenness'; the passive/receptive metaphor for divine encounter, distinct from divine_madness's active possessing rapture.
The transformed life is described as being 'drunk with nectar' and fed on ambrosia.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
[auto] The work's title (Heroic Enthusiasts) and the text's reference to Love being called blind by the unseeing crowd align with the concept of divine madness as higher knowledge.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The great dogs 'give him death' to the sensual world so he may begin to live intellectually and divinely.
Bruno's eroici furori — a passionate, ennobling spiritual ardor that drives the soul toward divine wisdom; distinguished from base or animal passions by its orientation to infinite truth.
[auto] The passage explicitly describes the transition from a common man to a 'rare and heroic' one living the life of gods, central to Bruno's concept of eroici furori.
Diotima's staged ascent from love of beautiful bodies → beautiful souls → beautiful pursuits → beautiful knowledge → Beauty itself; the canonical scala amoris that grounds Plotinus's On the Beautiful and Bruno's Eroici Furori — distinct from generic spiritual_ascent in that eros is the specific motive force.
[auto] The ascent is driven by love (eros), referencing Plato's wings and the progression from common man to intellectual divine life.
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition.
The 'common ordinary man' is contrasted with the conscious heroic life.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The human intellect and will are reformed to house divinity, reflecting the divine structure within the individual.
The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.
[auto] The realization that the sought-after divinity is within oneself ('he himself came to be the longed-for prey') highlights self-knowledge as soteriology.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The aspirant is described as a pilgrim banished from the state he seeks to return to.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
[auto] The subject lives the life of the gods, fed on ambrosia, and is transformed into the divine nature towards which he aspires.