Welcome back to the Book of Gleanings, being a part of The Kolbrin. The last section saw the death of Yadol, Hurmanetar’s physical boon companion and (probably) allegorical higher and better self. Yadol’s death occurs, tellingly, after Hurmanetar has enjoyed an absolute blood-glut in a savage battle during which Yadol refused to take any physical part, settling instead for shoring up the courage of his comrades and taking a killing blow intended for Hurmanetar’s nephew, Ancheti. Yadol’s last words to Hurmanetar are that the two are destined to meet again. My own take on this is that, in surrendering to the battle rage, Hurmanetar has ‘earthed’ himself too powerfully and thereby temporarily severed the two parts of himself so that his better half, as represented by the gentle and deep-thinking Yadol, must, at this stage, withdraw until such time as Hurmanetar is ready to lift his spirit into loftier ideals.
The theme of the passage I am about to comment on here will be immediately recognisable to anybody who has read the ancient myths and classics, because this passage of The Kolbrin describes Hurmanetar’s journey to the Underworld to make his peace with Yadol. Stories about journeys to the Underworld to confront somebody and/or bring something back, either in the form of knowledge or a physical person or object (which simply represent the knowledge anyway), are as old as human history. They can be found in sources like the Mesopotamian Epic of Gligamesh, the Greek myths of Orpheus or Hercules, Homer’s Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid, to name but a few. Who knows whether one of these – or some other – was the prototype on which the others were founded, or if they are each products of their own cultures. I suspect it’s a mixture of the two. A lot’s been speculated about what these tales of journeys into the realm of the dead actually mean but, as I’ve argued in previous passages in this series, they don’t all have to mean the same thing. Plenty of sneering, washed-up old academics will attempt to totally over-complicate the matter and make any answer totally incomprehensible to most people, but, at the end of the day, it’s simply a matter of human beings reacting to constants. Death is a constant. It is a state totally unknowable to those left alive, which makes it (a) highly mystical and mysterious and (b) a very handy setting for all sorts of imaginary goings on that can’t be gainsaid because they don’t exist in the humdrum of everyday life. The Kolbrin has simply done what a whole series of story-tellers have done before and taken a hotch-potch of elements from previous narratives about Underworld journeys and applied them to its own situation. What I think is going on in the Hurmanetar/Yadol version of this well-trodden scenario is simply this: Hurmanetar, now steeped in slaughter in the wake of the physicality of a blood soaked battlefield, must make his peace with his own higher self which has sunk – or buried itself – away, almost as if in shock and horror at what it has seen another part of itself capable of. If Hurmanetar is to ‘heal’ his spirit, and unite his various centres into a Reasoning (with a capital R) whole, he must make an effort. That effort demands an arduous and perilous journey into his very Self (as depicted by the Underworld), during which he must face and overcome any number of demons and monsters (his darker side, passions, and less savoury deeds), so that he can ultimately, with a purged conscience, confront his own higher being and the ‘new’ Hurmanetar, brimming with new wisdom and knowledge, can be brought back into the light (the return journey) to fulfill his final destiny.
I’ve only really glanced over some of the ancient parallels in the paragraph above, but you can also go sideways into the philosophical murk if you want to. Socratic/Platonic philosophy, for instance, trades in the same ideas market but, because it is called ‘philosophy’ and not ‘religion’ or ‘myth’ it’s got its own nose a bit too high in the air at times. What I am talking about here is Plato’s Cave Analogy which, although it starts off in the dark, nevertheless still comes down to the concept of a growing understanding of the ‘reality’ of All and Everything as the action moves back towards the Light. The Socratic/Platonic concept of Forms (with a capital F), which is, in essence, the belief that everything we experience through our physical senses is only one or more aspects of some indiscernible essence of any given thing or quality, actually comes up later in this passage of The Kolbrin, but when we come to it I’ll explain it in the words of Terry Pratchett because he does it a lot better than I ever could.
OK, sorry about all that mumbo-jumbo, but I needed to get it off my chest before we embark on the narrative proper (which is another ripping yarn) because I think it may help to make a bit more sense of what The Kolbrin’s trying to get across at this point in the work. There’s also plenty of shazzbar nanu-nanu stuff going on (as you’d expect from a story about meeting the dead) but our old friend The Great Key of Life makes another appearance and we get a greater insight into what it may actually be (or represent).
So, Yadol’s death had Hurmanetar start contemplating his navel and pondering the nature of death. Had his old mate gone on to another state of being, or was he simply food for worms? Hurmanetar tried to remember what his guru-mother, Nintursu, had taught him, but drew a blank and so ultimately resolved to go and find out for himself. Like many before him, Hurmanetar decided to see if he could ‘penetrate the veil’. He went to see his Queen, Daydee, and informed her he was off to enter the Place of the Dead. A bit of a theological discussion ensued between the two of them in which Hurmanetar maintained that his god was so beyond the concept of humanity that he was ultimately unknowable, and that all the gods worshiped by humanity were but aspects of that one, mighty entity; in other words, mankind adulated the idols and ‘ideas’ it did, simply because it was unable to get its mind around the immensity of the one, true god, and so focused on just one manifestation of his overall power. Daydee, on the other hand, argued that if this god of Hurmanetar’s was so omniscient and omnipotent, then he would need lesser gods to serve him. That response, of course, gave Hurmanetar (and The Kolbrin) the opening to suggest that humanity, despite its fall and its imperfections, still retained the potential to approach the ultimate deity and discover ‘great truths’. Mankind, he said, had brought it about that the realms of god and humanity had been separated, but Hurmanetar insisted that a ‘meeting place’ (whether physical or mataphorical) exists between the two spheres that can be opened by using a ‘key’.
Anyway, Hurmanetar set out on his quest, accompanied only by young Ancheti (the one for whom Yadol had taken the spear thrust during the great battle). After a couple of days travel along ‘The Way of the Chariot’ the pair arrived in the land of Mekan where they were put up by somebody called Formana ‘The Strong-Limbed’. Hurmanetar seems to know exactly where he was headed because, when questioned about his destination by his host, he said he was seeking the ‘Abode of Hamerit’ which was situated on a mountain in a forest across the river. In that abode, Hurmanetar then tells Formana, is a door for which he already holds a key. In good old quest story tradition, Formana is aghast at what Hurmanetar wants to attempt and gives him all sorts of dire warnings against doing so, but he is intrigued by this key that Hurmanetar claims to have. It is, of course, the Great Key of Life we heard about in earlier passages, and which Hurmanetar seems to have forgotten all about during his sojourn at Queen Daydee’s court. He produces it now for Formana to have a look at, and we are told that it is shaped like a sword but has the power to blind the beholder if gazed upon for more than a few seconds. To prevent the key harming people, it was sheathed in a ‘strange scabbard’. By crikey! What’s all that about, then? For now, let’s take a punt that this sword-like key that blinds people when revealed is representative of truth and goodness; in essence it is the shining purity of spirit when drawn from the ‘strange scabbard’ of the fleshy human body. Only a spirit cleansed of earthly dross has the potential to penetrate the veil between planes of existence. Any takers? A load of old bunkum on my part? Let’s read on . . .
Interestingly, Formana goes on to describe the Key as ‘many hued’ but nevertheless says that, despite having it, a mere man stands no chance against a whole litany of dread foes who defend the portal between the spheres and the region beyond: the monsters in the forest, the fearsome watchman at the gate, and Dread Akamen the Terrible One. But Hurmanetar wasn’t dismayed and goes off alone to commune with his god and promise that if he survives all this, he’ll promote his deity above all others and try to address the downward spiritual spiral of an increasingly wayward world. Returning to Formana’s home, the host tries once more to dissuade Hurmanetar from his quest but our boy’s having none of it, so Formana decides the least he can do is accompany Hurmanetar to the dread portal while leaving young Ancheti behind at the house to guard his daughters. I think this is meant to represent that Formana, who symbolises experience, strength, and cunning is the preferred companion for the seeker after enlightenment rather than youth and inexperience as symbolised by Ancheti. In other words, the final steps of spiritual enlightenment are not a goal that should be attempted unless the seeker is well practised and prepared; probably because the experience is truly life-changing but carries with it the potential to mentally destroy the reckless or unwary. Maybe.
So, Hurmanetar and Formana set off. They were attacked by lions (loud, surface level fears?) at the edge of the forest but managed to slay them. The forest was full of huge trees of a type neither of them had seen before, hiding dread things that lurked in the darkness between the trunks (unknown fears, buried memories of past misdemeanours?) so that they were unable to sleep and so pressed on. At the mountain’s foot they came to an open place where they could rest (a patch of clear conscience?). At sunrise the next day the pair ascended the mountain and arrived at the cave known as the Portal of the Dead. There, Formana withdrew into a hut to wait while Hurmanetar pressed onwards.
More and more elements from other traditions now enter The Kolbrin’s narrative. Just like so many other seekers in other myths, religions, and literature, Hurmanetar encounters The Guardian. And, as in so many other stories, she is female and elderly. Hurmanetar’s declaration is highly formulaic:
“I am one who would enter the dread place, the Abode of Death, the Threshold of the Otherworld, the Door Replacing the Misty Veil. I am one sanctified, one knowing the Lesser Mysteries, I am an Enlightened One.”
At this point, we have to remember that Hurmanetar and Yadol seem to have been inducted into the Mysteries by Hurmanetar’s mum, Nintursu, at the Temple of the Seven Enlightened Ones, and it was there that Hurmanetar received into his keeping the Great Key of Life. This proclamation, then, in front of the Guardian, reads almost like an ambassador presenting his diplomatic credentials. But it’s only an opening gambit, a statement, if you like, that Hurmanetar has done his homework, because the elderly woman responds by asking the ‘three questions which all who would span the spheres must answer’. Alas, the three questions are not given in the text (and neither are the answers) but it’s all sounding very masonic, isn’t it?
Hurmanetar obviously gives the correct answers because the old woman (a type of Sibyl by the sound of it) has him sit on a stool which she circles with a cord then pours the contents of a leather bag into a fire-pot in front of the seated man and then gives him a pot of green water to drink. These are obviously the mind-bending and hallucinatory drugs that induce a state of heightened (or changed) consciousness – a stratagem that appears in cultures widely separated by time and geography. We humans do so enjoy getting completely off our heads, but there was a time when that state was considered exclusive and holy and awe-inspiring (in the truest sense of that word) and the preserve of those of us who seek a higher truth and more real sense of existence.
As the drugs began to kick in, Hurmanetar was led into the cave to a spot called the ‘Devil’s Mouth’ where an evil smell rose from an aperture in the ground. This is very similar to the Delphic Oracle of Ancient Greece where the inscription above the entrance read, very tellingly, KNOW THYSELF!
Caves, you know, are funny things. I suppose it comes down to the observation that they represent borders or frontiers, even edges if you like. That place where light and visibility gives way to darkness and the unknown. Borders – edges – are the places at which things change. Two of my favourite authors, Phil Rickman and Terry Pratchett, have remarked on this phenomenon. Borders are places at which one situation, one state, merges into, and eventually becomes, another. It doesn’t have to be a national boundary (although some of those can definitely be strange enough – the USA/Mexico or Israel/Egypt borders spring immediately to mind), no, it can be any type of boundary. The passage from wakefulness to sleep, for instance, or even the change of state between life and death. Borders . . . edges . . . they are very weird things. And caves are good visual representations of boundaries. So it’s no wonder that just about every culture that’s had access to caves has used them for some kind of ritualistic purpose. And even when there’s no handy cave around, people improvise and create cave-like structures in which their contemporaries can get happily (or terrifyingly) off their heads and have an ‘other-worldly’ experience – just look at Red Indian sweat lodges and Neolithic dream chambers.
Bit of a digression there, sorry. So, Hurmanetar’s trip is really beginning to take hold and he ‘awakens’ to find himself with strangely tunneled vision and a feeling of bodily lightness and airiness. Either Hurmanetar has achieved a transcendental state in which he is able to release his astral body, or he is bombed out of his brain and hallucinating madly – your call. He approached The Gate and faced off against the Watchman and his Terror (I think we are meant to envisage a Cerberus-like creature here). They came together in a terrifying clash of screams and hissing which Hurmanetar endured and then pressed on against, at which point both Guardian and Terror vanished. This, I suppose, is Hurmanetar facing down his fear and the other passions that life turns into a hideous clamour within our minds and hearts. Hurmanetar has to be in the zone if he is to complete his mission, and he can only do that if he achieves a state of serene Reason unaffected by distracting fears and emotions.
Our hero passed on through the Portal and came to a pool of very Styx and other Underworld streams-like, dark, reflective waters. The surface showed hideous shapes whose shadows, outlined against a ruddy light, lurched over the cavern walls. This is very Plato cave-analogy-esque. I guess what The Kolbrin is getting across here, is that Hurmanetar had to confront and then move on from the reflections of unreality – and even his own ugly personal facets – because they had to be left behind in the darkness of his old being if he were to progress to a clearer understanding of both himself and the universe. And, sure enough, moving on from the cavern of unreality, Hurmanetar sees daylight ahead. Hooray!. But no, this is simply, I think, symbolic of his having acquired a higher and more enlightened state than earlier in his journey which has therefore qualified him to face yet another test.
This time, after being attacked by harpy-like birds and gryphon things, he came before the doors of the abode of Akamen The Terrible One. If the Guardian Sybil’s three questions were a reflection the Law of Threes, then this test was a reflection of the Law of Sevens because the place was barred by a massive bronze door with seven bolts. Leaving aside, for now, the similarities between Apollo’s Sun Palace in the myth of Phaethon, Hurmanetar started to hear the voice of this new portal’s Guardian inside his head. He was asked, and correctly answered, seven questions, each of which opened a single bolt. Again, sadly, The Kolbrin gives us neither questions nor answers but we are told that Hurmanetar also learned this lore at the feet of his mother, Nintursu. Our boy passed through the now open portal and into the courtyard of Akamen. Oh no!
Now, just before we go on, it’s probably worth setting down for the record what I think Akamen the Terrible is meant to represent. In getting this far, you see, Hurmanetar has managed to overcome a lot of psychological pressure and, in so doing, offload a lot of personal baggage. In a way, he’s doing what the protagonist in medieval morality plays like Everyman or Frodo in The Lord of the Rings did; that is, he’s gradually cast off a lot of earthly dross (symbolised by feelings – emotions – and more tangible props like clothes) so that he can face the final hurdle before attaining his reward or freedom. Akamen, for Hurmanetar, is, I think, that last, earthy core of himself, that he must confront and overcome before he can reunite with Yadol and move forward to spiritual betterment. Akamen is the Hurmanetar who was happy to rob, kill, and steal from wayfarers in the mountains. Akamen is that part of Hurmanetar who wallowed in savage joy as the battle rage took him and he slaughtered anyone he could lay his hands on in the great battle on the plain that saw Yadol killed. In short, to overcome Akamen is Hurmanetar’s one shot at true redemption.
Once in Akamen’s courtyard, Hurmanetar had to first overcome the ‘four great beast Beings which feast on the bodies of men’. This he did ‘with his sword’ which, I am assuming is none other than his Key of Life. I’m not really sure what these four beast Beings are, but they could be some kind of allusion to the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as War, Famine, Disease, and Death could certainly be described as conditions that ‘feast on the bodies of men’. And if, as I’ve hazarded a guess earlier on, Hurmanetar’s ‘sword’ is the Great Key of Life which equates to a pure and shining Spirit free of earthly dross, then we can wring some sense out of this weird little passage.
Having overcome the four beast Beings, our boy passed through the Hall of Contest where the souls of men are fought over by good and evil spirits – a very Egyptian concept, that – and came at last to the portentous sounding ‘Chamber of Death’. Hurmanetar was a bit done in after all his exertions and sat down for a rest on a stone which, we are told, is called the ‘Seat of Makilam’. This snippet of information seems to be important, as The Kolbrin is insistent that the Seat of Makilam was then in that place, the inference being that it subsequently moved around a bit; so we may see this particular Stone of Destiny (they crop up in several ancient traditions) making another appearance later on in the work.
So, Akamen the Terrible finally put in an appearance and Hurmanetar, after a fierce half day’s struggle, managed to overcome him and pass onto the next obstacle which was the ‘Door of the Spheres’. My take on this, then, is that Hurmanetar has passed all the tests thrown at him and vanquished his inner demons – his more base passions and so on – so that his spirit is now in an elevated enough state to pass through into the higher planes of existence and complete the quest by reuniting with his higher self in the form of Yadol. Again, when you take away the quest-like qualities of Hurmanetar’s journey, you are left with the very Egyptian concept of the duality of spirit where, having been split in two at birth, one of the ‘twins’ endures life on Earth, picking up karma (both good and bad) on the way, before ‘reuniting’ with its other half at death. Hurmanetar uses his Great Key of Life to open the gateway to the Abode to the Dead and we are told he has to hold fast to it because without it, and the additional help of those who would aid him in this unearthly place, he would be unable to return.
Hurmanetar is then approached by a glorious spirit Being and has to justify why he has come to that place and the obstacles he has had to overcome in getting there. Hurmanetar is given permission to pass on and seek Yadol. We are told that Yadol can be found ‘beyond the Waters of Death’ (rivers, as crossing points and boundaries – edges – are, like caves, strongly associated with netherworld traditions and crop up all over the place in ancient literature). Hurmanetar is warned not to eat from a strange tree which grows in those waters as it will make him changeless and immortal, a state described as ‘the most dreadful of all fates’. This, I think, we also have to take allegorically, and put the emphasis on ‘changeless’. To all esoteric traditions, religions, and philosophies, remaining ‘changeless’ means not evolving, not learning, not developing; and it is that state, I feel, the state of spiritual stagnation, that is being referred to and warned against here.
Hurmanetar crosses the Waters of Death to the Land of Waiting (a kind of waiting room for spirits where the spirits shine a red colour, which could mean they still have to work on cooling their passions and become totally serene before they can pass onto the next stage) and comes to yet another door, this time the ‘Great Doorway’ to the ‘Place of Glory, the land of Eternal Living’. And in this place, finally, Hurmanetar finds Yadol who, of course, is now visible in his spirit form, a thing of striking beauty. Yadol imparts much wisdom and many secrets to Hurmanetar (we aren’t told what they are) and then gives him a task. Because Hurmanetar has crossed the veil, his physical life on Earth must be shortened, but in the time he has left, Yadol charges Hurmanetar to record everything he has just told him in two books. Both are to contain the ‘Sacred Mysteries’. The first is to record the really serious stuff that only the Elect may read – The Book of Truth Unveiled. The second is to contain the ‘lesser’ secrets and is intended for those who study and train under the Elect – The Book of Veiled Truth or The Book of Hidden Things.
The next little piece of text – describing Yadol’s parting comments and Hurmanetar’s homeward journey – is extremely weird. It starts with Yadol commenting on the possibility of crossing the veil between the spheres of existence. He says that it was once commonplace and easy but humanity stuffed up so barriers were put in place. The ‘secret of the substances’ that combine to facilitate the crossing (I am assuming the herbal potion Hurmanetar was given by the Sybil) may be lost over time, says Yadol, although it might still be found amongst those who guard the mysteries, but such knowledge will become increasingly hard to locate.
The next bit is Hurmanetar’s return journey, and I’m at a bit of a loss here, because it says that Hurmanetar was only able to accomplish the trip back with the aid of the ‘Guardians of Form’ (whoever they are) who safeguarded the powers of The Great Key of Life. Now, the only Forms (with a capital F) that I’ve come across, are those proposed by the thinking of Socrates and Plato (and which, for all I know, they may have nicked from some even earlier thinker). To their way of thinking, there exists an extreme version of everything (whether its an object like a horse or a quality like beauty) that can’t be discerned by our normal senses; that is, we can only approach understanding it through the lens of Reasoned thought. Let’s take a horse, for instance. Over and above what your eyes see when you witness a four-legged beast with a long face in a paddock, there exists the concept of horsiness, for want of a better word, and it is that, almost abstract, understanding that Plato and Socrates called a ‘Form’. Terry Pratchett describes it beautifully when he says that it is what you are left with when you picture a horse at full gallop, its muscles bunching in power, and mane streaming in the wind – and then you remove the horse. Or take a Lumberjack’s axe. Over time, the handle may be replaced, the blade may be replaced – heck, the whole damn thing may be replaced, but what you are nevertheless looking at is still the Lumberjack’s axe. So, anyway, I’m tempted to guess that what The Kolbrin is alluding to here with these Guardians of Form who power the Great Key of Life, is that Hurmanetar’s spirit, now purified through trial and ordeal, and fortified by the wisdom of his higher self (Yadol), must constantly operate on that level of a totally Reasoned understanding of the Universe and its operation in order not to backslide into his bad old ways and habits.
So, Hurmanetar arrives back in the cave from which he started out to find good old Formana (who kind of represents the physical side of things) waiting for him. Despite everything we are told Hurmanetar underwent, all Formana saw was Hurmanetar lying stiff and as if dead between two flames. Hurmanetar’s journey, then, can be read as either an adventure undertaken by his ‘astral’ body, or, more psychologically, a drug-fueled rampage through his own subconscious. Whatever your interpretation, though, Hurmanetar seems to have fulfilled his quest and achieved his objective because Formana describes him as having the shining countenance of a man whose life has been renewed. The two men then descended the mountain, fought off the creatures lurking in the gloom beneath the forest trees, passed through the Gate of Many Cubits and finally arrived back at Formana’s dwelling.
Wow! What a belter of a story! And what can we make of it from a self-help perspective? Well, the journey to the underworld is a pretty well-worn motif in many cultures around the globe. Sure, it’s partly to do with the unknowability of death, that need to understand something that no amount of study is ever going to prove or disprove, and it also, no doubt, has a little to do with giving those of us left behind a degree of comfort that our loved ones may not be lost forever, that there is some chance that we may, one day, meet them again. The Kolbrin pitches Hurmanetar’s quest as a crusade to better understand the nature of death, but I have chosen to read in another level; that is, the need to struggle with, and overcome our baser instincts so that we can grow as people by creating a constant and unbreakable bond with that part of us that is the best. Every single one of us has the potential to do that but, just like Hurmanetar, it takes a lot of effort and a deliberate placing of ourselves outside of our personal comfort zones. It’s of limited use, you see, to have a patchy relationship with your better self, because, yes, you may have interludes of blissing out with universal love and doing the right thing by other people, but if you let your ugly side gain control from time to time, you can cause untold damage to yourself and everyone around you. One moment of madness is all it takes to ruin your life completely. So the trick is to make your better self a permanent part of who you are all of the time. It’s not easy, and it can take time. None of us is a perfect saint, but if we at least try to curb our uglier emotions – our anger, our hate, our greed – then we can slowly, slowly catch the monkey. To my way of thinking, every spiteful word bitten back, every revenge not taken, every punch not thrown, all add up, little by little, to help make this crazy fool world an easier place to handle.
OK, that’s all for now. In the next passage, we learn what Ancheti, Hurmanetar’s nephew, got up to when he was left behind to guard Formana’s daughters. I hope to see you there.
