The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

the gospel of hellas
Sisyphus and Heracles. These meetings point the way back to the secrets of
Atlantis and her demigods and sanctuaries. Heracles tells Odysseus of the
last of his twelve labors for king Eurystheus, the taming of the hellhound,
Cerberus—how he brought him into the upperworld, and how he was able to
accomplish this deed with the help of Hermes and Pallas Athena. Heracles’
words and the journey to Hades close with an allusion to these two divine
powers.
Odysseus has a Heraclean destiny. Indeed, he is destined to become not
only an initiate and a seer but a demigod. Hermes and Athena are also his
guides throughout his travels. Hermes is the divinity who kindles the will,
Athena the one who inspires thought. Hermes guides the neophyte down into
the netherworld; Athena illuminates his path to Olympus. Hermes reveals the
wonders of the inner world and points beyond death into the future. Athena
discloses the wonders of the sense world through thoughts born out of the
realm of prenatal life; she looks back to the past. Athena and Hermes together
help to inaugurate the Greek epoch. Odysseus is the first representative of this
civilization. In Hades he encounters eleven heroes and demigods. He, himself,
will become the twelfth; although a mortal, he gains immortality.
After his descent to Hades, Odysseus returns to Circe. Now she is able to
foretell his future “because he has passed through death twice, whereas other
men pass through it only once.” She predicts the future to Odysseus, who then
passes through a new stage on the path to initiation. Finally she directs him to
Ithaca on a journey again fraught with danger. He must literally experience his
goal of which danger forms a part. This is the higher meaning underlying the
tests and probations of his travels.
The eighth stage is the overcoming of the deluding power of the spiritual
forms, the Sirens. Then follows the ninth test, the journey through Scylla and
Charybdis, the two opposing powers, of attraction and repulsion. Odysseus
passes through his tenth test among the cattle of Helios. When Circe spoke to
him of the trials which awaited him, she warned him against taking or killing
any of Helios’ oxen. But Odysseus falls asleep as he did when his companions
opened the bag in which Aeolus had imprisoned the winds. His companions,
violating Circe’s command, kill one of Helios’ oxen, whereupon the gods