Katabasis is a Greek word meaning “descent” or “going down”. It is used to describe a journey through the underworld, the realm of the dead. It is undertaken by a soul on its way to its final resting place, however it is also undertaken by living people.
It is a particular flavor of the Hero’s Journey. This is the monomyth that describes one leaving the “real” world and traveling to some fantastical place where they are challenged, confront death, and return home changed from the journey. It has discrete stages involving crossing thresholds, encountering the Divine, Apotheosis (becoming Divine), and returning home. In this way, the Hero’s Journey can be thought of as a description of the path to enlightenment.
We often think of enlightenment as a journey upward. Anabasis would be the Greek term for this, an ascent. It is like rising through progressive spiritual levels until God is encountered at the highest point, found to be within one’s own self, and then brought back down to Earth. It is a spiraling path, with each stage being a microcosm of the entire journey. It is often depicted as taking place over multiple lifetimes.
The Upward Path
Lets examine a few ways to describe the journey to enlightenment. It is important to remember that not every journey hits every step from every different description of the path, nor do they have to occur in the same order. Each of these paths is essentially a map of a Divine Cosmology, laying out the road between Humanity and God.
Campbell’s version of The Hero’s Journey has 17 stages:
- The Call to Adventure – Something changes in the Hero’s life, causing him to set out on a new journey.
- The Refusal of the Call – Because of duty or fear, or any number of reasons, the Hero rejects the call.
- Supernatural Aid – Something beyond the normal operation of the world assists the Hero to travel on.
- The Crossing of the First Threshold – The first opportunity to turn back, the Hero is challenged.
- Belly of the Whale – The point where the Hero first enters the unknown realm.
- The Road of Trials – The beginning of the initiation, where the Hero starts to transform.
- Meeting with the Goddess – A Divine woman is met in the darkness, and the Hero leaves with a gift.
- Woman as the Temptress – The woman tempts the Hero to stop here, abandoning the journey.
- Atonement with the Father – The Hero’s self is confronted, taking the form of shadow, authority, or death.
- Apotheosis – The Hero can now witness the fullness of the Divine, and finds it internally as well.
- The Ultimate Boon – Now fully enlightened, the Hero is now completely a Divine being with all the magic that comes with it.
- Refusal of the Return – Beginning of the journey back to Earth, the Hero may not want to leave.
- The Magic Flight – Using the new Divine powers he was granted, the Hero must retread the dangerous path he took to get here.
- Rescue from Without – Again, the supernatural aids the Hero who has given his all and cannot continue alone.
- The Crossing of the Return Threshold – The point separating the spiritual realms and reality.
- Master of Two Worlds – The Hero demonstrates his mastery of being both Human and Divine.
- Freedom to Live – The journey complete, the Hero lives his life without fear of death.
In Magia, we have six stages, described as climbing a mountain. By finding each stage, we are recreating that part of the cosmology within ourselves and within the world:
- A sleeping butterfly is awakened by the lamp light of a passing stranger, which it then begins to follow, finding the face of the stranger in it’s own heart. This is the finding of one’s own soul.
- The stranger leaves the forest and begins ascending the mountain. A river flows down the mountain, and eventually the source of this river is reached. Here, the source of the soul, the source of all souls, is found.
- The peak of the mountain is reached, one pointed in its devotion to the heavens. The source of all souls becomes a singular point, the division between self and other falls away.
- At the top of the mountain, the stars are found within the night sky. This is the beginning of the descent, which mirrors the upward path. The one point is now found within the plurality.
- The stranger descends the mountain, carrying the light of the stars with him, bringing life to the Earth. The relationship between Eternity and Time is realized, one giving rise to the other.
- With the stone of the earth and the light of the stars, a lamp is fashioned with which to wake the butterflies in the forest. This is the Divine Human, carrying what he found at the mountain peak within himself.
Beyond this, the cycle repeats. When the peak of the mountain is reached again, the whole of the cosmology is cut down, and the tree it was made of is used as a staff to walk about the forest. One is now standing at the centerpoint beyond Eternity and Time, the origin of both.
Thelema, and other related magical systems, have the Great Work and the Holy Guardian Angel. In this system, one’s “Higher Self” is contacted, and carries you along the path to enlightenment:
- First, the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) is contacted. By conscious invocation, the magician asks to begin the journey to God.
- The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel comes next. The magician makes full contact with the HGA and learns their True Will.
- The Threshold of the Abyss is reached. The HGA has carried the magician as far as his longing will take him. Here, the HGA withdraws, and the magician confronts the void between the physical world (creation or time) and the realm of the Divine (Eternity, timeless existence) alone.
- The Encounter with Choronzon, the Dweller in the Abyss, is the point where the magician is challenged alone. Here they meet the embodiment of confusion and chaos, which must be answered with silence to successfully pass.
- As the Abyss is crossed, the magician spills their blood into the Grail of Babalon. They reach the City of Pyramids where, no longer identifying with their earthly self, they become a pile of dust under the Night of Pan.
- Finally, they are born again from Babalon and their Apotheosis is complete.
The Downward Path
These are all journeys upward, but with Katabasis the path is flavored as a descent into the realm of the dead. In truth, these are all the same path, as the places reached when seeking enlightenment are the same as the places the dead arrive after death.
This path is often seen as dissuasive. A dangerous journey to make. The dead are encountered along the way, and many will try to stop the traveler. But this is just another version of the same challenges encountered going up. Rather than climbing a spiral staircase, or mountain switchbacks, the downward path seems to wind down a drain into darkness. A whirlpool sucking the traveler ever deeper. Here, rather than an Angel lovingly carrying the magician to God, a psychopomp guides the way to the afterlife.
Each culture within the world has its own ideas of the underworld. To the Greeks, Hades was flanked by numerous waters that block entrance to it:
- The Stix, river of hatred, where the ferryman of the dead, Charon, carries souls across for a fee.
- The Archeron, river of misery and woe, sometimes described as a lake. Charon is seen here as well.
- The Phlegethon, river of fire, leads to Tartarus, the deepest abyss in Hades, as punishment for abusers.
- The Cocytus, river of wailing, that murderers float down into Tartarus.
- The Lethe, river of forgetfulness, where the dead lose memory of their previous lives.
- Oceanus, river encircling the world, marking the border between the living and the dead.
I’ve mentioned Tartarus, but Hades also includes the Asphodel Meadows (where the dead exist as shades of their former selves) and Elysium (a paradise for heroes). The Orphic version of the Greek religion also included palingenesis, rebirth/reincarnation into a new body.
To the Egyptians, the dead traveled to Duat. The full path of the journey is too complex to address in this post, however it was typically started at the funeral. Those laid to rest in a boat where guided through the underworld by the sun god, Ra. Those in coffins were guided by the sky goddess Nut.
They had to pass through many doors along their journey, each with deities guarding them and providing challenges. Often, this was to know the name of the deities guarding the door as a password, of which there may be over 1000 per door. Other dangers along the way included getting lost, lakes of fire, hazardous rivers, and wild animals.
Eventually, some make it to the Hall of Maat, where they are judged. Typically, they had to name the judges present and confirm they were free of sin, after which their heart was weighed against a feather of Maat. Anubis administered this test, the results recorded by Thoth, and then they were presented to Osiris if they were destined for Aaru (The field of reeds, a paradise), or the Goddess Ammit would devour their soul, permanently destroying it.
Rebirth was possible, where the most worthy entered a Mother Goddess’s womb after judgement and their body restored, being reborn as a divine child.
The Hebrew Bible describes the underworld as a place of stillness and darkness: Sheol. Sometimes also called Abaddon (ruin), this is a place quite similar to the Greek Hades, where the dead exist in a semi-mindless sleep and remember nothing. It is located physically underneath the Earth itself.
Yahweh is said to be the one that brings souls down into Sheol, and it was seen with an sense of finality. In Deuteronomy, it is said at the very bottom of it a flame burns which could consume the entire earth. The dead can be called from this place with a proper application of necromancy, such that they can provide information to and interact with the living.
Tales Retold
Many cultures have tales of Heroes journeying to the Underworld and returning. Heracles descends and pets a dog, Orpheus fails to retrieve his wife, Odin seeks out Balder and sacrifices himself on Yggdrasil, Jesus dies and returns. Parmenides wrote a poem of horses carrying him to the Goddess at the bottom of the underworld. But it is incredibly present in modern media, so lets examine an underworld journey in a recent film.
1917
This film starts with the main character, Schofield, a British Lance Corporal, already dead. Yes, you heard me right.
He lays against a tree, eyes closed, essentially having “died” in battle. Blake, a manifestation of Schofield’s HGA, is roused first. Blake is the one to push Schofield along through the mission and protect him along the way.
The two are given a mission and immediately begin walking underground. They are in a graveyard, the trenches of France in WW1. They’re even told to be careful where they walk, because they are stepping on the dead. A sign on the trench wall labels it as a path to “Paradise Alley”, the way to heaven.
Given their orders to cross enemy territory (find their way to Croisilles, a forest, which translates to “crosspieces”) and save the living (Blake’s brother, and thousands of other men) from walking into a German trap, they set out on their journey through the underworld, but not before being blessed/anointed with alcohol by a makeshift priest.
Schofield does not want to go, but Blake (his HGA) presses him onward. They climb up out of the grave and begin crossing no man’s land, where Schofield cuts his left hand on barbed wire, paying his first price in blood for this journey. Falling into craters, they have to cross water to continue, meeting many of the dead along the way. Looking upward, they see two biplanes pass by. The sky, in this case, is the world of the living.
They find their way into abandoned German trenches and then an underground barracks. Finding no food here in the land of the dead, a rat sets off a tripwire explosion. Schofield is buried and blinded in the explosion, but Blake (his HGA) digs him out of the rubble and assures him that if he trusts him they will get out. Walking completely blindly, Schofield has to jump over a large gap in the path with only Blake’s word that he will be safe. Blake guided him to the rift, but cannot carry him across. He must make the leap himself.
Blake sees light ahead in the tunnel, and leads Schofield out of the darkness. This marks the end of the first spiral downward in Schofield’s katabasis, the very first crossing of the Abyss.
Schofield washes the dust out of his eyes with water from Blake, and is once again able to see. Schofield laments having to go on the mission, and Blake gives him the option to turn back. However, he decides to continue onward. They fire a flare, a star in the night sky, to alert others they have made it through the line.
They continue onward, Blake trying to keep Schofield’s spirits up by telling a humorous story. They again see the biplanes fly overhead, they are not yet so far from the world of the living. Blake chastises Schofield for trading away his medal (another star) for some wine. He tries to explain that it is important. Stars are the Gods in the body of the Goddess. They are a symbol for what one is longing for, trying to get to. They can represent the HGA, the Goddess herself, and the longing to return to Divinity. Blake says he’d keep it and treasure it if he had one.
They find a farmhouse surrounded by a walled orchard, cherry trees all cut down. Blake explains that cherry blossoms falling like snow are what home looks like.
They begin to explore the farmhouse. Blake looks outside, while Schofield looks inside. Notably, while searching outside Blake does not explore the barn. They switch places, and this allows Schofield to find a bucket of milk and fill his canteen.
Again, a glimpse of the world of the living as the two biplanes are engaged in a dogfight with a German plane. They succeed in shooting down the German. However, we do not immediately see the plane crash. It passes below the horizon, crossing the threshold between the worlds of the living and the dead, before once again appearing. They rescue the pilot, who stabs Blake before being shot by Schofield.
Here, as Schofield approaches the next Abyss, his HGA (Blake) has to abandon him. In Blake’s death, Schofield finds renewed purpose to continue. This is the end of the second spiral downward. Schofield has realized his True Will. His longing renewed, a new manifestation of his HGA arrives in the form of Captain Smith and a caravan that just happens to be going the same direction he is.
The caravan runs into various hazards, but this time it is Schofield who is urging the others to move onward. The only way to get the truck unstuck from the mud is for all the soldiers to work together to push it forward. This can be thought of as Schofield getting assistance from the dead, or rallying the strength of his past lives, all of his experience so far, to continue.
However, this is short lived, as the bridge is out. Schofield has arrived at the town of Ecoust which is still inhabited by the enemy. A river separates him from it and, as the HGA only brings one to the edge of the Abyss, he must cross it alone. The soldiers he is with once again bless him with alcohol, before wishing him luck in his crossing.
Schofield’s encounter with Choronzon starts immediately. He begins taking fire from an unseen sniper, and rushes across the broken bridge and through water to find cover. He eventually finds the sniper’s hideout and fires back, but it is uncertain if he has killed the man. Creeping into the building, he climbs the stairs and he and the sniper fire at the same time.
The movie up to this point, through clever editing, has seemed like one continuous shot. Here, we have the only apparent cut in the movie. Schofield’s helmet is shot off and he loses consciousness as he falls backwards down the stairs, and we are treated to a black screen.
This ends the third spiral down. Schofield encounters his own death here. The only way to reach the bottom of the underworld is to confront death.
As he wakes, he is in a completely different world. He leaves the building at night and begins to run across the town. Time here seems to be distorted, as flares launched in the darkness temporarily bring alternating daylight and blackness. It as if days are passing in moments, or perhaps repeating cyclically.
Running through the confusion, Schofield is shot at by unseen assailants, and arrives at the bottom of the underworld: a burning church.
He flees from a German soldier and dives into a basement to hide. Here, he encounters the Goddess.
He only speaks English, and she French, but somehow they are able to communicate. He sits down and she heals his wounds with a touch. A baby begins to cry, the divine child, and the Goddess moves to comfort it. Miraculously, Schofield has exactly what they need. Food for the Mother, milk for the Baby. His HGA’s actions at the farm made certain this would happen.
Schofield comforts the child, and the Goddess begs him to stay, but church bells tolling the hour remind him he has to continue. This ends his final spiral downward, he must now begin his ascent to his final resting place.
He rushes out of the basement and through the now burning town. Taking fire and fighting Germans along the way, he loses his weapon. However, having confronted Death, and now on the path of his True Will and healed by the Goddess, he no longer needs it. He runs through the town and leaps into a river.
The rapids churn him around, but he moves through them quickly. He is swept over a waterfall and lays on his back, nearly drowning for a moment before righting his position. He comes to a dam of fallen trees where dead bodies have collected in the river, and notices cherry blossoms raining down like snow: the symbol of home Blake (his HGA) previously defined.
He crawls out of the river and up a bank into a forest. He has made it to Croisilles, the cross on which he has sacrificed everything to save the world. He’s greeted by the angelic voice of a soldier singing to an assembly. The song is The Wayfaring Stranger, a folk-gospel piece about a soul’s journey through life.
The soldiers tell him he has arrived, and he is not yet too late. He fights his way through another British trench trying to find the way to Colonel Mackenzie, the Demiurge responsible for all of the death happening around him. He has to go “over the top”, as the trenches are too crowded to pass through, but with the gifts from the underworld he no longer fears death, and bravely rushes past many charging soldiers.
Reaching Colonel Mackenzie, Schofield finds him unwilling to listen. However, his persistence, his True Will, is too much to be resisted and the Colonel calls off the attack. He is congratulated on a job well done by the others present, and then again seeks out his HGA. Here, he meets him in the form of Blake’s brother. No longer greeting him as a reluctant soldier, but as a Hero who has completed his journey, they are able to meet as peers. He’s essentially carrying Blake within him, as part of him, at this point.
Finally, he is allowed to reach his final resting place, a tree exactly like the one in which the film started, and he reclines and falls asleep.
Death in the Underworld
One may ask “If this is truly the underworld, how is it possible that people are able to die along the way? Shouldn’t they already be dead?”
This is possible because katabasis is a personal journey. Not everyone’s longing will carry them the entire way through. Some will live again and try again.
But also, it is because the world we live in, what we commonly think of as the world of the living, is the Underworld. This is the only place that death exists. Where time and entropy brings all things to decay. The only place with a beginning and an end. We are all dead here, our life exists elsewhere.
And so the Katabasis is actually God’s journey. The Divine descends from Eternity, timeless ideal existence, as a Star from the heavens and incarnates as a human here on Earth. And by walking through this Underworld, the Divine is able to once again find itself. And thus, a place of timelessness is changed through the added memory of a life lived and ended.
And if that fallen God finds itself completely, a new being is born: the Divine Child. Both fully Human and fully Divine, it stands at the center of the cosmology, containing the fullness of it and being completely beyond it.
Did you see the Hero’s Journey, Magia stages, and Great work in the above example? This post only barely touches on the themes and symbols in the movie.
We have films depicting both the Upward (The Truman Show, The Matrix, A Dark Song) and Downward (The Neverending Story, As Above So Below, Dune) flavors of the path. Many depict the journey as a dream (The Wizard of Oz, nearly every David Lynch film, Inception). Some are more explicit (Dead Man, The Good Place, What Dreams May Come) while others are occulted (The Princess and the Frog, Pleasantville, Twisters, Star Wars). It even shows up in video games (Alan Wake 1 and 2) and stage shows/music (Hadestown). Some are inverted, so the upward path looks dissuasive or the downward pleasant, or with roles reversed. It is present nearly everywhere you look.
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