From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (mordred) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.mythology,alt.pagan,alt.psychology.jung,alt.mythology.mythic-animals,alt.satanism,alt.fan.dragons Subject: Questing Beast, Madness and Individuation (was What ...Questing Beast?) Date: 14 Sep 1997 13:58:37 -0700 Organization: Bay Junction Technology, Inc. Lines: 64 Sender: tyagi@news.bjt.net Message-ID: <5vhj5t$t6l@bay1.bjt.net> References: <33f566d9.14192140@news.concentric.net# <01bcaecb$18ab39c0$934698c2@orphius> Reply-To: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 (NOV) NNTP-Posting-Host: bay1.bjt.net Path: bridge!not-for-mail Xref: bridge alt.magick.tyagi:14933 alt.mythology:42147 alt.pagan:256068 alt.psychology.jung:6910 alt.mythology.mythic-animals:5579 alt.satanism:80697 alt.fan.dragons:90486 49970914 aa2 Hail Satan! jhaye555@concentric.net: #># more than #># anything else in Le Morte d'Arthur, the illusive Questing Beast, who #># used to show up from time to time, in a wood, or by a lake, or going #># along a path. My question: Was it based on some real (I mean in a #># mythological sense) creature, probably the dragon, in a time when dragons were becoming the thing of legends. THWhite deals with the Questing Beast somewhat, properly indicating its necessary pairing with the beleaguered knight who happens to be chasing it. it is a psychological allegory, rather than moralistic. "Simon Todd" : # Palomedes and Pelinore both at one time hunted this beast. It is about # going down false paths. The hunt for the beast means that the knight has # lost his true way and is chasing after dreams. It is a bit like Don Quixote # charging windmills. this represents what I would call a (probably popular and) mistaken understanding of both Cervantes and the Questing Beast allegories. the paths are not 'false' except from the perspective of those who have not undertaken the transformative journey themselves. the wise or valiant always appear mad to the vulgar. # Whilste on this hunt they are almost doomed to keep # vainly hunting until they come to realise the futility of their errand, # until that time they are innured to the advice of others and are lost in # the illusiary honour of their quest. typically the knight gives up because she has not the will to maintain the mission and submits to the conventional, forever lost, presuming, as you do, that she was lost before. # If you think about it they are going # through the motions of honourable knighthood but their errand is futile # rendering them lost. on the contrary, if you look more closely you will see that what is being described, in the allegories of these quests, is the quest to resolve the self rather than any silly monster-slaying outside their person (the latter typically does everyone more harm than good). # This is an allegory for any who hold to spiritual # tennets and beliefs but for the wrong reasons, going through the motions of # being good and genuinely thinking they are right, but missing the point. I see what you are saying but think that such fantastic stories as are being examined here must conceal more than just 'the bad results of deluded good intentions'. methinks you have missed the point of the stories you are declaiming to explain and recommend a return to Jung. blessed questing beast!! tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (mordred) -- (emailed replies may be posted);join the AMT syncretism!!;call: 408/2-666-SLUG! see http://www.abyss.com/tokus; "Clement of Rome taught that God rules the world with a right and a left hand, the right being Christ, the left Satan." - CGJung