Heptonic

The Rebis, Part 1 of 2

Foundations

Defines evil as the choice of immaturity, then introduces the four archetypes, the Rebis as master archetype, and its two shadows, the Darmarch and the Soterine.

5 min read

What is Evil?

Evil is choosing immaturity, when maturity is the better option. To illustrate…

A cat that captures and tortures a mouse, for its amusement, is not evil; a cat does not have an option for higher maturity. In contrast if a human does the same, particularly an adult, then such is evil.

Archetypes, and Bipolar Disorders

Although a man may fulfill many archetypes within a lifetime, four of these comprise the key dimensions of masculinity: Warrior, Lover, Magician, and King. At any given moment, a man is embodying any of these, each along a spectrum of immaturity to maturity. The more immaturity is present, the more that archetype will “split” into a bipolar disorder.

The KingA triangle with The King at its apex, the place of full maturity. The base corners are the two bipolar poles: The Tyrant on the left, marked plus, and The Weakling on the right, marked minus.The King+−The TyrantThe WeaklingThe WarriorA triangle with The Warrior at its apex, the place of full maturity. The base corners are the two bipolar poles: The Sadist on the left, marked plus, and The Masochist on the right, marked minus.The Warrior+−The SadistThe MasochistThe MagicianA triangle with The Magician at its apex, the place of full maturity. The base corners are the two bipolar poles: The Detached Manipulator on the left, marked plus, and The Denying Innocent One on the right, marked minus.The Magician+−The DetachedManipulatorThe DenyingInnocent OneThe LoverA triangle with The Lover at its apex, the place of full maturity. The base corners are the two bipolar poles: The Addicted Lover on the left, marked plus, and The Impotent Lover on the right, marked minus.The Lover+−The AddictedLoverThe ImpotentLover
The four masculine archetypes: King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. The base of each triangle is immaturity, where the archetype splits into its two bipolar poles (+ and −); the apex is full maturity.

The base of each triangle, in the images above, can be understood as the place of immaturity. In contrast, the apex of each triangle is the place of full maturity. It is possible for a man to be more mature with regard to one archetype, while being immature in another.

Still, wherever there is immaturity, a man will exhibit one or both of the indicated bipolar disorders. Indeed, some men may switch polarities multiple times each week, or even in the space of a single conversation. Other men almost always exhibit just one-side of a bipolar disorder. Men who exhibit such immaturities, despite the upward call of their humanity, are demonstrating evil (per definition).

Ultimately, there is “treasure” that awaits those who grow beyond these bipolar disorders. A man who achieves maturity in all four of these, walks among the enlightened. That said, a key piece of achieving maturity within an archetype, let alone several of them, is understanding and achieving the coniunctio oppositorum. That is, the “Union of Opposites”.

The Rebis

In medieval alchemy, the result of the “Great Work” was the Union of Opposites. It was known as the Rebis. In art, the Rebis was depicted as a person who is the integration of a man and a woman.

Hand-coloured woodcut of a two-headed figure, a bearded man and a woman, with REBIS on the chest, holding a compass and a set square and standing on a green dragon that rests on a winged globe, with the sun, the moon and five planetary stars around them.
The Rebis: a single figure joining a man and a woman, with the seven planetary signs about it, standing on a dragon above a winged globe.Heinrich Nollius, Theoria Philosophiae Hermeticae (1617), coloured. Public domain.
Hand-coloured manuscript drawing of a crowned figure with two faces, a bearded man on the left and a woman on the right, dressed half in black and pink and half in gold and white, with one pale wing and one black wing, holding a green spiral disc and a golden chalice from which serpents rise, standing above a winged dragon. An inscription below reads Figura Hermetis pertinet ad folium 97.
Figura Hermetis: the Rebis as a crowned figure, half man and half woman, one wing light and one dark, holding a disc and a chalice, with a dragon beneath.Alchemical manuscript, public domain. Exact manuscript unknown.

The Rebis is, in fact, the “master archetype”. And just as each immature archetype has a bipolar disorder, so too does the Rebis.

Illuminated manuscript page in gold, blue and red: within a gold-framed triangle shading from blue to red, a crowned figure whose face is half man and half woman at the apex, with a sun on one side and a moon on the other; at the base corners, a dark crowned king amid flames on the left and a veiled woman in chains, with scales, on the right; planetary signs and Latin inscriptions fill the border.
A modern illumination of the Rebis at the apex, with the sun and the moon beside it; beneath, a dark king and a veiled queen.A modern illumination, made for Heptonic.

The bipolar disorders of the Rebis are the “Darmarch” and the “Soterine”:

  • Darmarch. The evil patriarch. The Darmarch pursues domination at the cost of enlightened stewardship. He wants to be hailed for his greatness or superiority on a physical plane. He achieves his goals primarily through war, violence, intimidation and ruthlessness.
  • Soterine. The evil matriarch. The Soterine pursues “leveling”, an opposite ethos of domination, at the cost of natural law. She wants to be hailed for superiority on a moral plane. Ironically, she achieves her “moral” goals through subversion, division, and degeneracy.

In effect, the two are like Archons who believe “the end justifies the means”. And, significantly, the Darmarch and Soterine despise each other. The domination sought by the Darmarch forces inequities, which the Soterine hates. Likewise the anti-domination “leveling” or uniformity sought by the Soterine punishes domination, which invites the hatred of the Darmarch. Yet despite their mutual contempt, being two sides of the same coin, they have strikingly much in common. Notably, they both operate through the energy of authoritarianism and are both swift to bring condemnation and endless accusations of everyone who doesn’t fall in line:

“that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan…” (Rev 12:9) is he who is “the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night” (Rev 12:10).

Each of the bipolar disorders of the other archetypes (e.g. warrior, brother, sister, father, mother, etc) are influenced by these Archonic, master-forces. Thus when the master archetype is immature in someone, no less in a community or culture, inevitably it will influence several if not all the other archetypes of that same person.

Corrupted Innocence

Both of these Archons, as exhibited in people, are manifested from two ingredients. The first ingredient is from what psychologists call “arrested development”. In general, often as a result of trauma, this is a consequence of “toxic shame” instilled in childhood. This toxic shame then carries into adulthood. Even by itself, this ingredient typically manifests as the bipolar disorder of either codependency on the one side, or narcissism on the other. And when manifested, as suggested earlier, it could manifest in a very one-sided fashion or in a “randomly” oscillating fashion.

Either way, this lays the groundwork for authoritarianism. Perhaps self-evidently, the energy of narcissism has a connection to authoritarianism. Meanwhile codependency falls prey to coddling narcissistic people - and thus it too supports authoritarianism. Within authoritarianism, it can be thought of as “cult leader” on one side, and zealots on the other.

But opening a path to authoritarianism isn’t the only “arrested development” consequence of toxic shame.

Children, particularly under the age of ~10, have little or no abstract thinking capabilities. When an adult has a noteworthy emotional hang-up from childhood, and is triggered into emotionality, this invariably sparks an instant regression into that self-same childhood model of thinking. Thus adults, triggered into childlike regression, frequently have impaired or suspended abstract thinking skills. This “loss of abstraction” dynamic is what prompts various observations, such as:

“Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance.”

— Albert Maysles

“Authoritarianism appeals, simply, to people who cannot tolerate complexity.”

— Anne Applebaum

When authoritarianism mixes with a lack of abstract thinking, both rooted in toxic shame, it becomes the brokenness of absolutism. And the brokenness of absolutism often manifests as an obsession with or phobia of the Fundamental Wrong. Unconsciously and emotionally, the Fundamental Wrong is an “unease” that is projected outwardly as a brokenness in the world that must be fixed. Directly or indirectly, this becomes expansive and deeply exaggerated themes about the evils of humanity. For example:

  • Certain group(s) of people - according to race, gender, or social class - must be viewed as evil or destructive. Or…
  • All of humanity is evil or destructive.

Either way, such ideation of the Fundamental Wrong are just deflections from the real problem - which is entirely inward.

Nevertheless the deepest manifestation of the Darmarch or Soterine archons is sociological, and manifests through collectivization. When groups of people collectivize who share a similar notion of the Fundamental Wrong, no less a shared Darmarch or Soterine ethos, it becomes various large scale phenomena known to all of us. This is what is next explored.