I climbed to my feet. I felt myself light and powerful, and strangely numbed, and I went to the dead fire, and walked through the burnt timers. It was time now to examine the inner room. Most of us remember the myth of Narcissus as the story of a beautiful youth who fell in love with his own image in a pool and pined away because he never could possess it. However, the actual myth is a great deal richer. It begins with Tiresias, the aged prophet, predicting to the river nymph who was Narcissus’ mother, provided he never knows himself, her son would live to a ripe old age. This catches us up short. What is the meaning of not knowing oneself? True, the dynamics of narcissism always have as their fulcrum the problem of self-knowledge. However, could Tiresias be saying if Narcissus avoids the absorption of self-love, the very thing we later call narcissism, that he will live long? Or can he be referring to the literal translation of know thyself, from the Greek know that you are only a man, accept your human limits, which Narcissus obviously refused to do? The second character in the myth, also forgotten by most of us, is Echo, a lovely mountain nymph who falls hopelessly in love with Narcissus and follows him over hill and dale as he hunts for stage. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

Intending to call his hunting companions, Narcissus cries, “Let us come together here!” Echo responds in the same words and rushes out to embrace Narcissus. However, he shakes her off roughly and runs away crying out, “I will die before you ever lie with me!” Echo then pines away, leaving behind only her melodious voice. Disdaining her supine resignation, the gods condemn her to wander forever in the mountain glens and valleys, where we hear her voice today. However, in her need for revenge, she calls upon the gods to punish Narcissus by making him also the victim of unrequited love. It is only then that he falls in love with his own reflection. At first he tried to embrace and kiss the beautiful young man who confronted him, but presently he recognized himself, and lay gazing enraptured into the pool, hour after hour. How could he endure both to possess and yet not to possess? Grief was destroying him, yet he rejoiced in his torments; knowing at least that his other self would remain true to him, whatever happened. Echo, although she has not forgiven Narcissus, grieved with him; she sympathetically echoed ‘Alas! Alas!’ as he plunged a dagger in his chest, and also the final ‘Ah, youth, beloved in vain, farewell!” as he expired. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

Narcissus’ tragic flaw, in the eyes of the gods, is that he could never love anyone else, never love in the sense of giving himself in union with another person. There is no fertility in Narcissus’ love, and none in narcissism—no genuine coupling, no cross-fertilization, no interpersonal relationship. This threatens to be a tragic flaw in our present-day “I am me” effort to escape the paradox: we cannot love without committing ourselves to another person. In grasping for freedom from entanglement with other persons, we come to grief over our failure of compassion and commitment—indeed, the failure to love authentically. However, there is another important insight in this story that will help us understand present-day neo-narcissism and that, to my knowledge, has not yet been mentioned in the literature. It is that narcissism has its origin in revenge and retaliation. Echo’s plea, answered by Aphrodite, is a gesture of revenge. And this is also true in our contemporary neo-narcissism: there is in it a strong motive of anger and revenge. This is shown in the above series of verses. “I have no right, no wrongs” can be translated into the cry “The culture has let us down.” What we learned as children turns out to be phony; our parents seemed unable by dint of their confusion to show us any alternative moral guideposts or teach us wisdom; and what we were taught often turns out to be undesirable anyway and promotes conterrebellion. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

It is out of revenge upon those in the culture who betrayed her that the writers of the verses withdraws into herself and comforts herself with a lonely self-love: “The purest form of love, the warmest, the most exciting love is not mine for another, but mine for me.” In our society we have called this self-love. The phrase self love came into general currency after Erich Fromm’s essay “Selfishness and Self-Love.” Dr. Fromm condemned the fist and elevated the second. He did not see the important differences between self-love and love of another. There is a tragic flaw in this self-love, a seductive error that carries over into the masses of self-help books and spreads the havoc that arises from neo-narcissism. What is called love for others and self-love are two different things. Love for another person is the urge toward the uniting of two separate entities who invigorate each other, revivify each other, and contribute their differences to each other, and combine their different genes in a new and unique being—toward which the pleasures of the flesh is a powerful motivation. The essence, then, is the combining of two different beings. Nature’s obvious purpose in this, in contrast to incest, is the increase of possibilities. The insemination, the combination of two different sets of genes, result in the creation of new forms and original patterns. All of this Narcissus could not or would not do. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

The well-worn, strict doctrine that if you hate yourself, you cannot love others is true. However, the converse of that—that is you love yourself, you will automatically love others—is not true. Narcissus, in his rejection of Echo, dramatically demonstrates this. Many persons use self-love, then, ought really to be termed self-caring, which includes self-esteem, self-respect, and self-affirmation. This would save from the confusion of self-caring and love for others, as it is shown so vividly in the myth of Narcissus. To be free to love other persons requires self-affirmation and, paradoxically, the assertion of oneself. At the same time it requires tenderness, affirmation of the other, relaxing of competition as must as possible, self-abnegation at times in the interests of the loved one, and the age-old virtues of mercy and forgiveness toward each other. Destiny is the other person in the act of loving. The dialectical poles of self-caring and love for the other fructify and strengthen each other. Fortunately, this paradox can neither be escaped nor solved, but must be lived with. There are others, however, who are not satisfied with such ignorance and such indifference, who want certain and assured knowledge of the spirit, by penetrating the secrets of their own being. And it is the promise of the satisfaction of this want which attracts them to the quest for God’s truth. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

Was the baptism of John from Heaven or from mortals? Many cannot answer this. If one says that it was from mortals, they would have hurt the popular feelings and perhaps even a feeling within themselves, that John was a prophet. However, if they had said that he was from God, they would have established an authority beyond the threefold authority which they could claim for themselves. And this they did not want. They, who were called authorities, demanded that all authority be vested in them. Therefore, they did not accept John as a prophet, nor Jesus as the Christ. Do not minimize the seriousness of this conflict. It was not simply a conflict between good and evil, between faith and unbelief. The conflict was much more profound and much more tragic than this! Let us imagine that we ourselves were in the place of those who asked Jesus about the source of his authority. Let us imagine ourselves as the guardians of a great religious tradition, or as the unquestionable experts in a sphere of decisive importance for human existence, or as people who have learned through a long experience to deal with matters of highest value. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

And let us also assume that we had no function as legally established authorities and that somebody came and spoke about the same things in quite a different language and acted in the field of our authority in quite a radical way; how would be react? And if the people who saw and heard this man said of him what they said about Jesus, that he teaches as one who has authority and not as we the established authorities, how would we react? Would we not think: He confuses the masses, he spreads dangerous doctrines, he undermines well-proved laws and institutions, he introduces strange modes of life and thought, he disrupts sacred ties, he destroys traditions from which generations of mortals have received discipline and strength and hope? It is our duty to resist him and if possible to remove him! For the sake of our people we must defend our consecrated and tested authority against this mortal who cannot show the source of the authority he claims. Could we be blamed for such a reaction? And if not, can we blame the authorities in Jerusalem for their reaction to Jesus? We think of the Reformation. This was a moment in the history of the Church in which the question of authority was once more in the center of events. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

Luther, and consequently the whole Protestant World, broke away from the Roman Church and from 1500 years of Christian tradition when no agreement about the authority of the pope and the councils could be reached. Here, again, someone had arisen who spoke and acted with an authority of the pope and the councils could be reached. Here, again, someone has arisen who spoke and acted with an authority the sources of which could not be determined by legal means. And here also we must ask, “Are the Catholic authorities who rejected him in the name of their established authority to be blamed for it?” However, if we do not blame them, we can ask them, “Why do you blame the Jewish authorities who did exactly the same as you did when the people said of the Reformers that they spoke with authority and not like the priests and monks?” Is the same thing so different if it is done by the Jewish high priest and if it is done by the Roman high priest? And one may ask the present-day Protestant authorities in Europe and in this country, “Are you certain that the insistence on your authority, on your tradition, and your experience does not suppress the kind of authority which Jesus has in mind?” #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

And now we ask, “What does authority mean?” What does it mean for a mortal as a mortal? What does it mean for our period and for each of us?” First of all, it means that we are finite and in need of what the word “authority” really says: to be started and increased. It means that we are born, that we were infants and children, that we were completely dependent on those who gave us life and home and guidance and contents for soul and mind. We were not able to decide for ourselves for many years, and that made us dependent on authority and made authority a benefit for us. We accepted this authority without resistance, even if we rebelled on special occasions. And this authority became the basis for all other authorities. It gave strength to the authority of the older brother or sister, of the more mature friend or teacher, of the official, of the ruler, of the minister. And through them we have been introduced into the institutions and traditions in society, state and Church. Authority permeates, guides, shapes our lives. The acceptance of authority is the acceptance of what is given by those who have more than we. And our subjection to them and to what they stand for enables us to live in history, as our subjection to the laws of nature enables us to live in nature. And from the authority of the law is derived the authority of those who represent and administer it and who, for this reason, are called the authorities. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

Our daily life would be impossible without traditions of behavior and customs and the authority of those who have received them and surrendered them to us. Mortal’s control of nature would be impossible without the tradition of knowledge and skill into which every new generation is introduced and which gives authority to those who are able to introduce us. Mortal’s intellectual life—the language one uses, the songs one sings, the music one plays, the houses one builds, the pictures one paints, the symbols one creates—one has received through the authority of those who have participated in it before one. Mortal’s religious life—the faith one hold, the cult one loves, the stories and legends one has heard, the commandments one tried to obey, the texts one knows by heart—all this is not created by one; one takes it from those who represent to one religious authority. And if one revolts against the authorities which have shaped one, one does it with the tools one has received from them. The language of the revolutionary is formed by those against whom one revolts. The protest of the reformer uses the tradition against which one protests. There, no absolute revolution is possible. If it is attempted, it fails immediately; and is a revolution succeeds, its leaders soon have to use forms and ideas created by the authorities of the past. This is true of the rebellion of the adolescent against the family authority as well as of the rebellion of new social groups against the authority of the established power. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

When we speak of human finitude, we usually think of mortal’s transitorines in time, of birth and death, of the vicissitudes which threaten one in every moment. However, we are not only finite in that we are temporal, we are also finite in that we are historical and that means subject to authority, even if we rebel against it. We are thrown into existence, not only bodily, but also mentally. In no respect are we by ourselves, in no moment can we be by ourselves. One who tries to be without authority tries to be like God, who alone is by himself. And like everyone who tries to be like God, one is thrown down to self-destruction, be it a single human being, be it a nation, be it a period of history like our own. Art, to: as one beholds what confronts one, the form discloses itself to the artist. One conjures it into an image. The image does not stand in a World of gods but in this great World of mortals. Of course, it is there even when no human eye afflicts it; but it sleeps. The Chinese poet relates that mortals do not want to hear the song that one was playing on one’s flute of jade; then one played it to the gods, and they inclined their ears; and ever since mortals, too, have listened to the song—and thus one went from the gods to those with whom the image cannot dispense. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

As in a dream it looks for the encounter with mortal in order that one may undo the spell and embrace the form for a timeless moment. And there one comes and experiences what there is to be experienced: that is how it is made, or this is what is expresses, or its qualities are such and such, and on top of all that perhaps also it might rate. Not that scientific and aesthetic understand is not necessary—but it should do its work faithfully and immerse itself and disappear in that truth of the relation which surpasses understanding and embraces what is understandable. And also: that which towers above the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of art because here evanescent, corporeal mortals need not banish oneself into the enduring matter but outlasts it and rises, oneself an image, on the starry sky of the spirit, as the music of one’s living speech roars around one—pure action, the act that is not arbitrary. Here the Independent World appeared to mortals out of a deeper mystery, addressed one out of the dark, and one responded with one’s life. Here the word has become life, and this life, whether it fulfilled the law or broke the law—both are required on occasion lest the spirit die on Earth—is teaching. Thus it stands before posterity in order to teach it, not what is and not what ought to be, but how one lives in the spirit, in the countenance of the Independent World. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

And that means: it stands ready to become an Independent World at any time, opening up to the spirit of God; no, it does not stand ready, it always comes toward them and touches them. However they, having become uneager and inept for such living intercourse that opens up a World, are well informed; they have imprisoned the person in history, and one’s speech in a library; they have codified the fulfillment of the breach, it does not matter which; nor are they stingy with reverence and even adoration, adequately mixed with some psychology, as is only proper for modern mortals. O lonely countenance, starlike in the dark; O living finger upon an insensitive forehead; O steps whose each is fading away! It is a tradition in spiritual circles of God that anyone who has ever felt the truth power or beauty of the Gospel, however briefly, will not be able to escape being drawn to its practical consequence, the Quest, one day, however long deferred it may be. A mind which is no longer satisfied with shallow consolations will naturally turn to mystical experience or metaphysical study for deeper ones. All that has happened before one’s entry upon the quest has really been converging toward it. It is as inevitable that some mortals should come to the Quest because of their sorrows and difficulties as that other mortal should abandon it temporarily for the same reasons. God offers the surest path to the mind’s peace and the heart’s satisfaction. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13