The Garden of Delights brings us the keys to a problem which for ages has never found a satisfactory solution, despite all the efforts of thinkers, philosophers, theologians, poets, nor even psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, sexologists and others specialists of modern times.
Bosch gives us in coded form the rules that must be followed to restore love and sexuality to their most important function. This function is not that of procreation, as we too easily tend to think, but a function of a spiritual order.
It is classically said that God is Love. For Bosch, it is Love that opens the way to divinity – a Love with a capital A but which does not exclude the physical dimension. It is lived with respect for the body-mind unity. To express himself and achieve his goal, he needs to free himself from the arbitrary constraints of ambient morality. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to obey any rules. The central panel of the Garden of Delights gives us a detailed inventory of these rules, which are in fact only the original laws of love. At the same time, it details the range of natural sexual behaviors.
What Bosch doesn’t tell us is how we can take advantage of these rules, how we can apply them in daily life and in a world that doesn’t care about them. We encounter several difficulties:
It is not in a few hours of reading that we can free ourselves from stereotypes of all kinds that lock us into certain romantic behaviors. However, it is essential to find the inner freedom that will allow subtle emotions to take shape.
When we feel a romantic or sexual impulse, we are immediately invaded by all kinds of representations that our past, our education, our sexual experiences or simply the dominant discourse have associated with love. The sacred Eros having been lost for centuries, nothing in what is consecrated by society is there to preserve it. On the contrary, almost all of the content that inhabits us does not correspond to its rules and guarantees failure.
The number one condition for its proper functioning therefore consists of deep work on oneself, in order to free oneself from the conditioning that we owe to culture, to replace them with a representation of the love phenomenon closer to natural laws. Bosch’s work is one of the rare jewels of our culture which provides valuable assistance in this regard, on the one hand because it traces in great detail all the characteristics of sacred Eros, and above all because she does this without using words, through coded images which only take on their meaning when the spectator is able to decipher them.
The ideal would be to be able to do this work of readjustment without going through any discourse or any interpretation like the one proposed here. Unfortunately, most of us are so far removed from the original values that it is often no longer possible for us to overcome the intellectual barriers that prevent such smooth deciphering. Proof of this is that the greatest minds among art specialists have completely failed. Even Fraenger, who was put on the trail by the discovery of the minutes of the Inquisition’s trial against certain members of the Free Spirit, minutes which largely reported the characteristics of sacred Eros, was misguided on many points. , victim of dominant representations of love and sexuality.
It is therefore profitable, in practice, to work on the basis of the works of Bosch with an adequate interpretation in support, while avoiding falling into a desire to progress or a literal application. It is better to let what we can capture from this teaching work in depth, and to remain in a state of research and self-questioning.
It is a characteristic of the human psyche to be very sensitive to the sexual behavior of others. We react immediately to the slightest sign of sexual intimacy. We are also very sensitive to other people’s judgments about our own sexual behavior. This dual sensitivity does not exist by chance; it initially has nothing in common with unhealthy curiosity or excessive self-esteem. It is immediately explained when we know the goal of sacred Eros: its function is to guarantee the spiritual outcome of the loving process by denouncing the errors that may arise.
It is a characteristic of the human psyche to be very sensitive to the sexual behavior of others. We react immediately to the slightest sign of sexual intimacy. We are also very sensitive to other people’s judgments about our own sexual behavior. This dual sensitivity does not exist by chance; it initially has nothing in common with unhealthy curiosity or excessive self-esteem. It is immediately explained when we know the goal of sacred Eros: its function is to guarantee the spiritual outcome of the loving process by denouncing the errors that may arise.
The intensity of the impulses underlying this instinctive chaperoning is measured by its existential importance. The development of extrasensory perception conditions the spiritual fulfillment of existence, and nothing is more important than that. It is therefore not surprising that very intense impulses are brought into play not only within the romantic relationship, but also in those around them, aimed at denouncing errors committed with respect to the rules of Sacred Eros.
The process is unfortunately flawed to begin with. The way others view it is most often not determined by the reality of the targeted behavior, but by the representations they project onto the elements they can capture. In this area where discretion is required, these elements are generally not enough to completely identify behavior. All inaccessible external aspects are then filled by the imagination based on circulating anxieties or personal memories. If extrasensory faculties were available, they could prevent slippage. In their absence, the imagination has free rein and justifies all kinds of abuses (for example hatred of extramarital relations or homosexuality, legal convictions).
The sacred Eros that the Garden of Earthly Delights describes is inevitably misunderstood in a society that has lost the keys to it for millennia. Those who try to live it are immediately given desires, intentions, perversions that have no connection with reality. The looks, the allusions, the silences exert a pressure which destroys the essential serenity. The immediate reaction against an accusation or an injustice is in fact self-justification or self-affirmation, or the rejection of third parties, dispositions which quickly destroy the subtlety of relationships.
How to solve the problem ? First by trying to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying this moral pressure. When we know the reasons that push others to act or judge, we are much less affected by what they may say or think. We must develop unfailing tranquility. This requires not fearing the judgments of others, not being angry with them, but in some way forgiving them for their mistake, while still remaining open to criticism, because they most often have at least a small part of truth.
As a preventative measure, it is better to exercise extreme discretion. Saying to a third party: “I am experiencing something that you could not understand”, or “I have never experienced anything so beautiful”, or even “I have decided to free myself from false morality” would be against -productive. This would only activate chaperoning impulses, exacerbate ego manifestations and make the situation worse. Trying to explain behavior that does not fit into the boxes of dominant morality is doomed to failure, it would only aggravate the mentalization on both sides, to the detriment in particular of the behaviors that we would like. clear customs.
In addition to the pressures coming from the outside, we must also expect a whole host of pressures from the inside. Education and social discourse (what Gurdjieff calls “creeping morality”) permeate our unconscious from early childhood. The Superego, in the language of Freud, is a condensate of memories of prohibitions, transgressions and feelings of guilt. It is impossible to free yourself from it overnight. This too would be done at the cost of mentalizations and defenses incompatible with the subtlety of sacred Eros.
There is no other solution than a slow work of deconstruction, or rather disinvestment of the Superego. It is not possible to attack it head on without further aggravating the internal situation. On the other hand, we can gradually become aware of the fact that our parents or society have imprinted on us beliefs and guilts contrary to natural laws. The fact that sacred Eros only relates to natural laws present in our genetics can be of great help. This allows, in a way, to deflate the guilt at the source, whereas by trying to repress it, we create additional rigidities.
One formula is to follow psychoanalysis, provided you find an analyst who is himself sufficiently detached from social norms. Freud advocated a total a-morality, that is to say the absence of any moral constraint during analysis. This is extremely difficult in practice, because psychoanalysts are themselves ignorant of sacred Eros, with rare exceptions, and therefore remain influenced by dominant morality.
The most important reconstruction concerns the psychic structures themselves. The natural ways of expressing romantic and sexual impulses are profoundly altered by an education marked by dominant morality. Morality should be there to protect them and guarantee in each person the natural development of sacred Eros. The centuries-old forgetting of this essential function has allowed morality to stray randomly from history and religious or medical precepts (e.g. the fear of masturbation).
We are therefore endowed with psychological structures contrary to our deep nature, which is a source of tension and permanent internal or relational conflicts. Unfortunately, we do not change our psychic structures like we change our shirts. This requires an in-depth transformation, which is only possible through a clear understanding of the situation, and numerous lived experiences which, if well integrated, can gradually transform the way we react.
We must erase all representations of normality or abnormality, in order to rediscover the innocence essential to experiencing love as it demands to be experienced. Once we have access to extrasensory faculties, things become easier, because we then benefit from daily guidance, capable of indicating in time the risks of a relationship going awry, as well as the path it is taking. must follow and favorable physical achievements. A good starting solution is to ask for the help of a sensitive person with clairvoyance or an expert in drawing and interpreting the I Ching for each delicate decision.