Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 3

Shawn Tedrow

“Descend, bold traveler, into the crater of Sneafellsjokull, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the Kalends of July, you will attain the centre of the earth, which I have done. Arne Saknussemm.”

Some of you might have picked up on, that the above writing is from the famous novel, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, written by Jules Verne.

Reading further into the background of this challenging call to descend into the center of the earth, it is no coincidence to find that Jules Verne mentions that Arne Saknussemm was an alchemist. Not only does he mention this, he goes out of his way to give kudos to the alchemists.

After Professor Lidenbrock realized Saknussemm wrote this, he said, "Arne Saknussemm! Why that is the name of another Icelander, a savant of the sixteenth century, a celebrated alchemist. Those alchemists, Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus, were the real and only savants of their time. They made discoveries at which we are astonished”.

No, this wasn’t just trivial, inconsequential, without intent writing, when Jules Verne went out of his way to pencil-in, with such enthusiastic homage, that Arne Saknussemm was an alchemist. He was giving a hint to the hidden meaning of what the story, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, was really about, underneath the surface of the outer expression of this novel.

It is no secret regarding Jules Verne’s love for cryptology. Cryptology is derived from the Greek word “krptos logos”, meaning “hidden word”. This whole novel is echoing hidden messages and analogies pointing in the direction of alchemy.

The alchemists have a long history throughout time, way too much for me to get into right now. I would like to though, extract and identify something that is in-common with the many perennial alchemist movements. A definition of alchemy is an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting from one thing to another.

This interest and desire of alchemy is embedded in the nature of each human being. How we humans respond to this instinctive unconscious driving force within, is perplexing. This aspiration for alchemy is most of the time circumvented, by trying to meet its ingrained longing, through misguided ideas and misconceptions. The list is many.

Some philosophies even try to subdue and suppress this innate spiritual evolutionary movement within us, by writing-off its energy, as being an egoic duality cosmic joke. I mean, why desire transformational change? According to new age Advaita School of extreme-thought, you are what you seek. All else is an illusion. Just accept this reality and experience “instant enlightenment”. Aren’t we all so enlightened by this wisdom?

I wouldn’t consider myself an alchemist in the traditional sense, but I am passionate about the subject of radical spiritual transformation, an experience, or multiple experiences, which leads to an internal alchemy of extraordinary change.

Such amazing spiritual metaphors can be discovered throughout this epic story written by Jules Verne. Recently, while doing a little research on this novel related to writing this post, I discovered that I am not the first to realize that this famous story has hidden meanings and spiritual application.

Henri Ellenberger (1905-1993) once mentioned, “The book could be interpreted in all its details as a journey through the unconscious, with discovery of deeper and deeper archetypes, until the encounter of a fireball sets about the enantiodromia that is the reversal of regression, and the return to the common world”.

Wow! I can’t agree more with Henri Ellenberger that this book can be interpreted in all its details, as man's journey into himself, probing deeper and deeper, until it leads to alchemy.

I wish I could have found more about what Henri Ellenberger saw into this book besides this one statement, but if I did, I would maybe miss out on my own discoveries, as I read and ponder on my own.

In fact, I am one that thinks that veiled revelations of spiritual passageways can be discovered in many secular writings. These spiritual sign post and accesses to portals of illumination, found in numerous non-spiritual books are so apparent, that many times I find myself scratching my head in complete amazement and awe, with joy overflowing in my heart, because of sensing such alive, esoteric wonder.

The spiritual path is not a walk on pavement that is composed of dead and dried up bones. There is liveliness to the path. It breathes, has pulse, and speaks. The path’s journey is rich with hidden treasures waiting to uncover. We each have an opportunity to open up and interact with life’s unseen vastness of vivacious mystery. Just like how William Morales discovered the Che Chem Ha Cave, we need to push aside the bush of doubt, and marvel at the wonders that were always there.

The one thing I like about discovering spiritual metaphors in secular writings is that it is the reader that is doing the active-unveiling of spiritual application, instead of the reader/student being hand-feed spiritual truths that are absorbed into the linear left side of the brain.

I know a teacher that had a student whom had been involved with Taoism and Zen for over thirty years but was found wanting. She had read and studied countless spiritual books and understood every spiritual concept that you could imagine, but came to realize that she was really just spinning her wheels.

This teacher asked her to give up what she was doing, and just watch movies, go to plays, read non-spiritual books, and develop her own authentic spiritual discoveries. What’s real sad is that she knew he was right, but couldn’t do that simple instruction he had offered her. She kept on doing what she was doing. I think Einstein called that insanity.

When a student begins to break through to the other side from intellectual spiritual knowledge, and develop their own spiritual life of discovery, a gushing well of flowing water that never ends has been discovered.

Let’s do a little rock-uncovering, of this well underneath our feet, into some of the details found in just the beginning chapters of this famous novel, and continue our exploration of self-discovery into a, “Journey to the Center of Our Ego”.

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.