OEDIPUS
or

Narcissism Overcome

In this series you can also find:

Akhnaton, Moses, Oedipus, Triple Hermes, Freud, Lacan, Velikovsky, Osman, Theaux.

I

To begin with :
The Classical Oedipus

In pre-Socratic Greece (Athens 1000 B.C. to 400 B.C.), several authors presented Oedipus - some of them too openly, which resulted in their being sentenced to exile in Sicily (which thus became a land of dissidence). Only by the end of Socrates' and Athens' Republic, Plato, and others, divulged former secret teachings of the Temples and Mysteries. Among them was Sophocles, who took the Oedipus legend and made its details public.

Oedipus had been a  King of Thebes (two cities were called Thebes, one in Greece, the other was the Capital of Egypt - note: the Greek Thebes is logically excluded from the Oedipus configuration, since Oedipus initiated Theseus (see _Oedipus at Colonus_) - as Theseus liberated/created the Athenians cities , the 'exKing of Thebes', at that time,  could not have been the one of the Greek Thebeans). Implicated in the understanding of the story/history of the Sphinx, he had first brought a great healing to the city, which was then followed by a plague. As he tried to understand this backlash, he discovered some cultural/psychological laws which, much later, greatly interested S.Freud (1900 A.D.)

Sophocle wrote three plays about Oedipus: Oedipus King, which told how the King of Thebes realized that his wife, with who he reigned, was actually his mother; and, understood that an anonymus man, who he had killed in the past, was actually his father (therefore, this Unconscious activity had caused a plague). Then, the play Oedipus at Colonus (the same name indicates Kolona, an ancient name for Troye, and Colonus in Greece - Re: D.Anselin), related his exile to the border of Thebes (before the foundation of Athens, the Egyptian territory extended North up to the border of Hittite country, i.e. Kolona's land). This play also reports that his successor intended to capture Oedipus, but that he escaped, and could deliver an ultimate secret initiation to Theseus, the founder of Athens, before disappearing in a dazzling light...
The third play, Antigone, told the story of his children and successors.

It is also worth noting that a later play, Oedipus, written in Rome by Seneca, said that Oedipus was fooled by his successor, who made  him believe that he was responsible for the Murder of his Father, just to shame him in order to overpower and enslave him.

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II

The contemporary light :
The Modern Historical Oedipus

Today, there are strong presumptions that this story was one of the Egyptian King Akhnaton and of his political maneuvers (1350 B.C.).

Studying the 20th century's Egyptology, I.Velikovsky discovered that the story of the legendary Oedipus seemed to be an historical report. Responsible for several plagues around 1350B.C. similar to the detailed Oedipus King, the Egyptian Hebrew King Akhnaton suddenly disappeared. The Egyptologist A.Osman showed that he then reappeared by the Sinai, as Moses, which corresponds to the legend Oedipus at Colonus.
This Egyptology also depicts the story of his sons (Semenkhare, Tutankhamon) which, likewise, corresponds to the Antigone play.
The whole context of History adds (and never contradicts) arguments indicating that Akhnaton had been remembered under the name of Oedipus in Athens, from 1000 B.C., up to the full disclosure in 400 B.C. by Sophocles.

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III

The  cold objectivity of Science :
The Modern disclosure of the Real

We don't know exactly how the Ancient Greek people were thinking when, at their revolutionary time, they were attending Sophocles' plays. We know that, until recently, we have assumed that the Oedipian saga was a metaphore, a myth, an invention. But if we think back to the effects of Science and compare, for instance, our Middle-Ages human beliefs regarding cosmology, (before Kepler's and Galileo's Science) people assumed that star lights were taken for gods or celestial illusions... this was true until the humiliation of Narcisism (according to Freud's words) when we understood that our illusions were objective facts or matter. The very same thing could apply today to the so-called mythical figure of Oedipus, especially as an effect of archeology/egyptology, which would be indeed to expect in our time (see the objectivation of Biblical figures etc...).

I believe that the story of an historical Egyptian King was nearly perceptible in Greece when Sophocles revealed the story. Yet, if we add to the particular political climate that existed in Greece at that moment, the fact that this historical Egyptian King (Akhnaton) had been ostracized for a long time in Egypt, leads to the understanding that the emphasizis of the Real did not take root in Greece. It may have appeared to most of the people at that time, that Oedipus' tale was an invention, a mere fairy tale or a myth. However, the next moment, the Greek invaders of Egypt, indeed expressed their memory/knowledge of Oedipus "King of Egypt", in building Hermopolis Magna, by the vestiges of Akhnaton's City in Egypt (at that moment he was depicted as  Orpheus, as shown by the ulterior development of Hermes Trismegistus in the Mediterranean civilization).

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IV

Psychology of the Perception of Reality :
The feeling of Strangeness in the recovery of memory

More than twenty centuries after Sophocles - Velikovsky's revelation (Oedipus is historical), is as shocking as Osman's (here is the face of Moses: Akhnaton). Osman also discloses another pre-eminent biblical figure (Joseph), to be later recognized as a mummy which is exhumed from an Egyptian tumb (Yuya). Part of the challenge is that those revelations are humiliating (depression of narcicism) for we assumed that those references were illusions (myths, legends) - actually the real illusion was our own assumption, and we must admit that the illusion of an illusion kept our narcissism sheltered from a Real Subjectivity.

This is the classical riddle: it is so hard to "kill" the ego because it is an illusion - how could "I" kill him, since this dupe of the power of illusion has never existed? It is just the logical assertion that the Real is an other, or others.

This alien presence of what is Real constitutes the great discovery of Psychoanalysis, and has been extravagantly demonstrated by Freud. For, the world reknowned specialist of the Oedipus Complex visited Greece, and reported his analysis of his own strange feelings on Oedipus' land. He claimed that his malaise resulted from the confrontation between what was written and learned at school, and the reality, which made it real.
Yet Freud never thought that he simply meant that Oedipus was 'Real' !

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V

The stages of Psychoanalytical disclosure :
The Century of Oedipus' elucidation

It is a lesson to see how Psychoanalysis processed the disclosure of the cause (i.e. Real) of itself (i.e. civilization). Freud described an Oedipus Complex while not conceiving the causal Oedipus as an historical human body. His resistance was witnessedby his student, Carl Jung, during a seminar; and by his disciple Karl Abraham in 1912; Freud reacted with extreme resistance to parallels made between Akhnaton and Oedipus. His behavior demonstrated a blatent avoidance when noting that Akhnaton's Egyptological disclosure diplayed Oedipus' most characteristic features - Freud fainted!  He later expressed his unwillingness to examine these disclosures, saying that he saw no interest in such a parallel; so he ignored and rejected it.

The same denial was repeated twice by Freud, when he declared. in his last published book (1938), that Moses was a disciple of Akhnaton - he never mentioned that he could be historical Akhnaton himself although it is one of the most obvious possibilities.
Most interestingly, Freud used this spoiled identification to support his claim that Moses had been murdered by his protegees.

Only in 1960, did Immanuel Velikovsky resume and strengthen Abraham's parallel. Velikovsky declared the obviousness which was brought by Egyptology - more than a parallel; a superimposition: Sophocles' Oedipus was a Greek name for the historical Akhnaton. So Velikovsky made the step in acknowledging the myth to be Real, instead of an illusion. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that he neglected Oedipus in exile (at Colonus), and like Freud, he still resisted to include Moses in this objectification.
And when the Egyptologist Ahmed Osman achieved his Moses-Akhnaton identification in 1990, he also referred to Freud. Meanwhile, he remarkably forgot Velikovsky.
One (Velikovsky) was saying that Oedipus is Akhnaton but not Moses, another one (Osman) was saying that Moses is Akhnaton ,but is not Oedipus.  Another one, (Freud), was stating that Akhnaton was not Moses, otherwise he would have said it, etc...  But eventually, all these views put together and built a logical evidence.

Besides those vacillations, all the hesitations, in 1987, I, Zenon Kelper, was practicing in Lyon, where I theorized  without shilly-shallying about the triple identity. It was still too shocking for the psychoanalytic community, and I was soon banished from this city.  But during the following years, I showed, with more and more probably, that Oedipus represents Akhnaton,  who is remembered as Moses.

This legendary figure was also represented in Greece under other names. One is quite clearly Pheaton (alias Phaeton), who had been tutored by his mother, and thought that he could drive the carriage of the sun; but he failed/felt in Ethiopia.

Another one was especially carried along by Christianity which referred (until the Renaissance) to an ancient Egyptian Monotheist  'triple' King, or "Trismegistus" - which reveals even another name for Oedipus-Akhnaton-Moses.

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VI

The latency before the disclosure :
A previous character before the symptomatic form of Oedipus

This whole Twentieth Century discovery (Oedipus=Akhnaton=Moses), invites us to search for a possible previous recognition/memory of this complex, which is represented in this central figure of Western history/civilization. So, we find that in the Middle-Ages remembered, the same thing is revealed to us as a riddle, as follows:
When one has read Oedipus' story as Akhnaton's, who reigned over and fled Egypt, to be reknowned as Moses, who displays his legacy to the Hebrews, and hides another one to the Greeks, we understand what Hermes-Thot, Trismegistus, a Triple Master Hermes, was meant for the first Christians.

In other words:
During the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, an Hermes Trismegistus, ancient Monotheist King of Egypt, was associated with the Hebrew figure Moses, and to the Greek Orpheus.

In other words, for Christianity, up to the Renaissance:
The Egyptian Monotheist King Hermes-Thot was associated with Moses and Orpheus.
After the Renaissance, and especially during the 20th century:
The Egyptian Monotheist King Akhnaton is associated to Moses and Oedipus.

This process of displacement (from Orpheus to Oedipus), started during the French Revolution with Fabre d'Olivet's  (deceased 1827) disclosure, and thenafter with Saint Yves d'Alveydre (born 1842), who showed the political consequences of the Akhnaton-Moses-Oedipus' unification. The social movement known as the Synarchy, which referred to St. Y.d'Alveydre, played an essential part in the European national war, known as WWII; while another branch, steming from Fabre, was carried by the poet/film-maker Jean Cocteau (1898-1963), in Master of the Prieure de Sion/Rennes le Chateau, which depicted the Orpheus-Oedipus displacement.

Cocteau wrote Orpheus' legacy (where Orpheus has become Oedipus), as well as Oedipus in The Infernal Machine.

The Orpheic aspect of Oedipus suggests looking with more awareness at Freud's definition of the Oedipus Complex:

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VII

To conclude with :
Freud's dream

The Psychoanalyst, Lacan, in his attempt to reverse Psychoanalysis, suggested (March 11, 1970)  to analyze the Oedipus Complex as  a dream of Freud. Its interpretation would therefore tell us, at the same time, about Freud's wish and about Oedipus' reality.

If the Oedipus Complex is a dream, we know, therefore, that Oedipus represents Freud (in this analysis).  - To be precise, Oedipus represents Freud as he figured himself - in other words, it represents Freud's symptomatic ego in his Collective Psychology (or in his time, his environment, his history, his familial saga) - I prefer to say "Collective Psychology" as it is called in Freud's Mass Psychology, which refers to the identification, as Lacan noticed when he first mentioned his reversion of Psychoanalysis). Because it is not Freud's ego , but the one that he offers to be identified in the history of the civilization. I can understand that this Oedipus - of his dream - is the one who wrote the book on Moses; in which a testimony of the Jewish and Western complex is exposed.

This means that Oedipus is supposed to make a inquiry, for he wants to know what happened with him - and he is advised that he has killed his father. This is the story of the Jewish man who wants to know what happened with him; and who discovers that he has killed Moses - this is Freud's story.

Of course that's not all - there is a relationship with one's mother in the Oedipus Complex - this is what I will decipher as a Post-Scriptum; because there is first something to be said.

See Seneca in Rome - by the beginning of Christianity, i.e. after a resetting of the Sophoclean Oedipus. Oedipus did not commit the deed within the limits of his mother's knowledge - but was fooled into this responsibility. This is where an other takes place into the Other. - and it is time now to talk about Oedipus's relationship with his mother - when he was Orpheus.

I believe that my interpretation is short - if not swift. The other is Creon... but that's enough. What's important is to see how the guilt is imposed upon the Jewish people. Now, let's talk about Orpheus. That's all for Oedipus.
(skip to Orpheus)

To begin with : The Classical Oedipus

The contemporary light : The Modern Historical Oedipus

The  cold objectivity of Science : The Modern disclosure of the Real

Psychology of the Perception of Reality : The feeling of Strangeness in the recovery of memory

The stages of Psychoanalytical disclosure : The Century of Oedipus' elucidation

The latency before the disclosure : A previous character before the symptomatic form of Oedipus

To conclude with : Freud's dream

Post Scriptum about Orpheus :

In an interview that will never been published, I answered a question regarding Oedipus' relationship with his mother, since Orpheus can help this understanding.

Let us consider Orpheus - what is his drama? He married Euridice. Then the poor girl was bitten by a snake. Then he marries her again. But he must not see her face. And when he looked at it... he lost her again.
I made the story short to make it clear. We know, according to our present understanding of the people of the past, that a King, as a pharaoh, Akhnaton for instance, was considered as being married to his people, to his society. Akhnaton in Egypt married once, and lost his bride, and then married again by the Sinai. At this second episode, the taboo about the 'face' - with Moses - is also well known (it is so important that it is a deciding factor for Christianity, as the Transfiguration Scene shows  ).

It shows a stage of the development of the understanding. The King marries his country... They look at their faces, they copulate as they give themselves names and identities, and... indeed, we see Oedipus now! For this copulation is represented as an "incest" - this is what defines the Oedipian development of Orpheus.

At this point, Psychoanalysis explains something. We know that for some religions, it is a sin to give a name to God - one can understand that it is not logically possible to give a name to all the names. There is something similar regarding the Mother: To give a name to the naming IS incest.

For this very logic, may be a curse, or a necessity - whatever it is, it is understandable that the conception of the name :'m-other,' is a forgery that forges the incest. This happens likewise with the 'Nation'. To give the Hebrew tribe a name was to obsess this people with the incest - and other things as murder, see above - especially since Akhnaton was not the first King, the first leader to do so - indeed - but he has been the first to realize/understand what he had been doing - this is what the story tells:

When Moses looks at the face of Israel, he is not happy, for he brakes the Tables. Euridice goes back to hell. Orpheus then enters the Maenads wood - where Oedipus enters when he gives his last initiation to Theseus.

Orpheus has acquired a knowledge in the process. As an Akhnaton who understands, while on the Sinai, that he will be the incestuous Oedipus...

I, Z.Kelper, must add that other aspects
of either the Murder-of-the-Father or the incest
in Oedipus analysis, indicate that
the Y lineage
considered as well as this extreme incest ,is Genetics Engineering ,
and suggest that an analyzed Oedipus may be referential
to Ecology and/or cloning, which is still
to be integrated with the rehabilitation of Alchemy.

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© William Theaux 1949-1999