The Battle of the Unconscious Psychology and Romanesque. First part

Apart from that battle between the warrior and the Beast, that the Romanesque art, above all, interpreted literally in many cases, to the point of emerge tremendously popular and antagonistic figures, as the archangel San Miguel or the knight St. George, there were also stonemasons -and in this, we could paraphrase Enrico Castelli, when he spoke of theological painters-, who seemed to have a higher degree of knowledge, or at least, a higher theological sense, whose representations, although interpreted also in a generally literal way by an uncultivated and superstitious people, who saw in them only allegories to the terrible punishments to which the sinners would be subjected -that is, all those who did not accept the postulates and dogmas of the Church- lend themselves to double interpretation, being much more complex of what they appear to be. I refer to those representations-quite abundant in this artistic style, by the way-where that "battle with the unconscious" is reproduced, in the observation of which we can determine two very differentiated but clearly related actions or phases:

A first phase, which represents the 'hero' entering, usually voluntarily in the jaws of the Beast and a second phase or resolution, where the 'hero' wins or passes the test and is finally regurgitated or released by it.

Both in one and in another case, the examples are numerous, varying only in the style and form of the Beast. And a detail that seems to be common, especially in the first case, is that the hero is usually represented naked. Or what is the same: an authentic idea of initiation or 'descent ad inferos' - symbolically, a return or return to the maternal womb - that would delight modern psychologists; and in this sense, the phrase of C.G. Jung when, referring to 'the monsters of the Romanesque' - those, precisely, who considered San Bernardo so ridiculous - affirmed that the ideal would be 'to treat them as patients'.

Possibly, one of the antecedents that indicates a precedent of psychology applied to the subject that occupies us, the Bible offers, when it speaks to us, among other possible examples, of the case of Jonah and the whale. While the Catholic Church has always sinned from an excess of literalism, distorting and rejecting the penetration into deeper meanings that could bring them closer to those dangerous Gnostic considerations - the Gnostics, they could be considered as forerunners of what is modernly called 'navigators of the mind'. '- which they persecuted with real sane, it also seems probable that there was a period of its history in which certain estates, probably of Benedictine origin - not in vain, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and centuries of spiritual darkness, they were the ones who carried out an authentic search of classic sources in all corners of Europe, who were not only cultural compilers and promoters of great monasteries, but also, somehow, from the chiaroscuro of their scriptoriums, they were also compilers of myths and archetypes, with which they not only illuminated their precious unscripted, but also, skillfully applied in the ornamentation of their churches and monasteries, presumably aware of the subliminal power they intrinsically represented.

In a way, comparative also, and since the theme of descending ad infernos or 'descent into the underworld' - also done by Jesus Christ - has been mentioned, let's not forget it, although before him, there were many others - and paying attention to the classic sources, it could be assumed, in addition, that this type of representations would come to allude and at the same time to replace those singular initiations that were made inside the caverns -Eleusis, Delphos, etc-, where the neophyte was previously suggested and with the help of certain drugs - the researchers do not rule out, among others, the use of the muscaria amanita - put in disposition to make that inner trip towards the underworld. Or in other words, as Goethe very well interpreted it, putting it on Mephistopheles' lips: that "descent into the world of the Mothers."

This motive is not unknown in the key places of that sacred route, which is the Camino de Santiago. In fact, on its way through the important population that was and is Frómista, in the so-called gothic fields or the Palencia plateau, that example, still very reformed, of the Romanesque monastery par excellence that constitutes the church of San Martín, has, among the about three hundred corbels that surround it, of several allusions to the two phases referred to at the beginning. In these allusions, it is verified, likewise, that the characters, as if they were, metaphorically and comparatively speaking a baptism, are introduced naked in the jaws of the Beast and come out naked of it, but with the difference that their gaze does not indicate fear, but obviating that apparent inexpressiveness that characterizes Romanesque, a certain transcendence. The transcendence, put to compare, that could have anyone who is immersed in the dangerous seas of the unconscious and becomes healthy or at least lucid to tell, as often happens, similarly, with the experiences of those travelers of the mind that are worth of the help of psychedelic drugs as a key to opening the doors of perception that probably are not other than in classical antiquity, were called, among other names, as Hades.

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