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Hesione Pronoia – Prometheus’ wife
The name of this goddess translates as ‘Prophetic Knowledge’, while the name Prometheus can be translated as ‘Foresight’. In Gnostic teachings, this demigod is a representation of the fallen (luciferian) consciousness of man. This is not about the awareness of a small group of people who believe in a devil with horns, but about the level of development in which humanity finds itself in the post-Atlantean era.
Prometheus was a titan who stole fire from the Sun-God and used it to animate a man made of earthly substance, and endowed with animal attributes. He did this against the will of the gods, who wanted to destroy the imperfect, quarrelsome race of earthly ingrates. Giving fire to the people, he commanded them to use it to worship the gods and to serve one another selflessly. However, in their selfishness and ignorance, they began to use fire as a weapon against each other: burning each other’s houses and tempering the steel from which they made swords and armour. With their behaviour, they brought the wroth of the gods upon themselves in the form of Pandora, sent from the heavens, bringing with her a box of misfortunes. Pandora became the wife of Epimetheus – brother of Prometheus. Epimetheus, whose name means ‘Recognising Later’, opened Pandora’s box, causing all possible misfortunes to pour out onto the Earth.
As a punishment for his misdeeds, Prometheus was chained to a rock, and every morning a voracious vulture came to tear and devour his liver, which grew back during the night. This was to last until humanity had learned to make proper use of the sacred fire given to it. This prophecy was fulfilled, thanks to the solar hero Hercules, representing the inner consciousness of the spiritual Sun. Hercules climbed the mountain, killed the vulture with an arrow from his bow, and freed Prometheus from his shackles.
There is great depth in this Greek myth. Prometheus with Hesione Pronoia, and Epimetheus with Pandora, are four characters that are an allegory of our human creative ability – our thoughts, words and imagination. For centuries we have tried unsuccessfully to create a paradise on Earth using this ability. We do this separated from the Spirit. We create various ideologies in our minds, which we then try to put into practice.
Hesione Pronoia, as the wife of Prometheus, can be considered a representation of our spiritless consciousness, which is only an imitation of true divine wisdom. Human ‘wisdom’ is about material security and the realization of one’s ego-centric desires. Hesione Pronoia is the consciousness preceding the limited mental activity symbolized by Prometheus. He is the ‘womb’ in which his mental images are born, and the principle that reveals them. At the beginning a person acts, implements his ideas, and it seems that everything is going according to plan. His positive thoughts and expectations come true, and he experiences joy and gains the profits he dreamt of. However, since his consciousness is devoid of Spirit and ‘lacks’ true wisdom, what he created, which was supposed to be good, eventually turns into its opposite. Pandora enters with a box full of suffering and sorrow, and man is confronted with the consequences of his creation. Then Pandora’s husband appears, Epimetheus, the aspect of consciousness responsible for the ability to draw conclusions. It can be called ‘wise in hindsight’.
When the aspect of Epimetheus has accumulated enough painful experiences, a person realizes the limitations of his consciousness and his abilities. Then there is often a breakthrough and man, in his helplessness, opens up to something higher than himself. He becomes less defensive, and unconsciously allows ‘Hercules’ – the divine principle hidden in his heart – to act. It is a force understood by initiates as the inner sun, because, like the Sun wandering through the Zodiac, it illuminates the twelve zodiacal aspects of the human personality, and frees him from the influence of ignorance.
In the myth of Prometheus and Hercules we find an allegory of the Fall of man, and his ability to return to his former divinity. Such initiates as H.P. Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner and Max Heindel, have passed on to us the knowledge of the involution of human consciousness, its immersion in the densest levels of matter, and the gradual evolutionary path towards a higher state. This whole process, lasting countless years, in which man becomes a perfect being again, connecting heaven and earth, takes place in seven stages of initiation: the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods, which we have already passed, and the Earth period which we presently experience: then there are the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan periods, that are still ahead of us. Our goal is to achieve the consciousness of the Spiritual Sun, which is represented by the Vulcan.
Pronoia as a positive attitude and ability to prophesy
As we mentioned at the beginning, the word ‘pronoia’ is also used today to describe a positive attitude to life resulting from the belief that the entire universe works towards making people feel good. It can be said that this attitude and its assumptions are the opposite of conspiracy theories.
This approach is based on gratitude, and focusing on all of the positive things that happen to us in life. Those who profess pronoia believe that: “… all of creation aims to shower us with blessings. Life is in love with us – brazenly and consciously in love with us. The universe always gives us what we need, exactly when we need it. The winds and the tides are always in our favour. Fire and rain work together to remove our pain and sorrow. The sun, moon and stars remember our real names, and our ancestors pray for us while we are dreaming. We have guardian angels, countless teachers, provocateurs with designs to free us, helpers and saviours we can’t even imagine, and brothers and sisters who want us to blossom and grow.” [3]
Actress Susan Sarandon stated about pronoia: “You just assume that the universe is working for you, not against you. I think that the more you expect that, the more it actually works out.”
Such a positive attitude towards everything that happens to us, helps to dissolve the ‘pain’ that is so often a part of our astral bodies. The pain of the astral body makes us subconsciously crave suffering, sadness and even anger. We feed on reactions that carry such qualities, and therefore we are constantly unhappy. In addition, pronoia is a path that allows you to resonate with life, to stand in acceptance, and learn the lessons that come your way.
Nevertheless, this approach seems to have missed one important truth that is the foundation of timeless esoteric wisdom. It is the awareness that man is a dual being. On the one hand, we belong to nature, we have a transient physical body and instincts related to it, and on the other, we have a spark, a divine potential, a seed of an unearthly nature, from which we can be reborn as an eternal and perfect being. C. G. Jung wrote: “When mystics descend into the depths of their being, they find in their heart the image of the sun, they find the life force they call the sun.”
The purpose of human existence is to free oneself from the power of instincts, attachments, passions, ignorance and imperfection, by the power of this inner Sun. Our universe has been embraced and imbued with the powers of the Pronoia, and it can be said that indeed everything here conspires for the good of man. It must be noted however, that this concerns the inner, divine man, and not the natural man. We will continue to suffer until we understand that as natural beings we must ‘die’ to our natural state, and be ‘reborn’ in a new divine state. Until this happens, our imperfect consciousness will always project incomplete creations.
This does not mean that, as natural beings, we are not loved by the ‘Metropator’, by the Father-Mother, by the Source, and that as a punishment for our imperfection, it unleashes all kinds of plagues upon us. If we do experience such plagues, then we must understand that they are a creation of our own spiritless consciousness.
Therefore, if we want to consciously create a harmonious reality with our thoughts, feelings and imaginations, we must attune our will to the Will of the Source within us. We need to listen to our inner pronoia, to the silence of our heart, to the awareness that transcends mind and thought. This will ensure that our creations will be open to the Spirit, and radiate in accordance with the original divine plan. We will then recognize which of our dreams are derived from selfish desires, only intended to reinforce our false, earthly identity, and distinguish them from those which serve to manifest as pure Source.
It can be said that this world is perfect in its imperfection. It functions as a reflection of our inner self and the horrors present in it are supposed to awaken us and motivate us to fundamentally transform ourselves.
The truth that the world is our mirror is nothing new, yet in everyday life we tend to forget this and blame various dark forces for the evil that exists here. When we see evil around us, it means that there must be something ill, something disharmonious inside us that causes it to appear in our personal space. Nowadays, many approaches have surfaced to address these imbalances, such as: Recall Healing, Germanic Medicine, Family Constellations, and others, all of which aim to help people recognize their emotional conditioning acquired either from their ancestry, parental heritage, or childhood experiences.
These tools are extremely helpful, and can contribute to the recognition and release of destructive elements that we carry within our subconscious. However, it must be remembered that they refer only to two aspects of our being: body and soul, and do not take into account the third, the Spirit. If we try to heal ourselves with only the tools that come from the same vibrational level that caused our ailments, it would be like trying to untangle a Gordian Knot.
True healing, liberation from suffering, can only take place when, thanks to the awakening of the spirit spark, we direct ourselves to the Divine Light, to a higher dimension. Then, in a process described in the ‘Apocryphon of John’ as ‘sevenfold sealing’, we will be able to attract and assimilate this Light and live in harmony with it. We attract this Light when we are correctly oriented in our daily lives. As natural beings, we cannot directly assimilate the Light of the Spirit, because of its high vibration. Our liver, whose task is to remove harmful, foreign forces, will excrete them.
However, when the spirit spark, our inner sun, awakens, it irradiates the sternum, which then attracts the Pronoia forces to us. These forces begin to circulate in the blood; they influence our thinking, and at a certain point, also the activity of the liver, which gradually begins to accept and absorb them. This stage is allegorically described in the Gospel of John as the miracle at Cana in Galilee. Attracted from higher spheres, the Light assists us in dissolving inappropriate emotions and thought patterns and habits. The image of Hercules freeing Prometheus from a voracious vulture that feeds on his liver, comes to mind.
In the writings of Hippocrates, called the father of medicine, we find the statement: “It is most excellent for a physician to cultivate pronoia. Since he foreknows and foretells the past, present and future, men will have confidence to entrust themselves to his care”. Hippocrates refers here to tuning in to the level of Spirit, and to intuition coming from listening to your inner voice.
On the ‘E’ at Delphi
In ancient Greece, an extremely important place of worship was the sanctuary of Apollo, the central focus of which was the temple used by the Delphic oracle. People came to her for ‘pronoia’ – prophecy and advice – even from far-away lands such as Egypt and Turkey. Above the entrance to this temple, which was the Gate of the Sun, there were two inscriptions: ‘Gnothi Seauton’ – ‘know thyself’ and ‘nothing too much’. The temple itself was dedicated to Apollo – the god of solar consciousness, and it was this consciousness that was supposed to speak through Pythia, a priestess predicting the future.
Crowds of people with different levels of consciousness flocked to the oracle in Delphi. The questions of most of them concerned mundane matters and worldly happiness. Nevertheless, for the initiated it was a place of sacred mysteries, during which the death of the old, and the rebirth of the new man could take place.
There was a mysterious letter “E” on the wall of the temple. In his dialogue “On the ‘E’ at Delphi” [4] Plutarch gives many different interpretations of this letter. However, the one that appears the most accurate, we find at the end of the dialogue. He writes:
“My own view is that the letter signifies neither number, nor order, nor conjunction, nor any other omitted part of speech; it is a complete and self-operating mode of addressing God; the word once spoken brings the speaker into apprehension of His power. God, as it were, addresses each of us as we enter the sanctuary, with the words, “Know Thyself”, which can also be understood as “Hail”. We then answer God with the words, “E I” (Thou Art), rendering to him the title which is true and has no falsity in it, and belongs to him alone, and to no other – that of BEING.
For we have no part in real being; all mortal nature is in a state between becoming and perishing, and presents but an appearance, a faint unstable image, of itself. (…) If a man does change, then he is not the same man. But if he is not the same man, then he is not at all; his so-called being is simply change – a new birth of man, out of man.”
Contemplating in the temple of Apollo, the temple of the Sun, man called to self-knowledge was to discover the apparent quality of his earthly nature and at the same time, recognize that there was an element of eternity within him. ‘E’ or ‘EI’ – ‘You are’ – referred to his true, enlightened nature, to the silence of existence, free from identification with any social forms and roles.
The second inscription on the pediment of the temple alludes to this: “Nothing too much”. Plutarch writes:
“Only God IS, so we ought to hail him in worship, and thus address him as “Thou Art”, aye, or in the very words of some of the elders, “Ei Hen”, “Thou art one thing”. For the Divine is not many things, in the sense in which each one of us is made up of thousands of different and successive states, a conglomerate of units, of individual parts. (…) It is the property of that which is indestructible and pure, to be one and without admixture.”
Each of us needs to discover this true, indestructible nature in ourselves, dissolving our illusions, our masks, and all dissatisfaction with ourselves; we need to remove the anxiety that we are not what we should be, the ambition to be “SOMEONE”, and to achieve “SOMETHING”. All this comes from external worldly conditioning, false identity which is ‘too much’, and really has no meaning. What counts is only this silent ‘I am’, ‘Pronoia’, divinity, a part of which we carry within us as our own inner saviour.
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[3] https://freewillastrology.com/beauty/pronoia
[4] http://penelope.uchicago.edu/misctracts/plutarche.html
