THE FOUR QUARTERS: World of the Hero

Civilization:

• • Hierarchical chiefdoms as the largest cohesive social unit, frequently based on the tribal structures of nomadic sheepherders
• Bronze and Iron Ages; technological innovations include the perfection of bronze and iron metallurgy to produce superior weapons, war-chariots, and farming implements; other developments are the domestication of the horse and the building of fortified camps and cities
• Stratified social structures with caste systems based on inheritance, occupation, or race, usually headed by a military or priestly aristocracy
• Centralization of authority in a tribal chieftain (or king)
• Emerging patriarchal descent patterns, family structures, and values
• Oral traditions and literature glorifying the epic feats of heros
• The blacksmith and shaman or priest as important authority figures
• Intense territorial tension, with pronounced warring and raiding activities
• Rise of concept of private property, seen in the beginnings of a money economy, in the use of seals to denote ownership, and in royal burials containing sacrificed wives, servants, and warriors who are considered private property that the king needs in an afterlife
• Secret male societies or groups of male elders as important decision-making bodies
• A syncretic religion (assimilating the deities and beliefs of diverse groups), centered on the archetypal figure of the Lord of the Four Quarters (Zeus, Indra, Thor, Brahma, Jehovah,Quetzalcoatl, etc.), a mythic projection of the centralized authority of the chieftain in society, the father in the family, and the ego in the psyche
• Note: when this stage precedes the Pyramid stage of a high civilization, it is considered the "proto-" or "archaic" phase of that civilization.

Examples: the Bronze and Iron Age Indo-European cultures in the Old World (such as the Wessex, Scythian, Celtic, and Viking cultures of Europe; the Aryans of India; the Persians, Hittites, and Phrygians of the Middle East; and the Etruscans, Aeolians, lonians, Achaeans, and Dorians of the Mediterranean); the Hsia, Shang, and Chou dynasties in China, and the Yayoi and Yamato periods in Japan; the Ubaid culture of Mesopotamia, and the Gerzean and early dynastic periods of Egypt; the nomadic Bedoum, Kirghiz, and Qashqai pastoralists of the Near East; the Israelites before King David's bringing of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem; the Plains Indians and Northwest Coast Indians in North America; the pre-pyramid building phases of the Olmec culture in Mexico and the Chavin culture in Peru; the Dogon, Yoruba, and many other tribal peoples of Africa

Psyche:

• • Cosmos as a quartered universe organized around the Lord of the Four Quarters at the center
• The emergence of the ego in the psyche as a central reference point (similar to the Lord of the Four Quarters in mythology and the chieftain or king in society); separation of self versus other generates dualistic, territorial thinking in general and gives rise to the problem of how to transcend ego and duality to achieve the union of opposites that brings enlightenment
• In childhood, the symbolic "Slaying of the Mother" (Neumann) to allow the emergence of the ego, enacted in the mythic theme of the Dragon-Slayer and other heroic battles against monsters
• At any age, identifying with the Hero archetype
• Mythic images and rites concerning the Lord of the Four Quarters; male roles (warrior, hunter, father, smith, hero, protector); the Dragon-Slayer; the Horse Sacrifice; the cardinal axes (the crossroads, four Holy Mountains at the cardinal points, circumambulation of the Four Quarters, the Heavenly Mansions of the Lord surrounded by a wall with gates and guardians at the cardinal points, lifting a sacred pipe or other ritual paraphenalia to the Four Quarters, etc.); the omphalos as territorial marker and "Navel of the World"; storm and thunder gods, gods of volcanic mountains; the mystique of metallurgy, meteorites, fire and metal from the gods; shamanistic themes; rites of coronation and sovereignty; male initiation rites and induction into secret societies; competitive games, war games, and actual war
• Rise of dualistic thought and increasing emphasis on warring dualities: light versus darkness, gods against demons, order versus chaos, the Separation of the World Parents, competition between fathers (titans) and sons (heros, gods), Hero versus Dragon, etc.
• Mythic theme's concerning the appropriation of female powers by males, such as goddesses being killed and torn apart (Tiamat) or made into the wives of gods (Isis, Hera); the theft of women's magical instruments by men; the second (spifitual) birth through the father (through doctrine, bapt:ism, initiation); the metallurgist as obstetrician extracting embryonic ores from the womb of the earth (Eliade, 1978); the Hero slaying the protective serpents and Dragons of the Goddess (Apollo, Perseus, Zeus); and the hieros gamos as a sovereignty-bestowing ritual that empowers the king (as among the Celts, for instance)
• Territorial preoccupations (paralleling the rise of the ego and the concept of private property); concern with protecting one's gene pool, enlarging the territorial boundaries of one's tribe, and displaying personal strength and heroism (often in a manner intimidating to competing males, as in contemporary machoism and street gang warfare)
• Techne-logos begins to dominate psyche-eros
• Time is linear within a cyclical segment (recurring age of "Great Year"), and the past is seen as a time of semi-legendary heroic deeds
• Psychological stagnation in the Four Quarters can generate excessive violence, aggrescontempt for women and the feminine principle, and a fixation on the role of "protector"
• Psychological liberation in the Four Quarters can foster individual will, which, when the ego is integrated with the Self (the crossed mandala), permits enlightened action in the world

  Space

  • Space is organized around the Lord of the Four Quarters (ego) as the central reference point, from whom the cardinal axes quarter the cosmos and all its phenomena castes, colors, elements, seasons, eras, heavens, deities, animal into four groups

• Territoriality is symbolized by the wall surrounding the realm of the Lord of the Four Quarters, which divides sacred from profane, friend from enemy, "mine" from "thine"
• The omphalos or "Navel of the World" as a central reference point in the landscape mirroring the ego in the psyche, chieftain in society, father in the family, and Lord of the Four Quarters in mythology
• The crossroads or "urban mark" as another common motif
• Architecture mirrors the archetype: square or rectilinear fortified camps and cities, with the residence or temple of the Lord in the center and avenues to the north, south, east, and west; forts, castles, and fortified towns are the most common structures of the period