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Jason’s companions the Argonauts represent the yogic labors that must be developed up to a certain level to begin the quest. We repeatedly will find lists of characters to illustrate the conditions required to surpass the corresponding stages, particularly in the Calydonian boar hunt, the Lapiths’ battle against the Centaurs, and above all in the contingents from different provinces who participated in the Trojan War.
It seems obvious that no list can be unanimously accepted by the initiated because the individual journeys differ and the masters tend to guide their disciples towards the path that they have themselves trodden. For them each name could be a pretext for a specific teaching and each of them would thus have composed his own list.
Several lists of Argonauts have been handed down to us. The most succinct ones by Pindar and Pherecydes include only around ten names, almost exclusively those of the sons of gods. They emphasize the essential qualities that the seeker must possess to a certain extent and some progressions that should have been embarked upon.
In fact these great heroes are generally found in the genealogical lines of the advanced stages of the journey which mark both their apotheosis and their end.
However the qualities that they represent must gradually be strengthened in the being and that is why we find them here among the Argonauts.
Although it was the responsibility of the master to define aptitudes and assess their degree, they could obviously not guarantee the occurrence of an experience.
Four other lists present many similarities between them: that from the Argonautica Orphica (dated IVth to VIth century AD), of Valerius Flaccus (Ist century BC), of Hyginus (IInd century BC) and of Apollonius of Rhodes (IIIrd century BC). The first three were handed down to us by mythologists and are clearly derived from the fourth by Apollonius of Rhodes who lived through the experience and gave the only complete surviving Greek account of this quest. He provides a list of fifty-five Argonauts and it seems obvious that several corresponding abilities cannot be counted among the prerequisites indispensable to the quest but are part of an overall ambiance, such as Amphidamas “mastery to some extent” or Augeas “flashes of light”.
All these accounts constitute around fifty names like the ship with fifty oars.
The list given by the mythologist Apollodorus (IIth century AD) falls under the same category although it is constituted of around fifteen names which are very different from the ones in the other four lists. To give an exhaustive account it is important that we also mention the lists by the historian Diodorus and the Roman poet Statius.
Only Pindar’s and Pherecydes’ lists will be studied here, and some perspectives will be added for certain other Argonauts selected from other lists.
- Jason
Jason is the leader of the Argonauts and thus represents the essential aspect of the beginning of the journey. His name means “he who cures himself” or “a turning over of consciousness”. It must be recalled that his brother is Promachos, “he who fights at the front”; one for whom the quest is the highest priority, without lack of commitment, not half-heartedly, i.e. the warrior of the spiritual traditions.
He marks the moment when the future seeker often after having exhausted his desire to change the world begins turning towards his inner world. He learns to understand that what happens to him does not depend on the external world but is instead a true image of his internal state and the progress he needs to make to achieve greater freedom. He works to decipher the signs that the world constantly sends him, discern what is happening within and distance himself in order to be a “witness”. He discovers that he can change his inner state depending on how much he identifies with events, his attachments and his involvement with psychological suffering and thus learns that for this state too he holds responsibility.
Consequently he must admit that the conditions are always and at all times the best for him to evolve and that life never makes him face more than what he can deal with.
A man who begins to be truly alive is not the vital-mental man that our publicity and image centered civilization extols but one who with a change in his perspective tries to act on the basis of what he feels within the depths of himself and begins to “be alive” in response to this call which resonates through the vast magma of nature and nurture, habits and conditioning of all kinds.
- Calais and Zetes
Calais is “one who calls out (questions, invokes)”; that is to say, “aspiration”. His name also includes an idea of “righteousness”. His brother Zetes is “one who searches by effort”. They are the sons of Boreas, the north wind of asceticism or effort, and of a daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens, Orithyia, “the one who hurls herself impetuously onto the mountain”, the mountain being the symbol of the spiritual path. They are winged beings who represent above all an aspiration and an effort for righteousness and the mind’s search.
Let us remember that there are four major winds or divine aids for yoga: Boreas, the Northern wind of ascetism, Notos, the Southern wind which brings confusion and conceals the path, Zephir, the purifying Western wind and Eurus, the Eastern wind which brings newness.
Calais portrays the essential “need” for another way of being and behaving, for “something else” than the present world, and Zetes “the search” that is inseparable from this “need” and perseveres despite traps, falls, false trails, and errors. Many seekers in fact follow several Eastern and/or Western esoteric, mystical or philosophical paths before finding the path that truly corresponds to the truth of their soul.
- The seers Mopsus and Euphemus, along with Idmon as added by Pherecydes
These seers represent three stages of development of intuition from different perspectives: purely mental receptivity, the capacity to foretell by the interpretation of signs (presages) and direct intuitions from the psychic light.
The seer Mopsus is one who “receives from above in a state of receptivity”. Two seers carry this name but they do not have the same ancestry according to the authors. The one in Apollodorus’ list is a son of Apollo, recognised by the seer Calchas as far superior to himself which confirms Mopsus’ relation with the psychic light. It is this ancestry which has been retained.
The seer in Apollonius’ list is a son of Ampyx, and this name describes “a headband” and would be an expression of a mental intuition which senses peripherally in a