The Frescoes of the Villa dei Mystery - Descent and Ascent on the Inner Way

The Villa dei Misteri stands on the northern periphery of Pompeii, in the suburbs of the city, in the highest part.

It was discovered by accident early 20th century by the Items, a Swiss commercial family still active today (1987). The Item-family carried out the first explorations in 1909-10.

After the earthquake in 62 A.D. the Villa was undergoing extensive repairs when on a Summer afternoon 24th of August 79 A.D. life was stopped instantaneously.

The catastrophy left us plenty of information of the life in this ancient city and a most amazing place, which was a center for spiritual work, often described as the 'Dionysian cult'.

Some information on the findings of the Villa dei Misteri excavations and studies:

  • initially a simple rural habitation
  • oldest part dates to the second half of the third century B.C.
  • after the earthquake 62 A.D. new owners were renovating it for agricultural production
  • likely owner: L. Istacidius Zosimus (after 62 A.D.)
  • buildings and paintings influenced by Hellenistic, Egyptian and Roman styles and motifs

We do not know of any interpretations of the frescos dealing with the octave and the description of the inner work. It is claimed that all those who have studied the frescos agree that they represent religious rites, although the there is no agreement on what kind of rites are represented.

Here are some of the claims:

  • initiation into the Dionysian Mysteries
  • Orphic rites
  • Orphic-Dionysiac cults
  • marriage of Dionysos and Ariadne
  • sacred marriage
  • Apollonian themes
  • reworking of an original from the Sanctuary of Dionysos in Pergamum
  • the expression of a high and complex artistic civilization
  • not Italic but Hellenistic

Villa dei Misteri Left Wall Fresco

Ascending Octave - on the left on entering the room

Villa dei Misteri Back Wall Fresco

Ascending Octave - on the back wall of the room

Villa dei Misteri Right Wall Fresco

Completion (the new DO) - on the right wall - after this picture the wall has a window (to the real world opening to the sea)

Please note that larger pictures are available here (opens in a separate window).

The Octave of the Inner Way to Realization

The First Steps Towards Completion

When we are in the presence of a living teacher, we get the necessary impulses that we need for our harmonious development. Often there is the necessity that such impulses are not understood by the intellect – these impulses should reach beyond it in us. This “beyond”, the Unconscious, consists not only of our subconsciousness (which is below our consciousness) but also of the sleeping possibilities of our human nature, which are above our consciousness.

To “work” is only possible with consciousness, we can not work “unconsciously”. As the “higher” can only work on the “lower”, we can not work consciously on the higher, which is beyond and above our consciousness. And the subconscious can not be reached by consciousness, but only when its contents arise into consciousness. The contents of the Unconscious have to appear on the screen of consciousness. To make this arising possible is one of the functions of a teacher. A teacher creates circumstances in which we can develop the possibility that the “higher” beyond our consciousness can act on the lower, that is on the subconscious and conscious in us.

What can we do without a living teacher? What is needed? What is possible?

Before I met my teacher I found orientation in the pictures of “objective art” – as Gurdjieff calls art, which entails objective knowledge about the cosmic role of human being and the way of its realisation. One of my most important studies in this context were the frescoes of the Villa dei Mysteri in Pompeii.

This work is one of the most beautiful examples of the expression of ancient knowledge in pictures, it belongs to our spiritual heritage and to one of the roots of our Christian ideas. It was preserved for us 2000 years through the explosion of the Vesuvius in 79 B. C. It transmits “The Knowledge” at the end of the former Age of Aries: in beauty, without the suffering – which then became the attitude of the last 2000 years of the age of Pisces. In this sense its expression is in a way nearer to us now, in the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, the new ‘world month’. It is amazing, that this room is the one, which is in the best condition in whole Pompeii! Holy messages have their own life and how they find their way to where they are needed.

We Enter the Inner Room: DO

Unconditioned intention
Unconditioned trust
Unconditioned acceptance

The first scene: the entering woman.
Intention. Aries, active.

Please note that this article is only dealing with the first note, the DO of the octave, which is presented in the fresco.

Every time we enter our inner room, we are a beginner. We don’t know, what will happen to us, what is waiting for us.

The intention must be clear, we will encounter whatever we meet, without “but”. We have to be in unity within ourselves, upright, clear in mind, including our whole being (it may help to imitate the first figure on the picture concretely, her bodily gesture!) We are fully clothed in personality, which covers our Essence, (which is always presented naked) we receive our orientation of the past (right hand of the figure) and we are ready to go the whole way straight ahead, as we understand it right now, with our abilities and inabilities. We let ourselves be touched by the heart, we make place between the clothes and our naked heart – the ancient Greeks knew, that we can be fertilized only in the heart.

The second scene: listening woman with the young Dionysos.
Trust. Taurus, receptive.

We can only see, what “we are not”. A division in us is necessary. We have to sit down and look “Who is this Being, who entered the room?” We have to look back first, what is written in the past, unroll our life, which is already written but not consciously read: (in the right hand of the woman is a pen) the scroll in the left hand is horizontal, the contents are not yet connected with the “higher worlds” in the vertical, the experiences of past are not yet transformed.

We can only look at what is coming up in our consciousness, waiting for what is shown us by our own, not yet grown up Essence. When the intention is without “but”, then we can be led by our Essence in a clear way, even when we don’t understand the “logic” in it. Even, when we become more uncomfortable, we don’t feel and don’t see improvement. We have no other insurance than the trust in the Godly quality in us, which leads the process. We have no “choice”, and we have nothing to loose. We have to take what is given to us and know, even if it comes from the subconscious (Dionysos is lower, smaller than the woman), that the process is controlled by an higher dimension in us, by our real identity. We receive in the heart, in the centre of our wholeness, we trust the highest, unnamed, unknown – we can’t be led astray. “You have to hold on the cobweb-thread, which is hanging down from the blue sky, which is fixed in nowhere.” (Sufi).

The third scene: the woman carrying the cut offering-cake.
Acceptance. Gemini, reconciling

The sitting woman has no feet: she begins to move with the feet of the woman with the offering-cake, she gets the ability to “flow” by the reconciling, unifying ability in us.

Unity is in “pieces”: we can only see and “eat” small parts of it in time, we are split through that.. Important is not to stop, but to go on in acceptance and willingness, step by step. Perseverance is asked for: right foot, left foot, right foot... Continue, without denying (second scene) and without the our self-will to achieve “enlightenment” or whatever we imagine we should.

The woman carries a branch of an olive tree in her right hand: this is the sign, that the process is blessed and the pieces will become whole again. And she is pregnant: in unity with the Godly child.

Practice

This short description should give the key to begin to work with the first set of pictures of the fresco. What we need is only to let the pictures work on us, directly. That means: we put the pictures to a place, where we meditate or pray, let them reach us, when we are open from within.

The first part of the inner way is a descent. This leads us from our imagination of ourselves to the reality of ourselves. Only from there on can we begin the ascent: the realization of the seed that we are and develop its possibilities. Let us be lead by this process by opening ourselves to Unity, to the Unnamed, to That we don’t know. It is greater than any imagination we can have about Him. He overtakes then; our task is to go on the Path – step by step with a clear intention, trust and acceptance.

For those who are interested in further studying the Villa dei Misteri and its message please contact Agnes Hidveghy for information on seminars in Pompeii.


Hidveghy-Oksanen 2004