Keizer Heliogabalus - Een vreemde danser in Rome
Emperor Heliogabalus – A foreign dancer in Rome

Meeting and lectures supported by Kunstencentrum Stuk, the Department of Classical Studies and THIASOS: ruimte voor Griekse cultuur of the Catholic University in Leuven

Leuven (Belgium), Cinema ZED, 2005 October 11th

‘Perfection into Light itself...’

The Cult of the Black Stone in Louis Couperus’ novel The Mountain of Light

Lecture by Caroline de Westenholz

A fountain of champagne

On the 10th of September, 1998, the nightclub The Living Room in Monte Carlo celebrated its twentieth anniversary. It was a balmy, pleasant evening as there are so many in the South, during the ‘Indian summer’. The party was to start at eleven P.M.
The Living Room is located on the Avenue des Spelugues, a street around the corner from the Casino of Monte Carlo. It can be seen yearly on television when the Grand Prix drivers manage to steer their vehicles down the steeply descending hairpin curves, at super human speed.
Apart from this nightclub, the Avenue de Spelugues houses other well known hang outs of the rich such as restaurant Rampoldi’s and of course the local Harry’s Bar. By the time the party at The Living Room started, the neighbouring restaurants and clubs were well filled, and there was music everywhere. In order to celebrate the anniversary of The Living Room, a wooden platform had been constructed on the pavement. During the course of the evening an almost three meter high mountain of champagne glasses was built there. Around the nightclub, an expectant crowd had formed, while the street in front was blocked off by the presence of a large pick-up truck.
Shortly after eleven a black limousine came gliding down the Avenue. Out came Prince Albert of Monaco, surrounded by his staff. Simultaneously, the chauffeur of the pick-up crane, who apparently had been hiding in his cab, got into action. The crane descended to the ground, the Prince got in and was ceremonially lifted up into the air. Next, the crane described a gracious semi-circle and came to a stand-still right above the middle of the mountain of champagne glasses, and far above the crowd. Seemingly from nowhere, Prince Albert produced a freshly opened magnum of champagne. Solemnly and very carefully, he proceeded to pour the liquid into the top glass.
And then a mirage developed. From the top glass, the champagne overflowed into the two glasses underneath, and so on. Slowly but surely the elegant, but up till then quite static mountain of glasses changed into one golden, frothing fountain of champagne. The crowd sighed ‘ooooooooooh’, and only when the delicious liquid splashed over the wooden floor, did the pouring stop. Prince Albert took the top glass and proposed a toast to Willy, the Irish manager of The Living Room, to the establishment’s success in the past twenty years, and to an equally glorious future. Next, we onlookers were invited to have a glass.

This frivolous anecdote naturally serves a purpose.
The story of this fountain of champagne forms a wonderful illustration of the principle of the Kabbalah, the mystical Jewish religion which developed in the first centuries A.D.
The Kabbala – ‘that which has been received’ – is a gnosis or teachings of old wisdom. One of its principles is that of emanation, the foaming over of the divine substance, from an ethereal atmosphere of pure light, down into the lower atmospheres, level after level, just as in our fountain of champagne. On its way down, as it reaches ever lower and lower levels, this pure light coagulates into solid matter. Just so, imagine that the champagne loses its sparkle as it splashes from glass to glass.
The difference with the story of the fountain of champagne is that in ancient gnosticism, the champagne can also run the other way around: from the ground back into the bottle. In substance, it then changes back from dull to sparkling wine.
Kabbalists believed that the creation of the world had, so to say, started with the pouring of the first glass of champagne by an unknown, unpronouncable godhead. In the second emanation, this creature split into two: into a father and a mother figure, an Adam and an Eve. The next emanations saw a hierarchy of celestial beings, all on different levels, and way down at the bottom of the line appeared humanity. But although, on the way down, the divine light lost its translucence, each of these creations, on the different steps of the ladder down to earth, kept some of its essence in their souls. The goal of life, according to kabbalists, was to strive for return to the top, and from there, back into the bottle, or, in other words: for reunion with the divine origin of creation.
All this must be kept carefully in mind when we come to discuss the religion of the emperor Elegabalus in Louis Couperus’ novel De berg van licht (1905-1906). Unfortunately, the book has never been published in English. I will therefore refer to it in a literal translation, as The Mountain of Light. [1]

Louis Couperus

Louis Couperus (1863-1923) is arguably the greatest Dutch novelist. Cosmopolitan, dandy and aesthete, this most untypical Dutchman has long been labeled decadent at home. During his long, fertile writing life he produced no less than forty-eight books, in genre ranging from psychological novels such as The Books of the Small Souls quartet, featuring the irrevocable decline of an old, The Hague family [2] and the Jamesian epic The Inevitable (which has just been re-published in English, by London’s Pushkin Press);or on a different note, books inspired by dark and unknown powers in the Dutch colonial past, such as Old People and the Things that Pass [3]and The Hidden Force. [4] He wrote fairy tales, columns in daily newspapers, and finally, he created historical novels such as The Mountain of Light, or Iskander (about Alexander the Great). [5]
Running motive through all Couperus’s books is the ‘silent force’ of the power of fate, which eats his characters as if from within, and inevitably leads to their (possible) destruction. In this respect, it is worth noting that Couperus, who spent four years of his childhood on the island of Java, believed firmly in reincarnation. It is strange that his work has never been studied in the framework of the concept of karma, the Indian variety of ‘fate’ which basically means: every event in life is the result of one’s own actions, in this or in previous existences. ‘Even a chance encounter is the result of karma’, says a character in Haruki Murakawi’s latest novel, Kafka on the shore – something which Couperus, to my mind, would have agreed with. Indeed, when asked by a Dutch radio reporter to what contemporary writers I would compare Couperus’s books, I once answered: Japanese literature. His novels are pervaded by a similar sense of lurking doom which runs consistently through the work of Ishiguro, Murakawi, not to mention earlier ones like Mishima, Kawabata, Soseki, Endo, etc.

The religion of Elegabalus in The Mountain of Light

In 1905-1906, Couperus published his first historical novel: The Mountain of Light.
In his novel Couperus takes us through all the historical and legendary stories concerning the emperor. The translation of the ancient sources that he used was probably the book by Georges Duviquet, Héliogabale, raconté par les historiens grecs et latins, avec un preface de Rémy de Gourmont (Paris 1903). Apart from the usual texts (being Lampridius, Herodian and Dio Cassius) this book includes also the interpretations of later historians such as Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Zosimus, Orosius, Zonares and several of the Church Fathers.

‘Sources were Herodian and Lampridius; Herodian mainly gives a short story; Lampridius many details’, according to a prospectus for the novel. ‘Both disapprove, criticize, without any psychological analysis. But Lampridius’ details (many of which may be true) are of interest and hide the “soul”. Behind the dry summing up of different features I detect the soul of the young little emperor: Asiatic (...), very devout, almost drooling, initiated into the Mysteries of the Magicians and the secret sciences of the Kabbala; a feminine soul in an extraordinarily beautiful male form..’ [6]

Also, Couperus saw the young sun priest from Emesa as an artistic soul: ‘He was a genius, and artist in everything he did. He is the last reflection of Antique Beauty and Antique (Egyptian-Chaldean) Wisdom. Who tells us, that the quintessence of his religion isn’t purer than that of Christianity?’
As suggested by Couperus himself, the Kabbala supposedly was one of the sources of his character’s religion. To this may be added ancient Gnosticism. [7] Between 1883 and 1906 the author was profoundly interested in old esoteric cults, [8] the contemporary equivalents of which flourished in late nineteenth century The Netherlands. Before he wrote The Mountain of Light, Couperus published a whole series of books with an esoteric flavour in general: The Hidden Force (on black magic in the former Dutch East Indies, in 1900);  Babel (inspired by freemasonry, in 1901); Across Thresholds of Light (theosophic tales, in 1902); God and Gods (a gnostic cosmology, in 1903); and Dionysus (a biography of the god of the Ancient Mysteries, in 1904). [9]

In general, Couperus follows the line of Elegabalus’ life as depicted in the Historia Augusta. In his description of the emperor’s religion, however, Louis Couperus departed from his historical sources.
In his interpretation of the cult of the Black Stone Louis Couperus showed himself to be an ingenious ‘syncretist’.
Syncretism is a system in which identification of gods of different countries took place. After Alexander the Great a transcultural syncretism was put into place and cultivated systematically. This idea reflected the Periclean ideal of the polis expanded to the Alexandrian ideal of cosmopolis; the oecumene, or inhabited world as a whole, as the common possession of civilized mankind. [10]

Kabbalism in The Mountain of Light

In the first chapter of the first volume of The Mountain of Light, the emperor to be – whom Couperus calls Bassianus - is the priest of Elegabal, ‘he, who is enthroned on the Mountain of Light.’ (p. 20). Elegabal is a Sun God, and the Sun is the primary, life giving force, source of fertility and happiness on earth.
In this chapter the gnostic teaching of the High Priest of Emesa, Hydaspes, is outlined. Standing on the top terrace of the temple of the Sun in Emesa, looking up at the starry night sky, Hydaspes says [11] :

‘Hear my child... we strive back to the Light, out of which our soul, a spark, ticked away into the space of eternity, until she fell, in ever deeper humiliation, and reddened to an unclean flame, and materialized to a soul of gold, for gold is materialized light and the soul of Light hides in it, humiliated: that is why Gold is the worldly symbol of the highest, the richest, and the mightiest, and the lightest...’
‘Yes, you already explained that to me, Hydaspes.’
‘Our soul strives back to her origin; the golden soul here on earth, if she has not gone into total decline, strives back towards her Origin; that soul wants to return to the Light.. Unconsciously, within the ignorant; consciously, and more and more, within those, my child, who were initiated and who know. Within us, she strives consciously....’ (p. 27)

By now, you will perhaps have replayed the film of the fountain of champagne as described in my introduction.
There is no historical evidence for the idea that the cult of the Black Stone would have been a Kabbalistic mystery religion. The only indication that this might have been the case is by analogy. In his book The Cult of Sol Invictus, Gaston Halsberghe states that the young sun priest of Emesa had been initiated into the mysteries of the cult and that he had studied its dogma. [12] He bases this on the likeness between the cult of Sol Invictus with that of the far better known cult of Mithras which blossomed in the third century. The latter certainly did contain intitation rites, in seven stages, involving a taurobilium or bull sacrifice over a pit in which the adept lay (so that he was immersed in the blood of the animal). Halsberghe, however, maintains that the cult of Sol Invictus was identical with that of the Black Stone, an assumption which has been challenged by later researchers, such as Martin Frey. [13]
All the same: it is not impossible that the cult of the sun god Elegabal was a mystery religion. All other contemporary Eastern cults, such as those of Isis, Serapis or Attis, were, not to mention in inherently Greek cult of Dionysos.

Sol Invictus

On coins, the emperor Elegabalus is mentioned as ‘Sacerdos amplissimus dei invicti Solis Elegabali’ (very illustrious priest of the invicible Sun Elegabal). This has given rise to the suggestion that the cult of the Black Stone was directly connected with that of Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun), which was officially instituted by the emperor Aurelian (270-275). Apparently, this is not necessarily the case.
According to the Historia Augusta, a collection of biographies of Roman emperors written by six different authors around the second half of the fourth century, [14] the latter cult originated in an apparition, seen by the Emperor Aurelian and his army, during the decisive battle at Palmyra in the year 272. After his victory, the Emperor entered the temple of Elegabal in Emesa (after the murder of the emperor Elegabalus the black stone had been dispatched back to its home town). In its god, Elegabal, Aurelian recognised the apparition at the battlefield. In 274, in Rome, the emperor dedicated a great temple to the Sun, which was famed in antiquity for the richness of the offerings and dedications it contained. [15]
It is now generally accepted that the cult of Sol Invictus was not the same as that of the Black Stone under the reign of Elegabalus. Aurelian did not bring the Black Stone to Rome; it does not feature on coins, nor does the name of its god: Elegabal. Unlike his predecessor, Aurelian did not perform as its high priest; he left that office to a college of Roman senators, called ‘pontifices of the sun’, and there were no Eastern priests involved. The cult of the Black Stone remained, therefore, essentially a foreign religion, whereas that of Sol Invictus was an inherently Roman one.

Androgyny in The Mountain of Light

To follow Couperus in his interpretation, we return to the teachings of the guru Hydaspes:

‘You want to know how I would wish to see you, in the silent secret of you soul, if you became emperor.
Yes...
I would wish you to strive back to the Origin, which was sexless...
Before It...
Thought Creation and Birth, and contained both sexes in itself...
But to reach the mental condition of the sexless Light...?
The Elect Soul must first strive back to that more human form: that of androgyny.
I understand.
The Elect Soul must strive back to the androgynous soul of the Man-Virgin.
I understand...
That was how our first Father...
Adam...
Adam-Heva...
Yes that was how... when he lived in Paradise, at the border of the river Euphrates. Adam-Heva he was, our Father; Man and Virgin, double sexed and double single... But just like the Light, sexless, split into Male and Female, so Adam-Heva – o inpenetrable secret! – and after deep grief about his own nature, split into two: into Adam, into Heva...
Into Man and into Virgin...
(...)
So the Elect Soul strives back to androgyny.
I understand...
To the form of the Male-Virgin...
The Double Single... O Bassianus, would you be the Elect Soul... I saw so many, but no-one, who made me think so surely: he IS the Soul Elect... For she must be earnest and frivilous, the Soul; a soul of devotion and one of love, a soul of ecstasy and voluptuousness both, a soul of initiated wisdom and a soul of naive frivolity; that is how the Elect Soul has been predicted, in a body like a precious vase full of beauty; slim the ephebe like limbs, but round its shoulders and its chest, thin its waist and wide its hips, with legs powerful, but feet airily swift; the face cleanly cut and flawless, the eyes already radiating with the desired light... Bassianus, o my Bassianus, are you not like that? Not too female, not too male, both sexes fused together in utter harmony...’ (p. 29)

In order to help him with his quest Hydaspes gives Bassianus a ring with the sign of Abraxas:

‘...the name of the Highest God, which only we are allowed to pronounce: Abraxas; the Upper Being of our Gnosis, who has been revealed by oral tradition only, in the most sacred of mysteries ...(...); my child, keep this stone and this talisman... it may the last thing I give you.’ (p. 77)

According to a dictionary of symbols, the Abraxas symbol consists of a Roman soldier with the head of a cockerel and two snakes for legs. In his left arm, he carries a shield in his left arm, and he holds a whip in his right hand. The Abraxas is a lucky charm and it heralds a new dawn or age to come. [16] Evidently, this is Hydaspes hope for Elegabalus’ reign. The Couperian androgyne (i.e. Elegabalus), is meant to be the creature of the future: ‘...the double sexed form, the soul of the Man-Virgin, the Single-Double, Adam-Heva, who was and will be in you... o my Antoninus...’ so it says in a letter from Hydaspes which Elegabalus receives at the end of the second volume of The Mountain of Light (p. 253).

The androgynous Messiah

The concept of a divine, androgynous first being features in many gnostic religions of the second century.
To understand it, we might return to the metaphore of the first two layers of glasses in our mountain of champagne glasses.
Creation was started by an unknown, unpronouncable godhead; this could be the above mentioned ‘sexless Light’ – or, in our frivolous comparison, the giant bottle of champagne. The first emanation we could compare to the first, top glass: this would be ‘the more human form; that of androgyny’, as Hydaspes calls it. The second layer consists of two glasses, that is to say: male and female.
In some old gnostic religions of the Hellenistic world, the concept of the original androgyne was fused with the principles of Christianity. Here, the androgynous Messiah was supposed to appear at the beginning as well as at the end of times. [17] Evidently, Hydaspes saw Bassianus as such.
As we will see, Couperus’ view on the androgynous young emperor was a combination of the primary god from Eastern mythology combined with the Messiah from then relatively recent Christian thought. As so often happened in real world history, a new religion was assimilated with an existing one. In our part of the world, the celebration of Eastern or Christmas are an example of such practices: both are pagan festivals, that have been syncretised with important dates in Christianity.

Initially, Louis Couperus wanted to write a noveletta about the dance of the Sun Priest only. [18]
Why was he so fascinated by this dance? I think the answer lies in the fact that he considered Bassianus’ religious quest the essence of his existence – and in this religion, the dance around the Black Stone played a pivotal part.
The actual ritual of the dance around the Black Stone is a lot less ethereal than Hydaspes’ description of ‘striving for the sexless light’, in The Mountain of Light.
During this dance Bassianus, as High Priest of the sun, undergoes a metamorphosis. He turns into a Mediator, a go-between, between the sacred sun and humankind. At the ‘most sacred moment’, that is to say, at the climax of the dance, the soul of the sun itself – the sexless light - is supposed to descend in order to incarnate in the boy, who then becomes the Man-Virgin. [19] This moment can be explained on two levels; an esoteric one for the inititiated only, and an exoteric, sensual one, for those not in the know. Says Couperus: ‘Those who knew the mysteries, wallowed in ecstasy; those who were nothing but sensual, felt their sensuality whipped up into a fury of yearning; men, women were yearning, yearning... children extended their hands to the idol....’ (p. 61)
What happens here, in The Mountain of Light, is anything but sexless – on the contrary:

‘The people shouted, furiously. Locked between the countless columns, behind the lightly armed guard, powerless in their yearning, hands were stretching, throats were shouting the name of the compassionate god. (...) Between the stretching hands of the maidens the Mediator descended, and became Man; his ephebe’s member, small but erect after the movement of the dance, visualizing, pinkish-white; but his chest swelled up into a maiden’s bosom, silver-white, and between the stretching hands of the Magicians, the Mediator became Virgin. And it was as if all the hands of the Earth were stretched out towards his compassion, for thousands of hands from the moaning, groaning and screaming crowd clawed at him to become their master, handkisses were thrown in his direction, and the sword fighter Gualterius bellowed, very loud and very audible:
‘Sweetheart, that you are!!’ (p. 68-69)

Sensuality and the devout

Here we see, that in Couperus’ view, human sexuality is essential in the cult of Elegabal. On various occasions in the novel Couperus stresses the bond between sensuality and the devout:

‘Doesn’t the Sun command joy and life, doesn’t the Sun call for the celebration of nature, in order for the essence to be released...’ (p. 138)

Couperus deliberately opposes this thoroughly heathen view to the so different ones of rising Christianity. In a conversation with pappias Zephyrinus, the Christian bishop, Elegabalus says, for instance:

‘The Black Stone is a sacred symbol, but no more than that – said between us, High Priests as we both are; you have another symbol: the Cross; a little odd, I think, an instrument of punishment for criminals and slaves, but it is possible that the meaning of the symbol escapes me; I am sure, that you do not get the meaning of our symbol, the phallus, the Black Stone, the sacred vitality of Nature... ‘ (p. 161).

It is, however, not only fertility which forms the sacred element of this cult.  The very release inherent in the unbridled celebration of passion entails sacred redemption, in Couperus’ view:

‘This is how Rheia Kubele, the goddess, how Attis, the human being, how Venus and Adonis had loved: it is how the immortals had always loved mortal beings, seemingly overcome by their passions, possibly, in their very passion approaching the End goal of the World... The Magicians called it: Perfection into Light itself... (...) Happy were those, who could wallow in their senses, in order to free themselves from earthly bonds...’ (p. 297).

Where does this come from? What kind of religion is it, that elevates orgasm to the realm of the divine? Does such a thing exist, we wonder, and if so – where?

Tantrism

Such shameless religious frenzy does indeed have an historical precedent in tantrism, the ‘left hand path’ of the cult of Shaivism in ancient India.
Shaivism was the religion of the pre-Arian population: the Dravidic tribes that took possession of the Indian peninsula in the sixth millenium before Christ. They were concentrated around the valley of the Indus. [20]
Shiva is the god of creation and destruction, of sex and eroticism, but also, of murder and annihilation. His animal is the bull, his domain is the forest, his sacred mountain is in Nysa, India. He is covered in ash – for death generates life – he carries a necklace lined with skulls, his favourite colour is saffran, the colour of mourning. His symbol is an erect stone. Shiva is worshipped in the form of a lingua, a flame – symbol of lust – or phallus, which must be erected on the altar of a ioni, symbol of the female sex organ. Preferably, this phallus is found in nature or cut from a rock. It may also be a baetyl. It must be dressed and decorated respectfully.
The bibles of the Shiva-cult are called Purana’s. They date from prehistorical times but have been recorded around 500 BD, in order to explain the texts of the Veda’s to the common people. The Veda’s are the oldest Indian scriptures and consist of the Purana’s (historical texts) and the Tantra’s (rites of magic and initiation).
The intellectual training of Shaivism is yoga; the physical one is called tantrism. Containment and concentration of the mind through yoga, combined with tantric physical techniques lead to ultimate self-realisation: union with the divine. This is the goal of human existance.
In tantrism, human sexuality is essential. In the sexual union of man and woman, or rather in orgasm (that is to say: male orgasm) [21] the duality of existence is overcome and the original unity of Creation reached. Ultimate sexual ecstasy is like an experience of the absolute divine light, the light of Gnosis, as the Romanian professor of comparative religion, Mircea Eliade, has called it. [22]
This sexual ecstasy is like the state of androgyny which features at the beginning of time. The old Hindu’s saw it as follows. In the cosmology of the Purana’s the universe has no substance. Matter, life and thought are but fleeting connections of energy, such as rhythm, movement and sexual attraction. [23] The original state of the cosmos is that of a latent state of being (Shiva), which is stirred into action by the connection with creative energy (Shakti). Creation starts with the connection between the two, or: the union of Shiva and Shakti is the first reality. [24] Creation is symbolised by Shiva in his aspect of a hermaphrodite (Ardhanahisvara), half male, half female, whose nature is pure lust. ‘When existence and consciousness unite, their union is pleasure and in this pleasure lies their purpose. Their separate existence is but an appearance,’ says an old Indian text. [25]
Shaivism is celebrated in ecstatic dances. In consequence of the view that the universe exists of fleeting connections only, the Indians attached great importance to rhythm, music and dance. Shiva is the god of dance and the theatre. Just like Dionysus, he is surrounded by a crowd of ecstatic followers. There are different sort of Shaivite dances: ritual or symbolic, ecstatic, erotic and theatrical.

Shiva and Dionysos

The parallels between the gods Shiva and Dionysos are so numerous that the french researcher Alain Daniélou devoted an entire book to the subject: Shiva et Dionysos. La réligion de la nature et de l’éros. De la préhistoire à l’avenir, (Parijs 1979). It was already used in the above text.
According to Daniélou, Dionysism is the occidental form of Shaivaïsm. [25]
Very briefly, I will render his argumentation.
Both are religions of nature, connected with death and regeneration. Both Shiva and Dionysus were gods who united the mysteries of death and procreation; both were chtonical gods. The festivals of both took place in spring. These festivals are the basis of modern carnaval.
Shiva and Dionysus are both gods of ecstasy and delirium. That ecstasy is found in excess, be it in sex (Shaivism) or drunkenness (Dionysism), and in both cases it is celebrated with ecstatic dancing. In both religions, the god attacks mercilessly, if his authority is challenged; in Shaivism, too, there are many myths about the ‘mania’ of the god.
Both gods are accompanied by an army of devoted followers, who worship their idol in possessed rituals of music, dance and wild orgies. The followers of Shiva are called ‘bhaktas’, those of Dionysus ‘bacchantes’.
Shaivism and Dionysism both know secret rites of initiation, with their own, specific techniques (yoga and tantra with Shiva) and mysteries (with Dionysus). Goal of these rituals is mystical reunion with the godhead. As such, ancient Shaivism forms the base for all secret esoteric societies through the centuries up till the present day.
In both religions: in Shaivism and Dionysism, the phallus plays a central role. Interesting in this respect is the story, in De dea Syria by Lucianus of Samosate (ca. 150 AD), about the temple of Bacchus in Hierapolis, in Syria, where Dionysus/Bacchus supposedly had erected two phalluses on his return from India to Greece. [26]
In ancient Greece, the parallels between the two religions were explained by Dionysus’ journey to India; they were, in other words, already known in antiquity. A the same time, old Indian texts speak about the spreading of Shaivism to the West. [27] This already took place in the sixth century BC. The symbols of the Shiva-cult: the decorated phallus, the horned god, worship of bull, snake, ram and ‘the woman of the mountains’ have been found in prehistoric Anatolia, Sumeria, Egypt and especially on Crete.
The gods are related even in their ethymological background. Dionysus means: god of Nysa (the mythical Nysa in Thracia). Shiva’s sacred mountain was in Nysa in India, not far from the current Peshawar. Daniélou mentions how the soldiers of Alexander the Great ‘embraced their brothers in Dionysus’, when they arrived at the Shaivite temple there. [28]

Back to Louis Couperus

Louis Couperus certainly was aware of the mythology around the god Dionysus and his rituals, and probably of the parallels with those of Shaivism. [29]
The androgynous character of the god Dionysus in the book by that title, and that of the boy Bassianus in The Mountain of Light have been extensively dealt with by other researchers. [30] The suggestion of identification between Dionysus and Elegabalus was already brought up by Herodian.
A photograph of a statue of Shiva in his aspect of Ardhanahisvara (hermaphrodite), plus an explanatory text, was published in the book by Lucien von Römer, which Couperus is known to have consulted for The Mountain of Light. [31] The statue is in the collection of the Leiden ethnological museum. [32]
The black stone in The Mountain of Light is ‘a phallus symbol of Elegabalus’ (p. 23) Elsewhere, Couperus mentions ‘...the phallus symbol, the Stone, of the great Symbol, the Sun’ (p. 31). [33] This is entirely in keeping with the principles of Shaivism.
As far as his knowledge of Indian mythology goes, we must remember that Couperus spent four childhood years on the island of Java (from the age of 10 to 15). Everybody who has travelled to Indonesia knows that the altar in a native temple there consists of a lingua or phallus, standing erect on a ioni, symbol of the female sex organ.
Also, it is known that the young Couperus was a great admiror of René Lecomte de Lisle, the French poet who was one of the first to use the then relatively new translation, by Eugène Burnouf, of the Bhâgavata Purana in his work. He published several poems on Shiva and other Indian gods. [34]
In 1896, Couperus published a translation of fragments from Flaubert’s The temptation of Saint Anthony, which mentions the gods of the Veda’s.

In The Mountain of Light, Bassianus’ dance is, as we saw, the climax of the religious performance. The sacred redemption is achieved in the culmination of this ceremony. What happens here, is exactly what Dionysos’ bacchantes experienced; ekstasis, a exiting from one’s conscious self; enthusiasmos, being filled with the divine and thiasos, reunion with the godhead. [35]
In the ecstatic Shaivite dances it is expressed as follows: the participants were beside themselves, got in touch with the godhead and received a ‘message of wisdom’. [36] Something similar happens to Bassianus in The Mountain of Light:

‘At the foot of the Stone, from the sanctuary below, a golden bed rose up, and the Mediator sank back into its golden cushions. His body symbolized the Altar of Mercy. The exultant dance of the girls and the jubilant hymn of the Magicians celebrated the Happiness of the Earth, its redemption and grateful ecstasy. The Black Stone began to radiate... At the tip of its cone, it began to radiate, so blindingly bright, that it sent out heavenly flashes. The Crowd trembled in sensual disgust and mystical fear... The Stone radiated, radiated more brightly, and the powerlessly yearning Masses saw in that superblinding flashing radiation the double Kiss, which the compassionate Mediator received from the Earth: Magicians bowing over his feminine mouth; female dancers over his male organ...’ (p. 68-69)

In Shaivite terms, one could say that Bassianus’ body at that moment represents Creation itself, on exoteric and esoteric levels simultaneously. This is the explanation for the outrageous and yet sacred sensualism in The Mountain of Light.

Conclusion

In The Mountain of Light, Couperus mixed the elements of various ancient religious sects.
The cosmology of Emesa as outlined by the High Priest Hydaspes is based on the Jewish Kabbala.
The concept of an androgynous Messiah who features at the beginning and the end of time is borrowed from ancient gnosticism. [37]
The character of the religious service of the Cult of the Black Stone, as described by Couperus, is borrowed from the rituals of tantrism, the left hand path of Shaivism in ancient India, mixed with elements from the mystery cult of Dionysus in the West.
What these different sources have in common might very well be expressed by Couperus’ dictum: ‘Perfection into Light itself.’

NOTES

[1] Zie: De berg van licht, Volledige Werken Louis Couperus deel 24, Amsterdam/Antwerpen 1993
[2] Published in English, by William Heinemann (between 1914 and 1930, in many editions) in four different volumes, under the titles: The Small Souls, The Later Life, The Twilight of the Souls and Dr. Adriaan
[3] Last English translation: Sythoff/Heinemann 1963
[4] Last English translation: Quartet Books 1992
[5] These last two historical novels have never been translated into English
[6] F.L. Bastet (ed.), Amice, brieven van Louis Couperus aan zijn uitgever, ingeleid en van aantekeningen voorzien door F.L. Bastet,  vol.  II (1902-1919), ‘s Gravenhage 1977,letter 405a: text for prospectus for the novel, (p. 72-74)
[7] F.i.: ‘....veiled, full of occult Kabbalistic secrets, which the Magicians carefully hid away...’; ‘... the Upper Being of our Gnosis...’ ‘...the wisdom of Gnosis and Kabbala, which had only just been revealed to him….’ De berg van licht 1993, p. 23, 77, 79
[8] As he stated himself in André de Ridder, Bij Louis Couperus, Amsterdam 1917, p. 22
[9] None of these last four bookswas published in English. The translations of the titles, therefore, are mine
[10] See f.i. Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology. The Masks of God. Londen 1985 (1st druk: 1964), p. 240
[11] All translations that follow are my own
[12] Gaston Halsberghe, Thee Cult of Sol Invictus, Leiden 1972, p. 65 and 77
[13] See: Martin Frey, ‘Untersuchungen zur Religion und zur Religionspolitik des Kaisers Elagabal’, Einzelschrift Historia, Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte, Heft 62 (1989),p. 67-68
[14] See f.i. Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed. E. Hohl, I, Leipzig 1927
[15] Frey 1989,p. 67-68
[16] Wolfgang Bauer, Irmtraut Dümotz, Sergius Golowin, Lexicon der Symbole, Wiesbaden 185, p. 47-48
[17] See f.i. Mircea Eliade, Méphistopheles où l’androgyne, Paris 1962; H. Leisegang, La Gnose, Paris 1951; G. Quispel, red. De hermetische gnosis in de loop der eeuwen, Baarn 1992; and now: Wouter Hanegraaff (ed.), Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Leiden and Boston 2005
[18] André de Ridder, Bij Louis Couperus, Amsterdam 1917, p. 43
[19] De berg van licht, p. 40-41
[20] The following after Alain Daniélou, Mythes et dieux de l’Inde. Le Polythéisme Hindu, Paris 1992 (1st edition: 1975), pp. 289-358, and Alain Daniélou, Shiva et Dionysos. La réligion de la nature et de l’éros. De la préhistoire à l’avenir, Paris 1979
[21] ‘Pour que la création puisse avoir lieu, l’union d’un être qui perçoit et d’une chose perçue, d’un être qui jouit et d’une chose dont on jouit, d’un principe actif et d’un principe passif, d’un organe male et d’une organe femelle est indispensable.’ Daniélou 1992, p. 346
[22] Myrcia Eliade, Méphistopheles et l’androgyne,  Paris 1962, p. 46 en 49
[23] ‘D’après la cosmologie hindou, l’univers n’a pas de substance. La matière, la vie, la pensée ne sont que de des rélations énergétiques, que rhythme, mouvement et attraction mutuelle’. Daniélou 1979, p. 73
[24] After Daniélou 1992, p. 311-313
[25] Daniélou 1979, p. 20
[26] Jean Réville, La réligion à Rome sous les Sévères, Paris 1886, p. 71. Lucianus van Samothace (115-190)
[27] Daniélou 1979, p. 41-49
[28] Daniélou 1979,p. 48, 170-171
[29] See Caroline de Westenholz, ‘Heilig sensualisme in De berg van licht. Heleogabalus en de vlam van de lust. Couperus en het Shivaïsme’, Arabesken. Tijdschrift van het Louis Couperus Genootschap Vol. 12, nr. 23 (May 2004), p. 4-15
[30] A.o. by Frédéric Bastet, Louis Couperus, een biografie, Amsterdam 1987. For the androgynous aspect of the god Dionysus see also Daniélou 1979 p. 82-83
[31] Lucien von Römer, Ueber die androgynischen Idee des Lebens, Amsterdam 1903, p. 721. Illustration number 5 in this book shows a statue of Shiva in his aspect of a hermaphrodite (Ardhanahisvara) in the collection of the  Museum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden
[32] Reference in the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde: inv. nr. 1403-1763
[33] Also: ‘…the Black Stone, immense, jet black phallus’... De berg van licht, p. 56
[34] See Caroline de Westenholz, ‘De Indiase bronnen van Lombard en Couperus. Heliogabalus en de Vlam van de Lust II’, Arabesken. Tijdschrift van het Louis Couperus Genootschap Vol 14, nr. 25 (May 2005), p. 19-27
[35] Eric M. Moorman and Wilfried Uitterhoeve,Van Achilleus tot Zeus. Thema’s uit de klassieke mythologie in literatuur, muziek, beeldende kunst en theater, Nijmegen 1995, p. 90
[36] ‘C’est par la danse extatique et sacrée que les fidèles du dieu, les bhaktas, ou bacchants, prennent contact avec lui – c.q. Shiva, CW – et reçoivent le message de la Sagesse.’ Daniélou 1979, p. 66. Also see p. 129-133
[37] Caroline de Westenholz, ‘Heleogabalus en de vlam van de lust III. Was Couperus een adept?’, Arabesken. Tijdschrift van het Louis Couperus Genootschap Vol. 13, nr. 26 (November 2005), p. 23-36