The Springs of Castalia and the Oracle of Apollo

If the Muses inspire the pens of poets, then it was the spring sacred to the Muses that Herman Hesse drank from when he dreamed up the concepts in his inspired masterpiece, The Glass Bead Game. Castalia is the main setting for the book, a fictional province somewhere in central Europe, some centuries in the future. The province had been set apart as a place for the development of the mind. Individuals who are deemed to be worthy of attending the boarding schools of Castalia are sent their and educated by an order of intellectuals and mystics. The life in the order is much like that in a monastery, yet in Castalia the devotees of the order cultivate and play something known as the Glass Bead Game. Throughout the book the exact nature of the game is never spelled out in full, and the reader is expected to imagine what the nature of the game is by inference. To play the game well a person needs to have an encyclopedic grasp of mathematics, music, the arts, science, religion, and cultural history. At its most basic it could be described as a game where the player makes connections between different fields of study that may at first seem unrelated. A well-played game becomes an act of creative synthesis showcasing the beauty of the connections formed, of the different subjects threaded and woven together. Playing the game is an active form of contemplation for the Castalian, as is watching a game being played by a master player. The meaning of the game, and any connections made during its play, become further objects for exploration in contemplative meditation as taught by the order.

            Music has a special place in Castalia. In the hierarchy of what they hold dear it is one rung below the game itself. Young acolytes are trained in music from an early age, and music is often incorporated directly into the games. Hesse gave a number of precedents that he conceived of as influencing the eventual development of the game. These included the Music of the Spheres, beloved of the Pythagoreans, systems and ideas of a Universal Language, and scholastic philosophy among many others.

            But why give the province the name Castalia in the first place? To answer this question we turn to Greek mythology.      

Castalia was a naiad, a kind of nymph or nature spirit, that preside over springs, fountains and streams, often living in them. The difference between the spring itself and the naiad can be blurry for those who try to separate the spirit from the matter. Castalia was the daughter of the River God Achelous. She either threw herself into the spring, or was transformed into a spring, in the course of trying to evade the creeping advances of Apollo, God of music, knowledge and oracles. The spring took on her name and became a sacred source of inspiration to Apollo, her would be suitor, and the Muses.

            The location of the spring, or fountain as it is sometimes also described, happened to be on the sloped base of Mount Parnassus. This mountain range in Greece was long held sacred, on the one hand to Dionysius and those who were initiated in his mysteries, and on the other to Apollo and the Muses. Delphi itself was situated on the southern side of the mountain. The ancient Latin poet Lactantius Placidus said Castalia had transformed herself into a fountain right at Delphi. Apollo then consecrated this source of water to the Muses. Those who drank her waters, or even those who sat next to the spring and listened to the liquid trickle, would become inspired by the genius or daimon of poetry. These same waters were said to be used to cleanse the temples at Delphi.

            By calling his province Castalia, Hesse invokes the power of the Muses and of Apollo. The Muses are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, memory, their mother who presides over them. These are the Greek deities of intellectual and artistic pursuit, of poetry, literature, music, astronomy, philosophy, dance, and history.

            Apollo, was among other things, a god of prophecy and it was he was the god of the oracle of Delphi, the most important of all the oracles in ancient Greece. Though Delphi was his chief oracular shrine, there were others sacred to the god. Branchidae and Claros, both in Iona, were also places where people sought his wisdom.

 It seems that Hesse chose the name Castalia because of its connection to Apollo and because of the oracular nature of the Glass Bead Game itself.  Being a game of rich symbolic connections, and a game that sometimes involves the play of chance, and the intuition and knowledge of the player gives it an oracular nature in way that is similar to methods of divination that may have started in some instances as games, such as the tarot. Other diviniation systems such as the I Ching may not have started as games, but later take on elements from games, such as coin tossing and dice throwing. One way to think of divination is as a consultation with spirits, gods, or the intelligent life force active in the universe.
            In ancient Greek religion people took consultation with the Gods as a given. They believed, much as the more familiar Christians of the past two thousand years have believed, that establishing a line of communication with their deity would allow them to receive divine wisdom. They prayed for success in life, strength to overcome difficulties, and hoped to court the personal favor of the Gods and Goddesses with various offerings and rituals.

            Apollo was a favored choice among the Greeks when they needed to know the future. Being a god of prophecy made him a natural fit for those who wanted to take a peek ahead and try to see what was around the corner for them in life. His prophetic side is only one aspect of this deity. Apollo is a god of music, medicine, and archery, as well shepherds and their flocks. He is seen as giving order and purpose to civilization, assisting in its development, as well as with endowing codes and laws. Philosophy is pleasing to Apollo.

            Hesse would have been very familiar with the idea of the dichotomy between Dionysian modes of culture and Apollonian, a theme very much alive from the time of the German art historian and Hellenist Johann Joachim Winckelmann on up to the work of the German Romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin. The literary theme was taken the furthest and made most well-known by philosopher Friedrich Nietszche in his work The Birth of Tragedy. To gloss a complex line of thinking it can first be noted that Dionysus and Apollo are both sons of Zeus, though with different mothers. Dionysus, ruled over wine, dancing, pleasure seeking, and importantly, all things chaotic and irrational. He is associated with primal instincts and passion, the primacy of emotion, and was the son of Semele. Though not a god of the moon per se, Dionysus can be thought of as relating to the lunar current in humanity and those things associated with it such as dreams and visionary states. Apollo, by contrast, is a solar god, whose orbit encompasses the realms of art, music, logic, order and reason, and is the son of Leto. These brothers, often at odds with each other in their personality, and in things over which they each have been given control, were not seen as opposites by the Greeks. Instead they were thought to be deeply enmeshed with one another. Still, that didn’t stop later thinkers from seeing within their interplay something of the yin and yang.

            The mode of life in Hesse’s Castalia is the epitome of order and reason. There is a deep mysticism and embrace of the spiritual by the Castalians through their practices of study, meditation, and contemplation. Yet their route to the heights of illumination is taken as a slow gradual step-by-step program or process of spiritual unfoldment. The Dionysian mode by contrast is perhaps best represented by what Arthur Rimbaud called the “systematic derangement of the senses” through means of intoxication, visionary drugs, and losing oneself in the ecstasy of dance and passion. Illumination can come that way, but for dabblers, it is often at steep costs.  As such as Apollo is the appropriate god to see over the unfoldment of Hesse’s future province.

            How Apollo came to be a god regarded as prophetic is not known, though his civilizing aspects goes way back into olden times with him being a god of the shepherd where his skills in medicine, archery and music would all be appreciated. The string that makes a bow for an arrow can also be used to make a lyre.

            There were other beings and energies associated with Delphi aside from Castalia, and even more famous, namely, Python. This dragon or serpent was said to live in the center of the earth, and before Apollo came to kill him, he presided over the oracle which existed at that spot as a cult for Gaia. The Greeks believed that Zeus had made this spot the navel of the world, in other words the axis mundi, or to say it another way, the center of the world. They used a stone called the omphalos to mark the exact spot. Python guarded this stone and when Apollo slayed the dragon he set up shop in his place.          

Every eight years there was a ritual re-enactment of his Apollo’s earliest adventure, the killing of the Python held at the shrine. In the Delphic Septeria ritual, a boy who impersonated the god was led to a place called the Palace of the Python. This was a hut near the temple. They set the hut on fire and the boy was banished from the realm. The ritualists went to the Vale of Tempe to be purified. The Vale of Tempe was a place known in legend. Its deep gorge had been made when Poseidon cut through the rocks with his trident. The place was a favorite hangout spot for Apollo and the Muses, and was later home for a time to Aristaeus, his son with Cyrene, a Thessalian princess who later became the queen and ruler of her namesake city Cyrene, in Libya, North Africa. Aristaeus offended the nymphs when he chased after Eurydice, causing her to be bitten by a serpent and die. Seeking revenge, the nymphs destroyed his beehives. Going to his mother, she suggests he seek the wisdom of Proteus, a god of the sea. Proteus explains to him the cause of his misfortune, and his mother recommends he sacrifice his cattle to the nymphs. When he returns nine days later after the slaughter, he finds the carcasses of the cattle to be swarming with bees. There is a correspondence here with the bees who made honey in the skull of the lion after the biblical Samson slayed a lion, and when he returned, noticed a swarm of bees and some honey it’s carcass. The Pineios river flowed through the Vale of Tempe on its right bank was a temple of Apollo. It was hear where the bay laurels used to crown the victors in the Pythian Games were gathered. After purification in Tempe the adherents to the ritual came back by a path known as the Pythian Way. This whole enactment was a way of commemorating the dragon slayer.

             Visitors would come to the oracle and ask a question of the Pythia, the high priestess, who would then deliver cryptic lines and verses of advice. The Pythia sat on bronze tripod over a crack in the earth where Python had gone inside to die. The fumes from his rotting corpse emanated up from the crack to help the Pythia enter into her oracular trance. The Pythia was also trained in the teachings of the Mystery Schools of the time and she learned the spiritual and magical techniques needed to communicate the messages of Apollo to the people who came seeking his wisdom. At the beginning of each day, before sitting on her special throne she purified herself in the sacred waters of the Castalian spring.

            Though the site was remote, it was situated on an important trade route between north Greece and Corinth, allowing people from all across the land to come and seek the wisdom of Apollo.

            There is another similarity between Delphi and the Castalia of Hesse’s novel. Unlike other sacred sites in Greece, it was not attached to a city-state. Instead, it was protected by a council known as the Amphictyonic League. These leagues were charged with the maintenance and care of the temples. The province of Castalia in the book is kept separate for the most part from the economic life of the surrounding countries, so they will be free to pursue their intellectual pursuits. The Amphictionies helped maintain the Oracle of Delphi as a neutral space. Castalia also seems to have another parallel to the neutrality of Switzerland where Hesse emigrated had emigrated from Germany.

            The Amphictionies were also charged with holding the Pythian Games, just the Order who ran Castalia held a major festival for the play of the Glass Bead Game. The Pythian Games were a competition in music. This is another parallel. The Pythian Games weren’t as popular as the Olympian, with their focus on athleticism. There focus had been on the creation of a hymn to Apollo. These would be sung with accompaniment on the cithara, a seven stringed version of the lyre that was seen as more professional and less country bumpkin. At first the Pythian Games were held every eighth year, just as the Delph Septeria was, but they were later reorganized by the Amphictionic Council, and held on every third year of the Olympiad. The competition involved singing, instrumental music, drama, and the recitations of poetry and prose. Races on foot and horse were later added after the Olympian Games, which honored Zeus. The prize for winning was a crown of bay leaves brought from the valley of Tempe.
             
            Getting a consultation at the oracle wasn’t just something you could go up and do anytime you needed a word of advice. There was an elaborate process around the whole shebang. Access was limited. People could only consult the Oracle once a month for nine months of the year. Apollo took a vacation the rest of the year. It was believed he left for the winter to go to warmer climates. Given the limited time span when he was available, it might be thought, that like in today’s world, only the wealthy would be able to utilize such a precious resource. Yet anyone could visit the oracle of Delph, though there was another hierarchy based on where people came from came into play.

​Even so, all mortals were just mortals to Apollo.