The Gait of Hephaistos: Crooked Perceptions into Consilience

Abstract

Depth psychology provides a means to view consilience as an expression of anima mundi, a world ‘alive’ with consciousness, in which humanity takes part. Mythopoïesis becomes an active mode of cognition via the imaginative interaction with the cosmos. The Greek god Hephaistos, crippled god of technology and making, is the paradigmatic possessor not only of consummate technical skill (techne), but also of cunning intelligence and flexible opportunism (metis). Logic places these qualities at opposing ends of a cognitive and behavioral spectrum, but the unique combination of techne with metis, seen in light of another Hephaistean epithet, amphigueeis, an ambiguous term which can be translated either as “crippled” or “ambidextrous,” lameness or crooked-walking reveals itself as emblematic of the ability to contain apparent opposites in dynamic tension. The myth of the wounded maker-god becomes a way of perceiving, understanding and reifying the ambidextrous, consilient consciousness needed to navigate a dangerous world.