A still from the television series, ‘Astrid et Raphaëlle’, Season 2, Episode 7, ‘The Book’.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of HYGEIA are two quotes. One comes from a French television series, ‘Astrid and Raphaëlle’ and another quote we remembered from a reading of Pascal Quignard’s ‘Zetes’ (1972/1979-Editions NRF Poesie-Gallimard 2010). Pages 245 and 246. Our working translation.

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“Astrid and Raphaëlle’ is a tv series where Astrid Nielsen, works in the library of the judicial police. Suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, however, she has an incredible memory, so she could prove very useful in analyzing files. The district commander, Raphaëlle Coste, having noticed this ability, decides to use it to the fullest, entrusting her with very complex investigations which have remained unsolved to date. In addition, also to reciprocate, she will try to help Astrid on the behavioral side, in order to provide mutual help. In Season 2, episode 7, ‘The book’, a man has a fit of delirium after being drugged and dies at an precious and rare book auction. Astrid and Raphaëlle set out on the trail of a precious manuscript, the ‘Corpus Hermeticum’…Close to the end, Astrid visits someone in a prison and here is this unexpected dialog:

-‘I knew that you would come close and pierce the mystery of the book.‘

-‘Come close? The secret of the book, it’s the constellations? Am I Right?‘

-‘Not only the constellations, but what they tell also. You need to put them into a certain order. The order the ‘corpus’ is inviting us to does not reveal an invocation, but a story. A fiction. The very first at the beginning of time, that’s the secret of the ‘corpus’; that’s the gift of the Gods to Mankind: This magical incantation that makes us bigger than what we really are, it elevates us among heroes and helps us conquer our fears…It’s fiction’.

The man then shows Astrid a modern copy of Heraclitus’ ‘Fragments’:

‘There are no simple stories. Do not underestimate the power of fiction. It is remarkable. It binds people together and it can put them into motion. It gives the power to shape the world.’ (scriptwriter: Joseph Lantigny and Mathieu Leblanc).

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‘About Theon the Sophist’

Aelius Theon, aka. Theon the Sophist, at the beginning of the second century gave this definition of the tale: Fictional tales, only, once they have become images, un-veil. Because, only language by lying creates an image of Truth. I copy Theon’s Greek sentence:

Λόγος ψευδές εικονίζον αλήθειαν
(Logos pseudes eikonizon aletheian)

A word-by-word translation: The lying language depicts a true icon (iconize truth).
Fiction provides images to the non-forgettable.
Where Theon writes ‘Lying language’, Jesus would say: ‘Parabola’.
We could also say fable.
We could also say tale.
Only lying speeches, the ‘logos pseudes’, fictional stories, once they have become images, take away the veil covering the functioning of the spirit.
In Latin: ‘Mens est mentiri. Enim anima fictio.’
To think is to hallucinate. Word by word: ‘If the spirit is to lie, then the soul is a fiction.
“Only images, once they have become fictions, show the veil that they used.’

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