Paradiso

Posted on July 31, 2025 by Richard Emerson

We’ve now started a new reading of Paradiso in Italian, and we are building on the foundations from a new understanding of Eden. How we interpret the scenes, and what emerges out of the passages, will largely rely on an inner development of the capacity of the Chariot, the Tree of Relationship, and Beatrice as one’s inner spiritual life. Without these basic elements – much of our posts in the coming year or two, will likely not give a fuller resonance internally.

And the wealth that comes out of the poetry with these keys are very different from earlier readings. Rather then evocative, celestial poetry, it touches on far deeper spiritual depths in the soul.

An example is this (Par.i.58-60):

Io nol soffersi molto, né sì poco, 
ch’io nol vedessi sfavillar dintorno, 
com’ferro che bogliente esce del foco; 

This is when Dante suddenly emulates Beatrice and stares at the Sun in Canto I. He says: “I did not endure it much, nor yes so little, that I did not see glowing sparks all around it, like boiling iron that emerges out of the furnace“.

And then it is like a new day is added to the day, and his perception is bright like “another sun” is illuminating his perception and experience.

And a key here is this: with a basis in the Relationship to God that was established in the Garden of Eden, this almost becomes more of a form “charging” of the relationship with intense energy, that does not strike “directly” at oneself and blinds or overwhelms. It becomes a charging mechanism into the relationship, that further enhances the Pilgrim’s spiritual and fuller perception of Reality. The “Tree” becomes a form of vessel that can be loaded and charged again and again, which then grows the soul, as we will see in how Beatrice grows more and more beautiful and radiant for every new sphere in Paradiso.

So in short;

we’re now starting a new journey into Paradiso with a whole new approach, and a much deeper anagogical layer. More internally expanding, vs. an external flight out into the Universe. The Kingdom of God is within you, and can flood your perception right here and now, once the dynamics of Eden have come to fruition. Into the Heavens is also an infusion, right here into the Earthly too.

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Join us!

Posted on July 28, 2025 by Richard Emerson

Building the Renaissance Mind!

We are currently doing a pilot project for weekly group and individual sessions going through Purgatorio, both as personal transformation and for balancing the brain hemispheres better.

Contact us in the comments below, or by DM on x.com/danteschariot for more information. The sessions are free during the pilot! Continue reading →

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Benvenuto da Imola – and Anagogical Readings

Posted on July 25, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After several years of searching for anagogical interpretations of specific passages in Dante’s Divine Comedy in all of the Anglo-American scholarship, and in the more recent Italian scholarship (the last few centuries), we have finally found an illuminating source: Benvenuto da Imola, from around 1385 AD.

This might indicate a certain problem with the perception of reality in the contemporary scholarship, stemming all the way back to humanism and increasing impoverishment in “modernity”, that has detached itself from the fuller picture and largely retreated into artificial internal constructs instead. In effect, it has made the readings often blind to reality, in the bigger picture.

One example is from the opening of Paradiso I, with this passage: Continue reading →

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Main Keys to reading the Garden of Eden

Posted on July 16, 2025 by Richard Emerson

As a brief summary:

to approach the Garden of Eden in Dante’s Purgatorio as an anagogical/spiritual reading, the following images are essential.

The Tree: The relationship between Human-Divine, or your Soul and God. It is discovered withered, but blossoms with leaves and flowers (manifestations).

The Carro: Perception of Reality, and Nature of Reality. The source principle of dual perception and churning unity of two asymmetrical dimensions (e.g. spirit/matter, soul/God, earthly/heavenly, Love/Wisdom, etc.)

Beatrice: Your inner spiritual life and soul. As well as reflection or portal to Divine Light and Wisdom. She functions as both growing inner capacity, and sometimes pure reflection.

These three elements are crucial for understanding the Vision of Beatrice in Canto 32, and for reading Paradiso. As well as for grasping the overall theme of Eden: to rebirth the soul, and restoring the relationship with God. Without this, Paradiso becomes external allegory – rather than internal reality and growing experience.

For more in-depth studies, we have 20 essays/posts here:
Anagogical Study of Garden of Eden

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Ready for the Stars

Posted on July 16, 2025 by Richard Emerson

The ending of the Garden of Eden in Purgatorio is pure bliss and beauty, as we are now ready to finally rise to the stars.

We are there with the seven handmaids, Beatrice, Stazio, Matelda and the Pilgrim, all standing peacefully by the river of the “Good Mind”, the “Eu-noe”.

“I returned from the sacred wave
remade, yes as new plants
renewed of new foilage,
pure and disposed, to rise towards the stars”

So the relationship and its manifestations (as Tree and leaves) are now strenghtened again after drinking from the river, through the remembrance of the soul’s origins and from whence it emerged at its beginnings.

The full process is thus completed, and the Pilgrim is remade and ready for Paradiso, restored internally and with an aligned view of reality and the bigger picture. And we as readers have been given new keys to discern and approach the third canticle as well, with a new understanding of a growing Beatrice, and the flourishing relationship with God.

And with this we are ready, accompanying the Pilgrim, for the final ascent into the Heavens.

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Eunoe – and Remembering

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the full restoration of soul and relationship – and understanding God’s Grace in the process – there is one last stop in Eden, with the River of Eunoe.

The Greek Tradition had five rivers, and Dante here invents a sixth river from the words “well” (eu-) and “nous”, a “well/good mind”, as the purpose of the river.

While often thought of as the river to “restore the memories of the Good” or of “the Good deeds”, there is also likely a much deeper function, drawing on St. Aquinas and older Catholic theology: the soul deep inside has memories of its own origins, and roots, in God. So in a way, this final scene could also imply that the final “touch” of preparation for the ascent to Heaven, is to connect your soul with its deepest roots in existence, reality, the breath and image of God, within its very origins.

This might also be why Matelda provides this function here, as the transformed earthly life that is transparent for Divine realities. She has the capacity to lead or assist in this process or threshold for the soul, to have its first experience of again sensing or “remembering” its origins. Which would in a larger way complete Eden with not only the soul and the relationship, but also its memory of connection.

When Matelda gently tells Stazio to go with the Pilgrim, this likely suggests that this new remembrance of origins, is a step that every soul will go through as completing the Purgatorio. The task is complete. And the Heavens await, in the stars.

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The “515” and its role in Redemption

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the vision presented by Beatrice with the Eagle, Fox and Dragon – she presents a new image in cryptic form, which is most likely describing the role of Grace in healing distortions and redemption.

Beatrice first says that the Eagle will always try to return with some feathers, which changes the chariot into a monster and makes it a pray. This suggest the return of ideas of Divinity as an arbitrary non-covenantal power, which operates at a whim, as exemplified with Zeus. There is a consistent potential for misapprehending the Heavens and God’s nature.

But then she says that she sees that a “515” (cinquecento diece e cinque), put/placed by God, that will destroy (anciderà) the harlot (fuia) and the giant that commits offenses with her.

From the spiritual view this is likely how God’s Grace operates throughout creation to heal and rectify distortions – both as a universal template, and also showing how this happened in Dante’s own life; the force that led to his return out of the dark forest, and away from the separation from the Heavens.

The thief and giant would in this anagogical sense be the perverted soul, and the bigger structures that control and feed off the perverted souls. The radiance of God’s Grace illuminates and removes these dynamics – in the numerical symbolism of 5 = Grace and 1 = God, so Divine Light surrounded by Grace (515). It will come “secure from every obstacle and barrier”, in Beatrice’s words.

In a bigger sense this also completes Dante’s inner process of not only recognizing his earlier faults and main flaw of falling away from the relationship, but also understanding why it happened, and also how it was restored partly through God’s Grace. Thus we have a self-referring dynamic: we are in the Garden of Eden, the soul and relationship are restored, and we also understand the longer process that led us here.

And with that, the main movements in Eden (except the drinking from Eunoe) are complete . The biblical Eden shows the Fall and the exile of the human soul, and Dante has now given a poetic rendering of the coming back and restoration of this relationship.

Which then also completes the foundation for embarking on the third canticle, with the ascent into Paradiso and final communion with the Empyrean, and the Heavens.

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Distorted perception of Reality

Posted on July 5, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the vision of the Eagle tearing into the Tree (relationship) and Carro (perception), Beatrice continues her lesson to the Pilgrim about the perils and consequences of losing aligned perception of fuller Reality.

In short, after the Eagle (partly seen as the Divine as Arbitrary Power rather than Relationship and Love) there appears a Fox from the side – likely representing false doctrines and teachings, and then, a Dragon emerges from underneath with a poisonous sting, most likely the injection of evil into the foundations of one’s perception.

After these three threats and potential damages to one’s capacity to perceive reality clearly – the transformations start. The carro changes into a monster, and then a harlot appears on top of it, as a perverted form of your soul – once these distorting and damaging elements have infected your apprehension.

In addition there suddenly appears a Giant, likely the representation of overall systems of authority that will perpetuate these distorting influences as poison to a clear view of reality. The harlot and the Giant occasionally “kiss each other”, which could point to how a perverted soul is both used by these overall structures, but is also necessary for these structures to survive over time. The distorted harlot does flicker her eyes around at times, and when briefly looking at the Pilgrim, which could here be a more virtuous and truthful source, the Giant instantly whips her from “head to toe”, seeking instant control and punishment.

The final scene is the Giant disconnecting the now monstrous carro with the harlot on top, away from the Tree – and carrying them both far away, into the forest (la selva).

And then the whole passage ends, perhaps both as a warning of threats to an existing relationship to the Heavens, and as a circling back to the opening scene of the whole Comedy, when the pilgrim was lost in a “dark forest”. Eden is about the relationship to God, and we have just seen various forces that destroy this bond and bring you back into this forest. Perhaps this is even answering parts of why the Pilgrim had found himself in such a place in the opening scene in the first place, being separated from the heavens, and spiritually dead.

So through restoring the soul and the relationship in Eden, Dante also gains a new capacity to see what went wrong when he himself got lost, in an earlier period of his life, and in the lives of so many, and also for humanity in a bigger sense.

We have already learned how to repair this damage through the climb of Purgatorio, and now perhaps also learned how to prevent it from happening again, in the future.

And with that the vision is over, and the focus goes back to Beatrice, the radiantly glowing soul at the foot of the blossoming tree, and with the virtues with lights singing a celestial song. They are now mourning how a soul might fall away from the relationship and into a dark forest, and Beatrice is similar to Mary in front of the passion. But this too is soon transformed into further growth and strengthening of the soul, and how even the forest can be redeemed when re-finding the path and spiritual life. Thus it soon becomes  another deep gift in the last steps before the final journey, up into Heaven.

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Protecting the Tree and Carro

Posted on July 3, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the appearance of the Tree of Relationship to God, now revitalized and blossoming again, the anagogical meaning unfolds and enriches even further.

Beatrice, in the sense of your soul/inner spiritual life, has descended from the carro and is now seated at the root of the tree, surrounded by the seven virtues holding seven lights, and seen as if “she was left there to guard the carro”.

The meanings here are multiple; with the relationship to the Heavens re-established, your soul is now located together with this relationship, and given a responsibility to guard the dual perception and clear view of reality, as expressed through the carro (chariot) metaphor. And to help and support your soul with this protection are the seven virtues and the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. This becomes a new image for your inner state; your radiant and beautiful soul peacefully at the root of the new blossoming relationship to the Heavens, and surrounded by virtues and the Holy Spirit – keeping an eye on the understanding and experience of reality, as aligned with the fundamental pattern expressed through the carro.

And with this image established, Beatrice says she will now show the Pilgrim a few things, through a set of visions about the carro and the Tree, and what can happen to both of these if the correct alignments and aims are abandoned. In other words; we have seen the restored soul and restored relationship to God, and now we will learn how they can be damaged or broken.

The first lesson becomes this: false Gods can and will destroy this relationship, and it will destabilize your perception of reality significantly. And Dante uses the Greek Zeus as the example.

The Bird of Jupiter/Zeus suddenly appears from above and faster than lightening tears into the tree, damages the bark, rips off the flowers and leaves, and then smashes into the carro with all its force, making it tumble around like a boat in a storm, violently from one side to the other in the waves. The anagogical imagery is again precise; the bark is the structure of your relationship to the Heaven, and the leaves and flowers are its manifestations (that were withered earlier). The carro is your apprehension of reality now completely destabilized by the force of a deity like Zeus, who represents a form of pre-covenental Divinity, unpredictable and striking at times randomly with his thunderbolts, unaccountable and not according to any spiritual relationship to the souls. (Also called voluntarism in theological terms).

So in some sense, Dante suggests that the first threat to the spiritual relationship established in Eden is the misapprehensions of God’s Nature, that will destroy this relationship and fully destabilize your understanding and experience of Reality.

If the open, generative connection with Divinity as Love and Wisdom is replaced with an unpredictable deity of arbitrary Power and Dominance, the spiritual life is instantly broken, is the implication from Dante. And the Tree is instantly damaged.

Dante’s Eden thus shows us both the right path and its revelations, and also the pre-emptive measures to detect the threats that once again will lead to being expelled from the Garden. The guidance and warnings thus both enrich and solidify the soul’s maturity and growth, and lies a further foundation for the impending new threshold, and ascent into the Heavens.

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New Life to the Relationship

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the restoration of the soul and the first 65 cantos of the Comedy, one can take a long break and simply enjoy the fruits of the readings. The first main step is completed. And one’s life, apprehension, perception, experience, it all will have changed into a bigger picture with potentially infinite enrichment.

But,

the poem keeps moving almost instantly. The pageant starts turning bit for bit with the elders, the virtues, the griffin and the carro, and then starts moving towards the sun and towards the east. The mission is accomplished, and they are going “back” to the Heavens and the Light again.

And the Pilgrim, Stazio and Matelda follow the carro as well, meaning to some extent the new “triplet” of the transformed earthly life (Matelda), the rebirthed soul (Stazio), and the newly cleansed apprehension/consciousness with the Pilgrim. Rather than climbing upwards with the old triplet (Virgil, Stazio and Pilgrim), we are now strolling sideways with the new triplet instead.

And this goes on for the length of “three arrowshots”.

Then appears an image which is widely discussed with multiple efforts at interpretation. We will now make the case for a reading that stays close to Dante’s exact words, and seeks to avoid any internal contradictions, but differs from most of current scholarship.

What they encounter is a giant tree, which is withered and looks dead. There are no leaves and flowers on it, and the whole pageant is murmuring the word “Adamo” – Adam, the first human being.

The tree is enormously high and spreads wider out in its crown the higher it gets. And the common interpretations of this image is: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, a symbol of the Roman Empire and Authority, a representation of Divine Justice, or the Cross of Christ. Our reading of this is different: The Tree is a symbol of the relationship to God. It works both as the overall template for Human-Divine relationship (thus the murmuring of “Adamo”), and it also becomes the personal relationship to the Heavens within each of us, with its own nature for every soul.

The pageant then gives blessing to the griffin for not “tearing its beak into the wood, of the sweet taste, which would badly turn the belly”. Here again one might find multiple interpretations, but from the perspective of the Tree being the spiritual relationship to God itself, it could mean how Christ and the spiritual life (also as unity of spiritual/material) does not force anyone to the spiritual life, nor make it too obvious, as to remove the real choice for the soul, to turn towards it itself.

This would be a necessary mechanism considering the overall telos of the Creation, in the Divine Comedy: to have free willed spirits/souls, that voluntarily choose to turn towards and reflect God’s Glory, so the Glory can then say “Subsisto”, I exist. In a way the relationship is necessary for the fullness of being and the Love in a voluntary reflection. Thus any removal of this dynamic would disrupt the real functioning of the relationship itself. And this might be why the griffin says its first and only line in the poem: “Thus is conserved the seed of every just one”. Meaning: the full functioning of the soul and the relationship when aligned, is only conserved by preserving the turning as an act of exercising the Free Will. Without this, the Tree (as the relationship) cannot function properly.

Then the griffin pulls the “pole” of the carro (the orientation point of your soul) over to the Tree and attaches it. Meaning: the force of Christ (as unity) is pulling and connecting your soul to not God directly here, but to the relationship.

And with this ignition, the whole Tree comes to life. First it is swollen, and then in full renewal with colours and new leaves, blossoming in its nature, not yet in full red but more than in violet, where the branches before were bare.

So in this sense, there is a natural continuity from canto 31. The soul is restored, they turn toward the sun, and after some walking, they encounter the relationship itself, which is then revived, as the soul has now become purified and aligned. For the Pilgrim the journey from the dark forest has thus led to the rebirth of his soul, and encountering his own dead tree of relationship inside of himself. But through the new alignment, this relationship “wakes up” as an essential step before Paradiso. And in this way the passage also functions as a preparation for the third canticle, by setting up a new flowering dynamic with the Heavens, as the renewed and now blossoming Tree.

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