A castle shines above the clouds, a king waits in chains of enchantment, and only one who dares the inner way will learn what the mountain conceals.
By Roberto Assagioli
Original title: Fantasia in Re interiore
Originally published in Leonardo, Series III, Year V, No. 1, Florence, 1907
Translated by Jan Kuniholm
Editorial Note
This text is a symbolic and literary allegory written by Roberto Assagioli. It belongs to Assagioli’s early philosophical-spiritual writings, prior to the formal development of psychosynthesis, and uses mythic and imaginal language to convey psychological and spiritual insight. The abstract and contextual subtitle in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth Sørensen, to support readability, navigation, and archival consistency. The original wording has not been altered.
Abstract
In this early allegorical tale, Assagioli imagines a circular city built around a mountain whose summit is lost in clouds. When a young man with exceptional sight glimpses a radiant castle at the peak, the citizens learn of an ancient legend: a great king lies imprisoned there, awaiting liberation. A wandering sage arrives and speaks of the inner way, describing a hidden passage and a solitary ascent undertaken by one whose will was pure. The city’s governors execute the sage, but at the moment of death the clouds part and light floods the mountain, revealing what denial could not destroy.
In a country far far away, and yet very close to us, there is a strange city. Its layout is not like any we know. It is arranged in the form of a wide circular ring, all around the base of a very high mountain, so that the widest band, formed by the lowest neighbourhoods, is seen in the plain, while the houses forming the upper contour of the ring are perched on the already steep lower sides of the mountain.
For a long time this original outward structure was the only strange thing about the city. In all other respects, it was no different from any other city; its inhabitants lived as the men of this world live, going about their business, loving and hating each other, fighting with each other and with the inhabitants of neighboring cities, without much concern for the terrible enigmas of life. If anyone looked up and gazed thoughtfully at the towering peak of the mountain, which was always lost in the clouds, the others mocked him and called him a dreamer and visionary.
One day, however, a momentous event happened. A young man, who was gifted with extraordinary vision and who had long gazed thoughtfully at the lofty peak of the mountain, claimed to have glimpsed a marvelous castle on the summit shining with light through a break in the clouds.
The people at first laughed at the young man and said that he had been dreaming, but when, after a short time, the young man again claimed to have seen a magnificent castle on the highest peak, through a break in the clouds, an old commoner, among the oldest people in the city, said in a low voice to the astonished people that this reminded him that as a boy he had heard his grandfather tell a strange legend. He had related that on the mountaintop there was an invisible castle, in which a great king was imprisoned by a magical enchantment and had been waiting for liberation from time immemorial.
This deeply troubled the citizens. No longer did anyone dare to laugh at the young man with his keen sight and upward gaze.
The most courageous people proposed to set out and attempt to climb the mountain, but what hope was there of getting to the top, when a few meters from the highest houses the sides of the mountain became so steep that it was very dangerous to climb them? Helpless, the citizens went back to their business. But this no longer satisfied them; they often interrupted their small occupations and stared thoughtfully, with a restless discontent, at the towering peak of the mountain hidden in the clouds. Their souls were filled with turmoil and mystery.
After some time a remarkable stranger arrived in the city. His long, flowing beard was white, but his bearing was youthfully upright and his eyes had an extraordinary, indescribable brilliance. When he heard what had taken place in the city, he was not at all surprised, but his eyes sparkled with an even greater brilliance. He immediately called for the people to gather in the largest square of the city; when this was done he ascended a small mound and began to speak in a powerful and melodious voice.
“O people who do not yet know your true king, listen to the words of the one who will show you the way to find him. The city in which I was born is similar to yours; it, too, lies in a wide ring around the sides of a very high mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds. Three hundred years ago, when I was still a child, the same events took place that now trouble you. There, too, the shining castle was rediscovered with great excitement; the most impatient people wanted to climb the mountain at any cost; but the longing and regret that poisoned all their joys filled with dispute and dissension.
Only one young man whose faith was ardent, whose heart was pure, whose will indomitable, did not concern himself with what his fellow citizens said, but frequently walked along the sides of the mountain, stubbornly attempting to climb it. One day, observing for the seventh time the ravines in the walls of a vast and gloomy cave he had first reached on the steep sides of the mountain, he finally discovered a narrow passage hidden behind a giant boulder. Filled with joy and ardor he managed to creep through it, not caring that he cut himself and left shards of flesh along the edges of the stone; and he found that the passage immediately changed into a very steep staircase whose gigantic steps were crudely cut into the rock.
The High Law, which I obey and which has sent me among you, forbids me to tell you all the adventures of the young man with a pure heart and unwavering will on his inner journey towards the King of Ineffable Light. I can only tell you that first he found a fantastic city of little gnomes, who offered him all the treasures that are in the depths of the earth and mysterious powers whose secrets they knew if he would become their lord. But the young man did not stop even for a moment, drawn by the powerful aspiration towards the heights of light.
The young man of burning faith never returned among us, but by mysterious means he sent us wonderful messages bursting with joy, in which he said that he could not give us even a hint of the ineffable glories of the mystic Castle. He also revealed to us where the beginning of the inner way was and encouraged the pure, the ardent, the strong to . . .”
