Pure Consciousness

In short, the proverbial “Promethean Fire” amounts to pure consciousness, and with pure consciousness comes a kind of intellect and sexual drive and impulse that is fueled by a kind of energy or “fire” that is otherworldly and outer body in its origins. In turn, the sexual drive or impulse which is intertwined with a “Promethean Fire” is an advanced and mature one, given that it has gone through the controls and constraints of culture, education, and socialization in order to reach a certain level of advancement and maturation. As Sigmund Freud wrote: “One of the most important educational tasks which society must assume is the control, the restriction of the sexual instinct when it breaks forth as an impulse towards reproduction; it must be subdued to an individual will that is identical with the mandates of society.”

Freud added: “In its own interests, accordingly, society would postpone full development until the child has reached a certain stage of intellectual maturity, for education practically ceases with the complete emergence of the sexual impulse. Otherwise the instinct would burst all bounds and the work of culture, achieved with such difficulty, would be shattered.” Hence, if we are lucky and fortunate enough, the “Promethean Fire” gets us the best of both worlds, in the sense that it develops and socializes the individual consciousness and intellect to the fullest extent and cultivates and develops the individual’s sexual drive and impulse and in turn directs and turns the sexual drive and impulse towards society’s broader aims and goals. 

All of this, however, is a difficult and painstaking task, if not an impossible one for the overwhelming majority of people, for as Freud also wrote: “The task of restraining this sexuality is never easy; it succeeds here too poorly and there too well. The motivating force of human society is fundamentally economic; since there is not sufficient nourishment to support its members without work on their part, the number of these members must be limited and their energies diverted from sexual activity to labor.” Freud added: “Here, again, we have the eternal struggle for life that has persisted from prehistoric times to the present.”

As a result, achieving pure consciousness or attaining the “Promethean Fire” – along with attaining a high level of intellect and the cultivation and maturation of the sexual drive and impulse which are both part of pure consciousness and the “Promethean Fire” – is something which is achieved by only a handful of people in any given society and at any given point in time throughout history. As Freud wrote: “It may be said that the task of mastering such a mighty impulse as the sexual instinct is one which may well absorb all the energies of a human being. Mastery through sublimation, diverting the sexual energy away from its sexual goal to higher cultural aims, succeeds with a minority, and with them only intermittently; while the period of passionate youth is precisely that in which it is most difficult to achieve. Of the others, most become neurotic or otherwise come to grief.”

And if we were to analyze or organize all of the aforementioned based on Freudian precepts and terms, pure consciousness is boiled down to a high level of intellect and a mature sex drive and impulse. In turn, the high level of intellect and mature sex drive and impulse must be boiled down to the character and nature of the libido, with the libido acting as an energy or “fire” which ultimately comes from outer body and otherworldly origins and sources.