Religious Allusions in "A Question of Power"

Jacob, Christ, Mohamed, Buddha, Shiva, Isis, Osiris, Medusa, the Devil, the Demiurge, Sophia and many more. In A Question of Power by Bessie Head the narrator leads us through the prophetic visions of the main character Elizabeth with a blurred narrative voice that all but erases the line between narrator, main character, and reader. Elizabeth faced temptations of spirit and body, and both extolled and mirrored the stories of the faiths these figures represent. For Elizabeth the barrier between the spirit world and the world of the living was shattered. In the world of this text time is irrelevant, souls are not confined to bodies, and the philosophy of the protagonist is presented in such an unfiltered manner that many readers may see only the blur of madness. But if one looks past the apparent madness of it all and is prepared to submit to the Rorschachian ambiguity of much of what we are presented with, the dedicated reader may be rewarded with a virtual tour of esoteric religious allegory and reference, courtesy of Elizabeth whose "chief role was that of blabbermouth" of the Mysteries (40).

With that said I must say that I think a complete analysis of the religious allusions in A Question of Power is likely impossible, and a thorough examination is better suited to a doctoral dissertation than a brief blog posting. Therefore I am prepard to admit my analysis will be ramshackle and superficial given the incredible scope of references packed into A Question of Power. I wish only to help demonstrate that much of what appears to be madness in A Question of Power has a root in religious discourse.

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One very helpful construct to keep in mind when reading A Question of Power is the Eastern concept of aspects, in contrast to the Western idea of individualization. For example, in Hinduism one deity may have numerous different aspects, which may or may not be represented by different incarnations or embodiments. Throughout A Question of Power we are introduced to a litany of religious figures, but many of them are presented as parts of Sello or Dan or Elizabeth. In this novel a character is not a character, but a vessel through which varying aspects of the divine or malevolent become manifest.

Relatively early in the book, after Elizabeth has come to experience Sello and started to come into contact with other souls, she is subjected to manipulation of her energy by Sello for close to a month climaxing when "her head simply exploded into a sea of pale, blue light" (36) in which forms began to take shape. This is an interesting parallel to the Hindu Mandala Brahmana Upanishad teachings that state that when one can look into the Kundalini energy they will see a blue light, in which all sin will be destroyed. The blue light is traditionally associated with Shiva, Krishna, and the enlightened Self. Swami Muktananda taught that through meditation one could see a blue light, The Blue Pearl, which was a gateway to higher realities; that when one looked into it they could see that it is inhabited by highly advanced beings. I think Elizabeth's experience of the blue light is meant to illustrate her transcendence of mundane reality, despite the trials that still await her. She must come to terms with a large cast of celestial characters.

Sello is the personification of the messiah figure- be he Buddha, Christ, or Shiva- and Elizabeth is Sello. At the very least Elizabeth and Sello were "twin souls with closely linked destinies" (11). They are both human beings who through soul-development escape Death. And they are not meant to be unique. In Elizabeth's religion there is not one redeemer or messiah. Every living soul is a redeemer, or can be. In this regard the soul-development of Elizabeth parallels that of the Buddha, who was able to reach nirvana through meditation and transcendence of desire. Interesting enough, though, the novel makes reference to several Buddhist ideas, and takes pains to invert them. For example, although the Buddha is usually described as a being who reached enlightenment by conquering desire and thus escaped the Wheel of Samsara, or the cycle of death and rebirth, according to Sello, Buddha was drawn back to this world by the temptations of his wife (33). This can be seen as an interesting play on the Theraveda Buddhist story of Brahma Sahampati, who is said to have convinced Buddha to teach the Dharma to mankind. Brahma Sahampati convinced Buddha to teach, but a woman was able to tempt an enlightened being into returing to the cycle of life.

In another sequence Sello as the robed monk presents Elizabeth with a vision of the story of Isis and Osiris, in which she plays the part of Isis who must reconstruct Osiris (39). For those not familiar with this Ancient Egyptian story: Osiris was an earthly ruler who was loved by his people. His jealous brother Set kills Osiris and cuts his body into many pieces and throws them into the Nile. Osiris's wife, Isis, finds all the pieces except his penis. A magical replacement is crafted, and Isis brings Osiris back to life long enough to conceive a son, Horus, who will become the King of the Living. In murals depicting this story we see the image of the drowned Osiris flat on his back, his magical prosthetic penis prominently displayed. Later in A Question of Power Elizabeth speaks of men in South Africa who were so emasculated from being called "boy" by whites that they become homosexual. As she closes her eyes she sees "all these Coloured men lay down on their backs, their penes in the air, and begin to die slowly. Some of them who could not endure these slow deaths simply toppled over into rivers and drowned..." (45). The inversion of the Osiris Myth is crystal clear and beautifully presented- in the myth a god is reconstructed and his erect phallus is a tool of rebirth, created by a woman. In the times that Elizabeth lives in, her powers as an incarnation of Isis cannot reverse the emasculation of black men living under apartheid, and they fall to death in the river. The feminine aspect of the divine is powerless to help.

The idea of becoming a God is also highlighted in a more critical manner with the introduction of Dan, the devil, as Caligula. While Sello and Elizabeth are engaged in a process of soul development, and eventual realize that Man is God, Caligula was a man who declared himself a God, but who rather than relinquishing power used it to perpetrate great cruelties on his fellow man. Elizabeth is saved this cruel megalomaniacal fate by Sello's intervention that prevented her from realizing her power as God. As he says "I will never let you see it because I know what power does. If the things of the soul are really a question of power, then anyone in possession of power of the spirit could be Lucifer" (199). While Dan is portrayed as Satan, as evil, Sello is also capable of acts of evil when he is in the Sello-in-Brown-suit aspect. The line between god and devil is rendered meaningless when power itself is considered evil.

I can't help but feel that A Question of Power is critical of Mohamed and Islam, even while the story of Elizabeth mimics the Gabriel narrative, in which an angel of god is sent to Mohamed to offer revelations in much the same way that Elizabeth is put into contact with divine entities as part of her revelation. I also cannot help but associate the evil Dan's seventy-one consorts with the seventy-two wives promised to the faithful in Islamic paradise in Hadith number 2,562 . Perhaps Dan wants Elizabeth to be number seventy-two. The final religious inversion in the novel comes in contrast to Islam as well when one of the most sacred beliefs in Islam is reversed when it is declared that "there is only one God and his name is Man. And Elizabeth is his prophet" (206).

Judeo-Christian references are also present. We can see Elizabeth's tale as an echoing of the story of Jacob's ladder as told in the Talmud. In the Biblical account the patriarch Jacob envisioned a ladder that reached from earth to heaven on which he observed that "the angels of God were ascending and descending on..." (Genesis 28:11-19). In A Question of Power Elizabeth's psyche is Jacob's Ladder, a tool by which supernatural beings can come in and out this reality and beyond. And the parallels between Elizabeth's struggles with her visions, and the horrors she must face can be seen as parallels to Christ's forty days spent wondering in the desert being tempted by the devil. But in Elizabeth's case she is tempted by both the devil and god. We also see echoes of the Christian ideal of overcoming evil through love and pacifism, or turn the other cheek ideology, in Elizabeth's handling of the horrors presented to her by Dan in the second half of the book. She does not battle Dan, she endures him.

Elizabeth shows a stunning knowledge of a variety of religious traditions. She seems to be obsessed with contradictions, and through her discussion of religion I see an undercurrent of they're all right ecumenical truths, and a they're all wrong tearing down of power structures. Elizabeth seems to embrace a religious universalism that finds truth in all faiths, yet rejects the power inherent to each. The story of Elizabeth is the story of religion and the themes that seem to criss-cross amongst them all. Power, temptation, sacrifice, lust, and redemption. A Question of Power, by Bessie Head is religious text as mobius strip. The beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning, both literally and figuratively, and in the middle is a disorienting mystery. For a text that deals with themes that transcend time and mundane reality, we should expect nothing less.