After the deeper dive into twelve examples of the dynamics of distortions, the pilgrim reaches a point of a new and somewhat repaired outlook and deeper cosmology. The examples give experience and are also structured into three parts – a setting up internally of base distortion (Will over Reality, internal models over fullness of Reality), then the resulting churning inside (seizing authority, replacing authority, spinning a web of distortions), and then gradually how this externalizes for a person (practical choices, material priorities, seeking dominance in the material domain). In short: setting up, churning, externalize.
These twelve images also culminates in the interior destruction of “Troy”, leaving it in emptied caves and caverns.
The passage also shows an important dynamic: reason starting to work on the experience and supporting, enriching, making a useful model and tool, to understand these dynamics more precisely and to predict and repair more quickly in many cases. A meta-level is to show how this relationship should work, direct revelation vs. experience, and supporting help from reason to analyze and structure.
Which then brings us to verse 85, where Reason has completed its task for now, and points towards the next: an Angel preparing for their arrival.
So this is the moment that starts the final and overall part of Terrace one, and also, the foundational passage of any complete repair internally of the soul and overall cosmology. The foundational ideas of one self, fullness of Reality, and the relationship between the two.
It’s hard to “sum up” the whole terrace because close to every single tercet is itself a summary of an insight, a change, a process comment, support from Dante, rational approaches, the dynamics and combinations of all of these aspects.
But in some ways the overall motion is the following: to open up the spiritual life, pondering the dynamic and combination of the spiritual vs. material-secular life, three examples of lives that were partially dominated by deeper distortions (from family name, artistic gifts, or drive for dominance), and the foundational churning over exactly how the distortions are seeded and proliferates throughout oneself and the entire world as one engages with it.
So in short: open the spiritual, make this a part of one’s life, understand the earlier disease. Or simply: Receiving the Divine Light, and Healing internally.
Again, the nature of the sacred poem is such that the journey has to be undertaken by oneself, and it cannot be summarized in a meaningful way without the experiences. And the overall claim is significant; this is the starting point and first step of any case subject, individual or at larger scales (culture/society). Open up for the Divine Light, start healing and receiving. And now we also have a more precise understanding and also a toolkit for these processes.
And with that, we enter the final part of Canto 12 and Terrace One, the fuller encounter with the Angel, the Grace, the bigger picture infinitely embedding the whole passage that the Pilgrim (and the open Readers) might just have been through.
This terrace requires deeps studies, ample time, but then – the foundational work is finished. As Virgil states: this day will never dawn again. The light is now flooding into the spiritual, and also onto reason itself. And from there, the journey continues through more repair, rebirth and ascent – into the Heavens.