Heracles’ world represents the world of musicians and artists. Even though Reason is his most important mind, his world’s completely different than one would expect from this mind.

Among other things, this story is important because of the realization that our world can be incompatible with our character. Such people often suffer in their own worlds and do not accept themselves because non-acceptance is the companion of borrowed or forced patterns, either from parents or society.
Here is where complex symbolism appears for the first time in the book and makes the reader sense how deep [psi] truly is. At this point many discerning readers will find what they were promised at the beginning, but many others realize that they can’t read this book superficially and so they set it aside for a while.

Heracles (Herakles in Greek and Hercules in Latin) was an ancient hero known for his extraordinary strength. But this young man ruled by Reason, the strongest mind in today’s world, is weak. This is the paradox of his world: it should be ruled by Emotion, but Reason managed to lock him up in jail using the values with which Reason rules society. Therefore Heracles’ world is not at all typical of Reason, even though it is ruled by him.

The third world tells the tale of the secret—unknown until now—of one of the greatest musical masterpieces, and the story itself is a masterpiece of its own accord. The connection with the famous Passacaglia is much stronger than it seems at first glance because this musical masterpiece was truly created by the same mind that has now created [psi]. The story is not only about the Passacaglia, but it also symbolically has the same structure: it is composed of 21 paragraphs, the same number as the improvisations in Bach’s composition. This music was created in 1717—that is, a year with two sevens, and two sevens constantly accompany Eros as well. The Passacaglia contains a secret code written in seven notes and it ends with an unusual chord composed of seven tones—a coincidence that is not coincidental.

Those who know architecture can see at the very beginning that the fortresses’ portal is shaped like the letter M. This refers to Heracles’ ancestors, but also has another, deeper meaning. The letter M is derived from the Semitic symbol for water, which in turn symbolizes Instinct. The dry moat around the fortress thus indicates that Reason was once helped by Instinct—and precisely because of his help Heracles’ Emotion ended up inside a jail.

In order for the description of the medieval fortress not to mislead the reader into thinking that the story takes place in a different time and age, the first time the young man appears at the door he’s wearing headphones listening to music, and holding a book. This book is [psi]. When Heracles started reading it, he entered Eros’ world, just like the reader, who has a feeling he is reading the book, but the book is actually reading him.

Heracles notices that Eros is naked and so he also senses his purity and power. He doesn’t show this, but in fact he’s afraid that the newcomer may somehow manage to enter his fortress and so the chains lift the drawbridge up to the wall for the night.

When Eros knocks on the door again the next day and asks for a piece of bread and water, we get to know the true face of Heracles’ Reason; there’s no room for charity in his world—you must earn even bread and water.

Eros takes a look around and notices that he’s not the only one who couldn’t get into the fortress. Judging from the small ladder someone was terribly off in her reckoning once—a girl tried to climb the wall with it, thinking it was nothing but a normal fence.

The water in the moat and its rising symbolize the increasing power of Instinct—the young man is starting to be afraid, but he doesn’t know of what. However, bread and water appear on the drawbridge alongside Instinct—Instinct knows charity.

The drawbridge is made of three special kinds of wood and its larger surfaces are curved. The drawbridge represents the body of a violin built in the manner introduced by the Renaissance violin maker Andrea Amati. Andrea Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari also came from his school and further perfected his violin-making technique.

Eros listens to the music coming from inside the fortress while lying on the bridge; here, the violin has four strings symbolizing the four groups of characters. The drawbridge (i.e., the violin’s body) lacks a neck, which should be 13 cm long according to the plans by medieval violin makers. In this part of the story Eros doesn’t yet know his own character. When Eros is lying down, there’s an f-shaped cutout to both his left and right. If you don’t see why precisely this letter is used here count it in the Slovenian alphabet and don’t forget that Eros has one on each side.

Eros is overwhelmed by the Passacaglia. This musical masterpiece has as much in common with the great Johann Sebastian Bach as [psi] has with its writer. The Passacaglia is a very unusual work, but it shouldn’t be viewed only from the musical perspective—in it hides the truth Eros speaks of and so he’s the one that can unravel it. This truth is also one of the seven proofs of Life; a proof that nobody in the world had identified until this book was written. The description of Eros’ experience of the Passacaglia also contains a hint as to why Eros was the one to reveal the secret. The hint is the constellation Orion, which Eros notices in the sky while listening to the Passacaglia. This constellation is composed of seven stars, in which three of them are in the center between the other four. The four corner stars represent the four groups of characters—each is on its own side of the truth, which is represented by the three central stars.

In exchange for his friendship, Eros reveals to Heracles what he saw in the music, but the young man still doesn’t let him inside his fortress. This indicates to Eros that Bach’s manuscript of the Passacaglia isn’t the only secret Heracles is hiding behind his thick walls.

Those who read this part of the book carefully will notice that Heracles speaks about Marchand with great respect and about Bach almost scornfully, even though he performed and studied Bach’s music. The Passacaglia is namely his school of life, a riddle he’s been trying to solve since the time when Heracles’ Ego was still in his great-grandfather’s body. This shows how one and the same school of life can pass from one generation to the other, through several generations. Until this riddle is solved the young man won’t find happiness.

The fact that Eros is also not infallible can be seen from his assumption that Marchand would have thrown the music in the fire if Bach had sent it to him. In the end we find out that Bach really did send his music to Marchand, but the recipient was prevented from throwing it in the fire by Bach’s genius, which he recognized as a work of God.

Eros doesn’t recognize the plan Life has intended for him and doesn’t understand why he was the only one who could unravel the secret of the Passacaglia.

The foods—endives, radishes, olives, and sardines—Heracles uses to create Eros’ name are a hint that there are even more hidden messages in this story that have to be deciphered and unraveled. The text should be read accurately and attentively, which is also indicated by the fact that only a few readers notice that Heracles isn’t alone in the fortress—the snake Eros spotted on his chest also returns to it. This animal represents Heracles’ Reason, but the fact that the snake comes so close to Eros while he’s asleep also has its meaning. The snake also symbolizes the thirteenth character, which we get to know in several places in the book.

The competition between Heracles and Eros demonstrates not only the difference in what they know, but also the difference in how individual minds function during sports activities. Competitors who use Reason in sports will have a tactical advantage, whereas Emotion will give them coordinated movements. Every individual uses both minds in sports, regardless of his or her character. The only difference is that those ruled by Emotion don’t have trouble with coordination, but rather with impulsivity and the lack of discipline and planning. In contrast, Reason tends to study all the options and strives for improvement and planning, although he can never match Emotion’s motor skills. Such athletes are much more disciplined and break through to the finish line slowly and with perseverance. Practicing martial arts such as the real aikido reveals that people are also capable of learning how to let Emotion take charge of our muscle coordination. But this doesn’t change the ratio of power between the minds. That is, each leading mind can decide to give up a specific task to another mind; however, this doesn’t mean that he’s giving up his predominance because he can take control again at any time. In sports where the end result depends on physical coordination, top athletes are thus always people with Emotion as the predominating mind—because their Reason and Instinct never take over the key role at critical moments.

The same motif on the key and the portal of the fortress indicates that Heracles’ secret is connected with his family. This means he must respect the rules he was born into. The young man’s chainmail and belt represent the social rules he was born with and that cause him such difficulties in his life, even though he’s not aware of this. He doesn’t notice that many things he was born with that have become self-evident and acceptable are truly unnatural and often harmful to people. Heracles doesn’t see that the rules and values created by the ruling world of Reason contradict Emotion’s and Instinct’s natures.

This blind acceptance of specific social rules, which people aren’t aware are natural only to Reason, is precisely why many are unable to recognize their school of life. Even though most people feel the absurdity of certain social rules, hardly anyone dares to say it out loud; everyone’s afraid of being ridiculed and excluded from society. This is the paradox of a society ruled by one of the three minds. Many people who realize that the rules of the society don’t agree with the values of their world aren’t aware due to the general feigning of ignorance that this is the same for two-thirds of the world. This results in general non-acceptance. The fact that at the end of our lives we only regret what we didn’t do means that people who don’t accept their school of life can’t find happiness.

Heracles recognizes the wisdom Eros is telling him about and he wants to learn in his school of life, but the problem is that the only school he knows in his world is the school of Reason. He wants to open the door to Eros and let him into his fortress and tear down all the walls inside, but he hesitates because his stage set conceals the beautiful truth of his world.

The iron cube Eros finds in the moat is a geometric solid. It’s covered in rust that hides the inscription Sarah. Rust, or iron oxide, develops over time through the reaction of iron and oxygen. Those who don’t see the symbolic connection between the three-dimensional solid and time will find an explanation here of how these four dimensions are connected into a whole. The realization of the interdependence of the four dimensions is the third proof of Life and Sarah is merely a princess who never managed to get inside the fortress.

The key that falls from the young man’s hands right in front of Eros is a coincidence because coincidences are what lead us through the school of life.

a coda incidence that isn’t completely incidental music
the reader must drop out in order to show
the music and everything after the co

Those who think they came across a poorly written verse couldn’t be more wrong. This is a rebus that only few can unravel—only those with two parallel minds, Reason and Emotion. It’s not a coincidence that Johann Sebastian Bach also had exactly this type of character.

You can solve this rebus if you change the first line according to the instructions provided in the second and third lines. But you can only do this if you look at the words in the first line through the eyes of Emotion—that is, he converts everything into individual pictures, which he then composes into a bigger picture. For example, he pictures “incidental” as “incidence.” Then you have to continue reading using your Reason—this way you find out that something will be revealed to the reader if he or she drops something out. Exactly what to leave out is written in the third line.

So if you leave out the word “music” and the part of the word following the “co,” you get the right answer:

a co incidence that isn’t co incidental
(Any of the three minds can figure out that the words have to be read together.)

If you had trouble with grammar in school and didn’t understand why words had to be divided into nouns, verbs or subjects, predicates, attributes, and so on, you’ll know from now on that this was nothing but Reason’s tyranny over Emotion and/or Instinct.

Eros gets the key that opens the door to Heracles’ fortress. Even though it was sent by Life, he knows he must respect the inviolability of the young man’s secret. Heracles must decide on his own whether or not he’ll accept the school of life—no one else is allowed to decide whether he should reveal to Eros what hides behind his stage set.

The truth is written down, but it can only be recognized by those to whom Heracles wishes to convey it. And therefore it’s written without words. Eros spends seven days in the fortress, which is described on exactly thirteen pages; these pages also serve as Eros’ mirror—readers can look at themselves in these pages like they’ve never done before.

If you don’t seem to see anything, look at the position of the quotation marks on pages 134 and 135. Then turn the book upside down and have a look at the quotation marks on pages 139 and 138. The quotation marks copy the position of the stars—Sirius on the first page and Orion on the second page. Orion is composed of seven stars, and their number (1 and 7) reflected across the visible paragraph in the middle of the blank pages represents the year the Passacaglia was created: 1717. (The book has to be turned upside down because the “ones” in the natural sign are also turned upside down.)

The entire section describing what’s happening inside the fortress—the blank pages—represents a double lancet window (a special type of a window with two arches and a column in the middle). When text appears for a short while exactly in the middle of the blank pages (page 137), Eros is looking out the window. This text represents the central column of the double lancet window. The text divides the description of what’s happening inside Heracles’ fortress into two parts, and it’s only visible because at that moment Eros is looking out of the fortress and thus isn’t violating Heracles’ inviolability.

Carefully follow the coincidences; they’re hiding even where you think there are none. They show you the way if only you’re ready to accept the school of life. Those who succeed in removing all stage sets from their worlds will no longer be vulnerable. Their success will be rewarded with happiness.

Ares searched for his brother, but for a long time this was in vain. He didn’t realize that he couldn’t find him because Eros had played a trick on him. When Ares was drugged, Eros wrote a message on the back of his armor, which Ares couldn’t read. So he always got the wrong answer when he asked people about Eros because they were afraid of the message on his armor.

Here the story must be explained a little. Ares is Eros’ Instinct, but Eros isn’t aware of this, just as people aren’t aware of their minds. We feel that each mind and his thinking is part of who we are and so we keep living with the wrong idea that we have one mind and one will.
Eros’ Reason thought of the trick with the message and thus prevented Instinct from ruling Eros’ world. Even in the thirteenth character, all three minds keep fighting for power, resulting in their constant competition and improvements.

Ares finally found out why he couldn’t track down his brother for so long and so he crossed out the decisive part of the message on his armor.

With the thirteenth character none of the minds can assume the leading role because each attempt to do this is prevented by two equal opponents. The two together are always stronger than the one.

This time Eros’s Emotion tricks Ares (Eros’ Instinct) using a martial arts technique—the skill of harmonizing your movement with reason is within Emotion’s domain.

Heracles reveals one last secret to Eros. His great-grandfather, who was none other than Heracles himself in one of his previous lives, was arrogant and conceited. And Life teaches such people that this isn’t right, and helps those who have experienced injustice. Marchand avoided the musical duel because he recognized Bach’s greatness. But with this he made the biggest mistake in his life—he avoided the school of life and because of this mistake he was unable to reach true realization for several lives thereafter. Heracles came across [psi] and discovered his own truth with Eros’ help. Whether the reader will be able to do this too depends on his or her readiness to accept the school of life.