Lacan in the Stars

Aron Dunlap (Lacan and Religion) summarizes Lacan’s theory of the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real: “The imaginary is the world that we share with the other residents of the animal kingdom. The symbolic is the space of the properly human world of language, law and order. Lacan associates the real with the eternal order of the stars, and the constellations that so many different cultures, independently of each other and with no apparently respect for realistic approximation, have named after various animals” (61-2).

Dunlap elaborates: “The connection between the symbolic and real that Lacan posits – between laws and sacrifices on the one hand and blind consistency (non-alterity) on the other – can be seen in the two levels of the Greek deities.” On the one hand, there are the various does who demand sacrifice – all of them symbolic and associated with the heavenly zodiac. Behind these, however, is fate and the goddesses who cut the cord of life: “These gods do not demand sacrifice, and they have neither beginning nor end.” The night sky is like a “semi-diaphanous mirror whose pinpricks let shine through a divine light from beyond while simultaneously reflecting the totemic contests and sacrifices played out in the secular theater.” Laws that regulate all human interaction “are given validation and justification in having their origins traced to the stars” (62).

A remarkably apt description of the motivations and logic of ancient religion, more impressive for coming from a convinced atheist.