Page 22

A R T S  &  W I T C H C R A F T S
Symbolism and the Occult Aesthetic

Part II

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    I couldn't resist the temptation to do reverse versions of all the pictures. They not only look nice against their black backgrounds, but seem all the more "at home" there. Maybe it's just me and I've been staring at these things too long. In any event, as we prepare to enter the human world, I thought a repeat overview of all the animals would make an appropriate transition.

    You might notice I added whales and dolphins to this collection. I left them out of the larger presentation because we normally don't associate these particular sea creatures with the supernatural. Squids and octopuses already look like something out of a nightmare -- just my opinion -- and they might well have a place here instead of whales and dolphins. My two cats are both staring at me, so it's definitely time to move along.

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T h e   H U M A N   K i n g d o m

    Not much needs to be said about this assemblage of antique graphics. What little I felt was interesting or helpful, I included as separate captions. The need to be brief is necessitated by the endless explanations that each of the images truly demands. These particular pictographs represent, to no small degree, the entire history (and prehistory) of mankind's existence on Earth. In terms of pre-industrial civilizations, they encapsulate, quite literally, the sum total of human knowledge, thought, passions, and reverence for a world few if any of us ever really comprehend. On a planet wandering through the vacuum of space, people throughout the ages have struggled amid a vacuum devoid of specific answers or hard, incontrovertible evidence.

    In a never-ending quest for understanding, humanity has blended facts with conjecture, mixed its religious questions with faiths that rely heavily on an accepted lack of answers. Beliefs whose very credibility is based on the absence of true comprehension. This is not a judgment call on my part, but merely an observation by someone for whom the questions are themselves the answer. The right questions should provide their own solutions. I don't necessarily know any of the questions to which I refer, but they have something to do with some or all of the art that's presented here.

    It's been said that given enough monkeys and keyboards, that they would, sooner or later, type out the secrets to the universe. The monkeys who evolved into the makers of keyboards have been typing away for a long time. A small sampling of those pages are paraded below. If read correctly, maybe a few of the universe's secrets are on display; we just need to know what question leads us to the right image. Good luck, right? I think my cats know, but they're not talking.

    One of the more poignant impressions that can be found here is the realization that all of it is highly transcultural in nature. Regardless of race, location, of how sophisticated or relatively primitive different societies may have been, certain designs and ideas appear to overlap among cultures which never physically associated among one another. Speaking of monkeys again (when did we stop?) there's also that old story of how different species of monkeys, some living on isolated islands, but none of them directly connected, went on to develop similar if not identical living habits, complete with the invention and use of tools, mating rituals and so forth. The whole business begged the question and insinuated the answer that the monkeys somehow shared their inspirations despite being separated by vast distances. Though skeptics argue that it is a simple matter of mutual instincts, such explanations can seem inadequate and wanting.

    This is especially true for early human civilizations where certain shapes like pyramidal structures seemed universal in nature, and were used among disparate cultures that, like the monkeys, were also separated by vast, unbridgeable distances. All over the world we find faces and sculptures, artistry in general, geometric designs and other artifacts that indicate a shared intelligence among peoples who never met. Okay, so some of it is explainable because some things just make sense, either mathematically or artistically. Other stuff, however, such as similar creation myths among different civilizations, plus beliefs in supernatural realms filled with gods and goddesses, both animal and human, would indicate something more than coincidental concurrence.

    If nothing else, religious or superstitious beliefs along with their graphical expressions, whether psychically exchanged or via pure happenstance, suggest an important brother and sisterhood of humanity. It tells us that our mutual fears and joys unite us more than separate us. Or ought to. A pursuit of infinite truths becomes less critical than understanding the ties that bind us, both as a species and as intellectually curious entities.

    Suffice it to say that there is likely a lot more going on in these little images than we might suppose at first glance. Regardless of one's ethnicity or innate cultural biases, this is one of those affairs, I believe, where -- quite literally -- there's something here for just about everybody. Better yet, we don't even need to know why that's true; it just is.

Fig 1.

An Egyptian ankh and the
monotheistic Sun god of
Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

Fig. 2.

Wind and Air; male
(and strangely appropriate)

Fig. 3.

Spell symbol; runic.
Protection from harm.

Fig. 4.

Eye of Horus; Egyptian.
God awaiting rebirth from
sleep or enclosure.

Fig. 5.

SPRING

Fig. 6.

WINTER

Fig. 7.

TAURUS

Fig. 8.

AQUARIUS

Fig. 9.

LIBRA

Fig. 10.

Gargoyles; man-made demons
designed to ward off real ones.

Fig. 11.

SCORPIO

Fig. 12.

CAPRICORN

Fig. 13.

CANCER

Fig. 14.

LEO

Fig. 15.

VIRGO

Fig. 16.

PISCES

Fig. 17.

ARIES

Fig. 18.

GEMINI

Fig. 19.

WINTER

Fig. 20.

Hearths; ingress and egress between and among worlds.

Fig. 21.

Golem; Hebrew.
The living dead. Chaos.

Fig. 21.

Dragon's eye; invoking the protection of female spirits.

Fig. 22.

Janus; she who looks forward
and backward. The gate keeper.

Fig. 23.

Satyrs; wild nature.
The spirit of sexual desires.

Fig. 24.

The wombs of
cups and vessels.

Fig. 25.

Sphinx; Babylonian.

Fig. 26.

Yin and Yang;
male and female. Each contains the other; opposites.

Fig. 27.

Dryad; a tree or wood nymph.
A female druid. Wiccan and Wicca.

Fig. 28.

Thunderbolt; India. The diamond holder. Gems as valuable dorje.

Fig. 29.

Fairy; Greek. Psyche and Cupid. Butterfly, soul,
god mothers, the Fates.

Fig. 30.

Cupid.

Fig. 31.

Stereotypes.

Fig. 32.

Potency; the life force. Androgyny.

Fig. 33.

Androgyne; male and female. Gynandromorph; epicene; hermaphrodite.

Fig. 34.

Cornucopia; the great mother. Fertility of the Earth, abundance, a prayer.

Fig. 35.

Omega; Greek. Up and down. A serpent. Om. Symbol of luck.

Fig. 36.

Mem-Aleph; Hebrew mysticism, ma.
Divine maternity. Truth. Rise of wisdom
(female) from depths unknown.

Fig. 37.

Aura; Byzantine, Asian.
Halo, aureole.

Fig. 38.

Circle of the Earth.

Fig. 39.

Devil's horns; India.
Mudra (hand gestures). Jagadamba; primal goddess.
Mother of the world.

Fig. 40.

Isis (aka Hathor). Egypt.
The great goddess;
Bright and Dark mother.
Queen of heaven.

The HUMAN Kingdom continues on page IMA23.

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