An Introduction to Symbolism, Imagery, Archetypes, and Motifs

The Crescent and the Pillar

In the creation stories, the gods were said to have constructed a great citadel in the heavens, the legendary homeland of the gods. Through local storytelling and re-enactments across the centuries, this celestial dwelling came to be remembered as the ancestral homeland of every nation recounting these events. These core themes of an archetypal memory have taken us to the critical moment at which a bright crescent, appeared on the gas giant Saturn due to light from the Sun. This moment provides an extraordinary test of the reconstruction as a whole. Once we place the named bodies in 3-dimensional space, centered at the celestial pole, an inescapable conclusion will follow. The crescent which, given the circumpolar placement, must have rotated, around the polar center, visually with the rotation of the Earth, in a precise relationship to a cycle of day and night, brightening and dimming, with no counterpart and no analogy in anything occurring today. A star in the center of a rotating crescent. The image is recorded independently by humans around the world. No ambiguity, no compromise allowed. When seen with eyes wide open, how credible are the popular claims of historians, archaeologists and comparative mythologists when they identify the symbolic crescent as our moon? Always keep in mind that the mythic crescent does not stand alone. The great star of Venus in the center of the crescent is just one enigma in a crowd of unsolved mysteries. A particularly powerful addition comes from the mythic world mountain, a column of fire and light rising along the polar axis to pierce the crescent. That's what gave the crescent it's mythic identity as the cleft peak, the horned peak, the twin arms or twin pillars of the sky. In it's juxtaposition with the revolving crescent, the polar mountain adds crucially to the midnight appearance of the crescent in the most celebrated moment in the archaic daily cycle. No contrived reconstruction will ever account for this symmetry.
1. Kronos' clock
2. Opposing crescents
3. The cosmic boat
4. The cosmic bow
5. The cosmic bird
6. The cosmic tree
7. Atlas
8. Angels and their wings
9. Giants
10. Totem poles
11. Three pillars
12. Jacob's ladder

The Star and the Crown

Among all ancient races the crown, wreath, or headband signified religious and political authority. Yet this world-wide function of the crown reflects no self-evident fact of human nature or of the external world. What was the source of the crown’s numinous powers? The symbols of kingship have their origin in the Universal Monarch, the ancestor of kings and “founder” of the kingship ritual. Legends of the great god say that, when he established his kingdom, he wore as a crown his “circle of glory” (halo, aura). Before Egyptian rulers ever donned the White Crown, the crown of the great father Osiris shed its light at the cosmic centre: “His crown clove the sky and consorted with the stars. The crown is derived from the cosmic prototype. Fundamentally, the crown is an enclosing band. The most important component of the Egyptian crown was the gold headband, while the great god was “Master of the Head-Band. ”The Sumerian word for crown, uku, means “great band.” In the classical etymologies reviewed by Onians the “crown” possesses the concrete meaning of a “circle” or “band” enclosing a god or a man.
Often the crown takes the form of a city wall. The most famous example, perhaps, is the crown of Tyche of Antioch, which corresponds to the turreted wall of the city. Concerning the goddess of the city-crown, Suhr writes: “ . . . the whole city wall, in a diminutive version, was placed on her head, beginning with Astarte and continuing with Aphrodite of Greek and Roman times. Yet why the crown was assimilated to the city wall remains unexplained by modern researchers—and will continue to remain a puzzle until scholars acknowledge the concrete form of the mother goddess, city, and crown as a single band of light around the great god.
1. The eye of God
2. The pyramid eye
3. Tri-star
4. The cross
5. The pentagram
6. The star of David
7. The seven spirits
8. The octagram
9. The cosmic flower
10. The hand of God
11. Aphrodite's shell
12. The crown

The Sword and the Mountain

Worldwide traditions say that a cosmic mountain once rose to the center of the sky, joining heaven and earth. The ancients lived in the shadow of a colossal mountain identified as the abode of the gods. This 'cosmic mountain' was given different names in different cultures. All ancient cultures wrote extensively about the great "Primordial Mound" or "Axis Mundi".
During the 20th century, specialists in each of these cultural areas have tended to downplay the role of the cosmic mountain, arguing that the sacred peaks and pinnacles mentioned in the ancient writings were nothing more than the mountains found locally. But these scholars have vastly underrated the importance of the theme.
The reports given of the cosmic mountain in mythology indicate that it was a highly unusual object, rooted in a universal archetype. The mountain's height was prodigious, reaching from the deepest underworld to the top of the sky. At the creation of the world, it rose up from the waters of chaos, pushing heaven and earth apart as it grew. It stood exactly in the center of the universe and the forces of four cardinal directions met at its summit. It was of a luminous substance, ablaze with fire, or decked with gold and silver. Two peaks crowned its summit, and different images like birds, temples, and Gods were seated on its top. Its interior was hollow and filled with a mysterious substance identified as the juice of life, the divine breath, a perpetual flame, lightning, or the waters of the flood. The souls of the dead traversed it on their way from the underworld to the sky or vice versa. The mythical hero or ancestor climbed it as part of his quest. And the Golden Age ended when the mountain was ripped apart, the flood gushed forth, and the bond between heaven and earth was broken.
With new witnesses like plasma physics, and comparative mythology shining light on the subject, the myth of the cosmic mountain, deserves rigorous cross-cultural exploration.
1. Heart star
2. God's tongue
3. The bull of heaven
4. The sword
5. The sickle
6. Mar's ascension and dissension
7. The tower in the clouds
8. The Christmas tree
9. Mar's mountain
10. The world mountain
11. The two-peak mountain
12. Omphallus

The Second Creation

There at least two separate creation stories in most ancient cultures. After the flood, it must have seamed to man that the world had restarted, or was being re-created. Very few survived. Man desparately tried to remember the world before it was all but wiped out. Before the flood, there stood a massive lightneing wheel in the sky. The ancients located this wheel at the pole of heaven. Four streamers extended out from the center of the wheel while small streamers of light ejected out from the edges of the circle. This massive image in the sky was recorded in many ancient texts around the world. It caused the creation of many religeons, beliefs, rituals, myths, and symbolism. The encircled cross, the four beasts of Egypt, the myths of Atlantis and its four gated rivers, and the Oroboros to name a few.
After the flood, this great wheel in the sky had been broken up. The planets, and plasma discharges that once made up the revered image had all started floating in their separate directions. Bit as electromagnetic energy in the form of plasma discharged between these "Gods" (planets), new images appeared in the sky. The "God's" began to war one with another. A great dragon-like monster appeared in the sky. Now there were new Gods, new monsters, new baffling, and dazzling, but ominous glowing images acting out violently in the sky.
One of the most profound archetypes of the early cultures is also among the most enigmatic. Every culture recalled the ancient combat between a great warrior and a monster whose attack threatened to destroy the world.
1. The second creation explained
2. The circular cross
3. The four beasts
4. The compass
5. Atlantes
6. The four rivers
7. The wheel in the sky
8. The 24 elders around the throne
9. Ouroboros
10. The Pharaoh's crown
11. The eye of Ra
12. Remembering the end of the world

The King and the God Star

If you will trace the claimed history of any ancient nation backwards, you will, in every instance, reach a point at which man lives in the shadow of the gods.
In their earliest historical expressions, the gods are celestial. As the stories are told and re-told across the centuries, however, these celestial powers are progressively localized, re-entering the chronicles in increasingly human guise.
All of the well-preserved myths of the Golden Age say that this magical epoch was distinguished by the rule of a Universal Monarch, a celestial king of the world. On every continent, it was declared that before a king ever ruled on earth, a prototype of kings arose in heaven, and it was this "best of kings" who had founded the original paradise. His rule in heaven provided the standards for rule on earth. He was "the magical source of welfare and prosperity." The earth was "fruitful" under the good king.
In the earliest traditions, his ancient kingdom is in the sky, and this Universal Monarch is one of the most pervasive archetypes of world mythology. This king was the father of beginnings; "Lord of the World, First Father." But the mortal realm, was later separated from the creator, and that was the cause of the evils descending upon the world. And in the end the peaceful epoch, founded by the god-king, gave way to world-ending disaster and devastating wars of the gods (the Clash of the Titans).
Man's memory of living in paradise under this first king, the creator himself, or The planet Saturn, resonates with a global tradition of the Universal Monarch. In the very fashion we have observed in other lands, we see the god entering local history as the primeval founding king, ruling an ancestral kingdom. And the nation telling the story then claimed to have "descended" from the god-king himself.
The message couldn't be more clear. Long after the mythical age of the gods, every ancient culture continued to honor the great luminary remembered as the king of the world.
1. The God, King, and Father archetype
2. The first God
3. Australian Gods
4. Pacific islander Gods
5. East Asian Gods
6. Indian and Persian Gods
7. Hebrew Gods
8. African Gods
9. Mediterranean Gods
10. Northern European Gods
11. North American Gods
12. Central and South American Gods

The Queen and the Angry Goddess

The original Queen of heaven was so often invoked in ancient sources to give life, power, and glory to the ancient sun Saturn. The "life" - the "heart" and "soul" - of the ancient sun god is a GODDESS. A Goddess in the precise form of a radiant star drawn in the center of a larger circle or sphere, giving "life" to the gods, and the ruling king. This was in fact, the planet Venus, as a star, precisely in the center of the great wheel in the sky, the "sun" god, identified as the planet Saturn.
She was "the Light of the World", "the Amazement of the Lands", "the Radiant Star", "Great Light", "Visible glory", majesty, splendor, power, or strength of the primeval sun". The "Queen of Heaven", "clothed in radiance". And the world stood in "fear and trembling at her tempestuous radiance"
Later, she moved away from her central, collinear position, signaling the mythical "death" of the sovereign power. His heart and soul departed from him to take on a much different appearance, becoming a monstrous, raging power in the heavens.
She then became chaotic, undulating, presenting her terrifying countenance as the lamenting or violent goddess, raging in the sky with wildly disheveled hair. She was transformed into a world threatening dragon, depositing venom on the land... Raining the fanned fire down upon the nations...With a roaring storm she roared; continually with thunder. A giant LION HEAD, with FLAMING, SMOKING MANE, disheveled, spread far and wide into space". She was the famous Gorgon Medusa with the terrifying head of disheveled, serpentine hair.
By comparing such motifs and prototypes as these one will discover coherent, cross-cultural memories never imagined by conventional theorists. In the archetypal realms of world mythology, the two concepts are indistinguishable - both referring to the radiating "Glory" of the mother goddess Venus when, in the phase of cosmic upheaval and the wars of the gods, the goddess took on her terrifying, world-threatening, cometary aspect.
1. Mother, Queen, Goddess archetypes and motifs
2. The Goddess of beauty and love
3. The Mother Goddess
4. The Mermaid
5. Mother, Queen, Goddess symbolism in politics and religion
6. Comparative Goddess archetypes throughout the world
7. The Goddess of light
8. The long hair archetype
9. The polar archetypes of beauty and terror
10. Medusa
11. The Goddess of war and destruction
12. The Goddess of disease and death

The Hero Warrior

The mythic archetype of a great ancestral warrior or hero is surely the most popular mythic theme of all time. A superhero rescuing the world, from chaos monsters. A globally repeated archetype. First, the birth of this great ancestor from the womb of a revered mother goddess. Then the exposure or abandonment of the hero at birth. Then the murder or displacement of his father. This hero was so frequently identified as an unerring arrow, sword, spear or hammer, a weapon that turns out to be a cosmic thunderbolt. This hero was the centerpiece of the cosmic thunderbolt. The themes are so fully connected that one archetypal attribute leads seamlessly to another, then another.
The hero was quasi-divine, big and strong, who rescued humanity from chaos monsters. One astronomical tradition after another names this warrior figure as the planet Mars. The farther back we go the more the divine or celestial character of the hero stands out. He was originally a celestial figure, but later more human, even a legendary ancestor of those recounting the stories.
The reconstruction leads us back to a gathering of planets close to Earth, prior to the present organization of the solar system. Our subject is the ancient polar configuration, where the warrior-hero finds a full and complete explanation in the activity of the dark, reddish, innermost sphere. The warrior-hero archetype requires celestial events having no parallel in natural experience today.
The warrior-king on Earth symbolically dons, as his crown, the revered glory of heaven. That even meant the king's conjunction with, and marriage to the archetypal star goddess, identifiable as the planet Venus. The symbol of the star goddess on the warrior-king's shield, was his gift from the goddess. The local king was identified as an incarnation, or avatar of a celestial prototype, the warrior king as mythic protector and owner of the terrifying glory. That's what the word hero literally means.
1. The hero archetype
2. The son archetype
3. The savior archetype
4. Damsel in distress archetype
5. The warrior archetype
6. The God of war
7. The hero's weapons
8. Mystery of the cosmic thunderbolt
9. The chariot
10. Monster hunter
11. Hero Gods throughout the world
12. The villains

The Lost language of symbolism

The language of symbolism runs like an undertone all through our lives. Metaphor and allegory enliven our daily speech, while signs, emblems, and symbols greet us on every hand. The very speed of modern life is once more bringing a pictorial and gesture language into daily living.
All nature is symbolic as reflecting on the physical plane inner truths, of repeating in the small a pattern of action which occupies eons of time on the cosmic scale. Other peoples, unlettered in the modern sense, have seen in every flower some living glyph of the mystery language of the gods; in every season of the year an act in the drama of cosmic evolution.
It is natural that certain plants, trees or animals should come to represent abstract or moral qualities: the strength of the oak, the courage of the lion, the purity of the lily, these and countless others have been built into the language and culture of our race. They are directly connected with ideas through analogy and suggestion. The rising of the sun at dawn is symbolic of the beginning of a manvantara or period of world-activity, because it is itself the beginning of a minor manvantara, that of a twenty-four hour day.
1. Why symbols? - The power of symbols
2. The art of interpreting symbols
3. Body parts as symbols
4. Clothing as symbols
5. Colors as symbols
6. Numbers as symbols
7. Directions as symbols
8. People as types
9. Names as symbols
10. Animals as symbols
11. Types and symbols of Christ
12. Summary of the symbols

Sacred Geometry

Sacred geometry refers to geometric forms that were once used in the design of holy sites, including western churches and cathedrals. Geometric forms and/or ratios were given certain esoteric significance and meanings based on their attributes. Many of these meanings were borrowed from the philosophies of the Pythagorean brotherhood, a secret society created by Pythagoras which taught his religious, esoteric, and mathematical beliefs. These forms were thought to give insight into how the universe works, or at least symbolize some transcendental aspect of the universe. Specifically, the mathematical aspects of these forms means they will always be the way they are, by definition, no matter where or when one is.
Because of the religious and philosophical background, its emphasis on geometry and math, and its involvement in the building of churches, sacred geometry has associations with Freemasonry. The medieval stonemasons who designed and built cathedrals probably utilized sacred geometry. Freemasons based much of their practices on those medieval masons. Modern Freemasonry also uses some sacred geometric symbols.
People who work with sacred geometry often claim it stimulates both sides of the brain at once: the right side (which deals with art and intuition) and left side (which deals with mathematics and logic).
Sacred Geometry encompasses all seven of the Seven liberal arts and sciences.
1. Sacred Geometry Introduction
2. Geometry in Art and Architecture
3. Geometry in Biology
4. Geometry in Botany
5. Grammar
6. Arithmetic
7. Music
8. Rhetoric
9. Geometry
10. Logic
11. Astronomy
12. Freemasonry's ignorance