Rediscovering Symbolism

in Christian and Asian Cultures

What Symbols are:

Etymologically, the word symbol comes from Greek, Sum ballein, meaning to throw

together. A symbol was a piece of clay cut into two parts, each kept by one of two related

people or families living in different areas. The part of the piece, the symbol, would then be

showed by a family member in order to be recognized by the other family, which has the

other part. This way, a “symbolon” used to be transmitted across generations as a sign of

union between two persons or communities which were situated in different areas, with no

possibility to recognize each other. Symbols were used to help people recognize their

belonging to a common group, common belief or way of life. In this context, the Nicene

Creed, which expresses the profession of Christian faith, was named symbolum nicaenum,

meant to unite Christians under the same beliefs.

The word symbol was then used to designate a link between two words, or two entities, one

of which is the signified while the other is the signifying element. It is important to note that,

in a symbol, the signifying part is concrete or visible, while the signified entity is usually

something less concrete, and invisible. This way a lion, for example, is linked to bravery.

Note that a symbol is not to be confused with a sign. While the latter is an arbitrary link

between a signifying and a signified, the former is a natural link, with some occurrence of an

observation, or an incident in the past, which had people establish the link between the two

entities. Somewhere, through some act, a lion must have proved to have been brave, which

made humans establish a link between bravery and lions. This characteristic of symbols

marks an important part of human experience, while using entities of the visible world as
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symbols. An equally important fact is that symbols used to be transmitted across generations,

which makes them a crucial element in anthropology, where one has to understand the

development of a culture and the way of life of specific groups. A symbol will thus become

an opportunity to reveal the specificities of cultures and the way some civilizations perceive

the world.

But a symbol does more than just revealing cultural specificities. As a matter of fact, a

symbol reveals something essential about human beings. If people use symbolic images, it is

because they need to express some invisible realty which they experienced, directly or

indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. They had to make use of visible entities in order to

express the unsayable. This faculty of linking the entities of our visible world to our invisible,

or unsayable experience, is essential to language in general, and it shows mostly in the poetic

reverie, to use the term of Gaston Bachelard, and in mythical and religious passages. Since it

is a tool to express the invisible, a symbol becomes a metaphysical operator, in both the

literal and broad sense of the word, since it links the entities of our physical, sensible world,

to entities beyond our physical experience.

The Symbol as Mystical operator

In his Tractacus Logico Philosophicus, Wittgenstein draws a difference between what can be

said and what can be shown, claiming that “what can be shown cannot be said” 1. Then he

moves to affirm that “there is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical” 2.

This inexpressible is not of the order of sensible entities, otherwise we’d be able to express it

in language, but it surely exists. It would be enough, to experience the inexpressible, to

consider our wonder when contemplating the beauty of a tree which boughs break in the sky,

the tenderness of a bird singing in the morning, or the mysteries of our existence in this

world. And our experience of the inexpressible leaves us with a certainty that the expressible
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is not enough for our souls that thirst for more. Our experience of wonder when

contemplating the world, a wonder which created philosophy, according to Aristotle, can find

very few answers in the expressible. We can formulate the questions, describe the processes,

even take parts of phenomena, but the questions on existence, its origin, its end and its value,

are not expressible in a scientific logical language. Wittgenstein lucidly admits that “even

when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain

completely untouched”3. How can one explain the dreams experienced while sitting in front

of a warm romantic fire, the joyful sentiment due to a gentle breeze, or the feeling of pleasure

when admiring beauty? The inexpressible fills our lives, and Wittgenstein calls it mystical.

But should one classify this mystical as purely inexpressible, being content with vagueness

when it comes to the unsayable? Wittgenstein concludes his Tractacus with an invitation to

silence: “What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence”4.

But this silence becomes, with symbolism, a new form of discourse. To the last aphorism of

Wittgenstein, I can imagine Gaston Bachelard, the French epistemologist, answering that

“everything speaks, nothing is silent, even silence rustles with noise. All is echo in the

universe”5. The sensible entities become an echo, images, or links with a meta-sensible

reality, where humans meet the quested mystery, the key to understand our existence. This is

where a symbol becomes a mystical operator, linking humans emotionally to the mystery of

existence.

This link with the mystery of the universe is beautifully expressed in the poem of Gerald M.

Hopkins:

“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
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Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came…”6

Each element in this world has a function to show the unsayable, expressing the hidden

essence of existence in a beautiful way, becoming the perfect tool for an aesthetic theology,

showing the Absolute through the beautiful, or even a theological aesthetics, where beauty

has one purpose, which is to express the Unique Necessary, the Prime Principle of this world.

This poetic way of seeing the universe preceded the “objective” scientific way, based on a

rationalistic approach of existence. The poetic reverie, which is this playful tendency to

explore the world in joy, while dreaming it, always primed over the scientific approach,

which is based on the exploration of the world in a detailed objective way that focuses on

utility.

Plato had appealed to existing entities in the world in order to express the world of Forms.

The problem, though, in Plato’s system, was to overrule the relationship between the two

worlds, thus reducing symbols to allegories, where reality is simply told in a different way.

However, on a closer look, one would ask why humans have this faculty of using visible

things in order to express invisible things. To answer this question, Plato uses the idea of the

demiurge that wants the world of matter to resemble to the world of Forms. This demiurge

will try to imitate the Forms by shaping matter, as much as possible, making it similar to the

Forms. This similarity, or analogy by resemblance, makes us remember the Forms that we

used to contemplate in the Real world, when we see the entities in our world of shadows. The

entities of this world will thus be linked, through the demiurge, to their essence in the world

of Forms. Thus they have, though indirectly in the Platonic system, a symbolic function, in
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the sense where they would be a re-presentation of reality, a part of it, linking us back to the

world of forms that are shining in the light of the Absolute Good.

Plato will not hesitate to use a symbolic language in order to convey his ideas. Hence, the sun

becomes the Good, while the cave becomes the world… It is because symbols were for him

the best mean to explain a reality that is abstract, invisible, hidden to our eyes of flesh. Thus

symbolism became a way of knowledge, of discovering the hidden aspect of the world.

Rationalism seems to have underestimated the value of symbolism. With the supremacy

given to reason, what was once a way to reach Truth through beauty became a purely

subjective, unreliable source of knowledge. The quest for more “scientific” descriptions of

life became an obsession in the western world. This spirit even affected Christianity, where

the protestant wave of interpreting the scriptures was hostile to symbolism. Luther did not

hesitate to call allegories as “the scum of holy scripture” (WA 42.173.31). This attitude

became somehow the hidden side of western modern culture in the last three hundred years,

which had, and is still having, dangerous implications on the way we are in touch with our

humanity itself.

In his book The Master and His Emissary7, Iain McGilchrist studies the division of our brain

into a left and a right hemisphere, where the first is oriented to deal with details in a more

rational, objective and scientific way, while the latter deals with reality in a global way, more

emotional and metaphoric1. Mcgilchrist then argues that the Right hemisphere of the brain is

the master, because it sees the relational aspect of things, and deals with things poetically,

where they are naturally linked one to the other.

1
We should be careful, though, not to confuse this with the functions of both hemispheres, because both deal
with the environment through language, reason, poetry, etc… but the way of dealing with the environment
differs between one hemisphere and the other
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The wonder that composes myths is nothing but the amazement due to the intuition that the

entities of this world do mean something that goes beyond their material existence. More than

being related to direct utility, they are related to some pleasure, some feeling of ecstasy that

results from the contemplation of beauty. Indeed, it is the beauty of this world that first

attracted humans to discover it. It is true that the need to control this world in order to

improve the quality of life was also a very important motive to discover the world and the

laws that lie behind all physical events. However, modern discoveries tend to give the priority

to the emotional ties with the world, rather than the rational ties that seek direct utility. Our

“right brain”, mostly in charge of emotions and feelings, was the prime motor of our quest,

discoveries and actions.

The quest for the pleasant had always primed over the quest for the useful. The elements of

nature become, thus, an opportunity to enjoy existence, understanding it in a context where it

becomes a link to the quested happiness. A rock, for example, stops being a solid aggregate

of minerals in order to become the symbol of a solid reality, a truth that would be apt to

become the stepping stone of a whole community, one that is meant to last eternally. All

metaphors that one could use are based on analogies between a visible concrete reality and a

more meta-sensible reality, one that is built on senses but meant to go beyond direct physical

senses.

These metaphors are a very important element from a religious perspective. One of the

possible etymological roots for the word religion is the Latin word “religare”, which means

to establish a bond, linking humans to God. This link is both established through human

effort and divine revelation. But the first natural place to connect to God is the world. Our

contact with the world gives us an intuitive knowledge that “through the grandeur and beauty
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of the creatures we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author” (Wisdom 13, 5). This

analogy is at the basis of symbols, where humans get to know about the Author through the

images of this world.

Jesus invested in this human faculty when He used parables in order to spread the good news.

Today, Christianity needs to come back to this way, the approach of symbolism, in order to

re-connect with humans. In our age, this task has two main benefits. First, it will bring back

humans to their human nature, bringing healing to the mutilation of exaggerating the role of

reason, in an era that gives it full supremacy; and second, it will fulfill its task of following

the footsteps of the Master, bringing healing to people in an age where “ Truth has been

diminished, before the sons of men”8 .

Fire:

Fire is one of the most important symbols in humanity, and it always presented ambivalence

when it comes to its symbolism. Fire could equally burn and illuminate, and burning itself

could be out of love or hatred. For Bachelard, « fire is a privileged phenomenon that could

explain everything”9. It exists everywhere, in the heart of the Earth as well as high in the sky.

Some fire comes from the depth, like an erupting volcano, while some fire comes from above

in the shape of lightning. This fire spreads fear in the hearts of humans, while it is also the

lighting sun that spreads warmth in the same hearts. In the Pentecost, the Holy Spirit went

down on the apostles’ heads as tongues of fire, transforming them without burning them. But

hell is also referred to as the place where « fire is not quenched” (Marc 9:48).

Hindu doctrine gives a fundamental importance to fire. Agni, the “digestive fire,” gives the

ability to process all aspects of life, sensory impressions and memory. Indra, the twin brother
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of Agni, is the God of rain and thunderstorm. He holds vajra, a lightning thunderbolt in his

hands, and this represents the intermediary fire between heaven and Earth. As for Sûrya, the

Supreme Light, it is the celestial fire, the sun. In most cultures, Fire also has the function of

purification. In Hinduism, Agnihotra, the purification by fire, is a Vedic Yajna, a sacrifice

offered as a first step into the unitedness of the I with the Supreme Being. Agnihotra has an

impact on the whole creation. In Taoism, Yan or Fire branch is the method of transformation,

used to free oneself from conditioning. While those images help us understand fire, a deep

quest in the symbolism of fire can enlighten us to understand the similarities.

Fire always fascinates its observer. A child intuitively wants to touch it, feel it and play with

it. Yet this fire soon becomes a subject to parental prohibition, out of fear of burns. This is

how the first thing we know about fire becomes the restriction of touching it, a restriction that

becomes seducing in itself. When I was a child, my friends and I used to wait till when we

were unsupervised in order to play with matches, trying to have them lit in our hands as long

as possible without being burned. I also still remember the level of fascination we used to

have when observing the small fires we used to make in our playground. The higher the

flame used to go, the more we were happy with it. I still can recall those moments of

respectful admiration, silently contemplating fire. Reading Bachelard’s psychoanalysis of

fire, I was glad to know that what I experienced is a natural human phenomenon.

Fire is associated with the power of the intellect. Paul Diel considers it as the “purification by

understanding»10. It is that our intellect wants to know, to integrate the mysteries of the world

with this digestive fire. But it encounters resistance from nature which refuses to be

controlled in its profoundness. However, this same nature hides a fire within it, a level of

intelligibility that answers the thirst for fire. This intelligibility fulfills its potential when it

meets the intellect, which is being actualized through the intellectual act. This is why the

Agnihotra purifies the whole universe, which finds its fulfillment when it’s understood by
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humans. While transforming matter, fire sublimates it in a movement that goes upward,

trying to reach the sky. Isn’t it the way intelligence apprehends the entities of this world,

trying to transform it through abstraction into something more sublime, something rational?

But rationality alone leaves the world dry; it burns it in a futile way, without the fire of desire,

which is the motor of all human actions. With desire, fire becomes more than a desire to

rationally understand the world. It becomes a desire to spiritualize it. This is the fire that

comes from above, giving light to the intelligence.

One more important fact about earthly fire: it can be started through friction. Influenced by

psychoanalysis, some anthropologists suggest that the sexual experience of friction, which

brings warmth to the body, suggested seeking fire through the friction of wood or stone. 11

This leads us to get the origins of fire in love. Don’t we compare love to a fire burning

inside? Love is this interaction between two lovers, fighting against their differences, trying

to be more perfectly united, while the fire of love consumes them and joins them. But what is

love, if not this feeling of non-satisfaction without the other, the humble feeling that the self

is nothing if not in a relational movement, horizontally with other humans, and vertically with

God. This is the internal fire of sacrifice, the true Agnihotra that lies within, which we

encounter in the Samyutta Nikaya (1, 169): “Pile no wood for fires on altars; I kindle a flame

within me: My heart the hearth, the flame the doinpted self.”

Intelligence is the fruit of an intentional desire, which goes out to reach the other with

humility. If this desire deviates from its goal in order to seek the ego, it becomes a destructive

fire, a fire that gives a black flame and thus does not enlighten. The intellect that is fooled to

think itself the Master of creation, rather than its receiver, will become a ruining fire that

burns without end. In order for fire not to burn without hope, it needs a little bit of water.

Water:
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Water is associated to fertility in almost all cultures. It is the materia prima, the place where

all was formed. We find this passage in the Vishna Purana:

"The waters are called Nárá, because they were the offspring of Nara (the

supreme spirit); and as in them his first (Ayana) progress (in the character of

Brahmá) took place, he is thence named Náráyańa (he whose place of moving—

or sleeping--was the waters)."12

We also see that the mundane egg was at the surface of water. In Genesis, the Spirit of

the Lord was hovering over the water (Ge 1:1).

However, water is also the place where all disintegrates. This is how it becomes a

cleansing element, delivering people from all that defiles them. For Hindus, water is a

purifier, life giver and destroyer of evil. Water resembles material immagination: it

penetrates the depth of matter, deforming images in order to create new ones that we

“substantially and intimitly dream of”13. For Mircea Eliade, "the waters symbolize the

universal matrix of virtualities; they are fons et origo, 'spring and origin', the reservoir of

all the possibilities of existence; they precede every form and support every creation” 14.

Using a Jungian terminology, water would be the anima, while fire is the animus. The

anima is the feminie human soul, which receives the sensible world without being

satisfied by it. The anima searches for the meaning lying underneath the water, the

immanent divinity. It is not a coincidence that most of Christs disciples were fishermen,

seeking the meaning of life in the depth of the sensible world. To catch fish, one needs

to hold light, since fishing takes place mostly at night, when nature is asleep. Fishing

also requires a good and clean net, which is “put in the deep water” (Luke 5:4), and

thrown “on the right side of the boat” (Jn 21:6).

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While fire is linked to the intellect, water is linked to emotions, which is equally

necessary for life, for cleansing, refreshing and vivifying. This is where water is Sattva,

purity and knowledge of all sensible reality. This knowledge is best caught fresh in the

water, just like a fish. If we want to understand the meaning of symbols, we need to go

into direct contact with nature. Only there reality will reveal itself, only then we will

recall the state of Saint Francis of Assisi, the one who was so in touch with nature,

understanding the language of birds, and using this understanding to praise the creator.

And since knowledge of the world and of the creator goes hand in hand with the

knowledge of oneself, water becomes a mirror.

This image of water as a mirror shows in the myth of Narciss. But contrary to the lesson

usually drawn by the myth, Narciss does not reveal a blind egoistic love of oneself. It

rather reveals the act of falling in love with an ideal image, because one’s reflection in

water is different from the reflection in the mirror, where the former has some vagueness

that gives it a dynamic aspect. The human image, in the water, becomes an act of hope, a

dream of idealization in a beauty that cannot flourish without water. This is how water

becomes an invitation to admire beauty in a peaceful way. Maybe because people feel

re-connected to the maternal womb when affronted with water. When my newborn twins

used to cry, I used to play for them the sound of water. I cannot forget the serenity on

their faces when they heard the sound. Maybe water gives peace to humans, which is

why it washes the sins away, inviting us to discover the real meaning that lies beneath.

This meaning, symbolized by the fish, is mounted by Varuna in Vedic religion. The fish

is also Matsya, the first avatar of Vishnu, the Hindu god which revealed to Manu the

coming of an all-destructive deluge. Only the meaning that lies in the depth of the waters

can save humans from drowning in the illusory satisfaction of the sensible world.
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In Buddhism, the fish makes an appearance as one of the eight sacred symbols of the

Buddha, and it symbolizes happiness and freedom. The fish In China also symbolizes

unity and fidelity as it is noted that fish (particularly koi) often swim together in pairs. It

is that freedom, happiness, and fertility, is only attained when we understand the

meaning of our existence, and this meaning is only attained in a relational setting, where

humans see themselves one through the other, loving each other, and thus being able to

see the world in wider scope, and thus seeing the Unique Essential, the God who is

Love.

The meaning lies underneath the water, but it requires a human effort to be caught. This effort

resembles to the cultivation of a seed, which requires a combination of water and fire. Too

much water, without sun, makes a seed rotten, while too much fire burns the seed and kills it.

Together, water and fire help the seed grow, so that it bares thirty-fold, and sixty and

hundred. To be accomplished, this project needs earth and air.

Air :

Though water is used as a sign of re-generation, it could also cause death. Submerged with

water, one could suffocate and die. It is only in a relationship with air that water could

generate a new birth. The air is almost universally a symbol of the spirit. In hebrew, the word

used for spirit (ruah) is the same used for wind. The Spirit of God is thus symbolized by the

wind, which is the air in motion, dynamic, relational, hovering over the surface of the water,

and creating Heaven and Earth.

In Hinduism, Vayu is the vital breath, the deity of life, sometimes referred to as Mukhya

Vayu. The soul, in hebrew, has also the word for breath, nephesh. So the air is the principle

of life, in humans and in the universe. In this element, priority is given to movement. Air is

always active, resembling the Pure Act. The air in the universe takes a vertical movement,
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meaning that the destiny of soul is the divine. With air, mobility becomes the primary

character of the image. It represents an active openness to the divine, an openness without

which everything dies. The totality of being can only reveal itself in an ascending movement

towards perfection, a spiritual attitude that liberates us from the limits of the sensible world,

inviting us to seek transcendance.

In the image of air, flourished the human dreams to fly, to see the world from above, to reach

a higher state of being. The people of Babylon controlled all elements. They knew how to get

Earth and mix it with water, making clay, and passing it to fire in order to make themselves

houses. However, they realized that their industrial city still needed air, so they wanted to go

vertically: “Let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we

may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole

earth." ( Gn 11:4). The people of babylon knew that without a vertical dimension, a tour that

stands high in the air, they would scatter all over the face of the earth. If the air does not bring

us upward, it scatters us in futile movements, with the illusion of development rendering us

less humans and more like machines. Flying in the air is only possible when the tour we want

to build has a purpose, and this purpose is a personal God, a Being that reveals Himself to us.

“The blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they

were sitting.” (Acts 2:2). This wind is meant to fill our houses, our living space, in order to

lift us towards the light and prepare us to become a new creature.

As opposed to the feminine symbol of Earth, Air is a masculine symbol that suggests

receptivity from our part, a receptivity that is often expressed in dreams. Thus, Jacob dreams

of the ladder dressed in the air, set up on earth with the top reaching heaven, and where the

angels, those “made as winds” (Psalms 104:4), were ascending and descending on it. (Gn

28:12). The wind is the human movement towards heaven and the heavenly movement
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towards Earth. But the heavenly wind has to be humbly received, in a mystical state of

ecstacy, similar to the deep sleep of Adam when Eve was created 15. It is only then, after this

state of receptivity, that Adam recognized himself through his love for the woman; he had

then to learn a new receptivity, one that would be open to other humans in a horizontal

movement where the wind blows and brings both humans vertically, against the law of

gravity, towards God. However, and again, if this movement remains on the horizontal level,

it will be doomed to fall. Our reference vanishes if we keep it on the horizontal level; it has to

find its goal in the vertical, in the quested transcendance. Seeking this transcendance, humans

start their journey with their feet standing steady on a solid ground, on Earth.

Earth:

Earth is the place where all elements meet, which makes it the place where a set of images

interact, enriching our knowledge of symbolic immagination of matter. It is associated to the

yin, passive principle opposed and complementary to the yan. It is also the image of

profoundness, where hide all minerals, conditions of life; it is the inner nature that was

hidden within water.

Earth is also the surface where a human being stands, head towards the sky. It is the altar of

all purifying sacrifice. Earth offers us stable images, which are resisting to change, while it

could be mixed with water to become a flexible clay, accepting many forms.

Although Earth appears as hard and unchangeable, all depends on its dynamic change in

order to come to life. This characteristic had earth earn the quality of materia prima, saved

from water by Varaha, the avatar of Vishnu in the form of a boar. The boar symbolizes the

spiritual authority, associated to bravery in Japan. Note that a boar is often confused with a

pig, symbol of blind passions and ignorance. It is that a boar is the wild natural image of the

spiritual dimension, with its invading power, while a pig is the symbol of a tentative to
 15

domesticate the spirit, to master it from humans. But the spirit is a movement, a relationship

with the divine, which is not to be controled by humans. It rather takes control and saves

humans from their complete fall into materialism. The spirit is the movement of the human

soul, its direction towards God. One doesn’t control this movement, but is rather taken by it

in a dynamic relation that leads to fullfillemt.

Some icons also show Varaha saving Earth from the water, holding it passionatly in his arms,

while Earth is personified as the goddess Bhudevi. Only the innocent, wild, natural and

powerful spirit, could save mother Earth and make it give birth to the archetypes that hide

within it. A therpay that does not take into account the original spirituality of humans will

never be able to attain healing. On the contrary, it will remain in the phase of illusive cure

through administred drugs that rarely end up improving the situation of the patient.

Earth is the place where all archetypes hide, which makes it a revelator of our humanity. This

is why the serpent is characterized by wisdom in the ancient cultures. 16 It is becaue it sticks to

the Earth and slips into the hidden places, under the sand and between the rocks. This wisdom

was “punished” in Genesis by YHWH to crawl on its belly and eat dust for the rest its life

(Ge. 3:14). But the penalty of the creator is always a restorative one. This means that wisdom

became closer to the archetypes, in order to get in touch with the profond human nature,

which is what makes intelligence humble, and thus more open to salvation received from

above. In Hebrew, the snake is called Seraph, the burning one, a word also used to designate

the angels who hold the arch of God.17 In Numbers, burning serpents were sent to bite the

Jews who spoke against God, and a bronze burning (or fiery) serpent, set by Moses in the air

on a pole, following God’s command, was used to heal whoever looks at it.18 Both snakes had

a restorative role, wisdom of the Earth has to receive, through an openness, the Wisdom of

Heaven, and when too much water seems to flood us, some fire will always do good.
 16

Water softens the Earth, making it flexible, and fire hardens it again, after it is moulded into a

new shape. Every human desire, in order to be able to stand, once put into the air, has to go

through the fire. Every mystical relationship with the universe needs to be examined by the

intellect. But this intellect is not an act of rationalization; it is a sensibilization and a creation,

which is only accomplished by spiritualization. This is how the combination of the four

elements become a guide to healthy life. This is the symbolic teaching that lies in our

archetypal identity, as humans, on the image and resemblance of God. Just like an

equilibrium of elements makes it possible for Earth to give birth to trees, and equilibrium of

our human faculties makes it possible for us to be sain, and our sanity will be known by the

fruits that we bare. Isn’t it the reason why the trees became the symbol of humans?
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Notes
1
Wittgenstein L., Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.1212, SIDE-BY-SIDE-BY-SIDE EDITION, VERSION 0.21,
http://people.umass.edu/klement/tlp/tlp.pdf
2
Ibid., 6.5.22
3
Ibid. 6.521
4
Ibid., 7
5
Bachelard G., L’Eau et les Rêves, Corti, p.261. All translations quoted in this article are mine
6
Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose, Penguin Classics, 1985
7
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
8
Psalms 11, 2
9
Bachelard G., La psychanalyse du feu, Gallimard, 1949, p.19
10
Diel, P., Le Symbolisme dans la Mythologie Grecque, Payot, 1966, p.134
11
See Bachelard G., La Psychanalyse du Feu, op.cit., p.47
12
The Vishnu Purana IV:2, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, [1840], at sacred-texts.com
13
Bachelard G., 1942, L’Eau et les Rêves, p.8
14
Eliade Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane, The Nature of Religion, Tr. Willard Trask, Harcourt, 1963, p.130
15
And YHWH Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept […]And YHWH Elohim built the rib that he had
taken from Man into a woman; and brought her to Man” Gn. 2:21-22
16
Even Christ teaches us to be « wise as serpents », Matthew 10:16
17
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance
above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they
flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah
6:1-3
18
And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall
live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze
serpent and live. Numbers 21 :8-9