Introduction and links to related topics Symbol - A sign plus an associated concept.
Symbolism - The representation of one thing by something else. E.g., the damaru, Siva''s drum, is a symbol of creation.
Vanghapara Dog Symbol In Magianism - Vanghapara Dog Symbol in Magianism. {BCW 4:519n}
Parasemiotic Symbol - A figure or talisman displaying an obscure "message" or indecipherable picture in an effort to draw attention to the importance of form over content. Contemporary society suffers from a scarcity of vehicles of form.
Elemental Symbols - Much of magic is done through the mediation of the four occult elements, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. They determine both the type of energy that accomplishes the work and the avenue through which it acts. For this reason a clear understanding and proper use of the elements is vital in ritual. Each element is represented by its own material symbol, which is placed atop the altar beside the lamp in the appropriate elemental quarter. If a ritual concerns only one element, its symbol is placed on the altar alone; if all four elements are involved, all four symbols are present.
Fire is embodied in a short rod about nine inches long. This has a very specific design in the Golden Dawn magical system, but the details are not really necessary. It is the essential shape of the rod that is most important. The nature of elemental Fire is in accord with this strongly phallic symbol.
Air is embodied in a short dagger. Again, it is the associations of the blade—its flashing quickness, its piercing quality, its brightness—that are important, not details of the hilt and so on. The difference in tone between the rod and the dagger says much about the essential difference between elemental Fire and Air.
Water is embodied in a cup or chalice. It should be rounded and womblike, enclosing and protective. It is also more harmonious if the cup is made of a watery, or at least a natural, material. Blue hand blown glass is good, or earth-tone ceramic.
Earth is embodied in the disk or pentacle. This is a flat disk painted with Earth colors. Ideally it should be made of clay or stone. Usually it is of wood. It must not be too large to conveniently hold in the hand—four inches in diameter is a good size, because four is a material, earthy number.
So far as I know, the use of elemental symbols originated with the Victorian Order of the Golden Dawn in the last century, and received its inspiration from the symbols of the lesser arcana—the number cards—of the Tarot. Specific, formal symbols of the four elements were not used in medieval times, and are not strictly necessary. However, the employment of these symbols has become almost universal in modern magic, and they can be very useful. It is important that they be made to harmonize with the sensibilities of the one who will actually use them, not merely according to some arbitrary standard.
Also See
Fish Symbol - The two crossed fish of Pisces was adopted early-on as a symbol for Christ and Christianity. Later the symbol was shortened to just one fish.
The Greek word for fish (ichthys) contains the first letters of the phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior" in Greek
Once the Age of Aquarius began this symbol automatically became the symbol for the Devil or evil.
Dragon Symbolism - The dragon swallows up all souls that don''t have Gnosis, to return them forthwith, via its tail, to begin a new struggle toward the Gnosis, which will save them from recurrence. In China the dragon is the Everything, the ruler of the East and of sunrise. It stands opposite to the Tiger, which is the West and death.
Aniconic - "Without likeness; without image." When referring to a Deity image, aniconic denotes a symbol which does not attempt an anthropomorphic (humanlike) or representational likeness. An example is the Sivalinga, "mark of God."
See: murti, Sivalinga.
Zero - Zero [from Arabic sifrom an empty thing cf cipher]
As a mathematical idea, the absolute zero obtained by the subtraction of equal quantities (expressed by a - a), or the ideal zero denoting the imaginary limit of an infinite diminution (expressed by the quotient a/b, where a is indefinitely smaller than b). In physical measurement, a lower limit or point of origin, as in the zero of a scale or the absolute zero of temperature.
As a symbol, the absence of all number or quantity, necessary in our system of notation in order to preserve the principle of positional value by occupying positions which would otherwise be filled by one of the nine digits. In scales of notation where the radix is other than 10, the value of the zero sign would be altered correspondingly. Though in one sense no number, yet in ordinal reckoning it has to be counted as a member of the series.
Its symbol, the circle, represents at once nothing and everything; it is the symbol of boundless infinity; and a circle may be defined either as a single undivided and unterminated line, or as an infinite number of infinitely short lines. Ends meet; there is no essential difference between the infinitely great and infinitesimal. The zero point is the vanishing point, the laya or neutral state. In mathematics it is the neutral position between the series of positive and negative numbers. It is also the neutral state of matter between two planes; when physical matter is reduced to the zero or laya-state, it is ready to become manifest on the next higher plane, or vice versa. The same applies to consciousness and its planes.
Absolute nihility is a term which has no meaning in reality; and we find in algebra that a to the 0 power = 1, which is a formulation of the fact that an entity in the zero state is not abolished but is still a monad. The symbol , or unity within zero, symbolizes manifest divinity, the hierarchical universe, and complete man -- in other words, full manifestation, all contained within the monad having emanated from it and established the unfolded entity; and a symbol which also is sometimes numerically figurated as 10. These two symbols, the circle denoting immaculate mother nature, and the line denoting the fructifying spirit, make up the number ten in the denary scale of notation.
The use of the zero to secure position value in a scale of decimal nation came to us, through the Arabs, from India. Modern scholarship seeks among the records of antiquity for some date which it may assign as the origin of decimal notation; but the fact that other systems were in use does not prove that it was unknown, as it may have been kept secret; and indeed we have other systems, besides the decimal, in use of the earth today. In discussing the matter we must distinguish between the decimal notation with the zero, and a mere method of counting in groups of ten and using special signs for ten, a hundred, etc. Blavatsky points to the symbolical character of the upright stroke and the circle, as denoting the number ten and also the masculine and feminine principles; the inference being that the antiquity and universality of this symbol implies a knowledge of decimal notation.
Hermanubis - Hermanubis (Ancient Greek). Or Hermes Anubis" the revealer of the mysteries of the lower world " - not of Hell or Hades as interpreted, but of our Earth (the lowest world of the septenary chain of worlds) - and also of the sexual mysteries.
Creuzer must have guessed at the truth of the right interpretation, as he calls Anubis-Thoth-Hermes "a symbol of science and of the intellectual world ". He was always represented with a cross in his hand, one of the earliest symbols of the mystery of generation, or procreation on this earth. In the Chaldean Kabbala (Book of Numbers) the Tat symbol, or +, is referred to as Adam and Eve, the latter being the transverse or horizontal bar drawn out of the side (or rib) of Hadam, the perpendicular bar.
The fact is that, esoterically, Adam and Eve while representing the early third Root Race - those who, being still mindless, imitated the animals and degraded themselves with the latter - stand also as the dual symbol of the sexes. Hence Anubis, the Egyptian god of generation, is represented with the head of an animal, a dog or a jackal, and is also said to be the " Lord of the underworld" or " Hades " into which he introduces the souls of the dead (the reincarnating entities), for Hades is in one sense the womb, as some of the writings of the Church Fathers fully show.
Eight - Eight Although infrequently used in occultism, one of the important numerical stages in nature and, therefore, in all occult systems of reckoning and computaton.
An inaccurate use of 8, or a use springing from ignorance, can very easily mislead the student of archaic numerology as to its ancient computational value and numerical signification. After remarking that the ancients always referred to seven planets (the sun being included in the septenary), Blavatsky says:
"These ''seven'' became the eight, the Ogdoad, of the later materialized religions, the seventh, or the highest principle, being no longer the pervading Spirit, the Synthesis, but becoming an anthropomorphic number, or additional unit" (SD 2:358n).
However, the ogdoad of the ancients had a special significance, among other things referring to the addition of the linking unit, whether of a superior or inferior hierarchy, to the septenary hierarchy envisioned at the moment. Furthermore, when the seven sacred planets of the ancients were considered in connection with their relations to earth, this conjoining of the eight units was often called an ogdoad. Hinduism takes cognizance of eight great gods, namely, the eight adityas, and on some of the oldest monuments of India, Persia, and Chaldea one may see the eight-pointed or double cross.
When the figure 8 is placed on its side . . . it symbolizes the eternal and spiral motion of cycles "and is symbolized in its turn by the Caduceus. It shows the regular breathing of the Kosmos presided over by the eight great gods -- the seven from the primeval Mother, the One and the Triad" (SD 2:580). In modern mathematics, it is the symbol for infinity, or for the approach to infinity.
Hiranyagarbha - Hiranyagarbha (Sanskrit) (from hiranya imperishable substance, golden + garbha womb, embryo, fetus, also the interior of anything, hence a temple)
Golden egg or womb; the matrix of imperishable substance.
"The luminous ''fire mist'' or ethereal stuff from which the Universe was formed" (TG 142); applied to Brahma, described in the Rig-Veda as born from a golden egg formed out of the seed deposited in the waters when they were produced as the first vikaras of the Self-existent; according to Manu (1:9) this seed became a golden egg, resplendent as the sun, in which the self-existent Brahman while remaining transcendent in its higher parts, evolved into Brahma the Creator, who is therefore regarded as a manifestation of the Self-existent. Having continued a year in the egg, Brahma divided it into two parts by his mere thought, and with these two he formed the heavens and the earth; and in the middle he placed the sky, the eight regions, and the eternal abode of the waters.
"The ''Mundane Egg'' is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. . . . The mystery of apparent self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in miniature the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully the selection of this graphic symbol. The ''Virgin Egg'' is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype -- the ''Virgin Mother'' -- Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the Virgin female, the immaculate root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Cosmos as receptive Nature is an Egg fructified -- yet left immaculate; once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water), ''four ready, three secret''" (SD 1:65).
In Vedantic philosophy, used somewhat equivalently to sutratman, atman invested with the sukshma-sarira, as well as with the other sariras flowing forth from this and permeating and infilling them all as the thread-self.
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