Tag: Shakti

The Heart and the Vulva: a journey into common symbols

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Anthropology, Christianity, Esotericism, History of Religions

This article aims to investigate the analogies between some of the preeminent symbolic and esoteric values โ€‹โ€‹of the heart and the female genital organ. In the different traditions of human history and, not infrequently, even in mere common language, the two organs, in fact, have often been associated with the same symbolic representations, such as those of the triangle with the apex down, the vase and the cave. Representative communities, these, which cannot but intuitively refer to a common area of โ€‹โ€‹meanings.

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The double spiral and the double movement of emanation and reabsorption of the cosmos

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, History of Religions

di Marco Maculotti
cover: phases of the moon, taken from "Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae" by Athanasius Kircher, 1646

In the first essay of this column on the theme of the symbolism of the spiral and the "cosmic rebirth" [cf. The symbolism of the Spiral: the Milky Way, the shell, the "rebirth"] we dwelt on the esoteric meanings of the spiral symbol and the closely related ones of the Milky Way and the shell. In this second appointment we aim to analyze the symbol of the double spiral from an even more 'cosmic' perspective, with regard to the traditions that convey this symbol to concepts concerning the creation (or rather, the emanation) of the cosmos and its reabsorption. We will begin our discourse by examining the Indian Brahmin tradition and comparing it with the Tantric ล›ivaist one of Kashmir, and then analyzing the points of contact, from a religious syncretism point of view, with thatย โ€” distant in terms of time and spaceย โ€” pre-Columbian of the Nahua-Aztec peoples.

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