The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols: The Ultimate A-Z Guide from Alchemy to the Zodiac

649 Pages·2010·9.41 MB·English

by  Adele Nozedar

The Element Encyclopedia of Secret
Signs and Symbols
The Ultimate A-Z Guide from Alchemy to the Zodiac
Adele Nozedar
For Adam and for the seven secrets
‘In every grain of sand there lies Hidden the soil of a star’
Arthur Machen
‘I do not need a leash or a tie To lead me astray In the land where dreams lie’
Yoav
In Nature’s temple, living pillars rise Speaking sometimes in words of abstruse
sense; Man walks through woods of symbols, dark and dense, Which gaze at
him with fond familiar eyes.
Like distant echoes blent in the beyond In unity, in a deep darksome way, Vast as
black night and vast as splendent day, Perfumes and sounds and colors
correspond.
From “Correspondences,” Charles Baudelaire
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Epigraph
Introduction
Part One Signs and Symbols of Magic and Mystery
Part Two Fauna
Part Three Flora
Part Four Flowers of the Underworld
Part Five Sacred Geometry and Places of Pilgrimage
Part Six Numbers
Part Seven Sacred Sounds, Secret Signs
Part Eight The Body as a Sacred Map
Part Nine Rites and Rituals, Customs and Observances
Part Ten The Nature of the Divine
Copyright
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this book is to seek a true understanding of the secret signs, sacred
symbols, and other indicators of the arcane, hidden world that are so thickly
clustered around us. During this process, we’ll shed light on the cultural,
psychological, and anthropological nature of our signs and symbols. We’ll also
be surprised to discover that many of the everyday things we take for granted
can hold hidden secrets, and by having the key to this knowledge we’ll gain an
insight into the minds and concerns of our forbears who constructed these
symbols.
NO BEGINNING, NO END: ANATOMY OF A
SIMPLE SYMBOL
Rodin said, “Man never invented anything new, only discovered things.” While
it’s true to say that some symbols have been manmade for a specific purpose, it’s
equally accurate to argue that everything is inspired in some way by the natural
world around us, by the forms of nature, plants, animals, the elements. Even a
reaction against the fluid forms of nature is generally inspired by a desire to
provide an alternative. Sometimes the revelation of a natural symbol is
immediate; other such discoveries are the result of years of painstaking
observation.
One of our simplest symbols has elaborate and arcane origins.
Here is a picture, not of a manmade or computer-generated pattern, but of
the shape made in the sky by the Planet Venus. Venus is the only planet whose
dance around the Sun in the depths of space describes such a definite and
distinctive form, and we can only imagine the sense of wonder that must have
been felt by the ancient Akkadians who first charted the design. They also
realized that the Morning Star and the Evening Star, previously considered to be
two separate celestial bodies, were one and the same. This discovery had a
profound effect, which has cast such a long shadow over the archeology of
symbols that we are still governed by it today. Here’s why.
Because of Venus’s proximity to the Sun, its light is often obliterated, and
so it is visible only in the early morning or in the evening, either just before
sunrise or just after sun-set. The Greeks called the morning star Eosphoros,
“bringer of the dawn” (later, the star would be called Lucifer, the brightest of the
angels cast out of the Heavens). As the Evening Star, it was called Hesperos,
“star of the evening” (which gives us the name of evening prayers, or vespers).
It takes eight years and one day for the appearances of Venus to complete
an entire pentagram. These days we can plot these movements relatively easily,
but for our ancestors the process must have been elaborate and painstaking, as
uncertain and laborious a voyage of discovery as the traversing of any great
physical ocean. The Goddess that we know as Venus was, to the Akkadians,
Ishtar/Inanna, divinity not only of love and harmony but also Goddess of war.
Incidentally, Venus is the only major planet of our solar system, aside from the
Earth itself, to be designated a feminine spirit.
The Mayans determined their calendrical system from the movements of
Venus, and chose propitious positions of the planet to determine the time of a
war. The five-pointed star that is still used as a military symbol—stenciled onto
tanks, for example, or used in insignia—derives from the stately movement of
this great astral Goddess.
Similarly, the apple given by Eve to Adam contained a hidden symbol
within it; the pentagram created by the pattern of the pips. Eve offered Adam not
only knowledge of the divine feminine—a holy grail indeed—but offered him a
symbol of the true marriage of opposites, the feminine number two wedding to
the masculine number three. Eve, therefore, personifies Ishtar/Venus/Aphrodite
as the Goddess of sensual love (and Venus, incidentally, is the derivation of the
word “venereal”). Further, Ishtar was demonized in the Bible as the Whore of
Babylon.
So, a seemingly simple thing such as the shape made in the sky by the path
of a planet can be full of complexities and contradictions, which not only
clarifies some aspects of the symbol but also poses further questions. The truth is
that the quest to understand the meaning of a symbol is as much a personal
voyage of discovery as a collective one, and it is in the spirit of exploration that I
hope you will adventure into this book.
THANKS
There are several people without whom this book would never have been
written. I’d like to thank Katy Carrington, Terence Caven, Jeannine Dillon, Chris
Wold, Simon Gerratt, Graham Holmes, Kate Latham, Faith Booker, and Laura
Summers at HarperCollins. Charlotte Ridings, Martin Noble, and Mark Bolland
were the editors. I’d also like to thank Wanda Whiteley.
Any book about symbols would be nothing without the illustrations. Paul
Khera has done the bulk of these, with additional thanks to Anat Cederbaum,
Myong Hwi Kim, Kruti Sanaija, and Yuki Nakamura for advice and help with
some aspects of these pictures. I am also lucky enough to have Finlay Cowan
contribute images to this book.
Other illustrators include David Little, Lyndall Fernie, and Kalavathi Devi.
I would also like to thank Willa and Milo Seary for their drawings. Thanks are
also due to Gavin and Davina Hogg, Sigorour Atlason, Caroline Danby, Tania
Ahsan, Hamraz Ahsan, Carla Edgley, Judy Roland, Theo Chalmers, the Order of
Bards, Ovates and Druids, Stuart Mitchell, and the good people of Raquetty
Lodge, Hay on Wye. Most of all I have to thank starship commander Adam
Fuest for putting up with my obsession about this book and my possible bouts of
absent mindedness about anything else during the writing of it.
FIRST SIGNS: THE BASIC SHAPES OF SYMBOLS
There are certain elemental structures that occur repeatedly, not only as
component parts of more elaborate symbols, but also with rich meanings of their
own. In fact, it’s probably true to say that the simpler the symbol, the more scope
there is for interpretation; ergo, the more meaningful it is and, paradoxically, the
more complex it becomes. These primary shapes transcend barriers of time,
geography, and cultural context, part of a universal language that goes before,
and beyond, words. Don’t be fooled into thinking that these basic shapes are as
self-explanatory as to need no analysis. A true understanding of what they
represent can only add to the comprehension of the more elaborate shapes and
symbols that follow in this section.
SPACE
The elements of a symbol are defined only by the space that is a part of its
construction. Like the wind, the effect of space is gauged by its effect on the
things within it or surrounding it. The concept of space, the void, is a profound
part of our experience. To reach a state of “emptiness” is, for many, the ultimate
spiritual experience and a way of connecting to the Absolute. When John
Lennon wrote “Imagine,” whose lyrics gradually strip away the trappings of the
material world, it was this idea that inspired him.
To be aware of the possibility of space within a flat, two-dimensional
representation is to give that shape substance and a new kind of reality that lifts
it off the page and makes it real. Space is not flat and cannot be confined by lines
on a piece of paper. The page and the shape on it do not exist in isolation, but are
a part of a greater cosmos. This book and you, the reader, are a part of this
equation.
The concept of zero is a space. Indeed, the realization that “nothing” can be
“something” marked a profound leap forward in man’s development. All
creation myths begin with a Void, symbolic of potential.
Although attempts to explain the concept of space are inevitably faulty, it