Symbols

1
Symbols

• Definition
• Shared understandings about the meaning of
  certain words, attributes, or objects.
• Characteristics
• Displacement
• Our ability to understand that a certain symbol
  means a certain thing.
• Arbitrary
• A symbol has no direct connection with the thing
  it refers to. Meaning is a construction of the
  human mind.
• Openness
• Our ability to create and use symbols as we see
  fit.

2
Circle with dot

• Egypt
• The Sun, Ra
• Greek philosophy of the Monad
• The First, the seed, the essence, the builder the
  foundation. All is one, there are no fundamental
  divisions. A unified set of laws govern nature.
• Contrast to dualism, i.e. yin yang 2
  underlying, opposing powers incorporating and
  governing reality.
• Pythagoreans
• From the Monad came the Dyad (2-powers) from it
  numbers from numbers, points then lines (2
  dimensional entities), then 3 dimensional
  entities, celestial bodies (stars/planets),
  culminating in the four elements of earth, air,
  water and fire from which the rest of the world
  is built.
• Flatland (1884) Edwin Abbott Abbott

3
Hexagram

• Earliest examples 800-600 B.C.E.
• Antiquity symbol for Jewish Kingdom.
• Star/shield of David. Symbol for Jewish faith.
• Alchemy symbol in middle ages representing the
  combination of fire and water
• Alchemy A practical science concerned with the
  art of transforming elements and compounds, and a
  religious-philiosophical system resting on the
  idea of the existence of a substance called the
  philosophers stone which could change base
  elements into more precious substances (i.e.
  gold).
• Other alchemy symbols Ouroboros
• Represents same thing as Indian yoga (unity),
  Chinese yin-yang, Christian ascendance to God,
  Buddhist Nirvanna, etc.

4
Pentacle

• A type of Pentagram (5-sided figure)
• Probably discovered as a result of astronomical
  research in ancient Mesopotamia (4,000 BCE) It
  is the structure that results if one plots the
  movement of Venus as seen from earth in the
  Zodiac.
• The goddess Venus (Ishtar) from the ancient
  Mesopotamians appeared both as the Morning
  (battle/hunting) and Evening (beauty/fertility)
  star
• Pythagorean mysticism
• Numbers/values constitute the true nature of
  things. Can know God through mathematics.
• Symbolizes the human being and mathematical
  perfection.
• Christianity
• 5 wounds of Christ, 5 senses
• Islam
• Used in the Morning Star and Crescent to denote
  the Islamic faith.
• 5 points of star represent 5 pillars of Islam
  (the profession of faith, the prayer, giving a
  portion of ones income to the poor, fasting
  during Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca
• Judaism
• Official seal of the city of Jerusalem during
  300-150 BCE.
• Satanism
• Inverted star, symbolizing the rejection of
  Christian Holy Trinity.
• Wiccan/Neopagan
• Symbol of Wiccan faith. Represents 4 elements
  and the Spirit.

5
Sacred Art

• Formed from a myriad of religious symbols.
• Ex Cathedral
• Not art for arts sake (i.e. not based on
  creative urges of the artist). Rather art as a
  collection of symbols meant to convey a specific
  religious message.
• Ex
• Byzantine and Egyptian religious art
• Does not mean that these artists were incapable
  of drawing a more fluid/natural body. Needed
  this structure to convey the correct meaning.
  Art in this case is a symbol. To change the
  style of the symbol would be to change the
  meaning.

6
Sacred art and sacred space

• The Sarcophagus of Lord Pakal (book)
• The symbols combined create a passageway through
  which Pakal passes to reach the Underworld and
  then be resurrected as a God.
• Psychoduct A passageway for Pakals spirit to
  pass from his Tomb to the Temple during rituals.
  Made of brick and running along the stairway
• Egyptian spacetime
• With its orientation to the heavens, sacred space
  in Egyptian architecture represents a dimension
  where heavenly time reigns (a sort of space time
  mix). To build a sacred space was to establish
  not only a spatial but also a temporal link with
  the heavens it was a realization of eternity. In
  the Old Kingdom all the construction work done by
  the state concentrated on the pyramid as the
  epitome of sacred space a structure built for
  the king to touch and enter into eternity.
• The Tomb of Knum-Hotep (Beni-Hassan, Egypt)
• An elaborate example of a Psychoduct

7
Color

• The separation of the color spectrum is cultural
  and arbitrary.
• Whos to say where red ends and yellow begins?
  Why do we have orange? Why not have a million
  different color names? Why not have only,
  perhaps, 3?
• The Yoruba of Nigeria (Guinea Coast) distinguish
  only these 3 colors Funfun (cool colors white,
  silver, pale gray) Associated with wisdom and
  respect. Pupa (red, pink, orange, deep yellow)
  Passion and pride. Dudu (black, blue, purple,
  green dark browns, red-brown) Cool, dark, warm.
• The colors on the crown are both hot and cool.
  This is necessary to symbolize the wisdom of a
  king to bring harmony and balance to the
  community.

8

• Navaho Turquoise blue is the ideal blue
• Blue is the color of celestial and earthly
  attainment, of peace, of happiness, and success,
  of vegetable sustenance.
• Ancient Egypt Faience (a fired, man-made
  substance of crushed quartz and silica mixed with
  a bit of lime, ash and copper). Also a Turquoise
  blue.
• A semi-precious material, beloved by the gods and
  goddesses. Suitable offerings to the Pharaoh and
  gods/goddesses.

9
Time as Symbol

• We organize our lives around seconds, minutes,
  hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc.
• Time is also arbitrary! Why 7 days in a week?
  Why not 5 or 16? Our week of 7 days is a
  non-physical symbol that stands for a particular
  period of time.
• Ritual usually goes hand in hand with time.
• Today Religious rituals that are practiced on a
  specific day of the week/day of the month/day of
  the year?
• Examples?
• Periodic Rituals
• Mayan calendar
• Egyptian calendar

10
Time cont.

• Chronotope A timescale unique to a certain
  society
• history, time and reality are social constructs
  and symbolic forms that undergo specific shapings
  and weighings in every culture and in every age.
  (p. 17).
• history is not a universal, uniform frame within
  which each culture develops in its own different
  way, but rather a product of culture, a cultural
  form.
• Our (Western) time A linear Chronotope.
• Augustine of Hippo (354-440 CE Christian Bishop
  philosopher) Christs death on the cross was the
  irreducibly unique and irreversible event that,
  for the believer, creates a newly linear time.
  While the heathens wander around in circles ( a
  calendar, punctuated by the rhythms of mornings,
  noons, and evenings, births and deaths, repeating
  themselves over and over again indefinitely.)
  Christians move toward the consummation
  represented by redemption. (linear time)
• Rites cyclicalize time by observing regulations
  to the letter and by ensuring that each ritual
  celebration corresponds exactly with the
  preceding ones. The model for such cyclical
  congruence is the cosmos, with its orbital
  recurrence of astronomical, meteorological, and
  seasonal cycles. Hence the generation of
  cyclical time within society serves to harmonize
  the human order of things with the cosmic.
• Mircea Eliade (1949 Le Mythe de Léternel
  retour) mythical thinking constructs time as
  circular, and experiences all events as the
  recurrence of primordial patterns ancient
  cultures typically froze out change through the
  ritual cyclicalization of time, whereas (our)
  historical thinking constructs time as a line or
  path of an arrow, along which events are
  experienced as breach, innovation and change.
• Levi-Strauss Linear time serves to consolidate
  power and sociopolitical identity it goes hand
  in hand with statehood and a written culture.

11
Canonization

• Canonization a ban on variation.
• Ex The Old Kingdom in Egypt (3000 BCE) is the
  epoch that developed the style and repertoire of
  Egyptian formal idioms. By reverting to these
  forms, the later epochs canonized them, elevating
  style to the status of canon. Canonization,
  then, is the institutionalization of permanence,
  a strategy for foiling time, and hence one of the
  most favored cultural techniques for constructing
  a specific chronotope

12
Music as Symbol

• Music as a symbol used to get across the desired
  meaning of a ritual
• Music can be used to teach, express/affect
  emotional states, produce altered states of
  consciousness, to please/contact supernatural
  powers.
• Membraneophones, Cordophones, Aerophones,
  Idiophones
• Ex Sistrum/clappers (Egypt)
• Since music is symbolic, it is interwoven in the
  learned traditions of a culture.
• Meaning Music that uses pitch, tone, speed,
  cadence, beat to convey and emotion (like
  happiness) in a culture not your own, may not
  necessarily evoke in you feelings of joy. The
  reverse is also naturally true.
• In order to bridge the music symbolism gap
  between cultures, some artists are employing
  syncretism (fusion of elements from 2 diff.
  cultures) to help convey meaning.
• Ex Missa Luba (Catholic mass traditional
  tribal instruments/rhythm from Kongo tribe o/t
  Democratic Republic of Congo
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vToNb-02n3KY
• Ex Loreena McKennitt (traditional Celtic
  mythology modern instruments/synthesizers
  occasional Christian elements)
• Mummers Dance
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v0B7sH5QLyXY

13
Dance as Symbol

• Many traditional religions use dance as a symbol
  to create meaning
• Ex Vodou
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vzYWFL3Bj2LUfeature
  related
• Ex Whirling Dervishes
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vGJIofU-0jC0
• Ex Pueblo Eagle Dance
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vQO2g9tgWjbU

14
Additional terms

• Kiva Usually, an underground ceremonial
  chamber. Used by the Tewa (Pueblo Native
  Americans) before they emerge to perform sacred
  dances. (pp 73-75)
• Totemism A special relationship between an
  animal (or plant/feature of the environment) and
  an individual/group of individuals
  assigned/formed during the period of creation.
  (See pp. 69-71 Aboriginee groups-)
• Totem A symbol/emblem (animal/plant/environmenta
  l feature usually) that stands for a certain
  social unit (a person/group)
• Examples in Western Culture Mascots/ What
  animal do you most identify with?