The Universality of Occult Symbolism

As above, so below

Interpretation of religious texts relies upon a knowledge of the symbolism behind them.

A knowledge of symbolism differing from person to person, so does the level of interpretation.

The symbolism of one system can enhance the interpretation of the symbolism of another system. The level of interpretation is thus naturally broadened.

To demonstrate what is meant, let us consider the symbolism of a well-known religious text.

The opening of Revelations in the Christian Bible:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God

is meaningless without a knowledge of the Gnostic symbolism that inspired it.

Without that knowledge, it is open to misinterpretation, even debasement.

Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th.Century German philosopher, paraphrased it as:

In the beginning was nonsense,
and the nonsense was with God,
and the nonsense was God.

Such were the far-reaching karmic consequences, in this one influential philosopher, of a priesthood withholding an occult interpretation to protect its authority and dogmas.

We can leave such sad foolishness to consider interpretations closer to the original meaning.

Some Pythagoreans and non-dualistic Vedantins might interpret the passage this way:

In the beginning was geometry,
and the geometry was with sound,
and the geometry was sound.

A Theosophist, on the other hand, might offer this interpretation:

In the beginning was thought,
and thought was with motion,
and thought was motion.

Combining the two gives this interpretation:

In the beginning was the geometry of thought,
and the geometry of thought was with the motion of sound,
and the geometry of thought was the motion of sound.

Before advancing our interpretation, we should remember a fundamental of occult symbolism, applicable to all occult traditions.

This fundamental is the trinity as represented by the triangle. A trinity represents a manifestation of life - local or cosmic. Two points of a trinity are its potential unrealized. Its third point is the result emanating from the two points conjoining under the archetypal direction of a higher trinity.

What this means for our interpretation is that we are considering "the beginning" of life manifest; we are not considering that archetypal trinity which is its parent - absolute and unknowable.

Perhaps this will become clearer as we go on. So far we have two points, verbalize them as we will - the geometry of thought and the motion of sound.

Remember, we are interpreting "the beginning" of life manifest. Occult philosophy insists, without equivocation, that the first emanation of life was intelligence; that intelligence which maintains universal life in perfect equilibrium to itself.

This makes our third point, not so much intelligence, as an emanation of the two points that result in an active form of intelligent individuation.

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The textual interpretation is:

In the beginning was the geometry of thought,
and the geometry of thought was with the motion of sound,
and the motion of sound was the geometry of thought
in its beginning as intelligent life.

The trinity is complete. The advanced student of occultism would draw a circle around the triangle to demonstrate it - the geometry of thought is intelligence, given life and form by its mother, the motion of sound.

Now - how do you know that my interpretation is valid? You cannot know unless you are able to equate your thinking, your thought, to the idea that it is of a geometry of thought empowered by the motion of sound.

If you cannot do this - and it is a big ask - then there are other methods to determine the validity of an occult interpretation.

One method is correspondences, according to the true and tried Hermetic axiom - as above, so below.

Another true and tried method is to use gender, as in one of the above paragraphs, to elucidate the meaning of abstruse actions.

There is also this method, mentioned at the beginning - the symbolism of one system can enhance the interpretation of the symbolism of another system.

This leads into a great truth, too often forgotten by those students of occultism who should know of it - the Theosophists. It is what lies behind their three objects, holding those objects together as trinity and cause for action.

The exoteric theologies and symbolisms of world religions, no matter how grotesque or absurd, fit together to manifest truth to and within humanity as a whole.

It is esotericism which can disentangle the truth from the excrescence. And the surest way is through an application of occult symbolism.

True, occult symbolism is an undeveloped area in contemporary occultism. Westerners of the present generations, living in a world of bland materialism, where architecture is faceless, their cities without adornment or statues depicting great truths in the symbolism of gods and goddesses, that truth shaping their beauty, have a great difficulty in comprehending symbolic deities outside the Greco-Roman tradition.

The pantheons of India, South America, even ancient Egypt, are alien and unapproachable. These same people find it incomprehensible that the ancient Greeks and Romans should have painted their statues, which they did. The age of cultivated materialism would have all statues unpainted, bland, remote, dead...

Yet the living Hindu pantheon is there before the unencumbered, the geometric points of godly representations holding - and revealing, to those who can read them - the geometry of thought and its occult motion.

The interaction of the gods, as with the ancient European pantheon of Hesoid, gives the meaning of their actions where their intersecting points meet.

It is perhaps only when we have understood as much, that we can say, in all honesty,

THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH