The human skeleton in the artistic and esoteric symbolism and imagery
climbing the long staircase that leads to the Church of Morcote (Switzerland), surrounded by the idyllic landscapes of Lake Lugano, the faithful who goes to the function, the art historian, a tourist visiting or the simple traveler, would be to pass in front of a fresco enigmatic and I would say "tight", depicting a human skeleton, portrait posing "a philosopher", along with a phylactery apparently alluding to the Christian eschatological beliefs. The inscription, "You will live the Dead", which the devotee invokes the idea of \u200b\u200bimmortality of the soul, has, for the esoteric, a much more complex and subtle. Significance is underlined by the presence of the skeleton, one of the most present in the iconographic symbols of secret societies. The pose "a philosopher" taken from the skeleton in question seems to imply that the fresco, and especially the phylacteries, should be "thoughtful" than watched.
entering the austere and sober Church of Roquebrune-sur-Argens (France), moving a few steps to the left of the entrance door, we are in a very interesting chapel "Masonic." The mosaic floor, stands the supreme symbol of brotherhood Freemasonry (the effigy of the team and intersected the compass). Even the brochures collected in the Office du Turisme informs us (with a frankness that in countries with stronger Catholic presence would, in similar cases, at least utopian), which is precisely the place of burial of a Master Mason.
In the chapel, We see skulls and ossements gold, carved in relief in wood along with some flames and vines that climb up the columns. The skull and crossbones, dear symbolic imagery of Freemasonry and the Knights Templar (only later inherited by pirates), represent (at least on first reading level) the bones of the legendary Abif Hiram, architect of the Temple of Solomon and legendary progenitor of all initiates charpentiers.
the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome, houses a famous painting by Guercino, entitled "Et in Arcadia Ego." This framework is the time when some shepherds of Arcadia, the Greek region idealized as "Earthly paradise" in bucolic mold, they encounter human remains lying at the foot of a tombstone. The stele is inscribed with the phrase "Et in Arcadia Ego" (Even I am in Arcadia). This is one of the lucky ones (how to punch rather than diffusion) memento mori: episodes or pictures, that is, whose purpose was to remind the observers of the imminence of death, ahead of which the "good Christian" would had to think of repentance and abandonment of sin. At least that ecclesiastical interpretation. In this case, to say the sentence would be engraved on the tombstone Death itself, claiming to be "too" in Arcadia (That is, a place of pleasure and carelessness for excellence), pointed out to the shepherds the impermanence of worldly beauty.
A similar meaning is attributed to the episode of the meeting of the three live and three dead (see for example the remarkable fresco of the Castello di Serravalle in Bosa, Sardinia). Three young medieval lords, during a walk in the woods back from a hunt with the falcon, they ran into three tombs open. In them lie dead in three different stages of decomposition. Suddenly the dead addresses young people principles, saying the inexorable decision: "What we were you are, what we are you will."
The skull as memento mori is also found in almost all representations of the Penitent Magdalene (citing some authors) or other Saints, in the melancholy portraits of nobles and artists, as well as, of course, in the figure of Hamlet Shakespeare and his popular monologue "To be or not to be" (although, in reality, the original version of the tragedy, the monologue of the protagonist and the discovery by that of the remains of Yoric are not concurrent).
In Christianity, we must not forget to mention the importance of the skull in the representations of the Passion: Jesus, under the "Gospels" was crucified at Golgotha, the "Place of the Skull" in fact, more precisely in the place where, according to Jewish tradition, was buried the skull of Adam.
Other popular uses of the symbol of the human skull and dell'ossatura be found pre-Columbian art, especially the Aztec, a culture that has always emphasized the appearance of the sacred and mysterious death. See in this regard, the sculptured reliefs, frescoes and written codes (the day of the glyphs, symbols of the gods ...), in addition to those enigmatic "crystal skulls" in a perfect bill, which some would not work but the Aztecs disappearances "civilization of dawn" and their advanced technology craft. How
I have already pointed out in my latest book ("Reflections on the Great Work", 2006) the skull, but in general the human skeleton, was a symbol of importance for the MA, which bound him to Nigredo and particularly to that phase of putrefactio (Rot). If the spiritual meaning of the Black or Opera Nigredo reference eponymous chapter of my book, is rather esoteric on the high capacity of the skeleton that I now turn. This was so even in Alchemy, a memento mori, an invitation to meditation on impermanence and the vaquita, as this is known to be the way to gnosis (see the Sanskrit texts of Mahayana), but the huge symbol of eloquence does not end with this - albeit important - consideration of the eschatological nature. The function of the skeleton in Alchemy was not so much to remember the physical death: this semantics, in a hypothetical scale of interpretation of the archetype, is positioned in the initial steps. The progression indurebbe to consider the symbol of the skeleton rather than as an embodiment of particular processes occurring (or expected) During the operation, and therefore during the development of human conscience.
One of these meanings, it would definitely reduce the Essence. The Initiate it to arrive at "grade mystical" represented by the skeleton, would reached, reading between the synonyms of the word, the skeleton, the scaffolding, casing, the internal framework of the self. Hence the consciousness of the Adept deprived of all mental superstructure, reduced literally to the bone, pure essence, or quintessence. The individual
profane come here at the height of its disintegration, its "decomposition": dead to the world, ignorance, apparently, can now do on the input nell'Oltre initiation, in Wisdom and Being. The skeleton is a symbol of having made half-way point of deification: the primitive Self is already fully dissolved, the new has yet to be formed (symbolically the new flesh, the new body). This new body is to come - or rather by the emergence - is the "resurrection of the flesh on the Day of Judgement: No future event in the world but internal event of the Opera. The Initiate recover his body after he died philosophically, but it is time for a new body as integral to the Body of Light "that now the Alchemist, is fully aware. The skeleton is a symbol of one who died, is waiting to be reborn Adept. Like the snake that is stripped of the old skin or the phoenix that burns in the fire that will procure renewal.
This is the meaning carried by the skeleton in the dreams-visions of the ancient shamans. "The Eskimo neophyte must successfully undergo a great trial initiation. To succeed, this effort requires a long experience of physical asceticism and contemplation of mind as having the ability to view themselves as vederse a skeleton. On this spiritual exercise, the shamans interviewed by Rasmussen gave very vague information, the illustrious explorer summarized as follows: "Although no one can explain how and why shaman, could, however, thanks to the power that his thinking it receives from the supernatural , stripped his body of flesh and blood, so it does not remain that the bones. (...) Observations in this way, naked and completely released from flesh and blood perishable and ephemeral, he devotes himself, always in the sacred language of the shamans, to his great mission in this part of his body that is designed to resist for longer periods to Delsol, wind and time ". This important meditative exercise, which is also equivalent to an initiation (...) strangely recalls the dreams of the Siberian shamans, except that the reduction to the state of the skeleton is, in this case, an operation performed by shamans or ancestors other mythical beings, while the Eskimos at the transaction obtained through mental an asceticism and personal efforts of concentration. (...) But in both cases, the decrease in skeleton marks a passing of the profane human condition and, therefore, a liberation from it. (...) Reduced to the status of the skeleton is equivalent to a reintegration into the array (...), ie a total renovation, a mystical rebirth "(Mircea Eliade," Le Chamanisme "from" Encyclopédie des mystiques, "on Edited by M.-M. Davy, Petite Bibliothèque Payot).
The phylacteries of Morcote, "Dead will live" as well as the inclusion guerciniana "Et in Arcadia Ego" can then be read in a new light. Dead (initiation), seems to suggest the former, you will live (really). You'll say the "Living" came out a day, the Osiris justified the "Book of the Dead" Egyptian. "Et in Arcadia Ego", may not be the sentence of death, but that this has become the Initiate Adept. So, I (who died initiation) I am now in Arcadia (ie the size of the so-called mystical and eternal Iperuranio). I am a skeleton, or one that is free to all. "What you are I was, what I am you will be, if we accept this proposition exegetical, is what is being said by the Master-started that appeals to the novice. "What you are I I was a (secular), what I am you will be (Adept).
skeleton, do not forget, the symbol of the inner core of things (in this sense may be the symbol of the heart), is also the covert nature of them, the backbone of the secret of the cosmos, the "code" creationist, far from the form but the root structure of each particular form. Here is a "skeleton" that you can represent the "bare bones" by Alchemist, the mystery of Nature, have explored the secrets.
The skull, which is also part of the skeleton, however, and often occupies a privileged position in the symbolism and iconography, has in fact only the meanings that partially overlap with the human skeleton in its entirety.
Considered individually, the skull is opened and then a series of readings that go beyond those analyzed earlier. It represents the boss, and as such means metaphorically everything that happens in your head, or, by extension, within the human being. His imagery is often linked with that of the vessel or the still. It is the crater of the Intellect "which is discussed in the" Corpus Hermeticus "(Book IV), the mystic cup of the divine Logos which was the real object of the search quête du Graal. In the skull he met of spirit and matter, Deus et Homo. Hence the significance of the Magic head, skull or scalp in almost all ancient cultures. The rendering
Initiate and conservazine of his head, we find that a bit 'anywhere in the esoteric literature (from shamanism to the lives of the saints, until the Alexandrian alchemy "Spendor Solis") means the annihilation of the physical links in' Adept and the changing perception of self, from body to the Body of Light: he is now pure intellect, pure Spirit agent in the field, unperturbed about the world, he finds himself in the world but not of the world, in space without being of space, time, although forever.
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