The Interpretation of Symbolic Forms
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the jungles of Guatemala there is a Mayan temple known as the “Temple of the
Cross,” at Palenque, where there is a shrine exhibiting for worship a cross that
is mythologically associated with a savior figure, names by the Mayans Kukulcan,
and by the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl: a name that is translated “Feathered Serpent,”
and suggest the mystery of a personage uniting in himself the opposed principles
represented in the earthbound serpent and the released free flight of a bird.
Moreover, as the Scriptures related to this figure tell us, he was
born of a virgin; died and was resurrected;
and is revered as some sort of savior, who
will return, as in the Second Coming. All this adds another,
very troublesome, dimension to our problem of interpreting the symbolic form of
the cross, since it must now be recognized, not simply or singly as a reference
within one tradition to one historical event, but as a sign symbolically
recognized in other traditions as well, and in significant association,
moreover, with a number of related symbolic themes.
The
figure of the Feathered Serpent linked with the Cross, for example, immediately
suggests our own biblical Eden/Calvary continuity.
Furthermore, on top of the Mayan cross there is a bird sitting, the quetzal
bird, and at the base there is a curious mask, a kind of death mask.
Now a number of paintings of the Crucifixion from late medieval times and
the early Renaissance period show the Holy Ghost above, in the form of a dove,
and beneath the foot of the cross, a skull. The name of the
hill of the Crucifixions, as we all know, was in Aramaic, Golgotha, and in
Latin,
Cont’d … The answer, therefore to our question as to why the crucifixion of Jesus holds for Christians such importance implies a complex of essential associations that are not historical at all, but mythological. For, in fact, there was never any garden of Eden or serpent who could talk, nor solitary pre-Pithecanthropoid “First Man” or dreamlike “Mother Eve” conjured from his rib. Mythology is not history, although myths like that of Eden have been frequently misread as such and although mythological interpretations have been joined to events that may well have been factual, like the crucifixion of Jesus. TMD 191
One of the most effective ways to rediscover in any myth or legend the
spiritual “tenor” of its symbolic “vehicles” is to compare it, across the
reaches of space, or of time, with homologous forms from other, even greatly
differing traditions. The underlying core then is readily
unshelled from its local, historically conditioned provincial inflections,
applications, or tendentious secondary interpretations, and a shared
psychological, or spiritual, ground is opened, transcending the conditions of
space and time, and of history. TMD 201
Mythological symbols come from the psyche and speak to the psyche; they do not spring from or refer to historical events. They are not to be read as newspaper reports of things that, once upon a time, actually happened.
Religious symbols
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