Tuesday, September 2, 2008

mundus imaginalis

It is not as though we escape into a passive state of fantasy, like drug addicts who cannot function in ordinary life. The past distills itself  into the mundus imaginalis, which surrounds us like the resources of our memory, deepening our responses, showing us myths and archetypes which give meaning and focus to our individual destinies. It also bestows a sensitivity to beauty, that quality most spurned by the century that is thankfully past. Children are naturally aware of this, and eager to absorb wisdom through mythology and the encounter with archetypes: hence the success of Disneyland. But we can offer something better than a commercialism aimed at the lowest common denominator. The creative wealth of the ages, the arts and music once reserved for an aristocratic elite, are now open to all who have the ears, eyes, and inclination. While the collectors and artists of the Renaissance seized at every fragment of classical antiquity, to weave it into their own being and their creations, we are infinitely richer in potential. In a stroll through a museum we can appropriate both classical antiquity and its Renaissance revival, nor do we have to reject the Middle Ages that came in between. We can contemplate the Christian myths as well as the pagan ones, and appreciate the values that each brought into the world. We are free to believe, or not to believe, in any of them. And this is to say nothing of the non-European cultures whose legacies are spread out before us. Yet in gratitude for this plenum, this superfluity of the past and the overwhelming superiority of its treasures, we may sometimes wonder what we will leave to our descendants, five hundred years from now. Are we creating anything of lasting value, or are we, for all our material success, mere spiritual parasites living off the capital of our ancestors? What is today’s equivalent of the pagan dream, what riches of the imaginal world are we revealing for the future delectation of our kind?

Joscelyn Godwin, The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, Thames and Hudson, London, 2002. Chapter 11, p.260- 61.

Phoenix

Within the context of the Phoenix in the Harry Potter books, my own obsession with gathering material on the Phoenix – over the years, does not seem so strange.  The following superb articles surfaced today during my session at the University Library . . .  and may I add, that my Phoenix material, is generally indexed under FIRE SYMBOLISM, and of course also relates to Alchemical Imaginal Tradition, as well as having strong ancient Egyptian roots, thus locating the Phoenix, in the History of Religion of Africa. We seem [whoever the “we” may be] to forget that Ancient Egypt was African.  Then of course, there are the Pictures!  But then a Google of the word PHOENIX – will bring up a real can or worms . .   Here are today’s items . . 

Harrison, Thomas P., Bird of Paradise: Phoenix Redivivus, Isis, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jun., 1960), pp. 173-180

McDonald, Mary Francis, Phoenix Redivivus, Phoenix, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter, 1960), pp. 187-206

Niehoff, M. R., The Phoenix in Rabbinic Literature, The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 89, No. 3 (Jul., 1996), pp. 245-265

Priest, Alan, Phoenix in Fact and Fancy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Oct., 1942), pp. 97-101

Suhr, Elmer G., The Phoenix, Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 1 (1976), pp. 29-37

There is also a more technical Phoenix Bibliography at:

Medieval Bestiary :  http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastbiblio149.htm

And elsewhere - the resources are vast . .

TAROT CARDS

CARDS Cards function in the religious context both as instruments for performing divination rituals and as repositories of esoteric sacred ...