Pokemon Adult Pyjamas

The cosmogony of ancient civilizations: between magic and religion



The term cosmogony means a collection of poems, myths, traditional teachings that seek to interpret the origin of the universe. Various civilizations have given different answers to the mystery of creation, divided by Mircea Eliade, From Primitives to Zen in the work , a large anthology edited by the Romanian scholar, into four groups:

1. Creation from nothing (a higher being created the world in thought, word, warming etc.).
2. Reason for the swimmer (a God send water birds or animals or amphibians swim in person to the surface of the primordial ocean to bring a parcel of land from which then creates the earth)
3. Creating dividend two primordial unit (with three variants: the separation of Heaven and Earth that the parents of the world, the original separation of an amorphous mass, Chaos, a division into two cosmogonic egg).
4. Created by dismemberment of a primordial being (or a willing victim of a monster or anthropomorphic aquatic defeated after a terrible battle). In

ritual that repeats the creation of the world we have one of the cornerstones of understanding of magical thinking. To be able to act magically draw the size of the Gods, where space and time are sacred and the divine energy which is intercepted before it transformed in the multiplicity of things and events. In addition, the gods and heroes of the past to have excused the man superior knowledge, and divine magic, which is necessary to practice magic.

It 's only through a knowledge of the ethnological and cultural anthropological type that you can understand how and why the ancients felt that magical thinking he had a reason to exist and to function properly. The practice of magic is based on some of the concepts that we presented and, even when not directly dependent on them in the laboratory, it uses the symbolic language.

Tradition Scandinavian

The Scandinavians have left a very important document, called Völuspá. This is a text of ancient Norse literature: written in Old Norse (Old Norse, Icelandic is very similar to today), reported in the Edda, manual of prosody and metrics, full of valuable information on the ancient Norse religion. The work is attributed to Snorri Storluson, a major Scandinavian writers who lived between the twelfth and thirteenth century. The Völuspá was probably written in the transition from paganism to Christianity around the year 1000. It recounts the origins of the world according to Norse mythology.

Völuspá, second verse


"There was a time when nothing remotely
was, nor sand nor sea

or cold waves.
The earth and the sky was not even
, only
abyss,
and there was no grass. "

(trans. Robert Tresoldi )

(...)

The Mayan tradition

The population of the Quiché Maya Popol Vuh has handed down the work (literally written pages), commonly called the Bible of the Maya Quiché. Written a few years after colonization (the list of kings arrive until 1550), probably by a Quiché Maya of Guatemala that operated by the new rulers, reports myths, beliefs, histories of the religious world of the people of the Quiché Maya. Written in Quiché, but with Latin, was translated into English several times over the centuries. In the beginning there was only sky and sea, there was still the land of the living or anything. The characteristic of this size was the total lack of movement or noise, the total darkness. The only existing light that was emanating from the creation ancestors, gods and primordial Tepeu Gucumatz in deep water. The meeting of Tepeu Gucumatz springs and the first word, the result of the thoughts of the two deities, which are agreed to create life and man.

The Jewish and Christian tradition

The accounts of creation given in the Bible are known to all and are crucial in the evolution of the esoteric language of the Judeo-Christian civilization. Genesis 1, perhaps more significant is the text of the myth of creation. But, beyond theological interpretation that the synagogue and the Christian Churches can make these steps, it is important to emphasize that the action of the deity is represented here as a magician who could be presented using the power of the word, could be the things and relationships between them, and get a positive result which is well pleased. We have seen how the word has considerable significance in the myths of creation is found among the Quiche Maya in the Upanishads and India, as well as in other traditions. It 'important to remember the size of vibration of the word, so its physical feature: sound vibrations set in motion the air and are able to operate a variety of physical operations, such as resonance or interference. In societies in ethnological imitates the magician by appropriate rituals or religious ceremonies, the action of the gods, repeat this action and thereby creating primordial space / time where the sacred works of magic can take effect. Also, look through divination (for example through astrology) to know what the will of the gods, in order to operate them properly.

Greek tradition

The origin of the Greek text that is more commonly considered for its undoubted antiquity, is Hesiod's Theogony, written by the poet of Boeotia around the end of the eighth century BC The work, as the name implies, is the story of the origin of the gods and their ties of kinship. Hesiod probably drew a pre-existing rich mythology (in part, except that Homer), whose origin is perhaps the first to be found in some of the myths of the Near East, mediated by the Hittite civilization. Hesiod offers a view of the origin of which is also an interpretation of the origin of the world: the gods are in fact "hypostasis and personifications of reality" (G. Arrighetti introduction to the Theogony, Hesiod, Theogony , BUR). The later Greek tradition also recalls other cosmologies in different parts, a very ancient, according to which the reality was originally in a state of hazy, dark form of air and windy. From this time would originate in individual things. In Hesiod we have the story of Uranus and Gaia to prevent procreation, pushing the children within that generated: a powerful image of an original state at large in which heaven and earth were fused together and things were struggling to get home. The repetition (of an adequate representation of the sacred) the activities of the primordial will sanctify an event, the foundation of a city, the erection of a temple, placing them at the center of the story represented and giving them a dimension of space / sacred time.

The Babylonian tradition

The fundamental work of religious thought is the Babylonian Enuma Elish (literally: "When the top ..." from the beginning of the poem.) When you compose, in the first millennium BC, it replaces, as the holy book par excellence, in all previous Sumerian and Assyrian traditions, leading to a revolution: the replacement of the previous gods of the various major cities dominate the past (such as Enlil, Enki etc.) with the divine ruler of Babylon, Marduk. This, without changing the overall picture of the rich pantheon Sumerian / Assyrian-Babylonian and keeping alive the most ancient traditions and customs. The Enuma Elish, as we mentioned first, it was dramatized and played in full during the great festival of the New Year. The Enuma Elish begins with a description of the primordial waters before the heavens and the earth were to be given a name. The water, mixed together, represented Apsu and Tiamat, the goddess from whose breasts were born all the gods. Significant is the symbolic value of Apsu and Tiamat: one, in addition to being the consort of Tiamat, is also a place flooded with underground fresh water, Tiamat, the primeval goddess, as well as being identified with the salt water, is the primordial chaos. Tiamat is created by the killing of the world and killing of a deity's aide will formed man (consisting of land, from the blood of the gods killed and animated by the spit of all the gods). From the philosophical point of view we see that the original principle is a male, the other the original principle of women, who mix their waters to the origin, indicating that the two are different but linked together by a point of contact . Moreover, they are dynamic principles (water, in constant motion and can take many forms).

The Egyptian tradition

The Egyptian tradition is very important for the evolution of esoteric thought through time. This role of transmitting knowledge was already recognized in ancient greek as reported by the writer Plutarch: Isis and Osiris in the work, said that several Greek philosophers had traveled in Egypt and among them Solon, Thales, Plato, Eudoxus, Pythagoras, and Lycurgus. The different cosmologies of ancient Egypt are related to their theogonies (generations of the gods): the most significant are those eliopolitana, Memphis and Hermopolis.

The enneade eliopolitana

The nine deities are divided into two groups: a primordial probably composed by the god Atum, Tefnut and Shut by his sons, and their children Geb and Nut and subsequent inclusion of a composed by the children of Nut and Geb: Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Nut, Geb. The god Atum (total), the Sun-God, is the demiurge who created the world. Risen from the lotus flower that appeared along with the original mound of earth, nothing emerged from the waters of indistinct (the primordial waters, identifiable with the chaos of the origins or with a dimension of non-existence), Atum has inside, every thing, creature, or occurrence in power. Shu born from his seed (empty) the god of air, and Tefnut, moisture: facing the foundation mythology of dry and wet, two basic principles of ancient physics. As Shu the god of the air in this world, Tefnut is the air in the hereafter. Shu and Tefnut generated Geb and Nut. Geb, God of Earth, the male principle and Nut, Sky Goddess, the feminine principle (as opposed to what we have in other mythologies, where the Earth is the feminine passive principle and the sky and the masculine and positive). Nut is shown as a woman with long arms and legs, placed the body in time to represent the vault of heaven. On it are often painted the stars. Below it, on the ground, lying is her husband, Geb. After they have raised four children, is interposed between them Shu, which is represented holding up his daughter with the arms (the air between earth and sky and is a tangible principle, can help to sustain the cosmos). Beyond the sky from rappresnetato Nut, we have the primordial waters of chaos (Nu), which were only withdrawn after the creation but have not gone away and always incumbent on it. During the day, the Sun God sails under the body of Nut, while at night he enters the body of the Goddess of Heaven, the crosses to be borne ALLB again later. It is to be a system of balance that can repeat the cycle of life and death and can at the same time combat the chaos and disorder to maintain the cosmic balance. To this end, from the Fifth Dynasty, makes its appearance in the god Osiris, with his brothers, which is to be associated with pre-existing deity. The god Ptah. Ptah is the god of Memphis, the ancient capital of ancient Egypt. In this city, during the New Kingdom, EIST a temple, called the Palace of the Ka of Ptah (the same name in the region of Memphis), from which the Greeks had derived the name of Egypt (from Aiguptos Hewet-Ka-Ptah). Unlike Eliopolitana theology, Ptah the Memphite sees the source of all creation, God put into effect by the understanding and speech. We have two key principles, the spiritual and intellectual that is the basis of creation, and a material, consisting of the divinity Ta-Tenen (Earth distinguishable's breakaway from the primordial waters of chaos symbolized by Nu), with which the god is to identify from the thirteenth Ta-Tenen century BC is the first mound of earth, born from the waters. We see it as a god Ptah is mixed (creative principle and basic material from which to proceed to the creation). He is at the root of all other gods and of all things, which she created with the sole power of the word.

Theology Hermopolis

The city of Ermopolis, so called by the Greeks because it is associated to the god Thoth, whom they identified with Hermes, it is now called Al-Ashmunein and is located in Middle Egypt. Formerly called Khemnu, a term that means eight cities. The number eight is very important because it is related to the eight primordial deities from which everything arose. According to the theology of Hermopolis, in principle there was a subtle matter in which cosmic operated eight principles: four pairs of deities (males and females were frogs snakes), which interacted with each other in a balanced way: they were with his wife Nu Haunet, Heh and his wife Hauhet, Keke and his wife with his wife and Amon Kauket Amaunet. At some point, you create an energy imbalance between the gods, who interact giving rise to a huge explosion. In the course of the explosion creates a mound of earth and with it the Sun, for which the land is called the Island of Flame (later identified with Hermopolis). According to this theology, the eight gods (Ogoade) would be above all'enneade of Heliopolis, and would by their action that would be built on the same universe and Atum. Later, the god Amon and his wife will migrate to Memphis, while the other gods, perhaps not accepting new universe had been created, will remain on the sidelines. (1)

(1) Roberto Tresoldi, Encyclopedia of esotericism, DVE, Milano 2002.