Iakov Levi

Myth and the Cloacal Theory (A Story of Stones)


Dec. 30, 2003
(Last modified on Oct. 15, 2007)




The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone (
Psalms 118:22)

Was it not necessary to sacrifice God himself, and out of cruelty to themselves to worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, nothingness?
(F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 55)

The "bite" of conscience is like a dog biting on a stone
(F.Nietzsche, Human All Too Human, vol. II, 38)

When I began to write my history I was inclined to count these legends as
foolishness, but on getting as far as Arcadia I grew to hold a more thoughtful view of
them, which is this. In the days of old those Greeks who were considered wise
spoke their sayings not straight out but in riddles, and so the legends about Cronus I
conjectured to be one sort of Greek wisdom. In matters of divinity, therefore, I shall
adopt the received tradition (Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.8.3)



Rhea delivers a stone to Cronos instead of their son Zeus

A stone is eaten by Chronos in place of his son. And the mother makes the substitution. Instead of a child, a stone.
In the tale of The Wolf and the Seven Kids we have a similar substitution. Stones instead of children:

Then the kid had to run home and fetch scissors, and a needle and thread, and the goat cut open the monster's stomach, and hardly had she make one cut, than one little kid thrust its head out, and when she cut farther, all six sprang out one after another, and were all still alive, and had suffered no injury whatever, for in his greediness the monster had swallowed them down whole. What rejoicing there was! They embraced their dear mother, and jumped like a sailor at his wedding. The mother, however, said, "Now go and look for some big stones, and we will fill the wicked beast's stomach with them while he is still asleep." Then the seven kids dragged the stones thither with all speed, and put as many of them into his stomach as they could get in; and the mother sewed him up again in the greatest haste, so that he was not aware of anything and never once stirred.
In the tale of Red Riding Hood there is a similar substitution. The wolf first eats Red Riding Hood and her grand mother. Then a hunter comes to their rescue and cuts the wolf open. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones, which kill him.

The displacement of psychic energy from children to stones has a long genesis.

According to Greek myth:
At the same time, the mountains of Thessaly were burst through by the flood, and all Greece without the Isthmus, as well as all the Peloponnesus, were overflowed. Deucalion was carried along the sea in his ark for nine days and nights, until he reached Mount Parnassus. By this time the rain had ceased, and, leaving his ark, he sacrificed to Zeus the flight-giver (Phuxios), who sent Hermes, desiring him to ask what he would. His request was to have the earth replenished with men. By the direction of Zeus, thereupon, he and his wife flung stones behind them, and those which Deucalion cast became men, and those thrown by Pyrrha women; from which circumstance the Greeks derived the name for “people” (laos) from laas, “a stone” ( Apollod.i.7.2, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer).
Freud has shown that children think that the way of procreation is anal: the cloacal theory  ("On the Sexual Theories of Children", in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol IX,  Hogarth Press, London 1959, p.215). Namely, mother and father procreate by the way of defecation. Babies are therefore faeces = stones = laas.
Throwing stones is psychically equivalent to defecating.

When the Bible tells us of the children Israel intending to throw stones at Moses and Aaron, as is said: "But all the congregation said to stone them with stones" (Numbers, 14:10), it is speaking of an anal collective drive.
The story of David killing Goliath is psychically equivalent, because every giant is unconsciously perceived as a Father imago. The little, good, guy kills the big, bad, guy:

David put his hand in his bag, and took there a stone, and slang it, and struck the Philistine in his forehead; and the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth (Sam. 17:50).
Like every aggressive acting out, the primal murder was indeed perpetrated through a regression to the anal stage.
However, the story condenses much more.

As Theodor Reik has shown in "The Moses of Michelangelo and the Events on Sinai" (Supplement of "The Shofar", in Ritual - Psychoanalytic Studies, New York 1946). Cf. Killing God. ), stones were the most archaic form of deities. In ancient cultures the stones were worshipped as gods (see the prehistoric Menhirs and the Semitic Matzeboth). Later, the stones - gods became statues, made by stone, representing the god. The concrete thing became an abstraction. The material, which had been the divinity itself, transfigured into the vehicle of its own representation. Through overlays, we take distance from the original and concrete thing.

In his brilliant essay, Reik shows that the Tablets of the Law that Moses brought down from the Mountain were the god himself.
The text emphasizes the "stony" nature of the tablets of the law: "Yahweh said to Moses, 'Come up to me on the mountain, and stay here, and I will give you the tables of stone with the law and the commands that I have written, that you may teach them'." (Ex. 24:12)
According to Reik, the two tablets of stone represented two gods, namely Jahveh and Moses.

If so, we have a hidden trace that the ancient Hebrews, too, worshipped a God the Father (Jahveh) with a God the Son (Moses). Just like Christians did many hundreds of years afterwards. Therefore it is not by accident that in Christian tradition Moses is so often compared to Jesus. Both are Son - gods. Both are mediators between God the Father and the people, and both are legislators. As Reik points: "A characteristic common to all son - gods is worth notice. They are redeemers and bringer of culture" ("The Puberty Rites of Savages", in op.cit. p.159).

As I have shown in Killing God, Moses was punished, and was prevented from entering the Promised Land, not because of a foggy sin of having defiled God at Meribah:
Moses lifted up his hand, and struck the rock (Zur) with his rod twice: and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle. Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, Because you didn't believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them. ( Numb.20:11-12. Cf. Deut. 32:38-42),
but because of the very concrete act of aggression towards the rock (Zur), which was God himself.


And now to the prophet Jeremiah:

they, their kings, their princes,
their priests, and their prophets,
who say to a tree, "You are my father,"
and to a stone, "You gave me birth"
(Jeremiah, 2:27)

When the Prophet complains: "she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with tree" (Jeremiah 3:9), he means that Israel has committed idolatry, worshipping stones and trees through sacred prostitution, which was the main cult of the Canaanites. The Israelites worshipped Canaanite god - stones, instead of worshipping Jahveh, the Hebrew god -stone.

Now, look how the text of THE DECLARATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL on May 14, 1948, concludes:

PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE "ROCK OF ISRAEL", WE AFFIX OUR SIGNATURES TO THIS PROCLAMATION AT THIS SESSION OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE, ON THE SOIL OF THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF TEL-AVIV, ON THIS SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY,1948).
Interesting enough, this conclusion was a compromise between the religious members of the provisional council of state and the atheistic members, who were the majority. The former pointed that after having mentioned the main vicissitudes of the Jewish people it was impossible to ignore completely the role of the Jewish religion and of God in their survival. On the other hand, the atheistic members of the socialist parties opposed any mention of God and religion, because the Zionist movement had been until then a secular - even an atheistic - stream. Most of the orthodox streams were opposed to political Zionism. As a compromise they decided to use the expression "Rock of Israel" (Zur Israel)
The expression Zur Israel is an idiom very often used in sacred literature and in prayers to define God, who is Israel's defender and fortress, namely a rock.
In this way, the atheist member could argue that the expression is only an abstract concept meaning, namely the standing power of the Jewish people, whilst the religious members knew that the protagonist was the very concrete God of Israel, and not an abstraction at all.
So, the very concrete and most archaic stone - god of the ancient Hebrew, who was thrown out through the main door, found his way back through the window.


And Hamlet, speaking of his father, the assassinated king:

On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.
(Act III, Scene IV)


Pindar sings:
Pyrrha and Deucalion came down from Parnassus and made their first home, and without the marriage-bed [45] they founded a unified race of stone offspring, and the stones gave the people their name. Arouse for them a clear-sounding path of song; praise wine that is old, but praise the flowers of songs (Pind. O. 9.41ff)
It seems that, in human psyche, the instrument of the acting out of the murder condensed with the representation of the murdered Father.
A stone he was, and stones were used to kill him.
And, as we have seen from the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha, stones are the children of man. Therefore, procreation is acted out through the same instrument that was used for the murder. A stone was the Father, by stones he was murdered, and stones are his grand - children: a unified race of stone .

The Gospels reiterate by association the unconscious equivalence of stones = children, as is written: "Don't think to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father,' for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones" (Matt. 3:9). Exactly like Pyrrha and Deucalion, who transformed stones into children.

The Father – stone condenses with the Son –stone: Mithras, the Son - god who initiated his adepts through seven stages of initiation, at the climax of which a bull was sacrificed, symbol of the Father like the Minoan Minotaur and the Egyptian god Apis, was Petrogenitum, meaning: “born from a stone”.

As Freud writes in Totem and Taboo, the first pledge of mankind was the self - inhibition undertaken by the Primal Horde, not to repeat the murder.
This was, as we not casually say, the founding stone of society. The mnemonic trace that pledges are associated to stones, emerges in customs of the peoples. As Herodotus reports:
There are no men who respect pledges more than the Arabians. This is how they give them: a man stands between the two pledging parties, and with a sharp stone cuts the palms of their hands, near the thumb; then he takes a piece of wool from the cloak of each and smears with their blood seven stones that lie between them (Herodotus, The Histories , 3.8.1. ed. A. D. Godley).
Petrus (St. Peter) means “stone”. As is written:
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God", Jesus said to him: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." (Matthew 16:18).
Petra (stone), and Petrus (San Peter) are the same word. But also Pater (in Latin "Father") comes from the same root.
It is not casual that Peter holds the key to the Gate of Heaven, through which the ones who are purified from their sins will enter Paradise. As in the puberty rites of savages, the ones who pass through the rites of purification are allowed to enter adults' society. As I have shown in Pinocchio, Christianity and its ideology of Salvation is the equivalent of the archaic puberty rites. St. Peter is the patron of the novices, like Apollo in archaic Greece. He is the mediator between God (the generation of the fathers) and the believers (the novices). Therefore, he is Petrus - a stone- condensation of Father and Son.
Petrus is the one who asks Jesus about forgiveness:
"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, when my brother continues to do something wrong to me, how many times must I forgive him? Should I forgive him as many as seven times?' " (Mattew 18:21)
Seven times, like the seven stages of the cult of Mithras' initiation rite. As I have shown in I Numeri sacri e il loro simbolismo, the number seven became a sacred number because it is associated to the number of novices that were gathered in order to perform the initiation rite.
Apollo is the god protector of the youngsters, and like Petrus, is associated to the number seven. As Aeschylus writes:
But lord Apollo, the reverend leader of the seventh, took for himself the seventh gate, accomplishing upon the children of Oedipus the ancient follies of Laius (Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, 800, ed. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph.D.).
Mithra was petrogenitum (born from a rock), and Petrus is himself a rock. On this rock, meaning, the condensation - compromise between Father and Son, the Church is founded. Christianity is indeed a compromise between a Father - god and a Son - god.
Prometheus is the prototype of the Christ, before the compromise between Father and Son was worked out, as it later occurred in Christian tradition. He was condemned to stay chained to his Cross (the rock), for having defied the Father (Zeus). Christ atoned, and he sits Dextera Patris (at the right of the Father).
As I have shown in Pinocchio and the Cult of the Trees, the Tree of the Cross, to which Jesus was hanged is equivalent to Prometheus' rock, to which he was chained. The bird, which daily comes to devour Prometheus' liver, is Zeus' phallic symbol. Indeed, the eagle is the symbol of Zeus. In many paintings, we still can see the dove, symbol of the Holy Ghost, standing on the top of the Cross. The bird only transfigured from threatening and malevolent into "dovish" and benevolent. The original meaning has beeen repressed, but the bird is still there.
For birds as phallic symbols, cf.: On Trees and on Birds.

After all, poets know better:
THERE ARE four legends concerning Prometheus:
According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.
According to the second Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.
According to the third his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by himself.
According to the fourth everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily. There remained the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.
(Franz Kafka, “Prometheus”, 1918, Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, in The Complete Stories, Edited by Nahum N. Glatzer, Schocken Books, New York 1971, p.432)

On Prometheus, Cf. Maestri and Disciples .

Cf. the illustration in Q.Zangrilli, I sette peccati capitali


Under the burden of the sense of guilt, the anal sadistic urge is re-directed from the external object inwards, and sadism translates into masochism.
In one of the most known iconographic models, Saint Jerome is shown kneeling in the desert and beating his breast with a stone: Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.

As Jesus said: "He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her." (John 8:7). The implication is that we are all guilty because we all have thrown stones.

And Nietzsche:

Words lie in our way! Whenever the ancients set down a word, they believed they had made a discovery. How different the truth of the matter was! - They had come across a problem; and while they supposed it to have been solved, they actually had obstructed its solution. - Now in all knowledge one stumbles over rock-solid eternalized words, and would sooner break a leg than a word in doing so. (The Dawn, 47)
Words lie in our way, what does it mean? Once one said: "Speech has been given to man in order to conceal his thoughts". Therefore, words are a smoke screen, which covers up our real intentions. As we know, in our unconscious there is no difference between deeds and thoughts, and these always are bad thoughts, as is written: "Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." ( Gn. 6:5)
The bad deeds - thoughts are the aggressive drives towards God the Father. Words are meant to hide the original aggressive drive, which is rock-solid.
Now, we can better understand Nietzsche's quote: when we try to reconnect to our inner truth (throwing stones) we stumble on words, which are a mechanism of defence against the repressed instinctual drive. The expression rock-solid eternalized words condenses the aggressive drive (the rock) and the device of defence (eternalized words).

As I have shown in Il silenzio e la parola, first was the acting out (the deed), then the orgiastic joy and pain of music, concomitant to the discharge of energy through muscular activity (dance), and only at the end of the process of repression, speech substituted action, concealing its true substance.

In myths, tales, and art nothing is casual. The Christ, who is the Son, is called Logos, in Greek: "The Word". He brings the Verbum Dei, in Latin: "The Word of God". Namely, the Christ is the personification of the voice of the Father. We can see how the primal murderous deed perpetrated on the body of the Father, through the mediation of the Son transfigured into Logos, "The Word". The Son himself, who in Greek myth is still a stone, in Christian theology of atonement and identification transfigures from stone into "Word". This is the completion of the process of identification and atonement through the mechanism of repression of the original content. At the beginning there was a stone. At the end "The Word".
Stating that at the beginning there was "The Word", the Gospel of John inserted an inversion in the original sequence of events. It is a mechanism of defence well known in psychoanalysis.


Mozart's Don Giovanni

An enclosed place with many statues, among them the statue of the Commendatore.


La Statua:                                                 The Statue
Di rider finirai pria dell'aurora!                  This night shall see the end of all your laughter

Don Giovanni:                                          Don Giovanni:
Chi ha parlato                                             Who was speaking

 Leporello: (estremamente impaurito)        Leporello: (very frightened)
Ah! qualche anima                                        Ah, it must have been
Sarà dell'altro mondo,                                   A spirit come from Hell
Che vi conosce a fondo.                               Who knows you very well

 Don Giovanni:                                           Don Giovanni:
 Taci, sciocco!                                               Don't be stupid
 Chi va là?                                                     Who goes there? Who goes there?

 La Statua:                                                   The Statue:
 Ribaldo, audace!                                           Blasphemer, cold - hearted
 Lascia a' morti la pace!                                  Leave in peace the departed

 Leporello: (tremando)                                  Leporello (shaking)
 Ve l'ho detto!                                                 There, I told you

Don Giovanni:                                              Don Giovanni:
Sara qualcun di fuori                                        It must be someone out there
Che si burla di noi                                            In the street trying to mock us
Ehi, del Commendatore (con indifferenza        Look! Is not that the statue
e sprezzo)                                                        Of the late Commendatore? Just read
Non è questa la statua? Leggi un                                         for me The inscription                        poco                                                               
Quella iscrizion

Leporello:                                                       Leporello:
Scusate...                                                         Excuse me
Non ho imparato a leggere                            I never learnt to read well
Ai raggi della luna.                                          Especially by moonlight

Don Giovanni:                                                 Don Giovanni:
Leggi, dico!                                                        Read, I tell you

Leporello: (reading)                                         Leporello (reading):
 "Dell'empio che mi trasse al passo estremo         A profligate traitor did bring me hither,
 Qui attendo la vendetta"... Udiste? Io tremo!      I await here my vengeance

Don Giovanni:                                                  Don Giovanni:
O vecchio buffonissimo!                                      Ridicolous old fellow
Digli che questa sera                                            Tell him to come to supper
L'attendo a cenar meco!                                      I shall expect him this evening

Leporello:                                                         Leporello:
Che pazzia! Ma vi par?... Oh Dei, mirate,            Are you mad? Can't you see? Oh, Heavens,
Che terribili occhiate egli ci dà!                                              look, Sir!
Par vivo! Par che senta... E che voglia parlar!     How he glares, just as if he were alive!
                                                                                  You'd almost think he heard you
                                                                                               and wanted to reply

Don Giovanni:                                                   Don Giovanni:
 Orsù, va là!                                                         Do as I say
 O qui t'ammazzo, e poi ti seppellisco!                  Or I will kill you and bury you beside him

Leporello:                                                          Leporello:
Piano, piano, signore, ora ubbidisco.                    Gently, gently, my Lord. i will invite him
O statua gentilissima                                             O statue fair and excellent
Del gran Commendatore...                                    So noble and enlightened...
Padron! Mi trema il core,                                      My lord, I am much to frightened,
Non posso terminar!                                             I dont't think this is wise

 Don Giovanni:                                                  Don Giovanni:
 Finiscila, o nel petto                                            Obey me now, or I'll kill you.
 Ti metto questo acciar!                                        I shall not warn you twice

 Leporello:                                                          Leporello:
 Che impiccio, che capriccio!                                 He is vicious and capricious.
 Io sentomi gelar                                                    My blood has turned to ice

 Don Giovanni:                                                    Don Giovanni
 Che gusto! Che spassetto!                                   An interesting sensation!
 Lo voglio far tremar                                               His terror I despise

 Leporello:                                                            Leporello
 O statua gentillissima,                                            O statue fair and excellent
 Benchè di marmo siate...                                       Your marble will forgive me
 Ah padron mio! Mirate!                                        Oh, ly lord, were watching
 Che seguita a guardar!                                           Believe me, I saw him roll his eyes!

   Don Giovanni:                                                   Don Giovanni
   Mori...                                                                 Die, then!

   Leporello:                                                          Leporello:
   No, no... attendete!                                              No, no, wait a moment
   Signor, il padron mio... (alla statua)                       My master has decided (to the statue)
   Badate ben... non io...                                          Don't think, dear Sir, that I did...
   Vorria con voi cenar...                                          To invite you home tonight
   Ah che scena è questa! (la statua china la testa)     Ah! ah! ah! I cannot bear it (the statue
   Oh ciel! Chinò la testa!                                                                      bows its head)
                                                                                He bowed his head, I swear it

   Don Giovanni:                                                     Don Giovanni:
   Va là, che sei un buffone!                                       Oh, stop this silly playing

   Leporello:                                                            Leporello:
   Guardate ancor, padrone!                                      But look, Sir, believe me

   Don Giovanni:                                                     Don Giovanni:
   E che degg'io guardar?                                           What is this wondrous sight?

  Leporello:                                                             Leporello:
  Colla marmorea testa,                                             He, with his head of marble,
  Ei fa così, così!                                                        Did nod like this, like this

  Don Giovanni  (imita la statua):                              Don Giovanni  (He imitates the statue):
  Colla marmorea testa,                                             He, with his head of marble,
  Ei fa così, così!                                                       Did nod like this, like this

   Don Giovanni (verso la statua):                             Don Giovanni ( to the statue):
   Parlate, se potete.                                                      So answer! If you are able!
     Verrete a cena?                                                        You'll come to supper?

   La Statua:                                                             The Statue:
   Sì!                                                                           Yes

[Act 2, Scene 15]

[Omissis]

Leporello: (entra spaventato e chiude l'uscio - entering in terror and closing the door)

   Ah, signor, per carità!                                                     Oh, my Lord...Let's kneel and pray
   Non andate fuor di qua!                                                  Do not take one step that way!
   L'uom di sasso, l'uomo bianco,                                    The man made of stone, he advances...
   Ah padrone! Io gelo, io manco.                                     Oh, your lordship, I am losing my senses
   Se vedeste che figura,                                                      But if you had seen what I have
   se sentiste come fa.                                                          Heard the noise those stone feet make
           Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! (imitando i passi del Commendatore - mimicking the steps of the Commendatore)

[Act 2, Scene 18]

As Theodor Reik has shown (op.cit.),  gods originally were stones. Then, as it occurs in psychoanalytic transformations, the stones transfigured into statues, which are indeed made of stone, and as such are worshipped.
Il Commendatore - persecutory image of the assassinated Father - is a statue. With Leporello's words: "L'uom di sasso" (The man made of stone).
Mimicking the steps of the Commendatore corresponds to the mimicry of the Father's voice and gestures by the primal horde, in the afterwards of his murder, as exposited by Freud in Totem and Taboo.
Why the steps? As is written: "They heard the voice of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden" (Gn. 3:8). They heard the voice of Yahweh God walking in the garden , namely, they heard his steps, the sound of his walking. The steps of the father scare to death a child who feels guilty. And why he feels guilty? "The man said, 'I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself'." (Gn. 3:10). He was naked, as he had already been before. Nothing new. But now he had erections, and the child is scared to death that his father could see them.

Leporello, mimicking the Commendatore's steps, is also trying to exorcise his dread of him. Mocking is a way of exorcising fear.
Now we can better understand all the aspects of the primal horde mimicry of the assassinated father: his voice and his gestures. Not only a way of atonement and identification, as suggested by Freud, but also a mocking mimicry, in order to exorcise the fear of retaliation. Mocking is like saying: "you are not that scaring!" Mimicking is like saying: "We are like you, therefore we are as strong as you, and we have no reason of being scared".
It is a very dense condensation: Identification -Atonement - Dread - Defiance. Pain and joy. Remorse, fear and self confidence, all in that: Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! (mimicking the steps of the Commendatore)

       


The Kaaba (Jan. 09, 2006)

(both: k�be or k�Kebe) or Caaba [Arab.,=cube], the central, cubic, stone structure, covered by a black cloth, within the Great Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The sacred nature of the site predates Islam: tradition says that the Kaaba was built by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham and the descendants of Noah. Also known as the House of God, it is the center of the circumambulations performed during the hajj , and it is toward the Kaaba that Muslims face in their prayers (see liturgy, Islamic ). Pre-Islamic Meccans used it as a central shrine housing their many idols, most notable of which were al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat, collectively known as al-Gharaniq or the Daughters of God, and Hubal, a martial deity. The Black Stone, possibly of meteoric origin, is located at one of its outside corners. Also dating from pre-Islamic times as a heavenly relic, this stone is venerated and ritually kissed. Worn hollow by the centuries of veneration, the stone is held together by a wide silver band. ( Columbia Enciclopedia)

As we can see, The Kaaba, the Black Stone, represents the primeval deity, in Islam as in all other religions.
Moreover, the pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five basic requirements ( arkan or "pillars") of Islam. Indeed, "pillars" are stones, too. The most concrete sense engenders the abstraction, and not the other way around
The hajj is a series of extensively detailed rituals. These include wearing a special garment that symbolizes unity and modesty, collective circumambulations of the Kaaba, and the symbolic stoning of evil.
So, we have a big stone, which is the god, and the worshippers stone "evil", which is an abstraction of the repressed pole in the ambivalent relationship toward God the Father. God is worshipped as a stone, and the "other" image of God, the Devil,(splitting), is stoned, as a liberating discharge of energy directed at the hated object.


The Lion Gate at Mycenae

Some archaeologists sustain that on the top of the pillar between the lions stood the statue of a god. However, it seems to me that the top of the pillar marks the conclusion of the triangle pediment overlaid on the lintel of the gate, and there is no space for a statue on its top.
Therefore, the pillar itself is to be considered the deity protecting the city's entrance: that was the Mycenaeans' pillar of faith.


       

              A statue in modern Petra (Jordan)                 The mosaic in the church of Saint Stephen
(Just like in Mycenae)                                 (Umm a Rasas - Jordan)

The first is a modern monument in the central square of the village next to Petra's archaeological site, and the second is a Byzantine mosaic (6th century AD) on the floor of a church, depicting the Hellenistic - Roman city of Philadelphia (Amman).

I shot the first picture during a trip to Petra. The similarity between the group of two lions with the columns -sculptured by a modern artist - and the Mycenaean gate was amazing.
In the same trip I bought from the local Bedouin guide a booklet with explanations on the site. On page 34 (Petra. Bedouin Guide , Book Rack, 2009), I read:

In Sculpture, Nabatean gods were first represented in the shape of a block of stone. Later, this block was smoothed to take the shape od a rectangle. Some human futures were later added to it, such as two squares and a line between them depicting eyes and a nose. The Nabateans then adjusted these features to even closer depictions of reality. Later gods were represented with a full human figure, which at first was disproportionate only to evolve again later - under the Roman and greek influence of Realism - to take more realistic measures.



Christ and the column

      
          In the Cathedral of Pistoia
                   and       Ambrosius Holbein in Basel

In the church Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Saronno (Italy)

At the manifest level, the column which appears in frescoes and paintings stands for the column to which Jesus was tied and flogged. An instrument of His Passio. However, it seems to me that there also is a latent and unconscious meaning, which refers to the column as a deity itself.
Only referring to this level, one can understand columns' centrality in visual representations. Our unconscious automatically skips the manifest level to reconnect directly to the more archaic significance. As the poet says: Stones speak !





The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is the shrine built on the rock believed to be the foundation stone around which God created the world. Therefore, the Jews believe it to be the centre of the world. The Jews also believe that this is the stone on which Isaac was meant to be sacrificed, and the exact location of the altar in the First and Second Temples. The Muslims believe that from this stone Muhammad ascended to Heaven during his nightly journey.



And now, buy a God for just 10 Euro. A bargain, isn't it!!!



Links:
Jerusalem Centre of the World and Female Genital
An Obsessive Neurotic Symptom
Pinocchio. The Puberty Rite of a Puppet
Pinocchio and the Cult of the Trees
Hamlet. The Puberty rite of a Danish Prince and His Companions
Maestri and Disciples



Back to Home Page
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1