Cosmological Symbolism Research Articles

Baha'i Cosmological Symbolism and the Ecofeminist Critique

This article is composed of three parts. The first part documents the constituents of Baha'i cosmological symbolism--such as dualism, theism, and redemptive history. By "cosmological symbolism" is here meant a system of symbols used to portray the origin, nature, and existence of the cosmos. As will be shown, the most immediate antecedents of Baha'i cosmological symbolism are various biblica texts (most elements can be observed in the Book of Genesis alone and often as mediated through the Qur'an). Biblical cosmological symbolism--especially those aspects that relate to dualistic theism--has been criticized severely by some feminists and environmentalists, and their arguments can also be applied to Baha'i cosmology. The second part of this article provides a brief introduction to the main feminist/environmentalist arguments. The third part summarizes and examines the eschatological character of Baha'i cosmological symbolism since Baha'i eschatology provides answers to many feminist and ecological objections.

Aspects of Cosmological Symbolism in Hindusthani Musical Forms

Aspects of Cosmological Symbolism in Hindusthani Musical Forms

The Theology of Arithmetic - Robin Waterfield (tr.): The Theology of Arithmetic. On the Mystical, Mathematical and Cosmological Symbolism of the First Ten Numbers. Attributed to Iamblichus. Foreword by Keith Critchlow. (Kairos.) Pp. 130; mathematical diagrams. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Phanes Press, 1988. $25.00 (paper, $13.95).

The Theology of Arithmetic - Robin Waterfield (tr.): The Theology of Arithmetic. On the Mystical, Mathematical and Cosmological Symbolism of the First Ten Numbers. Attributed to Iamblichus. Foreword by Keith Critchlow. (Kairos.) Pp. 130; mathematical diagrams. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Phanes Press, 1988. 13.95). - Volume 39 Issue 2

Verbal craft and religious act in the Iliad: The dynamics of a communal centre

The collocation of elements at the centre of the Achaian camp in the Iliad —the agorē, themis , and the altars—presents a challenge to current ways of thinking about religious communal centres. Cosmological symbolism (Mircea Eliade) and the attempt to embody cosmo-magical power (Paul Wheatley) do not account for the characteristics of this centre. Examination of the activities associated with the elements at the centre of the camp, in contrast with similar activities in a society where cosmological symbolism is prevalent, suggests that the Achaian camp is structured by a different sort of power, a power that is not cosmomagical, but strictly social.

Silencing the question of God: The ways of Jung and Suzuki

The irreligion or, if you will, secularism of our time can be traced primarily to the collapse of the extraverted religious life in Western civilization. God as the central fact of the cosmos and, corresponding to this on the psychological plane, the image of God as the center of personality are no longer felt to be alive by most people. I do not intend to diagnose this condition. Suffice it to say that the death of the traditional image of God in the Western psyche opens the possibility of a richer understanding of what "God" and "religion" mean. If we read the omens aright, the most significant trend in the current re-evaluation of the phenomenon of religion is in the direction of a growing preoccupation with the events of man's inner life, with the depth, and, indeed, the magnitude of his psyche. More and more people are drawn into the center of themselves where "God" and "religion" are discovered beyond the worn-out cosmological symbolism of the past. I believe that instrumental in this arduous inward journey are two men: the renascent Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung and the Japanese scholar of Zen Buddhism D. T. Suzuki. As a psychologist who is not averse to considering the religious import of a mental disease, Jung was particularly interested in the drawings of m?ndalas by his patients. M?ndala (Hindu term for a circle) is a visual representation?a figure or a design?of the struggle to achieve synthesis of diversity and unity culminating in a pristine, nontemporal "Center." In the traditional m?ndala designs the center is ordinarily occupied by some sort of deity. In the modern m?ndalas, however, we find a symbol of a very different meaning?a star, a sun, a flower, but never a deity. Jung therefore regards these m?ndalas as confessions of a particular mental condition that implies no submission or reconciliation to a deity. "The place of the deity seems to be taken by the wholeness of man."1 M?ndalas that have been drawn by Jung's patients (without a deity in the center) would thus show that, being unable to project a divine image any longer, they are prepared to grope their own way toward unity and wholeness. If we now transport ourselves some twenty-five centuries back into the past we find that Gautama the Buddha constantly admonished his disciples to be lamps unto themselves, to strive needfully, to work out their own salvation. Whatever

Tree and Bird as Cosmological Symbols in Western Asia. By ProfessorA. J. Wensinck. 10¾ × 7¼, pp. xi + 49. Amsterdam: Johannes Mueller, 1921.

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