The Dictionary of Symbols
One of the most widespread of symbols, despite its complexity. In
almost every land and age its characteristics are the same—the circular form, the
twelve subdivisions with their corre spending signs and their relationship with
the seven planets. The Mesopotamian cultures, Egypt, Judea, Persia, India, Tibet, China, America, Islam, Greece and Northern Europe—all were acquainted
with zodiacal symbolism. The name of this circular ‘form’ comes from zoe (life)
and diakos (wheel); and the basic element of this ‘wheel of life’ is found in the
Ouroboros (the snake biting its own tail), symbolizing the Aion (duration). The
general significance of the Zodiac concerns the process by which ‘primordial
energy, once fecundated, passes from the potential to the virtual, from unity to
multiplicity, from spirit to matter, from the non-formal world to the world of
forms’, and then returns along the same path (52). This accords with the teaching
of oriental ontology, which holds that the life of the universe is split into two
opposing yet complementary phases: involution (or materialization) and evolution (or spiritualization). Applying this belief to the Zodiac, the first six signs
(from Aries to Virgo) come to represent involution, while the other six (from Libra
to Pisces) relate to evolution. This pattern refers not only to the evolution of the
cosmos in the broadest sense, but also to specific phases of this process as well
as to any given period in the development of the manifest world as such (for
example, a period in history, the lifetime of a race or of an individual, the period
of the world’s existence, the time taken in carrying out a task) (52). As evidence
of the great antiquity of this symbol, we would point to the zodiacal signs in the
rock-paintings in the Cueva de Arce (at the Laguna de la Janda, Cadiz), the
celestial maps in the stone-engravings at Eira d’os Mouros (in Galicia), and the
sculpting of the cromlech at Alvão (in Portugal), not to speak of the numerous
other examples of the same kind of thing: but there is no conclusive evidence of
the existence of a truly systematic understanding of Zodiacal symbolism before
the time of king Sargon of Agade (2750 B.C.), who was known to possess a work
of astrology containing forecasts of the eclipses of the sun. From the time of
Hammurabi (2000 B.C.) man’s study of the heavens began to assume a more
scientific character. But the Zodiac, and the characteristic signs as we know them
today, cannot, in the opinion of Berthelot, be traced back farther than the tablet of
Cambyses (6th century B.C.); this, however, does not invalidate the theory that
the separate elements that contributed to the symbolic pattern of the Zodiac as a
whole were of much greater antiquity than this. For example, the mystic twelvefold
vision of the world; and the symbol of the ram associated with the mythic Ram
and with the Primitive cult of the sun; and also the Gemini. Marc Saunier has
commented, in connexion with the twelve-part division of the Zodiac, that spreading into our solar world from an unknowable unknown, through the twelve luminous doors of the Zodiac, it becomes concentrated into the form of the sun
whence it radiates outwards to the seven planetary spheres which refract its
unity in the gamut of sounds, rhythms and colours (49). As Jung notes, according to Manichean belief the demiurge builds a cosmic wheel, related to the rota and
the opus circulatorium of alchemy and identical in that it signifies sublimation
(31). It is almost unnecessary to point out that this form of motion, rotation on
the vertical plane—descending and ascending—echoes the Platonic theories of
the soul’s ‘fall’ into material existence and its need to find salvation by returning
along the same path. The most important and definitive adaptations of the zodiacal cycle—for other variants arise by analogy—are, first, that which equates the
twelve signs with monthly periods, and the complete cycle with the year (commencing with March—with the spring), and, secondly, that corresponding to the
great cycle (lasting 25,920 years) of the precession of the equinoxes, whereby,
every 2160 years, the equinox withdraws by the space of one sign (thirty degrees). The fact that the figures which make up the zodiacal pattern are mostly
animals has prompted Schneider to suggest that the constellations may owe their
curious names to an earlier religion of totemistic origin, whose basic features were
subsequently applied to the heavens through the process of catasterism (50).
Piobb has observed that the Zodiac, besides being a process, may also be understood as a circuit and that its twelve-part division springs from the way in which
the quantitative becomes qualitative (in vibrations, sounds or colours) and hence
the ecliptic is a zone of energy differing in potential between its entrance (Aries)
and its exit (Pisces). He also notes that, if one wishes to grasp the ancient conceptions, one must regard the Zodiac as a totality comprising twelve ideographs
which, in sum, epitomize the dodecagon (48). It is clear that every twelve-part
scheme alludes to the zodiacal pattern. The signs (q.v. under separate headings)
are as follows: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces (40). According to Senard, these twelve signs
are derived from the four Elements combined with the three modes or gunas
(levels) known as sattva, rajas and tamas (corresponding, firstly, to a situation—
or level—of superiority or of essence; secondly, to an intermediate or transitional
situation: and, thirdly, to the level of the inferior and material). But we cannot
here go into Senard’s theory of the signs of the Zodiac, beyond noting, briefly, the
meanings that he attributes to each of them: Aries he interprets as the urge to
create and transform: Taurus as undifferentiated magnetism; the Gemini as creative synthesis, or imagination; Cancer as gestation and birth; Leo as individuation, will; Virgo as intelligence; Libra as equilibrium; Scorpio as histolysis; Sagittarius as coordination and synthesis; Capricorn as ascesis; Aquarius as illumination; and Pisces as mystic fusion (52). Mertens-Stienon founds his study of the
Zodiac upon an article by the Hindu T. Subba Rao, published in October 1881
and translated into French for Le Lotus bleu in 1937, drawing also upon the work of Blavatsky and Dupuis (the latter favouring an almost exclusively astronomical
interpretation of the myths). Mertens Stienon, then, divides the zodiacal signs
into three quaternaries, although in our view a better division would be the inverse
of this—four ternaries, forming a triunity for each of the seasons of the year (as
well as for the cardinal points). He supports the view that the Zodiac may serve
to symbolize and analyse the phases of each and every cycle, together with the
evolutive stages which it embraces. He distinguishes between the astronomical
Zodiac (the constellations) and the intellectual Zodiac (symbols), affirming that it
was the constellations that took their names from the symbols. For instance,
since, in Egyptian times, so much importance was attached to the symbolic bull
and ram, this was why, astronomically speaking, these figures came to mark the
vernal equinoxes which, in our era, coincide with Pisces. He shows that the
apparent orbit of the sun through the twelve divisions corresponds to twelve
degrees or stages in the action of the active principle upon the passive. These
stages are denoted in mythology by the avatars of the creator-god—by his metamorphoses and manifestations. The precise symbolism of each sign springs from:
(a) the number it bears in the series of twelve signs: (b) its situation within the
series as a whole; (c) its situation within each of the four ternaries; (d) its symbolic figure; (e) the ideas related to this figure; and (f) the concomitant planetary
symbolism. In the symbolism of the Zodiac one can sense the resolve to create, as
in the Tarot pack, an all-embracing archetypal pattern—a kind of figurative model
to serve as a comprehensive definition of each and every existential possibility in
the macrocosm and the microcosm. As is the case with other symbolic forms,
zodiacal symbolism is the product of the serial intellection of the universe,
arising out of the belief that all things occupy positions and situations in spacetime which are limited and typical, and implying, not determinism, but belief in
the ‘system of destinies’, that is to say, the theory that certain antecedents must
cause certain consequences and that any given situation must have ramifications
that are neither replaceable nor arbitrary. Regarding the application of the Zodiac
to the cycle of human existence in the concrete sense, there are certain obvious
affinities with symbols pertaining to medicinal rites, as Schneider has shown. It is
to Jorge Quintana, and his El gobierno teocrático de Mohenjo-Daro (Ampurias,
IV), that we owe our knowledge of an octonary zodiac dating from the protoIndian period of the third millennium before our era. This zodiac is composed of
the following signs: edu (the ram), yal (the harp), nand (the crab), amma (the
mother), tuk (the scales), kani (the dart), kuda (the pitcher) and min (the fish).
There are obvious parallels between most of these signs and those of the
dodecanarian Zodiac. The supreme god of the proto-Indians was equated with the sun, crossing, in his procession through the constellations, the corresponding
degrees of the Zodiac, whence he derives his title of ‘god of the eight forms’.
