2 of Cups : Mithraic Aeon

Fulgour

Am I alone in believing that there is more to the
Winged Lion than anyone has suggested in the
last nearly 100 years..?

1) Attachment One:
SacredSource.com description:

"This winged, lion-headed deity was central to the Roman sect worship of Mithras.
He is called Aeon. His body is spiralled by the serpent of wisdom, which crests his
forehead at the third eye point, and on either side of his genitals are...
astrological symbols of Capricorn and Cancer.

Aeon surmounts the globe, and holds the key and scroll of universal wisdom."


2) Attachment Two:
Pamela Colman Smith's 2 of Cups... it must have blown Waite's mind! :laugh:
 

Attachments

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  • This ain't your everyday caduceus....jpg
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firecatpickles

And it's even the same color! This ain't no co-inka-dinky...

KK
 

shininglion

This is really interesting! I'd love to know more about this, if there is any more to know. (Aint it obvious from my forum name?) :p

Is there a story behind Aeon? I don't have time at the moment to try to find anything else about this, but I am gonna do a little searching of my own sometime soon.

Anyone else know anything?
 

Abrac

The winged lion on the 2 of Cups is definitely Mithraic. But it would seem that this image probably had two sources of inspiration - Gnostic and Mithraic.


Quoting from the Dictionary of Ancient Deities; Patricia Turner & Charles Russell Coulter; Oxford University Press; ©2000; Page 21:

"Aeons Aion (Post-Christian Gnostic)
Also known as: Eon
Age of the Universe. Aeons are also deities who were the offspring of Bathos and possibly Sige. Nous and Aletheia begot Logos and Zoe. From this pair came Agape, Ageratos, Anthropos, Autophyes, Bhythios, Ecclesia, Ecclesiasticus, Elpis, Henosis, Macaria, Metricos, Mixis, Monogenes, Paracletos, Patricos, Pistis, Sophia, Synerasis and Theletas. Each of these were paired as male and female. The feasts of Agape were held in worship at many of the rites of these deities."


Robert Place also mentions Aeons in A Gnostic Book of Saints; Page 29:

"Gnostics, like Neoplatonists, believed that the true God was transcendent and could only approach the world through emanations called aeons, the Gnostic equivalent of angels, who ruled the seven planets."
Edit To Add: John Michael Greer says that Aeons (good angels) ruled the stars and the zodiac while the Archons (evil angels) ruled the planets. Your guess is a s good as mine. Maybe someone else has insight here.

The New Encyclopedia of the Occult; John Michael Greer; Llewellyn Publications; ©2003; Page 6:

"In some sources, including the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri, Aeon or Aion is a god, the ruler of eternity, and may be a Greek version of the Zoroastrian supreme god Zurvan Ahankara, lord of time."


An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols; J.C. Cooper; Thames and Hudson, Ltd.; ©1978; Page 99:

Regarding the winged lion Cooper says: "Mithraic: Solar; the fourth grade of initiation. The lion-headed Cronos is Aion, time and destiny devouring all things; the sun as fire."


It is very interesting to see how Smith weaved both of these lines of thinking into the one image. :)
 

Teheuti

Franz Cumont talks of this.
See also: Howard M. Jackson, The lion becomes man : the Gnostic leontomorphic creator and the Platonic tradition. 1985: Scholars Press.

You'll find Augustus Knapp's painting about 3/4 of the way down this page:
http://www.prs.org/symbprint.htm

Mary
 

Fulgour

The Amazing Pamela Colman Smith

Teheuti said:
Franz Cumont talks of this.
Hi :) Mary! Thanks! Waite calls it a "caduceus"
and lets it go at that. Has anyone ever written
about this symbol on this card by this artist..?
 

Teheuti

Fulgour said:
Hi :) Mary! Thanks! Waite calls it a "caduceus"
and lets it go at that. Has anyone ever written
about this symbol on this card by this artist..?
Fulgour - Sandra Thomson talks about the caduceus and winged lion in _Pictures from the Heart_, but not about the Mithraic connection.

Here's what Crowley had to say about the caduceus in the Tarot:
“The importance of this symbol [the Caduceus] is mainly that the Tarot is primarily the Book of Thoth or Tahuti, the Egyptian Mercury. For the understanding of this book it is necessary to learn how to transmute instinctively and automatically every simple symbol into every complex symbol and back again; for only so is it possible to realize the unity and diversity which is the solution of the cosmic problem.” Crowley, Thoth, p. 273-274.

And here's something from the Golden Dawn teaching papers:
STAFF OF HERMES: "A wand to guide you and protect you in the ascent of the Mountain, about which the twin Serpents of Egypt twine: above the wings of Binah and Chokmah—shrouding the sacred Diamond lying on the Crown of Kether—the Supernal. Sub umbra alarum tuarum; beneath the rays of spiritual Understanding emanating from Divine Wisdom, you may indeed be safe, trusting to the protection and aid of the High and Holy Powers summed up in the great Name JHVH." FR#XVI.

Waite refers to it as an emblem of peace imposed [GD “Peace Restored”] and the “continuity of life in fullness as an equipoise between growth and decay.” [Waite, Freemasonry, p. 89].
The red winged lion at the top of this staff combines the complements of air and fire and spiritualizes or makes transcendant the animal passions, by spreading his wings over contending forces. It signifies the transmutation of sexual energies into spiritual power.

I added the missing link to Knapp's Mithras painting in my earlier post.

Mary
 

Teheuti

There's a huge section on the winged globe and the caduceus in Eugene Goblet d'Alviella's _Symbols: Their Migration and Universality_ (1894).

Goblet d'Alviella notes how often the winged globe and sacred tree are found together - often fusing into a single image. One very intriguing Phoenician image (fig. 115) shows a winged globe topping a tree with curved leaves (resembling the curves of snakes) along each side, and flanked by two acolytes: an erect ram (left) and a sphinx (right). It often presides at scenes of adoration and sacrifice.

He says that the basic elements of the Winged Globe (as originating in Egypt where it represented the sun in the valley of the Nile) include: the disk (globe), the sparrow-hawk (wings), the goat (ram's horns along top edge of wings), and the uraeus (twin serpents that hang from the globe). He also notes similarities to the flying scarab.

The Greeks sometimes transformed the globe into a winged spindle (see Chariot where the two items are separate but adjacent). Other countries (Persia, Assyria, etc.) put a god form inside the circle - often with a bow and arrow. In other words, its basic referent seems to be that of a solar deity (and the lion is generally a solar animal - Leo).

Regarding the Mithraic lion - from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"The first principle or highest God was according to Mithraism "Infinite Time"; this was called Aion or . . . Zervan, an ancient Iranian conception, which survived the sharp dualism of Zoroaster; for Zervan was father of both Ormuzd and Ahriman and connected the two opposites in a higher unity.... This personified Time, ineffable, sexless, passionless, was represented by a human monster, with the head of a lion and a serpent coiled about his body. He carried a sceptre and lightning as sovereign god and held in each hand a key as master of the heavens. He had two pair of wings to symbolize the swiftness of time. His body was covered with zodiacal signs and the emblems of the seasons (i.e. Chaldean astrology combined with Zervanism). This first principle begat Heaven and Earth, which in turn begat their son and equal, Ocean."

Elizabeth Goldsmith, in _Ancient Pagan Symbols_ describes the Mithraic Lion as "Boundless Time": "The body is entwined six times by a serpent, and four wings having the symbols of the four seasons spring from the back. A thunderbolt is engraved on the breast. In the left hand is a key and in the right a key and sceptre or long rod the emblem of authority. At the foot of the statue are the hammer and tongs of Vulcan, the cock,the sacred cone and the wand of Mercury typifying that the power of all the gods is embodied in the Mithraic Saturn." p. 196.

According to Goldsmith, the snakes rising on the caduceus symbolise the Life impulse and the union of two creative forces. She reduces it to Pole and Circle: "the dominant, forceful upright was looked upon as Creator, and the circle was the "regulator or bridle of time and motion."

And from http://www.corelight.org/lions/mythology.html :
"When the Prophet Daniel saw a winged lion emerge from the sea, he saw the symbolic representation of a [new era] in which Divine Truth … sets out to conquer new spiritual territory … The "lion" denotes the fearlessness of one who is imbued with Divine Truth …"

As we can see this is a truly rich symbol with lots of potential. It seems to me to come back to the creative life force, embodied in dual aspects that are attracted and come together timelessly, and surmount all else when the physical/instinctual is raised to divinity, although not yet to unity. Personally, I like to think of this card as, potentially, "the healing power of love."

Mary
 

Fulgour

So much to discover...

Teheuti said:
Elizabeth Goldsmith "...typifying that the power of all the gods is embodied in the Mithraic Saturn."
Hi :) Mary! I want to say "Thank You!" very much
for the effort (and enthusiasm) you've put forth~
I think you must be as excited about this as I am!