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Part 2: The Theme of 'Death' and 'Imbalance:

Skulls and Crossbones'

More paintings on the Vanitas theme.

  This one is by an unknown artist, but it contains the same angles in the bizarre way that the bones are displayed.

  Apart from the skull which rests on a box or tomb, the only other significant feature is that an 'hour glass' is perched on top of the skull and curiously, hour glasses are a prominent feature in these kinds of paintings.

. . . the earth's axis at 23.5º . . . the theme of death . . . the Great Pyramid . . . the theme of time . . . what can it all mean?

It should be noted that aside from 'time', the hour glass is also a symbol for 'precession'; it is also used to give reference to the constellation of Orion, the Holy Grail - and believe it or not, a torsion vortex - things I discovered during my years of research.

  Being placed on top of the skull is interesting as the central point of the hour glass through which the sand moves from one end to the other (opposites) and back again, represents 'zero-point', and according to eastern mystical traditions - especially Hinduism - the centre of the seventh crown chakra, known as the 'Siva Bindu' or 'Void', has its location three-fingers width above the head.

  All the above can be cross-referenced by the reader with interesting results.

  My thanks to Don Barone for bringing attention to this particular painting which I then measured and discovered these angles.

Below is another painting on the same vanitas theme.

We see the now familiar skull, two crossed bones, an hour glass, a trowel, something that looks like a V-shaped divining rod used for dowsing and we now see a serpent (snake) on top of the skull in place of the hour glass.

  What I find interesting about this painting is the truncated pyramid. As many of us will know, the Great Pyramid is truncated - its capstone now missing; and it has been suggested that perhaps for symbolic reasons the capstone was ommited in the final stages of its construction.

Until now, no pyramids or anything pyramidal in shape has been featured in the Vanitas paintings already shown, and the only reference being made to the Great Pyramid is the 52º angle - and of course the other angles that could be related to its lattitude location. But here, and although the angles of the sides are wrong - being too steep - the artist has made a visual reference to the Great Pyramid of Giza. On top of the pyramid structure we see a vessel of some kind spouting flames, as if making a reference to the fact that the Great Pyramid and other pyramids are symbolic of the shamanic 'world mountain' or sacred mount.

The additional correspondences associated with the 'world mountain' are interesting - especially its association with the truncated mountain we call a volcano.

  The confusing concept of the ‘World Mountain’ can be further explained, in that an analogy was made with the liquid-fire (lava) that rises up from the depths or centre of the earth and through a mountain volcano so as to explode in all directions from the truncated summit. This is a powerful archetype.

  During the rare Kundalini enlightenment experience sought by mystics and Yogis, and which can happen quite spontaneously to those who have never even heard of it, it is said that one’s opposite male and female energies will rise up the spine from the base; spiralling around each other, fusing together and separating again at each of the seven chakras to then finally fuse together in the centre of the brain at the climax of enlightenment – and at this point, an explosion of bright, white light is experienced.

  The sexual imagery was not lost on those who noticed the correspondence between the lava rising upward through the axis of the volcano, the Kundalini prana energy symbolised by a serpent, (see painting above) rising up through the central nerve channel (sushumna) within the spinal cord to the top of the skull, and the semen, which rises up through the phallus at the climactic moment of sexual intercourse between male and female subjects – again representing the opposites.

  The Kundalini Awakening is associated with transformation and rebirth - the skull or decapitated head often representing the "death" of the old self, as when one goes through this enlightenment experience, one feels "bodiless", or as if one's head has become detached from the body - although this is said to be due to the fact that at the climax of this experience, one actually becomes a detached and floating orb or pinpoint of light.

Another oddity is the hour glass. It has been pointed out that there is too much sand in the hour glass and that this is symbolic of 'time standing still'. If so, then this appears to be making another reference to the enlightenment experience, as indeed time does stand still, and one experiences everything at once - hence the reason why there is too much sand in the hour glass.

  At the point of enlightenment, one realise that in truth there is no such thing as time.

In any case, all the above appears to have been referenced in the symbolism of this painting. The vessel on top of the pyramid (mountain) in place of the head or skull could be the Grail which is itself a symbol of enlightenment. The connections all this makes with the Kundalini phenomenon will be explained in my book Axis - suffice to say that this phenomenon takes place at the spine - the human axis - which in turn made a correspondence with the earth's axis, and that perhaps it was believed that before the tilt of the earth's axis, man was linked to the source-centre of creation through the upright axis. When the axis tilted - if indeed it did - then this connection was severed and man fell into the duality of repeating cycles and patterns . . . hence the "fall of man".

  Again, this belief in an upright axis - i.e., that it was once a reality which could return again - could be just an ideal - a mere belief based on these mystical, or spiritual conceptions that really have their origin in shamanism, as it was the shaman who first gathered information and knowledge about Kundalini as he was the one who experienced it.

  And I should inform the reader that geological evidence that the earth was once upright and had tilted due to a global catastrophe has recently been put forward in a new theory by two geophysicists, Allan & Delair.

Surprisingly, there are no angles of 23.5º in this painting, but there are two references to the angle of 52º as if to support our perception or interpretation that the image of the pyramid is indeed the Great Pyramid. The flames darting from the Grail-like vessel is at an angle of 52º , and so is the right side of the V-shaped dowsing rod. The lower bone is also angled at 30º as if making another reference to the Great Pyramid. As most GP enthusiasts would know, the Great Pyramid is situated 30 from the Equatorial Plane.

Aside from the encoded knowledge it contains, and looking at the correspondences made with the shamanic 'world mountain' and the Kundalini enlightenment phenomenon - its also possible that the Great Pyramid was utilised for this experience or initiation into the knowledge surrounding this experience, and this was one of its purposes.

  The Osiris-Isis-Horus myth, the Jesus story and the later 'Grail Romances' appear to be very much connected, and we find that they all contain many symbolic and metaphorical references to this same experience and so the scope of what we are dealing with here as regards the connections we can make, and how it appears to be pulling a lot of different areas of research together, is truly immense.

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