Symbols of the Religions
Symbol · 1354
Star of David
Ancient Shape, Modern Emblem
The six-pointed hexagram (Magen David), symbol of Jewish identity, spiritual protection, and the union of heaven and earth.
What it meansTwo triangles interlocked, read in Kabbalah as the meeting of what descends and what ascends — heaven and earth, fire and water, held in one figure that belongs wholly to neither. Scholem's caution stands beside it: the shape carried no doctrine before the emblem did.
Thread · Symbols of the Religions○
Casting Lots
Divination by randomly drawn objects, from biblical sacred lots to Roman dice oracles to the yarrow stalks of the I Ching.
SignificanceThis is likely the single divinatory technique attested on every inhabited continent, appearing independently in biblical, Roman, Chinese and West African sources. Some living forms of the practice, including the sixteen-fold Yoruba Ifá corpus, remain initiatory knowledge with recognised living custodians, and are reported here as such rather than reproduced.
Thread · Symbols of the Religions○
The Descent to the Underworld
A recurring mythic pattern of a hero or deity journeying down into the land of the dead and returning, found in Sumerian, Greek, Roman and Japanese sources.
SignificanceIn the Sumerian version, the goddess passes through seven separate gates, removing one garment of power at each until she arrives naked and stripped of authority — a specific, textually documented structural detail, not simply a vague comparative theme. Whether every version of this pattern across cultures represents a real initiation ritual, as one influential scholar argued, remains genuinely debated.
- Casting LotsCross-Tradition
- Chi-RhoThe Name in Two LettersChristianity
- DharmachakraThe First TurningBuddhism
- Images ForbiddenCross-Tradition
- KhandaThe Two SovereigntiesSikhism
- Left and RightComparative Religion
- Microcosm and MacrocosmCross-Tradition
- OmThe Imperishable SyllableHinduism
- Orthodox CrossThree Bars, Eight EndsEastern Christianity
- Star and CrescentThe Borrowed EmblemIslam
- Star of DavidAncient Shape, Modern EmblemJudaism
- Stones That Fell From HeavenCross-Tradition
- Symbols Captured by the Far RightComparative Religion
- The Alphabet as Building MaterialCross-Tradition
- The Descent to the UnderworldCross-Tradition
- The Evil EyeCross-Tradition
- The Evil Eye and the NazarMediterranean / Near Eastern
- The Four DirectionsCross-Tradition
- The Labyrinth Across CulturesCross-Tradition
- The Seal of SolomonIslamic Esotericism
- The SerpentCross-Tradition
- The Seven SistersCross-Tradition
- Wisdom as a WomanCross-Tradition
- Yin-YangTaijituTaoism
