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There's always a story behind the story, but the keenest observers have to break through the surface to reach it. This remarkable book reveals the hidden meaning behind familiar images and words, from the origins of Santa Claus and the meaning of Cinderella's name to the metaphoric significance of the unicorn and the fleur-de-lys. A prominent authority on symbols, author Harold Bayley spent years gathering and compiling the contents of this volume. Mythology, folklore, religious texts, and fairy tales from around the world constitute his primary sources. Bayley also draws upon the secret traditions of ancient cultures and medieval mystical sects to deconstruct the symbols embedded in watermarks and printers' emblems. Most of these images have lost their earliest significance and now serve strictly commercial purposes; Bayley explains their original meanings, and he cross-references similarities between symbols and stories across the globe to illuminate their evolving cultural significance. More than 1,400 illustrations enhance this classic work, which features an index for ease of reference.… (more)
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CHAPTER XIV
THE HEAVENLY TWINS
“The ONE remains, the many change and pass."
SHELLEY
"One is all alone
And ever doth remain so."
Old English Folk-Song.
IT was customary among the ancients to regard the Great
Spirit under the dual aspect of GeMINI the Twins, or, as
they were
EGYPT, as elsewhere, the palpable dualism of Nature-
Male and Female, Day and Night, Morning and Evening,
Summer and Winter, Sun and Moon, Light and Darkness
Heaven and Earth-was typified as a double Being. "In
most of the [Egyptian] hymns," says De Rougé, "we come
across this idea of the double Being who engendereth
Himself, the Soul in two Twins-to signify two Persons never
to be separated." 1
The innumerable forms under which the duality of the
ONE was typified may be judged from the following Vedic
invocation_...