27 § Thunderbolts
IN an article published in the special number of Le Voile d'Isis devoted to the Tarot, Auriger, speaking of arcanum xvi, has written: 'It seems that a relationship exists between the hail of stones which surround the thunderstruck Tower and the word Beth-el, dwelling place of the Divine, from which 'baetyl' is derived, a word by which the Semites designated meteorites or 'thunderstones'. This connection was suggested by the name 'House of God' given to this arcanum and which is in fact the literal translation of the Hebrew Beth-el. But it seems to us that there is confusion here between several quite different things, and that a restatement of this question might be of interest.
First of all, it is certain that the symbolic function of meteorites or stones fallen from heaven is very important, because these are the 'black stones' that feature in so many different traditions, from the stone which represented Cybele or the 'Great Goddess' to the stone which is enshrined in the Kabah at Mecca and which plays a part in the story of Abraham. At Rome, too, there was the lapis niger, not to mention the sacred shields of the Salians that are said to have been hewn from a meteorite in the time of Numa. [1] These 'black stones' are certainly to be counted as baetyls, that is, stones considered as 'dwelling places of the Divine' or in other words, as the vehicles of certain 'spiritual influences'. But do all baetyls have this provenance? We think not, and in particular, we see nothing to justify the supposition that such was the case with the stone to which Jacob, according to the Genesis account, gave the name of Beth-el, a name applied by extension to the place itself where he had had his vision while his head was resting on the stone.
The baetyl strictly speaking represents the Omphalos, and as such it is a symbol of the Centre of the World, which quite naturally is identified with the 'dwelling place of God'. [2] This stone took different forms, such as, for example, that of a pillar. It is thus that Jacob says: 'And this stone which I have erected as a pillar, shall be the house of God' [Genesis 28, 22]. Among
the Celtic peoples too, certain menhirs, if not all, had the same significance. The Omphalos could also be represented by a stone of conical shape, like the 'black stone' of Cybele, or egg-shaped. The cone recalled the sacred Mountain, symbol of the 'Pole' or of the World Axis; the ovoid form is directly related to another very important symbol, that of the 'World Egg'. In all cases, the baetyl was a 'prophetic stone', a 'stone which speaks', that is, a stone which yielded oracles, or near to which oracles were given, thanks to the spiritual influences of which it was the vehicle. The example of the Omphalos of Delphi is very characteristic in this respect.
The baetyls are therefore essentially sacred stones, but were not all of celestial origin. Nevertheless, it is perhaps true, symbolically at least, that the idea of a 'stone fallen from heaven' could be applied to them in a certain sense. What makes us think so is their relationship with the mysterious luz of the Hebrew tradition. This relationship certainly exists in the case of the 'black stones', which in fact are aeroliths, but it must not be limited to them alone, for it is said in Genesis that the first name of the Beth-el of Jacob was, precisely, Luz. We may even recall at this point that the Grail was said to have been carved from a stone which also had fallen from heaven, and all these cases are very closely related, but we will not dwell any more on this, for fear of being led much too far from our subject. [3]
In fact, whether it is a question of baetyls in general, or of 'black stones' in particular, neither the one nor the other really have anything in common with 'thunderbolts'; and it is on this point in particular that the remark we quoted at the outset is gravely mistaken, with a mistake which can be easily explained. It is indeed tempting to suppose that 'lightning stones' or 'thunder stones' must be stones fallen from heaven, aeroliths, but in reality they are not. We could never have guessed what they are without having learned the truth from the peasants who, through their oral tradition, have retained the memory of it. Moreover, these peasants themselves are mistaken in their interpretation, that is, in their belief that the stones have fallen with the lightning or that they are lightning itself, which shows that the true sense of the tradition eludes them. They say, in fact, that thunder falls in two ways, 'in fire' or 'in stone'. In the first case it sets fire, while in the second it only shatters; but they know the 'thunder stones' very well, and they are mistaken only in attributing to them, because of their name, a celestial origin which they do not have and never had.
The truth is that the 'lightning stones' are stones which symbolise the lightning. They are nothing other than prehistoric flint axes, just as the 'serpent's egg', the Druid symbol of the World Egg, is in its material form nothing other than the fossil sea-urchin. The stone axe is the stone which shatters and splits, and this is why it represents the lightning bolt. This symbolism, furthermore, goes back to an extremely remote period and it explains the existence of
certain axes that archaeologists call 'votive axes', ritual objects that never had a practical use as arms or as implements of any kind.
This leads us quite naturally to recall a point that has already been treated: the stone axe of Parashu-Rāma and the stone hammer of Thor are really one and the same weapon, [4] and that weapon is, moreover, the symbol of the thunderbolt. This 'thunderbolt' symbolism is thus of Hyperborean origin, which means that it belongs to the most ancient of all the traditions of this cycle of humanity, to what is truly the primal tradition for the present Mahā-Yuga. [5]
Also to be noted, on the other hand, is the very important part played by the thunderbolt in Tibetan symbolism. The vajra which represents it is one of the principal insignia of the dignitaries of Lamaism. [6] At the same time the vajra symbolises the masculine principle of universal manifestation, and thus the thunderbolt is associated with the idea of 'divine paternity', an association also to be found quite clearly in Western antiquity inasmuch as the thunderbolt is the principal attribute of Zeus Pater or Ju-piter, the 'father of gods and men'. Moreover, he destroyed the Titans and the Giants by thunderbolts just as Thor and Parashu-Rāma destroyed their equivalents with weapons of stone. [7]
In connection with this there is, even in the modern West, another parallel which is truly unexpected: Leibniz, in his Monadologie, says that 'all created monads are born, so to speak, by continuous fulgurations of the Divinity from moment to moment'. Thus, in conformity with the traditional data we have just been discussing, he associates the thunderbolt (French foudre, Latin fulgur) with the idea of the production of creatures. It is probable that his university commentators never noticed this, any more than they noticed - and how indeed could they? - that the theories of the same philosopher
on the indestructible 'animal', reduced in miniature, after death, were directly inspired by the Hebrew conception of the luz as 'kernel of immortality'. [8]
We will mention one last point which relates to the Masonic symbolism of the mallet. Not only is there an obvious connection between the mallet and the hammer which are, so to speak, two forms of the same tool, but the English Masonic historian R.F. Gould thinks that the 'mallet of the Master' (the symbolism of which he relates to that of the Tau because of its form) originates from the hammer of Thor. In addition, the Gauls had a 'God of the mallet' who appears on an old altar discovered at Mayence. It would even seem that this is the Dis Pater, whose name is quite close to that of Zeus Pater, and whom the Druids, according to Caesar, said was the father of the Gallic race. [9] Thus the mallet appears again as a symbolic equivalent of the vajra of the Oriental traditions and so, by a coincidence that is undoubtedly not fortuitous but which will come as a surprise to many, the master Masons have an attribute which has exactly the same meaning as that of the grand Lamas of Tibet; but who in Freemasonry as it exists today could boast of actually possessing the mysterious power, one in its essence though double in its apparently contrary effects, of which this emblem is the sign? We believe that it is not exaggeration to say that, in what still subsists of the initiatic organisations of the West, no one any longer has even a remote idea of what is involved. The symbol remains, but when the 'spirit' has withdrawn it is nothing more than an empty form. Should we continue to hope, in spite of everything, that the day will come when this form will be revived, to respond once again to the reality which is the original point of its existence and which alone confers on it a true initiatic character?