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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. 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 ^[1] 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 asso-ciation 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 thunder-bolts 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

Footnotes

[1]Ossendowski has told the story of a 'black stone' which was sent of old by the 'King of the World' to the Dalai Lama, then carried to Ourga in Mongolia, and which disappeared a century ago. Not knowing what it was, he sought to explain certain phenomena, such as the appearance of characters on the surface of the stone, by supposing that it was a kind of slate.

[2]This designation of 'dwelling place of God', in Hebrew, _mishkan_, was also given later to the Tabernacle. As the word itself indicates, it is the abode of the _Shekinah_.

[3]A more extensive discussion of the question of the _luz_ as well as that of the Omphalos, is to be found in our study on _The Lord of the World_.

[4]See the article of Patrice Genty on 'Thor and Parashu-Rāma' in Le Voile d'Isis, December 1928.

[5]Let us note in this connection that by a strange confusion some people today speak of 'Hyperborean Atlantis'. Hyperborea and Atlantis are two distinct regions, just as North and West are two distinct cardinal points; and as starting points for a tradition, the first is considerably prior to the second. We feel all the more justified in calling attention to this in that those who make the mistake in question have seen fit to attribute it to us, whereas it goes without saying that we have never been a party to it, and that we cannot see, in anything that we have written, the least pretext for such an interpretation.

[6]Vajra is the Sanskrit term which designates the thunderbolt; the Tibetan form of this word is dorje.

[7]It is interesting that the thunderbolts of Jupiter are forged by Vulcan, which establishes a certain relationship between the 'celestial fire' and the 'subterranean fire', a relationship which is not indicated in cases involving arms of stone. The 'subterranean fire', in fact, had a direct relationship with metallurgical symbolism, especially in the Cabiritic mysteries. Vulcan also forges the weapons of the heroes. It must be added that there exists another Northern version according to which the Mioelner or hammer of Thor is of metal and was forged by the dwarfs, who belong to the same order of symbolic entities as the Cabiri, the Cyclops, the Yakshas, etc. Let us note, too, as regards the fire, that the chariot of Thor was drawn by two rams and that in India, the ram is the vehicle of Agni.

27 § Thunderbolts

Footnotes