5 | The Double Spiral

We feel it would be not altogether without interest for the reader if we were to make a digression here—or at least an apparent digression—to take a look at a symbol that is closely related to the yin-yang. This is the symbol of the double spiral (figure 10), which plays an extremely important role in the traditional art of the most diverse cultures, but particularly in the traditional art of ancient Greece.^[1]

This double spiral ‘can’, as has been said very aptly, ‘be viewed as the projection onto a plane surface of the two hemispheres of the Androgyne, providing an image of the alternating rhythm of evolution and involution, birth and death—in short, as portraying manifestation in its dual aspect’.^[2]

Figure 10

This symbol can be interpreted both ‘macrocosmically’ and ‘microcosmically’; and owing to the analogy between these two perspectives it is always possible to switch from the one to the other by making the appropriate transposition. However, it is primarily with the ‘macrocosmic’ viewpoint that we will be specifically concerning ourselves here. For it is by comparing the double spiral with the symbolism of the ‘World Egg’ (which has already been mentioned in connection with the yin-yang) that the most notable parallels reveal themselves.

From this macrocosmic point of view the two spirals can be considered as indicative of a cosmic force acting in an opposite direction in each of the two hemispheres. In their broadest application the hemispheres are of course the two halves of the ‘World Egg’, and the points around which the two spirals coil themselves are the two poles.^[3] One can see at once the close connection between this and the two directions of rotation of the swastika (figure 11), which essentially represent one and the same revolution of the world around its axis, viewed now from one of the poles and now from the other.^[4] In fact these two directions of rotation express very well the dual action of the cosmic force with which we are concerned: a dual action which is basically identical to the duality of yin and yang in all their aspects.

Returning to the yin-yang symbol in general, and in particular to the two semi-circumferences that together make up the line dividing off the light and dark sections of the diagram, it is not hard to perceive that these semi-circumferences correspond exactly to the two spirals, while the central dots —dark in the light part, light in the dark—correspond to the two poles. This brings us back again to the idea of the ‘Androgyne’ that we drew attention to earlier; and here we will repeat once more that the two principles of yin and yang must always be thought of as complementary, even if the ways they both act in the various realms of manifestation might give the outward appearance of being opposed. Accordingly, we may speak either (as we were doing above) of the dual action of a single force or else

Figure 11 of two different forces, deriving from the polarisation of this single force and centred on the two poles, and bringing about in turn, through those very actions and reactions that result from their differentiation, the development of the virtualities contained or ‘enveloped’ in the ‘World Egg’. This development comprises all the modifications of ‘the ten thousand beings’.^[5]

It is worth drawing attention to the fact that these two forces are also depicted in a different—although fundamentally equivalent—way in other traditional symbols. The most notable example is the portrayal of the forces by two helicoidal lines coiling in opposite directions around a vertical axis. This can be seen for instance in certain forms of the _Brahma-danda_ or Brahminical staff, which is an image of the ‘Axis of the World’ that clearly shows the relationship between this double coiling action and the two contrary orientations of the _swastika_. Within the human being, these two lines are the two _nadis_ or subtle currents—right and left, positive and negative (_ida_ and _pingala_).^[6]

Yet another, identical motif is the two serpents of the caduceus. This is related to the general symbolism of the serpent in its two mutually opposing aspects;^[7] and viewed from this angle, the double spiral itself can also be regarded as portraying a serpent coiled around itself in two opposite directions. The serpent in question will therefore be an ‘amphisbaena’^[8]—its two heads corresponding to the two poles, and equivalent in itself to the two opposing serpents of the caduceus combined.^[9] In pursuing these analogies we have not let ourselves be sidetracked from the subject of the ‘World Egg’, for the simple reason that in various traditions the ‘World Egg’ is frequently linked with the symbolism of the serpent. One has only to think of the Egyptian Kneph, depicted in the form of a serpent producing the egg out of its mouth, which is an image of manifestation being produced by the Word;^[10] or of the druidic symbol of the ‘serpent’s egg’.^[11] On the other hand the serpent is often specifically described as living in the waters, as in the case of the Nagas in the Hindu tradition; and floating on these very same waters we find the ‘World Egg’. These waters symbolise possibilities, and the development of these possibilities is represented by the spiral: hence the close association that sometimes exists between the spiral and the symbolism of the waters.^[12]

In certain cases, then, the ‘World Egg’ is a ‘serpent’s egg’; but it can also sometimes be a ‘swan’s egg’.^[13] We are thinking here particularly of the symbolism of Hamsa, the vehicle of Brahma in the Hindu tradition.^[14] But it is also not at all uncommon (especially in Etruscan art) to encounter the double spiral surmounted by a bird. This bird is clearly the equivalent of Hamsa, the swan that sits on the Brahmanda upon the primordial Waters; and Hamsa in turn is none other than the ‘spirit’ or ‘divine breath’ (for Hamsa also means ‘breath’) that, according to the opening of the Hebrew Genesis, ‘was borne upon the face of the Waters’. No less worthy of mention is the fact that according to the Greeks the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, emerged from the egg of Leda which was engendered by Zeus in the form of a swan. Symbolically Castor and Pollux correspond to the two hemispheres, and therefore also to the two spirals we are considering. They will therefore represent the differentiation of the two hemispheres within this ‘swan’s egg’—in short, the splitting of the ‘World Egg’ into its upper and lower halves.^[15]

To attempt to elaborate further on the symbolism of the Dioscuri would be outside of our scope. It is a very complex matter—as indeed is the symbolism of all comparable couples comprising one mortal and one immortal, one of them often depicted as white, the other as black,^[16] just like the two hemispheres of which one is illuminated while the other remains in darkness. We will confine ourselves to observing that this symbolism is basically very close to the symbolism of the Devas and Asuras.^[17] Here the opposition is bound up with the dual significance of the serpent, depending upon whether it moves in an upwards or a downwards direction around a vertical axis, or alternatively on whether it is uncoiling itself or coiling around itself, as in the image of the double spiral.^[18] In ancient symbols the double spiral is occasionally replaced by two groups of concentric circles drawn around two points which once again symbolise the poles. At least in one of their more general connotations they represent the celestial circles and the infernal circles. The latter are a kind of inverted reflection of the former,^[19] and they both have their exact correspondences in the _Devas_ and _Asuras_. Expressed slightly differently, they represent the higher and the lower states relative to the human state, or the subsequent cycle and the previous cycle relative to the present cycle—which is ultimately just another way of saying the same thing using a ‘sequential’ symbolism. This provides further corroboration of our interpretation of the _yin-yang_ as a plane projection of the helix that symbolises the multiple states of universal Existence.^[20] The two symbols are equivalent, and one can be considered as simply a modification of the other—except that the double spiral is unique in depicting the continuity between the cycles. One could also describe it as presenting things in their ‘dynamic’ aspect, in contrast to the concentric circles which present things from a more ‘static’ point of view.^[21]

In referring here to a ‘dynamic’ aspect we of course still have in mind the dual action of the cosmic force, particularly in its relationship to the opposing and complementary phases of all manifestation which, according to the Far-Eastern tradition, are due to the alternating predominance of _yin_ and _yang_. Accordingly we have ‘evolution’ (de-velopment, ‘unfolding’)^[22] on the one hand and ‘involution’ (en-velopment, ‘winding up’) on the other; or, to express the same thing in another way, ‘catabasis’ or ‘going down’ and ‘anabasis’ or ‘going up’; departure into the manifested, and return to the non-manifested.^[23] This double ‘spiration’—and one will observe the very significant kinship between the actual name ‘spiral’ and the term _spiritus_ or ‘breath’ that we spoke of earlier in connection with _Hamsa_—is the universal ‘expiration’ (or exhalation) and ‘inspiration’ (or inhalation). In the language of Taoism these produce the ‘condensations’ and ‘dissipations’ that result from the alternating action of the dual principles of _yin_ and _yang_; in Hermetic terminology they are the ‘coagulations’ and ‘solutions’. For individual beings they are births and deaths—what Aristotle calls _genesis_ and _phthora_, ‘generation’ and ‘corruption’. For worlds, they are what Hindu tradition calls the days and nights of _Brahma_: _Kalpa_ and _Pralaya_. And at all levels of reality, on the ‘macrocosmic’ as well as ‘microcosmic’ scale, corresponding phases occur in every cycle of existence, for they are the very expression itself of the law that governs the sum total of universal manifestation.