Sheth

Sheth, October 1931.

Kāna al-insānu hayyah fi al-qidam ("Man was formerly a serpent.”)

In the column recently published by our colleague Argos (July issue) de-voted to a curious English book on the 'end times,' there is one point which has particularly caught our attention and on which we would like to make some additional clarifications: the interpretation of the names Nimrod and Sheth. As a matter of fact, the link established between the two by E. H. Moggridge calls for some reservations, but there is at least a certain real relation, and the approximations drawn from the animal symbolism seems to us well founded. Firstly, namar in Hebrew, as is nimr in Arabic, is properly the 'spotted animal,' a common name for the tiger, panther, and the leopard; and it may even be said according to the most external sense, that these animals represent the 'hunter' that was Nimrod according to the Bible. But, furthermore, the tiger, envisaged in a sense which is not necessarily unfavorable, is, like the bear in the Nordic tradition, a symbol of the Kshatriya; and the foundation of Nineveh and the Assyrian empire by Nimrod seems to be indeed the fact of a revolt of the Kshatriyas against the authority of the Chaldean sacerdotal caste. Hence the legendary relationship established between Nimrod and the Nephilim or other antediluvian 'giants,' who also included the Kshatriyas in earlier periods; and from there also the epithet of 'nimrodian' is applied to a temporal power which asserts itself independent of spiritual authority. Now, what is the relationship of all this with Sheth? The tiger and other similar animals are, as 'destroyers,' emblems of the Egyptian Set, the brother and murderer of Osiris, to which the Greeks attributed the name Typhoon; and it may be said that the 'nimrodian' spirit proceeds from the dark principle designated by the name Set, without, however, claiming that it is one with Nimrod himself; there is a distinction that is more than a simple nuance. But the point that seems to give rise to the greatest difficulty is this evil meaning of the name Set or Sheth, who on the other hand, as he designates the son of Adam, designating the stability and restoration of order. Moreover, if we wish to establish biblical connections, the role of Set vis-à-vis Osiris will recall that of Cain vis-à- vis Abel; and we note in this connection that some designate Nimrod as one of the 'Cainites' who would have escaped the diluvian cataclysm. But the Sheth of Genesis is opposed to Cain, far from being linked with him, how has his name appeared here? In fact, the word Sheth, in Hebrew proper, really has two opposing meanings, that of 'foundation' and that of ‘tumult' and 'ruin;'^[193] and the expression beni-Sheth (son of Sheth) is also given this double meaning. It is true that linguists wish to see in these two distinct words, coming from two different verbal roots, shith for the first and shath for the second; but the distinction of these two roots appears altogether secondary, and in any case their essential constitutive elements are identical. In reality, this is nothing more than an application of the double meaning of symbols to which we have often had occasion to refer to; and this application relates more particularly to the symbolism of the serpent. Indeed, if the tiger or the leopard is a symbol of the Egyptian Set, the snake is another,^[194] and this is easily understood, if one considers it under the malefic aspect which is most commonly attributed to it; but we al- most always forget that the snake also has a beneficial aspect, which is also in the symbolism of ancient Egypt, especially in the form of the royal serpent, 'uraeus' or the basilisk.^[195] Even in Christian iconography, the serpent is sometimes a symbol of Christ;^[196] and the Biblical Sheth, whose role in the legend of the Grail we have mentioned elsewhere,^[197] is often regarded as a 'prefiguration' of Christ.^[198] It can be said that the two Sheths are nothing else, at its most basic, than the two serpents of the hermetic caduceus:^[199] it is, if you will, life and death, both produced by a unique power in its essence, but dual in its manifestation.^[200] If we stop at this interpretation in terms of life and death, although it is in fact only a particular application of the consideration of two con- trary or antagonistic terms, it is because the symbolism of the serpent is indeed linked, before everything, to the very idea of life:^[201] in Arabic, the snake is al-hayyah, and life is al-hayah (in Hebrew hayah, is both 'life' and 'animal,' of the hayi root which is common to both languages). ^[202] This, which is related to the symbolism of the 'Tree of Life, '^[203] allows at the same time to glimpse a singular relationship of the serpent with Even (Hawah, 'the living'); and one can recall here the medieval figurations of the 'temptation' where the body of the serpent wound to the tree is sur- mounted by a woman's bust.^[204] It is no less strange, in Chinese symbol- ism Fu-hsi and his sister Nu-wa, who are said to have ruled together, forming a fraternal couple as is also found in ancient Egypt (and even up to the time of the Ptolemies), are sometimes represented with the body of a snake and a human head; and it happens that these two snakes are intertwined like those of the caduceus, without a doubt alluding then to the complementarianism of yang and yin.^[205] Without further pressing, which might carry us far astray, we can see in all this the indication that the serpent head, at times no doubt very remote, an importance that we no longer suspect today; and if one studied all aspects of its symbolism closely, especially in Egypt and India, one might be led to quite unex- pected findings. With regard to the double meaning of symbols, it should be noted that the number 666, too, does not have an exclusively malefic meaning; if it is the 'number of the Beast,' it is first of all a solar number, and, as we have said elsewhere,^[206] he is of Hakathriel, or the 'Angel of the Crown.' On the other hand, this number is also given to the name of Sorath, who is, according to the Kabbalists, the solar demon, as opposed to the arch-angel Michael, and this refers to the two faces of Metatron;^[207] Sorath is also the anagram of sthur, which means 'hidden thing,' is this the 'name of mystery' of which the Apocalypse speaks? But, if sathar means 'to hide,' it also means 'to protect;' and, in Arabic, the same word salar evokes almost exclusively the idea of protection, and often even divine providential protection;^[208] here again, things are so much less simple than those who only view this from one side.But let us return to the symbolic animals of the Egyptian Set: there is still the crocodile, which is self-explanatory, and the hippopotamus, in which some have wished to see the Behemoth of the Book of Job, and perhaps not without some reason, for this word (the plural of behemah, bahīmah in Arabic) is properly a collective designation of all the great quadrupeds.^[209] But another animal that is at least as important here as the hippopotamus, as amazing as it may seem, is the donkey, and especially the red donkey,^[210] who was represented as one of the most formidable entities among all those whom the dead must meet during their journey from beyond the grave, or, esoterically, the initiate during his trials; would it not be here, even more than the hippopotamus, the 'scarlet beast' of the Apocalypse?^[211] In any case, one of the most gloomy aspects of the 'typhonian' mysteries;^[212] we have some reason to think that, in one form or another, it has continued to this day, and some even say that it must last until the end of the current cycle. From this last point, we want to draw at least one conclusion: to the decline of a civilization, it is the lowest side of its tradition that persists the longest, especially the 'magical' side, which contributes, by the devi- ations to which it gives rise, to complete its ruin; this is what would have happened, it is said, for Atlantis. This is also the only thing from which the debris has survived for civilizations that have completely disap- peared; the observation is easy to make for Egypt, for the Chaldeans, for Druidism; and no doubt the 'fetishism' of the Negro peoples has a similar origin. One could say that sorcery is made of the remains of a dead civi- lization; is this why the snake, in the most recent epochs, has almost kept only its evil meaning, and that the dragon, the ancient Far-Eastern sym- bol of the Word, awakens only ‘diabolical' ideas in the spirit of Western moderns?

will be careful not to risk the slightest interpretation on this very obscure sub- ject.

The Language of Birds La Langue des Oiseaux, November 1931.

Wa as-sāffāti șaffan Fa az-zājirāti zajrā, Fa at-tālīyāti dhikran (“By those who range themselves in ranks, And those who are so strong in repelling, And thus proclaim the invocation!") (Qurʼān, XXXVII, 1-3).

In a variety of traditions, we often speak of a mysterious language called 'the language of birds:' an obviously symbolic designation, for the very importance attributed to the knowledge of this language, as a pre- rogative of a higher initiation, does not permit it to take it literally. This is also what we read in the Qurʼān: “And Solomon was David's heir; and he said: O people! We have been taught the language of birds ('ulimnā mantaq at-tayri) and on us has been bestowed all things." (XXVII, 16). Elsewhere, we have seen dragon-vanquishing heroes, such as Siegfried in the Nordic legends, immediately understand the language of the birds; and this makes it easy to understand the symbolism in question. In fact, the victory over the dragon has the immediate consequence of conquer- ing immortality, represented by some object of which this dragon has defended the approach; and this conquest of immortality essentially im- plies reintegration at the center of the human state, that is, at the point where communication with the higher states of being is established. It is this very communication that is represented by the understanding of the language of birds; and, indeed, birds are frequently taken as a symbol of angels, that is, precisely the higher states. We have had the opportunity to cite elsewhere, ^[213] the Evangelical parable where, in this meaning, it is a question of the 'birds of the sky' coming to rest upon the branches of the tree, of the same tree which represents the axis passing through the center of each state of being and linking all states together.^[214] In the Qur'anic text we reproduced above, the term as-sāffāt is con- sidered to literally designate birds, but symbolically applied to angels (al- malaʻikah); and so the first verse signifies the constitution of celestial or spiritual hierarchies.^[215] The second verse expresses the angels' struggle against demons, celestial powers against the infernal powers, that is, the opposition of the higher and lower states;^[216] it is, in the Hindu tradition, the struggle of the Devas against the Asuras, and also, according to a symbolism quite similar to what we are dealing with here, the fight of the Garuda against the Naga, in which we find, furthermore, the snake or dragon that we mentioned earlier; the Garuda is agile, and elsewhere it is replaced by other birds such as the ibis, the stork, the heron, all en- emies and destroyers of reptiles.^[217] Finally, in the third verse, we see the angels reciting the dhikr, which, in the most common interpretation, is considered as having been the recitation of the Quran, not, of course, of the Quran expressed in the human language, but from its eternal proto- type inscribed on the 'guarded tablet (al-lawh al-lahfūz), which extends from heaven to earth as Jacob's ladder, hence through all the degrees of Universal Existence.^[218] Similarly, in the Hindu tradition, it is said that the Devas, in their struggle against the Asuras, protected themselves (acchan dayan) by reciting the hymns of the Veda, and that for this reason the

(Le Rayonnement Intellectuel, May-June 1930), Mr. L. Charbonneau-Lassay re- produced a sculpture in which the bird is figured with only a head and wings, a form under which angels are often represented.

hymns were given the name of chhandas, a word which properly designates the 'rhythm.' The same idea is contained in the word dhikr, which, in Islamic esoterism, applies to rhythmic formulas corresponding exactly to the Hindu mantras, formulas whose repetition is intended to produce a harmonization of the various elements of the being, and to determine vibrations that, through their repercussion through the series of states, can induce an indefinite hierarchy to open up a communication with the higher states, which is, generally, the reason for essential and primordial being of all rites. We are thus brought back directly, as we see, to what we have said at the beginning regarding the 'language of the birds' which we can also call 'angelic languages,' and whose image in the human world is the rhythmic language, because it is on the 'science of rhythm,' which has many applications, that all the means that can be used to communication with the higher states are ultimately based. This is why an Islamic tradition says that Adam, in the terrestrial Paradise, spoke in verse, that is, in rhythmic language; this is the 'Syriac language' (loghah suryānīyyah) of which we spoke in our previous study on the 'science of letters' and which must be regarded as directly translating 'solar' and 'angelic illumination' as it manifests itself at the center of the human state. This is also why the Sacred Books are written in rhythmic language, which, as we can see, is quite different from the simple 'poems' in the purely profane sense that the anti-traditional bias of modern 'critics' seeks to see; and, moreover, poetry, originally, was not that vain 'literature' which it has become by a degeneration explained by the downward march of the human cycle, and it had a true sacred character.^[219] It can be traced back to classical Western antiquity, where poetry was still called 'the language of the Gods,' an expression equivalent to those we have indicated since the 'Gods,' that is to say the Devas, ^[220] are, like the angels, representations of the higher states. In Latin, the verses were called carmina, a designation which related to their use in the performance of rites, for the word carmen is identical to the Sanskrit Karma, which must be taken here in its special meaning of 'ritual action;'^[221] and the poet himself, the inter-preter of the 'sacred language' through which the Divine Word tran-spires, was vates, a word that characterized him as endowed with a pro-phetic inspiration. Later, by another degeneration, the vates was no more than a vulgar 'diviner, '^[222] and the carmen (hence the English word 'charm') an 'enchantment,' which is to say an operation of low magic; this is another example of the fact that magic, or even sorcery, is what remains as the last vestiges of lost traditions.

These few indications will suffice, we believe, to show how wrong are those who wish to make fun of stories about the 'language of the birds;' it is really too easy and too simple to treat disdainfully all 'superstitions' that one does not understand; but the elders, they knew very well what they said when they used the symbolic language. The true 'superstition,' in the strictly etymological sense (quod superstat), is what survives of it-self, that is, the 'dead letter;' but this preservation, so unworthy of inter-est as it may seem, is not so despicable for the mind, which 'breathes where it wills,' and when it wills, it can always arrive to revitalize the symbols and the rites, and restore to them, with their lost meaning, the fullness of their original virtue.