“In honor of Pope Innocents’s new fountain, Kircher
published in 1650 his Obeliscus Pamphilius (the Pamphilj obelisk), …revealing
Egyptian supposed theological secrets.
Centerpiece of the Fountain of the Foru Rivers (Bernini) is an ancient obelisk
covered with heroglyphs. “Eqyptians believed that a kind of cosmic, divine
sperm—what Kircher called “a certain universal seminal power”—continually
rained down on the earth, traveling on the rays of the sun. As icons of solar
rays, boelisks, including Piazza Navona attracteded this life giving “solar
spermatic power’ to the planet….we might tend to read the shape as phallic, but
the Egyptians inteed it to repreent a ray of the sun.
But Bernini was not always pleased with facing the
task of working around a door.[i][3] So instead, he
incorporated it into the composition. It
has come to represent the false door, a passageway to the afterlife or another
realm, a symbol of such thoughts since
Breaking from tomb design tradition, Bernini hides the
sarcophagus from the monument. The door
functions as the sarcophagus, as the visible symbol of Alexander’s departure
from this life. To this day, the door is
functional. It is currently used as the
entrance and exit door for diplomats and wheelchair-bound visitors to St.
Peter’s (fig. 20).[ii][iv]
Furthermore, the skeletal
Death in this composition, with the hourglass in hand and face hidden in the
folds of Sicilian jasper, plays the part of Time defeated by Truth.[iii]
the tomb was also designed to fit snugly over a pre-existing
door pays tribute to the designing genius of Bernini.
great care was taken in designing and constructing the
marble drapery which would envelop no less than three of the statues and the
top surface of the plinth. The shape of the drapery was first created in
travertine by Morelli and later passed on to the stonemason Gabriele Renzi, who
in turn constructed the plinth of the monument based off of the shape of the
Sicilian Jasper drapery.
A bronze gilded skeleton is centered in the foreground as
well, but placed closer to the ground than the virtues Charity and Truth. A
carved drapery of Sicilian Jasper envelops the skeleton and the four virtues.
A great cloak, carved by Domenico Bassadoma, covers the
Pope's shoulders. Bassadoma had exploited the natural veining of the marble to
spectacularly render the streaks of cloth, imbuing the sculpture an aura of
majesty.
Bernini's addition of a bronze skeleton to the Pope's tomb
is not as surprising during his time as it would be today, for skeletons were
commonly added to funeral monuments. Usually, they were not depictions of
Death, but rather the skeletal version of the deceased.
Alexander VII's keen self-awareness that someday he would
die most likely inspired Bernini to incorporate the skeleton of Death
brandishing an ominous clepsydra (hourglass with wasp-waisted reversible glass
with two bulbs containing sand to be used as a timer) onto his patron's
monument. The skeleton itself was different from the norm, for Bernini was the
first to use three-dimensional skeletons. This idea may have originated from a
unforgettable mass conducted in 1639 at Il Gesu, a Jesuit church Bernini
attended during much of his adult life. In this particular service, the Jesuit
fathers displayed mechanized skeletons wielding swords and wearing crowns to
symbolize Death's dominance over the present world. These skeletons from that
memorable mass must have left quite the impression in Bernini's mind for the
winged skeleton of Alexander VII's tomb emerges from the symbolic tomb in a
three-dimensional manner, true to Bernini's Baroque fashion of art.
The lack of edged corners in the niche, as well as its domed
ceiling, were taken advantage of as the Sicilian Jasper drapery was designed to
feel as though it were flowing out of the corner into the room, carrying the
four virtues with it. In addition, the top of the door in the niche is to some
extent concealed by the carved drapery, adding an element of intrigue to the
masterpiece. The skeleton of Death wielding the Sands of Time is placed
directly in front of the door; taller individuals who pass through the door
must duck in order to avoid bumping into the lower appendages of the skeleton.
In essence, Bernini transformed an egress of St. Peter's from a door leading
inconveniently located under the Tomb of Alexander VII to into a door
symbolically leading to Eternity. Art
history presentation archive
It is almost as though as the camera pans toward the image
where the head should be were it not covered by the jasper. You can see the
figure holding its left hand against the side of its head, tilted slightly
toward the hourglass and or as if a mask at 5.36. a gargoyle, were suggested in
its hand that disappears here starts at 5.20 Rise of the Religion
Courtesy Cesare
Rozzisi
--The best idea Satan ever had was to inspirit the mind to misconstrue. John Lash thinks he is onto something when he says the name Lucifer only occurs once in the Bible, in Isaiah, and that it doesn't appear in Revelation, which means.... They should not allow Satan near the mind. It is so easily deceived.
Bernini, Tomb of Alexander VII, The False Door. Bernini was not always pleased with facing the task of working around a door.[i][3] So instead, he incorporated it into the composition. It has come to represent the false door, a passageway to the afterlife or another realm, a symbol of such thoughts since breaking from tomb design tradition, Bernini hides the sarcophagus from the monument. The door functions as the sarcophagus, as the visible symbol of Alexander’s departure from this life. To this day, the door is functional. It is currently used as the entrance and exit door for diplomats and wheelchair-bound visitors to St. Peter’s (fig. 20).[ii][iv]
Many bodacious exemplars of Lucifer occur in the notions of hierarchy cast as angels of light. Occult forces administer these when they think of Earth as their planet. Take the initial descriptions of AB abstracted here of a being so spiritual it could only inhabit its body as an etheric light, a planetary logos, freely appropriating for itself all the legitimate terminology of Hebrew and Christian scriptures. It seeks to supplant the true One. These occult angels of the burning lake are well described by Milton in I of Paradise Lost in the raising of the city of Pandemonium. But the Hierarchy casts this as its wisdom light, which by the way is for sale, which ought to tell everyone what it is. There you can be sold the notion that individual-suspended ego men can ascend to take the heaven.
If it is allowed that Satan is the unhinged Lucifer, the crispy one who causes David to number the people and costs 70,000 lives, who cunningly suggests through Balaam to Barak how to dissolve the Hebrew people, then when Jesus says, "get behind me Satan" to Peter, there is more to parasitic telepathy than has been realized. Jesus says continually to demons, as does Paul, that they are not to speak. David says the enemy and avenger shall be stilled.
"R. Simeon continued: 'It is now fitting to reveal mysteries connected with that which is above and that which is below. Why is it written here, "Come (bo) unto Pharaoh"? Ought it not rather to have said "go" (lekh)? It is to indicate that the Holy One, blessed be He, guided Moses through a labyrinth right into the abode of a certain supernal mighty dragon -- that is to say, Egypt's celestial representative -- from whom many lesser dragons emanate. Moses was afraid to approach him, because his roots are in supernal regions, and he only approached his subsidiary streams. When the Holy One saw that Moses feared the dragon, and that none of the supernal messengers was able to overcome him, He proclaimed: "Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon (tanim) that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said: My river is my own, and I have made it for myself" (Ezek. XXIX, 3). Yea, truly, the Lord Himself had to war against this dragon, and no lesser being. This is the mystery of the "great dragon" for those who are familiar with the esoteric lore.' Said R. Simeon further: 'It is written: "And God created the great dragons (taninim) and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind" (Gen. I, 21). This verse', he said, 'we have already discussed, but the words "He created the great dragons" contain a yet more special and particular mystery: they refer [34b] to the Leviathan and his mate, which last was slain and is preserved by the Holy One for the regaling of the righteous (in the days of the Messiah). The great dragon reposes between nine rivers, the waters of which are turbulent; and there is a tenth river whose waters are calm, and into the depth of which the blessings of the waters of Paradise descend three times a year. Into this river the dragon enters, making there his habitation; and thence he sallies forth and swims down to the sea, and devours there fish of all kinds, and then returns again to the river. The nine swift rivers are banked by trees and fringed with flowers. The parent river issued from the Left Side and from it three drops fell into a certain channel, and each of the three was divided again into three, and every drop became a river. These are the nine rivers which flow through all the firmaments. And from the final moisture that remained when all the drops had issued forth yet another drop was formed, which issued gently, and of this drop was formed that tenth river, which flows calmly. Into this river also flows a drop from the blessings poured forth from the Right side by the "perennially flowing stream", and it is greater than all the rest. When the four rivers which flow out of the Garden of Eden divide, the one called Pison flows into and is fused with the calm tenth river of which we have spoken. Out of the calm river, thus augmented, are fed and filled all the other rivers; in each of which a dragon dwells, so that the number of the dragons is nine. And each of these nine has a hole in his head, and the great dragon as well, because each of them emits breath upwards and not downwards. It is written: "In the beginning God created ..." and also "And God created the great dragons". This indicates that all the ten acts of Creation had their counterpart in these ten rivers, on each of which one of the dragons breathes heavily. Now, that great dragon, when he raises his fins, heaves up the waters around him, and all the earth is shaken and all the lesser dragons, and this takes place every seventy years.' Said R. Simeon: 'Verily, though the members of the Fellowship are students of the story of Creation, having knowledge of its wonders and perception of the paths of the Holy One, blessed be He, yet even among them there are few who know how to interpret it in connection with the mystery of the great dragon.' [1] [35b]"
http://www.american-buddha.com/cult.zoharsoncino.3.bo.htm
Hence we realize what a great promise it is that "He has put all things under his feet...the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes in the paths of the sea!
Bernini. The False Door
Veining of the marble. Death is being crushed by the canopy of red jasper in the tomb of Alexander vii chigi
door below symbolizes the Gate of Death, above which a
skeleton lifts a fold of red marble drapery and holds an hourglass
