THE RADIANT AXES: World of the Emperor

Symbol Rays emanating from a central point (like the rays of the sun)

Civilization:

• The empire under a monarchy as the largest cohesive social unit
• Highly stratified social structure, with great extremes of wealth and poverty leading to social unrest
• Economy based on slavery and/or the exploitation of colonized peoples through burdensome tribute systems and other means of siphoning their resources
• Typically, a short life-span for the empire, ended by social revolution, internal weaken ing and overextension, or invading "barbarians"
• A state religion politically controlled by the monarchy and devoid of authentic spiritual inspiration; in some empires (such as the Roman, Incan, and Kublai Khan's), a degree of religious tolerance and eclecticism
• Gigantism and pomposity in state rituals, art, and architecture
• Exotic royal zoos, deer parks, botanical gardens, palace harems, royal collections of virgins and "specimens" of foreign or primitive races, all attesting to the emperor's colonization and mastery of animals, nature, women, and other races
• Military expansionism on a grand scale (to form the empire)
• Examples: New Kingdom Egypt, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the Persian Empire in the Near East; Yuan through Ch'ing dynasties in China; empire of Alexander the Great; Roman Empire; Aztec and Incan empires; Imperial Age of Europe (Louis XIV and Versailles; Spanish, Portuguese, and British empires, etc.); the Moslem world

Psyche:

• Cosmos centered on the sun
• The inflated ego (symbolized by Icarus's attempt to fly to the sun and consequent drowning); feeling that one is God, that one's power is infinite, that one is all-knowing, etc.
• Very rarely, enlightenment (as the complete transcendence of ego)
• Worship of the sun and identification with the solar principle
• Perceiving the world as extending to infinity and eternity from one's own being, place, and time; infatuation with one's destiny to bring about the apotheosis of human civilization
• Linear time, sometimes with a sense of imminent realization, through the empire (or the Self) of the full glory and expression of human will; also, calendars using an event in the life of an enlightened being as year zero (as in the Christian and Muslim calenders)
• Increasing techne-logos orientation, onset of spiritual decadence
• In adolescence, the symbolic Slaying of the Father to permit the liberation of power and will (paralleled in society by the secularized state religion supporting themonarchy)
• Mythic images and rites concerning the sun, Sun God or Goddess, sacnfices to perpetuate the sun's cycles; themes of enlightenment and radiance; elaborate ceremonies (celebrating the King's birthday, the payment of tribute, processions through the capital); passive entertainments (theatrical performances, dancers, musicians); debasement of the hieros gamos into the practice of keeping "temple prostitutes" for the convenience and pleasure of the emperor
• Psychological stagnation in the Radiant Axes can produce the inflated ego described above
• Psychological liberation in the Radiant Axes can transmute the inflated ego's unbounded territoriality into a state of transcendent spaciousness in which the ego is dissolved in enlightenment

  Space:

  • • Space as an infinite field of energy radiating from a central source (sun, monarch, capital, empire), unbounded by territorial limits
  • An imperial cornmunications system, consisting (in pre-electronic empires) Of vast networks of roads equipped with post-houses at regular intervals for 24-hour relays of messengers as well as for the convenience of government representatives and the military; imitation of the sun's rays in town planning through roads or avenues radiating from the palace throughout the capital and empire
  • Obelisks as a vertical component of the Radiant Axes, sometimes serving as the focal point of a svstem of radiating roads, or symbolizing a ray of the sun
  • Colossal statues and murals pompously proclaiming the mightiness of the emperor and the invincibility of the empire
  • The palace as the most important structure, complete with the zoo, parks, gardens, and harems mentioned above; spectacular summer palaces and royal villas
  
  
  
  
  
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  content © Mimi Lobell originally appeared in ReVision, A Journal of Consciousness and Change, vol.6 no.2, Fall 1983
  page uploaded 5 August 1999, last modified 18 June 2004
  
  page uploaded 5 August 1999
  modified 27 June 2000
  
  content © Mimi Lobell originally appeared in ReVision, A Journal of Consciousness and Change, vol.6 no.2, Fall 1983
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