Vesica Piscis

Bladder of The Fish

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The Symbolic Meaning of the Vesica Piscis

By Richard J Oldale, January 3, 2019

Source: https://mastermindcontent.co.uk/the-symbolic-meaning-of-the-vesica-piscis/

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The symbolic meaning of the Vesica Piscis officially represents balance and creation. But as I will demonstrate in this article it has a deeper meaning – that creation is the result of consciousness.

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Symbols are a powerful tool you can use for self-development. They are the language of the unconscious mind and appear to us through dreams, synchronicity and the experiences we have in life.

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I appreciate that may sound like mystical woo-woo, but it is true. I explain how you can use numbers and symbols in the Number Symbolism guide. What's more, I provide real-life examples of when numbers have been used to reach a moment of self-realization or to make an important decision.

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And that's the true beauty of understanding the esoteric meaning of symbols. They are a guide you want by your side because they will help you navigate every challenge you face in life. The Vesica Piscis is a symbol you may find appearing to you in dreams and in walking life. It's fairly common to find this symbol in religious iconography all over the world. But what does it mean exactly?

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Most people in the West will recognize the Vesica Piscis is the Christian symbol of Jesus. But the symbol predates the Catholic church by thousands of years. In the East and Africa, the symbol is known as the Mandorla.

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The origins of the vesica piscis are not known. Modern-day neo-pagans claim the symbol is Germanic as it was used by Norse peoples. But the symbol can also be traced to Pythagorean Greece, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and Africa. It's the principle symbol that appears in the Flower of Life.

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Regardless of its origins, the symbol is given the same meaning – creation. But the esoteric meaning of the Vesica piscis is much deeper than that. To benefit from symbolism as a self-development tool, you need to know the esoteric meaning of symbols.

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In ancient Greece, this symbol was called the Ichthys, the offspring (creation) of the Syrian Goddess Atargatis. The Ichthys takes the form of fish. It is created by overlapping two circles. The almond shape in the middle is the Vesica Piscis.

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All the symbols used by modern “authorities” have their origins in ancient cultures and date back thousands of years. Every culture has their own interpretation of symbols, but if you treat them as pieces to a jigsaw, they reveal the bigger picture.

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The four examples below are only a small sample, but the symbolic meaning given for the vesica piscis are:

1. The union of heaven and earth in the body of Christ (Christian)

2. The root element of the Flower of Life (Judaism)

3. The womb of the ‘Cosmic Mother,’ Goddess Maat (Egypt)

4. Merging of God and Goddess (Celts/Norse)

What follows is an explanation of how each of the four meanings above actually have the same meaning once you unpack the symbolism in the interpretation.

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Vesica Piscis: Balance and Creation

Science shows us that nature has to find balance in order for creation to flourish. We see this in the sub-atomic particles of an atom. Male protons (positive charge) bind with female electrons (negative charge) to try and find equilibrium.

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When positive and negative charges of an atom find a balance, a perfect creation is formed. When they cannot find equilibrium, the female electron will look for another proton.

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If the atom cannot find equilibrium, the neutron kicks in and the atom neutralizes. This only happens if there is more or less of a balance of electrons and protons. If there are more of one than the other, an imperfect creation forms. An equal amount of electrons and protons balance out an atom.

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The vesica piscis is the shape in the centre of two interlocking circles. Let’s say one of the circles is the male energy and the other is the female energy. Male and female are opposites that create a balance in a relationship just as protons (male) and eletrons (female) create balance in an atom. The centrepiece is a perfect creation. But only when the circles are symmetrical – balanced.

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You can see from the picture above, the centre is an almond shape. I will come on to that later. But can you also see that the symbol above makes the “Ichthys” – the fish symbol used to represent Jesus in Christianity?

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Jesus Christ is a symbol of God in man. Essentially he represents enlightened man. Man becomes enlightened when ego-consciousness becomes aware of the split-off content buried in the unconscious.

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This is the union of heaven and earth. Heaven is the Mind which receives the 'voice of God' the superconscious. Earth is the personal unconscious, the repository for our programs which prompt habitual behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, character traits etc.

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It is when you program the personal unconscious with a higher knowledge of your True Self that you improve your life and your relationships. The unconscious mind, by the way is a the higher self and the lower self; the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It contains knowledge of our animal instincts and our "divinity".

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Consciousness essentially creates our experience of life. So one way to interpret the vesica piscis is that we need balance in our lives to consistently act appropriately.

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Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

However, that easier said than done. How do you know whether you're balancing your animal instincts and your divine qualities?

Ordinarily it would be difficult to perform a balancing act. However, symbols will guide you.

The Christian idea that the Ichthys is the ‘union of heaven and earth’ dates back to earlier cultures. The ancient Greeks for example used the idea of Father Sky for Heaven and Mother Earth for Earth.

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Heaven (Father Sky – male proton) and Earth (Mother Earth – female electron) are also religious euphemisms for mind (male) and body (female). The central shape of the vesica piscis, known as the ‘bladder of the fish’ is, therefore, the soul. The soul is consciousness in man.

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"First look at the things as keenly and as intently as you possibly can; then only let the feeling which expands to life, and the thought which arises in the soul, take possession of you. The point is that the attention should be directed with perfect inner balance upon both phenomena. If the necessary tranquillity be attained and you surrender yourself to the feeling which expands to life in the soul, then, in due time, the following experience will ensue." ~ Rudolf Steiner, How To Know Higher Worlds

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The oldest discovery of the vesica piscis dates back some 6000 years and was found in the Temple of Osiris in Abydos, Egypt. Osiris is a Sun God, the son of Nut and Geb, Father Sky and Mother Earth.

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Osiris, therefore, represents the creation of the male and female union. A child represents the creation of man and woman. As a Sun God, he represents illumination of the higher self. His brother Set (given to the English term, sunset) is the God of storms and disorder. When you live in base consciousness you experience turmoil and chaos.

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It is from ancient symbolism that Carl Jung developed his theory of the self and shadow self. A 20th Century concept which ancient cultures knew about 6000 years ago! Yet today, we don't really know how consciousness works.

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Before Isis came to prominence as the Mother Goddess of Egypt, there was the ancient goddess Ma’at, the Cosmic Mother who oversees the order of the world and restores chaos. She brings the Universe into balance. Sounds like an electron.

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The vesica piscis is said to represent the vagina of the goddess Ma’at. When the male seed is planted into the female ovary, their creation grows in the womb. The ancients used nature, including the dimension of human anatomy, as inspiration for their sacred geometry.

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The vesica piscis symbol was also used to represent the vulva of Goddesses in Celtic and Norse cultures as well, as we see in the Goddess’ Garden at Glastonbury. In Christian art, as we see in the introductory image of this article, we often find Jesus and other saints painted into a Vesica Piscis as though emerging from the womb of the Cosmic Mother.

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But the symbol is mostly associated with Mary Magdalene, the ‘Cosmic Mother’ of the Christian Church. Thus again, we see Jesus as creation/pure consciousness.