Animals and Mysticism

"If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows. "            -Henry Ward Beecher

Animals and mysticism are associated together in many religions, civilizations and arts. Throughout the history there are many examples which starts in B.C. Some of them are related to Shamanism and Shamanistic Mysticism. For example there are paintings of animals in the caves from 5800 B.C. in Catalhoyuk, Turkey. Apart from these neolithic sites, there are also cave paintings of animals and how they were hunted in South Africa which were done by paleolithic people.
The religion used animals as symbols and benefited from their powers. According to Merkabah Mysticism there is a symbol of a four wheeled vehicle driven by four living creatures, each of it has four wings and the four faces of a lion, man eagle and ox. These four living creatures have also been used as symbols in Christianity. They were the symbols of four evangelists. That is why they are very much used in church decorations. Zoe is the name of these creatures and they surround the throne of God in Heaven with other elders and spirits of God. Examples for that symbols were very much used in paintings in 16th and 17th century. For example in the painting of  Abraham Bloemaert which is called Four Evangelists, there is an ox as a symbol of one of the evangelist.
There is also imaginary and legendary animals such as unicorn, basilisk, dragon, griffin, phoenix etc. Each of them are also symbols, for example unicorn is the symbol of purity, while the phoenix is the symbol of re-birth. These imaginary animals and the idea that  "Each living thing has its own special meaning" originates from the Ancient world and the middle ages. The term called Bestiary came out from this idea. Earliest bestiary is a Greek volume called Physiologus from 2nd century. Aristoteles wrote a bestiary called Historia Animalium, Jorge Louis Borges wrote The Book of Imaginary Beings. Other writers who worked on bestiary areHeredotus, Plining the Elder, Solinus, Aelian etc.
One of the creature that Borges explains is called A Bao A Qu which is a creature that lives on the staircase of the Tower of Victory in Chittor. It may only move when a traveler climbs the staircase, and it follows close at the person's heels. Its form becomes more complete the closer it gets to the 
terrace at the tower's top. It can only achieve this ultimate form if the traveler has obtained Nirvana, otherwise it finds itself unable to continue.
Also, there are painters who made their own bestiary such as Leonardo da Vinci, Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec and Saul Steinberg.
Every single living animal has been used as a symbol or as the mediator between this world and the other world-the Nagual as the Carlos Castaneda puts it.
For example butterfly is a powerful symbol in myth and religion. In early Christianity it was a symbol of the soul. In China, it was used as a symbol of conjugal bliss and joy. In the Hopi tradition, unmarried girls of the butterfly clan wore their hair in the shape of butterfly wings. In Indian lore are storiesof how butterflies come when called by children of the Nez Perce tribe.
In spite of the fact that an animal has several symbolic meanings there is a consistency between the meanings.
Animals or in other words, creatures are also very important in mythology which Carl Gustav Jung
points out.
Carl Gustav Jung makes so much experiments about this issue of mysticism and going into the path of the "unknown". He, first of all goes into the ancient myths. He says everyone has his/her  own 
myth. And also myths are our inherited consciousness which takes us to discover our each individual mystery of life.
Jung uses dreams and symbols a lot to reach the unconscious psyche. Also that way he can reach to the archetypal images and associations. He says there are unconscious identification with animals. Animals are also very important symbols according to the ancient texts. For example the Eagle is a 
symbol of intermediary between the physical world and the outer world according to many 
civilizations like Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt. Also according to Christian mysticism, eagle is a symbol of resurrection. To the Pueblo Indians the eagle was a bird of the sky with the ability to spiral upward until it passed through a hole in the sky to the home of the sun. It was associated with all the energies of the sun- physical and spiritual. To the Pueblo Indians honored six directions-north, south, east, west, zenith (above), and nadir (below). The eagle was the symbol of  zenith because of its ability to soar to great heights. From these heights it could survey all four directions. They became 
symbols of greater sight and perception.

Sources;
-Andrews, Ted (1993). Animal Speak. Llewellyn Publications

Mysticism III

Mysticism has a meaning which goes to the roots of the word mystic and mysterious. In greek, it means something that is to conceal, or in other words something that is hidden. In a more broader sense it can be used as the secret meaning of life, which is unseen. Almost all religions are related to mysticism. Mysticism can be used as an exploration of life to have a deeper experience.
For example, dreams are important to research in mysticism because according to Carl Gustav Jung, they are the communication of the outer -mystic- world with us. It has many secret meanings embedded inside, which may lead to transformation of the soul.
This issue of transformation is very much related to mysticism because in the end all the mystic experiences are to transform the soul. Writer and anthropologist Carlos Castaneda describes this by dividing the worlds of reality into two, Tonal and Nagual. Tonal is the physical world, and Nagual is the other world which is infinite and much more powerful than the physical world. He makes an allegory by saying that if Tonal is an island, Nagual is the ocean that surrounds it. But we, as human beings living in the center of the Tonal island and isolated us selves from the ocean that we don't even know that it exists.
Carl Gustav Jung makes so much experiments about this issue of mysticism and going into the path of the "unknown". He, first of all goes into the ancient myths. He says everyone has his/her  own myth. And also myths are our inherited consciousness which takes us to discover our each individual mystery of life.
This issue of discovery is like turning an ordinary metal into golden. Like doing Alchemy. So in other words, going into the mystery of life, one can turn into the pure golden nature of the soul.
Jung uses dreams and symbols a lot to reach the unconscious psyche. Also that way he can reach to the archetypal images and associations. He says there are unconscious identification with animals. Animals are also very important symbols according to the ancient texts. For example the Eagle is a symbol of intermediary between the physical world and the outer world according to many civilizations like Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt.