Initiation-A Fire In The Head

Originally posted to the Pagan Blog Project 2014, Week I.

In religious art, saints are often shown with a flame positioned above the head. There are two meanings to this; the first is that the individual was among those present at the first (Christian) Pentecost and received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-31,New Oxford Annotated Bible), the second is that the individual had a deeply spiritual connection to a Divine source of inspiration. During the Middle Ages of European history, the common human on the street lacked the ability to read and write, so the meaning of ideas was taught symbolically through paintings and street theater. It was not unusual for someone who'd had an epiphany or sacred encounter to be portrayed with a flame above their head-literally, "a fire in the head."  As far as I can trace it, the term originated in the ' Song of the Wandering Aengus',in which William Butler Yeats refers to the visionary experience as "...a fire in the head." It is an odd phrase which I don't fully believe can be understood unless you've experienced it first hand. Many of us have had this experience just before or during our initiation into the occult mysteries (the private one, between just you and the Immanent Divine).

So here is the story of my personal initiation. I have back-linked it to an earlier post that I wrote because I don't believe I can write it any better now than I did then. Sometimes you just have to allow a thing to stand for the record.


http://amethjera.blogspot.com/2011/02/fire-in-head.html