Oktoada

We once discussed that the Movement of the World Whirl is described as a Quadripolar Quaternary. It is this law that underlies the Runic order, and it is also expressed in the Noble Truths of the Buddhist Way.

At the same time, note that Oktoada and its symbol — the eight-pointed star — are a universal symbol representing matter, just as the hexagram represents spirit (light).

In other words, Oktoada describes the attractive aspect of matter, its immanence, whereas the Hexagram denotes the condition of ensouled matter.

The eight-pointed nimbus of God the Father, which can be seen on Christian icons, therefore points to his creative activity and, at the same time, his nonintervention in worldly affairs.

Moreover, Oktoada, as the static imprint of the Quadripolar Quaternary, means moment in infinite extension, the eternal present beyond time.

In principle, the eight-pointed Star in the Christian tradition signifies eternity, complete stability, transcendence of the lower world. Eight stands between the lower realm and the higher Trinity. The angelic, fiery, fearsome and merciful Cosmos, a “furnace of fire”, both conceals and reveals the final mysteries of the Divine.

Eightfold symbolism was widespread in the ancient civilizations of the East and the classical world — in Sumer, Assyria and Babylon, Media and Iran, India and Palestine, Greece and Rome, England and Russia. It appears on royal cylindrical seals, on palace bas-reliefs and in architectural designs, on boundary stones and in jewelry.
It adorned the shields of the knights of the Order of the Temple.

In the history of human culture, the eight-pointed star, as a divine astral symbol, first appears on the royal cylindrical seals, royal bas-reliefs and jewelry of Sumer, Assyria and Babylon dating to the end of the 4th — beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. The solar (Annual) symbol in Babylon — incarnate radiance — contains within it the solar circle, the cross of solstices and equinoxes, and the cardinal directions.

Images of the eight-pointed star are very characteristic of northern Russia and are preserved in the museums of Rostov Veliky, Vologda, and Perm. They symbolize eight millennia (“the seven centuries of the Creator and the future century of the Father”) and at the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century were considered ‘heretical’ by official Orthodox canons.

The eight-pointed white star with a red border and the motto “Blood and Fire” — the emblem of the British and other Anglo-Saxon branches of the Salvation Army — is the emblem of the Salvation Army founded by William and Catherine Booth in London in 1865 and became international in 1880.

In medieval Western European symbolism, there existed a combination of the straight and the oblique crosses. These two crosses, superimposed on each other, are depicted on the national flag of the United Kingdom.

From a purely graphic point of view, the symbol of the eight-pointed star can be rendered either as two overlapping lozenges or as the superposition of two crosses — a vertical cross and a Maltese cross.
It was precisely by such a sign in Sumerian that the word an, i.e. “god“, was denoted. Later, among the Semitic Akkadians, the same originally Sumerian sign was vocalized as ‘ilu’, retaining its original meaning ‘god’. Note that from this ancient Semitic “ilu” the Hebrew words “el”, “elohim” and so forth, also meaning “god”, derive.

The most ancient symbol of the year, the most ancient calendar, was precisely the eight-pointed star inscribed within a circle. The periphery, the circle itself — the seasons, which flow. The center of the star, from which the rays emanate, is eternal and unchanging; it “does not burn up”. Yet it was through the image of the year, of time, that primordial tradition perceived the manifestation of the Higher Deity in the world. The year is the living and visible embodiment of the dual nature of reality, where the eternal and immutable, the spiritual, providentially combines with the mortal, finite material.
The eight-pointed star in a circle — is the most ancient calendar.

In pre-Orthodox Rus’, among the ancient Rus’, the eight-pointed star signified the presence of the principal deity; it was depicted on war banners, clothing, and important household and cult objects. Perun’s sanctuary in Kiev was surrounded by eight bonfires, set along the directions of the four cardinal points and the four intermediate directions.

As a runic symbol, Oktoada corresponds to the Hagalaz Rune in its “Mother” form in the Younger Futhark. In this case, it also symbolizes the “sealed” Quadripolar Quaternary, its instantaneous projection.

Thus we see that Oktoada as a symbol includes, on the one hand, the concept of the quadripolar quaternary, and on the other its static form, eternity as the antipode of time and change.