ABSTRACT
The metaphor of light is fundamentally intertwined with the history of western consciousness. Our very language demonstrates the pervasiveness of this metaphor and its intimately connected twin metaphor of vision and enlightenment: it is nearly inconceivable to envision a way of thinking that doesn’t rely on one or the other of these metaphors. As a result, in the most common means of communication light and vision appear to be an essential factor of western imagination and our view of consciousness. In language and myth, in science, philosophy and religion, we find abundant confirmation of this view:
From the primitive importance of the sacred fire to the frequency of sun-worship in more developed religions-such as the Chaldean and Egyptian-and the sophisticated metaphysics of light in the most advanced theologies [and philosophies], the ocular presence in a wide variety of religious practices has been striking. Some faiths, like Manichaean Gnosticism, have fashioned themselves “religions of light”; others, like the often polytheistic Greek religion, assigned a special role to sun gods like Apollo. Unearthly, astral light
surrounding the godhead, the divine illumination sought by the mystic, the omniscience of a god always watching his flock, the symbolic primacy of the candle’s flames-all of these have found their way into countless religious systems.
