ithell colquhoun magician born of nature
All texts copyright Richard Shillitoe

primal fire

1978

Enamel on paper. 12½ x 9in. (32.5 x 23cm.) Inscribed verso with the name, title and year. Provenance NT. The idea of primal fire occurs in both Western and Eastern philosophy. In the West, it comes from the Greek philosopher Heracletus, who taught that primal matter, from which all things are composed, is fire, and that the primal fire is God. The origin of the world lay in the condensation of the primal fire into air and water; water, in turn, was condensed into earth. In the Eastern tradition, the primal fire that is said to reside, coiled like a serpent, at the root of the spinal column, is called kundalinî. The goal of Tantra Yoga is to awaken kundalinî and to channel this latent energy upwards. The esoteric name for the Judgement card of the Taro’s major arcana is “Spirit of the Primal Fire”.