Symbolic Meditation on Sovereignty and the Möbius Strip

That aspect of double circularity inherent in Sovereignty and which, historically, is also symbolized in the alternation of decay or reconstitution of the same. In a well-structured symbolic meditation, the Ring, the Crown and the Scepter are the symbols of the sovereign function. In them the dual nature of Sovereignty is present in a somewhat hidden form and requires meditation according to the spiritual orientations mentioned above. Certainly the Ring is one of the most important symbols of Sovereignty as it refers to the first Ring, that is to the Founder, of a chain of initiatic transmission; the Ring is finally the symbol of the Transcendent Unity of religions and various esoteric traditions, which every Sovereignty should know how to guard well, as visible manifestations of that unique invisible pole of which it is itself a simple manifestation. We believe it appropriate here to explicate another symbolic meditation on the dual and circular nature of the sovereign function, focusing it on that geometric form associated with the name of the mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius. Before exposing such meditation, it is appropriate to remember that for many vigilant watchers of the enchantment of modernity and the separation of disciplinary fields, meditating on mathematical objects, (particularly those which to be mathematically well understood must also be seen from within highly formalized languages), highlighting aspects that allow connections to realities perceived as extra-mathematical, is only a sign of great mental confusion and intellectual infantilism. Indeed those who follow such perspectives see no symbolic possibility in a mathematical object, and, perhaps, in any manifestation of being. This type of critical mentality, already well manifested also in ancient times, is, at best, incapable of rising above rigid deductive reasoning, to ascend to what is above, toward which one proceeds, sometimes, with the means of analogy, as well as, when it serves, with those of mythology, but, in general, only through the Pythagorean way is it possible not to lose the right orientation; which does not at all mean entering within the purely mathematical field and substituting the logic of deduction with forms of argumentation capable at most of persuading, but not of demonstrating. These critical intellectuals, impregnated with a mysticism of separation, carry out, even if unconsciously, their important function as external coverers, unmasking the interpretative pretenses of exuberant literati swollen with words; many of these have no consciousness of what precedes an act which, using an adjective much abused by our contemporaries, we could define as creative, and have difficulty understanding the abyss hidden in the operative distinction that runs between separating and distinguishing, the latter act referring to an acuteness that makes recognizable aspects of the same thing, in which such aspects coexist fused, without being confused. Conversely, it is he who has supremely at heart the purity and relative independence of each single discipline, who can perceive in himself that acute punctuation, especially in the most creative moments, which indicates a symbolic operative surplus. If sometimes it becomes necessary to make such surplus more explicit, this happens for very precise personal reasons, certainly not for motivations of an individual or merely contingent nature. The geometric form we alluded to above is today known by the name of Möbius strip, although Johann Benedict Listing also speculated about it around the same years. Such form was also known in ancient times. A version of it very much in tune with the spirit that animates this writing is today contained in the Glyptothek of Munich. In reality it comes from a mosaic, datable, according to experts, between the middle of the second century AD and the first half of the third century. The name by which this mosaic composition is known is Aion and the Zodiac (Fig.3). It was placed to decorate a Roman house in Sentinum, today's Sassoferrato, in the Marche region. In the mosaic is depicted a man in the phase of passage toward maturity. He holds with his right hand the celestial wheel, at the point where the sign of Pisces is found, while he has his left foot on that of Virgo. It will not escape anyone that these are the signs corresponding to the two equinoxes. In truth the mosaic contains zodiacal arrangements not easily interpreted. However, we find in perfect opposition the two solstitial signs: the sign of Gemini with that of Sagittarius. In the mosaic there is like a balanced suspension between change.