253 - Left Hand / Right Hand Symbolism

The Symbolic World

Jonathan Pageau

Education, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 933 Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This podcast is based on a presentation I did on my YouTube channel that relies a lot on visual imagery. You can try to follow along with audio only but it might get difficult to visualize what I'm talking about. Here is the original video: https://youtu.be/o_4j9Ts2wxU In this podcast I discuss the symbolism of the left hand and right hand that’s often mentioned in Scripture. Through exploring iconography and other representations of opposites inside and outside of Christianity, we can discover the meaning and role of these basic opposites, how they can feed each other and mysteriously flip. As I mention in my discussion, this is more like poetry, an intuition rather than a system. Icon of the Last Judgement image I always use, painted by Fr. Luke Dingman: http://www.lukedingman.com/icons3.htm Relevant Orthodox Arts Journal articles by Jonathan Pageau: - Mercy on The Right. Rigor on The Left: https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/mercy-on-the-right-rigor-on-the-left/ - The Icon of The Last Judgement: https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/icon-last-judgement/ ===================== - The Symbolic World website and blog: http://www.thesymbolicworld.com - Merch: http://www.thesymbolicworld.store - The Language of Creation (Matthieu Pageau): https://www.amazon.com/Language-Creation-Cosmic-Symbolism-Genesis-ebook/dp/B07D738HD8 - Carving workshop: https://jonathanpageau.thinkific.com/courses/st-john-baptist The Symbolic World podcast: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0gI8bUwPtT3gkduHqNh6M5 - Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-symbolic-world/id1386867488 More videos from The Symbolic World: - Odysee: https://odysee.com/@thesymbolicworld:2 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JonathanPageauClips - French Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JonathanPageaufrançais - Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/pageaujonathan/ - Dtube: https://steemit.com/@symbolism Join the conversation: - Unofficial Facebook discussion group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1989208418065298/ - The Symbolic World Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSymbolicWorld/ Support this channel: - Website: https://thesymbolicworld.com/support/ - Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/pageauvideos - Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/jonathan-pageau - Paypal: http://www.paypal.me/JonathanPageau Social media links: - Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheSymbolicWorld - Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/pageaujonathan - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathan.pageau My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson. My website designers, Anomalist Design: https://www.anomalistdesign.com/

Transcript

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0:00.0	In scripture, we have this important passage in the New Testament.
0:03.9	When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.
0:09.6	All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
0:16.0	If he put the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left, then the king will say to those on his right, come,
0:21.9	you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance. Then he will say to those on his left,
0:26.6	depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
0:33.3	So this is, of course, a very famous text. The text uses the symbolism of the right hand and the left hand in a way that is very intuitive to us and makes a lot of sense.
0:44.3	But this symbolism is very important and it appears universally, I think, in most cultures, it's related to the experience that we have of having a hand that is strong, a hand that we can
0:54.9	easily use, and a hand which is weak, and a hand which is more awkward. It's also related to
1:00.4	the right and the left eye. And so what I'm going to do with you is I'm going to go through some
1:04.7	basic notions of what this could mean in terms of more than just a metaphor, but as the basic experience of how beings coalesce towards their unity,
1:15.4	but also break apart into multiplicity.
1:18.5	This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world.
1:43.0	So a lot of my difficulty, let's say, with the symbolism of the right and the left hand,
1:49.2	comes about in my interpretation of this particular image.
1:55.9	So this image is one of the very first images that we have, I think probably the first image that we have,
2:02.6	of the last judgment. And so in this image, we see Christ in the center. To his right, we see
2:10.7	the sheep. To his left, we see the goats. To his right, we also see a red angel, and to his left we see a blue angel.
2:19.7	His right hand is exposed, and his left hand is hidden and secret.
2:25.9	Now, this is one of the first images, and this image will last quite a long time in the history of Christianity. And it will become a kind of standard
2:39.9	and will be explicit in different ways. It will come all the way up to the iconostasis.
2:47.1	Because in the iconostasis, which is this separation between the sacred place and the nave in
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