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Corbin, Henry - The celestial pole and the Orient
Identifier
006325
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth – Henry Corbin [translated by Nancy Pearson] 1977
The Orient origin which orients and magnetises the return and reascent, is the celestial pole, the cosmic North, the emerald rock at the summit of the cosmic mountain of Qaf, in the very place where the world of Hurqalya begins; so it is not a region situated in the East on the maps, not even those old maps that place the East at the top, in place of the North. The meaning of man and the meaning of his world are conferred upon them by this polar dimension and not by a linear, horizontal and one dimensional evolution, that famous ‘sense of history’ which nowadays has been taken for granted, even though the terms of reference on which it is based remain entirely hypothetical.