The Barefoot Journey: Arcane symbolism in Art and Literature

I realised belatedly that there is a lot of meaning interwoven in the image of the barefoot man or woman in art history spanning thousands of years. Perhaps in the 19 and 20th centuries the lack of shoes, particularly in the Western world would have meant poverty, slavery and other forms of incarceration or punishment. For those who had shoes denoted a sense of power and authority. This is an idea of recent date however, it certainly does not reflect the attitudes in many parts of the world and into antiquity, nor does it reflect a person’s preference for taking off their shoes, especially in their own homes, or taking it to the extreme and running with no shoes on! Interestingly in certain parts of Africa to show another person the bottom of your shoe, by taking it off and waving the sole at them, is an insult; whilst in many religions it is mandatory to take off shoes in Holy places, as a sign of respect or humility in the presence of God. In the judeo-arabic tradition this relates to the law of Moses when he said in Exodus 3:5 ‘Put off thy shoes from thy feet for the place thou standest is Holy ground’; and perhaps the African traditional insult derives from shaking the dust from ones shoes. If we look at the folk Saint Expedite, who crushes a demonic crow under his feet, symolizing the temptation to wait for his conversion to Christianity to the next day - we are perhaps not surprised to find that the saints name means literally "to free the feet" or get the "feet out." (eg. Ex - Pedis) and hence his crushing of a crow which crows the latin word "cras" (tomorrow)  underfoot is very meaningful.

However what really interests me is the hidden arcane meaning of being barefoot.

In esoteric terms the image of the man without shoes, seen in medieval carvings, refers to an aspect of the spiritual construct of Man sometimes called the Astral body or the body of emotions. To depict a man or woman without shoes thus denotes we are looking at the spiritual aspect of that person as a clairvoyant may see them. In that sense the lack of shoes shows the lack of physicality through a lack of connection with the physical earth.

There appears to be a long precedent of depicting the spiritual through the absence of earthly connection. In Chauvet Cave in France there are cave paintings of 25 to 35 k years ago which show animals but no ground. The anthropologist Lewis-Williams explains this in his book Mind in the Cave  by suggesting that the lack of earth signifies that these are not depictions of living animals but rather spirit animals with the cave walls acting as a ‘spiritual membrane’ – perhaps a prehistoric shaman painted these spirit animals for ritual purpose. Whether this can be linked to the barefoot depiction is uncertain but if you intend to depict a contextual environment for your subject the ground must appear, in that sense, to remove the shoes has the same effect as removing the ground. In Ancient Egypt you see anthropomorphic gods and goddesses without shoes, such as Horus, (who is represented in the nights  sky as the constellation of Orion). Likewise in India we see the many handed Lord of the Dance Siva Natarja dancing barefoot. We also find many depictions in art history showing Christ barefoot.

But it is the Astral Body or the Body of Emotions which most concerns us here. If we cast our eye on this medieval church wood carving we see two men plagued by demons, the two men are barefoot, this again suggests the lack of earth, and hence that we are looking upon a spiritual image.

The astral of the miser and the begger are plagued by the demons of wasteful and moneygrubbing reminding me very much of Dante’s La Divina Commedia, especially the opening of canto VII where Pluteus the demon guardian of the fourth circle of hell exclaims in apparent gibberish ‘Pape Satan, papè Satan aleppé!’ . However whilst Dante views the spirits of the dead, the illustration shows us in no uncertain terms that this is the living person we are seeing, molested by demons in this life.

Dante Alighieri in his La Divina Commedia does not tell us whether he has shoes on or not during his pilgrimage, but it would be fitting if he did not since the hidden meaning would then reflect a journey in the Astral and not a ‘spiritual autobiography’ or ‘Fifth Gospel’ which is the traditional view. Dante of course begins his journey meeting the Astral as an independent entity manifested in a leopard (sometimes translated as panther) ‘una lonza leggiera e presta molto’. In that sense Dante is like The Fool in the tarot deck which commonly shows the Fool being pursued by a dog (or cat), (the medieval sign denoting the Astral) and like Dante’s Commedia, as not yet integrated with the Soul has its own independent existence.

Everyone has experienced their own strong emotions at some point or another, and thus understands that the emotion has its own independence from us and its own sometimes uncontrollably power  – as Eckhart Tolle wrote in The Power of Now ‘If you are pulled into unconscious identification with the emotion...the emotion temporarily becomes “you”’  – or as Dante writes in Canto I:58 of the Inferno ‘So I was transformed by that restless animal’.

Dante then descends into Hell, before journeying through Purgatory and finally to Paradise. It is a tale not of his own life and death but of his own initiation journey where the descent into Hell is a necessary part of the process.

Furthering this line of Initiation if we look at the oldest surviving Tarot deck, the Visconti-Sforza deck, we see the Fool with rent clothes (his tights or trousers are around his ankles) and he is also barefoot.

The traditional explanation tells us that this is a sign of his poverty, in these terms what a pitiful creature he is! And a Fool too, perhaps showing off his privates. But there is also a hidden meaning. Perhaps his apparent nakedness links to the Fool’s willingness to show the things that others prefer to hide, or to do what seems foolish to the uninitiated. After-all, the Path of the Fool derives from the initiatory rites of Ancient Egypt and thus the fool's exposure may relate to the nakedness of Isis and the initiation rituals; usually hidden underneath seven veils. Should the profane Man have glimpsed the Naked Isis they would have seen only her naked body, letching at her breasts and so on - an object of their sexual desire - they would miss the inner meaning before them. Likewise by laughing at The Fool for his foolish nakedness the profane Man (who sleep walk through life in their ignorance) become the real fools, whereas our Fool, barefoot and with his trousers around his ankles is the beloved Fool: the initiate on the barefoot journey; that is the journey in controlling his or her inner animal, transforming the Astral into a higher state, on the Path of self-development.