© Chris ViGiL Quenzer 2011

ICHTHYOS 1.0
The Introduction
A synoptic study of unconscious syncretism surrounding the archetype of fish.

Is it likely that here, in the end of the age of Pisces, and the dawn of the new age (Aquarius), it might be somehow beneficial to examine the past through the eyes, or understanding, of the symbol (Pisces) that mankind has associated with it?

That is the task of this work, to find out if such perspective might edify us. This entire web site is based on the hypothesis that unconscious syncretism or the meaningful syncing of otherwise foreign thoughts and events does exist, and is meaningful, therefore informative. One need not believe or disbelieve the possibility. The best way to approach this hypothesis, like any other, is to suspend belief and view the facts with an open, yet skeptical, minds eye.

ICHTHYOS may be viewed as a subjectively guided, encyclopedia tour of the fish stories of man, but it is much more. The reader will find each story relating to others in such unlikely, yet meaningful ways, that it may be difficult to see any way around the idea of a hidden hand, of one sort or another, moving events, altering records or even controlling minds. For some, the numinous vibe of it all may necessitate a divine intervention explanation. For others, only an ancient elite class of bloodlines could have orchestrated such a globally cohesive history. No doubt, the new generation of wu thinking fertilized by the incredulous history channel, will chalk it up to alien intervention. A Jungian type thinker will likely conclude that somehow it was all subconsciously and/or unconsciously constelated to be exactly as it is, in conformity with an evolutionary psychological archetype. Perhaps in order to inform the conscious ego of the inner workings behind the veil of consciousness; the depths of the collective mind. Still most skeptics will be unable to see past mere coincidence and find reading any further more than difficult, laborious and shameful even. Any lengthy endurance of this content by these will have the unfortunate result of black and blue foreheads, possibly even frontal lobe damage from continuous face palming.

Those who have succumb to a certainty in their convictions, as to all the big questions, explain it away quickly with a belief in conspiracy, deity, spirits, aliens or even hyper dimensional beings etc. Philip K Dick, for example, might attribute it all to a being from the future whom he named VALIS. Though he was a man who perpetually develouped new theories and almost simultaneously dismissed them.

Contrary to the paranormal, extraordinary or numinous explanations, strong sceptics most often pass these things off as pure chance occurrences with just as fallacious a certainty as the rest. Ironically the same “nay sayers” quite often use an argument that sounds like a paraphrasing of biblical red letters, “If you look for it, you will find it” or “one can find any meaning, as long as one has the will to do so”. The exact quote would be “Seek and you shall find”. The point is not moot, but is confused for a conclusive debunking of the other possibilities.

Counter to the sceptics rational, quantum physics has all but proven that, indeed, the interaction of random potential alone morphs chaos into order, wave to particle, reality to actuality. The interaction of observation, it seems, should all the more influence the results of the interaction. So perhaps, yes, Jesus and skeptic alike, you’re right. If we seek (observe), Incidentally, we will find (manifest). Perhaps not.

To reiterate in a more casual language. The argument of the skeptic is often stated as, “Upon the purchase of a new car, one sees the same make and model more often, because of being aware of it, and though it may seem so, there are not suddenly more of them on the road as the believer supposes.”

But the truth may well be that we are more aware of them and there are suddenly more on the road. The theory of a multiverse is a valid contender amongst relevant scientific theories. Perhaps they were there all along, and the conscious state has merely shifted them into focus. Given one of an infinite number of probabilities in reality, would this not have to be true? When driving off the lot with a new car, -in the same instance where it drops in value- the awareness of it, the observation of the road and its populace increases, causing a fork in the road of perception and perceivable. A new awareness filters in an alternate universe; a world where indeed that make and model is more present in mind and matter. If this is true, then our awareness is like a steering wheel, navigating the map of variable reality. Our current location is the actuality we experience in an infinite reallity of locations.

In any case, we don’t know. Thus far we are incapable of devising experiments to practice in order to reach any reasonable conclusion. Certainty of any kind is premature and unjustified.

Meaning is the foundation of all symbolism, and meaning is a psychological phenomenon, a product of consciousness. It is reasonable then to conclude that the most adequate perspective for making sense of anomalous symbolic alignments is probably that of Jungian Psychology. After all, Carl Jung is the man who coined such terms as ‘collective unconscious’ and ‘synchronicity’, which, for this reason, Syncphany primarily utilizes for understanding. Not for belief or agenda, but as hypothesis. It is not, in other words, dogmatically assumed that this is the correct answer, but made use of as the only model of the principle at hand, that doesn’t take a giant leap of faith or deny any other reasonable possibility. It is built on the collaboration of quantum physics and psychology. So it is that the Jungian system will be examined in parallel with the facts. Not to leave out other explanations, we will examine them all in time.

Ultimately we are confined, by reason and our lack of knowledge, to reserve certainty and, for the time being, simply regard this work as an art form. So, pareidolia, apophenia or what ever it may be, relax the argumentation and enjoy the beauty of the patterns to follow.

Interestingly enough, this author did not know of it until well into the research and writing of ICHTHYOS, but Jung himself did a marginally similar study of the fish symbol in his book ‘Aion‘. (See C.G. Jung’s collected works 9-11.) Jung himself had some personal fish constellating synchronistic events, which will be covered later in ICHTHYOS.

The title ‘ICHTHYOS‘ is a play on two Latin words and their Greek root words.
1. Ichthyology, Latin for the study of Ichthys, Greek for fish.
2. Theology, Latin for the study of theo, Greek for god.

‘Theo’ is homophonically embedded into Ichthyology by “coincidence”. Also, by “coincidence”, ‘theo’ is spelled out within ‘ichthyology’, but with a ‘Y’ in place of the ‘E’.

The sole or primary gods in several belief systems (Christianity included) are either half fish, all fish or associated with fish.

So, if one were inclined to coin a word for the study of belief in fish related god(s), ‘ichthyology’ (or ichtheology) would be just as, if not more appropriate, as ‘ichthyology’ is in standing for the zoological study of fish.

It could be argued that the zoological term should be something like ‘ichthology’ to eliminate the homophone and nearly matched spelling of ‘theo’.

Although since the word ‘ichthyology’ is, according to dictionaries, a Latin word, while it’s root, ‘ichthys’, is Greek, perhaps the Latin term for fish, ‘pisces’ would have been a more suitable root. In such a case the word would be something like, ‘pisceology’. The problem there would be the similarity to the existing word piscatology (where did that ‘AT‘ come from?), which sounds like a study of urinating cats, but is the study of the art of fishing. If the coiner(s) were so bothered by such similarities, the word also could have branched from English and used fish-ology or from the root of ‘fish’ to sprout the word fisk-ology. Any of these would have avoided the inevitable confusion with a study such as this.

By the way, for English word coiners who take issue with and avoid similarities in words with completely different definitions, their problem there shows how wiser than most they’re.

Unfortunately a humble digression is in order. Despite this, and Carl Jung’s work, the study of fish related belief systems is not and has not been ‘a thing’, while ‘ichtheology’, as ‘a thing’, goes all the way back to the 1640’s. Even though somehow ‘-ology’ is attested only as early as 1800. Yet again, martyrology is the earliest ‘-ology’ word, on record as early as the 1590’s.

Go figure, it’s all rather fishy. Leave it to the ‘professionals, those good old academia nuts. Perhaps the maylay that follows is ridiculous, but it is curious. Would the study of the suffix ‘-ology’, or the study of the study of things, be called -ologyology?

“-ology
word-forming element indicating “branch of knowledge, science,” now the usual form of -logy. Originally used c. 1800 in nonce formations (commonsensology, etc.)…

martyrology (n.)
1590s, a native formation from martyr (n.) + -ology….

ichthyology (n.)
1640s,

Modern Latin, from Greek ikhthys “fish” + -ology.”

Etymology is one of the foundations for understanding how subjective relationships work. The source of etymology, unless otherwise noted is always Etymonline.com.

All Egyptian language references come from “An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary” by Wallace Budge c.1920

Here the concept of a collective consciousness is being examined. Any thought that exists in large numbers of minds falls within the lines of collective consciousness.
Therefore, in this work variances, typos/errors, rumors and lies are all relevant parts of the puzzle we will be examining.

In order to understand the fish symbol, One must first understand where it originates. The root of the Ichthys is in The Vesica Pisces, and the astrological sign of Pisces rules the feet. Consequently it is a logical place to start, at the foot, as the Vesica Pisces serves as an introduction to ICHTHYOS.