For a more contemporary visualization of Shekhinah in graphic art, this looks pretty good. Many thanks to “CMW” for recommending Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III, and Mick Gray’s Promethea. The interest in this series in Kabbalah via the hermetic tradition is explicit. So too is the religious traction.
About Promethea, I learned from Wikipedia: “It tells the story of Sophie Bangs, a college student from an alternate futuristic New York City in 1999, who embodies the powerful entity known as Promethea whose task it is to bring the Apocalypse.”
I think this Promethea image gets right the basic duality of Shekhinah, especially in the split between the right and the left. For the image to really work, however, the star of David would need to be in her right hand; and for her right side to align with our right side, we’d have to view her from behind. But that’s okay. It’s “only” a comic strip.
I’m glad you found something interesting in it! I’m looking forward to anything else you might have to say about it!
Dear C.M.W: Alas, I am probably out of gas on this one. I’m just interloping! Thanks, again for the recommendation.
CMW – Have no fear! I was planning on writing on Promethea myself, as encouraged by my very own doctoral advisor. I am a long fan of comics in general and alan moore in particular (though his most recent work has been trying).
ZB – I hope you were kidding about it “only” being a comic strip, but i will take that ambiguity as an excuse to launch into one of my patented lectures 😉
J H Williams III is a fantastically talented draftsman and painter. His work in “Promethea” is definitely due consideration, especially from an aesthetically oriented thinker as yourself). {Aside – it was just recently, during my time viewing the schiaperelli/prada exhibit at the Met, that i was reminded of the convergence of fine and comic art, as a number of prada’s pieces included painted illustrations by james jean, a fantastic painter who gained fame first in his covers for the comic “fables.”}
In terms of the depiction of the Shekhinah in the comic, Moore’s Kabbalah is almost entirely derived from the “Christian Kabbalah” of the Renaissance (e.g. “Kabbalah Denudata”) as interpreted through the occult lens Aleister Crowley himself. Moore himself is a practicing chaos magician. the mystical and the occult run through his writings as a common leyline (see his meditations on the freemasons in his “from hell”).
i hope you do give some attention to comics in the near future! (have you seen kripal’s new monograph, “mutants and mystics?”)
Dear Joshua: Nothing is never “only” anything, not “even” comic strips. Thanks for your post! –ZJB