Take a journey into the realm of water, taking us beyond its everyday dimension to evoke its value as a symbol, its uses in ritual, its powers, its gods. It takes us into Africa, Central America, Europe; and into Egypt, China, India.We go and meet communities to discover the place given to water in their beliefs, their religions or their myths. Water as the great Mother of the Universe, as a feminine source linked to fertility; water and its deities —rain gods in China, among the Maya, among the Dogon; river spirits, ocean gods, Neptune and his nymphs. Water as the principal element in rituals — in the India of today, just as in ancient Greece or in Voodoo rites; water the purifier in Hinduism and as in the religions of the book, the myth of the flood, the waters of the Ganges, the deification of the Nile, the river and hell, springs and their miraculous properties.
We examine how, sometimes, man has made an animal into a god. It is a journey through time, a journey to the heart of the great civilizations, to identify and learn about the divinity of sacred animals of yesterday and today.Explore the totem animal, the evolution of the status of the sacred animal in ancient Egypt, origins and meanings of animal mummies, animals as messengers of the gods. Explore how observation supports the symbolism attached to animals, divination by animals, the case of the snake, does and ewes in the Christian religion, cursed animals, the last sacred animals, the case of jainism, the deification of the monkey and the rat in India, the cult of Ganesh, elephant in animal pantheon, and the sacred cow.
Facing the landscape and its components, man has to confront his fundamental questions. He seeks, he imagines, he sees divinities as the expression of natural powers.This episode takes us through the world to the foot of great rocks, to the slopes of volcanoes, deep into underground caves, to the edges of cliffs where men have imagined gods and demons, where they have developed their religions and their myths.Explore dream time with the Australian aborigines, shamanism and Buddhism in Mongolia, the cardinal points and holy orientations, the fascination of the stars for the Maya, solar cults, gods from high and from below, mother goddesses linked to the Earth, sacred mountains, gods and volcanoes, standing stones, holy and sacred trees.