Agitation

I have often written in this blog that many spiritual exercises, practicing the otium and silence, walking, etc ... have, among others, the purpose of controlling a state of physical and mental agitation.

I would like to emphasize here that agitation, according to the Traditional Roman Spirituality, has not a positive or negative connotation per sè. It is a peculiar condition, a special status with specific ties and connections with precise divine forces and energies.

Agitare in Latin means "to think", " to do" in a very intense way. In particular, agitation is a state binding together thought and action, but, being frantic, they produce anxiety. Agitation is therefore a condition in which doing, thinking and anxiety are combined in an unity.

Agitation is traditionaly represented by Hydrargyrium which was later associated with Mercury. Agitation is thus represented by the figure of the god Mercury, with the corresponding metal and planet. It expresses, in sacred terms, the intense thought and action, the extreme mobility. It is the quicksilver which can be also found in divine figures such as Diana (with her frenzied dance - the ridda). linking  the Earth-body with Fire-soul.

In this way it describes the thought constantly in motion associated to the senses and the spiritual depths, placed between Sky and Earth, between Body and Soul.

This drives to a state of anxiety and anguish because agitation may generate forms of knowledge not showing however rational features: agitation leads to a knowledge through confused, irrational, indefinite and uncertain visions thus causing anxiety.