"Far more than other sports, baseball shows an esoteric structure. The game is played on a geometrically perfect square. Each base stands at what would be the quarters in Western esoteric ritual. These four bases also stand for the four elements, though attributions are variable: Home plate, with its coating of dust, seems to be Earth, while third base is traditionally referred to as the "hot corner," signifying Fire. In the center is the pitcher's mound, a circle in the middle of the square mandala, which speaks to us of the fifth element of Spirit, or the center point of wholeness...."
Hannah's writings got me wondering about other esoteric sports theories, and it seems there are a few. Maria Torska writes on medium.com, "Few people know that the earliest forms of football had nothing to do with modern sport. In medieval England, during equinox festivals, crowds did not kick leather balls — they chased severed human heads. Most often, these were the heads of executed traitors or enemies of the crown. It was not entertainment, but a ritual of disempowerment — erasing the soul of the defeated from the field of life."
Ouch, a little dark, but she goes on to say:
"In 1863, when the modern rules of football were formalized in London, a Secret Football Society also emerged — a magical brotherhood that understood the game’s deeper origins. Behind closed doors, they taught how to channel collective human energy through play.
The ball was not just an object — it was a vessel of desires. After each final, it was either burned or sealed in a crystal chest.
Each match became a ritual of energy transfer. Scoring a goal was not just victory — it was absorption of power."
So what about American Football? I found this Peer Reviewed article from Purdue University, in which Marx Axelrod says Football is the remembrance of the practices of our "Barbaric Ancestors." He goes on to write that the "ticket" is the "Rite of Participation," and the "Stadium, a Scared Place." Axelrod also says about the Football playing field:
"The prototype of this medieval city was, of course, the Heavenly Jerusalem, that had a square ground plan within and surrounding walls with twelve gates that separated it from the profane space outside. This "squaring of the circle" is what Jung has called the "archetype of wholeness." Because of that significance, the"quaternity of One" has been the schema for all the images of God, as depicted in the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Enoch...."
Very heavy stuff which I invite you to read at Purdue.ed if you can.
Regarding Basketball, I read this interesting post by MatthewFox.org, where he compares his visit to a Warriors Basketball game to a "reptilian brain."
"Sports too can help calm and redirect the reptilian brain. Sports too can be a meditation. Why am I so sure of this? Because the reptilian brain wants to win—it’s win/lose with a crocodile. Athletes want to win too—that is why they practice so hard and sacrifice much to get to their common goal, a goal usually defined as winning. But what makes the reptilian brain in sports different from the reptilian brain in war for example (or often in business), is that in sports there are 1) a spatial parameter (the ball court) and 2) a temporal parameter (the game is only 48 minutes long as such) and 3) referees and 4) a beginning and an end. And if one loses, well, “it’s only a game.” That is where the excitement derives: Will the reptilian brain win or lose tonight? Which team’s reptilian brain will triumph? Sports exercise the reptilian brain—but safely and within parameters. And if one wins, the larger tribe, the followers of the team, go bananas and rejoice and express themselves in irrational ways that are exactly what one needs after suffering through the daily grind of work and bill payments and children’s sicknesses and all the rest that life offers on a daily and sometimes humdrum basis."
And you thought it was only a game.
~~ Eso Terry
