The Seba library treats Ellipse in 6 passages, across 6 authors (including Corbin, Henry, Nichols, Sallie, Banzhaf, Hajo).
if it were necessary to draw a diagram, the situation would be far better represented by the two focuses of an ellipse than by the center of a circle
Corbin argues that the dual-focused ellipse, not the single-centered circle, best diagrams the gnostic heart’s double orientation toward divine and human poles of consciousness.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
their bodies lean toward each other in such a way that they form an ellipse. This ellipse is a symbol for the kind of alchemical interchange between heaven and earth which we have been describing.
Nichols reads the ellipse formed by Death and Temperance as a recurring alchemical symbol of heavenly-earthly interchange, prefiguring the elliptical wreath of the World dancer.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980thesis
The circle as the symbol of the ego ………………….. 222 The ellipse as a symbol of unity ……………………. 222
Banzhaf systematically contrasts the circle as ego-symbol with the ellipse as the superior symbol of unity, marking the ellipse as the form appropriate to individuation’s completion.
, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero, 2000thesis
a dog who had remained calm throughout the earlier phases of such an experiment suddenly became highly excited after failing to discriminate between the circle and a nearly circular ellipse
James documents that the perceptual collapse of the circle–ellipse discrimination boundary precipitates acute behavioral pathology, demonstrating the psychological stakes of form differentiation.
, The Principles of Psychology, 1890supporting
the examples of the sun and the focal point, the center, the circle, and the ellipse
Derrida, surveying Bachelard, identifies the ellipse as one of several geometric figures through which scientific abstraction seeks sensory illustration of rational schemas.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982supporting
The long slender celts, all of jade, stood upright edge to edge along the east and southeast edge of an ellipse 20 inches along its north-south diameter and 14 inches east-west.
Campbell notes the elliptical arrangement of ritual jade objects in an Olmec ceremonial deposit, implying a cosmological spatial intentionality in the ellipse’s deployment.
, The Mythic Image, 1974aside