Thunder occupies a remarkably polysemous position across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as cosmogonic force, numinous vehicle of mana, moral correlative, and trigram-symbol of arousal. Jane Ellen Harrison supplies the most sustained psychological-anthropological treatment: for her, thunder precedes the god who is later said to wield it — the sanctity is primordial, not derivative, and from that pre-personal numinosity the figure of Zeus crystallises. The thunderbolt is thus an extension of collective mana, a 'bridge between the emotion within a man and that mana of the outside world he is trying to manipulate.' The Greek thunder-cult with its abata (inviolable struck sites), its thunder-stones, and its Kouretes initiations exemplifies the double attitude of magic and taboo. In the I Ching tradition — represented by Wilhelm, Cleary/Liu Yiming, Wang Bi, and Huang — Thunder is the trigram Zhen (Quake, Shake): the irruptive upward surge of celestial yang energy through the earthly plane, compelling moral sobriety and purposive action. Taoist commentary transforms this into an inner-alchemical image of the will advancing like thunder, 'irrepressibly.' Hesiod grounds the archaic sense: Zeus thunders to assert cosmic sovereignty. Together, these strands reveal thunder as the depth-psychological archetype of sudden, transformative arousal — the moment the numinous breaks into consciousness.
In the library
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The Thunder-Rites have made clear to us the two-fold attitude of man towards mana, his active attitude in magic, his negative attitude in tabu… in the thunder as weapon, we have an extension of man's personality, a bridge, as it were, between the emotion and desire within a man, his own internal mana and that mana of the outside world he is trying to manipulate.
Harrison identifies thunder as the paradigm case for the double structure of mana — simultaneously magical instrument and taboo object — and as the experiential bridge between inner psychic force and external numinous power.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912thesis
The Greek of classical days normally conceived of thunder not as a vague force but as a definite weapon, a bolt wielded by Zeus… Here and elsewhere we have three factors in a thunderstorm, thunder itself, the noise heard, lightning, and the smoking thunderbolt, Shafts of great Zeus.
Harrison traces the rationalisation of pre-personal numinosity into Olympian theology, showing how the archaic thunder-force becomes domesticated as Zeus's personal weapon while retaining its earlier sacred charge.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912thesis
'Thunder,' said Umbara headman of the Yuin tribe, 'is the voice of Him (and he pointed upwards to the sky) calling on the rain to fall and everything to grow up new.' Now here we… a thing is regarded as sacred, and out of that sanctity, given certain conditions, emerges a daimon and ultimately a god. Le sacré, c'est le père du dieu.
Harrison argues that thunder's sacred status is not derived from a god but is itself the primordial source from which divinity emerges, inverting the conventional theological order.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912thesis
It was not till the stone was vomited up that the thunder and lightning were let loose. Long before Zeus was Zeus, thunder and lightning were, in a sense to be considered presently, divine potencies, their vehicle was a thunder-stone.
Harrison demonstrates through the Hesiodic Kronos myth that thunder and lightning pre-exist the Olympian god as autonomous divine potencies, their archaic vehicle being the thunder-stone.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912thesis
In Greece a place that was struck by lightning became an ἄβατον, a spot not to be trodden on, unapproachable… they were ἐνήλυσια, places of coming… dedicated to Zeus the Descender (Καταβάτης).
Harrison analyses the Greek thunder-taboo system — the abaton and enelysion — as concrete institutionalisations of the mana attached to sites of lightning strike, demonstrating thunder's role in structuring sacred geography.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
Thunder, from the sanctity of which our enquiry began, is one of the most usual and significant manifestations of Wa-kon'da… all animate and inanimate forms, all phenomena, as pervaded by a common life… This mysterious power in all things they called Wa-kon'da.
Harrison uses Omaha ethnography to situate thunder within the universal continuum of mana-thinking, showing it as a privileged phenomenal expression of the undifferentiated life-force.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
Thunder represents the celestial coming to the fore from beneath the earthly, celestial energy arising with time… When practitioners of the Tao activate the energy of will and go directly forward… this should be like the movement of thunder; only then can they rise up with firmness, and not be subject to compulsion by human desires.
Liu Yiming reads the Thunder hexagram as an inner-alchemical image of celestial yang energy irrupting through earthly conditioning, prescribing willed purposiveness on the model of thunder's irrepressible arising.
Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
Thunder is arising, mountain is still. Thunder represents the celestial coming to the fore from beneath the earthly, celestial energy arising with time. This is symbolized by thunder. When the sound of thunder arises, it booms irrepressibly.
Liu I-ming presents thunder as the dynamic yang principle in its purest form — the irrepressible upward surge of celestial energy — contrasted with the mountain's stillness to define the complementary rhythm of action and rest.
Thunder moves under heaven, things accompany with no error. Thus did the kings of yore promote flourishing appropriate to the time and nurture myriad beings. No error means no wandering mind and no arbitrary action.
The Taoist I Ching interprets the thunder-under-heaven image as a moral model: thunder acting in perfect accord with natural timing is the pattern for human sincerity and purposive action without error.
Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
'Thunder going on everywhere under Heaven': Thunder is a terrifying sound… The thunder stirs up the myriad things, and, sober with fear, none dares engage in deceitful or false behavior.
Wang Bi's commentary reads universal thunder as an instrument of moral ordering: the numinous terror of pervasive thunder compels ethical sobriety throughout the myriad things.
Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
They were the men who purified Pythagoras with the thunder-stone and initiated him into the thunder-rites of the Idaean cave. If Picus the Bird-King was of their company, small wonder that he could make and unmake the thunder.
Harrison documents the Idaean Daktyls and related sorcerer-brotherhoods as specialists in thunder-rites, demonstrating that mastery of thunder was a technical initiatory achievement, not merely a theological attribute.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
'Clouds over Thunder symbolizes Beginning' — the structure presents a vivid picture of a tremendous power of energy, represented by thunder, lying at the base of clouds… 'The action of thunder and rain filled things up everywhere.'
Huang's commentary establishes thunder as the generative energy underlying the cosmogonic hexagram Beginning (Zhun), reading it as latent creative power that will inevitably discharge into manifest action.
Alfred Huang, The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation, 1998supporting
Therefore 'when thunder comes, there is alarm, then laughter.' The coming of thunder means that within stillness there is suddenly movement; alarm followed by laughter means initial carefulness and subsequent ease.
Liu Yiming interprets the phenomenology of thunder-shock as a psychological rhythm — sudden arousal from stillness producing first vigilance, then release — mapping the inner alchemical movement of the mind.
Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
Thunder moves under heaven, things accompany with no error… thunder is without error, myriad things also are without error. This is the image of no error.
Liu I-ming correlates thunder's natural, time-attuned movement with the Taoist ethical ideal of wu-wei sincerity, using thunder as the cosmic warrant for purposive action free from personal distortion.
But he thundered hard and mightily: and the earth around resounded terribly and the wide heaven above, and the sea and Ocean's streams and the nether parts of the earth… through the thunder and lightning, and through the fire from the monster, and the scorching winds.
Hesiod presents Zeus's thunder as the supreme assertion of cosmic sovereignty in the Titanomachy, a total ontological event that resonates through all registers of existence simultaneously.
Hesiod, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700supporting
A sudden clap of thunder is awesome not just because of the sound, but because of the silence it has interrupted… 'Into the awareness of the thunder itself the awareness of the previous silence creeps and continues; for what we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder pure, but thunder-breaking-upon-silence.'
Welwood, citing William James, uses the thunder-silence contrast as a phenomenological model for how consciousness registers form against ground, illustrating the interdependence of arousal and stillness in awareness.
Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000supporting
The whole gist of this 'Turning ceremony' is the placing of the child 'in the midst of' those elements that bring life, health, fruitfulness, success, in a word Wa-kon'da. Very early in life the child has 'accomplished the Thunders.'
Harrison shows that thunder-accomplishment is a ritual milestone in Omaha initiation, the child's formal entry into relationship with the mana-continuum being marked as having 'accomplished the Thunders.'
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
Thunder, LEI: rising, arousing power; the Symbol of the trigram Shake, CHEN. Clouds, Thunder, Sprouting… Thunder issuing-forth-from earth impetuously.
Ritsema and Karcher's concordance-style entry establishes Thunder/Lei as the systematic symbolic equivalent of 'rising, arousing power' across the I Ching hexagram system, grounding its multiple appearances in a single trigram-logic.
Rudolf Ritsema, Stephen Karcher, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
In contrast to archaic statues of Zeus which portrayed the god striding resolutely and hurling his thunderbolt, Pheidias represents the highest god seated on a throne… serene and composed in the sovereignty of his being.
Burkert traces the iconographic shift from a kinetically thundering Zeus to Pheidias's contemplative enthronement, marking how classical theology sublimated the raw thunder-power into sovereign composure.
Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, 1977supporting
Thunder and wind are perpetual. Thus does the superior person stand without changing places… Thunder and wind grasp each other; with wind the sound of thunder reaches afar, following thunder the blowing of the wind is powerful. This is the image of perseverance.
The Perseverance hexagram pairs thunder and wind as mutually reinforcing natural forces, reading their perpetual interaction as the cosmological model for human constancy and moral steadfastness.
Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986aside
One of the earliest and most enduring varieties dealt with the Five Thunder (gods) and was linked to the Jiangxi Celestial Masters… A later variety was known as the Thunderclap legacy… it is mostly about forms of exorcistic ritual practice.
Kohn documents the institutionalisation of thunder as a ritual-theurgical category within Daoist liturgy, noting Thunder Rites as a distinct tradition of exorcistic practice linked to specific regional and scriptural lineages.
For the superstitions that gather round thunder-stones, and for celts as supposed thunder-stones, see H. Martin's La Foudre dans l'Antiquité, 1866.
Harrison's bibliographic aside identifies the scholarly literature on thunder-stones and prehistoric celts, situating the thunder-stone tradition within the broader anthropological study of numinous objects.
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912aside