Saturday, November 9, 2013

Mise en Abyme

Recursion within recursion: self-similar repeating patterns illustrate 32 wondrous paths articulated in a mysterious ‘Book of Formation’ (Sepher Yetzirah). Was it an accident? By weave of circles and array of stones those paths partition into stars and polygons, hidden within stars and polygons, all abiding in mutual symmetry: a fractal alphabet. 



If consciously engineered, its cipher went unspoken: to number the sequence of 22 letters 0 - 21, as zero posed a paradox too great among the ancients to be included among their numbers. For how could ‘nothing’ be some thing? Though known of, zero remained hidden from the mathematics of antiquity, even by the unknown author of the 32 paths. Yet it unlocks a secret function in that account of letters & numbers - a distinctive attribute sharing certain similarities with the composition of a Tarot deck.

Naturally, bearing structural resemblance to such a recursive artifice as the Book of Formation (however adeptly concealed), speculations concerning Tarot’s origins are prone to get tangled in the strange loops of what fractal kingdom is fashioned from that cipher. Its’ self-similar repeating patterns evoke synchronicity by propagating ‘meaningful’ coincidences, and in that respect shares more than just a structural resemblance to Tarot. It may account for its utility as an oracular device. 

But the more pertinent question: to what degree knowledge of this cipher influenced the development of Tarot from its earliest Renaissance formulations to its subsequent standardization during the Enlightenment. To suggest that degree were “zero” is perhaps too good a pun on The Fool (cifra) to be taken seriously, but is that itself a judgment tangled in recursions? 

A Fool does play a significant role with respect to a Tower within the traditional lore of Judaism (Midrash) complementing Biblical allegory. Therein “Kesil”, the “fool” king Nimrod fabled to have commanded Babel’s tower built, was reputedly punished for his hubris by being pinned to the starry night with Orion’s belt - an asterism whose constellation straddles the celestial equator (0º). Notably, the tale stems from a Biblical episode concerning the confusion of languages [Genesis 11:7 ≈ π/2] where, to thwart common purpose among humans, YaHVeH jumbled the letters of the spoken word. By subdividing their single communal unity into categories of native self & foreign other, by introducing xenophobia, humanity becomes mired in an oppositional thinking toward the differences between communities and cultures deemed too alien to be treated humanely. In effect, war was born. 



    (0) The Fool (alef) Air - ox
♂ (16) The Tower (peh) Mouth

The confusion of speech - breath made sound - inflicted upon an otherwise unified people at Tower’s fall, unleashes Mars/Aries by engendering conflict between them. Deeper still, language itself seems wholly dependent upon oppositional concepts for meaningfully nuanced expression: war/peace, love/hate, self/other, etc. - words defined as much by what they are not, as what they are supposed to be. Though not exactly at war with what they signify, the words of any language inflict an arbitrary sort of violence merely by their separate and independent existence from that which they are intended to represent. 

Given the poignancy of the Babel myth with respect to such a cryptic play on letters & numbers, we might reasonably ask whether there are other notable instances of synchrony between Tarot & the Book of Formation specific to Judeo-Christian allegory & exegesis. How many would it take to constitute a reasonable argument for more than zero degrees influence between systems? 231, or more? 343? Supposing the correlation weren’t just occult superstition, could one even navigate such a recursive domain and keep one’s logic sound? Could a modus operandi be discerned and described without getting lost in the infinite regress of self-similar patterns reiterated within one another? 

Well, for the sake of some argument, as opposed to none, let us further consider how the imagery of Tarot might be utilized as a guide to decrypting the Book of Formation, and the soundness of the logic will speak for itself. 

The Fool (0), as stated, has his reasons for playing the pivotal role of cipher, especially when coupled with The Tower (16). Though neither bear much surface resemblance to their corresponding letters, they together posit a scene of pun & allegory in the service of Jewish folklore - a referentiality between cards which elicits a gnosis of symbols & numbers in sync with the 32 wondrous paths of the Book of Formation. For instance, beside their possible allusion to King Nimrod & the tower of Babel, The Fool (0) & (16) The Tower may be read as an approximate value for pi if we look at The Fool as also being the “22nd” trump (0=22) and combine him with the digital root of 16 (1+6=7). 

22:7 ≈ π

Similarly, the form of zero could be viewed together with a ‘tower’ ◯ + | = Ⓘ as evocative of a certain key phrase from the Babel myth recorded in the biblical Book of Beginnings [Genesis 11:7] wherein YHVH decrees the confusion of tongues. 

11:7 ≈ π/2

Among the 22 letters, the Book of Formation describes 7 of them as ‘double letters’, corresponding to the 7 planets of antiquity visible to the naked eye (including Sun & Moon). Perhaps, playing upon their title, these 7 are ‘doubled’, thereby reiterating a value for pi within the recursive structure of the 32 paths of wisdom visible in the figuration of 22 as a centered heptagon. In turn, this affiliation of the 7 planets with the days of the week shares a heptagonal symmetry with respect to the speed at which those planets were seen to race across the sky. Evenly spaced and sequentially ordered fastest to slowest around a circle, the planets are rearranged into the days of the week by connecting them with a heptagram - a fact somewhat obscured in the English speaking world by their Greco-Roman ‘gods’ having been replaced with corresponding deities from the Norse pantheon:

⊙ Sol/Helios = Sunna / Sunday
☽ Luna = Mani / Moonday
♂ Mars = Tiw / Tuesday
☿ Mercury = Wodan / Wednesday
♃ Jupiter = Thor / Thursday
♀ Venus = Freya / Friday
♄ Saturn-day



Taking into account how 6 circles, arranged symmetrically, can divide a plane into a maximum of 32 distinct regions (including the space surrounding them), 7 circles can likewise divide a plane into a maximum of 44 distinct regions. In keeping with a modus operandi of recursion, The Chariot (7) might then reiterate this numerology of linked circles through the number of times the word “Merkabah” appears within the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible: 44. 

Similarly, the Hebrew word for Tower (Hammigdal) appears (1+6) times. 

If such a line of reasoning led to the 7th trump becoming The Chariot or the 16th trump being The Tower, then the recursion of symmetries invoked by the Book of Formation would extend into the iconography of Tarot through puns and allegories, (re)counted from scripture, to impart exegetical knowledge. In which case, a riddle to solve within the Tarot deck (or, at least, its ‘standard’ variant) may be found in the interweaving of these symmetries with both biblical folklore and specific numerals & glyphs drawn from the mathematical constants inherent to those geometric forms. 

(5-6-7) 22-32-44

(5) 22-5-72
(6) 32-127-73
(7) 22-18

The 6 circles dividing a plane into 32 wondrous paths are reiterated with the partition of 22 letters into 3 ‘matrices’, 7 ‘doubles’, and 12 ‘simples’. Of the 3 matrices the Book of Formation describes their interplay as articulating a cosmic order:


“Three matrices: Alef, Mem, Shin. Their basis is the scale of acquittal and the scale of guilt, and the language of law holds the balance between them.” -SY2
“Three matrices: Alef, Mem, Shin - a great secret, hidden and ineffable, and sealed with six seals. And from it goes out fire, water and aether, and it is enveloped in male and female. Know and ponder a form (a mental image) that fire evaporates water.” -SY24 
“Three matrices: Alef, Mem, Shin - The offspring of the heavens - fire; the offspring of the air - aether; the offspring of earth - water; fire above, water below, and aether is the balancing item.” - SY25 

(20) shin - fire △
(0) alef - air  
(12) mem - water ▽

12+0+20 = 32
△ + 0 + ▽ = ✡

(20) Judgement
(0) The Fool

As the “kesil” Nimrod, The Fool suffers a Judgement for his hubris. As subject to the Roman punishment for sedition, the hanged man, Jesus, suffered a Judgement for his humility. Both attained a form of ‘everlasting life’. One among the stars, the other in ‘heaven’. One punished, the other pardoned. The question of Justice and how it relates to the letter of the law will be addressed in due course. For the time being we are holding a mental image of the heavenly fire ‘above’ evaporating the terrestrial waters ‘below’, and Aether as the balancing item. Or, put another way, where The Traitor meets his ultimate Judgement an aether as symmetrically balanced as a star hexagram (△ + ▽) = ✡ evaporates from the offspring of Earth, like a soul leaving the body. 

Conveniently, The Star (17), as the simple letter tzaddi, is one of several of the letter-symbols sharing in a fishing motif. If we take Tarot's hanged man as the medium from which to catch the ichthys, an interesting 'coincidence' surfaces:

XIII: Death - nun - Fish (ichthys)

♒ (17) The Star (tzaddi) Fishhook
▽ (12) The Traitor (mem) Water

Perhaps, then, Death may be drawn up from the offspring of Earth, evaporating where it mingles with the offspring of Heaven. The ‘balancing item’, inasmuch as The Fool conveys the fate of Nimrod, is that point where the material edifice has been demolished by the divine while the soul rises to heaven. The Star, then, serves to redeem The Traitor by drawing his Death out of the watery depths unto its meeting with Fire and the resurrection portrayed by its Judgement. As demonstrated, the intermingling of Fire (20), Air (0), and Water (12) gives rise to the 6-point symmetry of a hexagram (32). And, if one has a penchant for linking circles together, one can see how the measure of a ‘fish’ complements the ‘Star of David’.




Given that 17/12 is a rational approximation for the square of two, it would be logical to infer that the ‘fish’ refers to the axes of a vesica piscis (‘fish vessel’): the overlap between 2 circles sharing a common radius. Their ‘cross’ within the fish provides an ancient heuristic for approximating the square root of three: 265/153 = 1.73... 

With respect to the miraculous catch of 153 fish written of in the Gospel of John [21:11], we can acknowledge that this measure was somewhat highly regarded by the Christians. As both the square roots of two and three are intrinsic to the proportions of a cube, they might have inherited this reverence for the ichthys from the dimensions of the Holy of Holies - the gold cube adyton of Solomon’s Temple wherein ‘the name’ YHVH reputedly dwelt. 

The shapes made by the sum of the 12 simple letters (127) and the sum of their digit roots (73) form a centered hexagon (127) and a star hexagram (73). Seen as projections onto a plane of a cube and a star tetrahedron, the latter could nest within the former: the symmetric faceting of the cube. The square root of two [17/12], essential for translating a star hexagram into higher dimensions, gives the proportion of a square’s diagonal to any edge. By hooking the ‘fish’, one may move the square into becoming a cube by knowing the proportion of the cube’s space diagonal to any of its edges. 

Curiously, the numbers 17 and 73 together share a cartographic relationship to a specific star, the ‘dog star’ Sirius. At roughly -17º Declination on the celestial sphere, night’s brightest star disappears from view above 73ºN latitude and becomes circumpolar at 73ºS. 

Yet the 17th trump, consistent with the attribution of the simple letter tzaddi to the zodiacal house Aquarius, depicts a water-bearer. And, in a sense, The Star does bear water unto a threshold of fire. Being an air sign, Aquarius conveniently embodies a vessel for water reaching heaven. If the star ‘above’ the Aquarian were Sirius, then it’s distance in hours of Right Ascension (1+7) from the closest member of the constellation Aquarius would give us an angular measure of some importance in plotting the vertices of a hexagram composed of 2 triangles (8hrs RA = 120º = 360º/3). 

The punishment of the fool “Kesil”, pinned to the night by Orion’s belt, aligns with this Star. Perhaps, then, his own stellar ‘punishment’ facilitates the resurrection of a ‘hanged man’. As The Star and a fishhook, tzaddi plays a role within the deck consistent with the recursive symmetries partitioned by the Book of Formation, acted out in accord with the cosmological order of its 3 matrices, whilst simultaneously engaging a central transcendental mystery in Christian belief through relations between geometric principles implicit in its primary symbols. By illustrating puns and allegories from Judeo-Christian tradition, Tarot brings narrative life to the 32 wondrous paths of wisdom through ‘meaningful coincidences’ between its numbered cards.

Similarly illustrating the Book of Formation, the 22 letter-paths & 10 numeral-points comprising the ‘Tree of Life’ serves as a framework for embedding its recursive features deeper. Being a geometric lattice very much dependent upon the ‘measure of the fish’, it provides a context for showing how the meaningful coincidences described above may be fit together. “Death”, as a fish (nun), poses a kind of riddle on the nature of mortality and how it is ultimately overcome. A visible parable, of sorts, on the paradox of zero: how nothing could ever be some thing.




Technically, a point by itself is of zero dimension - a kind of ‘nothing’. But, having a twin, the initial point can attain dimension by connecting with another. Something, as distinguished from nothing. Having these 2 points of reference also defines a common radius for circumscribing the twin circles of the fish vessel. Thus, a form of consequence born from the creative act of ‘something arising from nothing’ delineates that fundamental measure. The ‘fish’ embodies the inherent limit imposed upon the act of genesis. A limit which the 13th trump poses as mortality. And a “Death” which may be overcome by recognizing how a 6-pointed “Star” complements the equally inherent recursion of fish, ad infinitum. Within this geometric framework, the letter-paths and numeral-points align to a ‘middle path’ consistent with the major axis of a vesica piscis:

(2) = ☾
(6) = ♊
(5) = ♐ 1+4 = (14)

Earth symbol.svg♄☽♐ ♊ ←☾

As if to complement Jesus’ miraculous catch of 153 fish [John 21:11], this center axis lays out the symbolic architecture for connecting the mortal limitations of the vesica piscis to its ‘immortal’ recursion. The agency by which this occurs, both in the Tree & the Tarot, is suggested by drawing one’s attention to a conspicuously out of place piece of an otherwise symmetric whole - a flaw whose ‘correction’ both catches the measure of the fish whilst revealing its hidden star. 
[see Psalm 118:22



Were we to assume that the towers of The Moon (♓) stood for the left & right hand pillars of the ‘Tree of Life’, what might we find if we walked that middle path to Kesil’s fallen Tower? 

XVI The Tower
1.618... = the “golden" mean
XVIII The Moon

Inasmuch as one may interpret the ‘golden mean’ as an ‘immortal’ constant in mathematics/geometry, the numerals elicited by reading the towers of the 16th & 18th trumps as the ‘fathers’ (or vertical columns) of the kabbalist’s Tree produces a kind of literal “gold” ubiquitous in the phenomenal world. 

What then of the creatures placed before that middle path?
Do they pose a riddle? -or is there no riddle to solve?



Friday, November 8, 2013

Time Machine

The planetary attributions of the Tree’s numeral points tend to follow a sequential pattern from slowest to fastest, as seen from Earth: 

♄ 3
♃ 4
♂ 5
⊙ 6
♀ 7
☿ 8
☽ 9

Their rearrangement into the sequential pattern of the days of the week, or of the double letters in the alphabet, each abide by distinct topologies in accord with the recursive architecture induced by the Book of Formation (Sepher Yetzirah).  

By evenly placing these 7 ‘planets’ visible to the naked eye around a circle, 
from slowest to fastest, and connecting them with the star heptagram, they rearrange into the days of the week - a fact somewhat obscured in the English speaking world by their Greco-Roman ‘gods’ having been replaced with corresponding deities from the Norse pantheon:

⊙ Sol/Helios = Sunna / Sunday
☽ Luna = Mani / Moonday
♂ Mars = Tiw / Tuesday
☿ Mercury = Wodan / Wednesday
♃ Jupiter = Thor / Thursday
♀ Venus = Freya / Friday
♄ Saturn-day

The 7-fold symmetry underlying this topological transformation may be seen in the figurate shape formed by the numeral 22 as a centered heptagon & by the sum of the ‘double letters’ digit roots configured as nested heptagons radiating from a single vertex: 18 = 1+2+3+(1+0)+(1+6)+(1+9)+(2+1)

The star heptagram complementing this heptagonal symmetry may be alluded to by the 7th trump of the Tarot deck as “Merkabah”, the Hebrew word for ‘Chariot’, appears in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible precisely 44 times, and 44 = maximal number of regions by which 7 circles may divide a plane.  Just as 22 = the maximal number of regions into which 5 circles may divide a plane, or 32 = the maximal number of regions into which 6 circles may divide a plane, the kernel at the heart of such an interlinking of rings makes a star. 

With respect to the sequence of 7 glyphs ‘doubled’ within the 22 letter alphabet (22:7 ≈ π), their transformation from the Tree’s given order of slowest to fastest planets into the attributions of planet to ‘double letter’ are best reckoned within the context of a centered hexagon:

1 ☿
2 ☽
3 ♀
10 ♃
16 ♂
19 ⊙
21 ♄

Given the Hebrew Calendar’s basis in the Metonic cycle, ‘The Sun’ possesses a natural affinity with the number XIX as a cycle of 19 solar years, being roughly equal to 235 lunar months, serves as a useful measure for keeping the lunar & solar years in synch.  As the solar year is 11.25 days longer than the 354 day lunar year, an extra month had to be added every 2-3 years to keep the Hebrew months in tune with the seasons.  This intercalary month was/is added according to a proscribed formula.  Perhaps significantly, this means of keeping the Sun & Moon in synch also follows the 12:7 scheme of months:weeks, and of simple:double letters.

19 (13 months)
3 (13 months)
4
5
6 (13 months)
7
8
9 (13 months)
10
11 (13 months)
12
13
14 (13 months)
15
16
17 (13 months)
18 

That the sum of the simple letters (4+5+6+7+8+9+11+13+14+15+17+18 = 127) forms the 7th centered hexagon, serves to further illustrate this recursive pattern.

Though it may be purely ‘coincidental’, such a centered hexagonal perspective on planetary ‘shifts’, also traces out the hyperbolic ‘Whitehead Link’ - whose spatial complement (ie- its’ surrounding ‘nothingness’) is very closely related to that of the Borromean Rings in that both preserve the metrics of ideal octahedra in hyperbolic space.  Whether the ancient Hebrew knew of this is debatable.  However, it may be observed that such an arrangement does establish an ‘ideal’ set of matrices for traveling across ‘time’.  




Along similar lines, the life spans of the antediluvian patriarchs described in the fifth chapter of "Genesis" play with name and number to conceal cyclical measures of time relevant to the balance of light & darkness between the Sun & Moon.

"When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died. When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enos." -Beginnings 5:3-6 
"When Qanen had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. After he became the father of Mahalalel, Qanen lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Qanen lived a total of 910 years, and then he died." -Beginnings 5:12-14 
"When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." -Beginnings 5:21-24

The age of Adam ['Earth'] at the birth of his grand-son, Enos ['Mortality']=235
235 = the number of lunar months in 1 metonic cycle of XIX years. The age in years of Enoch ['Mouth'] when god took him = 365 = the number of days per year.
(19x 365) / 235 = 29.51 ≈ average number of days per lunar month

70 = The age of Qanen ['Spear'] when his son Mahalalel ['Praise to God'] was born.
840 =The length of this Spear's life from the birth of its Praise to God .
7 = The generations from Qanen to Noah.
7x 70 = 490 ≈ number of lunar years to 475 solar years = 25 metonic cycles.
7x 840 = 5880 ≈ number of lunar months to 475 solar years.
(490 x 354) / 5880 = 29.5 ≈ average number of days per lunar month
(840/70)x 29.5 = 354 = days in lunar year

The life span of Adam ['Earth'] = 10x 93
93 = 3rd triacontakaidigonal (32-sided polygonal) number
(360/32) +354 = 365.25 = tropical year of Earth

The age of the Spear at death = 910 = 10th icosikaidigonal number: 10th in the sequence of 22-sided polygons nested within one another, radiating from a single vertex.


There are other planetary cycles embedded within this tabulation of Earth's lineage from Adam to Noah ['Wanderer']. 10 generations concealing the wisdom of the 'fathers'. Coupled with the matrices of the Book of Formation's 32 wondrous paths, these antediluvian patriarchs calculate more than just the measure of mortal being. They outline the dwelling place of "the Name" as well. But that is another story...


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Strange Loop



At most, 6 circles can divide a plane into 32 regions: ✡
1+2+3+4 = ▵
At most, 5 circles can divide a plane into 22 regions: ☆
✡ - ▵ = ☆
To ‘calculate’ is a verb derived from the latin word for pebble, calculus, specifically used in reference to a small stone used for counting in ancient times.  And there was once a mathematician-philosopher of antiquity who painted a picture of 32 wondrous paths of wisdom, composed of 10 numbers + 22 letters.  Playing with the shapes of 32, 10 and 22, this anonymous mystic cryptographer partitioned the letters further to echo those figurative patterns, inducing a property of recursion within the architecture of a ‘sacred’ alphabet very closely related to our own.  


But does that make it “true”?

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Saturday, April 27, 2013

32


With respect to this alphabet’s architectural underpinnings, a geometer might appreciate how 32 is the maximal number of regions into which 6 circles can divide a plane, or an alchemist may revel in the clever play upon the cryptic glyphs of their Craft’s symbolic legacy. There is something here for the musician too. And the astrologer.  In fact, further down this rabbit hole is an insight to the heart of ancient wisdom, posed as pun and allegory in the sacred writings of old.

A light upon the waters deep, and a sword of fire.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

REVELATION 23 

or, (now and then there's) A fool such as I

"I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” 

22 = The Fool "Kesil"
7 = XVI The Tower

22/7 ≈ π

In the land of Shinar there was once a king who built a Tower to heaven. From his city of BaBeL it rose unto the sky, and a divine wrath was said thereafter to have punished him for his hubris. To quote Genesis, the BiBLical book of “Beginnings” (11:7), “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” And so The Tower fell, rendering humans unintelligible to one another that they might not ever again share in a single vision.  

11/7 ≈ ◑

Recorded in the oral tradition of the Judaic Midrash, King Nimrod was thereafter pinned to the night sky by the belt of Orion - called in Hebrew “Kesil” for the "Fool" that he was. 



Incidentally, the word for fool in medieval Latin (cifra) was the same as that for the number zero, nothing, nothingness & cipher. In the folk humor of the age, such fools led festive carnival parades and were treated as honored guests at the feast table. Otherwise regarded as mad, a person of no account, yet elevated to king for a day and celebrated for their vulgar lampoon of all society’s rigid mores. 

The fool is as he ever was: a loophole in the Law.

And, despite the diameter of God, Nimrod still reached the heavens, albeit in ridicule. Funny that a shared sense of purpose should so threaten the Almighty and evoke such mutual mistrust among the people. Perhaps it was an allegory for the prism of duality, splitting each concept and its opposite from some plainly hidden truth. Or maybe there really is a pile of rubble somewhere in the desert that marks the death of our mother tongue.  

Of course, it could be argued that our Tower naturally “falls” once we see and recognize “ultimate truth” through the veil of appearances, but one might also find it attached to a kind of wheel for weaving serpents - placed in an element obscured from view on the game board of letters. A foolish sleight of hand to be sure, but fair game if you can read the cut of this wicked, wicked deck.

"Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth."
ἀποκάλυψις of 2:16  

216 = 6x6x6

Among the letters of Hebrew - a derivation of an older alphabet held in common with the Phoenicians and drawn from the ancient hieroglyphs of Egypt - there was a subdivision into 12 simple, 7 double and 3 mother letters. It’s oldest known written description comes from the ‘Book of Formation’ (Sepher Yetzirah) - a manuscript by some accounts dating from the last days of the Gnostics, and the earliest text ascribed that vein mystical Judaism called "Kabbalah". In it, the 12 simple letters were equated with the signs of the zodiacal houses, the 7 doubles with planets visible to the naked eye (including the sun & moon), and its 3 mothers composing a kind of scale balancing Fire, Air & Water upon the Tree of Life.

0

Numbered 0-21, these types of letters build shapes - distinct configurations formed from their count of 'pebbles' - and articulate a pattern of universal constants.


Here the ‘mark’ of wisdom is posed, an apocalypse unveiling the hidden secrets of alphabet & allegory. Unlocked, as it were, by a five-pointed star traced with the coiling path of Venus, relative to the Earth. In the latin tongue of ancient Rome this planet was called “Lucifer”, or “morning star”. Though the moniker has since taken on more nefarious implications, it was once the name for our bright neighbor. An orb with whom our own aligns with the sun every 2³ x73 days, each time 6x6x6º apart upon the ecliptic plane. 5 such cycles, joined sequentially, draw a pentagram of points.

In addition, various combinations of the numbered letters, summed by type, equal the number of days (2920-1) required for this pentagram to reach completion - much like the shapes they build, fit together, measure the music between those spheres.

Which raises the question: Why a “Great Beast”?

Was the science of antiquity so scorned by the rising Christians that knowledge itself, outside their proto-orthodox dogma, was to be shunned as the devil incarnate? -or was there some deeper lesson to be learned by such a frame for the numerology of letters? Furthermore, why should a planet named for the goddess of Love in turn be confused for a sign of ultimate evil? 

Let that one stir a bit before you make up your mind. But, as the names for gods were just capitalized nouns & verbs describing nuances of the human condition, it should come as no surprise that a thousand-year dark age followed the decrees of Theodosius which banned their utterance under penalty of death.  The burning of many libraries followed. 

Whatever possessed them?


"So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." 
ἀποκάλυψις of 17:3 

XVII "The Star"
III ♀
צ XVII 
▽ XII 

"...but even with so many the net was not torn." 
- Gospel of ♏ (21:11)


VITRIOL perhaps?

There is an Eye within the Great Pyramid at Giza - a secret sight beheld by those who’ve learned the architecture underpinning the alphabet’s design. You may recognize it- either as a mark of Cain upon the darkened brow of some shadowy fraternal cult, or as the providential foresight of our illumined maker.  

Whose to say for what purpose it ever was? 

The craft of signs & symbols through human time has been the work of authors whose names go largely unknown, or relegated to an act of divine intervention. Yet, when the map of letters leads unto the gaze of their creator, one might easily approve a new order for the ages.  Or at least entertain the esoteric musings of those who’ve plied the puns of alchemy and the poetry of myth.

You may notice that atop those quarried blocks carefully set there lies no capstone at its tip: a Pyramid without a point. Though it could be argued its keystone went missing, toppled from its height after an arduous stripping of the casing stones that once defined the slope of its angles, the matter is uncertain. I suspect there never was - for the Great ‘Mer’ of Khnum-khufu hides an eye elsewhere, deep within the interior of Earth.

◃30ºN ⊣3430 nautical miles 
1 nautical mile = 1/60º Earth meridian

 

Can you see it?
Does it not seem that the stone which the builders rejected has indeed become the new cornerstone?  From a certain vantage point, one might see how a silhouette of proportion and measure, simple as the symmetric joining of circles, was cast across the the earth and sky to hide a mysterious truth.  A blueprint, if you will, of the 7th wonder, curiously synchronized to the numerology of the Hebrew alphabet - the root of our own, still recognizable in A’s inverted ox head or the all-seeing eye looking out from O. Letters born from a time when the spelling of a word was a magical act.

Legend has it that the Pentagram was once a symbol utilized by the students of Pythagoras - a pre-Socratic philosopher reputed to have journeyed thru Babylon after the destruction of Solomon’s temple and the Chaldean enslavement of the Jews. He was also attributed with the introduction of shapes made by “figurate numbers” into Greek mathematics. Given their role in this human equation, one might surmise he learned a thing or two about the art of building mandalas with alphabets from the ancient rabbis.

Prometheus Unbound.




“I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last..." 
- ἀποκάλυψις of ♏ 1:11 = 1:2³