The Four Evangelists, and the Cherubim and Seraphim

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The previous post explored the stacks of evidence which suggest that the Vision of Ezekiel, one of the most important (and most argued-over) passages of ancient Hebrew scripture -- in which the prophet describes  a "whirlwind" from the north, and "wheels within wheels," and the "likenesses" of four living creatures out of the midst of them -- is in fact an esoteric depiction of the awesome celestial machinery which turns the heavens throughout the year, and that those four likenesses correspond to the zodiac signs governing the points of the two solstices (summer and winter) and the two equinoxes (spring and fall).

That post also shows that the some of the earliest "church fathers" of the literalist Christian church -- including Irenaeus (c. AD 130 - AD 202),  Jerome (AD 320 - AD 420), and Augustine (AD 354 - AD 430) explicitly connected the Four Gospels of what is referred to as the New Testament to those four likenesses from the Vision of Ezekiel, assigning the winged Man, Lion, Ox and Eagle to the Four Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (although there is some disagreement about who specifically corresponds to what).

We also saw that Irenaeus even went so far as to state that the gospels must be four in number, to create "four pillars" which correspond to the four zones of the earth or the four winds of the heavens -- and from his statements and from the explicit clues within the text of Ezekiel we can almost certainly establish these four creatures with "four zones" within the great wheel of the zodiac, corresponding to the signs of Taurus for the Bull or Ox, Leo for the Lion, Scorpio for the Eagle (the Eagle being directly above Scorpio in the Milky Way as seen by observers in the northern hemisphere), and Aquarius for the Man.

In the first chapter of Ezekiel, where this famous vision is introduced, these four "likenesses" are described as "running and returning," as going "every one straight forward," as "turning not when they went" but rather going "every one straight forward," and as having a time in which they were "lifted up from the earth" (verses 19 and 21) as well as apparently being "like the appearance of lamps" which "went up and down" (verse 13). From all these we can see that the four "likenesses" are almost certainly referring to groups of stars which can be seen to form a "likeness" to beings such as Lions or Bulls -- in other words, constellations -- and which travel through the sky in exactly the manner indicated by the various descriptions in Ezekiel chapter 1.

However, in the tenth chapter of Ezekiel, the scripture text uses a different term to describe the subjects of this vision: in addition to talking about "likenesses," the text reintroduces them but this time in the midst of much description of "cherubim" (or "cherubims," in the Geneva 1599 and King James 1611 translations), while still referring to four faces and turning wheels. Now, however, there are several verses referring to the carrying of burning coals in the hand, mainly in the hands of the cherubim, hands which they are described as having under their wings.

The term cherubim, of course, seems to refer to an order of angelic beings in the Biblical scriptures -- as does the term seraphim. In Genesis 3:24, for example, we are told that cherubims and a flaming sword are placed at the "east of Eden" to prevent Adam and Eve from returning to the Paradise Garden from whence they have been expelled. In numerous passages in Exodus and beyond, cherubim are described as facing one another on the "mercy seat" which is on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant. And, in the Vision of Isaiah described in Isaiah chapter 6, seraphim which are also described as having multiple wings and carrying burning coals, in much the same way as the cherubim of Ezekiel 10.

If we have established that the "likenesses" of Ezekiel 1 refer to zodiac constellations, and if Ezekiel 10 seems to have connections to the description in Ezekiel 1 while introducing the term "cherubims," does it follow that the cherubim described in Biblical scripture refer to the zodiac constellations?

Not necessarily.

Because of the additional reference to "burning coals" in Ezekiel 10, and to the carrying of these coals in the hand (both in the Ezekiel 10 descriptions and in the Isaiah 6 description of the seraphim doing the same thing of carrying coals in their hand), I believe that the cherubim introduced into the description of the likenesses and wheels refer to very specific, very bright stars in each of the four zodiac constellations, which are "carried" aloft by the same motive force (the wings) which turns the entire set of wheels within wheels.

It just so happens that the four zodiac constellations which dominated the four equinox and solstice points of the annual cycle during the Age of Taurus -- the Bull, the Lion, the Scorpion and the Water-Bearer of Aquarius -- each contain (or "carry" with them) a first-magnitude star. It may well be that the cherubim and seraphim describe the highest orders of stars in the "heavenly host," with the first-magnitude stars perhaps corresponding to the cherubim, and the second-magnitude stars perhaps corresponding to the seraphim (or, perhaps the seraphim are the very brightest of stars -- those with magnitudes that put them at the very top of the list of the brightest stars in the night sky).

The four cherubim with their burning coals in these four zodiac constellations would thus be:

• Aldebaran in the zodiac constellation of Taurus, a very bright red-orange star of 1st magnitude (and the 13th brightest in the night sky according to H.A. Rey).
• Regulus in the zodiac constellation of Leo, a bright blue-white star of 1st magnitude (and the 21st brightest in the night sky according to H.A. Rey).
• Antares in the zodiac constellation of Scorpio, a very bright red star of 1st magnitude (and the 15th brightest in the night sky according to H.A. Rey). Note that for those who argue that using Antares is somehow "not fair," since Ezekiel specifically refers to an "Eagle" and not to a "Scorpion," we can point out that the constellation of the Eagle which is directly above the Scorpion also contains a first-magnitude star: Altair, a very bright yellowish-white star of 1st magnitude which is the 12th brightest in the night sky according to H. A. Rey. However, I agree with Taylor that Antares is probably the cherubim or first-magnitude star in question, for reasons discussed below.
• Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus, the "Southern Fish," immediately below the zodiac constellation of Aquarius and showered with the water streaming down from his jug or pitcher, a bright bluish-white star of 1st magnitude (and the 18th brightest in the night sky according to H.A. Rey). 

Again, according to this interpretation, the "four likenesses" (of the Ox, Lion, Eagle, and Man) correspond to four specific zodiac signs (of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio-Aquila, and Aquarius), which marked the "four pillars" of the year during the Age of Taurus (when Taurus ruled the spring equinox, Leo ruled the summer solstice, Scorpio ruled the fall equinox, and Aquarius ruled the winter solstice). 

The authors of Hamlet's Mill also explain that the "four corners of the earth" referred to in many ancient myths and sacred traditions can be shown by extensive evidence to correspond to these four important stations (and their zodiac constellations -- the "likenesses") in any successive "Age" of the zodiac, and that the inexorable grind of precession would eventually bring about the destruction of the earth and the formation of "a new heavens and a new earth" at the dawning of the next precessional Age (see especially the discussion in Hamlet's Mill pages 58 and 59, in the chapter entitled "Intermezzo: a Guide for the Perplexed"). They specifically refer to these four anchor points as "pillars" during that discussion, just as Irenaeus does.

However, according to this interpretation, while the "likenesses" are the constellations themselves, the cherubim refer to the bright first-magnitude stars associated with each of those four important Age of Taurus "pillar constellations" -- specifically Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, and Fomalhaut.

Interestingly enough, the Reverend Robert Taylor (1784 - 1844) also connects these important four stars with the Four Evangelists, and notes that the names given to the Four Gospel texts seem to specifically hint that they are referring to stars. 

In the lecture entitled "Saint Matthew: A Sermon" delivered on May 19, 1831, contained in the collection of his lectures entitled The Devil's Pulpit, published in 1857, Robert Taylor explains:

Saints they were called, and Saints really they are, that name signifying, as its derivation betrays, Suns, as each of the fixed Stars is a Sun; and which the circular halo of rays, with which the heads of their effigies were surrounded, expressly acknowledged; evangelists they were, because their office was "to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," and to mark the predicament of EVAN -- that is, of Bacchus, the Sun, through the four seasons.

FOUR they are, because there are but four seasons of the year, over which these four royal Stars preside.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John they are names [. . .] betraying in their derivation the most accurate description of the four royal Stars.

Regulus, which is Saint Matthew, or Cor Leonis, the heart of the lion, which the Sun enters about the 2d of July, and leaves about the 23d of August, when the earth begins to give her fruits; and thence this Star gets the name of Saint Mat Thew, which is, most literally, the Sun, the gift, the God, the most expressive designation of the Sun's bounty, and of the heat at that season. [. . .]

Fomalhaut, in the Fishes' mouth, Jonah in the whale's belly, swallowing the water which is effused from the urn of the Aquarius of January, is the Saint Mark.

That word Marcus literally signifying the polite or shining one, the most beautiful definition you could invent for the shining Formalhaut [this is how Taylor's publisher spells the name of this star, which today is not usually spelled with an r], who is the only one of the four whose accompanying genius is a human being, Marcus being believed to have composed his gospel under the direction of Saint Peter: and here, sirs, is Peter, pouring it forth, and Mark swallowing it, as fast as he can swallow; and I need not tell you that there's a good deal for him to swallow.

Aldebaran is the bull's eye, the unequivocal elymon, both of the name and symbol of St. Luke, with his bull. 

The word Luke, literally signifying the luminous, the very term than which you could find no other to express the magnificent red-looking Star, which you see a little above, and westward of Orion, and which you have never looked at the Stars in your lives, nor, I guess, at any thing else, if you have not seen, and which the Sun is directly upon, about the 28th of May.

ANTARES, in the Scorpion, which the Sun is directly upon, on the 29th of November, is Saint Joun: that I, the One; Own, the Being; ES, the Fire: this being the brightest of them all, the disciple which Jesus loved, -- que les Romains appelaient Parieilienne.

[. . .]

They could not have been named with names more expressive of their appearance and relations than

Mat Thew, the giving God.

Marc, the polished.

Luke, the respondent.

John, the Fiery

Regulus, the Little King.

For-mal-haut, the Arabic for the Fishes' Mouth.

Aldebaran, the Arabic for the Bull's Eye: and

Antares, the Scorpion's Heart.

-- Devil's Pulpit, 327 - 329.

In addition to having names appropriate to stars, Taylor argues that the reddish color of Aldebaran and Antares, in Taurus the sign of the spring equinox and Scorpio the sign of the fall equinox, corresponding in Taylor's analysis to Luke and John, is extremely appropriate, since the equinox points are those fiery points where the sun's ecliptic path crosses the celestial equator (329).

This connection of the fiery colors of the two first-magnitude stars (orange-red Aldebaran in Taurus and bright-red Antares in Scorpio) in the signs governing the two equinoxes is extremely significant, in that the authors of Hamlet's Mill demonstrate fairly decisively that the ancient system that informs sacred myth the world over indicated the equinoxes with symbology of fire (see for instance the discussion on page 159).

Note also that in the symbology of the mysterious meeting places of Mithraism known as mithraea , two figures often appear, each of them holding a single torch, one torch pointing up and one pointing down -- and that in the analysis of Mithraic scholar Dr. David Ulansey, these two figures with their torches represent the two equinoxes. These two figures are often shown with their legs crossed in a distinctive manner, which Dr. Ulansey argues convincingly to be another clue that these figures are the two equinoxes, one being the spring equinox where the sun and the day's ecliptic line cross the celestial equator going up (indicated by a torch pointing upwards), and one being the fall equinox where the sun and the day's ecliptic line cross the celestial equator going down (indicated by a torch pointing downwards). See for instance Professor Ulansey's analysis of these and other Mithraic symbols in his essential book Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries, 1991. The important equinoctial symbolism of the torch-bearers is discussed in previous blog posts such as this one.

It is very satisfying and revealing that the two first-magnitude stars associated with the equinox-ruling constellations during the Age of Taurus are a fiery red or red-orange in color.

Thus, we have in the Vision of Ezekiel as described in chapters 1 and 10 a connection to the governing signs of the Age of Taurus, as well as to the first-magnitude stars (or cherubim) associated with those important signs -- and we have in the testimony of some of the most important early literalist teachers (including Irenaeus, Jerome, and Augustine) the explicit connection of those signs and their first-magnitude stars to the Saints in whose name each of the Four Gospels are describes as being given "according to."

It is worth noting that, according to the analysis I present in The Undying Stars, which builds upon a theory articulated by Flavio Barbiero, the twin systems of Mithraism and literalist Christianity were launched by persons who were very knowledgeable in the ancient esoteric mythologies, as a kind of "two-pronged attack" to take over the levers of power of the Roman Empire from within. 

It is very interesting that the symbology of the mithraea always centers around the prominent scene of the Tauroctony in which the figure of Mithras is depicted slaying an enormous Bull, which Professor Ulansey argues to have to do with the shifting of the Age of Taurus.

Now, we have fairly conclusively shown that the symbology of the Four Gospels and their Four Evangelists are also clearly connected to the symbology of the Age of Taurus as well. This is a significant correspondence between the esoteric symbology at the very basis of the two vehicles which I believe (based upon the analysis done by Flavio Barbiero, and some additional evidence and analysis of my own) were deployed together as part of a plan to gain control of the Roman Empire (a plan which can be seen to have been fully successful by the time of the accession to the throne of the Emperor Constantine, and which had its one of its first major victories upon the accession of the Emperor Commodus, as discussed here).

Further, this analysis shows that the Four Ev-Angel-ists themselves appear to be the New Testament manifestation of four specific members of the class of Angels known as cherubim, those important fiery beings holding the first or perhaps second rank among the heavenly host, and to correspond specifically in this case to the stars Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, and Fomalhaut.

The possibility that the cherubim and seraphim and other countless angels of the heavenly host correspond to the stars in the heavens is most appropriate, as the angels often act as messengers (their name angel, in fact, is often said derive from angelos, a Greek word meaning "messenger"), and because it is the stars themselves which convey to us the esoteric message contained within the ancient sacred stories and myths, by their mighty turnings which are so well described in the mystical language of the prophet Ezekiel.

The evidence suggesting that the Four Evangelists after whom the four canonical New Testament Gospels are called are actually names descriptive of first-magnitude stars, and even more specifically that they personifications of the first-magnitude stars associated with the zodiac signs which formed the four pillars that supported "heaven and earth" during the Age of Taurus, also seems to indicate that aspects of the "New" Testament scriptures may contain elements of ancient wisdom which is a lot older than most of us have been led to believe.    

Samson and the seven locks of his head

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In the Book of Judges, we are told twice that Samson has "seven locks" of hair. In Chapter 16, beginning in verse 13, we read:

13 And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.

14 And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awakened out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web.

15 And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth.

16 And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death;

17 That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a rasor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.

18 And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand.

19 And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.

The reader might be forgiven for questioning Samson's judgement here, in telling Delilah the real secret of how to successfully bind him and rob him of his great strength, in that every time previously that he tells her how to do so, she promptly tests it out on him. But, this story is clearly not meant to be understood literally, as we will see.

In Hamlet's Mill (1969), authors Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend devote an entire chapter to the Samson story, and its echoes in other myths and sacred traditions around the globe. They offer compelling evidence that the events of the Samson myth are founded upon the constellations of the starry sky, and not upon actions that took place on earth among literal historical human beings. 

At one point in the chapter, they plainly state their belief that "Samson is Orion," one of the most important constellations in the heavens (166). And, while Samson's use of the "jawbone of an ass" as a weapon to slay his enemies (in Judges 15:15 - 20) can be plainly seen as connecting him to the figure of Orion, who is directly beneath the "V-shaped" Hyades, which almost undoubtedly represent the "jawbone" which Samson "puts forth his hand" to take as a weapon in verse 15, there are several reasons to believe that Samson does not merely represent one single constellation, but instead that he is the sun-god, rolling through all of the zodiac constellations in turn throughout the year.

One of the clues that Samson may be the sun and not a single constellation is the fact of his "seven locks" of hair upon his head. It would be difficult to argue that the outline of Orion provides any support for this detail in the Samson story. However, ancient sun-gods were quite frequently portrayed with seven radiant beams of light emanating from their head -- a clear parallel to the number of locks Samson possesses.

Here is an ancient statue of the sun-god Helios, with seven distinct rays coming from his head:

image: Wikimedia commons (link). 

And here is an ancient mosaic depicting the sun-god Apollo with seven distinct rays as well:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

And, in this passage from the Dionysiaca of the poet Nonnus of late antiquity, the sun-god Helios is described decking out his son Phaethon with the gear he will need to drive the solar chariot across the sky (Phaethon rashly demanded that his father allow him to drive the horses of the sun, in order to prove that he was really his father -- the authors of Hamlet's Mill devote another entire chapter to this important mythical event):

After this speech, he [Helios] placed the golden helmet on Phaethon's head and crowned him with his own fire, winding the seven rays like strings upon his hair, and put the white kilt girdlewise round him over his loins; he clothed him in his own fiery robe and laced his foot into the purple boot, and gave his chariot to his son. 291 - 297; page 113 in the Rouse translation linked above.

Anyone who sees these numerous ancient references to the seven rays emanating "like strings upon his hair" from the head of the sun-god must suspect that the "seven locks of his head" described in the Samson story might be a clue telling us that Samson is also a solar hero.

The identification of Samson as a solar figure makes sense, in that at the point of the year where the nights begin to be longer than the days, and the sun begins to arc downward towards its "weakest" point on the annual "wheel," there is in fact the figure of a woman, in the sign of the constellation Virgo:

You can see the sign of Virgo on this zodiac wheel, at the right side of the circle just above the horizontal line which separates the upper half of the year (where days are longer than nights) from the lower half of the year (where nights are longer than days). The fact that Samson has his power stripped from him by Delilah almost certainly refers to the sun passing through the sign of Virgo at the point of the year where night begins to take over as longer than day.  

Readers who are familiar with the outline of the constellation Virgo itself will also know that she does have a distinctive "lap" as she is seen in the sky, which probably accounts for the fact that Samson is described as going to sleep "upon her knees" in the scriptural passage:

The identification of Samson with the sun itself, rather than with one specific constellation, also helps to clear up some of the other episodes in the Samson story, such as the well-known incident in which he is on the way down to see the woman of Timnath and he encounters a young lion, which Samson slays with his bare hands (Judges chapter 14). If you examine the zodiac wheel shown above, you will see that the zodiac sign of Leo the Lion is found immediately prior to the sign of Virgo, and that the sun passes through Leo on the way "down" to the crossing point of the September equinox (marked on the diagram with the red "X" on the right side as we look at it), when the days are declining in length and the year begins to arc down towards the lower half of the winter months. 

In the same chapter of Judges, we are told that the next time Samson comes to the lion that he had slain, he finds that a "swarm of bees and honey" were now there in the carcass of the lion -- which is indicative of the Beehive Cluster found in the zodiac constellation Cancer, immediately preceding Leo on the wheel. As I explain in the first three chapters of The Undying Stars

(which are available to read online here), it was this correspondence between the events of Samson's story in Judges 14 to the order of zodiac constellations in the circle of the year which first began to really cause me to question whether the Bible was in fact intended to be understood "literally" (that is, as describing the literal events of the human lives of historical figures who lived on earth).

There are other clues in the Samson story that the events it describes are not intended to be understood literally. One of them is found not long after the story of the slaying of the lion and Samson's courting of the woman of Timnath, when Samson appears to go in to her in the time of wheat harvest, apparently after a long absence. At the beginning of Judges chapter 15, we read:

1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife in the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.

2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of over.

3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.

5 And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.

The authors of Hamlet's Mill correctly point out that this sounds more like a fairy tale than something that actually took place in history, perpetrated by actual historical actors (168). After all, it might be difficult to even find three hundred foxes in one geographical region, let alone catch all of them in any reasonable amount of time, and then somehow tie them "tail to tail" and put a firebrand in the midst of each pair! It is far more likely that, once again, this story has a celestial foundation, and that it has something to do with the sun's passage through the year.

In terms of zodiac constellations in which two animals are tied "tail to tail," the most obvious pick would be the constellation Pisces, which -- like Virgo -- is the zodiac sign found immediately prior to an equinox (look just below the horizontal line, on the left side of the wheel in the zodiac diagram above). The equinoxes were associated with fire in myth around the globe, because at the equinoxes the fiery path of the sun crosses over the celestial equator. You can see the discussion of the figures who mark the equinoxes with a torch held up (for the crossing upwards in the spring) and with a torch held down (for the crossing downwards in the fall) for further support of this connection.

However, the fishes of Pisces are not really foxes, even though they are tied together tail to tail and even though they are found right before the fiery crossing of the equinox. Furthermore, this scriptural passage actually tells us what time of year we are dealing with in this episode, and it is "the time of wheat harvest," which is not associated with the time of the spring equinox but rather with the fall equinox and with the constellation Virgo and her sheaf of wheat (associated with her brightest star, Spica).

Therefore, I think it is more likely that this episode relates to the constellations near Virgo, especially as we also have a character playing the woman's father, which is a common pattern in stories involving Virgo and usually refers to the constellation Bootes the Herdsman, located very close to Virgo.

The most likely celestial foundation for the foxes of the Samson story, I believe, is the constellation Lupus the Wolf, located close to Virgo. In his essential book The Stars: A New Way to See Them, H.A. Rey describes this constellation: "the WOLF (LUPUS), quite wolf-like in shape, trots beneath one arm of the Centaur, who seems about to seize him" (62). In fact, the Centaur seems so "about to seize" the constellation of the Wolf that in some books on the stars you will find the Wolf referred to as the "Centaur's Victim." 

The outline of this constellation could certainly be seen as a fox, just as easily as it could be a wolf, with its long tail and two upraised ears. Below is an outline of the Centaur and the Wolf, using the same screen-shot from Stellarium.org which was used to outline the constellation of Virgo, above (so you can see how close in the sky they are to Virgo):

You can also see from this image that they are both located near or upon the smoky, silvery band of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way plays a role as smoke rising from a fire in other myths -- notably, for instance, in the story of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac, the celestial foundations of which are discussed here -- and so this story of the foxes setting alight all the fields of the Philistines is very appropriate for this constellation.

It is even possible that the outline of Centaurus was somehow seen as the "other fox" tied tail-to-tail with the constellation Lupus for this story.

The authors of Hamlet's Mill also point out that Ovid tells us in his poem called the Fasti that there was an ancient feast of Ceres in which a fox was set on fire to punish the species for once burning up the wheat-fields, after a fox was set alight by a wicked twelve-year-old boy in a story very reminiscent of Samson's act in the beginning of Judges 15.

Here is a link to Book IV of Ovid's Fasti, where that particular story is recounted. There, in the section entitled "April 19: The Cerialia," Ovid tells us:

She had a son: he was a playful child,

Who was already twelve years old.

In a valley, he caught, in the depths of a willow copse,

A vixen, who'd stolen many birds from the yard.

He wrapped his captive in straw and hay, and set fire

To it all: she fled the hands that were out to burn her:

In fleeing she set the crops, that covered the fields, ablaze:

And a breeze lent strength to the devouring flames.

The thing's forgotten, but a relic remains: since now

There's a certain law of Carseoli, that bans foxes:

And they burn a fox at the Cerialia to punish the species,

Destroyed in the same way as it destroyed the crops.

In the above story, the outline of Centaurus with its arms seizing the fox can certainly be detected in the lines which describe the boy as catching the fox and then the fox fleeing from "the hands that were out to burn her." The clear correspondences to the story of Samson in this account from the poet Ovid also argue that the Samson story is not a literal account from a human life but that it is a myth with episodes that are derived from the stars of the sky -- episodes which show up in other myths around the world as well.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Samson story as it is preserved in the scriptures of the Book of Judges is the fact that Samson himself frames the episode of the lion and the swarm of bees as a riddle to be solved, in Judges 14: 12 - 14. Framing it as a riddle invites the reader to ask "What does it mean?" and indicates at the same time that there is more going on than perhaps appears on the surface. 

As we have seen, one answer to the riddle appears to be: these events refer to the sun, making its way through the various signs of the zodiac, including Taurus (which provides the "jawbone of an ass" that Samson "puts forth his hand" to take and slay a thousand men), Cancer (which provides the "swarm of bees and honey"), Leo the Lion, and Virgo and the constellations surrounding Virgo including Bootes, Lupus, and perhaps Centaurus (as well as the entire Milky Way galaxy, if it represents the burning of the fields of the Philistines).

But, after we have arrived at that answer, we are still faced with the question: "What does it mean?" Why would the scriptures (and other myths around the world) spend so much effort encoding the motions of the stars in stories about people here on earth? 

The answer, I believe, is connected to the assertion of Alvin Boyd Kuhn cited in this previous post, and explored in that post and in this related post, and that is the assertion that, "The Bible is the drama of our history here and now; and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it! The Bible is about the mystery of human life" (Alvin Boyd Kuhn, from a lecture entitled The Stable and the Manger, 1936).

In other words, this story is not really about someone named Samson, who lived in another part of the world in a time long, long ago: it is really about you! The drama of Samson's loss of his great strength, located at the point of the year at which the sun dives down from the upper realm towards the "underworld" of the winter months, describes our own plunge out of the realm of pure spirit and into the life of incarnation through which we are all currently toiling. 

The reason that the sun (and the zodiac stars) make such an excellent allegorical description of this process is that they themselves can be seen to arc through the upper realms but then plunge down into the western horizon -- where they are "buried" in the elements of earth and water, the same lower elements our bodies are composed of. The scriptures of the world tell of the fire of spirit being plunged down into, and incarnated in, earth and water. 

But they also intimate, in describing the human stories which mirror the motions of the stars, that we ourselves are stars and suns -- that the infinite cosmos are mirrored within each man and woman walking around here on earth.

Thus, while the story of Samson makes very little sense if we try to read it literally, when we realize that it is telling us a celestial riddle, and when we begin to detect the answers to that riddle, it becomes filled with profound meaning.

In the Samson story, his "seven locks" get shorn off, but then we are told that the hair of his head begins to grow again (Judges 16:22). In the same way, we have seen in other discussions of the zodiac wheel that after the "Djed column" is "cast down," it is then "raised up again" -- after we have been thrown down into the material realm, forgetting our true nature and our true origin and often even forgetting the existence of the spirit world, we then have the task of rediscovering spirit, and calling it forth, both within ourselves and -- to whatever degree we can -- in others and in the world around us as well (see also here, here, and here, among other discussions of this important subject).

Blessings.

----------------------

additional note, 01/22/2014: Just added a new video showing and discussing some of these concepts here.

Odysseus and Orion

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In the Odyssey, the long-suffering Odysseus is told by Circe the lustrous goddess that he must go down to the realm of the dead, to consult the shade of Tiresias in the underworld and learn what he must do in order to return home (Book X: 553 - 595).

It should be noted that crossing over to the "other world" in order to obtain knowledge or direction unavailable through any other means can be seen as a definitively shamanic act, and there is no doubt that Odysseus can be seen to be a shamanic figure in many ways throughout the Odyssey.

Following the instructions given by Queen Circe, Odysseus makes the dread voyage to the underworld, and there he does encounter the shade of the famous prophet Tiresias, who foretells that Odysseus will finally reach his home, and pay back the suitors who have been tormenting his wife and destroying his flocks as they feast in his halls in his absence. Then, Tiresias gives Odysseus an unusual mission:

But once you have killed those suitors in your halls --

by stealth or in open fight with slashing bronze --

go forth once more, you must . . .

carry your well-planed oar until you come

to a race of people who know nothing of the sea,

whose food is never seasoned with salt, strangers all

to ships with their crimson prows and long slim oars,

wings that make ships fly. And here is your sign --

unmistakeable, clear, so clear you cannot miss it:

When another traveler falls in with you and calls that weight across your shoulder a fan to winnow grain,

then plant your bladed, balanced oar in the earth

and sacrifice fine beasts to the lord god of the sea,

Poseidon -- a ram, a bull and a ramping wild boar --

then journey home and render noble offerings up

to the deathless gods who rule the vaulting skies,

to all the gods in order. Book XI: 136 - 152. Translation of Robert Fagles.

In the previous post's discussion of the celestial aspects of John the Baptist, it was argued that this strange directive about an "oar" or a "winnowing fan" on the shoulder of Odysseus is a clear connection to the stars of one of the most mythologically important and distinctive constellations in the night sky: the constellation Orion. Orion indeed carries on his shoulder an implement which is often envisioned as a club but which could equally well be seen as an oar or a paddle:

image: Stellarium.org (outlines added later).

Here, outlines have been drawn in for Orion, in order to show the "oar and blade" that he can be said to be carrying "across his shoulder," just as Tiresias describes. The stars of Orion are so distinctive that it is really almost a distraction to even draw in the outlines, but they are added here in order to indicate where the paddle-shaped oar is located, which I believe connects this mighty constellation to the long-suffering, long-delayed hero of the Odyssey (it is on the left side of the image, as we look at it above -- rising up from the shoulder that contains the star Betelgeuse). 

Some readers, however, may argue that this detail alone is hardly sufficient to make a definitive identification of this episode of the Odyssey with the outline of Orion, and that is a valid criticism. However, as it turns out there are several other clues which act to confirm the above hypothesis.

One of the most obvious is the implement which is traditionally envisioned in Orion's other hand -- held in the outstretched arm that can be seen pointing towards the upper-right side of the above image, as we look at it (stretching forward from the shoulder that contains the star Bellatrix). That implement, of course, is a mighty bow -- and if there is one weapon which is most associated with Odysseus, it is in fact the great bow, which no one can string but Odysseus himself, and with which he slays the suitors mercilessly after the dramatic scene in which he sends an arrow through a row of axes (Book XXI: 451 - 471).

Below is another screen-shot of the constellation Orion, this time with his bow drawn in as well:

But that's not all! There is another very memorable scene from Odysseus' homecoming, prior to the point in which he finally strings his old familiar bow and begins dealing doom to the suitors, and that is the famous scene in which he has been disguised through the power of the goddess Athena as an old beggar, but his faithful dog, Argos, whom the poet tells us Odysseus trained as a puppy once, long ago, before he reluctantly joined the ships bound for Troy, recognizes his beloved Odysseus and thumps his tail in joy before expiring (XVII: 317 - 360).

As we have already seen in the discussion of the important scene from  The Truman Show in which the set-light marked SIRIUS plunges to the street, the constellation Orion has a well-known companion dog, Canis Major, close by. The fact that the long-delayed homecoming of Odysseus is closely associated with a bow and a dog is strong indication that he is connected to Orion, who also has a bow and a dog. The addition of the "oar" or "winnowing fan" on his shoulder is another point of correspondence and should make the identification of Odysseus and Orion fairly conclusive.

There is another important aspect of Orion which may also be connected to the long-suffering Odysseus, and that is the fact that Orion is associated with Osiris, and it has been convincingly argued by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill that the "delaying action" of precession, seen in the failure of Orion/Osiris to rise "on time" on the appointed day of the year, was mythologized in ancient Egypt by the story of Set slaying his brother Osiris and usurping his throne (this myth and its connection to the action of precession is discussed in this video, in which it is pointed out that the same "usurpation" is later found in the story of Hamlet and the story of The Lion King).  

If Odysseus is identified with Orion, then his "long delay" in getting back to his "true home" may also be connected to the inexorable motion of precession, which "delays" the background of stars by just a tiny fraction each year (delaying them by only a single degree in 71.6 years), but which was profoundly important in ancient myth around the globe, and incorporated in the myths by means of various ingenious allegories.

The identification of Odysseus with Orion is extremely important in its own right, and may offer many useful new perspectives on the Odyssey itself -- but it is also extremely important in that the New Testament scriptures describe "the mighty one" who "comes after" John the Baptist as carrying a fan in his hand with which he will sort the wheat on the threshing floor to divide it from the chaff, which will be burned with fire (Matthew 3:12, Luke 3:17). 

I contend that this figure that John the Baptist describes, and who is obviously associated with the coming Christ whom John the Baptist announces and whom John will shortly baptize in the River Jordan, is in this passage clearly associated with Orion as well! That previous discussion of John the Baptist noted that John has clear connections to the constellation Aquarius, who is stooped forward as outlined in the stars of the constellation, and John states of this mighty figure who is coming after him that John is not worthy to "stoop down" and unloose the latchet of his shoes (Mark 1:7).

The fact that this figure that John the Baptist describes is carrying a fan with which he will winnow the wheat, and the fact that Odysseus was instructed to carry an oar until a traveler asked him what he was doing with "a fan to winnow grain," is strong evidence that both figures are actually connected with the constellation Orion.

Further confirmation that the figure John the Baptist describes is associated with Orion comes from the fact that there is a very long "river" constellation which the ancients described as springing out of Orion at the point of his foot -- or, as John the Baptist might say, his "shoe" or "sandal." This river begins very close to the bright star Rigel in the foot of Orion, and it has a most revealing name: the River Eridanus. The name of this constellation, then, is linguistically very similar to the name of the river in which John the Baptist will baptize Jesus: the Jordan.

Below is a star chart showing Eridanus, springing up very near to the foot of Orion, who can be seen in the upper-left corner of the chart:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The very strong connection between a description in the New Testament, and a description in the Odyssey of ancient Greece, in which the figure of Odysseus and the figure of Jesus as described by John the Baptist are both carrying a "winnowing fan" on their shoulder with which to sort the wheat from the chaff, and in which both are clearly connected to the constellation Orion, is truly earth-shaking in its implications. It argues that the stories included in the Bible are built upon the same celestial foundations as the stories contained in the myths of other cultures -- myths derided as "pagan" by the literalist interpretation of the Bible which came to dominate Bible interpretation during the third, fourth and fifth centuries AD. 

Finally, it should be noted that -- just as Odysseus can be shown to be a shamanic figure in the Odyssey -- Jesus in the Bible can be argued to perform acts typical of what we might call a shamanic figure as well, although this is not the way literalist Christianity has chosen to interpret the texts, and such an interpretation would be sharply at odds with "orthodox" Christian doctrine as it has been taught for the past seventeen centuries. However, the shamanic elements are certainly present, including the voyage to the "other side" and return, as well as the very common shamanic motif of the ascent on the Tree (discussed in this and this previous post, and many more examples can be found in the seminal study Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, by Mircea Eliade published in 1951).

It may be that the ancient sacred texts and myths of humanity were not intended to be understood literally, but that they in fact teach a very profound message about the nature of our universe and the nature of the human condition -- and that this message can be said to be both "shamanic" and "holographic" (and to anticipate aspects of modern theoretical physics and quantum theory as well).

This possibility is certainly amazing, and unexpected by those used to the literalist approach to the world's ancient scriptures -- and yet the evidence in support of this conclusion is compelling, and can be found in abundance throughout the ancient texts of the human race.

John the Baptist

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Caution: this post will examine evidence that the stories in the Biblical scriptures were not intended to be understood literally. Those not comfortable examining such evidence may not wish to read further.

As we approach the "lowest point" on the annual wheel of the year, the winter solstice (which is the December solstice, for those in the northern hemisphere), we approach the celebration of Christmas and all the rich symbolism and powerful traditions which surround that special day on which the sun finally stops its "downward journey," pauses, and then turns back around to head back "upwards" towards lengthening days and the return of warmth and life after another winter.

The arrival of Jesus in each of the four gospels which were included in the canon is first discussed in conjunction with another extremely important figure: that of John the Baptist. He is the one who goes before the Christ, preparing the way, in fulfillment we are told in each of the four gospels of the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3 -- "For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Matthew 3:3). The gospel according to Mark cites the additional prophecy of Malachi 3:1 -- "As it is written in the prphets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee" (Mark 1:2).

The gospels of Matthew, Mark and John all introduce John the Baptist at the River Jordan, preaching a "baptism of repentance," baptizing with water, and announcing the impending arrival of one who will come after him: "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mark 1:7-8). The gospel according to Matthew adds "and with fire" to describe the baptism of the one who will come after John (Matthew 3:11). 

The gospel according to Luke also introduces John the Baptist as the one who will go before Jesus, but does so by describing the announcement through the angel Gabriel to John's father Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth will bear a son, who will go before the Lord (Luke 1:13-20). The gospel of Luke also describes the meeting of Elizabeth and Mary the mother of Jesus, and from the details provided in Luke 1:36 and 1:56-57, we can conclude that John was born six months ahead of Jesus -- going before him in the order of their birth as well.

I believe that there is overwhelming evidence which supports the conclusion that the stories of the Old and New Testament describe the motions of the celestial actors in the heavenly realm: the sun, moon, stars, and visible planets. I further believe that this celestial foundation connects the sacred scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to the sacred scriptures and myths and traditions of virtually every other culture around our planet, which can also be shown to employ the same system of celestial metaphor. I discuss the evidence for this conclusion, and the implications of this evidence, in my book The Undying Stars (sample chapters available online here). I also discuss many examples of this system at work in previous blog posts examining the sacred myths from around the world, which I have indexed (with links) here. 

I believe that in the person of John the Baptist, and the details we are given about his life in the four gospels which made their way into what we today call the Bible, we are given an extraordinarily powerfully illustration of this system at work.

Caution: this post will examine evidence that the stories in the Biblical scriptures were not intended to be understood literally. Those not comfortable examining such evidence may not wish to read further.

As Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend argue in their seminal 1969 work, Hamlet's Mill, one of the characteristics of the celestial system is the fact that the various heavenly "actors" will take on different roles, from one myth-system to another, as well as within the same myth-system (and even, at times, within the same story -- like an actor who appears as two or more different characters in different scenes of the same movie or play). This phenomenon is described in this previous post. 

Which of the celestial players is most likely to be the "actor" who plays the role of John the Baptist in the gospel accounts?

If we are familiar with the "cast" of possible actors who travel in cycles through the heavens, then the descriptions of John as one who is specifically described as "baptizing with water" (for instance, in Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, and John 1:26) should call to mind one particularly important zodiac constellation: the Water-Bearer, Aquarius. And indeed, there are numerous clues included in the text which appear to indicate that John the Baptist is associated with the constellation Aquarius.

Below is a screen-shot of the night sky as it appears to an observer in the northern hemisphere, looking towards the southern horizon, when the Milky Way is rising up like a shimmering stream across the sky, and the glorious and very bright zodiac constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius are flanking the base of the Milky Way on either side. Scorpio and Sagittarius are both constellations associated with the "lower half" of the zodiac wheel, when the annual cycle is descending towards winter solstice, because the "sign" of Scorpio and of Sagittarius both take place in the months just prior to the low-point "turn upwards" of the winter solstice. As an aside, the sign is derived from the month in which the sun rises in the "house" of that constellation -- the constellation's stars being visible above the eastern horizon just above the point where the sun will rise, and growing fainter and fainter as the sun approaches and the pre-dawn sky becomes lighter and lighter. 

Aquarius is visible on the left side of the image, just above the Goat outline of Capricorn. Just to the right (west) of Capricorn is Sagittarius (guarding the left-hand side of the rising Milky Way, as we look south), and beyond Sagittarius a bit further right (west) is the sinuous form of Scorpio, low down and close to the horizon, most of its body immersed in fact in the stream of the Milky Way. 

This screenshot is from the outstanding open-source planetarium app at Stellarium.org. It shows the outlines of the constellations (these can be turned on or off), but it does so with an outlining convention which I do not believe is the most helpful or useful for envisioning the constellations in your mind. I much prefer the outlining system proposed by H.A. Rey.

Below, I will draw in the outlines using the H.A. Rey system, and you will immediately see that Aquarius can be envisioned as a man holding a large pitcher of water, from which he is pouring two streams. This fact cannot be easily envisioned using the atrocious outlining system seen in the above image (the Goat and Scorpion outlines are OK in that system, but the outlines for Aquarius, Sagittarius, and many others are most unsatisfactory). We will see from the image with outlines drawn in that Aquarius, who is associated with water, can be seen as a strong contender for the role of John the Baptist, whom the texts describe very specifically as "baptizing with water."

In the image below, I also identify two additional clues from the Biblical texts, which I believe can be used to help bolster the case that this scene from the night sky is the origin of the descriptions of John baptizing in the wilderness. We are told that John's food consisted solely of "locusts and wild honey" (for example, in Matthew 3:4). In the image below, we see that the brightest stars within Sagittarius, which are often referred to as the "Teapot," can also be imagined to look like a bright celestial grasshopper: a locust. This identification of the Teapot asterism within Sagittarius with locusts described in the Bible is also supported by the celestial analysis of Revelation chapter 9, in which Sagittarius is almost certainly being described, and locusts are prominently referenced there as well. 

The locusts of John's diet live at the base of the Milky Way, near Aquarius, but where is the "wild honey" that the scriptures refer to? As we have seen in previous posts, the honey is located at the other end of the Milky Way, where it crosses the zodiac band again, this time just below the feet of the Twins of Gemini, who are located at the "top" of the zodiac wheel, just prior to summer solstice and just prior to the sign of Cancer the Crab. As we have discussed in previous posts, an important feature in Cancer the Crab is the famous Beehive Cluster, which finds its way into many myths around the world. So, John's food can be located at the "lower" and "upper" ends of the Milky Way stream, the locusts at the point where the Milky Way crosses Sagittarius, and the wild honey at the point where the Milky Way crosses near Cancer.

Additionally, as shown in the image below, John has a rather rough way of addressing the penitents who come to the River Jordan to be baptized of him. Speaking in particular to the Pharisees and Saducees, we are told that John asks: "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (for instance, in Matthew 3:7). As we can see from the image below, the vipers are present, right next to the locusts:

As noted above, if the Milky Way is here representing the River Jordan, where John the Baptist is performing his baptism of repentance, it does appear that the "vipers" are at least getting in the river to be baptized!

There are additional clues that Aquarius is the correct celestial origin of John the Baptist. First, when Jesus arrives, John is described as looking up and declaring, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). If John "goes before" Jesus and "prepares the way" for his arrival, then it could be expected that John is here referring to one of the zodiac constellations which he "goes before" in the nightly rotation -- and sure enough, the constellations which follow Aquarius in the zodiac band are Pisces (just visible in the above image, as a polygonal shape to his left, below the letter "J" in the "John the Baptist" label) followed immediately by Aries the Ram. And, as you can see from the H.A. Rey outline of Aquarius, his head is actually "looking" in that direction -- he really will be able to see the Ram (or Lamb) of Aries rising up behind him as the sky continues to turn from the east to the west (from the left to the right in this image).

We are also told in many of the gospels that John declares that "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose" (Mark 1:7). This mention of "stooping down" is very helpful, because Aquarius does seem to be "stooping" in the sky, or pitched forward in his posture as he leans forward with his jug. 

Who is the one whose shoes he is not fit to untie? 

I believe this scripture refers in fact to Orion, who is indeed "mightier" than Aquarius, being a true giant in the sky and also the constellation with the highest ratio of bright stars to total stars of any in the night sky (in marked contrast to Aquarius, who is it must be admitted a constellation rather dim and difficult to make out). Orion has a significant "shoe" or "foot" in the bright star Rigel -- in fact, his "toe" is referred to in other myths from other cultures, as Hamlet's Mill

discusses. Orion does indeed come after Aquarius in the sky -- his form is located just below Taurus the Bull, which is the zodiac constellation which follows immediately after Aries. 

But the clinching detail in the scripture which indicates that John is referring to Orion with this line about the one mightier than he who is coming after him is the fact that some of the gospels make mention of this "mightier one" carrying "his fan in his hand" (Matthew 3:12, Luke 3:17). The upraised arm of Orion (on the left side of the outline as we look at it in a star chart) is holding what is sometimes described as a club, but which is actually more like "a long rectangle on a stick" -- this is the object which I believe the scriptures are references in the mention of "his fan." It is the same "winnowing fan" that is mentioned in the final book of the Odyssey, and it is also the "paddle" carried ceremonially by chiefs across the islands of the Pacific:

These abundant details should be more than sufficient to establish the celestial foundations of the John the Baptist episodes found in all four gospels in the canonical Bible.

But that is by no means all of them. The story of John the Baptist contains a veritable plethora of celestial information. The next important clues can be found in the death of John the Baptist, which is described in the gospels of Mark and Matthew. In those gospels, we learn that "the daughter of Herodias"  came in to the birthday supper of Herod, and she "danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him," and he swore to her that he would give her whatsoever she should ask of him (Mark 6:21-25). She is instructed by her mother to ask for the head of John the Baptist (Mark 6:24 -- the Matthew account in Matthew 14 adds "in a charger" or platter). Herod is dismayed, but keeps his oath, and John is beheaded.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

This gruesome scene can be observed in the icon-image above -- and readers can take comfort in the fact that the artist appears to be aware of the celestial origins of this terrible story (i.e. I don't think it happened on earth in literal history -- I think it happens in the sky above). We see John, pitched forward, just as the constellation Aquarius is pitched forward or "stooping down" in the sky. His hands are bound, but they project from his body at the same angle and attitude as the "leg" that can be seen protruding from the center of the constellation Aquarius. 

The daughter of Herodias is kneeling, with one arm reaching forward and holding a disc-shaped charger to take his head: these are the crucial characteristics of the constellation Virgo, as can be seen in some of the illustrations from ancient Greece shown in this previous post.

Finally, the artist in the scene at top has added an executioner who is depicted with many of the characteristics of the constellation Perseus. I think he is taking artistic license here -- there is no indication of a Perseus-figure in the Biblical texts. However, there is every indication that the story of the beheading of John the Baptist involves the constellations Aquarius (which we have already identified as the celestial actor playing the role of John) and Virgo (who plays the role of most queens, maidens, damsels, and goddesses in myths the world over). 

And, as Robert Taylor pointed out in the 1800s, in a sermon recorded in The Devil's Pulpit, the motion of the sky actually seems to "behead" the constellation Aquarius, when the figure's head is below the horizon and the rest of the constellation is above it. It just so happens that this "beheading" of Aquarius takes place when Virgo is setting in the west, and Aquarius is rising in the east:

Above, the line of the horizon is seen as a dark "arc" at the bottom of the screen, as we look to the south (from an observation point in the northern hemisphere). We can see the constellation Virgo, playing the role of the daughter of Herodias, dancing at the right-side of the sky (in the west). In the east, we see Aquarius, rising up -- and again in his peculiar pitched-forward or "stooped down" posture. His head is basically "trailing" the rest of his body as he rises -- and when he is actually coming up out of the horizon, his head will still be below the horizon as his body rises up (I have indicated the motion his constellation takes as it rises by adding a little blue arrow on the screen image).

This added episode should confirm the celestial foundations of the John the Baptist story, and his identification with Aquarius. 

But there is still more in this incredibly rich Bible story. Recall that the gospel texts make clear that John was conceived six months before the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, and that he thus "goes before" Jesus by six months as well. If we turn to our zodiac wheel, familiar from many previous posts such as this one, we will observe that it is divided into twelve segments, and that this means that two players who are "six months" apart will "mirror" each other as they go around the annual circuit:

Thus, John the Baptist is in many ways the "opposite" or the "dark twin" of Jesus. This is no doubt the celestial source of the famous quotation from John when he says of Jesus, "He must increase but I must decrease" (John 3:30), and possibly also the declaration by John that "He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me" (John 1:15). When two zodiac constellations or zodiac signs are opposed as shown above, it will mean that when one sign is rising or "increasing," the other will be descending or "decreasing." 

Of course, as with all the ancient scriptures and sacred myths of humanity, this passage (and all the episodes above) contain profound esoteric and spiritual truths, in addition to the specific celestial connections discussed here. But it is very difficult to deny that these specific details in the texts appear to be pointing the way to the conclusion that these episodes and characters have a celestial origin.

The implications of this discovery are profound. For one, this common celestial foundation which can be discovered in the stories of the Bible links those scriptures to the myths of the rest of humanity, which can also be shown to operate on the same celestial foundation. For another, the existence of this common system, with very specific details which can be shown to be in common across very broad geographic distances and even across vast stretches of time, argues that the ancient history of the human race may be very different from what we are taught by the conventional academic narrative.

And, the existence of this incredible system of celestial metaphor across all the myths of the world argues that these myths are trying to tell us something very important. I believe they are conveying ancient truths about the nature of our universe and of human existence, and that an understanding of their celestial and allegorical nature is extremely helpful in allowing us to perceive that profound message.

Esoteric aspects of Interstellar

Those familiar with the esoteric symbols found in the world's sacred mythology will find that Interstellar is chock-full of them -- to a degree which goes well beyond the many other Hollywood productions which also contain esoteric references.

While there are already plenty of reviews of the film which focus on its visually-stunning cinematography, its incorporation of cutting-edge theoretical physics, and its apocalyptic vision of the end of life on earth, I thought I would write a short examination of some of the film's esoteric aspects, while advancing the theory that the entire story is intentionally mythological and hence metaphorical, and that spending too much time worrying about whether it is "realistic" or not might be a sidetrack to the film's actual message.

Warning: obviously, if you have not yet seen Interstellar and wish to do so, you will want to stop reading right here and come back later after you've watched the movie. This post simply cannot discuss some of the esoteric symbols in the film without giving away aspects of the plot that would be better to discover in the theater while engrossed in the spectacle of the film itself. Please don't read past this "Spoiler Alert" unless you've already seen the movie! 

Also, what follows is based on just one viewing of the movie, and I don't have the film itself at my fingertips, so I may use a few imprecise terms or even "misremember" a few details, but since I'm keeping it fairly general and relatively brief (not delving into every possible connection, but just the most important), I hope there won't be any egregious inaccuracies. Also, it should be pointed out that just because I believe this film can be viewed as conveying a powerful and positive message in line with the message conveyed in ancient scriptures that employ many of the same symbols does not mean that I automatically endorse every message embedded in the film, or the motives of those who created the film (whatever those might be).

Last chance: this is the final spoiler alert! After this point, you run the risk of ruining your first viewing of the movie, if you read on from here without going to see it first!

Here goes: I believe a credible case could be made that Interstellar is not, in fact, primarily about the impending doom of the planet earth, or the latest theories about the time-bending properties of black holes -- even though it certainly unforgettably impresses both of those subjects upon the viewer through a two-pronged delivery of breathtaking visual effects and emotionally-charged plot lines. However, it is very possible that the film's real subject matter has to do with the personal odyssey traveled by every single individual man or woman in this incarnate existence, which at all times can be portrayed as a struggle between the Sun and Saturn -- specifically, the Christ-aspects of the Sun and the Kronos-aspects of Saturn, or the Horus-aspects of the Sun and the Osiris-aspects of Saturn. 

The planet Saturn is clearly a dominant player in the movie Interstellar: it is next to this planet that the "wormhole" appears, and thus Saturn is the enormous, brooding, visually-gorgeous "gatekeeper" to the path to redemption or salvation for humanity. If the Lazarus mission is going to succeed, it will have to "pass through" Saturn first, so to speak. The main character, Matthew McConaughey's Cooper, says at one point that he doesn't like the name "Lazarus" so much -- and when Michael Caine's Professor Brand asks Cooper why not, since Lazarus came back from the dead, Cooper quips that "he had to die first."

In the extremely important book Hamlet's Mill (1969), we learn that Saturn is in fact one of the most important figures of mythology the world over -- an extremely complex character associated not only with the god Saturn of the Latins but also with Kronos of ancient Greece, and with Osiris of ancient Egypt, as well as with a host of other Saturnian figures including Enki/Ea of ancient Mesopotamia, Jamshyd of ancient Persia (whose name is also Yima Xsaeta, from which the authors of Hamlet's Mill believe the name Saturn may have also derived), the Yellow Emperor of China, and many more -- even King Arthur of the Arthurian legends. He is a god of grain and of agriculture, and he is a god of time -- associations which the viewer of Interstellar cannot fail to find most significant. Previous posts which discuss Saturn in conjunction with the theory of Hamlet's Mill include this one and this one.

Saturn is a god who has to die, to descend into the underworld, to be swathed in grave-clothes or wrapped up as a mummy when he appears as Osiris in ancient Egypt, to be laid out horizontally in a coffin or sarcophagus (as Osiris is often portrayed), and to sleep under the waters in the cave of Ogygia in some legends -- or under the Lake of Avalon in the case of King Arthur, sleeping in an enchanted cave beneath the surface, where he lies under the spell of Morgan le Fey.

According to the analysis of Alvin Boyd Kuhn, most notably in his 1940 text Lost Light, the ancients portrayed our descent into incarnation as bondage in the underworld kingdom of Osiris, where spirit beings are imprisoned in a body, coiled within the serpent coils of matter, swathed in mummy-bands, thrown down into the realm that is governed by Saturn, the lord of time, the giver of measures. 

When we incarnate, we come into the kingdom of time: the kingdom of Kronos, who devours all his children -- since time slowly ages our bodies and eventually turns them into dust. The famous painting of Saturn devouring his children (below), by Francisco de Goya, graphically depicts this well-known aspect of Saturn-Kronos. As the authors of Hamlet's Mill make clear, Saturn is a complex figure: a benevolent god of agriculture and giver of grain, a civilizing god who came and dwelt among humanity and taught them the civilizing arts, ruling over a lost Golden Age -- but also a terrible god, a tyrant who devours his children, the bearer of the scythe who cuts them down like grass, the grim reaper.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Saturn in many ways is the opposite of the Sun itself: Saturn is the farthest visible planet, the dark sun, the underworld sun, the sun as Osiris in the underworld as opposed to Horus who is the sun leaping upwards into the heavens "between the two horizons" like a soaring falcon. When we incarnate, according to the ancient myths, we fall into this underworld of Osiris, even though we actually belong to the world above -- even though we in fact possess a hidden divine spark, showing that we have more in common with the Sun-god, symbolized by Horus . . . or the Christ within (this recent video I made shows one aspect of the correspondence between the sun-god Horus of Egypt and Christ of the New Testament, and there are many other places where you can learn more about the clear symbolic parallels between the two).

And so, in the symbolic language of ancient myth, our incarnate existence is a struggle between the undeniable fact of our imprisonment in the underworld kingdom of Saturn, the tyrannical lord of time who devours his children and turns them to dust by his inexorable turnings,  and the equally undeniable fact of our internal Christ-like nature, this "Horus principle" or "Christ consciousness" within, which urges us to transcend this underworld existence, and tells us that this earthly prison is not ultimately our true home. However, in order to rise up like Horus, we must first descend into the realm of Osiris: in order to become a Christ, we must descend into the kingdom of Saturn.

That the movie Interstellar is dealing with these very themes could not be more clear, as indicated by the symbols it employs. First, of course, is the situation on earth itself, which is portrayed as a nightmarish Saturnian kingdom in which the Saturnian symbols of corn and dust dominate everything. Cooper observes that "we used to look up in the sky, and wonder at our place in the stars: now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt." We are shown a world in which the "sands of time," another Saturnian symbol carried along with a scythe by "Father Time," are visibly running out.

Second, perhaps, might be the movie's frequent references to Lazarus, the New Testament figure who is called out of the cave where he has been sleeping, bound in grave-clothes or wrapped like a mummy: a clearly Saturnian figure (Saturnian figures such as Osiris or King Arthur sleep a death-like sleep in mysterious caves beneath the earth's surface or beneath the waters of the sea). The name "Lazarus" itself can be clearly shown to be directly related to the name of Osiris. The name Osiris is really the Greek form of the Egyptian name of the god, which was Azar (it is easy to see how Azar became Osir -is in Greek, where the endings -os or -is are commonly affixed to many names). 

In the Lazarus mission depicted in Interstellar, Cooper (along with his three companions) must imitate Osiris and Lazarus and King Arthur, by being entombed horizontally in a sarcophagus filled with fluid, in which they -- like all the other Saturnian figures around the world -- will literally "sleep beneath the surface." And, some of the film's most visually-majestic scenes involve the mission's tiny spacecraft against the enormous curve of the gigantic ringed planet. Just to be sure that we do not miss the esoteric Saturnian imagery, the distant sun itself is depicted in these scenes as having six clear rays of light -- evoking some of the esoteric associations of Saturn with the number six, the number of the "hex" that brings us into Saturn's domain (Saturn is associated with seven, to be sure, which is the number of the sun, moon and visible planets, but also with the number six and with hexagons and six-pointed stars and the six-sided "cube of matter" which unfolds into the shape of the cross upon which we are "crucified" in this material realm). It is as if, in these scenes showing the sun radiating six points of light, Saturn is depicted as being in control of the entire solar system and everything in it: he has even usurped the role of the sun itself and brought it under his dominion.

You can clearly see for yourself the distinctive "hex" symbology incorporated into the Saturn scenes in the official  Interstellar trailer (also embedded above) beginning at the 0:54 mark.

Finally, the most powerful aspect of Saturnian imagery in the movie is, of course, the role of time itself. In myths around the globe, Saturnian figures are associated with "giving the measures," both the measures of distance and of time (time and space, of course, being connected -- and units of measure for one being equally a measure of the other, such as the concept of a "minute," which is both a measure of time and of distance, since it is a measure of distance that the earth itself turns in one minute of time and hence can be used to measure distance just as well as it measures time). If anything can be said to be the real "antagonist" in the movie, it is time itself. Cooper is literally racing against time, poignantly expressed in his relationship with his daughter Murph, who is only ten years old when he leaves on his mission. When we learn that decades have passed for those on earth while Cooper has experienced the passage of only a couple of hours on a planet suspended near the event horizon of a black hole, we experience the visceral anguish of knowing that those brief but terrifying scenes on the planet's surface have actually been agonizing years for Cooper's children. The tyranny of Kronos, god of time, may never have been portrayed so achingly in a film before.

But of course, the Saturn imagery is not the only mythologically-rich symbology employed by the makers of Interstellar: the countervailing imagery is the imagery of the triumphant sun, the imagery of Horus, and most especially the imagery of Christ in the New Testament. Here, the number twelve is employed to evoke the twelve houses of the zodiac and the solar year, in which the sun passes through each of the twelve signs. The ship which Matthew McConaughey's Cooper will pilot through the wormhole to escape the bonds of the kingdom of Saturn will have a uniquely zodiacal design: twelve pods or "houses" arranged in a ring, which is actually set to spinning around a central module, containing the Cooper and Brand (and their two companions, neither of whom survive).

You can clearly see the twelve "houses of the zodiac" spinning around the central hub in the spacecraft piloted by Cooper in the trailer linked above, at the 1:27 mark:

If you count in a clockwise direction beginning with the pod that has a double-cylindrical connecting tube or bridge leading to the central vessel, you can easily confirm for yourself that this central vessel is indeed surrounded by twelve spinning sections -- and that it thus resembles very strongly our sun and its twelve houses of the zodiac. It also resembles Christ among his twelve disciples -- and we can argue that from a metaphorical or literary perspective, the decision to place Matthew McConaughey's Cooper and Anne Hathaway's Brand in a central vessel surrounded by twelve spinning pods indicates that they are playing the role of the sun, and that they thus become Christ-figures.

The figure of Christ in the New Testament can be convincingly shown to be a sun figure, who can also be seen as a Horus-figure: the one who transcends the kingdom of death, the one who breaks free from the underworld kingdom of Osiris, which is also the kingdom of Saturn. This is the struggle of every incarnate man or woman who comes down into the kingdom of Saturn, the kingdom of time, the kingdom of dust: to transcend the underworld realm of Osiris by becoming instead a Horus, or a Christ. No one who has seen the film Interstellar can deny that in many clear ways, McConaughey's Cooper is a Christ-figure in the film (and will, at the end, be united with Anne Hathaway's Brand, beyond the bounds of the realm of Saturn).

The centrality of this battle between Saturn and the Sun, or between the Egyptian god of darkness Set (or "Sut") and the sun-god Horus, and its importance to the spiritual situation of every incarnate man and woman, is described by Alvin Boyd Kuhn in Lost Light:

Sut, as a later representative of evil, became the opponent of the god both in the physical and the moral order. He waged war with the sun-god and was defeated, but never slain. Horus attacked him and fought with him for three days, and though wounded, he escaped with his life. He suffered rout periodically and perpetually, but was not destroyed, or only figuratively so. He lived to fight again. The sun-god cast a spell on him every day and rendered him powerless for evil. He was chained down for the aeon. All this was the natural expression of the moral conflict in man's soul, as it is of all other conflict, for life subsists in manifestation only by virtue of the pull, tension or struggle between the two nodal forces. Now one, now the other, is conqueror. 365.

This, then, argues that human life can be described as a struggle between these two forces. One is the force that "brings us down" to this world of matter, pressing us into the bondage of time, into the world of dust, turning us from dwellers among the stars to "tillers of the soil" (as Adam was forced to become, when he was thrown out of the Garden): this is the force that is proper to Saturn. The other is the transcendent Christ-nature within, the force personified by Horus in ancient Egypt, and by Jesus in the New Testament. It seems that in order to ascend to the heavens as Horus, we must first be brought down into the kingdom of Osiris, of Saturn.

In the film, Cooper and Brand and their companions awaken from their death-like sleep when their ship arrives under the enormous sphere of Saturn, and then they plunge through the gateway that will take them beyond the bounds of Saturn's kingdom, beyond the solar system and the orbit of the planet who "gives the measures" to everything within his coils and who wields the terrible sickle of time. The fact that there are twelve possible planets, each housing a courageous scientist, on the other side (outside of Saturn's kingdom) again recalls the twelve signs of the zodiac, and indeed the twelve disciples. The fact that one of the twelve betrays Cooper, the scientist Dr. Mann played by Matt Damon, only solidifies the fact that Cooper in the film is indeed a Christ-like figure.

Mann, whose name is obviously no accident, exhibits only one over-riding motive behind everything he does: his own personal survival. If we had to select one emotion as dominant in his behavior, that emotion would be fear: fear of his own demise. In recognition of this fact, Cooper calls Mann a coward, and Mann can only agree with him, over and over again.

The opposite emotion that the film offers as an alternative to a life motivated by fear is, of course, love. In fact, just before Cooper makes the fateful decision to go to Mann's barren planet of frozen gases, Brand urges the team to go instead to the planet of the scientist Edmunds, with whom she is in love, and she argues that love is at least as good a guide for their mission as any other possibility, and perhaps it is the best guide for action, in that love transcends all space and time and can even transcend death. It is only when Cooper rejects this argument as a basis for guiding their course that he makes the decision that sends them to the world governed by the fear of death and the supremacy of the urge to "survive." It becomes very clear that this is not the path that will enable humanity to transcend the material bondage of Saturn's realm: decisions that are motivated by fear instead of love, or by the bare desire to simply survive, lead only to a frozen wasteland, and to the diminished existence of Dr. Mann.

Mann's cowardice and treachery lead him to blow apart the "zodiac" ship with its twelve pods, and to his own death in the process -- exactly as the treachery of Judas in the New Testament leads to his expulsion from the "zodiac circle" of the twelve disciples and ultimately to his own death as well. The symbology of Judas' expulsion from the heavenly circle (visually echoed in the movie Interstellar and the fate of the Judas-like Dr. Mann) is eloquently analyzed by mathemagician Marty Leeds towards the end of an excellent teaching video called "The 12 disciples of the zodiac," which is discussed along with some other aspects of Marty's work in this previous post.

How many times in our lives can we recall decisions where we took the supposedly "safer" route, the practical route, the route that was motivated by the exigencies of bare survival, instead of "following our heart" or taking the path motivated by love, and ended up on a similarly sterile world of frozen ammonia like the one that Dr. Mann was stranded upon? The message of the film could not be more clear: Cooper, like Christ, is motivated by love -- as is Brand -- and this is the only path that can transcend the coils of the kingdom of Saturn, the kingdom of daily survival, the kingdom of "worrying about the dirt" and the source of our next meal, instead of "wondering at the stars."

And yet, the myths do not portray Saturn as an entirely negative figure, nor is his kingdom of matter an entirely negative realm. As we have seen at several points in the discussion above, it may be that it is only by consenting to be bound within Saturn's kingdom of the incarnate that one can ultimately transcend that kingdom: the path to the eastern horizon where Horus rises triumphantly into the heavenly realms tunnels through the underworld of Osiris first. Cooper and his companions must go through the "gate of Saturn" first, and they must be entombed like Osiris before they can rise like Christ. The experience of being cast down into this realm of matter, and incarnated in an "animal" body, can tempt us to be motivated by the bare survival instinct, but that is a dead-end. The real lesson of incarnating appears to be connected to love, according to the film.

It is interesting that some writers on this subject, including Alvin Boyd Kuhn, indicate that in some way we each choose to incarnate: and in the movie Interstellar, it turns out that McConaughey's character actually "sends himself" on his mission, by sending the coordinates to himself through the medium of the "ghost" in Murph's room, who uses gravity to push various books out of her bookshelf, or to arrange other messages from the "other side."

Cooper's daughter Murph, still back within the circle traced out by the distant orbit of Saturn and hence inside his kingdom, continues to age while Cooper is away. At one point, she sends him a heart-breaking message in which she tells him it is her birthday -- the birthday at which she is turning the same age that he was when he went on his mission. Interestingly enough, we know that she was ten years old when Cooper left, and just before this message arrives we learn that Cooper and Brand's visit to the planet with the giant waves took a total of twenty-three years (as Romilly, who stayed back on the ship, tells them upon their return). This would seem to indicate that Cooper went on his voyage to save humanity at the age of thirty-three, if I am remembering that part of the movie correctly. This number, of course, also has esoteric references, and specifically a reference to the traditional age of Christ when he performed the work of redemption.

Much more could be said about this film -- there are many other aspects which this post has not even touched upon at all. However, the above discussion should establish the possibility that Interstellar, this most scientifically modern and cinematically cutting-edge of science-fiction movies, is really portraying a very ancient symbolic conflict, between the power of Saturn who forces us to focus upon getting "our daily bread" and on staying ahead of devouring time, and our real identity and our real power to transcend this illusory physical and temporal prison, represented in myth by the figures of Horus and of Christ and of many others throughout the sacred scriptures and traditions of the world.

And the pathway to doing so, the movie seems to say rather clearly, is love (and not fear, or the instinct to simply survive).

As such, the movie may be portraying an adventure which every single man and woman who incarnates in this world experiences, in between the enormous orbs of our sun and the planet Saturn -- an adventure every bit as incredible as the one Cooper and Brand and the rest undertook, when they climbed aboard a rocket and set their course for the wormhole . . . and beyond.

Marty Leeds and the metaphor of number

The previous two posts (here and here) have explored the act by which spiritual truth "condescends" to clothe itself in material form, and in doing so to point us back towards "the real world that is behind this one," and to enable our minds to "make the leap" beyond this literal, physical, material veneer.

Past discussions of the same idea have noted that the principle behind Montessori education is very much the same, in that the Montessori method brings abstract concepts such as "cubing a binomial" and turns them into physical materials which the learner can manipulate here in the physical realm, and in doing so can "grasp" (in the literal sense of the word, as well as in the sense of "grasping with the mind") the invisible concept that lies behind it. 

As an aside, it is worth noting that the very first moment of recognition of the connection between the metaphorical representation and the invisible abstract concept is always an "Ah ha!" moment, or a "Eureka!" experience, as the mind suddenly leaps across the chasm between the physical world and the invisible one.

I believe that one reason that the sacred scriptures and traditions of virtually every culture on our planet use metaphorical depictions of the specific motions of sun, moon, stars and visible planets is that these sacred myths are doing the same thing: they are "bringing down" the denizens of the spiritual realm of the heavens and "clothing" them in the garments of physicality or materiality, in order to convey profound truths about human existence, the nature of our universe, and our relationship to it.

The Star Myths, as I call them, are exquisite metaphors, using a canvas that is vast enough to contain the deepest teachings of whatever ancient source imparted these teachings to our ancient ancestors.

Amazingly, philosopher and teacher Marty Leeds has been demonstrating that the same "move" can be made upon the similarly infinite canvas of number. In the video above, he explains his discovery of a system of "gematria" for the modern English alphabet of 26 letters which yields astonishing results when applied to a variety of words and concepts.

It cannot be disputed that esotericists have long used gematria-correspondences with Hebrew and Greek in order to explore ways in which the numbers so generated can be seen to form their own kind of metaphor-system. When the invisible and abstract concepts of number, mathematics and geometry "clothe themselves" metaphorically speaking in aspects of the material world (by taking on aspects of "male" or "female," for example), then they are doing the same thing that I believe the Star Myths are all illustrating: they are "incarnating" in order to point us towards spiritual truths; they are materializing in order to act as a kind of "springboard" to launch us back upwards into the greater spiritual consciousness.

The followers of Pythagoras, of course, were using the very same concept (and, according to tradition, Pythagoras brought his philosophy back from the far more ancient philosophy that he encountered in visits to Egypt), and so there is a long and distinguished precedent for the path Marty Leeds is pursuing.

His application of the particular system of number-correspondence to our modern English alphabet, and the way he then analyzes and "cross-examines" the results of his English gematria is what makes Marty's work unique and remarkable. The metaphorical connections that he finds are simply astonishing.

It is first worth briefly discussing the method he proposes for connecting each of the 26 letters of the modern English alphabet with a number: he breaks the 26 into two groups of 13, each of which can be seen to ascend towards a central seventh letter before descending back down, like this: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Marty points out that there are cogent reasons to argue for such a pattern, such as the fact that the Genesis account of creation has six days of divine creation followed by a sacred seventh day of rest, which establishes a pattern identical to the one he is proposing. He also notes that the musical scale does the same thing, having seven different notes A-B-C-D-E-F-G before repeating again with another A.

Although he does not mention this fact (as far as I know), there is yet another strong argument which can be made for the pattern that Marty applies to the English alphabet, and that is the fact that there is an ancient Hebrew form of poetry which is known as "chiasmic" poetry, or "chiastic" structures, or simply "chiasm." It is pronounced "Ky-asm," and named after the Greek letter "chi" (usually pronounced "Ky"), which we would call "X." Chiasm follows a pattern which is "X-shaped" and which does the exact same type of repeating that Marty proposes in his gematria for the modern English alphabet.

Chiasm is so important that it is worth an essay all its own (actually, it is worthy of books upon books of discussion), and so I will leave this point for now and take it up later -- it is an absolutely fascinating concept. The pertinent point for this discussion is the fact that Marty's proposed gematria actually incorporates chiastic structure, which to me would argue that his proposed gematria has very strong credentials to support it, with very deep roots.

I myself am not an expert on Marty's research and analysis: I only began to explore his work very recently, mainly in conjunction with appearing as a guest on his excellent new radio show and podcast, entitled Marty Leeds' Mathemagical Radio Hour (I was happy to be guest number 14, which is a number with important lunar connotations, as well as some fun connections to Tolkien's The Hobbit, along with a host of other esoteric correspondences which Marty discusses in some of his books and teaching videos). However, I have seen enough at this point to realize that Marty is definitely "onto something" in his work and that this is by no means "smoke and mirrors" or the product of someone with a good imagination being able to "read into" the numbers whatever he or she wants to see.

What I believe his work demonstrates (among other things) is that the ancient intelligence that gave humanity the incredible myths and teachings was able to create metaphors which worked with extreme subtlety and effectiveness on at least three levels at once! In The Undying Stars, I examine plenty of evidence that Star Myths (including those found in the Bible) are often operating on two levels simultaneously: they contain beautiful celestial metaphors at the very same time that they operate as exquisite "human body metaphors" as well.

For example, Moses crossing the Red Sea can be shown to have a celestial aspect, in which Moses is Aries ("clothed in metaphor), the zodiac sign who leads the children of Israel (the other zodiac signs -- all of which together are twelve "tribes" or groupings of stars) across the lower half of the annual cycle and "brings them up" at the spring equinox. But at the exact same time, "crossing the Red Sea" has a "human body" metaphor in it as well: we are all "crossing the Red Sea," metaphorically speaking, in this incarnate human life, in which we have been "plunged into" a human body which contains its own "Red Sea" (our life-blood). Our sojourn in this material realm, with all its trials and tribulations and lessons, is a form of "crossing the Red Sea."

By delineating the mathematical metaphors that are also undeniably present in these ancient texts, Marty has shown that they do not simply operate on two amazing levels at the same time, but three! The level of sophistication of the ancient sacred mythologies imparted to humanity at some point in our distant past is simply staggering.

The video above is full of incredible connections, in which Marty shows the numbers of specific English-language versions of names or concepts to point to significant numbers relating to our universe, including the size of our spherical earth, the sizes of the moon and the sun, and the specific degree-angle which creates the beautiful and mysterious phenomenon of plant phyllotaxis. That angle, by the way, is very close to 137.5 (discussed in great detail in this interesting scholarly paper), which Marty shows to be found in the name of the Christ, the letters of which according to his cipher can be multiplied together to find the number 18,900 -- the square root of which is 137.48. See the above video at about the 34:00 mark.

Below are a couple examples of phyllotaxis in nature (continue reading below the second photo):

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

What is also incredibly interesting about this fact is that the number 18,900 which Marty found by multiplying the numbers corresponding to the letters in the name Christ is also a multiple of 108, which means that it is a precessional number. Precession moves the background of stars by a single degree every 71.6 years, which in ancient myth is usually rounded up to 72, and which then yields the important precessional numbers 108 (which is 72 times 1.5), 216 (which is the number of years precession takes to delay the starry background by 30 full degrees, or one sign of the zodiac, resulting in a new precessional Age), 432, 864, and so on up to 25,920 (the theoretical number to do a full 360). For more on the celestial motion of precession, see this post (among many, many others) and this video.

As the video explains, the ancient myths are filled with indications that the motion of precession was of incredible importance in the ancient system of celestial metaphor, and the presence of precessional numbers in myths around the world has been noted by Graham Hancock and other authors, most notably the authors of Hamlet's Mill (1969). Precessional numbers can be shown to be incorporated into the construction of the Great Pyramid, of Teotihuacan, of many other ancient monuments, possibly including Stonehenge. They are also undeniably present in the world-wide "grid" which connects many of these ancient monuments.

It is fascinating to note how many precessional numbers turn up in the names that Marty Leeds analyzes with his English gematria in the video above. Beginning at about 36:00 in the video, he shows connections from the names of Jesus Christ and Horus to the number 2,160 -- a very important precessional number corresponding to a precessional Age (as Marty notes in his discussion). At about 18:00 in the video, he discusses the number 5,040 which he finds by multiplying 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 and which he notes is equal to the sum of the radius of the earth and the radius of the moon in miles (approximately 3,960 miles plus 1,080 miles). This 5,040 number is also a precessional number, being a multiple of 72. So is the number 864 (which is 108 multiplied eight times), which Marty shows to be an approximation of the diameter of the sun in thousands of miles, and which is also generated by the English gematria system Marty has discovered when applied to the letters of Jesus and Christ together (as is the radius of 432,000 which is generated by the letters of Jesus alone) -- see the video at about 37:30 discussing the diameter and 29:30 discussing the radius.

The fact that these precessional numbers are generated by the names of Jesus and Horus, who are metaphorically related, as touched on briefly in this previous post (and see also the two images of Isis and Horus included in that post), and who both are associated with the sun, makes the precessional connections in the gematria most appropriate, since precession is most evident when observing the heliacal rising of constellations just prior to the sun's rising, and since precession is most often associated with the delay of the background of stars on specific solar stations throughout the year, most especially the spring equinox (hence it is commonly referred to as the precession of the equinoxes).

It is also noteworthy that the plant which provides one of the clearest examples of phyllotaxis resembles the sun itself and is actually called the sunflower (see both the images above).

Much, much more could be said about the amazing number-metaphors which Marty has uncovered with his research and exploration. However, perhaps one of the most resonant for me was the metaphor he explains at the very end of the video below, a slightly different video from the one linked above, and one in which Marty matches up the twelve disciples to the twelve signs of the zodiac (he notes that the correspondences he shows are simply one possibility and that he is not dogmatic about the correspondences shown; I would agree with the diagram in his video that has Peter corresponding with Aries, but disagree with some of the others -- however, as he explains, that doesn't really matter in this video, since he is discussing the sum total the numbers generated by of all of the signs, and not the specific correspondences themselves).

The concluding sentiment, which he arrives at through his examination of the expulsion of Judas from his particular "slice" of the celestial zodiac circle, is that we should be very careful not to miss the heavenly or the spiritual because of an erroneous or defective pre-occupation with material possessions (or, by extension, the veneer of material existence itself). This is a brilliant piece of analysis, and shows that these numerical metaphors very much agree with what the astronomical metaphors and the "human body" metaphors also appear to be trying to tell us.

We should all applaud Marty Leeds for the work he is doing, and for his enthusiasm in sharing what he has found through his excellent teaching videos and his books. I'm looking forward to reading and watching more of his work in the future, and recommend that others do as well -- especially if they are interested in seeing yet another facet of the incredible treasure that is hidden in the ancient sacred traditions of the human race, and in the "book of nature" all around us.

All-Soul's Day

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

An engine, no matter how big, how beautiful, or how powerful, is nothing but a useless pile of metal without the vital spark which ignites the fuel to create the explosions which drive the cylinders and turn the crankshaft. 

In a similar manner, our bodies are lifeless clay without the invisible spark which animates them. According to Alvin Boyd Kuhn, in his treatise on Halloween discussed in this earlier posting, the annual celebration of Halloween ranks as high in importance and in spiritual symbolism as the other celebrations at the great solar stations of the year such as Easter-type celebrations at spring equinox and Christmas-type celebrations at winter solstice, and like those two just-mentioned holidays the Halloween celebration contains a "night-time" element and a "day-time" element, in its conjoined holiday of "All-Soul's Day" or "All-Saints' Day." 

Halloween celebrates and commemorates the descent of the soul into the body, with all the attendant symbolism, and All-Soul's Day celebrates and commemorates the fact that every body has a soul which will outlast and ultimately transcend that body and which in fact lasts forever, according to the ancient teachings of the world's collective mythologies.

And so All-Hallow's Even or Hallowe'en must have its conjoined All-Hallow's Day, just as Good Friday must have its Easter morning, and Christmas Eve's midnight observance must have its Christmas morning. To focus only on one aspect without the other could thus be said to be akin to focusing only on the engine as a lump of metal without recognizing the importance of the inner fire which drives it.

In the ancient metaphorical categorization of the four elements (fire, air, water and earth), the first two are the elements of spirit, and the latter two are the elements of material incarnation. In Greek mythology, Prometheus is described as forming mankind out of clay (earth and water), and then bringing them divine fire. In the Old Testament, Genesis 2 tells us that "the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (verse 7).

Interestingly, real engine enthusiasts and muscle-car owners know that to increase an engine's performance, it needs to be given more air and fire -- the elements that form the "spiritual side" of the engine, so to speak. In fact, many people refer to the ignition side of the engine's operation simply as "fire" (as in, "it's not getting fire").

In another publication, Lost Light (published in 1940), Alvin Boyd Kuhn devotes an entire chapter to exploring the conceptual "elements" of the ancient system, and then goes even deeper into fire and water in additional chapters. There are actually two entire chapters on fire. The first of these, entitled "Fire on Heaven's Hearth" (Chapter XIV), says of fire:

It rises above the other elements in grandeur and impressiveness. The full implication of its meaning lifts the mind into reaches of luminous suggestiveness as to the splendor of the experience awaiting us in future arcs of our unfoldment. Fire is the emblem of our highest nobility, and even as a mere figure it has a certain power to stir dim intimations of the magnificence of that reality which it hints at. There is in nature hardly a phenomenon more wonderful than the eating away of a stick of wood by a flame. The mystery of all life is back of that energetic display. And the mystery becomes awesome when we realize that our own life is more than analogous to fire; it is of kindred nature with it. The soul within us is a spark of divine flame. 303.

In ancient Greek myth, Prometheus brings fire to humanity in a hollow reed, often specifically identified as a thyrsus-reed (Dionysus, the god of wine and hence of "spirits," was also the bearer of a thyrsus-reed staff). The symbol of the thyrsus reed wand or staff was prevalent in all the ancient mysteria ("Mystery cults" or "Mystery religions," as they are often somewhat inaccurately termed), for as Alvin Boyd Kuhn explains: "The whole design of the Mysteries, according to the great Plato himself, was 'to lead us back to the perfection from which, as our beginning, we first made our descent'" (Lost Light, 106).

The ancient myths of humanity all portray the descent of our fiery souls into incarnate matter by pointing to the glorious display of the fiery bodies of the heavenly sphere, the sun and the stars, and the turning of the heavens which causes them to plunge from the celestial realm of fire and air down into the horizon (where they enter the realm of earth and of water). For some discussion of the specific celestial  foundations of the Prometheus story, see this previous post entitled "Prometheus, Bringer of Fire."

In Hamlet's Mill, published in 1969, authors Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend present extensive evidence linking the name of Prometheus bringer of fire with the ancient Hindu and Vedic pramantha, the great churn-stick or fire-stick which is the vertical component of the two fire-sticks, both in the terrestrial realm of starting common fires and in the heavenly realm. By extension, then, the pramantha was seen as the motive force which it turns the very sky on its axis (see Hamlet's Mill  139-140).

De Santillana and von Dechend devote an entire appendix (Appendix 14) to exploring this connection, and note that Sanskrit pra-mantha and its root - manth are related to the words Amritamanthana (the churning of the milky sea, which is associated with the turning of heaven as well as the ages-long motion of precession), Mount Mandara (the mountain around which the churning of the ocean of milk takes place, and which is thus associated with the central axis of heaven), and even the word mandala (the great circular symbol which represents our universe in its physical and its spiritual completeness). 

The association of Prometheus bringer of fire with the vertical fire-stick par-mantha connects all this symbology with the ancient Egyptian symbolism surrounding the "raising of the Djed column," which must follow the action of the Djed being "cast-down" -- the action of casting down being representative of the soul's plunge into gross matter, and the action of raising up being representative of our life-long mission of recognizing and calling forth the spiritual spark that is hidden within this material world, disguised behind a mask (to use the imagery of Halloween). 

This is the esoteric meaning of All-Soul's Day, according to Alvin Boyd Kuhn: the message that we all contain this spiritual and eternal divine component, hidden as it is behind the gross mask of material incarnation, and the teaching that our purpose here in this incarnate life is to recognize it and to elevate it again, in ourselves as well as in everyone else we meet, and in the natural world which is also infused with hidden spirit. It is also a day on which traditionally the souls of those who have gone before are remembered, in light of the knowledge that they continue on forever.

Now that we have celebrated Halloween, reveling in all the symbology of the "physical engine" (so to speak), it is appropriate to spend some time focusing on the "spiritual side of the engine," which actually makes it go.