Numerology – A Sacred Life

April 19, 2023April 18, 2023

Venus Enthroned

Before I leap into this week’s card completely, I want to mention a couple of points that didn’t make it into last week’s article, but are relevant to cover before going forward.

First, you may have noticed that I haven’t said anything about reverses, that is, the meanings I read when the card is drawn upside down. While these are considered traditional, not every historical source on Tarot has used them, so I think there’s probably a fair argument that “traditional” use is not absolute.

Thing is, several of the decks I own have a card back design that is clearly oriented to up or down, so when I read from those decks, I know whether the card I will draw is a reverse or not, before I draw it. To me, this seems a problem, it prejudices my opinion of what that card will mean even before I draw it. No, it ought not to, but in my own experience it does. Your mileage may vary.

But further, to get a reverse, one must intentionally shuffle the deck such that some cards are turned up and some down. The issue with that is that in a general randomization, you are going to get stacks of reverses coming together. Again, this may just be me, but I purposely re-sort my decks at the end of a reading, to the usual order that I use. From my years of using the cards, this is the Majors, then the Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles, all going from Ace to King. So because of this practice, a whole lot of shuffling is required to get reversed cards that occur individually. While it’s certainly not impossible, it’s just not as likely to get that outcome, and so I am back to having a lot of reversed cards in a row.

In many of the little books that come in the card box, reverses are dealt with as simple opposites. If the Two of Cups is interpreted as romantic love, then the reverse is read as a break-up or divorce looming. But the whole point I have been making is that the cards are to be intuitively read in context, and eyeing the reverse as a simple negation is hardly adequate. As astrologers will tell you about retrograde motion, the interpretation is that the usual meaning may be reduce, impeded, or frustrated, again, depending on context.

In going forward I will probably not spend any more time on reverse meanings than I have previously. I think the astute person who chooses to utilize some of my interpretations in their own exploration can glean what opposites or limitations should apply if these cards come up upside down in their reading. It may also be instructive to consider the earlier, less lofty meanings of the card images in that. It is possible and certainly applicable to perceive the previous three cards as an Idiot, a Con Man, and a Heretic if reversed, or ill-aspected by other cards in the reading.

My second point is to re-emphasize that I tend to regard the first three cards as representative of cerebral or spiritual natures, which may be described in terms of the “That Which Is Above” of Hermetic tradition. As we begin with the Empress card, we are entering into “That Which Is Below”. This is the world of the physical, the manifest, and the incarnate. These cards are both the way the non-corporeal natures of the “Above” show themselves in the perceived reality, and the reflection of those natures.

tarot-as-above-so-below — This arrangement can be a reading in itself, or it can be used as a prototype spread. The Fool, The Magician, and Priestess represent the “Above” of Hermetic teachings, that which is supernatural, divine, astral, etc. The Empress, Emperor, and Hierophant are their Counterparts in the physical world “Below”. If you take the essences of these cards, as they are positioned and opposed/reflected in this context, as signifiers, then cards drawn and placed on these positions can be read in those contexts. For example, the card in the Fool’s place represents new beginnings, first purposes, raw talent, unmoderated energy, etc.

In the years I have been working I have often used the cards to determine how I read the cards. That is, I might deal out a certain number, read those and then deal out again but use the first round to determine how the second round should be seen. This is not the same as the “clarification” where a card is drawn and the next card is drawn to amplify or elaborate. In this case, the meaning of the first card and its position are seen as the modifier to how the meaning of the second card is read. The first card’s meaning is a context, rather than a meaning to be further defined. I don’t know if anyone else has used this method. I am constantly exploring new ways to look at the cards.

I’d like to tell you that I have puzzled out how each successive set of three cards in the Major Arcana work in this interrelationship, but I confess that such a solution still eludes me, if it exists at all. There is a curious little mathematical trick in the Major Arcana, in that the numbers assigned to each card, when they are viewed in successive sets of three, are numerologically resolvable to the number 3.

That is:

The Fool 0 + The Magician 1 + The Priestess 2 = 3

And

The Empress 3 + The Emperor 4 + The Hierophant 5 = 12 and 1+2 =3.

Likewise

The Lovers 6 + The Chariot 7 + Strength 8 = 21 and 2+1 =3

And

The Hermit 9 + The Wheel 10 + Justice 11 = 30 and 3+0 = 3

From here on it continues, though it takes a few more steps

The Hanged Man 12 + Death 13 + Temperance 14 = 39 and 3 +9 =12 and 1+2 = 3

The same applies for the next three

The Devil 15 + The Tower 16 + The Star 17 = 48 > 12 >3

And the next

The Moon 18 + The Sun 19 + Judgment 20 = 57 > 12 > 3

And the final card is

The World 21 and 2+1 = 3.

It’s a nifty trick. I wish I could tell you that there is some hidden meaning here, but I continue to look for it. Beyond looking at the first two sets and their more or less obvious relationship, I can’t use this power of three to logically connect the meanings of the cards split thusly, aside from perhaps ascribing that the World, by itself, holds the same value as each set, and that is rather tidy. Yet my awareness of this strange little numerical quirk always crops up when I contemplate the cards, so perhaps there is something to it after all. I do not ascribe any secret and intentional message lost in the sands of time, but just that like all synchronicities and patterns, meanings may be derived.

This pattern, of course, exists separate from Tarot. If you take the numbers 0 through 21, and split them at every three steps, you get this outcome. It is just that it works exactly on the number of Major Arcana cards that I find rather intriguing. Again, it may have no more real relation than Levi tying the 22 Hebrew characters to these cards. But people use that system daily, so please feel free to adapt or ignore as you see fit.

Alright, enough to the sidebar, let’s get to this week’s card, The Empress.

Empress_RWS_Tarot — Smith has given us a sensual feast for the eyes with this card. There is much to explore beyond what I have written about. Foremost is that the openness of the card’s character invite us to go wandering in the woods behind her, an activity I always heartily endorse.

In the RWS deck she is show reclining on a couch in the middle of a field of wheat. Behind her is a stand of trees, which may be an orchard. A stream flows from it to pool just behind the dais her couch is upon. She wears a white robe with pomegranates on it, She is crowned with a tiara of six pointed stars, and holds aloft in her right hand a scepter topped with a large golden orb. Beside her couch, and possibly part of its carving is a tilted heart with the symbol for Venus upon it. The circular part of the symbol is filled with green. A variation of the Venus symbol is worked into a motif at the back of the couch (it may be intended as wicker work or filigree) and there are opulent cushions and throws upon it that she lays upon. The sky in this image is yellow, like that of the Magician card.

The yellow sky is also shared with the Fool card, and appears on four other cards in the Major Arcana. To the extent that these are intentional selections and not just the choices made by the printer from available inks is hard to say. Yet the spaces in each of the cards can be read as symbolic, and there is therefore no reason to ignore the color choice. If it was made by Ms. Smith or the printing house, is irrelevant. If intended, then we can say perhaps a meaning was intended. If coincidental, then we can, like the number sequence and indeed the random draw of the cards themselves, consider it a means of working into the inscrutable mystery being revealed by an unseen force.

In this instance, I make note of the connection of this color with the Magician card, in his rose garden. This is a cue to my earlier statement about reflection and manifestation. The Magician is reflected in the Empress. She is the avatar of Venus, Aphrodite, and Demeter. She is fertility and fecundity, bringing forth abundance and ripeness from the earth and all those things which live and grow upon it. It is she who is the physical representation of the Fool’s divine force, channeled through the Magician’s directed will.

For those more technically included, consider the photographic negative (you younger folks may have to go look that one up. As a photographer whose career and training began with these now “retro” tools, it is a logical and apt metaphor). It is opposite, and potentially unrecognizable. Yet when placed into the enlarger, and light projected through it onto the photopaper below, it yields an opposite and clear image. So I am comfortable applying the reflection/opposition principle here when I connect the Above to the Below. Additionally, we can view the Empress as the feminine aspects of the Magician. In a way, her sensuous nature completes and mollifies the severe and somewhat barren nature of the symbol of willful action.

This of course, does not limit her to being simply the worldly emanation of the will. That would disregard the value of the physical manifest existence. This is often a trap of the spiritual path. Many “seekers” have adopted the philosophy of self-denial, asceticism, and celibacy as the appropriate path to the divine. The whole argument that we must shed our attachment to the mortal world and its pleasures is a tenet of many religions and teachings.

Yet this begs the question as to what the purpose of a physical experience is in the first place. If the spiritual is the only truth, and rising to being solely spiritual is the aim of existence, why is there a physicality at all. If spirit exists before and after mortality, as many faiths teach, then why are we making a side trip. If we are divinity descended into flesh so that we can ascend back to the divine, this seems a futile waste of time.

The answer is usually a pat “because we must learn X” by being incarnated. I think that’s a bit too simplistic, and it also is often used as an excuse for all manner of evil and suffering in the world. We have to be hurt and abused because we must learn X. We make war and destruction on our fellow humans because someone must learn X. Your mother or your sister had to die of cancer because you must learn X. It’s all so you can return to the nature of pure spirit as –what — a better spirit? Were you a bit of a daft spirit before, and spending three score and ten repeatedly having your heart broken and stubbing your toe is going to fix all that?

I don’t buy that one. Sorry. Probably why I don’t fit in with most of the regular philosophical circles.

Now, I am not here to say that the Hedonist philosophy is the one true way either, but I think one of the big lessons we can get from the Empress card is that we are supposed to enjoy the experience of being incarnate. For every time we stub our toe, there’s all those times where we got to eat birthday cake.

Potentially a non-corporeal spirit can’t experience that luscious chocolate frosting, or at least not in the same way that a messy meat suit with taste buds can. For all the limitations and fragilities inherent in life in the meat suit, there are just some things that our ghost selves don’t enjoy in the same way. If this were not the actual case then it would not be so hard to give it all up.

The Hindu and Buddhist beliefs tell us that our spirits suffer because we cannot dissolve that longing for the physical. I say that our spirits naturally have a physical existence. It’s not a larval stage. It’s not preparing us for “the next life”. Our meatiness is part of our life. We may even cycle between being meat and not-meat throughout eternity.

Empress-triptych — A Triple Empress, if you will, and purposefully drawing on the Maiden-Mother-Crone architype. Three different artists give related, but not entirely similar treatments to the physical attributes of this card’s natural realm.

The leftmost from Stephanie Law’s Shadowscapes Tarot gives us all the joy and exuberance of Springtime with it’s potential for life and growth. Law cleverly paints it in the colors of autumn though, reminding us that these abundances are as mortal as our ability to enjoy them, and yet, they are part of a never ending cycle.

The middle piece I have drawn from Cirro Marchetti’s Legacy of the Divine deck. Here the Empress’s belly swells with the new life witihin, and she is attended by many emblems of fruitfulness and fertility. In one of my own attempts at this card, I also chose to depict the Empress with child, and yet still she is sensuous to us.

The final image is drawn from the Tarot of the Hidden Realm, which as you may guess from the title, is very Faery-forward. The artist is Julie Jeffrey, and has given us a copper-haired harvest queen the equal of Demeter or Ceres. The fruits of the Empress’s impressive garden are wasted if we do not pick them. That is their purpose and that is our purpose.

The Empress is the embrace of that physical world. She is warmth and sunshine on our face. She is the smell of the flowers in the field. She is the hum of the bees, and the chirping of the birds, and the babbling of the brook. She is the touch of a lover’s hand, the look in the lover’s eyes. While it may be true that when we return to the spirit form, we become one with that lover in a way that our bodies may not ever be able to, it is the delicate separation of those bodies, the appreciation of Other, that cannot be felt when the soul merges on a higher plane. That itself is worth something. That itself is why we physically incarnate.

While the emblem on the Empress’s couch (or throne, as it could be such in an Etrurian or Graeco-Roman style) is commonly that used astrologically for the planet Venus, and more modernly for the female, it is also an Egyptian Ankh. The ankh is supposed to have derived from the a stylization of a sandal strap, but it’s meaning is Life Itself. It is universally carried by the gods. It is showered down upon people in painting after painting. It is given by the gods to the deceased in the afterlife, so that they may enjoy an eternity of sensual pleasures in the Field of Reeds as the the Boat of Ra passes by. To me this further enforces the view of the Empress as that principle of Life Itself growing, renewing, and everlasting in the world around us.

Her spring brings forth life giving waters for the forests and fields. The wheat is perpetually golden, ripe and ready to harvest, there is no famine here. Yet this is not Eden. This garden she resides in is far more practical. It is the province of the Gatherer in our most ancient “Hunter-Gatherer” ecology. These plants growing in abundance are yet to be tamed and tilled in even rows. There is an antiquity here, almost as old as the caves, before the structure inherent in domestic horticulture caused her to fade into the background. She is here in the center of it all, to be marveled at, adored, and loved for all these gifts.

On her crown are twelve stars, and I think this is clearly the “stars” of the zodiac. The great gold orb on her scepter is the Sun, showing how it travels across these as the year passes. It is through this that all seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter are realized in the physical world. In her garden there is something she does in each of them, to prepare for the next. She is not passing time, but the eternal cycle of life, the eternal promise of abundance, the never ending presence of manifestation. She is the embodiment of continuance.

Her left hand rests upon her knee, and we can see here the echo of the Magician’s stance, even to including the scepter. By this she fully claims her dominion of the physical world of the senses. She ordains what is to be through her will. We are subject to that will, we are dependent upon it, and therefore must pay obeisance to her. By contrast though, her manner is relaxed and open. She does not stand proudly by the Table of the Elements, but greets us languidly from her couch. She does not interpose herself in front of us in challenge, but invites us to come join her in this wonderful place she has built around her. The pomegranates are not an abstracted decoration on the banner behind her, but part of her personal garb. She bids us welcome, and insists that we should walk through her garden.

In this she is a stark contrast to the next card we will explore, that of the Emperor. I’ll be back in a week with that one. I sincerely hope you are enjoying these articles on the Major Arcana, their histories, and my own take on the cards. Your patronage is always appreciated. If you find them enjoyable, please share with a friend who may be likewise entertained.

January 25, 2023February 2, 2023

Hidden Figures

A black draped figure seemingly glided to the front of the classroom and began scribbling on the chalkboard.

Professor Snide spoke without turning.

“Turn to page twelve-thousand, six hundred, and seventy-four and begin reading the rubric at the end of the third paragraph; subsection two, heading four, chapter eight hundred eighty-two. . .” Pausing he added “. . . aloud. . . in four part harmony. “

Wes Rongley peeped his bright orange tufted head above the antique leathern tome on the desk in front of him and peered at the board. He squinted.

To his growing horror, he could clearly make out in the ever-growing scrawl that flowed unceasingly onto the slate from the chalk in Snide’s hand integers, operators, exponents, and not a few letters of Greek.

He shuddered. He had inexplicably stumbled into a maths class.

Wes slunk back down behind the ponderous mouldering volume and wracked his hazy brain for some memory of how this could have happened. The first few days here at Hogwash’s had been a heady blur, but surely he could not have made such a colossal blunder.

There was nothing for it but to try and escape.

He slid further down in the seat, as if he could melt into liquid form and seep quietly out under the classroom’s big oaken door. He tested the floor board with the slightest pressure of his left toe.

It creaked.

“Going somewhere, Mr. Rongley?”

Caught in the act, betrayed by the ancient timber, he had little choice but to respond to Snide’s withering gaze.

“I. . .uh. . .I’m in the wrong room, sir. I don’t think I’m supposed to be in this class.”

Snide inspected the desktop and at length drew out a square of browning parchment.

“You are Wes Rongley, First Year?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then you are on my list and you are in the right room.”

The room seemed to dim when Snide had said ‘my list’. Wes felt every follicle of his flaming shock of hair contract. Perspiration formed on his upper lip. On his tightening scalp. beads of sweat began to coalesce into rivulets that ran down the nape of his neck. He ventured.

“But . . .sir . . . that looks like maths. . .”

Snide turned, his expression softening . . .which for some reason was more disturbing.

“Hmmm. . .really? Are you sure?”

Wes nodded meekly. Professor Snide leaned a bit back and regarded the unfinished equation he’d been scribbling.

“By, Jove, Mr. Rongley, you’re right! It is maths! Seen them before, have you?”

“Yes. . .yes, sir!”

“Well, now you’ve seen them again. Turn to page twelve thousa-“

“I was told there’d be no maths, sir.”

“What?”

“I was told there wouldn’t be any maths. When I signed up, sir. That old chap, Humblebore was it? He said that maths weren’t required for my programme.”

“Headmaster Mumblesnore,” Snide corrected, “may have been a tad vague on this point. Let me assure you, Mr. Rongley, maths are indeed required.”

Wes felt Snide’s dark presence swirling toward him down the aisle but couldn’t move. He was a mouse transfixed by a great black cobra, knowing doom was coming but powerless to escape.

“How else do you expect to tease out the subtler courses of the orbs on their wanderings through the heavens, or divine the sublime secrets of the Gematria, or calculate allowed deductions for consumable spell components and the depreciation of cauldrons of more than a hogshead’s capacity when filing with the Inland Revenue?

‘Let there be no doubt in your mind, Mr. Rongley. Maths. Are. Required.”

Satisfied, Snide turned and had made it halfway back toward the front when Wes exploded:

“But I don’t like maths!”

Snide whirled. There was a flash and puff of sulfurous vapor.

There, atop the vast ancient folio, in the middle of an unwholesome looking greasy spot, sat a rather confused looking amphibian with a shock of flaming orange hair.

-Excerpted Unabridged from Hairy Plodder and the Half-Done Script

Like young Mr. Rongley, I too, did not care for ‘maths’ as it is commonly styled in Britain. Seeking a similar avoidance of all things mathematical, I pursued a career in the creative arts.

It is one of life’s little ironies, that when my own term at the Hogwash School of Wizardry, Witchcraft, and Computer Repair was over, that I entered a field where mathematical calculations are both necessary and intensive.

In further evidence of the universe’s perverse sense of humor, my personal occult studies are repleat with examples of the necessity of mathematics, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, and yes, calculus.

Having avoided many of these courses in school it fell upon me to educate myself over the years as required. The result is that I perhaps have not approached the topics in the same staid way that they are typically taught, and though I do get the needed accuracy of result, my methods are more in tune with the way my left-handed right-brained operations work.

I feel confident that, insofar as I am not building a nuclear reactor in close proximity to inhabited areas, said methods are sufficient for my goals. I’m sharing a bit of them this week in order to acquaint you with the delight I often find now in working with purity of numbers and the permutations thereof.

In a previous article I have spoken about the absolute reality of number itself. That is, number is a real immutable infinite and eternal thing, which remains fixed regardless of time, space, velocity, or dimension. One is always one. Two is always two. One and two are and have been and will always be three. Whether we call that three or tre or trois or drei is irrelevant, the actual thing that it is never changes.

There’s a comfort to that. It’s nice to know that regardless of how much chaos swirls around us there’s still something that remains unchanged. It is the Anchor in the Sea of the Night. It is a Fulcrum in the Void. It is a Beacon on the Shores of Infinity.

Of course, sometimes, it’s fun just to play around and see what comes up. My subject for today is the hexagon, a regular geometric shape having six equal sides.

While the word hexagon doesn’t have a connection with our use of the word hex in occult circles, the doctrines of sympathy and correspondence would argue otherwise. Hex in witchcraft comes at us out of Old German and Old Norse, and probably shortens and corrupts from hagatesse – a word used to refer to the Norns, the old women who sat at the base of the World Ash Ygdrassil and pronounced the fates of man. The connection between Norn and witch is an easy one, and the term haxa and haxxen have been used to apply to witches since early times in various north and central European dialects. Thus it crossed the Channel with Hengst and entered into the Anglo-Saxon tree.

The hex in hexagon, though, is ancient Greek for six, and merely means it’s six sided, or six angled, and there’s no magical connotation at all.

Except that there is. And frequently this confutation between the witchy hex and the mathematical hex is expressed in the darnedest of places.

For instance, among the “hex signs” of the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch. The Dutch are more accurately Deutsch – Germans, who settled in Penn’s Woods along with other emigrees seeking arable land and the ability to worship openly. They are noted – among other things, for the curious geometric designs that grace barns and some houses, which are said to drive away the “devil” and other malicious spirits. In this case the “hex” is the old German haxxan – a specifically magic application. Yet many of these geometries are based on six sided figures, though perhaps as many, if not more are eight-sided.

The hexagon is the natural regular shape that is formed if you outline from point to point on a hexagram. Now the hexagram is an established magical and talismanic shape, known as the Star of David, Solomon’s Seal, and other specific names. It is the figure below, which is composed of two overlapping triangles, and as you can see, it fits neatly into the hexagon.

In the parlance of the occult, this image has many meanings. The following image comes from Eliphas Levi’s Histoire de la magie and demonstrates the maxim supposedly extracted from the Emerald Tablet penned by no less a personage than Hermes Trismegistus himself. It is “As Above, So Below”

The actual text,

That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above

translated into English from Latin or Arabic, which was probably translated from Greek, essentially says that all things in nature are aspects of a single cohesive whole.

From the standpoint of Greek philosophers laboring in Alexandria, this might be a convenient expression for the atomos proposed by Democritus in 400 B.C.E. and a forerunner of our idea of the atom.

Thrown into the rather more fanciful environs of medieval Europe, accompanied on it’s way with tales of djinns and efrits and the glorious magics of Solomon the Wise, the idea became a binder between the heavens and the earth, and justification for the correspondences of metals, stones, plants, and the like with the natures and virtues of the planetary wanderers.

And yet in this aspect was the roots of modern medicine, metallurgy, and chemistry, as well as enduring metaphor for the expansion of the consciousness. Alchemists revered this phrase and it’s interlocking trines throughout their search for the Elixir of Life and Philosopher’s Stone. It carries within it even more secrets, hinted at in the texts of the Emerald Tablet.

Its father is the Sun and its mother the Moon.
The Earth carried it in her belly, and the Wind nourished it in her belly,
as Earth which shall become Fire.
Feed the Earth from that which is subtle

Here then are references to at least three of the four classical elements – Earth, Wind, and Fire. This kind of phrase, along with the most imaginative of illustrations, form the rhebus instructions of the alchemical manuals. But I think the really neat trick is how we find the elements with our hexagon/hexagram.

First, of course, we just have to separate the “Above” from the “Below” and we get Fire and Water. But look more closely at the joined triangles. If you take the upward pointing triangle and the bottom line from the downward pointing triangle, you get the sign for Air. Flipping that to the downward pointing triangle gives us Earth. So the four elements are hidden figures within the As Above, So Below hexagram.

But, like any good late night infomercial pitch, that’s not all. The hexagon/hexagram combination does that same nifty trick that the pentagon/pentagram does. Within the hexagram inside the hexagon is another hexagon. You can then create another hexagram in that, which creates another hexagon inside it, ad infinitum.

Welcome, my friends, to the concept of fractals. And also the basic ideas that lead us into the murky waters of quantum theory – no matter how small something is, it’s always made up of something smaller. And, well, no matter how big something is, there’s probably something even bigger outside it, that maybe you don’t see until you get outside that, and outside that, and outside that…

So again, turtles all the way down. Most of which have no connection to Renaissance artists or togakure-ryu. But if it helps, you can think of all those repeating hexagon/hexagrams as being diagrams of turtle shells.

If infinity has you’re head spinning, let’s jump back onto a more solid ground. Platonically solid ground, in this case, as a few choice lines from the angles in the hex give us a nice diagram for the first two platonic solids, the pyramid, and the cube. From two dimensions we have moved into three, or at least we are representing three dimensions in a two dimensional space, and that’s nifty in itself. The cube is more elegantly expressed of course, because in addition to just looking better, we have the added symbolic link of a six-sided object being used to represent a six-faced object. I’ve tried to find some sacred number related to the four faces and six sides, but it’s not there, so it’s just that you can draw it if you need to, though again it’s not as isometrically clean.

On the other hand, if you wanted to get a four faced pyramid (which is actually five sided; four triangles and a square) you just have to modify that upward pointing triangle and the square of the cube. It’s not exact to the one’s that the Egyptians built, mind you, and I make no claim that it has any relation to them. I think I will probably due a future article on the legend, myth, and symbology associated with pyramid structures in human history, but that’s not for today. In the meantime, it’s a satisfying exercise.

Of course, one of the most basic ideagrams that we can render from the hexagon shape is the “hex” itself, as six-rayed assembly of lines. This equivocates to the “grove” symbol in the Ogham script. Again, I can’t say there’s any evidence of a connection, but that doesn’t prevent you making one, and drawing on the power of that symbol. In some permutations of the Ogham grove I have found it also flexes to represent the transits of the luminaries on the equinoxes and solstices. That is, if you take an aerial view of Stonehenge – or the Great Pyramid of Giza for that matter – and plot the sunrise and sunset positions of the sun and moon on the equinoxes and solstices, you get a hex line shape. In this case, the angles are much more shallow, as the Tropic are around 23.7 degrees north and south of the equinoctal line, and in a regular hexagon, the angles are 60 degrees.

Which is to say, they are sextile for the purposes of astrology. Which we can also derive from the hexagon shape. For instance, if we take one of our inner triangles, and draw a line from each corner to the middle (instead of all the way across) we get a three rayed shape with angles of 120 degrees. This is a trine. you can also achieve the same design by erasing half of the rays in the hex. Have of six is three. Half of sextile is trine, even though the angle measurements double. I always had trouble understanding that relationship until I started playing with these hex diagrams. Maybe this will help you.

You can find the 90 degrees of a square aspect with a hair more work. Put the hexagram back in and draw a line from the top of the upper triangle to the bottom of the bottom triangle. Now draw a line across the point where the two triangles join in the middle. Erase the extra lines and viola – a four rayed shape with 90 degree angles.

You have now derived the three major aspects used in astrology. Of course, you’re going to need a chart.

So take the hexagram, and draw lines through each point of the triangle, like we do to get the hex, and then draw lines through each of the intersecting angles, like we did to get the square. You end up with 12 rays, and the cusps of 12 signs. In the diagram I’ve reduced the size of the hexagram, so the relationship is clearer, but you can see it does indeed contain the keys to a zodiac.

Overlaid in color here are two of the trine diagrams, one in blue, which shows you the relationships of the water signs. You can rotate this to locate the air, earth, and fire signs, respectively. The red one also shows the locations of the cardinal, fixed, and mutable triplicity, in this case for the signs of fire, but just rotate it around and the others fall into place.

Is this all that we can tease out of the humble hexagon? No. Fiddling around in my art software I was able to come across a few more totally unrelated, but poignant connections using just the geometry and some imagination.

Taking our hex lines again, you can look to them as Cartesian coordinates. They are the X, Y and Z axes of three dimensional space. Anyone who struggles with that train leaving Chicago problem may remember some of these exercises from algebra classes. I do a lot of 3-D animation work, and the 3-D grid is almost second nature to me. Essentially the center where the three line cross is 0, and any point in space can be plotted using positive or negative values along those lines, so X is left and right, Y is up and down, and Z is forward or back. In order to see clearly the values of all three lines, the diagram is usually tilted in almost exactly the same way as our hex. So you can use a hex to put anything anywhere.

Now, I have mentioned before that we all live in a four-dimensional space-time. If I want to diagram it on my hexagon, I can just drop it in at a right angle to Y axis, and get the following figure.

So any point in space and time can be reached by virtue of the hex. That might explain why the capacious interior of a certain blue phone box has had hexagon wall decorations for several decades. Or not. Still, it’s an intriguing expression of the concept.

Moving back into more esoteric spaces, I was also able to take the basic hex, add a few curves, and arrive at the Xi-Rho symbol, usually with Alpha and Omega, this is supposedly the vision of Constantine at the Malvern Bridge, with motto “in hoc signio vincis” – In this Sign, you will Conquer. While historians generally believe that Constantine took it as a message from Sol Invictus, later Christian records give it as the Xi-Rho, a short hand for Cristos, and the basis for what became Christian Rome. While his mother was a devout Christian, and Constantine did order the Council of Nicea which firmed up the Nicean Creed and laid the foundations of modern orthodoxy, the Emperor himself didn’t convert until his deathbed.

Another imaginative permutation is the zig-zag “lightning bolt” that is said to travel down the Quabbalistic Tree of Life bringing Divine Wisdom (Ain Soph) into existence in the material world. You need to stack a couple of hexagons for the full diagram, and add a tail at the bottom, but you can get there from here. Those claiming that abracadabra derives from the Hebrew “what I speak I manifest” might want to play with this idea a little further.

Am equally interesting object from the hexagon and As Above/So Below angles is a three dimensional construct known as a merkaba. The word merkaba comes from the Hebrew as “Chariot” and so we have an immediate link with the seventh card of the Tarot major arcana. As many others have posted, 2023 is considered a “Chariot” year as it numerologicaly resolves to seven. Seven is a sacred number all on it’s own, so if a merkaba is a chariot, then we’ve managed to find seven hidden in six. That’s an alchemical spontaneous generation worthy of old Bombastis himself.

The merkaba is the three dimensional extension of As Above, So Below. It is the two triangles, expressed as interlocking three-faced pyramids (see there was a reason I talked about the platonic pyramid) such that each face of each pyramid is pierced by the the point of another one. The diagram here is derived from the hexagon. I have mocked up one in Lightwave 3-D to show how interesting this thing becomes as an object. Pretty nifty trick for an old Hebrew chariot I think.

Some also say the word merkaba is derived from the ancient Egyptian root words mer-ka-ba. Several online sources style this as “light, spirit, and body” or “love, spirit, body”, It may be more accurately translated “Pyramid of the Soul and the Shadow” or “Food of the Blessed Dead” since “mer” can be either pyramid or cake. The Greek “pyramid” derives from “pyramis” -wheat cake. The Egyptian wheat cake was called ben-ben, which is the word for the top of the pyramid or the obelisk, which had a similar shape. These shapes were also symbolic of the sun’s rays, and the primordial mound of earth rising from the flood of the celestial Nile where the Lotus that Ra emerges from grew. Mer, then, is not the cake, but the ritual use of the cake, either in feeding a god or a deceased relative, both rituals we know of. It’s not fair to say the Greeks got it wrong, because over the long age of Egypt mer came to mean “love” and “pyramid” as well as the ritual use of the cake.

Those are fascinating concepts to explore. Relating them onward to a Hebrew chariot that is visually complex and symbolically loaded, draws to my mind some of the Old Testament angels connected with the prophet Ezekiel. Plenty of places to go with this one if one is interested.

Speaking of going, in my own explorations, I have used the hexagon/hexagram as basis to develop this symbol, which I will eventually put on an amulet or an altar stone. To my mind it connects with symbols of Hekate, and well, Hekate, Heka, Hex, Haxxan, Hagatesse and Hexagon can all blur lines in rhyme, alliteration, and the verbal games we play in spell work. And now you can see that there are mathematical and geometric games you can play as well, so if you are looking for right angle (pun meaningfully intended) to approach a particular magical operation, I hope I have given you some new tools to work with. If nothing else, I hope it encourages you to spend time looking past the surface of things as presented.

Before departing this week’s article I fully admit to lifting the title from a very much more important work. Even though you can’t copyright titles, and the words fit my little exercise, equally well, I clearly acknowledge, respect and admire the work of the pioneering African-American women the book and film Hidden Figures is about. Their contribution to the advancement of both the space program, and cause of racial justice in this country, cannot be minimized. If you are unaware of it, I strongly encourage you make yourself familiar.

Thank you again for reading all the way to the end of this week’s piece. It is longer and potentially more complicated that what I have offered in the past. More like this is forthcoming, so I hope you find it useful. I’ll be back again in a week.

July 20, 2022September 26, 2022

Math is Involved

$Einstein Math$

Way back in my early years (between five and seven) as a weird child, I had discovered The Encyclopedia of Ancient and Forbidden Wisdom by Zolar in a dark corner of the family bookcase. I don’t know where it came from or how it got there, and no one else ever acknowledged its existence when I took it to my room.

Within its tattered coverless pages, I gained access to many of the mantic arts, including astrology, tarot, palmistry, phrenology, and a host of others. The one that was of most immediate interest and service, however, was numerology.

The reason is simple. I did not have any tarot cards. There was no Amazon in the early 70s. There was no internet, and the few bookstores that existed in the nearest large town (a two-hour trip away) did not have shelves resplendent with 57 varieties like the B&N does today.

A sampling of sorcerial tomes from the local mass market bookseller. Had I this kind of access in my early teens and twenties my practice would look vastly different now, and I fear, would be less rich and complex. These can’t all be good. That’s just statistics. Sensing a marketable concept, publishing houses, some far outside the usual occult presses, are churning out “magic” titles like they were printing money, and they are.

Sadly some of these books are even written by machine, collected via web search AI and only moderately edited before some “author” is paid for the use of a name. The hundred or so titles in stock in the store are the tip of the iceberg carried online, or available as a digital version.

And among the ones in the store, I didn’t even notice the lone dubious volume on numerology. But, hey, you can learn all about all these secret sacred practices and have matching covers.

If you are starving for a resource that goes beyond packaging, take a spin around archive.org. You can find scanned copies of old magical texts downloadable for free, like the Tetrabiblos of Claudius Ptolemy, Waite’s Pictorial Key to Tarot, The Greek Magical Papyri, The Keys of Solomon, and Paracelsus’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. If you are multi-lingual you can even find Eliphas Levi’s works in the original French, and a number of good texts in German, Latin, and Greek.

I started my own journey with the few mass market omnibus texts available in the 70s and 80s, so there’s no harm in it. Just be aware there’s more to it than that.

Likewise, astrology required an ephemeris and tables of houses and complex calculations which also were not readily obtainable in my current environs.

But numbers, well, those were free. I could work with them in my head while I didn’t sleep at night ( I suffered from terrible insomnia into my 40s) . They were also much more limited in scope than Tarot. Ten digits, 0 through 9. And while it took me a bit to visualize the layout of the 26 English letters against the ten digits, once they were converted, and computed, and got down to a single significant digit, then there were only a few meanings to keep track of.

So between experiments with astral travel (also in the book) I lay awake and reduced names and dates and places down to their essential numeric quantities. And I developed a love for number play that serves me to this day.

I haven’t seen a lot about numerology discussed on the interwebs. It doesn’t have the flash of posting a handful of tarot cards or the hook of warning about Mercury Retrograde.

I gather it may be a bigger thing in Hindu culture, but I must confess that I know very little about the method or the meanings. Perhaps that is something I shall explore.

There’s a Kabbalistic version as well, since Hebrew letters have assigned values, thus words may be read for the numbers and the meaning of the numbers interpreted. This permutations of letters that is part of the Kabbalistic tradition can also be worked with the numbers. I’ve dabbled with this a bit.

Numerology, like all the mantic arts, seeks to reveal something to us about ourselves and our future that is not readily apparent. It does this by taking numbers like dates, and reducing them down to a single digit, or two sets of double digits.

For instance, take July 4, 1776. That’s a 7, for July, plus 4 plus 1 plus 7 plus 7 plus 6. The result is 32. So then we add 3 and 2 to get 5. Five is number associated with this date. Five by the system I learned can be interpreted as conflict, chaos, or instability. This might be readily applied to that date.

But as the day of the month can be seen as a separate thing unto itself, it’s possible to come up with different numbers.

4 plus 7, of course is 11. 11 is one of those special numbers (22) being the other one, that typically are considered “resolved” without adding the last digits (to get simply 2). And the year resolves to 3. Three is considered a stable number because it represents the union of the masculine 1 and the feminine 2 (apologies to folks struggling to find non-binary traditions, this is from thousands of years ago) . Eleven can be seen to be a spiritual number, and two may be read as community or loyalty within a group.

These could also be effectively applied to this date. While I am sure some readers will hold differing views in this regard, the example was to illustrate the method, and not to render a judgment.

In actual practice, however, we have to suppose John Hancock went to Ben Franklin and asked him the best date in July of 1776 to get the Declaration signed. Been would have run the numbers and said that the 2nd should be good, because it resolved to three and spoke of harmony and union. But Hancock said they couldn’t get it back from the printer on time.

So Ben took out his tables again and told him that the next best time to sign it would be August 2, because that equates to a 4, and 4 represents the Four Cornerstones of the Universe and the Foundation of the Temple (any National Treasure fans out there. You know what I’m talking about).

And that’s when it was signed. August 2, 1776. The July 4 date is when the membership voted agreement to the version we now know, which deleted Mr. Jefferson’s more blunt condemnations of the slave trade objected to by the southern colonies. But it was signed in August, and no one has a picnic. According to the almanac it was time to be harvesting instead of picnicking.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that old Ben, and potentially many of his contemporaries, dabbled in the mantic arts. The 17th and 18th Centuries saw us moving from Mesmer to Faraday, and from Ptolemy to Newton, but it was never an immediate and brutal break. Sir Isaac Newton himself was a practicing alchemist, and the period of madness he suffered around 1693 is often attributed to mercury poisoning from his experiments. Yet he invented calculus to prove how the wheels of the universe turned.

Franklin is one of those fascinating polyglots from history that you just know was into something they left out of the books. Put aside all that secret Masonic conspiracy stuff. He was playing with lightning. Gotta love that.

And his inventions are still in use today. Otherwise I couldn’t see what I am typing.

A true figure of the Enlightenment; he was philosopher, scientist, and, I think, magician. Franklin is rumored to have rubbed elbows with Count Cagliastro and the Comte de Saint-Germaine during his numerous European travels. Some of his other buddies were known students of the occult.

Magic, alchemy, and the mantic arts survived into the Enlightenment by transmuting themselves.

Astrologers could accommodate Newton’s Principia Mathematica because it gave far more accurate calculations. Knowing better the true nature and motions of the Heavens, they reasoned, could not but result in a truer reading of their portents.

The concepts of Sacred Geometry were better expressed through the new math, and the analogy tied into the Masonic doctrines. The symbol of the All Seeing Eye atop a pyramid of sacred numerical dimensions adorns the back of the Great Seal of The United States and is familiar to anyone who has seen a dollar bill. Boldly the motto proclaims “By Divine Favor – A New Order for the Ages”.

Looking for ancient occult symbols? You need not go further than the good ol’ greenback.

The back side of the one dollar bill features both sides of the Great Seal, commissioned just after the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776. The final design, however, wasn’t adopted until 1782 (there was a war on, you know.)

Despite what Jerry Bruckheimer would have you believe, the symbols employed are from common heraldic devices of the time, and not the product of a secret Masonic code. Of course, the heraldic symbols have a whole heapin’ lot of occult meaning going back into pagan days. That eagle is Roman, of course, the pyramid Egyptian. Don’t miss the hexagram layout of the 13 stars over the eagle’s head. As above, so below.

Officially, the 13 courses of stones in the pyramid is representative of the 13 Colonies that became the United States. If you look on the opposite side of the Seal, the eagle holds 13 arrows, has 13 stripes on the shield, and there are 13 stars in the circular cloud (a variation on the mandorla of religious art) over it’s head with the motto “From Many One”. The olive branch of piece held opposite the arrows of war has 13 leaves and 13 olives.

You gotta wonder, if 13 is such an unlucky number, how come they were so enamored of it. Surely this was courting disaster. Okay, sure, they were kind of stuck with it, being as they had 13 colonies, but if it’s a bad number, how do you fix it? It’s not like Gandalf could add a hobbit.

Well, one way to do it is to rationalize it as King George’s bad luck. But the numerological way is to get a different number, and you can do that by including the bad number enough times to get a better one. In this case, there are 6 instances of the number 13 on the Great Seal. Six times 13 is 78. Seven and eight add up to 15, and one and five add up to 6. The number 6 can signify harmony and stability, so that’s better than unlucky 13.

Alternatively, we can reduce 13 to one plus three and get 4. The number 4 represents stability, responsibility, structure and effort. It can represent the four elements, four cardinal directions, and by extension tie into the order of the universe. That’s definitely something a New Order for the Ages would be looking to partake of. Of course, there are six instances of 13 so we have to do six times 4, and that comes back to 6 again (24 = 2+4 = 6).

On the other hand, we can take 4 and 6 and get 10, which can be read in many ways. Reduced to 1, it represents unity. That charts. Read as 1 and 0, it contains the generative principle of beginnings and the unlimited potential of the future. It can also be seen as a union indivisible (where have I heard that before…) and finally, 10 being the number that occurs after the first series of single digits, can also represent a new beginning.

Now I am not saying that the founders of the nation, or the committee to design a Great Seal, or anyone in that secret Masonic conspiracy to hide the Templar Treasure, ever did any of these calculations. That does not alter the fact that the calculations can be made, and the meanings inferred, and there being something to it after all.

Numbers are part of the nature of the universe. We can argue about gravity and electromagnetism and strong and weak force and spooky action at a distance and whether or not anything can exceed the speed of light, but we cannot change the absolute fact of number.

Math, Science, and Magic were still very much entangled at the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1927 science fiction epic ***Metropolis***, we find the robotrix/homonculus brought to life using both electrical arcs and the power of the pentagram. Her creator Rotwang speaks of sacrificing his hand to gain the knowledge to bring her to life.

In the long version of the film, we find out the robotrix is created to resurrect Hel, a woman that both Rotwang and the city master loved. But she favored the city master over the eccentric scientist/magician, and died giving birth to the male protagonist in the story. Hel, of course, is also the name of the Norse Goddess of Death.

The process of animating the robotrix gives her the appearance and life force of the human woman Maria. She puts it to immediate use presiding over an orgiastic scene as Babylon riding on the Beast with Seven Heads.

There’s a lot going on with this movie. If you can locate a copy of the restored version (I think it is available through one of the online services) I recommend viewing it with an eye toward the magical symbolism.

If there is a thing we’ve got numbers. If there is a thing, and another thing, we’ve got numbers. If there is nothing at all, we still have numbers. Zero is a number, and even zero is one. There is one nothing if we have nothing (Did you hear that in Count von Count’s voice; because I did?).

Two is always two. It’s two here. It’s two on the dark side of the moon. It’s two on Alpha Centauri and two ten billion years ago. While the symbols and words we use to describe number may change from language to language and era to era, number does not change. Number is a fact of reality. Any reality. All realities.

If you are looking for an anchor in the Waters of Darkness, numbers will be there. It is not for nothing (“one,,,one nothing,,,,”) that numbers play such a significant role in magical practice.

Our use of triangles, circles, squares, pentagrams, hexagrams, and other geometric constructs derive from the power we associate with these numbers, and the symbols we can attach to them.

The pentagram is the Five Elements of Aristotle – Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Quintessence (literally Fifth Substance).

The hexagram is the Star of David, the Seal of Solomon, and a symbolic representation of the Hermetic maxim “As Above, So Below”.

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 characters each with a numeric value. Tracts written in Hebrew can be read as either letters or numbers when seeking hidden messages. And they can be manipulated numerically as well as alphabetically to reveal new secrets. According to Eliphas Levi these 22 letters equate to the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, thus demonstrating that the secret teachings of Kabbala are recorded in the Tarot.

There are 21 numbered cards in the Major Arcana, and one unnumbered card, the Fool, which is regarded in modern decks as zero. The placement of the Fool actually varies, and Levi put him at the point between the Last Judgment (20) and the World (21). If you are using Waite or a deck based on his, you probably have the Fool before the Magus.

In any case, it’s possible to read the 22 cards as representing the meanings of the Hebrew characters assigned to them, as well as in the usual way. For that matter, we can read the Tarot astronomically because planetary and zodiacal connections have been made. ¹And then both these correspondences can be read numerologically. And, of course, there’s the numbers on the cards themselves. Death is XIII, our unlucky 13. The Devil is XV, or 1+5. Here the resultant six is likely connected with the Biblical Number of the Beast 666, from Revelation.

Here’s another little game to explore. The first three cards – Fool, Magus, Priestess, are 0+1+2=3. The next three cards – Empress, Emperor, Heirophant, are 3+4+5=12=1+2 = 3.

The Empress can be seen as the material incarnation of the Priestess principle. The Emperor the earthly Magus, and the Heirophant the structured dogma ascribed to the natural Creation of the Fool. That these numerically equate reinforces this interpretation, as above, so below.

In fact, if you add the numbers on the next three cards, you also get 3. And the three after that. And the three after that. Until you are left with the last card- the World, which is number 21. Two plus one is three.²

Then we have the Minor Arcana, which until Waite, were usually just pips. So there wasn’t an image to evoke a particular meaning. These were done solely by number and quality. The number 5, for example, was seen as instability and conflict. The 5 of Wands, for example, then is a disagreement, potentially in the courts, as the wand may be symbolic of civil or religious authority. A 5 of Pentacles, which represents the home, heart, and wealth, could presage marital difficulties or a loss in the markets. The face cards typically were assigned to people, a child, a young adult, and a mature man and woman, though these are as easily numbered, 11 through 14. This makes the queens bear the burden of unlucky 13. I wonder if there was intentional misogyny there. Taken together the four suits have 56 cards, that reduce to 11.

So the combined deck of 78 cards (which would work out to 6) can be viewed as 11 and 22, the two super numbers of numerology.

When you start seeing numbers, you start seeing numbers everywhere. Not just the direct numerals that are on the mailbox or the clock. You start to notice quantities and sets. You become a kind of Count von Count all on your own. Why are there three pillars on that building? What is the significance of the octagonal base of the columns? Why does the building have a round footprint?³.

Our awareness of numbers in our life is generally very low unless we are performing some function that required counting, math, or reference, like telling time. But number permeates the universe.

Like the so-called “angel numbers” an enhanced observation of the apparently random appearance of numbers in our everyday life can be a source of relevant insight.

Numerology goes past the basic birth number and life number. it includes things like sequences of prime numbers, π and Φ, and fractal as well as sacred geometry. It’s angles and calculus are inherent in every pentagram and magic circle, whether we consciously evoke them or not. We can express through number both time and space, and use number to manipulate them.

If I woke up and saw that it was 2:22 in the morning, I might briefly recognize that this was an Angel number before rolling over to sleep. If it occurs on February 22, I might need to pay more attention. And if it happened this year, that is 2:22 2/22/22, I had better take notice. It was 2:22, on February 22, of 2022. If it was not revealed to you personally, it might just be a fun coincidence, but if something woke you up that morning, it bears further investigation.

Numbers being what they are, this kind of thing can actually lead to compulsive behaviors. Superstitions abound with instances of threes, sevens, and nines. You can become so obsessed with number that you need to have an exact number of items on your plate at lunch or you won’t get on a bus with certain number, or you regard certain dates as being bad luck.

Numerology, like astrology or Tarot, can be taken to the extreme. I have never seen it as an absolute, but I definitely use number in my practice, in my art, and in everyday life. I don’t look askance at going out on Friday the 13th, anymore than I hide out in my house during Mercury Retrograde. But as tools to expand my universe, and a means of listening to that universe, numbers are very handy. And you really can’t escape them.

I hope you have enjoyed this foray into the wild and wacky world of numbers. I have only scratched the surface of the connection numbers have with magic and esoteric thought. We haven’t even mentioned things like the Golden Ratio, magic squares, planetary hours and other complex beliefs around number that fire the mind and open the eyes. I will probably revisit the topic in future articles. In the meantime, I hope you will join me again next week.

Count Von Count is a creation of Sesame Street/The Children’s Television Workshop/Jim Henson.

Metropolis was in the public domain but has since been re-copyrighted by the FW Murnau Foundation.

Images of Albert Einstein were found on the Internet. While the intellectual property probably belongs to his estate or the original photographers, they are fairly ubiquitous.

I am not making a profit on this blog, so I consider the inclusion of these images as fair use. I will remove them if requested by the respective rights holder(s).

Please Share and Enjoy !

Please Share and Enjoy !

Please Share and Enjoy !