The previous post was further qabalistic analysis of both the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia, as well as certain elements contained within the text of Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self by C.G. Jung, both of which deal with the elemental unfoldment and crystalline emergence of manifestation from the formless void of Ain Soph Aur, or The Limitless Light. THE FRACTAL BLUEPRINT of THE QABALAH OF NINE CHAMBERS has been shown to be applicable to both ancient and modern perspectives, not merely via the number-key 666, but each of the nine chambers and their components, i.e. the fractional values that compose the elaborate phrase-formulas. The multi-functional continuity further reinforces the veridicality of fundamental qabalistic principles of correspondence and sympathetic resonance and further exegesis is necessary to illustrate the universality of this monadic holarchy.
A qabalistic key to understanding the Sophia-mythos can be gleamed via the correspondence in value between the Greek Σοπηια, 'Wisdom' = 369 = Η Μονας, 'The Monad'. The entire gnostic aeonology of the fall is hinted herein for 369 is a pivotal marma, or energy center/vital point, in which many related ideas coalesce. In its most basic division, 369 is 9 x 41, 41 being MA, the Great Mother or AM, the 'Dark Mother' (See The Ninth Arch pg. 57) multiplied by the copulative 9 which symbolizes cyclic gestation, implying that Sophia or 369 represents the creative function of the Great Goddess. Incidentally, 369 is also the value of both ShKMT, 'Sekmet' - the Egyptian lion-goddess of sexual passion, equated with Shakti/Shekinah - and the Hebrew-English formula THE GODDESS SEKHMET. (See the book of the same title by R.E.L. Masters, with a foreword by Kenneth Grant. The sexological work of Robert Masters is also an important source for 'sex-magickal' studies, particularly his book Eros and Evil: The Sexual Psychopathology of Witchcraft (1962). 369 is also the number of H'BRIAH OVLM, or 'The World of Briah', i.e. of Creation, aligned with Binah, 3 (The Supreme/Divine Feminine.) This is significant and related to the fact that on page 259 of The Ninth Arch, Kenneth Grant refers to 369 and says "The Oracle is of an essentially lunar nature, being the summation of the series [1 – (9 x 9)] ÷ 9. It also enumerates ChShMVDAI, the ‘Spirit of the Moon’ (see Liber 777 Revised, page 19)." Chasmodai, also named Asmodeus, is a king of demons who is mentioned in the Talmud, the Testament of Solomon, the Lesser Key of Solomon, and the 32nd Goetic demon alternatively named 'Asmoday'. This connection between Binah (3) and the Moon (9) relates to the formative aspects of Briah/Creation, and the connection with Asmodeus who rules the Qliphothic aspect of Geburah (Golachab, the 'Burners with Fire'). Note also that AZMVDEUSh = 369 as well. Geburah is said to be the source and origin of the qliphothic forces, and Golachab its even darker mirror; see pages 129- of Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic by Thomas Karlsson:
"Golachab is the most brutal of the Qliphothic powers. The name of this Qlipha is significantly revealing regarding the nature of this sphere: 'arsonists', 'the flaming ones', 'the volcano' or 'those who burn with fire'. According to certain theories, this is the Qlipha of the Qliphoth and the reflection of Geburah, the Sephirah from which the Qliphoth was born. Geburah is the imperative and punitive force that in myths is compared to the fires of Hell. Geburah is the wrath of God that inspires fear in the pious. It is the punishing aspect of God and of the Tree of Life. Some claim that the Qliphoth are a punishment from God. The Qliphoth are the chaos and the hauntings that God sends to the disobedient man. As disclosed above, many Qabalists claim that the wrath of God created a crack in Creation, and the wrath that leaked thus caused the Qliphoth. The most common theory regarding Geburah and Golachab is that the Tree of Life consists of a balance between the mercy of God (the Sephirah Chesed, also called Gedulah) and His severity (Geburah). The shadow sides of these Sephiroth contain these functions in an unbalanced form. The unbalanced anti-pole of Chesed then corresponds to a lack of restraint, and the dark side of Geburah corresponds to mercilessness. Golachab belongs to the mental plane and is one of the two poles through which Thagirion operates. Thagirion represents the Self and dark illumination. Thagirion is the total personality, or Self, that operates in existence through a complete co-operation between force, vision and action. The two poles of the mental plane are lust and suffering. The lust factor belongs to Chesed, suffering to Geburah. They are arranged in a special structure and adopt certain principles, such as God's mercy and severity. The Sephiroth operate within an ordered cosmos that is illustrated by the Tree of Life. The Qliphothic counterparts of lust and suffering do not exist within these structures, but operate in chaos. Here they are generally exchangeable, and lust passes into suffering and suffering becomes lust. We can here find a form of sado-masochistic complex in these two Qliphoth in which they simultaneously represent lust and suffering, attraction repulsion, sex and death. These two Qliphoth are ruled by demon rules that are often associated, namely Astaroth and Asmodeus; the two most central demons of the original black mass. Asmodeus rules Golachab. Asmodeus, the thirty-second Goetic demon, appears in numerous grimoires and in apocryphal literature. He is called 'Samael the Black' and is the son of, or an aspect of, Samael.
Golachab and Asmodeus represent violent fire, revolution and rebellion. This Qlipha corresponds to Mars, the planet of war. Asmodeus breaks marital bonds and inspires promiscuity. The magician who reaches this Qlipha learns how to control and invert experiences of lust and suffering in a way that breaks the Sephirotic structures. Golachab is associated with extremely violence and dangerous forces, and the most brutal curse rituals come from this sphere. Adepts who are working with Golachab can use certain fire ceremonies: walking on or eating burning coals, or special sado-masochistic rites to contact the forces of the Qlipha."
The connection between Sophia and Asmodeus is significant, especially considering the numerical relation of the two with the Sephira of Yesod, or the Foundation of manifestation (i.e. 'THE MATRIX'). That the fifth sephiroth is said to be the origin of the qliphothic forces or powers is significant considering 5 is the central Chamber, and the number of the pentagram of Spirit (IH-Sh-VH). The inversion of this force thus implies that of the Antichrist, which significantly also has a Hebrew value of 369, אנטיכריסט. However, 369 also denotes Η Σαρξ, 'The Flesh', or physical body which houses the enlivening SPIRIT. Thus, the relation between the Spirit, Flesh, Sophia (Wisdom), Asmodeus (Lust), and the Fall into the CRYSTALLIZED materialization of space-time-spirit-matter is hinted at and further reinforced via the ATMA-NIRVANA, or Self-Liberation of THE MAGUS from the cycles of manifestation or Samsara. Note also that 369 is the value of the MAHAKALA TANTRA which utilizes the imagery of sex and death, Mahakala being the 'Great Time' or Great One 'Beyond Death'. (Mahākāla is a Sanskrit bahuvrihi of mahā (महत्; "great") and kāla (काल; "time/death"), which means "beyond time" or death.) And since KALA = 52 = MAYA (Illusion), equated is MAHA-MAYA TANTRA, i.e. the tantra of great-illusion, i.e. the High Magical Ritual(s) utilizing maya/kala as a medium, (see Maha-maya Tantra and Dream Yoga.)
It is significant that the next sequential number following 369 (370) happens to be the value of the Hebrew word for Creation, OSh - as well as ShLM, 'Perfect', or 'Whole', and also the value of the Greek Olos, which also means 'Whole', 'Perfect', or 'All'. Note that OSh can also be figured as O.S., or 'Operating System', and hence an implication that these particular numbers represent nodes in the source-code(s) thereof. Crowley also provides a hint toward this idea in his statement that Liber 370 contains the 'true secret of all practical magick', for by tapping into the primordial energies of the Foundation/Subconscious at Yesod/Gamaliel the present materialization can begin to shift and alter according to Will.
Love under Will means to guide the atomic-binary function into a willed reflection. This idea is further illustrated via 370 as Οικος, 'House', the mundane sheath of The Magus whose Will is Ο Οπλον, 'The Weapon' or 'Tool'. Note also the relation in the Tarot between The Magus/Magician and the Hebrew letter Beth, meaning 'A House'. Note also that 'THE MAGUS' HOUSE' = 666, relating to the Aura/Robe/Halo idea mentioned in The Computational Brain and Revivals of the Gnosis. 370 also represents the 'O's', or Eyes, i.e. the Astral Bodies/Auric Eggs of all BEINGS, and thus the port-holes/gateways of/to the shells/qliphothic forces, everywhere present as the fractional fractal chasms of chaos leading to the Other Side (Sitra Ahra/Nightside) of the Tree (the 'unmanifest'). The control of the QLIPHOTHIC FORCES is one of the primary aims of demonological systems of magick such as those which use the Goetic servitors, such as the Key of Solomon, etc. However, scant information had been available on this aspect of the Qabalah and Magic until the last century and a half, with few books to explore the terrain such as Nightside of Eden (1977) by Kenneth Grant and Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic (2006) by Thomas Karlsson. Now that the formulae of both the Qliphothic spheres and tunnels have become available much more in the way of both qabalistic and psychological analysis can be effected. The analogous nature of the Qliphothic forces to the psychic elements of the Jungian concept of the Shadow and its disorders are obvious, however Grant (utilizing the charts of Liber 777) extends them to more than merely the mental plane, including other physical disorders and diseases. A friend once related how the diagnostic manuals for mental health can be considered a type of demonic 'book of shadows' of veritable qliphothic demons, which I now look back as being highly ironic considering the many qabalistic connections between mundane and mystical psychology. (Note: remember that C can be veiled as either Gimel, 3 or Cheth, 8 when applying Hebrew to English, and when utilizing both the title QABALAH QLIPHOTH AND GOETIC MAGIC = 666 = THE GOETIA OF KING SOLOMON.
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| Note the 369 pattern. |
369 can be seen to veil the Great Magick Circle of Ceremonial Ritual via The Circle of 360, the Solomonic Hexagram (6) and the Triangle (3). 'SPIRIT' also indicates the science of spirit invocation and evocation, particularly of the Goetic/Solomonic servitors and their correspondent Angles/Angels. 369 is also the value of the first appearance of the Serpent in Genesis as VH'NChSh (1:3 : "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?")
369 is a primary Key of the Draconian Tradition, as well as that of the Ma'aseh Merkabah or 'Work of the Chariot', and being THE MAGUS also encompasses all of these ideas. This number, which again, is related to the magical square of Yesod/The Foundation, therefore provides a major access point for a cohesive understanding of Ceremonial Magick and the qabalistic path/rootwork necessary for its application when The Magus (archetype of the Higher Self) awakens the latent Dragon-force (bound psycho-sexual potency) and learns to guide its universal fundaments from within/above, i.e. with the Higher functions aligned with Sophia (Wisdom/Intellect), rather than the lower functions of Asmodeus (Aeshma/Wrath), the necessary polarities of Love and Lust. Recently, I found a copy of John Dee's The Hieroglyphic Monad from 1564, reprinted in 1977 by Weiser Books - and it seems to tie in with much of what I have been contemplating:
THE HIEROGLYPHIC MONAD: DEE'S INTENT
Dee calls the Hieroglyphic Monad a "magical parable" and even to begin to comprehend his aims and method we must come to an understanding of the Doctrine of Correspondences which lies at the heart of all magical practice and is the key to the hermetic quest. "As above, so below" reads the much quoted Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. Thus seen, the material world is a clearly defined alphabet for the reading of divine intention, and in the process of transmuting base metal, the adept transmutes his own nature, and vice versa. Alchemy is not a matter of "either-or", as we are led to believe by the Jungians and other well-meaning reductionists: "either a spiritual discipline, or an obscure and bastard form of chemistry". It was and is a resounding and holy use of natural, celestial, and supercelestial law, which results at one and the same instant in the transformation of the magus and of the material universe.
Dee's monad represents the alchemic process and simultaneously the genesis and evolution of cosmos. This is the Work which the magus, partaking of the divine, furthers: the redemption and transmutation of worlds. To "raise", as Dee has it, "the element of Earth thru Water into the Fire." Whether, in the Jacob's ladder reaching from heaven to earth, the planes of manifestation are envisaged as ten, as in the Tree of Life; as four: "natura, horizon temperis, horizon aeternitas, horizon mundi supersupremi", as in Johannes Pistorius, Dee's contemporary; or simply as three: terrestrial, celestial and super-celestial (Agrippa, et al.); it is in all cases cabbalistic truth that the same forces operate and the same forms manifest on each separate plane (level) (sephirah). Mathematics is uniquely the clearest and most flexible expression of the relations between these forces and forms.
The monad is Dee's expression of these relations: it is diagram, at once, of process and goal. From the point in the center of the circle, the entire glyph unfolds, theorem by theorem; yet it was always there; was produced instantaneously; and we feel that its shape is inevitable. It is expressive of mathematical relation as universally applicable as "e=mc2", and Dee sets it to work on many different levels of learning. In his dedicatory letter to Maximilian II, he states that his book will re-organize the science of the grammarians, reveal a new notion of number, revolutionize geometry and logic, make obsolete the present practice of music, optics and astronomy, and broaden for both the cabbalist and the philosopher the understanding of his art. He goes further, and gives hints as to how to use the monad in each of these fields: the grammarians are to consider the genesis and meaning of the shapes and sequences of the letters of the three major alphabets - Greek, Latin and Hebrew - in relation to the monad; numbers are to be treated as corporeal and discrete: "their souls and formal lives are separated from them and enter our service"; the astronomer will be able to observe by its means the orbits of the heavenly bodies "at any given time and without any mechanical instruments" without ever leaving his desk.
Once, he seems to point directly to mechanical and technical information hidden in this work: the optician, he says, will come to condemn his own foolishness. He has labored long and hard to shape a mirror on the appropriate parabola so as to shatter any given materia with the violent heat of the sun's rays, but here in "The Hieroglyphic Monad" "a line is revealed ... from which, when rotated ... a form can be made which ... can reduce any Stone, or even any Metal, to a powder with the force of truly the greatest heat". [Given that the Philosopher's Stone often appeared in the form of a reddish powder, it is as if Dee is here describing a qualitative jump, a technical advance in the alchemic process, similar to the discovery of potentization in homeopathy by Samuel Hahnemann some 200 years later.]
Dee also describes the monad as representing a particular spiritual discipline, in a passage of his letter that is reminiscent of certain Tantric texts:
"There is present, hidden in the most central point of our Hieroglyphic Monad, a terrestrial [i.e. physical] body. How this body may be activated by Divine force, the monad teaches without words. When activated, it copulates (in a perpetual marriage) with the sun and the moon - even if before this, completely separate from this body. When this marriage has been performed ... the Monad can receive no further nourishment on its native soil, and no drink, until the fourth, and truly great, metaphysical Revolution, is completed. When this is done, the nourisher [of the Monad, i.e. the Magus] will first be metamorphosed, and afterwards will rarely be seen by mortal eye. This, O Great King, is the true, often discussed, and blameless, invisibility of the Magus."And afterwards will rarely be seen by mortal eye of the [of the Monad, i.e. the on its native soil, and no drink, until the fourth, and truly great, metaphysical Revolution is completed. When this is done, the nourisher [of the Monad, i.e., the Magus] will first be metamorphosed, and afterwards will rarely be seen by mortal eye. This, O Great King, is the true, often discussed, and blameless invisibility of the Magus."
Of further significance is the relation by Kenneth Grant (see page 134 of Outside the Circles of Time) that the reversal of 369 as 963 happens to be the full value of 'Achad', 'One'/'Unity' (i.e. the Monad) in Hebrew: Aleph, 111 + Cheth, 418 + Daleth, 434 = 963, which happens to also be 107 x 9 which indicates a reference to the Gestation cycle (9) of the Egg (BITzH, 107). 963 is the value of the Greek Τεχνη, 'Techne', meaning 'Art' or 'Craft', referring to the ESOTERIC DOCTRINE of THE NUMEROLOGIST and THE ULTIMATE PERFECTION in THE STAR-STONE wherein 'EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED'. Note also that 'WAKE UP NEO' [Peh final], the opening quote of The Matrix equates in 963 as Αναστασις , 'Awakening', 'Resurrection' and remember that 'THE MATRIX' is the reflection 369. Note also that together, 369 + 963 is the Beast/Dragon (666+666) = Χνουβις, 'The Lion-Serpent'.
It is also significant that 369 (Sophia, Wisdom) is 630 (Κοσμικος, Cosmic) less than 999 - hence 999 indicates the Σοπηια Κοσμικος, 'Cosmic Wisdom' - THE ESOTERIC TEACHINGS OF COSMIC WISDOM = THE SUPREME KNOWLEDGE of the SANCTUM SANCTORUM. 999 thus contains THE HOLARCHY OF THE MONAD, holarchy referring to the internal HIERARCHY (=444) of monadic chains or 'MASTER' (=555) numbers (111-222-333-444-555-666-777-888-999), which often manifest independently of conscious operation by non-qabalists with often no knowledge of gematria or qabalistic principles. Note also that the original fundamental triad of THE POINT, LINE & THE CIRCLE = 999.
The Hieroglyphic Monad could be more aptly thought of as THE HOLOGRAPHIC MONAD (=666) wherein the Keys to THE QABALAH OF NINE CHAMBERS are made accessible in systematized form. 666 is no longer a number of mystery yet to be expounded, and yet its depth has only begun to be explored. An inundation of material has been steadily flowing and there is much for one person to sort out and integrate while also balancing a mundane but physically demanding set of responsibility as well. The Work has been coming along more swiflty than ever, despite the lack of consistent updates - but hopefully in the time which I have been silent others have been able to catch up on the mass of previous material and become more proficient in the techne utilized herein.
