Six Pointed Stars or Two Triangles...

bradford

venicebard said:
It might be appropriate to think of this Saturn as poised on the central pillar where Da’at is.

Venicebard-
I want to second this great observation of yours, but only for the planets,
without puling the zodiac into it. If you look at the WMT version of the
hexagram, with the planets assigned, Saturn is at the top, right where
Daath is. All the other planets follow the traditional arrangement. The
Magen David, properly Shield of David, has a place on the Tree in this
way.
I personally have always considered the assignment of Saturn to Binah
completely inappropriate, if not just plain stupid. Neptune makes more
sense, paired with Uranus at Chokmah. Saturn was the final planet until
the big telescopes came along, and thus came to symboloze our finitude
in the great night of time, the place where we end but project our illusions
to the contrary. I like Daath for this, the funhouse mirror at the abyss.
There's much confsion in calling this the Star of David. Although the
hexagram started appearing in the diagrams of Jewish scholars fairly
early on, it wasn't really adopted as a special Jewish symbol until recent
centuries. And it's nomenclature other than Magen David often helps to
confuse it with the five pointed star, the Pentagram or the Seal of Solomon.
some more links
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/star.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_David
 

venicebard

bradford said:
Venicebard-
I want to second this great observation of yours, but only for the planets,
without puling the zodiac into it. If you look at the WMT version of the
hexagram, with the planets assigned, Saturn is at the top, right where
Daath is. All the other planets follow the traditional arrangement. The
Magen David, properly Shield of David, has a place on the Tree in this
way.
If you want to see deeper into things, put what you call “the Tree” into proper perspective: it is one of four ‘Trees’, meaning the Sefirot have a distinct structure in each of four worlds. Naturally, in the third world (Yetzirah)—admittedly the one in which the Great Work (the tikkun or ‘restoration’) is directly undertaken—they assume the form of triplicities. But in the first world (Atzilut), they are the individual powers described in the book Bahir, the pairing there of the last two as ‘wheels’ and as ‘victories’ being the lead-in as it were to the form assumed in the second world (Beriyah), where Sefirot are generated in pairs of opposites, as described in the (deceptively named) Sefer Yetzirah. In the fourth world, then, is the structure of physical cycles, based on the fourfold elemental structure as it pervades number. The common Tree, in triads, shows (among other things) the derivation of the current human form: 1-AQ (Adam Qadmon, sexless), 2-male and 3-female unconjoined, 4-male and 5-female conjoining to produce an agreed-upon result or offspring 6-neutral (conjoined), then 7-male and 8-female conjoining to produce the not agreed-upon result or offspring 9-neutral (conjoined) and 10-neutral (conjoined), and we, assuming we have the requisite 10 fingers, are the sorry tail end of this development (and wouldn’t know where to find a sexless immortal if we wanted to).
I personally have always considered the assignment of Saturn to Binah
completely inappropriate, if not just plain stupid. Neptune makes more
sense, paired with Uranus at Chokmah. Saturn was the final planet until
the big telescopes came along, and thus came to symboloze our finitude
in the great night of time, the place where we end but project our illusions
to the contrary.
Understand the nature of the solar system: it is the structure intermediating between a size-oriented (meaning of-necessity huge) electric grid, the stellar heavens—representing fire or the purely determinative in matter—and our rock or focus—representing earth, the purely determined. Hence they group themselves into an airy layer (the gas giants) and a watery or fluid layer (the inner planets). Those with orbital periods greater than or equal to earth’s (meaning including earth’s own, the earthy layer’s cycle being the diurnal one, that of the equator) are active, and those with orbital periods less than our year are passive. This last can be confirmed by careful deduction based on the Tree in Asiyah, and since this will show you the real link between the third Sefirah—called Binah in the Tree of triplicities or Yetzirah world—and the cycle of Saturn in the physical world or Asiyah, I shall briefly explain.

Taking the Tree as the ladder from the eternal, unified One to its individual ten-fingered ‘Presence’ (Shekhinah) in us, this manifests in the physical present as cycles of decreasing period. The One (first Sefirah) is the fiery layer, meaning the total energy contained in the stellar ‘grid’ (we’re following plasma cosmology here, not gravity-worshipping big-bangism), and this is conserved or eternal. And 10 represents earthly solidity, what can be held in the ten fingers, hence earth: the equator or diurnal cycle—“today” (symbolizing the opposite of the eternal, namely the present instant in which the doer or creator must act or create but which is dark to us because it comes and goes in an instant, allowing no contemplation of it in other words). Progressing upward in period from the day, the visible cycles are:

9 = month, the moon
8 = Mercury
7 = Venus
6 = the year
5 = Mars
4 = Jupiter
3 = Saturn
2 = the great year, the cycle of precession of equinoxes (roughly 26,000 years), which, though physically caused by gyroscopic precession, actually is the revolution of the stellar heavens themselves about the zodiac of man (think about it)—not physical revolution in this case, which is defined as revolution within the physical universe, but temporal revolution of that universe around its center, man (anthropos, or upright sentience). For from man’s perspective, paramount in Gnostic thinking, it is the seasons—the zodiac—that remain constant and the stars that revolve about them.

The three unseen planets (or two unseen ‘planets’ plus the Kuyper Belt or whateveryacallit) function as counterweights to the rest, in that the central frame of the solar system revolves such that they move retrograde relative to it. Their presence can be ‘prophesied’, however, by noting that fire acts on all three remaining elements yet is a unity, the division of that activity into its three modes therefore having to wait till the airy layer. If names arise through destiny rather than serendipity, then Uranus would be fire’s acting on air, Neptune fire’s acting on water, and Pluto fire’s acting on earth.

As for active and passive planets, the second or airy layer extends to the square of 2 (2-3-4), the third or fluid layer to the square of 3 (5-6-7-8-9).

Air is acted on by fire and acts on water and earth. Hence 2, next to fire or one, is where it is acted on by fire and represents the highest cycle associated with the sun (2-precession is the relationship between 6-ecliptic and 10-equator): the sun, it turns out, is not an active power at all but the focus or receiver of stellar power (thus correcting modern cosmology’s mistaking it for a star). This leaves 3-Saturn to act on the third or fluid layer and 4-Jupiter to act on the fourth or solid layer.

Water is acted on by fire, air, and itself (this property derives from the geometric representatives of the four, point-line-angle-solid, among other things) and acts on itself and earth. So 5-Mars, since 5 is numerically (that is, in digital sums) -4, acts on the fourth or solid layer, while 6-year, 6 being numerically -3, acts on the third or fluid layer. Then, we must switch to valence to make sense of things, valence being nature’s ‘numerology’. For 7, 8, and 9 are -3, -2, and -1 in valence, respectively, and thus are where the fluid layer is acted on by the third, second, and first layers, the fluid, airy, and fiery respectively. This presents a pleasing harmony with nature in that the metals of 2-sol and 9-luna, gold and silver, are the best conductors and represent where fire or energy acts on their respective layers.

[The periodic table’s basic structure, at least, can be deduced from the simple understanding that in the human psyche duality has separated off from Unity. Thus 2-helium is a second pulling opposite the first (rather than with it), hence they cancel out and are inert (zero valence). This creates tension between number and valence, in that the next one, 3, is +1 (1 valence electron available) in valence but +3 numerically. This tension in nature causes valence to ‘crush’ +4 and -4 into one number, 6-carbon (making it therefore capable of producing chains, on which organic matter is currently based), and again into 14-silicon, before valence and number are once again aligned, and the initial catastrophe then causes number and valence to periodically separate by 1 and go back into alignment till the next catastrophe, the rare earths, where atoms 57-71, centered in 8x8, all occupy one position, the one immediately below 7x7 and above 9x9 (in the old way of displaying the periodic table, by periods not series, which is much more revealing).

Hope some of this, at least, helps (I guess I got carried away).
 

bradford

Boy, your Tree is a LOT more complicated than mine.
 

venicebard

bradford said:
Boy, your Tree is a LOT more complicated than mine.
Not really. I see more of it, but we all arrived by the same route. In other words, the ten are just as much five pairs of opposites (as well as three triads plus a tenth) for you as for me, and just as much a planetary descent in cyclic durations, and certainly just as much ten distinct ‘emanations from one center’ in their original essence. If you wish to concentrate just on the Tree where alchemy’s opus is undertaken, you are welcome to do so. But if you wish to explore, be warned that the Sefirot were not somehow generated in a different order in the Bahir simply because there 9th and 10th are both termed Netzach or ‘endurance’ and Yesod or ‘foundation’ is 8th, not 9th: the differences stem from differing significance in each world, not from change in order of generation. The same goes for the Sefer Yetzirah, where 2nd is ‘depth of last’ but does not, as usually interpreted, refer to Malkut in the world of triplicities, which is 10th, but to the direction on the temporal axis (first of the five, the others being right-wrong, up-down, east-west, and south-north) that complements the ‘depth of first’, which is the One or eternity itself. The Bahir calls 4th Chesed (‘lovingkindness’), which is what it is in essence (in Atzilut), since it is the direction towards other (4th sign, cancer), but in the world of the five polarities it is the ‘depth of evil’ and ‘fire’, because it there marks the limit of manifestation or opaqueness, cancer being towards the horizon without, ascertained by sight = light = photons = ‘fire’ (energy). I’ll shut up now.

Oh, one more thing. About the zodiacal alignment of planetary rulership with the Seal of Solomon, which you seemed to dismiss, it is true that I have yet to understand why it would be lying on its side, unless it is to satirize astrologers, who are so into casting horoscopes they routinely lay the zodiac on its side and forget in relation to man’s upright form aries is up, not east. Up, in fact, means north, since on average up points north (of the equator).
 

bradford

venicebard said:
Oh, one more thing. About the zodiacal alignment of planetary rulership with the Seal of Solomon, which you seemed to dismiss, it is true that I have yet to understand why it would be lying on its side, unless it is to satirize astrologers, who are so into casting horoscopes they routinely lay the zodiac on its side and forget in relation to man’s upright form aries is up, not east. Up, in fact, means north, since on average up points north (of the equator).

I didn't dismiss the Seal of Solomon or the Pentagram. I just said people often confuse it's name with the Magen David.

And North only came to be "up" after Western Cartography took hold.
Both Chinese Yixue and Western Astrology, for instance, have South up.
The Astrological chart is a cross-section through the sky facing South.
Before compasses and central and urban heating folks used to orient to the Sun in the South.
 

venicebard

bradford said:
I didn't dismiss the Seal of Solomon or the Pentagram.
??? I was just referring to what you said 5 days ago:
bradford said:
Venicebard-
I want to second this great observation of yours, but only for the planets,
without puling the zodiac into it.
(emphasis mine)
And North only came to be "up" after Western Cartography took hold.
Both Chinese Yixue and Western Astrology [and the ancient Egyptians, reputedly], for instance, have South up.
[bracketed insert mine] All well and good. I was referring, though, not to traditions but to reality: up is (on average) north (of the equator) in man. You see, I maintain that amidst what is ever a hodge-podge of interpretations and symbol arrangements a primordial original can be distinguished, which forms the central trunk of Qabbalah and is the symbology (for want of a better term) through which man can affect nature most directly, representing as it does the symbolic laws (i.e. of correspondence between what occurs within and what occurs without) that govern nature's forms, being what formed them.
The Astrological chart is a cross-section through the sky facing South.
Interesting point. What I meant was how they (astrologers) point the start of the 1st ‘house’, or point corresponding to aries (beginnning of the round), east and go (if facing south) widdershins (counterclockwise). Nothing wrong with that, except they forget, then, the symbolic origin of the zodiac, which is that the human form’s up or head (rams butt heads) represents spring’s springing up, its down represents fall, its out (forward) represents summer, and its in (back) represents winter. Their ‘houses’ are oriented as if man is lying on his belly, for the Serpent in man, of course, is (lying on its belly).
Before compasses and central and urban heating folks used to orient to the Sun in the South.
Yes, but interestingly enough the Lakota Sioux of the Great Plains called east “the direction from which the sun always shines,” since the entrance to the lodge was east, opposite the direction from whence the ‘thunder beings’ or prevailing winds approach. [This last agrees with bards’ placement of the thunder-god’s oak month at summer solstice, since cancer or straight ahead is where the round descends, linking it (symbolically) to the west, where sky itself descends. And indeed the birch month or newborn sun stands opposite it, at winter solstice, the east (where round and sky ascend). This orientation must be the primordial one, for the importance of sunrise-in-the-east at spring equinox can then be explained as simply the direction from which aries is approached on the circumference of the round.]
 

jewishbohemian

the six pointed star referred to in Cabala as Zera Anpin/Small Faces, meaning the six attributes that are mirrored in the body: the upper triangel of the two arms and torso and the lower triangle of the two legs and the sex. these six are also related to the Six Days of Creation, the six sefirot of Chesed/Kindness, Gevora/severity, Teferit/Beauty, Netzak//victory, Hod/Retreat and Yesod/Foundation and the outer six planets of the solar sytem--earth is Malchut/Royalty.
 

ravenest

"[and the ancient Egyptians, reputedly], for instance, have South up. "

Not really, a lot of their systems have a southerly 'bias' shall we say but we have to remember the source of the Nile (in the South) was a major originating direction for them. This was not due to any celestial phemonema.

It must be remembered that unlike nearly every other civilisation Egypts river has a north south direction while many others had a souce (or an 'empting') into the direction of sunrise or setting.
 

venicebard

It helps to be aware of the mechanism that selects the six signs that form the Star of David initially (that is, before any tilting on its side forces it to conform to planetary rulership via the Tree in Asiyah, as per my earlier post). The world-egg (zodiac of seated torso, starting at aries the head) sits in the bottom half—bowl-shaped Cauldron indicating the ground beneath—of a wheel twice its diameter, symbolizing what surrounds it. The seven signs of the Cauldron are the seven doubles, and their radii—the first four of which are sight-fire (the horizon), hearing-air (approach within earshot), taste-water (set within reach), and (surface-contact or) touch/smell-earth (place one sits)—intersect the smaller wheel or Egg at the six signs aries-gemini-leo-libra-sagittary-aquarius, which form the fire and (primordial) water triads (since flame rises and rain falls), though the latter, which manifests in earth (each element manifests in the element following) is called ‘air’ in astrology and (as down corresponds to south) fire (heat’s source) in diurnal assignment of elements to cardinal directions. All three of these ways of assigning elements, by the way—primordial, astrological, and diurnal—are encoded in the precise manner whereby the original calendar-and-seasonal order of the twelve simples (samekh-tzaddi-cheyt-vav-ayin-qof-teyt-heh-zayin-yod-lamedh-nun, where vav through yod [except for qof] were originally seasonal vowels, not months or consonants) was jumbled when forming the alef-bet, so that its secret would remain hidden. [Yet once known, this underlying tradition is quite readily discernable in alef-bet order. For alef’s oneness gives birth to beyt-gimel-dalet at 2-3-4, echoing on the Cauldron the signs yod-heh-vav on the Egg (which are 2, 3, and 4-9 in Lurianic Kabbalah), and then, going by their new sign-assignments, the simples stop after the first six, at virgo, to allow space for the Cauldron’s virgo, kaf, then again after the next sign, libra, to allow space for the calendar’s libra, M-mem (mother-letter mem replaces wayward double-letter reysh when the latter deserts its post at the time of the Fall), after which there follow in one bunch the three signs corresponding to the conscious self (signs leading on from libra or straight down to capricorn or straight in) before pausing again for the double which capricorn’s radius, when extended out to the Cauldron, points to (P-peh, Cauldron’s sagittary). Then come the last two signs, those that with the return to aries itself constitute three middot (divine attributes) that are not yet Sefirot, a self or capricorn not yet having traversed them on the Great Round we all traverse, following which the remaining two doubles enclose the mother letter that resides precisely at the aries our round has at this point returned to, namely shin, the crown on aries-the-head.]

The above was simply to lay the groundwork for a response to the following:
ravenest said:
It must be remembered that unlike nearly every other civilisation Egypts river has a north south direction while many others had a souce (or an 'empting') into the direction of sunrise or setting.
Though perhaps slightly off-topic, I would like to say that Professor Stecchini’s appendix to Peter Tomkins Secrets of the Great Pyramid reveals an Egyptian geodetic system wherein the Dnepr was seen as roughly a northward reflection of the Nile. So I tried placing the zodiac’s center between their mouths, in the middle of Anatolia, with libra-the-fulcrum at Giza or 30 degrees north, and aries-the-Corn-Spirit (what sprouts upwards out of the seed or tongue) where the great bend of the Dnepr is (i.e. the grassy uplands it steers around). Lo and behold, this put B-beyt-beth-birch (Cauldron’s inner rim) south of the Urals, where birch is the shamanic world-tree, D-dalet-duir-oak (Cauldron’s outer rim) on the north slope of the Alps (Thor’s stomping ground and source of both Rhine and Danube), near where druids and their oak-worship were, the letter T-tav-tinne-holly (martial discipline, divine honor), whose rune is called tyr in Anglo-Saxon, at the Tyrrhenian Sea (across which Rome and Carthage fought to the death), the heh added to Abram to make Abraham over on the east bank of the Jordan River, and sacred mistletoe or loranthus (yod) in the vicinity of Ararat. Food for thought. [Cauldron’s virgo, which is where the primordial air triad manifests in water or form (what approaches straight down or mass itself, which is earth), is at Cyrene or Kyrene, founded next to a spring named after the goddess of the place (being virgo-the-virgin), and indeed the double at that station is K or kaf, its initial (kappa). Cauldron’s scorpio or desire (inward departure from straight down or mass itself), namely the gimel or ‘camel’ whose corresponding G-hieroglyph pictures an alchemical oven, stands at the desert approaches to Mesopotamia. The radius of the Cauldron’s sagittary is marked in the earth by mountain ranges, and the Caucasus range is evidently the recumbent lion L-hieroglyph (rw, but used for L in foreign words, since Egyptian itself used no L), since its station (aquarius), the sign of the Egg intersected by said radius, is where this range meets the Black Sea. And mem-sofit, the center of the Monad or first wheel (twice the height of the wheel whose lower half is the Cauldron), marks the approximate eastward limit of the Baltic, meaning of sea-access in the north. Oh, and of course A-alef, ailm or silver fir—the center of the Egg—marks the chief gathering-place of the fir in all this, namely the mountainous heart of Anatolia.]