A QABALISTIC KEY TO 'THE NINTH GATE' Roman Polanski's Journey Beyond Evil
I. THE 'BIG PICTURE'
Light Shines in Polanski's Darkness
In the first scene of the film "The Ninth Gate", an older, very wealthy and cultured gentleman calmly commits suicide by hanging himself from the chandelier in his tastefully appointed library full of priceless rare books. Once his feet have stopped twitching, the camera pa ns across the shelves behind him to a vacant spot where one book is missing. As we later discover, that book is "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows", a 17th century grimoire (1666 to be precise), said to have been co-authored by the Devil himself. Over the course of the film, five more people will suffer violent deaths because of their associations with this infamous book.
Three of these victims are self-described Satanists: the first, a crippled German baroness and best-selling author on the subject of the Devil, is strangled in her wheelchair and her famous library of satanic books set ablaze; another, a beautiful, iron-willed, sex-exploiting vamp, nude under her hooded black robe, is choked with her own pentacle necklace while conducting a fire-lit, group Satanic ritual at her secluded French chateau. The final victim, a billionaire business mogul, collector of occult books, an d cold-blooded serial murderer, burns himself alive in a deserted Cathar castle while performing a ritual which he is convinced will summon the Devil.
Now, try to imagine for a moment reading this brief outline of the setting for a horror/murder mystery film, and thinking to yourself "Wow! This would be the perfect vehicle to introduce the general public to t he principles of one of the world's great traditional spiritual teachings, the Qabalah's Tree of Life!" Personally, I still can't quite imagine how that particular chain of thought ever came together, (even the esteemed author of the book on which the screenplay was based wasn't quite *that* ambitious, although he did start the ball rolling by commissioning the series of nine symbolic engravings which appear in "the Devil's book", whose symbols tell the story of the journey on the Tree). But however far-fetched this idea may seem, the film's co-writer and director, Roman Polanski, didn't just think it, he actually pulled it off.
When it comes to popular films with "spiritual" themes, it's impossible not to think of the most recent, high-profile example, the one in which a zealously pious director presented traditional religious imagery in what many felt was a psychologically disturbing, obsessively sadistic, ugly and dispiriting way to deliver a message which wa s widely perceived to be controversial, religiously polarizing and divisive. The contrast between this and Polanski's film could hardly be greater or more ironic.
"The Ninth Gate", despite the dark reputation of its director, is a quirky, unassuming but genuinely redemptive, non-denominational morality play in which almost all the parts are played by evil "satanists" and one enigmatic character in particular is widely speculated to be Lucifer "herself". Polanski's surprising twist of using over -the-top, murderous devil-worshippers in an almost tongue-in-cheek way to illustrate a message of genuine, non-sectarian spiritual hope, definitely makes for a refreshing change. In fact, I can't think of a film that more richly deserves to develop a wide-spread, intelligent cult following. The only element missing up to now has been a publicly accessible key to the mysterious, unexplained symbolism of the engravings which appear in the film's infa mous book, which is why I decided to write this article.
Two Hidden Keys to 'The Nine Gates'
I saw the film 'The Ninth Gate' the first time mostly because Johnny Depp was in it and he can usually be relied on to pick interesting projects. The engravings intrigued me, but until I began to look seriously at their symbolism, I had no idea of how highly unusual the film actually is. In my opinion it's one of a kind because it has done something that no other movie that I'm aware o f has attempted. Although the Tarot's Hanged Man, Hermit, Death and the Fool were easy to recognize, other symbols in the series of engravings were more elusive and as I began the process of interpreting them, I wasn't sure how deep the symbolism would go or how internally consistent it would be. What I discovered went far beyond anything I had expected.
What the designer of the engravings has actually done is to use a mixture of symbols taken from the Tarot and the Qabalah's Tree of Life to describe key transition points on the journey of spiritual evolution 'up' the Tree, beginning at the bottom with ego consciousness, making the crossing a t the middle of the Tree into the realm of Soul to achieve the union of ego with Soul, and culminating at the top of the Tree with the wedding of Soul to Spirit and the opening of the 'Ninth Gate'. In order to understand the meaning of the engravings, we must begin to become familiar with the two occult "keys" to their symbolism: the diagram of the Qabalah's great teaching of spiritual synthesis, the Tree of Life, and the meaning of a half dozen or so symbolic figures taken from the Greater Trumps [the Major Arcana] of the Tarot which are traditionally assigned to describe the nature of certain "paths" on the Tree.
Two Sets of Gates, The Choice: Light or Fire?
The film tells us there are three copies of the book "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows", and that each book contains nine engravings, each engraving representing one of the n ine gates. But as Johnny D epp's character Corso discovers, the engravings which appear in the three books are not all identical. In each book, six engravings are initialed "AT" for the book's a uthor, Aristide Torchia, and three engravings are initialed "LCF" for "Lucifer", widely speculated to be the "co-author" of the book . All of the AT engravings are identical, but the LCF engravings contain small variations in the symbolism which greatly change the meaning of the scenes depicted. And because
"The Ninth Gate", despite the dark reputation of its director, is a quirky, unassuming but genuinely redemptive, non-denominational morality play in which almost all the parts are played by evil "satanists" and one enigmatic character in particular is widely speculated to be Lucifer "herself". Polanski's surprising twist of using over -the-top, murderous devil-worshippers in an almost tongue-in-cheek way to illustrate a message of genuine, non-sectarian spiritual hope, definitely makes for a refreshing change. In fact, I can't think of a film that more richly deserves to develop a wide-spread, intelligent cult following. The only element missing up to now has been a publicly accessible key to the mysterious, unexplained symbolism of the engravings which appear in the film's infa mous book, which is why I decided to write this article.
Two Hidden Keys to 'The Nine Gates'
I saw the film 'The Ninth Gate' the first time mostly because Johnny Depp was in it and he can usually be relied on to pick interesting projects. The engravings intrigued me, but until I began to look seriously at their symbolism, I had no idea of how highly unusual the film actually is. In my opinion it's one of a kind because it has done something that no other movie that I'm aware o f has attempted. Although the Tarot's Hanged Man, Hermit, Death and the Fool were easy to recognize, other symbols in the series of engravings were more elusive and as I began the process of interpreting them, I wasn't sure how deep the symbolism would go or how internally consistent it would be. What I discovered went far beyond anything I had expected.
What the designer of the engravings has actually done is to use a mixture of symbols taken from the Tarot and the Qabalah's Tree of Life to describe key transition points on the journey of spiritual evolution 'up' the Tree, beginning at the bottom with ego consciousness, making the crossing a t the middle of the Tree into the realm of Soul to achieve the union of ego with Soul, and culminating at the top of the Tree with the wedding of Soul to Spirit and the opening of the 'Ninth Gate'. In order to understand the meaning of the engravings, we must begin to become familiar with the two occult "keys" to their symbolism: the diagram of the Qabalah's great teaching of spiritual synthesis, the Tree of Life, and the meaning of a half dozen or so symbolic figures taken from the Greater Trumps [the Major Arcana] of the Tarot which are traditionally assigned to describe the nature of certain "paths" on the Tree.
Two Sets of Gates, The Choice: Light or Fire?
The film tells us there are three copies of the book "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows", and that each book contains nine engravings, each engraving representing one of the n ine gates. But as Johnny D epp's character Corso discovers, the engravings which appear in the three books are not all identical. In each book, six engravings are initialed "AT" for the book's a uthor, Aristide Torchia, and three engravings are initialed "LCF" for "Lucifer", widely speculated to be the "co-author" of the book . All of the AT engravings are identical, but the LCF engravings contain small variations in the symbolism which greatly change the meaning of the scenes depicted. And because
the engravings which are initialed LCF vary from book to book, all three books are necessary to obtain a full set of LCF engravings describing all nine gates.
In order to illustrate the meaning of the variations in the symbolism of the engravings, the film has us follow along on the adventures of two main characters. The first, rare book dealer Corso, starts out as a paid agent of his employer, Balkan, but with the help of an enigmatic character known only as "the girl", Corso manages to make the true journey which is depicted in the LCF engravings -- a journey f rom ordinary ego consciousness all the way to ultimate enlightenment and an experience of the world in the form which is symbolized i n the Book of Revelation as 'The New Jerusalem'. This ultimate destination which the traveler through the LCF gates reaches is symbolically represented in the film's final scene in which Corso walks into a castle blazing with Light.
There is a clear correlation between the order in which we see the engravings in the course of the film and the progress which Corso is making on his journey up the Tree (through the gates). The modifications which Roman Polanski and his fellow screenwriters made to the plot taken from the book are completely consistent with the symbolism of the journey depicted in the engravings, so much so that it can only have been intentional.
The second main character, Boris Balkan, is a business tycoon and lecturer on occult subjects who has dedicated his life to pursuing wealth and power and has assembled the world's largest collection of books on satanism and the Devil. After managing to gain possession of one of the three copies of "The Nine Gates", he tries to use it to perform a ritual which he believes will "summon the Devil" and who will then grant him unlimited wealth and power. When his ritual doesn't work, he suspects forgery and hires Corso to track down the other two copies of the book.
When Balkan finds out from Corso about the LCF variations, he begins secretly shadowing Corso, ruthlessly murders the other books' owners and steals the remaining six LCF engravings from their books which he believes will allow him to conduct a successful ritual. Finally in possession of all nine of the LCF engravings, Balkan travels to an abandoned castle apparently identical to the one depicted in the engraving for the Ninth Gate, surrounds himself with a circle of fire, lays out the nine engravings in an order of his own devising and conducts a ritual in which he recites his interpretation of the meaning of the engravings.
Confident of his success, he sets himself on fire to demonstrate his invincibility and instead burns to death (or he would have if Corso hadn't finally shot him as an act of mercy). When Corso later asks the girl why Balkan didn't succeed, she says it was because his LCF engraving of the Ninth Gate (depicting the castle in flames) was a forgery. But is it really as simple as that? As we will see, the journey which Balkan made *in real life* followed the path described in the AT version of the engravings, a nd the path through the nine AT gates leads inevitably not to Light but to fire.
'Mumbo-Jumbo', Ritual, or Walking the Walk
Judging from ongoing comments to the boards f or this film at the Internet Movie Databa se (IMDb) website, there seem to be two different opinions about exactly what was necessary in order to 'pas s through' the nine gates. Some, like Balkan, believe that all that was required was to possess the original nine engravings initialed by LCF, to place them in a particular order, and recite some words. I believe that to look at it in this way is to confuse the map with the territory and to risk falling into the category of 'mumbo-jumbo'.
The engravings describe two possible paths which must be followed *in real life*, each path leading to radically different experiences and endpoints. There are scenes in the movie which physically mimic the symbolism of the engravings, like the scene of Bernie the book-seller's body hanging in the pose of the Tarot's "Hanged Man" as shown in the engraving for the Sixth Gate, and the resemblances between some of the characters in the engravings and real people Corso encounters on his journey. I believe these were included to give viewers the clue that the journey depicted in the engravings was also happening in the lives of the movie's main characters. But since the journey up the Tree is one of internal spiritual evolution (in Corso's case) or the lack of it (in Balkan's), depicting it outwardly would be difficult to impossible except through the use of such periodic, symbolic clues. Not every engraving is illustrated in this literal, vi sual way.
For some, symbolic rituals performed as part of a spiritual path may help to focus the mind, but they are certainly not required. The engravings may be valuable in their f unction as maps, but you still have to make the journey. In the movie, Corso is the one who successfully completes the journey because he enters into partnership with 'the girl' who helps him to follow the path which is symbolized by the LCF variations of the engravings. Balkan, the socalled 'black magician', refuses to make the journey beyond ego-dominance and tries to use the energies of the Tree to serve the desires and power drives of his own ego.
Balkan's path is symbolized by the AT variations of the engravings and it ends in exactly the kind of fiery destruction which the collective ego consciousness of our time is now trying to convince us is a lso our 'fate': Armageddon, 'the end of the world'. But as the LCF engraving of the Fourth Gate illustrates, "Fate is not the same for all" and for those who devote themselves to the real-life 'journey up the Tree' described by the LCF version of the engravings, the ultimate fruit of the Quest is nothing less than personal transformation and the experience of the world from the perspective of the Higher Self, as depicted in the genuine Ninth Gate's symbol of 'The New Jerusalem'. [emphasis added]
LCF vs. The Devil -- A Case of Mistaken Identity
The movie's characters all seem to agree that the purpose of the combined content of a ll of the LCF engravings is 'to raise the Devil'. Most of them (with the exception of Corso) take this to mean that the engravings are to be
used to construct a ritual at the end of which a supernatural entity representing the force of evil in the world will appear (Poof!) and grant the one performing the ritual special powers. The main problem with this i s that the symbolism of the engravings doesn't support that idea at all, but instead suggests an entirely different interpretation of the phrase 'to raise the Devil'. The symbolism used actually impressed me very much. I believe that either the illustrator was a serious student or in itiate of a mystery tradition himself or he must have worked in close collaboration with someone who was. The way in which director Roman Polanski a nd his fellow screenwriters integrated the meaning of the engravings into his vision of the plot of the movie is also impressive and is the subject of Section VIII of this article, "The Polanski Code".
The most interesting twist with the engravings is that it is the variations bearing the initials LCF which actually represent stages in the development of the very positive int ernal spiritual state which leads to the experience depicted in the genuine LCF engraving of the Ninth Gate, the encounter with Light. This confirms to me that, despite what any of the movie characters might believe, LCF stands for 'Lucifer, the Light-Bearer', a symbolic figure representing a non-dual, spiritual-evolutionary force which is separate and distinct in its nature and function from our current popular conception of the degenerate symbolic figure of evil, 'the Devil' or 'Satan'.
The Journey Beyond 'Evil' -- All Climbers Welcome
In Torchia's AT version of the engravings, small symbolic variations describe a path which has only one final destination, an ultimate dissolution/destruction of the same nature as the destruction of the body by fire which Torchia himself suffered. If you tak e the time to explore the symbolism of the engravings, I believe it will be clear that although Balkan 'possessed' almost all of the necessary LCF symbols, his pre-existing mindset made it impossible for him to gain a true understanding of the meaning of the symbolism and so he made no effort to a lign himself spiritually with the variations depicted in the LCF engravings. His internal state, in fact, corresponded exactly to the symbolism of the Torchia version, so that even if he had possessed the genuine ninth engraving, his unevolved internal spiritual state would still have condemned him to suffer the same destructive result.
The lesson is that in the determination of ' fate', it is the nature of the internal spiritual state which is the deciding factor, and the nature of your own internal spiritual state is entirely up to you and the life choices which you make. To follow Corso's successful path, at some point it is necessary to forge an alliance with your own best understanding of a Higher Power, a benevolent spiritual guiding force which can help, inspire, and challenge you to grow beyond ego consciousness and align yourself with the greater purpose, power and harmony of your own Soul. (This is the real-life equivalent of the guiding and protective function which "the girl" provides to Corso in the film. For an analysis of her enigmatic nature and ultimate identity, see my response to the first reader's comment in the Commentary section of this article.)
Every religious tradition has its own language to describe this same process of spiritual evolution in different ways and those who have completed the journey, no matter what tradition they followed, have been unanimous in recognizing that all paths 'up the mountain' lead to the same 'Peak'. This is easy to see when you're looking 'down',
but much less obvious from the ego's perspective at the very base of the mountain. The 'path of return' of the Tree of Life is one traditional way up this same symbolic mountain.
The major problems come in the earliest stage of the journey in the case of those who don't progress beyond the perspective of ego and expend their energies not in completing their own journey, but in declaring that those who are following all of the other paths up the mountain are 'evil', making war on them, and trying to stamp them out. From the perspective of ego consciousness, the symbolic figure of 'the Devil' is id entified with anyone-whodoesn't-believe-exactly-what-I-believe, and for this reason, it is in the realm of ego consciousness, the realm of the lower mind at the base of the mountain, where the concept of 'the Devil' finds its ultimate playground.
This is why the teachings of Jesus the Christ, for example, require disciples first and foremost to love one another, to love their neighbors as themselves, to judge not lest they be judged, to love and forgive even their 'enemies' and to remove first the 'beam' in their own eye before presuming to remove the ' speck' in their brother's eye. At the top of the mountain, in the realm of Spirit/Soul, the divisive concept of "the Devil" has no power. The realm of the domination of the ego-mind is finally left behind in the passage through the Sixth Gate, and as we will see in the analysis of the Ninth G ate, it is this very lower ego-mind which the Apocalypse of St. John rightly identifies with the destructive nature of 'the Beast' and the number 666.
Where's That '100th Monkey'?
The analysis of the symbolism contained in the engravings and in the plot of the movie is not a simple subject, and I originally took on this challenge because of my own fairly obsessive curiosity and for my own use. But since it seems clear to me that the world as most of us know it is currently at risk of being destroyed by the raging desires and fears of a collective ego consciousness which is long overdue to be brought into balance under the guidance of the wisdom consciousness of the Soul, and since this essential transition can only happen if each one of us makes his/her own journey individually, I thought it would be worth the effort to try to describe, in the simplest possible way, what the journey represented by the symbols in the engravings is all about (for those who are not familiar with it). As some of y ou reading this will know, there are a great many people in this world who have already quietly and unobtrusively completed the journey which the engravings symbolically describe, and their numbers will only increase with time. No membership in any 'secret' organization is required, only the d esire for a better life and a better world and the will to achieve both by working on yourself to become a better person.
Once this work is begun in ear nest, the spiritual development which follows is an entirely natural and spontaneous evolutionary process, and the more people who make the trip, the easier it becomes for others to follow. You may have heard of the famous ca se of the group of monkeys on one island who learned that washing their sweet potatoes in the ocean made them taste b etter. Soon all of the monkeys on the island copied their example and started washing their potatoes and at a certain point, called the 'tipping point', enough monkeys had a dopted this behavior that monkeys on another island, who had no contact with the original monkeys, suddenly started washing their potatoes too. The lesson is that there is a level at which consciousness is collective, a nd when that
'100th monkey' (as this syndrome is called) makes the transition to a new standard of behavior, everybody else evolves right along with him. As a perennial optimist, I'd like to dedicate this article to that potential '100th monkey' who may be reading this sentence right now.
In the following Section II, Deciphering the Engravings, we will look briefly a t the meaning of the symbol of the serpent on the Tree and at the significance o f the Hebrew and Greek letters which appear at the top of each engraving.
II. DECIPHERING THE ENGRAVINGS
The Frontispiece Engraving -- The Serpent on the Tree
The fictitious book in the film is called 'The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows' and it would probably be helpful to know right from the start that the journey depicted in the engravings *begins* in the 'Kingdom of Shadows', which is how many people now perceive this world, and the 'nine gates' are passed through on the journey *out* of the Kingdom of Shadows. Most of the owners and pursuers of the book never understand this and in fact believe exactly the opposite, and it is this mindset which is at least p artly responsible for drawing to them their various gruesome fates.
The Frontispiece engraving of the book shows a tree being struck by lightning which causes a portion of the tree to fall, while a snake with its tail in its mouth winds itself around the base of the tree. Those who are familiar with the basic teachings of the Qabalah will recognize this as a reference to the qabalistic diagram called the Tree of Li fe. The diagram of the Tree is made up of ten circular centers referred to as a sephira (singular) or sephiroth (plural). These are connected by 22 paths, each path corresponding to one of the 2 2 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and one of the 22 Trumps of the Tarot's Major Arcana.
Each sephira on the Tree is related to a state of human consciousness and the film's nine 'gates' correspond to specific points of transition which the individual traveler encounters on his journey of evolving consciousness 'up the Tree'. He will 'climb' from a state of minimal ego awareness at the very bottom of the Tree and ultimately reach the realm of Spirit and the vision of Light at the very top of the Tree, which is the opening of the Ninth Gate. A thorough study of this diagram and navigation of the experienced realities which the symbols of the Tree o f Life represent might be the work of many lifetimes, but it is possible to touch the h igh points which are represented in the engravings of the Nine Gates and get a general idea of t he territory and the journey.
To help in visualizing the paths which the traveler of the engravings takes as he climbs the Tree of Life, a [more or less traditional] diagram of the Tree with the names o f the ten sephiroth and the names of the Hebrew letters which are assigned to the paths can be viewed at http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Image:Tree_simple.gif. [Editor's note: It might be worthwhile to print out this description of the Tree of life for use in reading this essay.]
Also, as you read the interpretations of each of the Nine Gates, you might be 'mentally pronouncing' the names of the ten sephiroth many times and if you would like to pronounce them correctly, Appendix P contains a pronunciation guide.
The Hebrew and Greek Letters & The 'Number of the Beast'
There is a long tradition in Tarot of correlating individual cards with the meaning of Hebrew and Greek letters, each letter having a corresponding numerical value. In the descriptions for each gate, rather than reproducing the Hebrew and Greek letters which appear a t the top of each engraving, I have spelled out the names of the letters instead. It's important to note that while the 22 Hebrew letters are assigned to the paths between the sephiroth on the Tree, the Hebrew letters that appear at the top of the engravings do not refer to the paths. The symbols shown are simply the first 9 letters of each alphabet in sequence except for the Greek where a substitution has been made in the letter representing the number 6.
According to the Cornell University Epigraphy Project http://132.236 .125.30/numcode.html, in order to construct a complete numerical system from Greek letters, 27 l etters were required: nine letters for the single units 1-9, nine letters for the 'teens', and nine for the hundreds. Because there were only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet at the time, three obsolete letters were reinstated, including a letter variously called 'digamma' or 'stigma' to represent the number 6.
The form of this letter (which we will call 'stigma') begins with a variant lower case form of sigma (with a snakelike "S" shape) which is used only a t the end of a word. This variant form of sigma was modified by adding a n extended, horizontal rather than curved 'cap' which is taken from the top of the letter 'tau'. So the let ter representing 6, called 'stigma', is a composite of the variant form of sigma (bottom) and the form of tau (top). The regular, nonvariant lower case form of sigma (roughly circular with a 'cowlick') has the value of 200.
The Greek letter which appears on the engraving for the Sixth Gate is the snakelike, lower case form of sigma which is used only at the end of a word, with its curved top unmodified. Although there is a table a t Wikipedia which shows this symbol as representing 6, it appears this is a misidentification based on a confusion between the similar forms of 'sigma' and 'stigma'. I have found no other reference which identifies the unmodified variant form of 'sigma' with any official numerical value.
If this letter form of sigma has no 'official' numerical value, the only number associated with it would be 18, since it is the eighteenth letter of the existing Greek alphabet. In terms of numerology, the number 18 can be represented as 1 + 8 = 9, or more provocatively, 6 + 6 + 6 = 18. This is not the technical equivalent of 'the number of the Beast' which in gematria is 'six hundred sixty-six', but I think it can legitimately be seen as a reference to it. We will have more to say about this when we come to the analysis of the symbolism of the Ninth Gate. There we may discover not only why Greek letters were prominently featured on the engravings, but also why attention may ha ve deliberately been called to this particular variation of the Greek letter sequence which appears on the engraving for the Sixth Gate showing the symbol of the Hanged Man.
With these preliminaries established, we now begin the symbolic journey of the 'Path of Return' or the 'Path of the Serpent', from the lowest point on the Tree of Life in the realm of ego, to the highest point in the Realm of Spirit, a journey which begins with the opening of THE FIRST GATE.
III. THE FIRST THREE GATES
THE FIRST GATE
Aleph (Ox) = 1st Hebrew letter * Roman Numeral I * Alpha = 1st Greek letter
In the book version of the engraving, the caption is:
NEM. PERV.T QUI N.N LEG. CERT.RIT
NEMO PERVENIT QUI NON LEGITIME CERTAVERIT
Literal Translation: "No one attains who unlawfully contends"
Book Translation: "Only he who has fought according to the rules will succeed"
The engraving shows a mounted knight with his right index finger to his lips making the si gn for "Silence". He is riding towards a castle which has three towers.
This is the LCF Version [In the two AT engravings, the castle has 4 towers]
In the movie version, the caption is:
SI.VM E.T AV.VM
SILENTIUM EST AUREUM
Silence is Golden
Beginning with the symbols which remain the same between the two versions, we have a knight, which suggests the idea that he is on a quest and perhaps also suggests all of the high moral qualities and determination to prevail which we associate with ideal knighthood. He is riding a horse which brings in the symbol of the helpful animal or being in touch with one's instinctive, intuitive sense which, in case you get lost, 'knows the way home'. The knight is approaching a castle, which is often a symbol of the location of a treasure which the castle walls protect.
He has large feather plumes on his helmet, apparently ostrich plumes, which in the symbolism of heraldry represent obedience and serenity. A similar feather appears in the headgear of The Fool in some versions of the Tarot. The ostrich plume was also the f eather of the Egyptian goddess Ma'at, associated with justice and truth. In the underworld, Ma'at would weigh the deceased's heart in her scales against this feather, and only the heart which was unburdened by the weight of worldly sin would escape being devoured by the crocodile-headed Ammit.
The variation in the engraving in terms of the number of the castle's towers directs our attention to the difference in symbolic meaning between the numbers three and four. The cla ssical distinction is between the transcendent or spiritual level of reality and the material or mundane level. Divinity is often expressed as a trinity, the Holy Trinity, the Triple Goddess, and in the Tree o f Life symbol, the first three sephiroth or centers of energy at the top of the tree (the Supernal Triad). The latter represents the Transcendent Source from which all of Creation is born, and the fourth sephira/center, just below it, is the first manifest, incarnate, human-level expression of that Source energy.
The number four reflects the qualities of the created world: the four directions, the four seasons, and the four classical 'elements': fire, air, water, earth. There are also four dimensions to everything that we are capable of experiencing in the material world: the three spatial directions (length, width and height) plus time. In the LCF version of the First Gate, the knight rides towards a castle with three towers which is a symbolic indication that the treasure which he seeks is not a mundane, material treasure, but a transcendent, spiritual one.
The 'Silence' gesture is a reminder to students of spiritual wisdom traditions that not everyone in the general public is prepared to properly understand the teachings. [This is particularly true of movie critics!] In the context of the journey up the Tree portrayed in the engravings, those whose consciousness are still dominated by the perspective of the ego, represented by the lowest levels of the Tree, will interpret everything as the ego sees it. They will then assume that the goal of the quest involves personal profit and power over others -- unless the student is lucky enough to have a qualified teacher to help him or her avoid this kind of distorted viewpoint.
Wisdom traditions are traditionally meant for those who ha ve already become disillusioned with the material world-view of the ego, and who are ready to pursue the spiritual treasure which is found on the 'upward' path o n the Tree. The best translation of the 'Silence' gesture that I know is 'Don't talk about it, just do it.' In the film, practically all of the characters except Corso have something to say about their own deluded ideas of what the engravings mean, but it is only Corso, with the help of the g irl, who keeps his own counsel, quietly pursues the true journey, and ultimately succeeds.
So why am I apparently breaking this rule of silence now? First, because I have made, and continue to make, my own journey on the Tree and my intuition, which I have come to trust absolutely, tells me that sharing what I have learned so far is the correct thing to do. [Editor's note: One might argue that "the girl" in the movie is doing th e same.]Secondly, everything which Balkan's path of destruction illustrates is already happening in the world around us every day and there is nothing in this article that could mak e this situation any worse. The only a ntidote that I know of for the apparently precarious state of the world today is for as many people as possible to start making their own 'Journey Beyond Evil'. The film "The Ninth Gate" seems to me to be an interesting way to introduce people to the idea of the journey a nd to provide a general description of the experiences which may be encountered. (Also, the truths of the Tree which I present here were discovered through long -term study and practice, a method which any sincere seeker can also follow. I am not a member of any arcane organization, don't advocate any potentially risky "short-cuts" on the spiritual path, and have taken no blood-curdling vows of secrecy.)
So back to the First Gate. As for the idea that it's necessary to fight 'according to the rules', not all knights were virtuous, and for one who is on a quest for material treasure and earthly power (Torchia's version of the engraving showing a castle with four towers), and who is perhaps a member of some secret organization whose goals are equally materialistic, it's possible that according to 'the rules' which such a person would live by, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him might be considered to be perfectly acceptable. In terms of the symbolism of the First Gate, Balkan is obviously on the path which Torchia's version of the engraving describes and, based on the decisions which he makes over the course of the movie, he is clearly convinced that following his own personal
rule book is the way to 'win'. But as the motto of The First Gate warns, if he contends unlawfully, he will not attain the true high goal of the Quest.
The First Gate can be associated with the lowest sephira on the Tree, Malkuth, also known as The Kingdom, the material realm. Those who follow the path symbolized by the AT version of the engraving will seek their material treasure here. Those who follow the LCF version will look to the very top of the Tree as the goal of their Quest which brings us to the next engraving, a kind of 'flash-forward' from the lowest sephira of the *human* realm of the Tree to the highest.
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THE SECOND GATE
Bet (House) = 2nd Hebrew letter * Roman Numeral II * Beta = 2 nd Greek letter
CLAVS. PAT.T
CLAUSAE PATENT
They open that which is closed
The engraving shows a figure who is recognizable as The Hermit, the Ninth Trump of the Tarot's Major Arcana. He stands before a closed door with two keys in his left hand. His lit lantern is on the ground in front of him to the right and a small dark dog faces him to his left. The Hebrew letter Teth (numerical value = 9) appears next to The Hermit's head. It's interesting that this is the only door in any of the engravings that has a knocker, which happens to be circular, symbolizing again Spirit (the value of 'pi' being 3 plus an infinite number of decimal places). The knocker suggests the activity of internal seeking which the Hermit is engaged in ("Ask, a nd it shall be given y ou; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.” --Matthew 7:7 –8)
LCF Version [The two AT engravings show the keys in the right hand]
Beginning first with the symbolism that remains the same in both versions of the engravings, we have the Hermit figure from the Tarot, who has two traditional possessions. The first is his lantern which is always burning, even in daylight. This symbolizes the development of an understanding which illuminates the true nature of things, even those which you might have thought were already clearly seen by the light of ordinary consciousness, but were not.
The second is a staff which is symbolically also represented as a snake. The snake is a sym bol of the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom as well as the kundalini force which, turned inward and upward, empowers the inner quest. It seems at first that the staff/snake is missing in this engraving, but it is actually present in the form of the Hebrew letter Teth. Hebrew letters have individual meanings and Teth means 'the serpent'.
Since Hebrew letters are read from right to left, if you look at the shape of Teth, you will see not only that it resembles a snake but that it reflects the truth that the first movement in the 'ascent to God' is a movement 'inward', a knowing of God at the heart of our own being ("The Kingdom of Heaven is within you"). Teth is an appropriate attribution for the stage of discipleship which th e Hermit symbolizes, a period of time in which attention and energy must be withdrawn from ordinary engagement with the outer world and turned inward in a quest for inner meaning and self-knowledge.
Teth is also the Hebrew letter which is a ssigned to the final horizontal path just below the Abyss which separates the lower seven sephiroth of the Tree from the transcendent realm of the Divine Creative forces of the Supernal Triad. The Tarot symbolism for the pa th of Teth will be the subject of the engraving for the Ninth Gate. The Hermit card is assigned to the path which connects the balance point of the realm of the Soul at Tiphareth/Beauty with the highest human level sephira on the Tree, Chesed/Mercy. Accordingly, what we see reflected in this symbolism is the final stage of the Quest which the knight in the engraving of the First Gate is just b eginning. ?????
The symbol of the dog is not in itself either 'good' or 'evil' and despite speculation which I have been s een on some threads at IMDb, there is no reason to assume that it stands for 'the devil'. In fact such a n interpretation would be completely foreign to the symbolic system of the Tarot from which the figure of the Hermit comes. The dog traditionally symbolizes a domesticated, helpful form of our animal instincts which can 'smell' and warn of danger, loyally defend us against would-be attackers, nip at our heels if we don't keep up the pace, and keep us in touch with our physical, feeling side when we are in danger of getting lost in the intellect. In addition to the higher knowledge and wisdom which the Hermit seeks, he must al so get back into touch with and integrate into his conscious psyche his own helpful animal instincts, which the little dog symbolizes.
The two keys in the Hermit's hand also appear in several of the Tarot's major trumps, one key being traditionally silver and the other gold. This symbolism parallels other polarities like Sun/Moon and masculine/feminine, and indicates that the Hermit must achieve a balanced synthesis of intellect and feeling, of both left and right-brain perception, and must remain open to receive inspiration from both superconscious and subconscious if he is to unlock the doors/gates which lead to true wisdom.
The horizontal path of Teth connects the sephira C hesed/Mercy on the right-hand Pillar of Mercy with the sephira of Geburah/Judgment (sometimes also called Pachad/Fear) on the left-hand Pillar of Severity. When the human figure is superimposed on the diagram of the T ree, the face is looking towards you, so that the sephira of Chesed/Mercy is identified with the left arm.
Although Judgment and Mercy constitute a polarity on the Tree which must be correctly balanced, Mercy is actually higher up on the Tree as it was the first incarnate energy to be created or 'emanated' by the Supernal Triad. In order to maintain an 'upward' orientation on the Tree, to keep heading in the direction of Spirit, once an effective working balance has been achieved b etween them, Mercy must always be given the edge over Judgment. This is another way of expressing the Christian truth that Christ came not to destroy the law but to *fulfill* it, to perfect the law it by placing it into the context of Divine M ercy/Love.
In Canto IX of Dante's 'Purgatorio', the angel who guards the gate from Hell to Purgatory uses these same gold and silver keys to unlock the gate for Dante to pass, saying "From Peter these I hold, of him instructed, that I err rather in opening than in keeping fast." The Hermit ho lding the keys in the left hand symbolizes this same necessary preference for Mercy. In a more general context, the right hand may also symbolize what is already known and conscious and the left that which remains unconscious. The Hermit's search takes him deep into the realm of his own unconscious and the collective unconscious of humanity. The fact that he is holding the k eys in his left hand also indicates that it is his true and deepest intent to seek genuine truth and wisdom, and not just to cultivate the outward appearance of being knowledgeable.
The First Gate established the basic orientation of the disciple toward either material or spiritual goals. The Second Gate is a kind of 'flash-forward' which shows what the dominant attitude of consciousness must be to succeed in the quest. Although in the context of the end of the quest, the concept of Judgment will have a more evolved function, from the perspective of ego ( which is the vantage point which our traveler now has), Torchia's version of the symbols, emphasizing Judgment, represents an egocentric and competitive attitude. The sephira Judgment is identified with the planet Mars, the implication being that in order for you to win, everyone else must lose.
This assumption naturally generates fear (that someone else will get what you want first), anger (at anyone who looks like they might be ahead of you or who stands in your way), and judgment (an automatic tendency to disparage and look down on others and to take upon yourself the power to condemn a nd execute as 'unworthy' any competitors or rivals). This represents the AT version of the keys held in the right hand (right arm, Geburah/Judgment). It's not very difficult to recognize that this is the path which Balkan took.
In the LCF version, holding the k eys in the left hand symbolizes an attitude aligned with the sephira Mercy which reflects the qualities of the planet Jupiter: a wise, open, generous, sharing spirit that recognizes that 'we're all in this together' and that, on a genuine spiritual path, the surest way to succeed y ourself is to do your best to help
everyone else to succeed along with you. Chesed/Mercy is the highest sephira in the realm of what I will call the Soul, and on the journey through the 'gates'. It is the first path which we will encounter which will lead us fro m the realm of the ego to the realm of the Soul is the subject of THE THIRD GATE.
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THE THIRD GATE
Gimel (Camel) = 3rd Hebrew Letter * Roman Numeral III * Gamma = 3rd Greek Letter
VERB. D.SUM C.S.T. ARCAN.
VERBUM DIMISSUM CUSTODIAT ARCANUM
The lost word keeps the secret.
In this engraving, a traveler who resembles the Tarot's Fool with his bundle hanging from the staff over his shoulder, is following a path which leads to a bridge connecting the two banks of a river. The bridge is heavily fortified with a guard tower on each bank. Above the bridge, resting on a little cloud, we see a cherub (who in the movie version resembles one of the Ceniza twins) holding a bow and arrow. The bow is drawn and the arrow aimed downward, apparently towards the near side of the b ridge. We see that there is a second arrow In a quiver on the cherub's back.
LCF Version [In the two AT versions, there is no second arrow in the quiver]
[Editor's Note: The engravings provided by An Eclectic Historian do not show this second arrow, but the movie does show a second arrow in i ts LCF version. I.e. both engravings at the website are A T versions.]
Beginning with the symbols which remain constant, we ha ve the Tarot's Fool carrying his traditional sack over his shoulder -- it's an interesting detail that Corso is virtually never seen without his satchel. He is traveling towards a heavily fortified bridge which suggests that passage from o ne side of the river to the other may not be possible. This raises the question: What determines whether the traveler is allowed across or not? Given the two towers, it
will be necessary for him to pass through a total of four doors to make the crossing. There are several clues here which tell us not only that we are in the symbolic territory of the Tree of Life, but also exactly which sephira/center and path we're dealing with. This is a complex subject, but I will try to identify only the essential elements. Please understand that there are variations in the paths to which the Tarot cards have been assigned on the Tree and I am presenting here the system that makes the best sense to me.
The cherub (or Kerub) is a class of angel assigned to the sephira Yesod, called the ' Foundation' and identified with the sexual/desire nature. Just as in the engraving of the Hermit we discovered that the left hand is associated with the sephira Chesed/Mercy on the right-hand Pillar of Mercy, the sephira of Yesod/Moon/Foundation on the Central Pillar of Equilibrium is associated with the genitals. Yesod, the realm of the astrological Moon, is associated with the twin sister of Sun god Apollo, the great Moon goddess Artemis/Diana, the wild huntress with her crescent Moon-shaped bow.
Yesod represents the unconscious/'astral'/dream world of desire (and fear). The a ngelic cherub with the bow is identical to the classical Cupid/Amor whose arrows wound the heart with Love. Once this arrow finds its mark, the 'Beloved' who is the perceived cause of this wounding becomes a mirror in which we see the qualities of our own Soul reflected. In pursuing the Beloved, we pursue the Soul, and in the course of this pursuit we are drawn 'upward' on the Tree to the sephira which is the central balance point of the Realm of the Soul, Tiphareth, called 'Beauty' and associated with Love a nd the Heart.
The symbols of the bow and arrow also refer to the "Path of the Arrow" -- the bow, visualized horizontally pointing upward at the level of Yesod, shoots its golden arrow of Will straight up the Middle Pillar of the Tree, from the astral desire world of Yesod to the central balance point of the realm of the Soul, the sephira Tiphareth, the Heart. This, of course, is the familiar 'Saint Valentine's Day' symbolism in its pre-Christianized form.
We have seen that a rrows have symbolically been identified with 'will', and that there are potentially two 'arrows' at this point of transition at the Veil of Paroketh. If the arrow of the personal will takes a 'downward' alignment on the tree -- i.e. pursuing the 'four tower' material quest of the First Gate and adopting the 'right -hand' fear/anger/judgment attitude of consciousness of the Second Gate -- the hardened ego will not permit the heart to be wounded by the arrow of the Eros cherub. Without this wound, the Power of Lov e to draw the traveler 'upward' on the Path of the Arrow towards communion with the Soul cannot be ignited, and the Veil of Paroketh cannot be pierced (that is, the symbolic bridge in the engraving cannot be crossed).
[Editor's Note: See the Qabalistic Background (the next web page in this essay) for a more detailed explanation of the Veil of Paroketh, and other Qabalistic aspects of the Tree of Life.]
Instead, the traveler would see reflected back a t him by the watery barrier of the Veil, an illusory world corresponding to his own desires and fears and his own ego's belief system. All of the negative energy which his personal will directed outward at others would then be reflected back and turned against him (downward arrow). This is why one interpretation of the engraving is a warning of 'danger descending from above'. The real danger comes from the violent projections of the ego which, reflected by the Veil, only *seem* to be coming from 'above'. We see in the movie that Balkan once again proceeds confidently according to his own flawed understanding, following the Torchia single-arrow version of the Third Gat e. In the process he leaves a trail of destruction behind him and ultimately destroys himself, all without ever leaving the illusory realm of the ego.
In the Latin phrase for this Ga te, which was translated as 'T he lost word keeps the secret', the word 'dimissum' (lost) also carried the meaning of 'abandoned' or 'left behind'. There is another similar case of a 'lost word' in masonic mythology in which, in terms of the symbolism of the Tree, the original meaning was 'lost'/'left behind' above the Abyss and a new one had to be substituted below it. This is because the nature of reality ab ove the Abyss is so entirely 'other' than the reality below it, that there is simply no way to 'translate' between the two without the radical change in the nature of 'being/Being' which crossing the Abyss effects. The same is true at this 'lower' barrier between ego and Soul. The power to pierce the Veil comes from 'above' an d is evoked by the Love of the Soul, which is a n experienced reality which no mere 'word' (ego concept) can ever connect with. It is just this realm of e go concepts and words, symbolized by the sephira Hod/Mercury which is the subject of THE FOURTH GATE. But before we proceed, the next section entitled Qabalistic Background describes the nature of the 'Veil of Paroketh' and provides an overview of how each 'realm' of the Tree represents a different level of evolving consciousness.
IV. QABALISTIC BACKGROUND
Author's Note: The following 'background' is a bit long, but we only have to go through it once and it helps to supply a context for all of the other Gates as well. Tho se who aren't interested in the more esoteric aspects o f the Qabalah can skip to The Second Three Gates.
Yesod, like every other sephira, contains a nd reflects the energies of four separate worlds (each constituting a complete Tree on its own level). These four worlds are:
Aziluth, the highest Divine Archetypal World (or Heaven) beyond time and space in which each sephira has its own God aspect and Divine Name. Yesod's Divine Name is 'Shaddai El Chiiam', the Lord Of Living Waters.
Briah, the Archangelic Creative World (or lo wer Heaven). Yesod's archangel is the Archangel Gabriel, who announced to Mary her divine conception by the Holy Spirit, and who represents a connection to God in the form of the 'River of Life'.
Yetzirah, the Angelic World of Formation ( the 'astral' level just prior to material manifestation). Yesod's rank of angels is the cherub, agent of desire and Love.
Assiah, the Material World of Man ifestation, the final 'incarnate' expression of all of the energies of the higher worlds, energies which have been described and can be understood through the language of astrology. Yesod is associated with the astrological Moon whose crescent shape resembles a bow. The Moon is symbolically linked with the mother, fertility, and the subconscious mind.
The Tree which we are dealing with a t the level of the quest represented in the engravings is that of the Material World of Assiah and on the Tree of Assiah there are levels that reflect aspects of the nature of all four worlds and the levels of consciousness which experience them (in descending order). [A diagram of the Tree can be found at http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Image:Tree_simple.gif.]
In descending order, the levels of theTree of Lif e are
The Supernal Triad -- Kether, Chokmah, Binah -- Realm of the Spirit (above the Abyss)
The Abyss & 'non-sephira' Daath -- Barrier / Interface between Transcendent Spirit and Incarnate Soul
The Ethical Triad -- Chesed, Geburah, Tiphareth -- Realm of the Higher Mental/Emotional, Soul
The Veil of Paroketh (the barrier to "remembering who you are") -- Barrier / Interface between Soul and ego
Lower Triad -- Netzach, Hod, Yesod -- Realm of the lower mental/emotional, ego -- Yesod - astral/dream self
Malkuth - physical/etheric bodies
As shown above, separating the Transcendent World of the Supernal Triad from the Ethical Triad (a part of creation) just below it, is a barrier called the Abyss. A similar, lesser known barrier al so exists which separates Tiphareth in the realm of Soul from Yesod in the realm of ego. It is called the Veil of Paroketh, a symbolic portal through which we must travel (going 'up' the Tree) to reach a conscious union with our Soul. The word Paroketh (PRKTh) refers to the Four Elements: Peh (Water), Resh (Air), Kaph (Fire), and Tau (Earth). It is the Veil of the Temple before the Holy of Holies (the Glory of Kether reflected down the Central Pillar to Tiphareth), a veil made up of the four classical elements of the human body.
One of the conditions for birth into earthly life is a forgetfulness of our earlier identity and experience and the Veil is a symbolic representation of this. 'Below' the v eil, the ego believes itself to be the individual's ultimate and sole identity, while dimly sensed attractions to certain life paths and experiences are defined as "character". Once the pull of the Soul overcomes the inertia of the ego, the obscuring nature of the Veil between Soul and ego begins to dissipate. This does not happen entirely at once but gradually as the higher faculties of the upper sephiroth of the Tree are activated and their energies are used in an unselfish and responsible way with the intent to help others. Only then does the Soul begin to "remember itself" and consciously acquire the powers it needs to tak e up its work.
From the limited perspective of the ego, its potential capaci ty for experiencing the wholeness, unity and love of its own Higher Self (Tiphareth/Sun) remains *unconscious* and is perceived only as it is reflected by the "watery" surface of Yesod, where it appears a s that love and connection which we perceive a s coming to us through relationships with others -- beginning with our mother and expanding from there to include f riendships and various kinds of "romantic" relationships. This experience of being able to feel our connection with the wholeness and love of our own Souls, only as these are reflected back to us in the "mirrors" of o ther people is the basis of the spiritual-evolutionary process in which our love for a "beloved other" draws us "upward" on the Tree and prepares us for the journey through the Veil to the experience of conscious union with our own Souls.
At the evolutionary point when this transition becomes possible, as the ego begins to perceive the experience of love and unity as a rising from a Source which is somehow "within itself", the unconscious, reflective/watery experience of separation from this Source gives way to the direct, conscious awareness of the Soul, and the Veil is transcended. In the traditional symbolism of the Tree, this t ransformational experience is symbolized as an encounter with a portal which, when approached from below, is perceived to resemble a reflective barrier of water, which is just what the traveler faces in the engraving for the Third Gate.
The physical body cannot cross over into the nonphysical desire world of Yesod. It is only experienced by the 'astral body' as it 'travels' at the astral level, for example in dreams. Practitioners of the Practical Qabalah train the 'astral body' of their imagination through the medium of symbols to 'travel' the Tree in a similar (but conscious) way through rituals called 'path-working'. In the same way, the astral body of Yesod cannot cross over into the Soul world of Tiphareth. In the path-working ritual to pass through the Veil of Paroketh, to ma ke the transition from Yesod to Tiphareth, there are four stages of purification to effect the transition between the astral realm and the realm of the Soul.
Paroketh is known as the 'Veil of Illusion' because the traveler approaching from Yesod will see reflected back at him all of his unresolved fear and desire, projected into forms that appear 'objectively' real. If the traveler has a strong belief system, this will be projected and appear to be real, and the traveler may believe that he has pas sed through the Veil when in fact he is still lost in an illusion made up of his own preconceptions. The genuine piercing of the Veil, as reflected in the symbolism of the ritual, involves invoking the Four Powers (in Latin/English): Velle/Will, Tacere/To Be Silent, Scire/To Know, and Audere/To Dare (have Courage). This piercing of the veil requires that these qualities have been developed enough to draw a Fifth Power down from Spirit: Ire/To Go, which is the power to become an instrument of the True Will of the Soul.
We saw the personal will to pursue the quest and the commitment to Silence in the First Gate, and the commitment to the acquisition of True Knowledge in the Second Gate. It is the degree of capacity for and commitment to the Power of Love, drawing us 'up' towards communion with our Soul, which determines whether Courage will be sufficient to overcome illusory fear. When the Love of the Soul overcomes the fear of the ego, "Perfect Love casts out fear", a nd the ego is transcended. It is in the resulting conscious communion with the Soul that knowledge of the True Will of the Soul is gained, a Higher Will always in perfect alignment with the Will of God.
And now we continue on to the Fourth Gate.
V. THE SECOND THREE GATES
THE FOURTH GATE
Dalet (Door) = 4th Hebrew Letter * Roman Numeral IV * Delta = 4th Greek Letter
FOR. N.N OMN. A.QVE
FORTUNA NON OMNIBUS AEQUE
Fate is not the same for all.
A Jester, wearing a two-'eared' cap 'n bells, stands at rest holding a serpent/staff in his right hand which balances him. He stands on a low rise of ground looking down on an irregular hexagonal enclosed maze whose shape is slightly elongated, suggesting the shape of a coff in. The entry door to the maze is closed and viewed from a bove, the maze is seen to be full of dead-ends. Three dice lie on the ground to the Jester's right, each with three readable sides with numbers 1, 2, and 3 showing. One die has its number 1 side up, one has 2 up, and one has 3 up. On the far back wall of the maze is an archway which opens to the outside, whose top has five crenelations.
LCF Version [in the two AT engravings, the back archway is walled up]
There are two figures in the Tarot who resemble the Jester: the Fool, whom we saw as the traveler on the path in the Third Gate engraving, and the Magician, also known as the Juggler or Magus. Both of these Tarot characters are aspects of the archetypal figure known in astrology as Mercury, and in alchemy as Hermes or Mercurius. In the symbolism of the Third Gate, we traveled the Central Pillar path f rom the sephira Yesod (realm of the ego) up to Tiphareth (realm of the Soul). In the Fourth Gate, we are dealing with Mercury/Hermes, associated with the sephira Hod on the left-hand Pillar of Severity, at exactly the height of the mid-point between Yesod and Tiphareth, but below the Veil of Paroketh. Hod/Mercury (ego realm) is associated with the lower mind a nd is the left pole of a horizontal polarity. The right end of the polarity, on the right-hand Pillar of Mercy (also at the height of the mid-point between Yesod and Tiphareth), is the sephira Netzach/Venus (ego realm), associated with ego values and lower feeling.
In the passage through the Third Gate, the personal love for a 'Beloved' was the catalyst that began the quest for the Soul which pierced the barrier between ego and Soul, an illustration of the contribution of the Venus realm of lower feeling to upward progress on the Tree. Now in the F ourth Gate, we come to the role of the realm of Mercury, the lower mind. The maze is an appropriate symbol here since a maze, seen from above, is a kind of map of what will be encountered inside it, and the function of the ordinary intellect or lower mind has a lot to do with 'mapping' or defining experience. And just as the configuration of the walls of the maze li mits the freedom of movement of a traveler within the maze, it is also true that life experience may be limited by the kind of configuration of the territory which the mind is ca pable of conceiving (or 'mapping'). It is this last truth which is the subject of the engravings of the Fourth G ate.
Though the terms 'maze' and 'labyrinth' have been used interchangeably, most of us today think of a labyrinth as having a single path which winds, without obstruction, to the center, at which point you simply retrace your steps to exit. Like the one in G race Cathedral in San Francisco, such labyrinths have become popular meditation tools. These designs, often circular, are inlaid into the floors of some medieval cathedrals inclu ding the labyrinth at Chartres outside of Paris, which was the model for the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral. This suggests that the labyrinth had a traditional spiritual application, perhaps as a symbolic pilgrimage or form of penance.
The 'maze', by contrast, more often appeared in secular contexts, was often square, with passages that intersected at right angles, and was more of a left-brain puzzle, with an intricate network of intersecting passageways and
many dead-ends. . Since it was a puzzle, the challenge posed by a maze was to 'solve' it in order to reach a goal which was something *other* than the place where you entered the maze. The classic method for finding y our way through a maze was to keep your right hand a lways in contact with the wall, which e nsured that you would pass through all of the passages in the maze, eventually being sure to find the 'goal'. If we look at the maze as a symbol of the passage through life, full of unforeseen twists, turns, and blind alleys, the 'one-hand' technique for solving the maze would parallel the gnostic belief that the individual must pass through all possible forms of experience before reaching the point where a return to earthly life would no longer be necessary.
Perhaps you can see the correspondences between the round labyrinth and the three towered castle representing a spiritual goal (value of pi = 3...), and the four towered castle representing a material ego goal and the angular maze as a lower mind puzzle. If the maze is a symbolic map of earthly life, then the question becomes 'what is the goal?' The answer to that question will depend upon what level of consciousness is asked, and in terms of the engravings of the Fourth Gate, there are two possibilities: the ego consciousness of lower mind/Mercury (AT version) and the intuitive consciousness of the Higher Mind of Hermes or the Magician (L CF version).
If it is the lower mind of Mercury which responds to the question, the answer will be based on the map of reality which the ego recognizes, in which all possible goals exist within the bounds of the mundane world (such goals as wealth, power, fame, celebrity, pleasure or security). Since the ego is incapable of imagining a goal that exists beyond its own mundane world, there would be no concept of wishing to pass beyond the ego realm of the maze itself and therefore no 'exit' from the maze on the ego's map of life.
The traveler who chose a 'downward' orientation on the Tree (towards material goals) a t the First Gate, an ego attitude of competitiveness, anger and fear at the Second Gate, and who was incapable of making the transition from ego to Soul at the Third Gate, on arriving at the Fourth Gate, would find himself confronted by Torchia's noexit version of the maze, a map of life which would also represent his 'fate' until such time as he might be able to evolve enough (through longer life experience) to achieve a higher perspective. The fact that the open archway is built into the structure of the maze and appears to be only temporarily bricked up suggests that this barrier is not an absolute one, but is experienced only f rom the perspective of the lower mind/ego consciousness which is what creates it.
This engraving reflects the number 6 in the sum of the numbers facing upward on the three dice and in the six sided shape of the maze. Six is considered a number of luck and is most famously associated with the six-pointed star, the Seal of Solomon which represents balance and completion. The Seal symbolizes the union of the upward and downward pointing triangles, the union of above and below and heaven and earth as well as the Soul and ego.
If you count all of the visible numbers on each of the dice, the result will be 6, 6, 6. We will understand why the illustrator associated the 'number of the Beast' with the Fourth Gate of the lower mind a s well as the Sixth Gate of the transition to Soul when we come to the analysis of the Ninth G ate. Dice were among the implements found on the table of the Tarot's Magician in early versions of the Tarot, representing not games of chance but divination of
the future or one's 'fortune'. At this Gate, fortune would favor the traveler who has the advantage of access to the intuitive Higher Mind functions of the Magician, the latter which come from the union of ego and Soul.
Let us return to the question "What is the goal of life?". If it is the consciousness of the Magician which responds, the answer would be to master the lessons of earthly life, to unite ego and Soul, develop the capacity for Spiritual discernment and become an effective instrument of unselfish Divine Love. Within such an expanded context, the events of earthly life are no longer experienced as being 'mundane' but are seen and understood in an entirely new light. Since the goal envisioned by the Magician requires transcending the world of the ego, the Magician's 'map' of earthly life would have to include the idea of 'passing beyond' the ego's territory and this is represented in the engraving by the open archway at the far side of the maze.
The five crenelations of the arch might represent the five-senses which are the basis of the ego consciousness of the lower mind which is transcended beyond this passage. The references to dea th in the coffin-like shape of the maze and its many dead-ends, might refer to the fact that, in the context of the mundane world and from the ego's perspective, there is a sense in which 'fate' *is* the same for all: death. And it might also refer to the fact that, on the Magician's first p assage from ego to Soul, his ego's experience is one of the 'death' of its autonomy, which then gradually becomes a permanent subordination of ego consciousness to the greater power, wisdom and guidance of the Soul.
Balkan's temperament will not allow him to subordinate his ego to anyone or any thing, even the guidance of his own Soul, and this will prevent him from genuinely piercing the Veil of Paroketh which separates the realm of ego from the realm of Soul. However, as a student of 'black magick', he would have a di storted *concept* of the existence of powers to be acquired from traveling on the Tree, and this distorted view might represent one version of an 'exit' from the maze for him, even if an illusory one.
Because Balkan's concept of t he nature of the higher powers of the Tree would be limited to how they could serve his own ego goals, his interactions with the sephiroth above the Veil would actually be a kind of unreal 'shadowboxing' with the desire and fear-generated illusions of his o wn imagination in which he wouldn't actually connect with the transformative reality of these powers at all. So in terms of the Fourth Gate engraving, Balkan would still be wandering around inside the ego maze but would be lab oring under the illusion that he had passed beyond it. In spite of his illusions, he would still be following the path of the AT version of the engraving.
The third and final path to be traveled to pass beyond the Veil of Paroketh begins at the sephira Netzach/Venus/lower emotion, and is the subject of THE FIFTH GA TE.
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THE FIFTH GATE
Heh (Window) = 5th Hebrew Letter * Roman Numeral V * Epsilon = 5th Greek letter
FR.ST.A
FRUSTRA
In vain
A bearded man, (a mature man, not a youth), is sitting in a room, counting out stacks of gold coins from a v ery large sack on the floor before him. The man is seemingly unaware of the hooded figure of a skeleton standing just behind his left shoulder and holding two symbols. In his right hand is an hourglass in which all of the sand has run out into the bottom chamber, and in his left hand he holds a pitchfork which is shaped like a trident. The trident is the traditional symbolic implement of the Western gods who rule the oceans, Poseidon/Neptune, and the powerful Indian god of destruction and creation, Shiva. This is the only engraving in which the figures are shown *inside* a structure where the door is clearly bolted (and can be unbolted) from the inside.
LCF version [in the two AT engrav ings, the sand is in the top of the hourglass]
[Editor's Note: Both of the versions in An E clectic Historian show the LCF version.]
The symbols here seem simple and straight-forward. Storing up material riches is ultimately futile since death is certain and "you can't tak e it with you". But if we stop at this level of interpretation, the story doesn't go anywhere, and symbolism in the Tarot is a lways about the stages of a journey. There are two references to the symbolism of the Tarot in this engraving, the most obvious being Death, Tarot Key #13, associated with the path on the Tree of Life which connects the sephira Netzach/Venus (ego realm) on the right-hand P illar of Mercy to the sephira Tiphareth/Sun (Soul realm) on the Central Pillar of Equilibrium.
We have already traveled the two other paths from ego to the Soul realm in the Third and Fourth G ates. This is the last remaining path which brings the traveler to confront t he watery Veil of Paroketh, the illusory barrier between ego and Soul. The Hebrew letter name of this path is Nun, which means ' fish', and the Tarot k ey Death is related to
the water sign of Scorpio which rules the alchemical processes of transformation, the dissolution and putrefaction of the old structure, freeing up its energies and elements to be re-embodied in a new form.
The second Tarot reference is to the Minor Arcana card, the Ten of P entacles, called 'Wealth'. Pentacles are the suit representing the material element of earth. Numbered one through ten (comparable to diamon ds in the modern playing card deck), they are called 'coins', 'shields', or 'disks' in some versions of the Tarot. Ten is the number of completion in the Tarot Minor Arcana in which the energy which came into existence with the Ace has expressed itself to its fullest possible extent. Once the force of the element is exhausted, the resulting stagnation begins the process of transformation, freeing the energy to ta ke on a new form.
Netzach/Venus is the realm of feeling, and we have already seen one aspect of its power in its collaboration with the sexual nature in the Third Gate wh ere personal love for a 'Beloved' is transmuted into Love of the Soul. This reflects Venus' role in relationship (Venus rules the astrological Seventh House and sign of Libra, symbo lic of marriage and serious partnership). But Venus, as the astrological ruler of the Second House and sign of Taurus, symbolic of material resources, also rules the desire for and the ability to attract material wealth and it is this aspect which is considered in the engravings for the Fifth Gate. There is certainly nothing wrong with the desire to have enough material possessions to sustain and support your life, but the situation reflected in this engraving is one in which the man has accumulated wealth far beyond his need to spend it.
Those who have attained great wealth eventually find that there is a point at which no amount of money is 'enough' because once you have more than you could ever possibly spend, you realize that it is money and material possessions *in themselves* which are simply 'not enough' to fill the void which is still felt inside. This is the point at which the sand finally runs out into the bottom chamber of the hourglass. The incarnating Soul has submerged itself in the values of t he ego and immersed itself in the world of materiality to the fullest possible extent, and the only way forward from this point is through the death of the ego's old materialistic value system and the birth of a new perspective which begins to recognize the value of spiritual attainments and to feel the magnetic 'pull' to make a conscious return to the realm of the Soul.
Why does the figure of Death hold a trident instead of the traditional scythe? The function of the Indian god Shiva, that of transformation, has already been covered in the description of the related function of Scorpio. The symbolic figure of the devil al so wields a trident-shaped 'pitchfork', though no one seems to have much insight into *why*, beyond its obvious use as a weapon with which to torment 'sinners'. But the symbolism of trident-wielding Neptune can shed some light on this. The Roman god Neptune commanded the water realm which is symbolically the realm of feeling. However, he was not associated with small bodies of water which might be compared to the feeling nature of the ego, but was the ruler of the vast, undivided expanse of the oceans symbolizing the Soul's Transcendent Higher Feeling realm in which the Soul recognizes no boundaries.
Astrological Neptune represents the ideal Spiritual energies of the Soul. Once you have made the return trip which unites ego with Soul, you are aware of the world as the Sou l perceives it and this is the only proper context in
which the transcendent energies of Neptune express themselves in an entirely positive way . 'Below' the Veil of Paroketh, before the ego becomes consciously aware o f the Soul, the ego believes itself to be the ultimate master and interprets the visions of Neptune as if they were intended for itself. This is a delusion which brings nothing but disaster.
The Soul knows itself to be co nnected to all other Souls and knowing this, sees all other human beings as spiritual equals. The ego, catching a glimpse of the ideal Neptunian vision, yet believing itself to be separate and apart from all other selves, appropriates the divine message as if it applied to itself alone a nd translates it as Balkan does:
"I alone have grasped the secret. I alone have fathomed the Master’s grand design. I alone am worthy to enjoy
the fruits of that discovery: absolute power to determine my own destiny... I am invulnerable! I am invincible! I can float on air, walk on water! Behold, I plunge my hands in fire - I feel no heat. It's miraculous! I feel nothing, nothing at all!"
The film showed us just how well this delusion worked out for him.
Here Balkan demonstrates what is known a s 'satanic pride' -- the Neptunian vision of the Soul subverted to serve the lower instincts and power drive of the lower mind and ego. The symbolic figure of the devil, representing unevolved, debased humanity, is usually red, the vibratory color of the lowest human energy, that of the animal instincts. It has cloven hooves, horns, and a tail, and clutches the trident of Neptune but, not being even fully human in its development, doesn't allow this transcendent energy to draw it 'up' the Tree in the direction of full humanity and union with Soul. Instead it deludes itself that Neptune's powers are its own, and a ttempts to use them to satisfy its animal app etites and instinctive drive for power. Only the repeated experience of disillusionment and destructive consequences can break the negative Neptunian spell and convince a 'devilish' human that he is *not* the personal equal of God.
To return to the Fifth Gate, on ly the individual himself can k now when the sands of satisfaction with materialism have completely run out. At that moment, he will stop seeing reflected back to him in the watery barrier of Paroketh the vision of his own continuing desire for material riches and possessions that only serve to feed the vanity of his ego. Once he is no longer dominated by the illusive ego desires which would draw him 'downward' on the Tree, he is free to be inspired by the true vision of Neptune. He can then direct the same powerful will that was once devoted to material goals towards the attainment of spiritual goals, until the Love of the Soul ultimately draws him 'upward' into a union of ego with Soul at the central balance point of the Tree at Tiphareth.
For those like Balkan who are still entranced by the illusion that material power and possessions can provide ultimate satisfaction, as in the AT version, the sand is still in the upper chamber of the hourglass and the death/transformation of the lower mind/ego which leads to ultimate union with the Soul will have to wait until
this negative Neptunian spell which deludes the ego is broken. Appropriately enough, in the Latin phrase assigned to the Fifth Gate, the word 'frustra' can also be translated as 'deceived'.
The nature of the major transformation which the traveler i s about to undergo from ego dominance to Soul dominance is the subject of THE SIXTH GATE.
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THE SIXTH GATE
Vav (Nail) = 6th Hebrew Letter * Roman Numeral VI * Sigma = 18th Greek Letter
(The Greek letter shown on the engraving is the variant form of lower case sigma used only at the end of a word. In addition to resembling a snake, this variant of sigma as the 18th Greek letter also has interesting numerological properties as the number 18 can be represented as 1+8 = 9; or as 6+6+6. We will con sider the possible implications of this in more detail at the Ninth Gate.)
DIT.SCO M.R.
DITESCO MORI
I am enriched by death.
A man is hanging upside-down from the battlement of a castle wall by a noose-like rope wrapped around his right foot. The 'hangman's knot' is tied at the top loop of the rope that encircles the crenelation thus placing the crenelation of the castle wall in the place where the usual hanged man's head would be. This is just one example of the general pattern of 'reversal' in this engraving. The man's left leg is bent at the knee at almost a right angle and crosses behind the right knee. The arms are held b ehind the back, apparently restrained there. The man's fac e is relaxed and serene and there is no sign of the effect of gravity on his hair or clothing. To his right is a closed entry
door to the castle and a bove it and to the left is a narrow arched window opening through which a mailed right arm is extended holding an upright, flaming sword.
LCF Version [in the two AT engravings, the man hangs by his left foot.]
Here we have the Tarot's Hanged Man, Key #12, hanging not from the usual Tau cross or tree, but from the wall of a castle on the outside. Since, in this series of engravings, the castle is symbolic of the final goal of the quest, the traveler here is shown for the first time to be entirely 'dependent' upon it, instead of separate from and traveling towards it, as he was in the past. This is a symbolic reflection of the great change which he experienced upon passing through the Veil of Paroketh, leaving the realm of the ego and entering into the realm of the Soul.
The flaming sword is another symbol related to the Tree of Life and is one name given to the path of the Tree's transcendent energy which flows on a downward course to sustain a ll of the lower seph iroth of the Tree. This is the path which the Transcendent Creative Energy originally took from the top of the Tree to the bottom, emanating each of the centers of the Tree as it went, in the original creative process. Because it zig-zags from pillar to pillar, it is also known as the 'path of the lightning bolt', a symbol which first appeared in the engraving of the Frontispiece showing a lightning-struck tree.
Up to now, the question of whether the traveler was maintaining an 'upward' or 'downward' orien tation on the Tree has been a fairly simple matter. At each of the earlier gates, the L CF version of the engraving illustrated a choice which placed the traveler on an 'upward' path. But in the Fifth Gate, just preceding this, the LCF traveler finally left the realm of ego domination and entered the realm of the Soul, and this is a transition which involves a profound reorientation of the will. The Hanged Man is now aligned with the path of the 'f laming sword' in which the energy comes *from above* and a s long as he maintains this orientation, the protective flaming sword which is spoken of in Genesis will not obstruct him on his journey up the Path of Return to the Garden.
He is no longer riding or walking up a path by his own will and energy, but has adopted a posture in which his accustomed ego-motivated activity is deliberately stilled. His feet aren't on the ground because he doesn't need to *go* anywhere in the old materialistic sense of reaching ego goals. His hands are behind his back because he doesn't have to *do* anything except learn to a ttune himself to his own Higher Will so that he can become a perfect instrument of the True Will of his Soul which is always in perfect alignment with the Will of God. Of course this doesn't mean that he stops all activity -- this is a symbolic representation of the inner attitude of receptivity to direction from Spirit which will, from now on, guide all of the traveler's actions.
The fact that the traveler is hanging by his right foot indicates that we are in the territory of the left-hand Pillar of Severity, whose base is the sephira Hod/Mercury ( right leg). Not coincidentally, the path which connects Hod with the next sephira 'up' the Pillar of Severity, Geburah/Mars, is (in the system I have been using) assigned to the Tarot
card The Hanged Man. Geburah/Judgment, whose symbol is the sword, represents purposeful Will, the faculty of spiritual/moral discernment and the fiery destruction of anything which is not in alignment with the Higher Will. Geburah's destructive function parallels that of the alchemical 'solve' in the process of ' solve et coagula', in which the ego's old way of perceiving and understanding has to be dissolved before the new, more highly evolved perspective of the Soul can take its place.
The related myth of Odin, who hung from the world tree for nine da ys in search of transcendent knowledge, reflects the fact that the transition from ego -dominance to Soul-dominance is a process which occurs o ver a period of time during which the ego's impulses to action are restrained until a working a ttunement to the impulses coming from Soul is achieved. T. S. Eliot describes the experience of this transition beautifully in these verses from East Coker:
"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
for hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith
But the faith and the love a nd the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light
and the stillness the dancing."
In terms of the structure of the Tree of Life, we are n ow approaching the highest horizontal polarity which normal, embodied human consciousness is able to reach: Geburah/Judgment on the left -hand Pillar of Severity and Chesed/Mercy on the right-hand Pillar of Mercy. On the upward path of return, the sephira of Chesed is the last stop before the great Abyss which separates the seven sephiroth of the lower created world from the Supernal Triad, the top three transcendent sephiroth of the Creative Godhead.
The nature of Chesed has been described as the boundless outpouring of the divine desire to give. In the bala nce which must be achieved between Chesed and Geburah, this 'boundless outpouring' must be shaped and measured to serve the highest moral purposes of the Soul which recognizes the equal necessity and compassionate nature of intelligent restraint and generosity, each to its proper degree and in its rightful place.
Since the movie is structured to follow the progress of Corso as Balkan's ag ent and witness to his misadventures, it is naturally a priority to keep Balkan in the game as long as possible, right up to the final gate, and since he reflects the typical mindset of the would-be 'black magician', the romanticized idea of the 'left-hand path' of the Pillar of Severity would naturally appeal to him. He would think of it as the route which would give him the clo sest access to his own distorted conception of the final goal of the quest: harnessing the Higher Will to serve the deluded purposes of the lower mind/ego.
When we last left Balkan, he was still ruthlessly pursuing his ego goals and counting out his gold pieces at Netzach/Venus, unable to make the Fifth G ate transition to the realm of the Soul. So in terms of the Sixth Gate engraving, Balkan would not have a chieved the inverted perspective of the Hanged Man and would instead be (symbolically) standing upright on his left foot with his bent right leg crossing it (as in the AT version). In this posture he resembles the Tarot's Emperor figure, a symbol of earthly, material, ego-based power who, in the Thoth deck, sits on a throne with his right leg crossed over his left.
The route on the Tree which Balkan has actually taken so far bypasses the realm of the Soul on the Pillar of Mercy and the Central Pillar above Y esod. It begins at the bottom sephira, Malkuth, a nd progresses through the astral realm of Yesod, touches the lower feeling realm of Netzach (the 'left foot'), then crosses over to the 'right leg', the sphere of the lower intellect of Hod a nd makes an attempt to proceed up the Pillar of Severity towards Geburah/Judgment. Since this 'left-hand path' by-passes the transition from ego to Soul, Balkan never goes through the process of union with the Soul which is symbolically represented by the Hanged Man and it is his unregenerate ego alone which attempts to rise to Geburah.
Balkan's goal as a 'black magician' is to use the energies of the Tree which are available to him to satisfy the materialistic desires of his ego. Whether he was somehow able to rise to the level of Geburah or only experienced the illusion of doing so as visions of his own desire were reflected back at him by the watery surface of the Veil of Paroketh, the end result is the same. Balka n clearly believed that he would be 'enriched by death' in the sense that the death of his competitors would ensure that the prize he was seeking would be his alone. But the violence which he directed out towards others inevitably returned to its source to w reak its destruction on him.
The genuine Hanged Man experiences the 'death' of the autonomy of his old, illusory ego identity and the ego's value system and way of seeing the world, and in compensation for this loss of the illusory personal self, he discovers the Soul, the true, eternal Self which is the heir to the entire Kingdom. This is 'The New Jerusalem' of the restored and unified Tree. The symbolic form which this reunification takes is the subject of THE SEVENTH GATE.
VI. THE FINAL THREE GATES
THE SEVENTH GATE
Zayin (Sword) = 7th Hebrew Letter * Roman Numeral VII * Zeta = 7th Greek Letter
DIS.S P.TI.R M.
DISCIPULUS POTIOR MAGISTRO
The disciple surpasses the master.
A bearded, mature, crowned King and a younger man dressed as a peasant or common person (we will call him the disciple), are playing chess on a board where all the squares are black. In the background, up two steps and a gainst the right-hand wall, a black dog and a white dog are leaping up, as if in play. The black dog is visually 'above' the white dog and their configuration suggests the yin/yang sy mbol. Above them is an arched window through which we see the Moon. The disciple is visually 'below' the dogs, the Moon, a nd the two steps. Also in the background, in the left-hand wall, is a closed door. The King is visually 'below' the door. The symbols of the Moon are also visually 'above' the figure of the King (at a higher level in the picture). In the corner where the two walls meet is one pillar. If a line were extended from the bottom of the pillar, it wo uld cut the chessboard in two, diagonally, into two triangles.
LCF version [the two AT engravings show all -white boards]
Interestingly, the movie showed the LCF version of this engraving a s having an all -white board. I have no idea whether this was an error or, if it was intentional, what might have prompted the director to make this change, but I believe that the original version from the b ook reflects the symbolism which the creator of the engravings intended, and that is the version I will use.
First of all, the scene shown in this engraving can be read as a description of a portion of the Tree of Life. In the foreground and at the visual low-point of the scene is the disciple, the common man who began his journey at the lowest sephira, Malkuth. On the right-hand wall are the symbols of Tarot Key #1 8, The Moon, with its two dogs (sometimes a dog and a wolf) symbolizing the realm of the animal instincts. The Tarot card called The Moon also depicts an invertebrate (lobster/crab) emerging from the water, representing the astrological sign of Cancer the latter which is ruled by the Moon and symbolizes the unconscious. The two dogs, one black and one white, in their yin/yang configuration, also reflect the fact that on the Tree of Life, the sephira Yesod/Moon is the balance point of the ego realm of duality. That there are two steps leading up from the man of Malkuth to the symbols of The Moon might refer to the next two sephira above Malkuth which (together with Yesod/Moon) make up the Lower Triad of the realm of the ego: Hod/Mercury/lower mind and Netzach/Venus/lower feeling.
The one pillar suggests the Central Pillar of Equilibrium, on which the next sephira 'up' from Yesod/Moon is Tiphareth/Sun, the central balance-point of the realm of the Soul, whose symbol is a King. The door which appears visually 'above' the King symbolizes the mysterious 'non-sephira' Daath/Knowledge, located directly above Tiphareth on the Central Pillar of the Tree and representing the Seventh Gate which we will describe below.
The next level of symbolism comes from Alchemy, specifically, the 'Conjunctio', the conjoining or 'sacred marriage' of the alchemical King/Sun/Solar Consciousness/Soul and the alchemical Queen/Moon/Lunar Consciousness/ego. This is an essential stage in the production of the ultimate goal of Alchemy: the alchemical 'Gold', the Unus Mundus (Unified World), or Philosopher's Stone. This unification/integration of Sun/Moon, King/Queen, Soul/ego is also a central goal of Qabalah, represented by the symbol of Solomon's Seal, the union of upward and downward-pointing triangles.
There is a tradition that when the Tree of Life was first created, the first and highest sephira, Kether/Crown, representing Transcendent Unity, emanated the second highest sephira, Chokmah/Father/Wisdom/Force, which emanated the third highest sephira, Binah/Mother/Understanding/Form. These three transcendent sephiroth represent the Creative Force of the Supernal Triad/Godhead. The union of Chokmah/Father/Force and Binah/Mother/Form then created a fourth sephira, Malkuth, the Daughter. As symbolized in the myth of the Garden of Eden, Malkuth ' fell' from its original state of transcendent Unity with the Divine into a state of created duality, and in the course of the 'Fall', the other six lower se phiroth of the Tree came into being.
Tradition holds that in the process of the 'Fall', the Garden of Eden's Tree of Knowledge became the left-hand Pillar of Severity/Form, and the original Tree of Life became the right-hand Pillar of Mercy/Force. The Central Pillar of Equilibrium represents the equivalent of the Buddha's 'middle way', the path of balance between the extremes of
the two outer pillars. This is the path of ascent which must be followed to restore the lost unity of the original Tree.
After the 'Fall', the transcendent sephiroth of the Supernal Triad were separated from the rest of the Tree by a barrier called the Abyss. In the center of the Abyss, in the place from which Malkuth fell, the diagram of the Tree shows a circle usually made of dotted lines, with no number, which represents the 'non-sephira' called Daath/Knowledge. Binah/Mother (the last Transcendent sephira above the Abyss), the n on-sephira Daath, and the Abyss are all associated with the color black. Daath is also called the 'Throne of Binah'. There is a tradition that it is the destiny of Malkuth, also called the Kingdom and the Bride, to one day 'sit upon the Throne of Binah', which would bridge the Abyss and restore both the Kingdom and the Tree itself to its original state of Unity.
It is said that when the energies of the lower seven sephiroth of the Tree have all been accessed, developed and integrated in the individual human Soul/ego to a p oint of ultimate balance, the energy of the highest Soul-level sephira, Chesed, reverses its vitalizing force from flowing 'down' the Tree to flowing back 'up' the Tree on the 'Path of Return'. The other levels of consciousness of the lower Tree experience this at first as a feeling of desolation and abandonment, until at last they begin to sense the pull of the turning tide a nd, filled with longing to pass upward again into the Infinite, they follow in Chesed's wake, turning their faces towards 'Home'. This is the moment of 'Ascension.'
The ultimate union of the ego a nd Soul is symbolized in the conjunctio of Tiphareth/Sun and Yesod/Moon to form the six-pointed star, Solomon's Seal. Imagine that the lowest four centers, Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, and Netzach rise up as if there were a fold on the diagram of the Tree just above the Lower Triad, at the place where the Veil of Paroketh, the separation between ego and Soul, used to be. Yesod/Moon then conjoins Tiphareth/Sun in the Sacred Marriage of King/Queen-Sun/Moon, as Yesod/Moon descends 'on top of' Tiphareth/Sun (as the black dog was on top of the white dog in the Seventh Gate engravings). Malkuth, the Bride, is then positioned to sit on the Throne of Binah, resuming her original state of Unity, bridging and annihilating the Abyss, and taking the place of the 'non-sephira' previously known as Daath. Ego is wed to Soul, and the disciple of the engraving, the common person of Malkuth, having 'leaped over' Tiphareth/the King to the superior former position of Daath on the Tree, "surpasses the master".
In the traditional interpretation of the symbol of the six-pointed Seal of Solomon, the upward pointing triangle is sometimes shown in white and represents Spirit while the downward pointing triangle is shown in black and represents the manifest world of matter. In my personal opinion, symbolism like this is not set in stone but is subject to interpretation depending upon the context. In the context of the Ascension of Malkuth, the downwardpointing triangle on the Tree is the 'Ethical Triad' (Soul realm) made up of Geburah/Chesed/Tiphareth and the upward-pointing triangle is the 'Lower Triad' (ego realm) made up of Hod/Netzach/Yesod which, at the moment of the union of Tiphareth and Yesod and the ascent of Malkuth, assumes an upward-pointing orientation as we have seen. The ego energies of the Lower Triad have symbolically reversed themselves to join in union with the Soul energies of the Ethical Triad.
Before this redemptive Conjunctio is possible, before Malkuth can bridge the Abyss, symbolically wedding 'Earth' (realm of ego/Soul) to 'Hea ven' (realm of Transcendent Spirit), the Soul/ego consciousness must be capable of crossing the Abyss. Once all of the lower centers have been developed and balanced, there is only one obstacle which can prevent this crossing and it is symbolized by the same Tree o f Knowledge that was the original symbolic cause of the 'Fall'. The intellectual power of the ego is based on duality, and cannot make the crossing back into the realm of Unity. In order to cross the Abyss, the Soul/ego must give up its insistence on intellectually understanding, on 'knowing' its experience in terms of duality. It must lay down the intellect, which essentially represents a voluntary temporary 'death' of the ego consci ousness. This is accomplished by a deceptively simple but profound gesture of assent by the Higher Will and the capacity of the ego to recognize its relative insignificance and to kneel in genuine humility and holy awe before the threshold of the Greater Mystery.
In Dante's 'Paradiso', Virgil (a master of medicine and mathematics as well as poetry), who had been Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory, had to be left behind at the gates of Paradise not just because he was a 'Pagan', but because of the quality of consciousness which he represented. It was Beatrice, symbol of the Divine Lo ve of the Soul who led Dante into the T ranscendent Realm. In just the same way, once the la st barrier of duality, the intellect, is left behind, it is the Divine Feeling nature of Chesed/Netzach which joins in ecstatic Union with its transcendent Source in a 'knowing'-by-participation in the One Ultimate Being of the Transcendent Godhead before which the Abyss, a barrier perceptible only to the duality-based consciousness of the ego, ceases to exist. What the Soul experiences as blissful union with the Love/Light of Heaven is to the intellect/ego a 'via negativa', a passage into the darkness of ' unknowing'.
The ego has been predisposed to value light and to despise darkness, to see white as sy mbolic of 'good' and black as symbolic of 'evil'. This dualistic perspective represents a last barrier which must be overcome because in crossing the Abyss, in terms of its essence, nothing of the created world is 'left behind'. This includes the ego's idea of 'evil/ the devil', a concept which is 'redeemed' at this point in the journey when it is perceived in its ultimate nondual symbolic form as 'Lucifer the Light-Bearer', the ever-faithful servant of God and 'honorable adversary' of man.
And here we have the last obstacle which a would-be 'black magician' like Balkan is incapable of overcoming. Willingly consenting to sacrifice his intellect, submitting even to the temporary 'death' of the fierce will and power drive of his ego, would represent the complete defeat of everything the black magician strives to a ttain. The ego sees only by the 'lesser light' of the intellect and the ego of the black magician, having forged no alliance with Soul, once deprived of the intellect's light, falls into darkness and is powerless.
The AT versions of the Seventh Gate engraving show a chessboard with all white squares which, in the context of the passage through the Abyss, represents the refusal/ inability of Balkan's dualistic ego-consciousness to pass into the darkness. The LCF version of the all black board represents the capacity of the Soul to value the darkness as the equal of the light. It also symbolizes the Soul's ability to c ontinue to 'play the game' in the territory of the Abyss
and the Transcendent Realm of Spirit, which the dualistic ego consciousness of lower mind experiences only as a descent into oblivion.
At this point, the 'black magician' Balkan, unable to cross the Abyss or to cross over to the Soul realm of the Central Pillar and Pillar of Mercy, is left to deal with the processes of the highest sephira which he believes is accessible by those who follow the 'left-hand path'. This is the highest sephira on the Pillar of Severity/Form, Geburah/Judgment, also called (as experienced from the perspective of the unregenerate ego), Pachad/Fear, which is the subject of THE E IGHTH GATE.
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THE EIGHTH GATE
Chet (Fence) = 8th Hebrew Letter * Roman Numeral VIII * Eta = 8th Greek Letter
VIC. I.T VIR.
VICTA JACET VIRTUS
Virtue lies defeated.
The original LCF engraving for this gate, as commissioned for 'The Club Dumas', (the book on which the movie 'The Ninth Gate' was based), shows a young woman in a flowing gown, kneeling with her hands clasped in prayer. A knight, with a halo encircling his head, stands behind her and to her left with his sword raised up over his right shoulder in the classic pose of the Archangel Michael, apparently about to behead her. In the background behind the knight is a Wheel of Fortune with three human figures apparently attached to the o uter surface of the wheel. One figure is headed up towards the top, one is kneeling on his left knee at the top of the wheel, and one is headed back down. Also in the back ground, behind the kneeling woman, is a castle with a closed door.
LCF version [According to the book, in the two AT versions of the engraving, there is no halo around the knight's head.]
This engraving was modified for purposes of the film to show a young man who looks like Corso, wearing a monk's robe and kneeling with his hands clasped in pray er. Meanwhile a knight who looks like Balkan (with no halo around his head) stands behind him and to his left. He holds a s tudded mace (a large spiked club) raised up over his right shoulder, apparently about to hit Corso in the head. The weapon was most likely changed from a sword to a club because of the scene in the movie in which Corso is sitting at a table in the library of the Kessler Foundation looking at this engraving when he is hit on the head and knocked unconscious from behind. Because the symbolism of the sword is a more exact fit with the symbolism o f the Tree of Life, I will use the original engraving from the book to describe the passage through the Eighth Gate.
The most immediately recognizable symbol, located in the background of the engraving, is the Wheel of Fortune, Tarot Key #10. Just as the symbol of the Wheel provides the visual background for the central figures of the 'executioner' and the 'victim', so an understanding of the meaning of the Wheel symbol p rovides the proper context in which the meaning of this particular execution is to be understood.
The Wheel of Fortune card is assigned to the path which c onnects the sephira Netzach/Venus/lower feeling at the bottom of the right-hand Pillar of Mercy in the realm of ego, with the sephira Chesed/Mercy/Higher Feeling at the top of this Pillar, in the realm of Soul. This path is the the right-hand Pillar equivalent of the left-hand Pillar path of the Hanged Man which was the subject of the Sixth Gate.
The traveler whose consciousness reflects the level of Netzach/lower feeling will find that his emotional response to the 'ups' and 'downs' of life is colored by his ego's assessment as to whether what is happening to him is 'just' or 'unjust'. If he believes that the experience is 'unjust', he will feel victimized by powers that a re apparently beyond his control and may come to believe that there is no moral order in the world or that the world is a ctually 'evil'. If he believes that his experience is 'just', he may draw the conclusion that by behaving in accordance with certain rules, he can control what happens to him in the future. For example, he may expect that good behavior will result in favorable experience ('favorable' as def ined by the ego, of course). Notice that the two perceptions are extreme opposites -- the belief is either that the individual has no control over what happens to him (and this is perceived as 'evil'), or that the individual has absolute control over what happens to him (and this is perceived as 'good'). From the ego's perspective, the most important thing is that it always be 'in control'. If it perceives that it is *not* 'in control', it feels that it is being 'victimized'.
As the traveler crosses over into the realm of Soul and rises on the path towards Chesed/Higher Feeling, he begins to become aware that he is b eing subtly guided by what seems to be the intelligent essence of a Higher Moral Organizing Principle (which some label 'Guardian Angel', ' Higher Self', or 'God'). It appears to the traveler that this Force somehow arranges to draw into his life those people and experiences which will most help him to correct hi s shortcomings and to develop and grow into the f ullness of his highest potential. As the traveler begins to notice
this pattern developing in his life, his perspective gradually s hifts as he realizes that the m ost difficult experiences may actually bring the most valuable results in terms of his growth as a person, his spiritual development, and the ultimate experience of joy which is the f ruit of this growth.
At this point, the question of whether an experience is 'ju st' or 'unjust' loses its power to provok e an emotional response. The traveler whose feeling nature reflects the Higher Feeling perspective of Chesed comes to trust in the ultimate goodness of the Higher Moral force which he understands to be guiding the events of his lif e and on that basis he accepts and values a s 'good' whatever experience he encounters, seeing it as an appropriate learning experience -- a gift -- simply because it has happened to him.
The response then becomes one of anticipating and being open to the new growth, as in: 'Okay, what is it that I don't understand now that this experience has come to teach me?' Emotional security, satisfaction and happiness are rooted in the relationship of absolute trust which exists with the 'Guardian Angel' Force, no matter what the outer circumstances of life might be.
[Editor's Note: This might be best expressed by Rumi:
This being human is a guest-house, every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an un expected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who v iolently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invited them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.]
The consciousness which passes beyond the Veil of Parok eth on all three paths, f rom Yesod/Moon/instincts (Third Gate), from Hod/Mercury/lower mind (Fourth Gate), and from Netzach/Venus/lower emotion (Fifth Gate), c omes to a point of union with the central balance point of the Soul, Tiphareth. Here the lower feeling experience of emotional 'ups' and 'downs' as experienced by the figures on the outer rim of the Wheel gives way to the H igher
Feeling state of serenity which comes with the vi ew from the center of the Wheel. This is the 'still point' which T. S. Eliot famously wrote of in his poem 'Burnt Norton':
"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor f leshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."
Directly opposite the sephira of Higher Feeling (Chesed/Mercy), is the sephira of Higher Moral Discernment, Geburah/Judgment, (first visited in the Sixth Gate), whose symbolic weapon is the sword. The sword, in the symbolism of the Tarot, represents the ability of the intellect to dissect, analyze, and discriminate in the realm of ideas. The sword in the context of the Higher Mind in the realm of Soul, also carries the meaning of moral discernment -- the ability to intuit what constitutes the highest good in a ny particular situation. Geburah is also a symbol of the Higher Will, the determination to live always in alignment with the Soul's best understanding of what represents the highest good.
Although in the realm of the ego the perception is that in order for one to 'win' others must 'lose', in the realm of the Soul, the highest good of eac h individual is understood to be in perfect alignment with the highest good of all others because the Higher Moral Organizing Principle is the One Source with which all Souls are aligned, even while each follows his own highly individualized life path. The principle is one which the American writer Flannery O'Connor used as the title of one of her short stories: "Everything That Rises Must Converge".
Although the ego may maintain its 'righteous' self-image by paying lip service to society's secular la ws and religionbased moral codes, its internal standard of 'right' is often 'whatever I can get away with' and what is really considered 'wrong' is 'getting caught'. From the ego's perspective, what is ' good' is always defined as whatever best satisfies personal ego needs (sensual pleasures, material security, 'winning') a nd If it is necessary to lie, cheat,
steal, trample on the rights of others or even kill others in order to achieve its goals, the unregenerate ego feels that these sorts of actions are simply what it takes to be a 'winner'. The belief is that 'sin' is the price which must be paid for material 'success', and it is only a short mental trip from that belief to the symbolism of 'selling one's soul to the devil' as a way to ensure 'success' in life.
From this debased ego perspective, 'virtue' is the equivalent of 'weakness', and those who are ' foolish' enough to insist on behaving virtuously are simply setting themselves up for inevitable defeat. This cynical viewpoint is reflected in the AT engravings in which the figure who represents non-violent morality (in the book version the demure woman and in the film v ersion the monk), is executed/defeated by the k night whose superior power is based simply on the fact that he is willing to use violent means in order to prevail ('might makes right'). This is the ego's interpretation of the phrase describing this engraving, "Virtue lies defeated".
In the realm of the Soul, the moral positions of the two figures are reversed because from the perspective of th e Soul and its capacity for Higher Moral discernment, there are times when the social and/o r religious standards which are enforced by conventional laws and moral codes are simply wrong. Unjust laws and immoral religious codes exist until more highly evolved moral discernment exposes their evil nature and demands reform. There was a time when a 'good Christian' saw no problem with owning and exploiting the lives and labor of slaves. Secular law upheld the 'rights' of slave owners and socially sanctioned religious institutions turned a blind eye to the obvious injustice. Ego justified this situation by defining slaves as 'property' and considering them to be 'sub human'. Parallel injustices exist today.
The Soul, recognizing all others as its equals, is unable to sanction this kind of legalized injustice or religious hypocrisy and must use its higher moral authority to oppose any conventional definition of 'virtue' which would accept such injustice. In the LCF version of the Eighth Gate engraving, the halo su rrounding the head of the swordwielding knight identifies him as a personification of the Higher Moral function of Geburah/Judgment which is not deceived or deterred by the outward pretense of 'virtue' but strikes unerringly at the underlying injustice. From this perspective, it is the Higher Moral discernment of the Soul before which the ego's self -serving, conventional definition of 'virtue' lies defeated. This is exactly the fate which awaits Balkan if he should somehow actually venture within range of Geburah's sword.
The traveler who originally began his journey at the very base of the Tree of Life in the purely material realm o f Malkuth at the First Gate, has since made his way up the Tree to the very top of the created realm and now stands before the edge of the Abyss. Just below him is the final horizontal pa th which connects the highest two created sephiroth, Geburah/Higher Mind and Chesed/Higher Feeling. This path is assigned to Tarot Key #8, which is called in traditional decks 'Strength' and which depicts a woman crowned with the transcendent sign of Infinity, gently, fearlessly and effortlessly guiding with her hands the opening or closing of the jaws of a lion.
But it is the symbolism for this card which is used in the Thoth Tarot deck (where it appears as Key #11), which best represents the passage across the Abyss for the very good reason that its creator designed it specifically with that
purpose in mind. Crowley renamed the card 'Lust' ( qualifying this by explaining that it refers to "the lust of the Spirit') and apparently took its symbolism from the Apocalypse of St. John, although the meaning of the symbols as popularly understood in the context of the Apocalypse is reinterpreted in a very interesting way to reflect the traditional wisdom about this stage of the 'path of return' on the Tree.
The card depicts a naked woman holding an upraised Grail cup in her right hand, triumphantly and ecstatically riding on the back of a seven-headed beast. And it is with this image that we come to the actual crossing of the Abyss, the removal of the final 'veil' (the word 'Apocalypse' comes from the Greek Apokalypsis or 'unveiling'), and the opening of THE NINTH GATE.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE NINTH GATE
Teth (Serpent) = 9th Hebrew Letter * Roman Numeral VIIII * Theta = 9th Greek Letter
N.NC SCO TEN.BR LVX
NUNC SCIO TENEBRIS LUX
Now I know that from darkness comes Light.
According to the book 'The Club Dumas' (on which the movie 'The Ninth Gate' was based), all three engravings of the Ninth Gate contained in the three books were the same. At the very end of the plot line in the book, Corso discovers that at some time in the past, a forgery occurred but there is no information or speculation presented in the book as to what the original symbolism might have been.
The book version shows in the foreground a naked woman riding on the back of a seven-headed horned b east. In her left hand she holds an open book. Her right hand rests on the shoulder of the beast and there is an upward facing crescent Moon in her lap. In the background on a hill is a castle engulfed in flames.
The engraving as modified for the movie version shows the same scene except that the face of the woman has been redrawn to resemble the character of 'the girl' in the movie. There is no crescent Moon in her lap, and her right arm is raised, her index finger pointing to the castle which has been redrawn to resemble the actual castle used in filming the movie. In the movie version of the genuine LCF engraving, which Corso finally recovers from the Ceniza Brothers' shop, the castle is not on fire, but instead is blazing with light. Whoever made the decision to contrast the AT version of destruction by fire with the LCF version of blazing light in my opinion should be congratulated because this symbolism fits very well with the traditional wisdom about the ultimate experience the traveler encounters as he finally crosses the Abyss a nd enters into the Transcendent Realm of Unity.
In the analysis of the Seventh Gate ('The disciple surpasses the master'), we learned that the 'non-sephira' called Daath/Knowledge, located at the center of the Abyss, was the original place of Malkuth/The Daughter before her 'Fall' from a state of Unity created the lower portion of the Tree. It is a Qabalistic tradition to consider the 'Fall' described in the Old Testament story of the Garden of Eden not as the Fall of man as a separate being from his Creator, but rather as the voluntary Fall of one aspect of the Divine from Unity into the realm of apparent separation and duality in search of knowledge through experience. And as each individual Soul completes its journey through the evolving states of consciousness represented by the lower seven sephiroth of the Tree of Life, as the Soul makes the crossing back into Unity, it not only reunites its individual indwelling transcendent spark of Divinity with its Source but also brings its share of the riches of the lower Tree -- the energies of The Daughter, ripe now with the fruit of life experience -- and adds this share o f treasure to the great harvest of Knowledge at Daath. [data collectors all -- saith Inanna!]
Crowley called the woman who rides the beast 'Babalon'. He received the vision of the symbol after he had conducted invocations using the Enochian system of magick, and the Enochian word BABALOND is translated as 'harlot'. Babalon is identified both with the returning Daughter of the lower Tree (who created the lower sephiroth in the process of her Fall and collects and returns their energies to Unity on her return) and also with the first Transcendent sephira at the place of return, Binah, the Mother of all Form. In both c ontexts, her upraised Grail Chalice (on the Tarot card) r epresents the receptacle of all possible varieties of earthly experience. As both Binah/the Mother and Malkuth/the Daughter, She is the ' womb' from which all of the forms of the lower Tree were born and it is She who welcomes all returning travelers back into Herself and into ultimate Union with their Source. She refuses no one, becoming One with all who cross into Unity, which is the basis of her sy mbolic role as 'Sacred Prostitute'
[Editor's Note: From Starhawk, we have:
I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters, I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.
For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe. From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.
Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold -- all acts of love and pleasure a re My rituals. Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.
And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: For if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained as the end of desire.]
In her aspect as The Daughter, Babalon returns to the realm of Unity riding the 'Beast' whose seven heads are the energies of the seven lower sephiroth. In Crowley's description, the heads a re those of an angel (Chesed), a saint (Geburah), a poet (Tiphareth), a sensuous woman (Netzach), a valiant man (Hod), a satyr (Yesod) and a LionSerpent (Malkuth). There have been many attempts to interpret the vision of the Apocalypse of St. John in terms of historical, current or future political events, and it may or may not be possible to do that. But what is certain is that it was written in the form of an encoded 'occult' document which symbolically describes a process of transformation whereby the 'fallen' consciousness of the human Soul may find its way back to 'the Garden'.
The Apocalypse is called A Revelation *to* J ohn. According to Elizabeth Van Buren, author of 'Sign of the Dove', the true name of the Dove in Greek is Ionas. John of the Apocalypse is also Ionnes, the Dove, the one who has been initiated into the Mysteries and has received the Holy Spirit. This is not a message originally intended for the general public, but a vision received by an initiate. It was recorded in the symbolic language of initiation, coded to disguise its Gnostic elements and is seeded with Qabalistic references which survive even in translation, including a structure of 22 chapters, a number related to the 22 paths of the Qabalistic Tree.
The clues as to the context in which this work is to be interpreted are t here for those "who have ears to hear", a phrase which is repeated many times in the text it self, and numerical codes related to the original Greek language in which it was written are one central key to its meaning. For purposes of understanding the nature of the transformation which occurs with the opening of the Ninth G ate, we will focus on the numerical codes which were used (for those familiar with their derivation) a s clues to the occult meaning o f the four beasts which the vision describes, including 'the Beast' whose number is 666.
VII. UNVEILING JOHN'S APOCALYPSE
It is now believed that St. John's Apocalypse was originally composed in Greek (not just translated into Greek from an earlier Aramaic source) which may explain why some have observed tha t in its structure and ideas it more closely resembles the writings of the later Greek philosophers than it does the Old Testament sources of the apocalyptic tradition of the Hebrews. The most convincing and fascinating exposition of the Revelation to St. John that I have found is based on James Morgan Pryse's 1910 book, "Apocalypse Unsealed," with updating provided by Michael Wassil. A review of the Pryse book at Amazon.com gives a good short synopsis. The following is adapted from Wassil's analysis.
The writer of the Apocalypse issues his most famous challenge in these words: "He who has wisdom (the wisdom of the Greek Higher Mind, the 'nous'), let him count the number of the Beast for it is the number of man." The 'nous', a familiar term in classical Greek philosophy, referred to the Higher Mind and was considered to be the highest achievement of man. Given this clue, one familiar with Greek philosophy would automatically think of the other three of four 'somatic divisions' of the human body.
Just as Qabalists equated parts of the Tree of Life with parts of the human body, Greek philosophy (with some variations) correlated four general areas of the body with four levels of human function. These are:
1) The head/brain, the center of the Higher Mind, 'the nous'. This is the equivalent of the Tree's Ethical Triad, the realm of the Soul.
2) The heart and above the diaphragm, center of the lower mind, called 'H e Phren'; equivalent to the upper two chakras of the Lower Triad, the realm of the ego.
3) The region of the abdomen, the center of the desire nature, called 'Epithumia'; the equivalent of Yesod in the Lower Triad, the ego's desire nature.
4) The procreative organs, the center of the animal instincts, called 'Akrasia'. In Greek thought this was equated with the physical body, the Tree's Malkuth.
The Apocalypse of St. John, not coincidentally, also refers to four 'beasts' which correlate directly with these four 'somatic divisions':
1) A Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes who is identified as 'Iesous'/Jesus which correlates with the 'Nous' or Higher Mind;
2) A monster resembling a Leopard with bear's feet, a lion's mouth, seven heads and ten horns; it is this monster in particular which is referred to a s 'the Beast' which correlates with 'He Phren' a nd the lower ego/mind;
3) A Red Dragon with seven heads and ten horns who is named 'the Devil and Satan' which correlates with the ego's desire nature; and
4) A Beast with two horns like a Lamb but speaking like a Dragon, identified as the 'False Prophet' which correlates with the instinctive physical self.
Just as with Hebrew letters, Greek letters have a numerical value and the value of the sum of the letters in a word is recognized as a part of its meaning. The numerical value of 'he Phren' is 666. The value of 'Iesous' is 888. 'Epithumia' is 555 and 'Akrasia' is 333. There are other correspondences in the series: 'Epistemon' (intuitively wise) which is 999, 'Stauros' (the cross of matter on which Divinity is crucified) which is 777, a nd 'Speirema' (the serpent coil or kundalini force) which is 444. These are all considered in detail at Michael Wassil's fascinating website 'The Dance of Ecstasy'. For our purposes here, we will consider only the esoteric meaning of the four 'beasts'.
We Have Met "The Beast" and He is Us
The four beasts of the Book of Revelation, incorporated within their numeric context are:
999 - Epistemon, intuitively wise, the initiated, int egrated Higher Self
888 - Iesous (Jesus), the Higher Mind/Ethical Triad, the upper three sephiroth in the realm of the Soul; symbolized by beast #1 the Lamb; and
777 - Stauros the cross of matter on which Divinity is crucified, symbolized by the cross on the Tree connecting the ego and Soul, whose center is Tipareth.
666 - He Phren, the lower mind, the upper two sephiroth in the Lower Triad, realm of the ego; symbolized by beast #2 called 'the Beast';
555 - Epithumia, the desire nature, Yesod, the lowest sephira in the ego realm, sy mbolized by beast #3 the Red Dragon;
444 - Speirema, the serpent coil or kundalini force which powers the journey up the Tree.
333 - Akrasia, the body, Malkuth, the lowest sephira on the Tree, symbolized by beast #4, the False Prophet.
I would like to point out here that on the engraving for the Sixth Gate, the designer used a form of the G reek letter Sigma which is not assigned a value in the Greek system of numbering but as the 18th letter of the G reek alphabet, is the numerological equivalent of 6+6+6. The subject of that Gate, symbolized by the Hanged Man, was the transition from the realm of the lower mind/ego (the functional equivalent of the Greek He Phren) to the realm of the Soul, whose balance point is a t Tiphareth/The Heart, the part of the body which the Greeks identified with 'He Phren', 'the Beast', and 666.
In the qabalistic system, the sephira Hod/lower mind is the functional equivalent of the G reek 'He Phren'/Beast and in the engraving for the F ourth Gate, whose subject was Hod/lower mind a s symbolized by the maze, we find the only other reference in the engravings to 6+6+6 as the sum of the visible numbers on the dice. That, in my personal opinion, is the symbolic equivalent of what a mathematician might call 'an elegant equation'. It is also, I suspect, the reason that the designer chose to give the Greek letter sequence such a featured place on the engravings themselves.
Just to be clear, we have just learned that the Book of Revelation identifies "the Beast of the Apocalypse" whose number is 666, the dread f igure which we now call "the Anti-Christ", as the collective consciousness of the human lower mind/ego. This Beast of our collective lower consciousness is already well on its way to destroying our world and will certainly continue to do so until we disarm it in the only way it *can* be disarmed -- one consciousness at a time. If we really love and fervently desire to see peace in the world, we must continually work to disarm our own individual, internal 'Beast'. In order to do this effectively , it is first necessary to be very clear about what 'the Beast' actually is.
'The Beast' is that aspect of our being which, confronted by the 'First Gate', sees *value* only in material things and like Balkan, tramples spiritual values such as honesty and justice underfoot in its ruthless pursuit of personal
wealth and power. 'The Beast', approaching the 'Second G ate' seeks to learn only what will give it an advantage over others and uses its knowledge of the powers of the animal instincts in order to stir up fear in others to turn them violently against each other, the better to control them and profit from the destruction. It hordes what knowledge it gains to empower itself at others' expense. 'The Beast' at the 'Third Gate' h ardens its heart against the experience of real love because it must always be "in control" and so is not willing to make itself vulnerable to another. It is only willing to enter into relationships in which it is able to exercise unequal power over the other and use the relationship to serve its own needs without having to consider the needs of the other.
'The Beast' is unable to conceive of the possibility of a greater satisfaction in life than the accumulation of money and power and being able to use these to take unfair adva ntage of those with less money a nd power (which it calls "winning"). Because of this it will never find the exit from the 'Fourth Gate's' dead -end ego-maze of the lower mind, nor will it be able to recognize the existence of spiritual treasure which is worth infinitely more than the sacks of gold coins which it will forever continue to count and recount at the 'Fifth Gate'. 'The Beast', confined to the material world below the Veil, sees all others as either 'enemies' or rivals to be destroyed or victims or 'inferiors' who must be weakened and subjugated so that their existence serves only to increase the wealth and power of 'The Beast'.
As we each express our individual 'Beast' consciousness in the world, it is the sum total of all of this lower ego/mind energy which *creates* and *empowers* 'Babylon the Great', the coll ective 'Beast consciousness'. Any political, religious or social institution which could possibly be identified by the label 'Babylon' as it is used in the Book of Revelations can only exist by gaining its power from the collective 'Beast' consciousness of all of us who continue to 'worship' the accumulation of wealth and power above truth, justice, and peace -- who continue to 'worship Babylon'.
The fact that every political, religious and social institution which reflects this 'Babylon' lower ego/mind consciousness in its values, is now self-destructing from its own excess of negativity is a reflection of the fact that the time is now ripe for the pr omise of the Age of Aquarius to begin to bloom, the a ge in which the spiritual energy of the era will empower the understanding and consciousness of individual "common people" like us. It is finally time for each one of us to begin to realize that blaming "the powers that be", this cabal of corporations or that religious group or the other political ideology for all that is evil in the world, is a self -defeating mindset.
None of those entities could exist in their present form in the absence of a collective human consciousness on the same moral/energetic wave-length to create and sustain them. Every religion and every political system which exists is capable of producing some v ersion of justice, equality and peace, provided that *the consciousness of those individuals who are exercising power within those systems is not dominated by 'the Beast'*. The 'flip -side' of this truth is that even the most ideal utopian vision will end in oppression and conflict if the power of the Beast is still controlling the consciousness of those trying to live out the vision.
It is *not possible* to defeat the Beast in an external way "out there" in the world because "Socialists" will see the powers of the Beast being exercised by "Fascists" (a nd vice versa), "Republicans" will see it embodied in the ideas and policies of "Democrats" (and vice versa), and many religions will see 'the Beast' at work only within *other* religions (or in those without religion) while believing themselves to be immune from such corruption (and vice versa). The end result, as history shows us, is a combination of self-righteousness, confusion, "shadow-boxing" and denial which only empowers 'the Beast' even more.
A Refresher Course on How to Defeat the Anti-Christ
The answer to this dilemma is deceptively simple and is the great moral challenge of our time. We are entering an era when we must realize that saving the world is "an inside job". Each one of us has to recognize and disarm our potential inner Beast while at the same time r ecognizing, honoring and empowering the potential angel within ourselves *and all others*, no matter how different from us those others may be. In a Creation as beautifully diverse as ours, there is room to accommodate *many* different visions, once the Beast is brought under control.
As the Great Soul, Mahatma Ghandi realized, "The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts, and it is *there* the battle must be fought." To undertake the journey up the Tree is to fight this battle on its proper and only effective ground. Only in this way can we destroy the seeds of hatred, violence and destruction which exist as potentials within each one of us *before* they can take root in our thoughts (symbolized as the "mark on the forehead" -- acc epting the validity of divisive, destructive ideas), or in our emotions, our speech and our actions (symbolized as the "mark on the hand" -- acting in divisive, destructive ways as a 'vehicle' of the collective "Beast" consciousness).
Not "accepting the mark" means not being manipulated by fear of economic hardship (in ability to "buy or sell") into supporting employers or other organizations which feed on and/or profit from destruction, exploitation and war. It means taking a stance of quiet, non-violent, non-cooperation with divisive an d destructive agendas, whether political or religious or, as the 'winning' formula of the Beast is presenting itself to us today: those divisive/destructive political agendas *clothed in* politically co-opted, divisive/destructive/distorted religious language.
Politicians who get elected when it takes millions of dollars to run an effective campaign, only remain successful if they serve the economic interests of the few who can afford to financially ensure their success and by doing so "buy their votes". These wealthy few profit from the sale of armaments, "war industries", and stealing the natural resources of other nations under the pretense of political conflicts *at the expense of the innocent common people of other legitimate nations*. If we hope to se e a more just world, we ca nnot continue to allow ourselves to be duped by cynical political strategies designed to divide us so that we vote a gainst our own best interests and continue to support those who profit from human misery. It is a *spiritual* challenge to become hate-proof, to rise
above any danger of being recruited into supporting the *politics of hate* which is a necessary precursor of the *politics of profit-through-war*.
This is the true function of a ll genuine spiritual teachings. They represent the powers of the Loving Heart and Higher Mind, the Ethical Triad, the ' Nous', 888 the Lamb Iesous/Jesus, the healing power of Divine Love which must be empowered to over-ride the instinctive drives, fears and blood-lust of the inner Beast. This must happen within the heart and mind of every individual person. None who are lovers of God can allow themselves to be persuaded by those "false prophets" who serve the Beast that war, murder and destruction can be done in God's name.
The qualities which Jesus Christ defined as "blessed" in his "Sermon on the Mount", the Beatitudes, can be read as an inventory of the only "weapons" which are capable of defeating the Beast, and every one of us can quietly and non-violently take them up:
1. "Poor in spirit" - humble before God and respecting others as equals
2. "Meek" - being an instrument of G od's will first (the highest good), not your own
3. "Mourning" - due to your own spi ritual shortcomings and those of the world
4. "Hungering and thirsting for justice" - not seeking unjust personal advantage
5. "Merciful" - forgiving others and so receiving f orgiveness from God
6. "Pure in heart" - having simple and sincere good intentions towards all
7. "Peace-maker" - standing for true justice which is the sole foundation of peace
8. "Persecuted" - living "in Christ", you are blessed no matter what anyone says about you or does to you ("blessed" in Matthew's original Greek was "makarios", more specifically translated as "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by outer circumstances")
If, by way of contrast, you consider those qualities which are the opposite of those which Jesus defined as"blessed", you have a list of the "weapons" of the Beast, the destructive powers of the spirit of the Anti-Christ. You can decide whether or not you want to empower this spirit by allowing your own energies to align with it:
1. Arrogantly pursuing god-like powers so that you can dominate "lesser" others
2. Using your powers to achieve y our personal will at others' expense
3. Valuing the corrupt state of y our Soul and the world because it empowers you
4. Desiring to subjugate and exploit others and avoid f acing justice for your crimes
5. Seeking vengeance on anyone who offends you or gets in the way of your profit
6. Wicked of heart: deviously arranging for all others to lose so that you can win
7. War-maker: always trying to provoke and profit from violence and destruction
8. Refusing to tolerate criticism, much less opposition; "you can do no wrong"
These are very simple, straight-forward standards by which every sincere person may recognize and support true "righteousness" (whether affiliated with any religious system or not) and recognize, reject, a nd deny support to "the spirit of the Anti-Christ", no matter how much it may pretend to be "patriotic" or "holy". It is certainly not necessary to be a Christian to understand and appreciate the power of the "blessed" qualities to heal our world, or the power of the "Anti-Christ" qualities to continue to destroy it.
The coded symbolism of the LCF gates describes the qualities of the person who will be allowed to pass through them and these qualities happen to closely parallel those described in the Beatitudes. Achieving the final goal behind the LCF Ninth Gate is symbolized in the film by walking into a blazing Light. In John 8:12, Jesus said: "I am
the Light of the world: he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of life." Other spiritual teachings also use the symbol of Li ght in this way because it r eflects a reality which can be experienced.
The coded symbolism of the AT gates actually describes a person who demonstrates all of the "Anti-Christ" qualities listed above. So Balkan, who also behaved in these ways, stands as a symbol for all of the misguided Souls, in high places and low, who are now in the process of passing through the AT/"Anti-Christ" gates. And how was the final goal behind the AT Ninth Gate symbolized? Destruction by fire. And how did Balkan end up? Right.
Here we should recall that the translation of the Latin motto for the Fourth Gate was "Fate is not the same for all". According to the symbolism of the engravings, as you pass through the LCF gates, you become a part of the collective Christ Consciousness, to use the Christian term. (Christ prayed, [John 17:21], "that they all may be One, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may also be in Us").
Still, it's important to remember that the symbolism of the "gates", like the symbolism of t he Qabalistic Tree of Life, is non-denominational. Anyone who has the qualities t o 'climb the Tree' or pass through the LCF gates is welcomed into the Light. The down-side of this is that if your unrepentant behavior takes y ou all the way through the AT Ninth Gate, no denominational label will save you from the destructive consequences of your own actions.
If, based on the quality of your own behavior, you are unfortunate enough to symbolically pass through the AT/"Anti-Christ" gates, you become a part of the collective raging-ego/Anti-Christ consciousness which is currently creating great wastelands of death, destruction and misery across our world, a consciousness which eventually becomes the final victim of its own destructive nature. Symbolically, as you pass through the AT Ninth Gate, you yourself become an Anti-Christ in the sense in which the Bible uses the word. We might even say that the spirit of the Anti-Christ is "born again" in you.
To disarm this spirit, to end the duplicity, greed, and exploitation which continually fuel war, we must each recognize and disarm our personal inner "Beast" so that we may become *harmless* to *all* of the fellow human beings and fellow creatures who share our world. We must be the first to learn to become instruments of peace and the 'leaders' will have no choice but to follow. If you have a consciousness, you have the power to begin making this change in the only place that it *can* be made, and now that you *know* that you have this power, you have no excuse for not taking it up. Now might be a good time -- if not now, when?
With the help of the symbolism in the engraving for the Ninth Gate, we have now discovered that the four 'beasts' of the Book of Revelations are comprised of the seven lower sephiroth of the Tree of Life, which a re the seven 'heads' of the composite 'beast' on which The Lady Babalon, the Daughter, rides back to the Realm of Transcendent Spirit to union with the great Mother of Form, thereby restoring the Unity of the Tree and redeeming Malkuth/The Kingdom from duality. "And the wolf (Beast) shall dwell with the Lamb (Iesous )...and they
shall not hurt nor destroy in a ll my holy mountain." The source of the earlier evil functioning of the 'beasts' 66 6, 555 and 333 was the fact that these unbalanced lower energies were allowed to operate independently. The drives of the desire nature (333/555) and the self-serving lower ego/mind (the Beast 666) will inevitably express themselves in an unbalanced and distorted way until they come under the guidance and the polarity -balancing influence of the redeeming Higher energies of the Soul (888).
Once our journey up the Tree brings us to a point of balance and integration of ego and Soul, the former evil is overcome. The crowning achievement of this reunion is symbolized in the Apocalypse as The New Jerusalem in which the returned traveler becomes conscious of the eternal an d infinite Spiritual beauty which shines through all of the finite and temporal forms of the Kingdom, confirming the declaration of the Gospel of Thomas: "The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the Earth and (most) men do not see it."
Getting Ourselves 'Back to the Garden'
Although the ego experiences the passage into Unity as dark ness/unknowing, and the Soul experiences its participation in Unity as Living Light/Love ( "Now I know that from darkness comes the Light"), this is not the end of the journey. There are four Qabalistic 'Worlds' which are represented in the 'Jacob's Ladder' form of the Tree of Life as extending vertically one above the next but overlapping so that the Daath of each lower world, once achieved, overlaps and becomes a passageway to the Yesod/Foundation of the next higher world. The Four Worlds, beginning with the highest, are:
1) Aziluth (The World of Emanation) - the eternal unchanging Divine world;
2) Briah (The World of Creation) - 'Heaven', the Throne of God a nd archangels;
3) Yezirah (The World of Formation) - the abode of the 'lower angels' and the Garden of Eden; and
4) Assiah (The World of Action) - the material universe in which we live.
In the process of Ascension, the consciousness of the man of Malkuth/The Kingdom enters into Unity at the Daath of the material universe/Assiah and emerges at the Yesod, the Foundation of the World of Formation/Yezirah,
where he sees The New Jerusalem as if it is coming down from Heaven. This is the fully sanctioned return to the idyllic state of the 'Garden of Eden' but the experience this time is perceived by the individual awareness of the fully formed Soul/ego which was developed during the sojourn through the 'fallen' world of Assiah.
What was unconscious has become conscious. The fallen Daughter has risen to the Throne of Binah and become the Bride of Wisdom, wedding the Earth of Assiah to the Heaven of Assiah and at this point all of the sephira of the Tree of Assiah are integrated into One. Symbolically, the sky recedes like a scroll rolling up, every mountain and island is removed from its place (Rev. 7:14), and there is a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away (Rev. 21: 1-2) and the holy city, The New Jerusalem, comes down out of heaven from God, so that God' s dwelling place could be with men ( Rev. 21:3). It must be understood that this is an *internal* revolution of consciousness which happens "in the twinkling of an eye", and results in a radically different *experience* of the world, with no external, physical upheaval required.
In the old world of Assiah, the only contact with the Heaven of Briah was at Assiah's very highest Transcendent sephira, Kether, whose Supernal Light the human Soul could only receive brief glimpses of. In the ne w World of Formation of Yezirah, The center of the realm of the Soul at Tiphareth overlaps/is identical to the Malkuth of Briah (the 'Kingdom' of 'Heaven') and the Daath of the new world, once attained, is the passageway to the Foundation sephira of the Heaven of Briah, abode of the archangels and the Throne of God. This symbolism is another way of saying that the Divine Light of God will shine through the forms of The New Jerusalem, just as the light blazes out of the castle in the genuine LCF engraving of the Ninth Gate.
And where is Balkan? You might remember that after the Fall, the Garden was guarded by cherubim and 'a flaming sword'. Until Balkan freely chooses to submit his ego to union with his Soul and completes the journey through the upper paths of the Tree of Assiah, the way back to the Garden is barred to him. If he should make an illicit attempt to gain access to the Divin e Light through the inadequate vehicle of his unredeemed ego, what the Soul experiences as Light will be experienced by the unredeemed ego (the ego unescorted by Soul) as Fire, as the AT engraving of the Ninth Gate and Balkan's fiery fate in the movie so graphically illustrate.
There is one last question to consider. Balkan clearly played the role of the failed magician to illustrate the fate of those who attempt to use the energies of the Tree to serve the lower desires of the ego. But what roles did Corso and 'the girl' play? Some final speculations follow, in Section VIII, The Polanski Code - Corso's Run.
VIII. THE POLANSKI CODE
CORSO'S RUN - The Journey in the Film
In addition to showing the audience the symbolic images representing the journey through the Nine Gates, director Roman Polanski also presented us with two 'real -life' variations on this journey: one a truncated AT version made by Boris Balkan (which we followed during the interpretation of the symbolism of the engravings), and the other the successful LCF journey which Corso was able to make with the help of 'the girl'. Following is a summary which correlates the characters and plot points of the film with the stages of Corso's journey as they are represented in the symbolism for each of the 'Nine Gates'.
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THE FIRST GATE - Malkuth/M aterialism: Andrew Telfer
I don't think it's a coincidence that this film begins with an *actual* hanged man whose suicide suggests that a materialistic lifestyle is, in the end, not enough in itself to sustain the will to live. This is the ultimate dilemma faced by the knight in the AT engraving of the First Gate who travels towards the castle with four towers, symbolic of the material treasure of the purely material realm of Malkuth. Dean Corso never met Andrew Telfer, but as 'the man who had everything', yet still couldn't find a reason to stay alive, who remained unsatisfied or even despaired despite his material success, Andrew Telfer provides a good example of the state of consciousness of the person who eventually feels compelled to set out on the quest for spiritual treasure. And Corso's mindset at the beginning of the film seems to have a lot in common with the kind of bleak outlook which apparently drove Andrew Telfer to kill himself.
The one thing that we know he did before committing suicide was to sell the copy of 'The Nine Gates' which he had originally bought for his wife. He knew how much she valued it, so we may assume that the Baroness Kessler was right when she said "That creature Liana married him for his money. If he ever finds out what his wife is up to at these gatherings (of the Order of the Silver Serpent), he'll probably kill himself." C orso may also have been right when he confronted Liana at the chateau: "He sold (the book) to get back at you. What happened? Did he catch you with that albino?" It seems that Liana must have managed to get Andrew to fall in love with her and then coldbloodedly proceeded to exploit his fortune and betray his trust. So apparently it was a f ailure of love which drove Andrew to kill himself.
And where do we find Dean C orso at the beginning of the movie? He lives in a fairly nondescript apartment, doesn't seem particularly concerned with appearances, apparently has no love interest in his life, and has problems with addiction, being a chain smoker and drinking not just for recreation but simply to be able to cope with his life. He admits to Bernie that he 'screwed' another book dealer by deliberately overestimating the value of a collection, a petty cruelty which brought no profit to himself except the satisfaction of knowing that it made life
more difficult for his competitor. Although he has a congenial relationship with Bernie, he doesn't budge an inch when Bernie makes a friendly case for a higher percentage on a book deal. Corso practically never smiles, and seems to spend most of his time conducting his business and drinking. When Balkan guesses that he do esn't have any friends, Corso responds "That makes two of us". Corso apparently has a fairly cynical view of life, doesn't appear to get much satisfaction out of anything and shows clear signs of being depressed. When Balkan asks "Are you a religious man, Mr. Corso -- I mean, do you believe in the supernatural?" Corso replies "I believe in my percentage."
Andrew Telfer owned the book 'The Nine Gates' f or years but never discovered the true nature of its contents. Corso is apparently ready enough to change that when the book crosses his path, it becomes the catalyst for a series of mysterious events which intrigue him enough to put him on the 'upward' path on the Tree. This i s the first essential step in a journey which will bring him to the symbolic spiritual posture of the Tarot's hanged man and, for the first time in his life, into a conscious partnership with his Guardian Angel/Higher Self/Soul. The First Gate engraving is the first one that we see in the film when Balkan is showing the book to Corso in his library and Corso is about to accept the assignment to track down the other two copies, and about to begin the journey that will ultimately take him to the very top of the Tree.
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THE SECOND GATE - Ch esed/Higher Feeling: Victor Fargas
The symbol of the engraving for the Second Gate is the Hermit, whose inner search takes him on the path from the balance point of the Soul a t Tiphareth to Chesed, the realm of Higher Feeling. Victor Fargas lives alone in his fine old family mansion which has seen better days and the almost empty main floor of his home suggests that he has survived for some years already by selling off its furnishings, artworks, and some of his collection of rare antique books. He is unassuming, kind to Corso, and philosophical about the decline of his fortune. Some have mentioned that the face of the Hermit figure in the engraving resembles Fargas, and since the Hermit's face was not modified from the original book version, this probably means that the role for the film was cast based on this resemblance.
Fargas is a cultured man, plays the violin, and cherishes his few remaining fine crystal glasses for their beauty and workmanship rather than their monetary value. His appreciation of fine music and art is a Higher Feeling function and he seems to value his occult books in the same way, as rare 'art objects', without investing himself intellectually in exploring their content. His copy of 'The Nine Gates' is a treasure of his collection for the quality of its workmanship, its notoriety and its great rarity. This is why he tells Corso that he won't sell it at any price, even though he must realize that if he did sell it, he could live the rest of his life on the proceeds.
The Baroness tells Corso that Fargas is an 'unbeliever', but this is an oversimplification because Fargas is not indifferent to the content of the book. W hen he asks Corso what he's looking for in comparing the two books and Corso replies "I'm not sure", Fargas says "Some books are dangerous -- not to be opened with impunity." It is as Corso is comparing the engravings in the two books that we first see the Second G ate/Higher Feeling engraving of the Hermit, and then the Jester and maze of the Fourth Gate/lower mind, and this combination seems to reflect very well the way that Fargas' consciousness looks at the book.
Balkan is a good example of one way in which the lower mind/ego relates to the subject of 'the occult' (which simply means 'hidden' teachings). He embraces his own idea of it in the delusional belief that it will provide him with a secret way to get what he desires and to gain power over others. Fargas is an example of the other typical lower mind/ego reaction. He fears and avoids the subject altogether because of the common misconception that all of its students are like Balkan. Desire and fear are the unavoidable stock-in-trade of the ego and lower mind until the union of the ego an d the Soul introduces into the equation the Love of the Soul which tames desire, casts out fear and greatly expands the capacity to understand.
Corso begins by taking Balkan's assignment for the money (desire), and when his apartment is ransacked, Liana attacks him, and Bernie is killed and left in the pose of the Hanged Man, Corso naturally reacts with fear and wants to quit. Balkan's offer of a lot more money puts him temporarily back on the job (desire again). Then, after a Ceniza twin indirectly warns him of 'danger descending from above' just before the collapsing scaffolding barely misses falling on his head, an d after he encounters 'the girl' again and understands that she will be accompanying him on his assignment, hist curiosity starts to get the better of him as he begins to realize that there may still be important dimensions of life which he hasn't yet discovered.
From then on he becomes motivated more and more by a powerful Higher Mind -based will to know the secrets of the book for their own sake. C orso's feeling state vacillates between desire and fear until he sees that he is being drawn into a partnership with 'the girl' who seems to be guiding and protecting him through his adventures. At that point he begins to trust in her guidance and to go willingly wherever it is that she's leading him, regardless of the circumstances, a change which reflects his t ransition to the value system of the Higher Feeling nature.
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THE THIRD GATE - Yesod/Sexuality: Liana St. Martin Telfer
The information given earlier on the symbolism of the Third Gate described the ideal situation in which the sexual desire nature of Yesod collaborates with the lower feeling nature of Netzach with the subconscious participation of the Soul at Tiphareth to produce the phenomenon of ' falling in love'. Seeing the qualities of one's Soul reflected in the 'Beloved' and pursuing a union with this 'Beloved' is the most common way in which the ego is led into an
ultimate union with the Soul. But we actually first see the Third Gate engraving in the shop of the Ceniza Brothers and as we will see below, this symbolically represents the perspective of the ego's lower mind. On this lowest ego level, the experience of Yesod may simply involve a physical interaction witho ut much personal feeling entering into it (let alone any Higher Feeling), either strictly for pleasure or as a way to achieve power, money, or some other ego goal.
This was the nature of Liana's original 'relationship' with her husband and was also the basis of Corso's coupling with Liana. She was using her sexuality as bait to get Corso to help her get her book back, while he was simply giving in to the opportunity for a casual sexual interlude. He had no intention of stealing the book for her and when she found she'd been tricked, she attacked him. Just as the Ceniza twin warned when we first saw the engraving for the Third Gate, one who ventures too far on this path for strictly ego-gratification purposes must expect the likelihood of 'danger descending from above'. In Corso's interaction with Liana, the aggressive nature of his willingness to cheat her out of the agreed 'payment' for her sexual favors was reflected back to him in the form of a liquor bottle descending on his head.
In just the way depicted by the LCF Third Gate engraving, Corso was eventually drawn by the girl into a partnership with his Soul. However, it wasn't until he came to the point of the Ninth Gate that he experienced the true, sacred, tantric aspect of the energies of Yesod -- which drew on both the lower and Higher Feeling energies which had been kindled between them -- to carry Corso across the Abyss and into temporary ego death and union with Spirit.
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THE FOURTH GATE - Hod/lower mind: The Ceniza Brothers
Although we don't actually see the engraving for the Fourth Gate of Hod/lower mind until Corso vi sits Fargas, the subject itself is raised just before that when Corso makes his trip to Toledo, Spain to the workshop of the Ceniza twins. Director Roman Polanski included an interesting detail in the film which is repeated in a slightly different form both times that Corso is walking down the alley towards the Ceniza Brothers' shop. On his first visit, we hear a woman's voice calling out from somewhere on the right side of the alley and then a young boy comes running from Corso's left and crosses in front of him, answering "Si, si, mama!" When Corso returns the second time, we only hear the young boy's voice calling "Si, si, mama!"
This might simply be something which has a personal meaning for Polanski. But the fact that it was repeated twice gives it some importance and it ca n also be seen as reinforcing a nother clue which he gave us about the symbolic identity of the Cenizas, the fact that they are twins. 'The Twins' is a name associated with the astrological sign Gemini which is ruled by Mercury and symbolizes the lower mind. Mercury, also k nown as Hermes, is sometimes called 'the puer', symbolically a boy or youth who doesn't grow up. Gemini traditionally rules the Third House of an
astrological chart, just to the left of the bottom center point of the chart, and just to the right of the center point is the Fourth House which is traditionally ruled by the sign Cancer, the sign of the Moon, which is associated w ith the Mother. The Ceniza Bros. shop was located to the left of the alley from where the boy ran and the twins' trade also involved books and the written word, both ruled in astrology by Gemini and Mercury and symbolized in Qabalah by Hod/Mercury/lower mind.
We have already covered Corso's transition from lower mind to Higher Mind b ut there is one more symbolic point here. The Ceniza Brothers' shop (as a symbol of Gemini/lower mind) was the source from which Liana originally acquired her copy of the book, the same copy which ended up in Boris Balkan's hands. As one of the twins observed when Corso told him of the book's n ew owner, "Each book has its own destiny." Apparently it was the destiny of the Ceniza Brothers' copy of the book to be owned by people who saw it and valued it only from the perspective of the lower mind and used it only to serve the desires of their egos and since Balkan had it with him in the castle, its final end, like his, was complete destruction by fire.
As we will see when we get to the Eighth Gate, the Baroness at least made an attempt to develop her Higher Mind functions though she ultimately failed and she never made t he transition from lower feeling to Higher Feeling. And judging by the position of the book where Corso left it on the Baroness' desk, we can assume that it too was entirely consumed by fire. Fargas saw his copy and valued it from the perspective of the Higher Feeling function of the Soul, and from what we saw of him, seemed to have developed at least that half of the functions of the realm of the Soul. Perhaps this is why his copy was only ha lf burnt. The Ceniza Brothers' shop will play one last symbolic role when Corso returns to find the genuine Ninth Gate engraving, representing the final stage in the transformation process which will be described in "Is that it?" We will consider then one possible reason why Polanski directed one of the twins to drop ashes all over the book when Corso first brought it back to them.
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THE FIFTH GATE - Netzach/lower f eeling: Bernie the Bookseller
We first see the engraving for the Fifth Gate when Corso brings the book to Bernie's and asks him to hide it for him. Corso's apartment had been ransacked while he was at the research library where he had just briefly seen the same mysterious girl who was at Balkan's lecture. Corso wasn't sure at that point who was after Balkan's book, but it was clear to him that somebody was. Bernie was impressed by seeing the infamous bo ok whose value he estimated at 'a million dollars' and as he leafed through it, we saw the Frontispiece, the Fifth Gate engraving of the man counting out his gold with Death lurking over his shoulder, and finally the Hanged Man of the Sixth Ga te.
We talked about the transition from lower feeling to Higher Feeling when we discussed the Second Gate above, but Corso's reaction to Bernie's death was the first time that his previously dominant ego -based, lower feeling
value system, centered on profit, was challenged by the shock of a personal loss. When Corso came out of the bookshop after finding Bernie hanging like the Hanged Man, he was clearly shaken, enough to call Balkan to tell him he was quitting. Only when Balkan told him to 'add another zero' to the dollar amount of his fee, was the financial incentive impressive enough to keep him on the job.
Corso's motivation shifts away from the financial when he partners with the girl, (and as we will see, this is correlated with the Sixth Gate symbolism of the Hanged Man). Money finally becomes completely irrelevant to him at the point when, not yet having received his check for his assignment, Corso pulls a gun on Balkan at the castle in an effort to take the engravings away from him. As Balkan understands, Corso is unable to use a gun in cold blood (having developed too strong a Higher Feeling function), and he is finally only able to shoot Balkan as an act of compassion when he sees that Balkan is burning to death.
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THE SIXTH GATE - Tiphareth/The Soul: 'The (Mysterious) Girl'
From the time that Corso first meets with Ba lkan, takes possession of the book, and accepts his a ssignment to track down the other two copies, the character id entified only as 'the girl' is always somewhere nearby. She's at Balkan's lecture, at the research library, and we see her feet outside the window at Bernie's when Corso stashes the book there. [She's the one squashing out a lighted cigarette which had just been dropped, while the litterer was most likely 'the albino'.] We don't see her in Toledo, but she apparently was there since Corso runs into her on the train from Toledo to Sintra. This is the point at which he finally understands that she will be accompanying him on his journeys [albeit for reasons he doesn't yet understand. Corso is assuming that she i s working for Balkan, but later at the St Martin Castle, when he accuses her of having been working for Balkan, she a nswers, "I thought you were the one working for him."]
On the plane from Sintra to Paris, Corso makes one of several attempts to get the girl to explain to him who she is and what role she is playing. When he asks her who was responsible for Fargas' murder, she says "He's dead - who cares?" He replies "I do, It could have been me." Girl: "Not with me to take care of you." Corso: "Oh, I see, you're my Guardian Angel then?" Girl: "If y ou say so." Corso: Someone's playing a game with me." Girl: "Of course. You're part of it, and you're getting to like it." Earlier, she told him that she was a student "in a way", and we see her reading a book on h ow to influence people. This is pretty much all that she tells Corso about herself, but in the context of the journey described by the engravings, her role is clear.
At first, when Corso is dealing with the ego functions of the lower mind (the research library and the Ceniza Bros.), lower feeling (Bernie) and sexuality (Liana), the girl either seems absent or Corso only catches glimpses o f her and when he tries to find her, she disappears . But from the time that he visits Fargas, representing the first Soul l evel
sephira of Chesed/Higher Feeling, the girl starts to take charge of Corso's journey and they begin to act as a team. At first the girl plays a protective role and does the bulk of the fighting but gradually, although it's clear that she is always potentially stronger than Corso is, he grows into being more of an equal partner. By the time they arrive at Liana's chateau, Corso is the one taking the initiative. When the albino is escorting them at gunpoint down to where he is instructed to kill them, it is Corso who throws him down the stairs a nd knocks him unconscious. Corso does this all on his own, a milestone which the girl acknowledges with obvious approval and satisfaction. In the context of self-defense, this is a legitimate exercise of the power of Geburah.
Earlier, when Corso first expressed his admiration and gratitude to the girl for fighting for him a gainst the albino down by the river, we saw the bond of Higher Feeling growing between them. It was a t this point that the girl looked lovingly at Corso and drew with her fingers three vertical lines on his for ehead with her own blood, the central line extending down his nose. There is a long spiritual tradition of marking the forehead as a sign of spiritual protection and initiation in both Eastern and W estern traditions and three vertical marks on the forehead is the traditional Hindu sign of initiation of those who worship God in the form of Vishnu, the Preserver, whose qualities (like those of Chesed) are kindness and mercy. Such marks are also worn as a reminder of the consecration of the body as the temple of the Spirit, and in Corso's cas e might represent a sign of his initiation into Higher Feeling and the realm of the Soul. [Corso's blood stained forehead is not immediately cleaned.]
In the context of the Tree of Life, the three symbolic marks might also refer to the three Transcendent Creative energies of the Supernal Triad (which, when the body is superimposed on the Tree, are locate d in the head). The elongated center mark might symbolize the Central Pillar which extends downward from the highest central sephira of the Godhead, Kether/Crown, representing the route of the path of return which Corso is traveling. The girl begins as a symbolic figure who models for him the qualities of the Soul which he will gradually grow into, but once Corso has achieved the union of his ego and Soul, the inter-dimensional figure of the girl remains a symbol of the non-dual Spirit. It is his union with her in this capacity which will c arry him across the Abyss and into union with the Spirit with the opening of the Ninth G ate.
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THE SEVENTH GATE - Daath/Ascension: Corso & The Girl, Inc.
We first see the Seventh Gate engraving (the disciple surpasses the master) after Cor so has made an end-run around the fierce, hyper-vigilant secretary at the Kessler Institute and is showing the Baroness the variations in the engravings. "Variations?" she says, "If that were true, it would be a revelation..." which, given the symbolism of the Ninth Gate engraving, is an interesting choice of word. The integration of ego and Soul which is depicted in the engraving actually represents a consolidation of all of the functions of the s even lower sephiroth of the Tree. Since we are now describing Corso's journey, all of these energies would be a part of his consciousness and this integration would prepare him for a entirely new way of experiencing life.
Corso demonstrated his determination to go beyond the world as he had been capable of understanding it in the past when, after the interrupted ceremony at the chateau, he *had* to chase after Balka n as the latter left with the engravings on his way to the castle. The fact that, as the girl pointed out, he was now 'out of a job' meant nothing to him compared with his desire to *know*. Corso has a final moment of doubt about the girl because she stopped him when he tried to prevent Balkan from strangling Liana. It's true, as the girl s aid, that since Balkan h ad now killed someone in front of witnesses, Corso would be 'off the hook' for Balkan's earlier murders of Fargas and the Baroness, but there is also a symbolic aspect to this death. In terms of Corso's experience with her, Liana represented the negative exploitation of lower feeling and sexuality to serve the purposes of ego. Now that Corso has achieved the union of ego and Soul and become conscious of his Higher Feeling function, this is a kind of experience which will no longer be possible for him.
It is an interesting detail that Corso gets into Liana's car to chase Balkan but the girl makes no move to go with him and only hands him his coa t and satchel. Still dressed in his black ceremonial robe disguise, Corso peels out to chase Balkan but when Balkan fords a large stream, Corso's borrowed car stalls out in the middle of it. Symbolically, the 'vehicle' of a so-called 'devil-worshipper' is not adequate for the journey which Corso i s destined to take. He abandons the car, takes off his robe, discovers Liana's gun in the pocket of his coat, and returns to his hotel to regroup.
Corso gets his shoes cleaned for a fresh start, gets directions and makes hi s own way to the ca stle, first hitching a ride on a truck which is hauling large logs, a symbolic equivalent of Corso's o wn present condition: a resource which has grown to maturity over many years until it was ready to be harvested, stripped of its non -usable parts, and is now on its way to undergo a metamorphosis of form to become part of an entirely new structure. Corso then continues in the back of a small truck carrying sheep and hay. This is perhaps a reference to the Nativity, since the goal which Corso is approaching is a significant new birth into an experience where, like a baby, he will be starting over 'at the bottom' again. The symbol of Tiphareth/Soul in his present world is t hat of a King, while in the new world which he will enter, it is the King as Divine Child. Corso covers the last distance on foot, arriving at the castle just as night is falling, a reflection of the black color of Daath and the symbolic state of darkness in which he will finally cross the Abyss at the Ninth Gate.
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THE EIGHTH GATE - Geburah/Higher Mind/Will: Baroness Kessler & Secretary
We get a brief fir st glimpse of the engraving for the Eighth Gate ("Virtue lies defeated") in Balkan's private library when Corso first accepts Balkan's assignment. We next see it when he visits the Baroness at the Kessler Institute, and he is in fa ct looking at this engraving when he i s knocked unconscious from behind. It is my understanding that the decision to modify the engravings to resemble film characters wasn't made until after f ilming for the movie
had already started, so it's possible that the casting director for the movie may have had this in mind, but to my eye, Simone, the Baroness' formidable secretary-from-hell, bears an uncanny resemblance to the strapping swordsman in the original book version of the engraving.
This is only fitting since she is a very effective example of one of the major functions of Geburah/Higher Mind: a vigilant, unbending, militant determination not to allow anyone undeserving to proceed any higher on the path of return. In the context of the individual's Geburah funct ion, this would be the faculty of mental and moral discernment, not accepting, condoning or acting on unworthy ideas.
I'll just mention one other symbolic touch which Polanski a dded concerning Simone. When Corso arrives for his original appointment, we see that the secretary has an orange, and as he's leaving, we see that she has peeled the orange and makes a tentative effort to hide it as he walks past. On Corso's second visit, as he's running down the stairs away from the fire, he literally runs into Simone who is returning from lunch and knocks a bag of oranges from her hands, sending them bouncing down the stairs.
Following the rule that when some apparently random detail is repeated twice it may not be random, I looked for some symbolic function of oranges and found it in the context of the Godfather movies where it serves as a warning of imminent death. If you enter the words "Godfather," "oranges," and "symbols" in a search engine, you'll find examples and discussion about this death symbolism. I thought this was particularly ironic since it is a widely held opinion that the film many believe to be Polanski's masterwork, 'Chinatown', would have won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1974 if it hadn't been up against Godfather II that year. Perhaps this was Polanski's way of having a little fun with one of Coppola's recognized 'serious' symbolic devices. In the 'Ninth Gate', Simone doesn't die but the Baroness does.
There are indications that the Baroness had attempted to develop her Higher Mind functions. She apparently studied the book over a period of years, calling her knowledge of it "profound". She wrote a biography of its author, and her copy of the book was stuffed full of notes. The latter might be an indication also of her apparent lack of a developed Higher Feeling function since she seemed to have no appreciation of the artistry which the book represented in its workmanship and didn't respect it as an art object. But though you might expect a student of an 'occult' subject like 'the devil' to have at least a passing familiarity with the symbolism of the Tarot and the Tree of Life, the Baroness apparently n ever understood the true meaning of the engravings. Perhaps her preconceived ideas and romantic notions about having 'seen the devil' when she was fifteen years old prevented her from coming to any deeper level of understanding.
She tells Corso that her younger years were devoted to something very similar to the kind of theatrical rituals that we saw at Liana's chateau. It's not clear whether the Baroness became disenchanted with this before or after she sustained her crippling injuries, or if she just decided that her 'orgy days were over'. She ended up devoting her life to using what knowledge she had to making large sums of money writing books about 'evil' and 'the devil' -- and thereby subverting her Higher Mind function to serve her lower feeling material desires.
The Baroness would be a mirror image of Fargas' equally one-sided development except that she seemed to experience a failure of the will to move forward in the development of Higher Mind. She gave up and settled for exploiting her partial knowledge for money, and I see this failure of will reflected in her crippled body and particularly in her partially amputated right arm, the arm which should be wielding Geburah's sword. This is poignantly obvious in the scene in which she sharply orders Corso out of her office, pointing her poor stump of an arm towards the door. Simone seems to be the human equivalent of a prosthesis, the Baroness' 'good right arm'.
At the beginning of the film, C orso was apparently so disinterested in the subject of metaphysics that Balkan's lecture actually put him to sleep. But maybe it was just Balkan's pa rticularly shallow and skewed viewpoint that didn't appeal. By the time Corso arrives at Liana's chateau, he is completely motivated by his desire to know the secrets of the book and is willing to do whatever it takes (within the limitations of what his Chesed Higher Feeling function will permit) to achieve that. His one Geburah failure, a lack of discernment, is what makes him susceptible to being knocked unconscious from behind in the Baroness' library.
Corso had enough clues by then to have figured out that Balkan was closely following him and was probably responsible for the murder of Fargas. He knew that the LCF engravings had been removed from the Fargas copy of the book before it was burned, and that Balklan was an obvious suspect. Balkan knew that Corso was at the Institute during the lunch hour when the secretary was absent [he had in fact told Corso to go there at that time], and Corso's intuition should have told him that Balkan wouldn't settle for a simple description of the variations in the Kessler copy. Even if, at this point, Corso also suspected the 'albino', Corso still should have thought to take more precautions than he did.
In the description of the engraving of the Hermit, we noted that in addition to the inner knowledge that the Hermit seeks which leads him to the Higher Feeling function of Chesed, he a lso needs to integrate into his consciousness his natural animal instincts which warn of danger, as symbolized in that engraving by the little dog. We see that Corso has not yet accomplished this when, despite the fact that his life has been threatened more than once, he sits with his back to the door in a strange place a nd apparently doesn't register the approach of danger which should have been signaled to him by his aura/energy body in the form of a prickling feeling at the back of the neck.
After he regains consciousness and escapes the fire -- as he is across the street recovering at the fountain -- we see a larger, more imposing version of the Hermit's little dog standing nearby, apparently giving Corso a hard look and a message which I will translate here from the original canine body language: 'Tsk-tsk. If you want to fare better in the future, you'll have to remember to pay more attention to me."
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THE NINTH GATE - Crossing The Abyss: Corso & The Girl, a joint venture
Corso's first stop, after he accepts the assignment from Balkan to examine the other two copies of the book, is a research library where we see him looking f irst at the Frontispiece engraving of Balkan's book and hear him translating to himself 'Sic Luceat Lux, Thus let the Light shine'. Next he removes a large volume from the shelf, sees 'the girl' facing him as she replaces a book directly on the other side of the stack, a nd when he opens his volume, we see the engraving for the Ninth Gate in which the woman riding the Beast resembles the girl. And although it is the AT version of the engraving that we see then, with the castle in fla mes, in the genuine LCF engraving which Corso recovers at the very end of the film, it is the Light which the Frontispiece is referring to which we see shining from the castle.
The girl appears as a more-than-human but personalized symbol of the spiritual evolutionary force which accompanies Corso from the very beginning of his journey to discover the meaning of the book to the point at which she takes him 'across the Abyss' in front of the flaming castle. She then directs him to the location of the genuine Ninth Gate engraving, and it is Corso alone who makes the journey 'back from enlightenment", which is the subject of "Is that it?" below.
In addition to the progression from fire (AT) to Light (LCF), there is another very interesting and parallel symbolic detail in the Crescent Moon which, as the book puts it, 'hides the wo man's sex' in the AT engraving, but which disappears in the genuine LCF version. I understand the Moon in this context as the balance point (Yesod/Moon/Sexuality) of the Lower Triad of the Tree, representing the perspective of the ego's sexual, lower feeling and lower mind functions. As we saw in the discussion of the Third G ate, without the participation of the Higher Feeling function of the Soul, the sexual energies serve only the desires and purposes of the ego, a nd their energetic 'frequency' is confined to a level at which they symbolically create heat but no light.
Once the union/Conjunctio of ego/Moon/Yesod and Soul/Sun/Tiphareth has been achieved, the engagement of the energies of the Higher Mind and H igher Feeling nature raise the frequency of the sexual energies to the point of being able to carry the traveler who is prepared to undergo this experience, across the Abyss and into ultimate Union with the Transcendent energy of Spirit under the guise of its last and finest veil of form: Supernal Light. This ascent of the sacred kundalini energies which the ego calls 'sexual' but which express themselves at all levels of human experience (as conceptualized in the inter-dimensional energy system of the chakras), is the goal of the Eastern practice of Tantra. But as symbolized by the kundalini serpent on t he Tree in the Frontispiece, this energy also rises naturally as the journey up the Tree progresses whether special practices are followed or not. In the context of this higher experience of the sexual energies, the ego's ty pically either repressed or prurient attitude towards the subject of sexuality is no longer present and so the Moon, its symbol, no longer appears in its previous strategic location in the genuine LCF engraving.
As Corso leaves the castle after the fire which Balkan set has spread, we see seven separate flames shooting out of the castle windows behind him, perhaps symbolic of the full function of the seven lo wer sephiroth of Corso's inner
Tree which he has now attained. As Corso and the girl engage all of these energies in raising the ku ndalini force through the seven inter-dimensional chakras, we see the emergence of three new f lames in the castle behind them, symbolic, I believe, of t he union of Soul and Spirit, the union of the seven lower sephiroth with the three Transcendent energies of the Supernal Triad of the Tree. This represents the re-uniting of all of the energies of the Tree with the 'crossing' and annihilation of the Abyss.
In interpreting the expressions which we see on Corso's face a nd the variations in the ways in which the girl appears to him, remember that there is a part of him, his ego function, which temporarily enters into darkness at the crossing of the Abyss which the ego/lower mind experiences as 'death'. When this function 'resurrects', it will take a new form, as we will see next in The 'Journey Back From Enlightenment'.
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"IS THAT IT?": And What's With All The Shells? - The J ourney Back From 'Enlightenment'
From the dramatic high point of the Conjunctio with the blazing castle in the background , the film next takes us to ordinary daylight and the mundane front seat of a car which, for the first time, Corso is driving with the girl as a passenger. Corso has apparently recovered from his metaphysical rite of passage, but this appearance is deceivi ng. He will be in a state which is a psychologically protective form of denial and the spiritual equivalent of physical 'shock' for at least several days during which time he will act as if everything is 'back to normal' while being acutely aware, deep within his own psyche, that it is not.
Corso asks, almost flippantly, "Is that it? Is the game over?" The girl answers that it's over for Balkan but not for him. Corso asks why Balkan didn't succeed. The girl explains that the Ninth Gate engraving was a forgery. Corso immediately responds "Where's the real one? I want it." And as the audience metaphorically leans forward as one, in anticipation of this long-awaited moment of revelation, the girl says "You're running low on gas" a nd they pull into a Shell station. (What?!)
The unsubtle appearance of the Shell logo in the film has been speculated about at IMDb, and it may be true that Polanski received a handsome fee from Shell for product placement. But if so, I have to give him credit for using Shell to achieve his own purposes as much as Shell used the appearances in his film to achieve theirs, because, in the context of Corso's journey of return on the Tree of Life, the word 'shell' has another meaning.
There are various versions of the symbolic location and function of the shells (called 'klippoth' in Qabalistic tradition). Some see them in the form of a 'shadow Tree' in which each sephira has a corresponding 'shell' version whose energy is fatally unbalanced so that it produces evil effects instead of good. Others see the lowest world of
Assiah (the Tree of the material world on which Corso has been journeying) as it self representing the realm of shells since the Divine energy which originally descended from its T ranscendent Source has reached, in Assiah, t he point of maximum incarnation into form. At this lowest level of the Tree, the Di vine nature of Creation may be virtually undetectable from the perspective of ego consciousness and the world, as the ego experiences it, may appear to be something more akin to Hell.
The fear of Hell and the desire to escape it was certainly a motivating factor for Christians in medieval times who made long journeys to certain spiritual destinations in order to atone for their sins or gain spiritual merit. The large scallop shell which the Shell company adopted as its logo is also probably the best-known form of pilgrim's badge which signified that a Christian had completed a pilgrimage to the popular shrine of St. James (in Spanish, Santiago) at Campostella, Spain. So to recap, the first two as sociations with this shell symbol are to an experience of a form of 'Hell on Earth' and a determination to undertake a sometimes arduous journey in order to escape 'Hell'.
The first time that we see the shell symbol is on the grounds of the Fargas mansion where it is a central decorative motif on the fountain/pool where Fargas' body was discovered. The second time is on a small sign outside Corso's hotel in Paris where he goes to visit Baroness Kessler. In both cases, Corso was leaving behind the ego's perspective of this world as a form of 'hell realm', and making a journey that would help him to escape the ego realm of 'Hell'. Fargas represented the function of Higher Feeling, Corso's first contact on his journey (other than the girl) with the realm of the Soul, and the Baroness represented at least a partial achievement of the function of Higher Mind, also in the realm of the Soul. And now the third encounter with the shell symbol comes as Corso is preparing to make a transition which will take him out of the world of Assiah, the realm of shells, entirely.
This refueling stop also gives the girl a n opportunity to disappear, since Corso now has ev erything he needs in order to complete his journey and must proceed from this point on his own. She leaves him one last direction on where to find the genuine Ninth Gate engraving, in a note written on the forged copy and stuck under his windshield wiper, saying "Ceniza Bros."
As the Phoenix From Its Ashes, So Rises " The Star"
As Corso is walking down the alleyway to the Cenizas' shop, we hear once more the young boy's voice, 'Si, si, Mama' but it sounds farther away this time, almost like an echo or a memory, and when Corso arrives at the shop, he sees that it has been va cated and is being dismantled. All the books are gone and the two workmen who are removing a last tall bookcase (men with different last names, so they are not twins), don't speak Corso's language and have nothing useful to tell him. The answer he's looking for comes unexpectedly from *above* the place where the previous books were. As the bookcase is tipped over, a paper floats down fro m its top -- the genuine engraving of the Ninth Gate showing an 8-pointed star (or Sun, which is also a star) shining from the castle.
'The Star' is the 17th Trump of the Tarot's Major Arcana, and is traditionally represented as an eight -pointed star accompanied by the naked figure of a woman with two pitchers, one pouring water into a pool and the other pouring water onto the land. This is a symbol of uncertain derivation which can be seen as the agency of Soul uniting the realms of matter and Spirit -- just as the Soul mediates between the ego realm of matter and the Supernal realm of Spirit on the Tree. The eight-pointed star is a symbol of fullness and completion, and has been associated with the eight basic trigrams of the Chinese 'I Ching' whose combinations produce the full cy cle of 64 hexagrams. These hexagrams represent all possible interactions between the dual, polar energies of acti ve/solar yang (solid line) and receptive/lunar yin (broken line), all of the interactions still being recognized as reflections of One underlying Unity.
The eight-pointed star is also traditionally used in representations of the Star of Bethlehem (the birth of the Christ child who was both human and Divine) and is identified with regeneration and rebirth into Spirit. Its related form, the octagon, is considered the intermediary form between the square and the circle (symbolically uniting the f our and the three, matter and Spirit). It is also the traditional shape of baptistries and baptismal fonts in which the body is sealed with the sign of Spirit through the agency of water. So in addition to the symbol of Transcendent Light/Spirit emanating from the (material) castle in the genuine engraving, we have a reference which is, significantly, not to the transcendence of matter and ego, but rather to the underlying *unity* of ego/Soul/Spirit and of the outer material form of Creation and the Divine Creative energy which informs and animates it.
Why did the Ceniza brothers forge the ninth engraving? 'The twins', as a symbol of the sign of Gemini, represent the ego's lower mind, the duality consciousness of the Beast, and from the perspective of this lower mind -- in terms of its autonomous existence -- the end of the journey *is* annihilation. Polanski gave us a clue to this in the name Ceniza which means "ash" a nd in the one twin who smoked and rather spectacularly dropped ashes all over the precious book.
At that time, only one victim, Bernie, was associated with Corso's relationship with the book, but there were four more yet to come: Fargas, Baroness Kessler, Liana, and Balkan himself. The number five in this context perhaps symbolically relates to the five physical senses on which the consciousness of the lower ego mind is based as it was in the case of the f ive crenellations which marked the exit from maze of the lower mind in the engraving for the Fourth Gate. Considering that Aristide Torchia, the author of the lower mind/AT versions of the engravings -- and all three of his books -- were reduced to ashes, (except for the Higher Mind/LCF engravings which were rescued by Corso), it may be mo re than coincidence that there is a Spa nish idiomatic expression "tener el cenizo" which means to have bad luck or to be jinxed.
In the Christian Ash Wednesday liturgy of repentance (from the Greek 'metanoia', a change of mind and heart), when a cross of ashes i s inscribed on the forehead, we are t old, "remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return". This is a reminder to the consciousness of the lower mind/ego/body to align itself with the purposes of Soul in preparation for its Easter resurrection into Spirit. When consciousness no longer looks out from the limited vantage point of the lower mind, but from the enlightened perspective of the Higher Mind, the shop of Gemini, which represents the old limited vision, is symbolically vaca ted -- its view of the world is no longer adequate. Only
once this shift has occurred, is the true vision revealed from a symbolically 'higher' source (the genuine Ninth Gate engraving floats down from the top of the bookcase, *above* where the books used to be).
The castle which Corso enters at his journey's end is a version of the symbol of The New J erusalem. Like "Solomon's Temple", the Temple "not made with hands", it exists at once as both "Macrocosm" (the perfect Creation) and "microcosm" (the individual enlightened consciousness). The essence of o ur Being and of the created world has always been Divine. Only the temporary, limited perspective of our ego -bound consciousness has prevented us from experiencing this truth. Once Corso is a ble to look at la st through the eyes of the Spirit/Soul, he experiences what was always there for those 'with eyes to see': the Divine Light of Heaven which continually blazes from the heart of all created forms.
'The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the Earth...' (The Gospel of Thomas)
I believe that Francisco Sole, the d esigner of the original engravings, Arturo Perez Reverte, the author of the book 'The Club Dumas' and Roman Polanski, both as director of the film 'The Ninth Gate' and as co-writer of the screenplay with John Brownjohn and Enrique Urbizu -- all deserve our gratitude for their parts in making available to a wider audience the basic outline of this inspired and inspiring traditional wisdom teaching.
The simple interpretation which I have given only barely scratches the surface of the riches to be found in the study of the Tree of Lif e. There are lots of resources on the Tarot and Qabalah available online and I encourage those of you who found this analysis interesting to begin your own journeys of exploration. I believe there is only one ultimate and sure solution to the precarious state of the world as it appears today, and that is the spiritual evolution of consciousness, one person at a time. If you have ever felt the desire to become part of the solution, I hope you will feel inspired to take up the essential portion of world-changing power which has been entrusted to you, and begin.
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Copyright, Hesper79, Anchorite's Cell, L. E. Whitney, September 2005 (Revised December 2006), All Rights Reserved. Reprinted here with permission.
IX. APPENDIX P
Pronunciation Guide
Following is a pronunciation guide for the names of the sephiroth adapted from one prepared by Bill Heidrick, http://www.billheidrick.com/works/qbl1.htm#p40, whose online articles on the Tree of Life are a great resource to explore.
Beginning at the bottom of the Tree:
MALKUTH - Sephira #10, meaning 'Kingdom' (Central Pillar of Equilibrium)
Mal-KOOT --- a as in bard. oo as in moon. Accent the last syllable.
YESOD - Sephira #9, meaning 'Foundation' (Central Pillar of Equilibrium)
Ye-SOD --- e like the first e in believe. o like in bore (half -way between 'oh' and 'aw'). Accent the last syllable.
HOD - Sephira #8, meaning 'Glory' (Left-hand Pillar of Form)
Hod --- o like in bore.
NETZACH - Sephira #7, meaning 'Victory' (Right-hand Pillar of Force)
NET-zach --- e as in met. a as in bard. ch is pronounced like a 'k' that is not completely closed off and has some air (and phlegm) blowing through it. If you've ever heard a J ewish person pronounce the word 'chutzpah', that "ch" is the sound. Accent the first syllable.
TIPHERETH - Sephira #6, meaning 'Beauty' (Central Pillar of Equilibrium)
Tip-E-ret --- i like in bit. Both e's like in met. Accent the middle syllable.
GEBURAH - Sephira #5, meaning 'Judgment' (Left-hand Pillar of Form)
Ge-boo-RA --- e as the first in believe. oo as in moon. a as in father. Accent the last syllable.
CHESED - Sephira #4, meaning 'Mercy' (Right-hand Pillar of Force)
CHE-sed --- Ch is as described in Netzach. Both e's are like in met. Accent the first syllable.
DA'AT - 'non-sephira', no number, meaning 'Knowledge' (Central Pillar)
Da-at --- a double "a" sound like that in bard. These two "a" sounds are separated by a "glottal stop", a sudden interruption of breath by very brief closing of the epiglottis (as when saying 'nuh -uh' to mean 'no'). Accent the first syllable.
BINAH - Sephira #3, meaning 'Understanding' (Left-hand Pillar of Form)
Bi-NA --- i like in police. a like in father. Accent the last syllable.
CHOKMAH - Sephira #2, meaning 'Wisdom' (Right-hand Pillar of Force)
Chok-MA --- ch as in Netzach and Chesed, o like in born. a like in father. Accent the last syllable.
KETHER - Sephira #1, meaning 'Crown' (Central Pillar of Equilibrium)
