According to Exodus (25:31-32), the menorah was made of pure gold. It had six branches, three on each side with three bowls made like almonds ... in one branch; and three bowls made like almonds in the other branch (25:33). The seven candles symbolize the sun, moon, and principal planets, also the seven days of the week and the seven stars of the Great Bear, Ursa Major.
Once again, we find ourselves in the grip of a riddle or a pun. To release ourselves from this grip we need to recall that Mount Moriah is cognate with Mount Meru, the world axis. Meru is also another name for the Great Bear.
Hermes with the menorah.
With its almond-shaped bowls the menorah ‘candlestick’ thus represents an almond tree. Why almonds?
The almond tree bears its blossoms in the midst of winter, on a naked, leafless stem, and these blossoms seem at the time of their fall exactly like white snow-flakes or like manna?
This description may have been meant to remind us of Aaron’s rod that budded. In the Bible, Aaron (‘Ark’, ‘enlightened’) is the brother of Moses and his spokesman in Egypt, and the first high priest of the Hebrews. He is presented as the instrument of God in performing many signs, such as the turning of his rod into a serpent and causing the rod to bud, blossom, and bear almonds. He may well have been the traditional ‘head’ of the priesthood. (It is also interesting to note that the Gospel of Luke tells us that John the Baptist was the son of Elizabeth, an elderly woman ‘of the daughters of Aaron’.)
When the miracle occurred, the rod, having no root, bore leaves, flowers and almonds overnight (Numbers 17;8).
A similar blossoming rod is highlighted in a story recounted by Saint Jerome (c. 341-420). He wrote that all Mary’s suitors brought a rod to the high priest of the temple, but Joseph’s was the only one that blossomed. This was a sign from heaven that he was chosen to be her husband.
Aaron’s rod is considered a branch that grew on the Tree of Life. Moreover, the menorah was placed in the Holy Place of the Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, where the original Tree of Life was said to have grown.
An essential clue relating to the (almond) Tree of Life and the menorah is found in the earliest known name for Mount Moriah (the site of Solomon’s Temple), Luz.
It was at this mysterious place called Luz (‘light’, ‘almond’) that Jacob lay his head on a stone and saw a ladder with angels on either side. He ascended this ladder to a heavenly realm. Upon his return he declared the spot of real estate (the oracle) a “blessed gate to god.”
And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it” Gen. 28:13-15, 18
Why Jacob poured oil on top of this pillar/tower is a mystery, and one that made even more intriguing to us in light of MM’s oil and tower connections. The fact that the Hebrew for oil is shemen ha Mishcha and is traditionally reckoned as the “anointing oil” of the messiahs should give us a clue. Near it in pronunciation is shaman. Shem is the Babylonian word for Name. Shambhala shares the shem root. From shem derives the Semite. By far the most interesting shem word is shem-an-na, which Gardner renders as “the highward fire-stone of the white powder gold.” This, he says, is the Philosopher’s Stone of the Messiah.
Nothing should grab us more than to learn that the base of the oiled almond tree of Luz is hollow. Through this ‘hole’ one enters an underground passage; this passage leads to the city itself, which remains completely hidden.
French mystic René Guénon saw Luz as another version of the archetypal mountain/tree/cave complex symbolizing Shambhala. Luz is called ‘the blue city’. Writing in History of the Cross, he says that, in India, it is said that the blue color of the atmosphere is produced by reflection of light on the southern face of mystic Mount Meru – the Cosmic Axis, the Tree of Life – which, it is thought, is a Tree of Sapphire. The stem of the menorah candlestick is thought to represent the Babylonian Tree of Light, the Cosmic Tree, the Cosmic Axis. Again, the menorah symbolizes Meru.
As a matter of fact, the place name (or description), Luz, is the exact clue that will lead us to an extraordinary discovery. It is one that answers one of the greatest mysteries of the Magdalene... the meaning of her name.
17.
THE LOST MEANING OF MAGDALENE
So, what does this incredibly provocative sounding place name Luz mean? The Hebrew word luz, translated “hazel” in the King James Bible (Gen. 30:37), is translated as “almond” in the Revised Version, New King James Version, New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version. It is probable that luz means the wild almond. In fact, it means “almond tree” in Aramaic, Arabic, Egyptian and Ethiopic.
According to The Torah Anthology, the city of Luz (Mount Moriah) was, indeed, associated with an immense ‘almond tree’. This apparently harkens back to the Tree of Life – an almond tree – and the water of life that nourished it (more later), located in the center of the Garden of Eden. It is said that the ‘Angel of Death’ could not enter this city, and wielded no power over it.
This association Luz (‘almond’) = candlestick = menorah with the lit candle beside Mary Magdalene in LaTour’s Penitent Magdalene could well be a lightly veiled reference to the almond Tree of Life planted at Luz.
This is highly important in and of itself. However, let’s remove another layer of obscurity from this symbolism by noting that luz is the Portuguese and Spanish word for light.
I repeat for emphasis. Luz means light.
Think illumination with ilu as the root for a very good example of how this carried over into the English. In fact, a whole cluster of words beginning with ilu or lu – lux, luke, lucis and Lucifer – mean ‘light’ (and then, of course, there is lust).
Interestingly, the English word almond is composed of the two words al ‘light’ (the same as il and el, the Old Testament name for the Shining Ones), and mond, which is ‘mound’ or ‘mount’. Hence, almond, , could be rendered as ‘mountain of light’. That’s Mount Moriah, the mount of Luz (‘light’). This was the Bethel (House of God) (Genesis 28:19; Judges 1:23).
It only seems like we’re going in circles here. In actuality we are tourists circling what may well be one of the deepest secrets of antiquity. The Bethel or House of God located atop the mound of Moriah was a house of light (Luz). Hence, it was the al-mond, the mound with the Tree of light.
These puns suggest that Solomon’s Temple was a house of light . Normally, when one thinks of a lighthouse the image of a tall, tower-like structure topped by a powerful light used as a beacon giving guidance through signals comes to mind. But Solomon’s Temple is never described in these terms. Well, usually not anyway...
Before making the connection between the meaning of the word ‘Magdalene’ and the tower of Solomon’s Temple I’d like to make one more highly important connection. The word menorah is strikingly similar to menhir, in archaeology, the name given to the single standing stones of Western Europe, and by extension to those of other lands. Menorah, menhir. In English the two words are almost interchangeable.
Traditionally, menhir applies to two to three hundred ton stones that pre-historic people moved to Brittany as stone markers. Often these phallic stone pillars were sited over or beside burial places. More often yet, these stones were placed at locations of pilgrimage. There are ‘power places’ where one breathes in spirit, where one can bathe in energies and feel a sense of the divine in their being. The ancients made treks to such geysers of cosmic energy to awaken their inner faculties. Jerusalem was certainly such a place in the ancient world.
Today we call the spiritual forces ‘telluric’. They are often associated with subterranean water flows. The telluric forces ‘snake’ through the ground. The tall stones marked the location where these serpents rose to the surface and took flight. This may explain why the ancients represented them by winged serpents and sometimes birds: the ‘sirens’. When the ancients transported enormous menhir stones and erected them at particular dots
of real estate it was not for aesthetic reasons. It was for religious reasons.
Among the roles played by the menhir was that of tomb-guardian. In Celtic tradition, such pillars were raised in honor of important Druids and sited on the borders of the lands of the living looking out over the Happy Fields where the dead dwelt. Caesar regarded menhirs as images of Mercury or Hermes. In this context the stone is akin to the Tree of Life and the World Axis.
Thus, the words menorah and menhir share not only phonetic resonance, but share the exact same meanings.
MAGDALENE = LIGHT
This conjunction or cross of facts leads us to an astounding insight into the meaning of Mary Magdalene’s name never before seen in print.
I am now going to relate another fact to you that left me awestruck and led to this insight.
Here it is. The Latins called the almond, , amygdala.
Amygdala. Magdala. Without vowels both words are identical: mgdl. An astounding angle on the meaning of Mary Magdalene comes when we replace the word Magdalene (‘Tower’) with Amygdala, almond or Luz, and relate to the references to Luz we have documented.
What this reveals to us is that Mary Magdalene can be thought of as Mary (of) Luz, the almond-gate or Light. In other words she is Mary Lucifer. She is the Illuminator.
The accumulation of these word meanings leads me to conclude that the Tower the place name Migdal refers to is the Tree of Light, as in the cabalistic tree climbed by the initiate.
I propose that the Beloved Tower (Mary Magdalene) is the Tree of Light that opens a gate, , in the brain to the Empire of Light.
The Tree of Life in an almond. The Cabalistic Tree of Life featured in the frontispiece of a sixteenth-century Gospel of John, with lines of attribution to the body of Jesus on the pillar of crucifixion. The Tree of Life rises above a sphere containing the Stairway to Heaven, the Menorah and the starry heavens. Contained within the almond is the Grail Cup, Atlas up-holding the universe, the Pillars Jachin and Boaz, Jacob’s Ladder going through the Sun, Abraham prepared to sacrifice his innocent son Isaac, the All-seeing eye, the Horn of Plenty (the cornucopia) and Heavenly Crown.
The amygdala is the region of the human brain responsible for emotion. It is a primary arousal center, originating in early fishes, which is central to the expression of negative emotions in man. The amygdala coordinates the autonomic and endocrine systems. This gate is the point of exchange (another Mercantile term) between the worlds of matter and spirit.
To fully understand this gate we must note that the almond-shaped Egyptian glyph (rus) means gate. Rus is so close to ros, the French word for rose, and also dew. There is a definite connection to be made between the dew or manna and the gate to Heaven.
The link is provided by mystic painter William Blake, who believed the image of Jacob’s Ladder as a gate to heaven was closely allied to the anatomy of the ear, whose passage he calls “the endlessly twisting spiral ascents to the Heaven of Heavens.” The “opening of the ear” is the precondition for making contact with the higher worlds. Significantly, the Cathars believed the Holy Spirit of Christ entered Mary through her ear.
With this in mind let us study the alchemical image of Jacob’s Ladder on the next page. Jacob dreams his dream of the ladder to heaven at Luz. An angel blows a horn – broadcasts a frequency – into Jacob’s ear. Three sequences of numbers, read backwards, are Genesis 28:11-12, Genesis 27:28-36 and Deuteronomy 33:19-28. All three passages refer to the various passages in the bible dealing with the blessings of celestial dew. The roses also refer to it. Dew in French is rosee. In Latin Ros.
From these connections it appears that there is a deep connection between almond (amydala, Magdala) and resurrection. Luz signifies a light house, a pillar of light, but also a gate of light or a stargate.
Through redefining “Magdalene” as “light house” or “tower of light” (ala the Tower of Siloam) we may be so far out the box that we’re in: deep in between the temples that is.
The amygdala’s resonance is amplified by a Jewish legend that tells of a special bone in the human spinal cord that never dies. And that God would use this bone in the act of resurrection, other bones coalescing with it to form the new body that, duly breathed upon by the divine spirit, would be raised from the dead. The name of the bone is luz.
One wonders what is the connection between the stone that Mary Magdalene moved away on Easter morning and the Luz bone.
18.
INCHRISTED LADDER = 153
There is much ambiguity in the Gospel accounts involving Mary Magdalene and these mysteries. For instance, the bible does not specifically describe the instrument of torture used to execute Jesus. It is assumed it was a cross she stood beside. However, as in the painting on the next page it is also thought of as a ladder.
The cross is an important symbol for Christians because it is on a cross that Jesus was hung, died for their sins and blazed a trail to a better world, the Otherworld. The book of Acts contradicts this saying Jesus was hung on a tree. Christian tradition reconciles the two. It maintains the True Cross was made of the same wood that grew as the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.
Early Christian images of Jesus didn’t even represent him on a cross or a tree. Instead, he was a clean-shaven young man in the guise of Osiris or other “good shepherds” and civilization-bearers, carrying a pail, the symbol for wisdom and the inner realms or a magic wand.
Historically, the (C)ross did not become prominent in Christian imagery until after the 4th century. The first reference (there are few others) to the cross was established in Clement of Alexandria‘s unfinished Stromateis or ‘Miscellanies’ (book VI): he speaks of the Cross as “the symbol of the Lord.” His contemporary Tertullian designated the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. “devotees of the Cross” (Apol., chapter xvi). It is likely these were astronomical observations and referred to a cross in the heavens.
So, just what was it exactly that MM stood at the foot of? A closer look at the meaning of the word cross will serve us here.
Interestingly, the Greek word loosely translated cross in the original bible texts was Stau-ros (corresponding to the verb stauroo), which means ‘stake’ or ‘pole’, one without a cross beam. Some maintain that the exact translation of Stau ros is ‘torture stake’.
Long before the time of Jesus pillars were featured instruments of messianic figures. The Egyptian god of Resurrection, Osiris, for example, was represented as a tall pillar placed atop a stable ‘ark’ or platform and flanked by two smaller pillars. The two ‘Tat’ or ‘Tet’ pillars have four arms, prefiguring the four arms of the cross. Osiris’ pillar was connected with wisdom (hence the serpent, the symbol of wisdom) and was perceived as a stairway.
Historical findings, such as the relief portraying the complete Osiris pillar (or Tree) on the next page, sheds light on this subject.
Isis tending the Pillar or Tower of Osiris from Abydos, Egypt (c. 1400 BC). According to Egyptian myth, this tower held the soul of Osiris, the Egyptian savior. The hieroglyph of Osiris features this pillar.
A rendition of the Tower by digital artist Dana Augustine. Beside the Ark platform are oxen. This is an interesting parallel with the biblical ark. While it was being transported on an oxcart, it teetered “because the oxen Shook it”. 2 Samuel 6:3
Discovered in the Temple of Abydos at Egypt – the gate to the Underworld – and now in the Egyptian hall at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art this limestone fresco from the 3,300-year old chapel at Abydos that encapsulates Egyptian resurrection symbolism.
Significantly, stau ros is the mirror image of ros stau, the name of the secret sanctuary located in the Am-Tuat, the Underworld of Osiris described in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Ros is a Hebrew word meaning ‘dew’ and ‘wisdom’, allowing ‘pillar of wisdom’ as one interpretation of Stau ros. In my opinion, this word play connects the myths, mysteries and metaphysics of the resurrection of Jesus with the resurrection science of Osiris.
; In the relief we see Ramses I offering a platter (Grail) of food – a cornucopia – including grapes, and a floral offering to the massive Osiris symbol. Isis stands beside the pillar. Its hieroglyph , which features the levitating serpent is the symbol ta-wer and meant ‘“Eldest Land.” In addition, the growth of the religion of Osiris, says Egyptologist Richard H. Wilkinson in Reading Egyptian Art, seems to have been responsible for the reinterpretation of the sign as a reliquary for the head of the god, which was supposed to reside at Abydos. In other instances, he says, the ta-wer is represented in scenes that allude to the concept of rebirth.
It is clear that this sign functioned as a symbol both for Osiris and his earthly domain, but also of the underworld Empire of the god accessed via Abydos and the hope of the afterlife.
Isis and the Tower of Osiris. From a bas-relief at Abydos. It may house the head of Hat.hor , known as the Syrian Ishtar Massey called Mufkt.
The Ta-Wer of Osiris overlaid upon the human body reveals a powerful insight. This tower or pillar is our body.
The chakras, the body and the pillar.
I have presented the Ta-wer of Osiris for the reason that Jesus and Mary Magdalene are often compared to Isis and Osiris. The Ta-Wer of Osiris is also often called Jacob’s Ladder or the Stairway to Heaven. On the previous page is another scene from the temple of Abydos, Egypt that connects to MM features Isis setting up the Pillar/Tower with what Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge says in Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection is a BOX containing the HEAD of Osiris upon it. In Budge’s illustration below, a priest anoints it with holy oil (or procures the oil from it).
THE CATHAR CROSS
In one incredibly provocative watermarks catalogued by Harold Bayley, an ox is seen with the serpent of Ascelpius, the symbol of healing, wound around a cross or a Tree of Life. Bayley does not offer an interpretation of this remarkable watermark. I propose the ox is the symbol for the Ark of the Covenant, which was carried on an ox cart. From the serpent’s mouth emerges three circles bound together . This symbol is called the trefoil, the emblem of the Trinity. Notably, it is the symbol for the fifth element, Wood, also known as quintessence.
Mary Magdalene The Illuminator (v5.0) Page 14
