by Jay Weidner
Figure 4.7. The three dragon axes: A, the galactic meridian from center to edge; B, the moving axis of the precession of the equinoxes/solstices; C, the unmoving ecliptic polar axis in Draco.
In verse 106 of the Bahir we read that the Teli is nothing but “the likeness before the Blessed Holy One,” or the face of God.16 Verse 96 of the Bahir addresses key alchemical symbols, and may in fact be our earliest mention of the philosopher’s stone. It begins: “What is the earth from which the heavens were graven [created]? It is the throne of the Blessed Holy One. It is the Precious Stone and the Sea of Wisdom.”17 The verse continues to suggest the spiritual value of the color blue, the traditional color of kingship in ancient cultures, by associating the sea with the sky and the sky with the higher light coming from the Throne of Creation.
From the Bahir, we learn that the Tree of Life is actually the “Precious Stone” whose facets are projected onto the celestial sphere and which is part of the continuous flow of the Sea of Wisdom. John’s Revelation is a version of this, with the Tree of Life on the banks of the flowing river, deep inside New Jerusalem’s Cube of Space. We can also see that all of this weird symbolism actually has a context and a meaning, and is grounded in firm reality.
So what happened to the Tree of Knowledge? Is it banished from the perfected schema? The Bahir suggests, in many subtle references, that the Tree of Knowledge forms itself around the axis of the Celestial Pole, whose Teli or dragon-axis would be the backward-spiraling axis of the precession of the equinoxes. The North Celestial Pole, as it circles around the fixed point of the ecliptic pole, first leans in toward the angle of the galactic axis—that is, toward the center of the galaxy (see fig. 4.8). It then moves away from this point in a large precessional cycle. The Fall occurs when the Tree is tilted away from the galactic axis. The Resurrection and Redemption, the arrival of the kingdom of heaven, happens when the Tree tilts toward the galactic axis. The four great ages, then, are the tilting of the pole in toward the center of the galaxy, which translates into the Golden and Silver Ages, and the tilting of the pole away from the center of the galaxy, which brings on the Bronze Age and the current Iron Age.
The mystical experience of the galgal, or cycle, of the Tree of Knowledge is the whirlwind, or sufah in our Talmudic reference.18 The galgal is also spoken of in the Bahir as a womb. This is a cycle of time in which the future is born. All of time happens within the sphere defined by the Teli. The Bahir also tells us that the Teli is revealed in the heart of heaven.19 This is both our own human, personal, spiritual center, the heart of man, and the heart at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. Together they pulsate in harmonic fractals of the same wave.
THE KAABA, THE EL MOST HIGH, AND THE COVENANT OF ABRAHAM
According to biblical tradition, Abraham learned the great ancient secrets from Shem, the son of Noah, also known as Melchizedek. He was the righteous king of Ur and Salem, which is now thought to be Jerusalem. The most important mysteries of the work of creation concerned the significance of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and their relationship to astrology and the mysteries of the calendar, or time itself. Attributing this wisdom to Abraham and Melchizedek places its origin in the eighteenth century B.C.E., the time of the rise of the New Kingdom in Egypt as well as the appearance of Vedic scholars in India.20
Figure 4.8. The precessional motion tilts toward and away from the galactic center, creating the “Four Ages.”
Abraham was considered to be the greatest magician and astrologer of his age. The Talmud tells us that “all the kings of East and West [Egypt and India] arose early [to wait] at his door.”21 The teachings of the work of creation are one of the primary astrological texts of the ancient world. This teaching incorporates the astrological wisdom Abraham was said to have known “in his heart”—that is, was revealed to him through meditative or magical means.
Forty miles or so inland from Jiddah, in what is now Saudi Arabia, the town of Mecca sits at the juncture of pre-Islamic Arabia’s most important trade routes. The mile-long caravans traveling from the spice kingdoms of southern Arabia to the world markets of Mesopotamia turned north and east through the gap in the Hejaz Mountains near Mecca. Cargo from Africa—Abyssinia, now Ethiopia, lies just across the Red Sea—landed at Jiddah and moved inland for distribution at Mecca. The town thrived on trade and travelers. This is significant because, from its founding, the town of Mecca was also an important sacred site and a destination for pilgrims.
The ancient Arabs were pantheists who worshipped the spirit, or genius, of place in a large variety of ways, including pilgrimage and animal—and sometimes human—sacrifice.22 They personified the sun and the moon, the sky, the stars, and the desert and lived in a world filled with jinns and afreets, or spirits and ghosts. In the vast darkness of the desert, the stars became the backdrop against which the mythological drama of life played itself out. Navigating in the desert, as at sea, required knowledge of the stars and their relationship to time and movement. These factors gave rise to a complex astrological mythology. This astrology was similar, if not exactly the same, to that found in the oldest sections of the Sefer Yetzirah.
Abraham, as revealed in the Talmud, was the most famous astrologer of his time. Interestingly enough, even in the eighteenth century B.C.E., Mecca was a junction point in the trade between India and Egypt. According to the tradition within the Quraysh, Muhammad’s clan, Abraham and his other son Ishmael, whose name means “God hears,” also founded Mecca.
From the Sefer Yetzirah, we learn of the Cube of Space (the twelve edges of the cube are formed from the twelve double letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which are attributed to the signs of the zodiac) within which the jewel-like Tree of Life forms. This astrological concept is attributed to Abraham just as the building of the physical cube, the Kaaba of Mecca with its sacred Black Stone, is also claimed as his work. The Kaaba (literally, “cube,” and from the same root) is the black stone meteorite that all Muslims attempt to touch at least once in their lifetime. A cube has twelve edges. Each of these edges relates to a different sign in the zodiac. The cube of space in Mecca, here on earth, is a fractal representation of the real Cube of Space.
The pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. According to Islamic tradition, the Kaaba has been rebuilt ten times, mirroring the number of spheres on the Tree of Life. The Kether, or Crown, cube was said to have been built by the angels in heaven. It is this cube of space that is described in the Sefer Yetzirah and the Bahir.
Wisdom and Understanding, the second and third cubes, were said by Islamic tradition to have been built by Adam and his youngest son, Seth. The fourth is named Mercy, and Abraham and his son by Hagar, Ishmael, are said to have built it in an after-the-Flood restoration. It is from this point that Mecca dates its founding. Strength and Beauty are the fifth and sixth cubes that were built in Mecca. They are attributed by Arab legends to kings of the Sabean and Himyarite kingdoms. Quasy, the patriarch of the Quraysh, built the seventh cube, Victory. The eighth, Splendor, was completed during Muhammad’s lifetime. The ninth and tenth cubes, attributed to the sefirot named Foundation and Kingdom, were built within sixty years of his death.
Within the cube is the sacred Black Stone, a piece of purplish red tektite embedded in the wall of the southeastern corner about five feet from the floor—at just the right height for kissing. The Black Stone has been a part of the cube in Mecca since at least the fourth version of the Kaaba attributed to Abraham. Tradition holds that the stone represents the new, post-catastrophe covenant between God and the family of Abraham.
Islamic scholars also point to a verse in Matthew (21:42–43) in support of this tradition. Jesus, during his last week in Jerusalem, often came to the forecourt of Herod’s temple to teach. Matthew tells us that as Jesus enters the temple one morning, the chief priests and the elders who demanded by what authority he taught the scriptures accosts him. Jesus asked them a question: Was John baptized by heaven or by men? When the elders cannot
answer, Jesus refuses to tell them the source of his authority and then lays into them for spiritual blindness. Even the people on the street, the obvious sinners, could see that John was a man of righteousness, Jesus tells them, but you, the spiritual leaders of the people, still can’t decide on the source of John’s message.
He continues, making the point even sharper, with the parable of the tenants who wouldn’t share the fruits of the harvest with the landlord of the vineyard, but instead killed his servants and his son. Jesus asks the elders what they think would happen when the owner returned. They reply that he would turn the tenants out of the vineyard, of course. Jesus then drove home the point by quoting Psalm 118 (22–23): “The stone the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” To make sure they got it, Jesus said: “Therefore I tell you that the Kingdom of Heaven will be taken from you and given to those who will produce the fruit.” It’s easy to see how Muslims found in this parable support for their religion. This encounter was very likely the motivating incident that led to Jesus’ betrayal and death. From this point on, the Gospels tell us, the Jewish elders plotted a way to arrest him without the people knowing and interfering.
Christian commentators see in this incident the shift from Judaism to Christianity, with Christ as the stone the builders rejected. Jesus is clearly stating that the Jewish elders no longer understood the basis of the religion they professed. To the Muslim, however, who had seen how little spiritual fruit orthodox Christianity produced, this verse suggested another interpretation. The rejected stone was Ishmael, the part of Abraham’s progeny rejected by Israel. The stone, the black meteorite, was also rejected, cast out of the sky, or heaven. Since Israel had broken its Abrahamic covenant, the kingdom of heaven reverted to the other heir, Ishmael, who will gather the fruits of the harvest.
The landlord of the vineyard in the parable is, of course, Allah to the Muslim, not Yahweh, or Jehovah, in the Hebraic tradition. In Genesis 14:18, we are told that after a great battle, Abram, as his name was then, worshipped the God Most High with the king of Jerusalem, Melchizedek. As we have seen in the Bahir, Melchizedek was thought to be Shem, a son of Noah and a survivor of the catastrophic Flood. He was also Abraham’s teacher and collaborator in the work of creation. The titles used in Genesis, “God Most High, Lord of Heaven and creator of the earth,” are the same titles used for Baal. They are also the same as the ancient Canaanite name for the Pole Serpent, the Teli, which the Sefer Yetzirah tells us is hanging over the “universe . . . like a king on his throne.” It is important to understand that all of these mythologies are essentially astronomical. The Teli in Draco is the constellation that rules over all of the signs and therefore the ages and the worlds, the past and the future.
The Islamic creator Allah is simply the Arabic version of this Canaanite El. The name Baal, or Ba-el, is literally translated as “the Space-Filling God.” Allah is also called “He who holds the stars in place.” This God Most High can only be the constellation of Draco. Not only does Draco fill all the signs of the zodiac, but it also sits atop the Cube of Space very much like a king on his throne.
Before the coming of Islam, at the Kaaba in Mecca the temple of Allah contained altars to his eight wives and daughters. These ancient goddesses are clearly related to the seven planets and the earth. Al-Uzza, the mighty one, was the sun. Al-Manat, the triple-faced goddess, was clearly the moon. The earth goddess, whose name was al-Lat, is actually talah, or teli, spelled backward. The earth is the mirror of the Teli. Everything that occurs in the heavens will be mirrored down on Earth. Therefore the “Tala” in space becomes al-Lat here on Earth. This serves to clinch our identification of Allah with the Teli, or Pole Serpent.
But there’s more—from the ground looking up, the ancient astronomers saw that Draco curved around the still point of the ecliptic pole (fig. 4.9) and that its tail bent backward in the shape of the Arabic letter laam (see fig. 4.10). This is perhaps the basis from which the word El was derived. Reflected on the earth, however, this L of the Teli or Pole Serpent is reversed. If Allah is the God Most High, the L in the sky, then his daughter the earth is the reflection of that nature. And so the masculine “El,” or “Al,” becomes the feminine “al-Lat.”
Figure 4.9. A diagram of the constellations Draco and Ursa Minor, according to Ptolemy, shows how the Pole Serpent has stars in all the houses of the zodiac, and how it curves around the ecliptic pole.
Figure 4.10. The Arabic letter laam.
The Quraysh, who thought of themselves as descendants of Abraham, worshipped Allah as their chief god. They referred to him as the Lord of the Soil, to whom they must pay a tithe of their crops and herds. This was not quite monotheism—Allah still had his wives—but it paved the way for Muhammad’s insistence that Allah was the One and only God. Muhammad, like Abraham, decided that the God Most High was the only god worthy of worship.
The Book of Genesis, chapter 15, tells us that, soon after Abram received the blessing of the God Most High, the Lord visited his word upon him in a vision. He commanded Abram to look up at the stars and count them, if he could. God promises that Abram’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars, or possibly will be as the stars. All he has to do is make a covenant with the Lord by performing a peculiar ritual sacrifice. Abram is told to take five animals, split the heifer, the goat, and the ram in half, and leave the two birds whole. The ten resulting sections, the six separated halves and the four unseparated halves, can be attributed to the spheres on the Tree of Life, according to the sages of the Sefer Yetzirah.
This arrangement polarized the Tree of Life. The Tree is normally shown aligned along three parallel axes, but, as shown in figure 4.11, it is split in Abraham’s sacrifice into two groups of five, like the fingers on each hand (see fig. 4.12). The spheres were then given masculine or feminine qualities. Six are clearly opposite each other, since they occur on the right or left pillar of the Tree, while the remaining four are normally on the middle axis. These four are divided into Kether and Tiferet on the right and Yesod and Malkuth on the left. This also symbolizes Abram’s arrangement of offerings, and creates a tension between Binah and Tiferet and Yesod and Tiferet.
Abram made his strange sacrifice of the split animals at sunset and fell into a deep sleep. We are told that thick and dreadful darkness came over him, and the Lord spoke within it describing the future of Abram’s descendants. And then a curious thing happened. Abram had a vision of a smoking firepot with a blazing torch. According to most authorities, this is an ancient symbol of the presence of the God Most High. This torch or pillar went through the gap between Binah and Tiferet and Yesod and Tiferet. This, Genesis tells us, sealed the covenant between Abram and his god.
Figure 4.11. The Tree polarized according to masculine and feminine qualities; in this human-scale form, the values of each sefirot take a gender specific quality. The interplay of duality is what gives the symbolism of the Tree of Life its diversity and universality.
Figure 4.12. The kabbalistic spheres attributed to the fingers.
Later, when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the God Most High made a return appearance to confirm the covenant. This time the Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham, by adding an h, or the Hebrew letter heh, in the middle. Heh, as shown in figure 4.13, is a pictogram of a window in ancient Hebrew. The Lord also instituted the rite of circumcision as a physical sign of man’s acceptance of the covenant. From this point on, Abraham’s descendants were the chosen people of the God Most High.
Figure 4.13. The Hebrew letter heh as a pictogram of a window.
Much of this makes little sense until we remember that, in the Bahir, the twelve edges of the Cube of Space are also the zodiacal paths connecting the spheres on the Tree. The gap or aisle between the sacrifices represents the astrological signs of Sagittarius and Gemini. These signs mark the third dragon-axis, as we noted above, which is the axis of the galaxy itself. The firepot with a blazing torch, symbol of t
he presence of the God Most High, travels the major axis of the galaxy, from the center out to the edge (fig. 4.14).
Abraham made his covenant, then, with the creative force flowing outward from the galactic core, or third dragon-axis. He called this the God Most High, who is also Muhammad’s Allah. Our world is formed from the intersection of the three pillars or axes of the Teli. Abraham’s descendants entered the galgal, or cycle of time, through the heh, or window, added to his name by the Lord. Heh is assigned to Aquarius, a zodiacal sign at a right angle to the axis of the Galaxy. It also symbolizes the moving axis of the Coiled Serpent, which defines the evolutionary flow of human events and the quality of time. Abraham’s descendants would be the chosen people of God as long they remembered the window into the cycle of time that God had given them. This may be the motivation behind Jesus’ warning that the Hebrews had lost their true faith—they had forgotten the window into the cycles of time.
Figure 4.14. The polarization between the fingers/sephiot creates the space through which the “presence” of God, symbolized as a flaming torch or a ball of fire, passed.
The Black Stone was the physical seal of this covenant, a gift from the sky, a token of God’s favor. It is interesting to note that the description in Genesis 15:17 of the smoking firepot with a blazing torch coming out of it also suggests the path of a meteor through the sky. The actual placement of the Black Stone within the Kaaba also suggests the northwest–southeast axis of the galaxy as seen in two dimensions. The stone that fell from heaven is a physical piece of evidence for the presence of the God Most High. With this in mind, we can understand the reference in Psalm 118 to the rejected stone that became the head of the corner, and Jesus’ denunciation of the Jewish elders for not understanding their own religion.
