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“On Some Esoteric Significations of the Six-Pointed and the Five-Pointed Star” A Paper by S. Liddell Mathers, Honorary VIII [degree], read before the Rosicrucian Society of England (Oct. 7, 1884)

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The following article by Mathers was written by him on October 7th 1884 and published in the S.R.I.A. journal. I do not believe this has since been republished but am open to correction. A lengthy and rather pompous letter disagreeing with Mathers was published by one Bro. L. Hespiradoux which is too long to give here but Mathers’ rejoinder letter is included. Although Mathers’ article is somewhat basic it contains a few interesting points and is offered here for historical interest. Mathers’ first use of ‘respective’ below is obviously incorrect – he means the reverse, and his reference to the author of the Zohar, following his quotation from Eliphas Levi is confusing. The two diagrams of the Pentagram and Hexagram are omitted.

 

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Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

“On Some Esoteric Significations of the Six-Pointed and the Five-Pointed Star”

A Paper by S. Liddell Mathers, Honorary VIII [degree], read before the Rosicrucian Society of England.

I propose to lay before you this evening a brief paper on the Esoteric Significations of those two well-known symbols which are to be found in every Masonic lodge, and which yet are even more replete with Occult suggestions than others which have been more jealously shrouded from the gaze of the Uninitiated – I refer to the Six-pointed and the Five-pointed Stars, better known to Students of Occult Science under the respective appellations of “The Sign of the Macrocosm-“ and “The Sign of the Microcosm”.

Let us first examine the Six-pointed Star, the Sign of the Macrocosm, or Greater World, sometimes also called the “Shield of David” and “The Seal of Solomon”. It consists of two interlaced Triangles, one with the apex upwards, the other inverted; or, the symbols of the uniting of Fire and Water, of Astral Light and Spermatic Chaos. In some ancient works it is represented with the inverted triangle black, and the other triangle red; the respective colours of Fire and Matter; or, in the Alchemical nomenclature, of Sulphur and Mercury. Further, it is the Symbol of Equation of Force, of the balance of Light and Darkness, of God, and of NATURE. Its Six points symbolize the Six limitations of Matter, the Six faces of the Cube of the Universe, the Six Days of Creation. To the Initiate it conveys the whole first Chapter of Genesis and the Qabalistic Cosmogony of the Zohar. The following extract, given by Eliphaz Levi, affords an illustration of this:-

“The Knowledge of the Occult is the Science of Equilibrium. Forces which produce themselves without being counterbalanced perish in the Void. Thus have perished the Kings of the Ancient World, the Princes of the Giants; they have fallen like trees without roots, and their place is found no more. It was owing to the conflict of unbalanced Forces that the devastated Earth was bare and without form, when the Breath of God made a firmament in the Heavens and separated the mass from the Lower Waters. All the aspirations of Nature were then towards Unity of Form, towards the Living Synthesis of Counterbalanced Powers, and the Brow of God, crowned with Light, raised Itself above the vast Ocean, and reflected Itself in the Lower Waters. His two Eyes appeared, radiating with Brilliancy, darting arrows of Flame, which crossed with the Rays of the Reflection.
“The Forehead of God and His two Eyes formed the TRIANGLE OF THE HEAVENS, and the Reflection formed the TRIANGLE OF THE WATERS.” Thus was the NUMBER SIX revealed, which was that of the Universal Creation”.

The author of the Zohar continues his sublime dream, and goes on to describe the formation of the World. In the Book of Jasher we read “In the Beginning God created the AEther and the Chaos.” In the Book of Genesis we read that “Darkness was upon the FACE of the Deep, and the Ruach Elohim moved upon the Face of the Waters”. And thus, as Synthesis of that Mighty Work, the Sign of the Macrocosm stands forth – the Star of the Universe, the Star of the Creation, the Symbol of the Life of Nature; while above and through the Chaos of Existence vibrates the Mind Divine. With such sublime meanings hidden in the six-rayed form, can we then wonder that it was considered so significant as emblem; that it was called the Talisman of Talismans, and the Pentacle of Pentacles?

Let us now consider the Five-pointed Star, the Symbol of the Microcosm or Lesser World, of our own Human Life as contrasted with that of the Universe. It may be described as a figure formed by a line starting from a given-point, and reflected four times so as at length to terminate at the point where it commenced. It was in use among the Pythagoreans, and it was called by them Pentalpha, as it resembles 5 A’s grouped around a centre. This Symbol has two distinct classes of Signification according to whether it is represented with the single angle upwards or downwards. In the former instance it is symbolic of Good, in the latter of Evil.

With the point upwards it represents Man the Image of God, Adam the Image of the Adam Qadmon. In it are contained the Symbols of the Sephiroth the Pillars of Heaven and Earth. It is Life particularized as opposed to Life generalized. In this sense also it may be taken as the emblem of Anthropomorphic Theology, the mixed and united God-Man, darkly referred to by the Qabalists as the “Seir-Anpin.” It is especially the symbol of the more Exoteric forms of the various Creeds; – of that beautiful Poem of Nature, the Greek’s Artistic Religion; of the Mithras of Persia, the Krishna of India, the Osiris of Egypt; for it is the Symbol of that Greatest Equilibrium Who is the Second Person, the I.H. and the V.H. combined with the S.

But with the point downwards it is the representative of Evil, it is the Head of the Goat, the cold and dark Capricorn of the Zodiac, the Black He-Goat of the Sorcerers of the Middle Ages, the Baphomet, and the Hyle, and the Averted Force. It is the Destruction of the Equilibrium, the Separation of the Universe, the wild whirling Motion of unbalanced Powers, the Averse of the Qabalistic Sephiroth.

Time and space alike forbid my entering more fully into this subject, and I must, therefore, close this paper, hoping that it has at least interested my hearers.

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S.L. MacGregor Mathers

October 7th, 1884.”

THE SIX-POINTED AND THE FIVE-POINTED STARS

To the Editor of the “Freemason”

Dear Sir and Brother,

Will you kindly permit me through the medium of your columns to answer Bro. Hespiradoux’s objection to my calling the Six-pointed Star the “Seal of Solomon”?
I must first of all premise that in a paper, read as mine was, before so august a body as the Rosicrucian Society of England, which numbers amongst its members many deeply read and thinking men, I should not have ventured to advance an unguarded statement; neither, after having studied occult subjects for upwards of ten years, should I have been likely to select a capricious meaning, and attach it to a wrong symbol. Furthermore, my paper was one which did not profess to give a mere exoteric translation of those glyphs, and one which would be known to the merest neophyte in occult lore. Far be it for me to undervalue Masonic learning, bur even that is exoteric in its teachings when compared with those of the Rosicrucianism.

Now, it appears to me that Bro. Hespiradoux contradicts himself in his article, for at the commencement he says “that the Seal or Signet of Solomon was …. a Pentalpha, or endless Triangle, but not a Six-pointed Star”, and yet at the end he quotes Richardson’s Dictionary “that the muchra Salimani, or Seal of Solomon was two triangles interlaced, and this is what the archaeologists generally think.” Also he says previously that “The Pentalpha is sometimes called the Pentangle of Solomon, and is said to have constituted the Signet or Seal of our ancient Grand Master.” Perhaps the self-contradiction can be accounted for by the fact that the whole of Bro. Hespiradoux’s article, with the exception of the part taken from the “Boston Freemason”, is transcribed verbatim from “Mackey’s Lexicon of Freemasonry,” pages 318, 358, 359, 348, 349, 242, 310, 311, 277, and 324. I would suggest to Bro. Hespiradoux that he would do well in future to consult more authorities than one before impugning the correctness of my occult knowledge, especially as I have had occasion in my researches to consult some hundreds of ancient and mediaeval authors, besides having read nearly all the modern works on the subject.

Among others I may mention the following authors who uphold the fact of the two interlaced triangles being the “Seal of Solomon’: Hargrave Jennings, in his work “The Rosicrucians” page 166; Eliphaz Levi, in various places in his “L’Historie de la Magie”, “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie”. And “Clef des Mysteres;” and Madam Blavatsky in “Isis Unveiled”, page 135 of volume I. In the “Clavicula Salomonis Regis vel Lemegeton” both the Hexalpha and Pentalpha are attributed to the Hebrew monarch, and are there called respectively the Hexagram and Pentagram of Solomon; the figures are given at the end of the first part, called, “Goetia”.

The Six-pointed Star is not necessarily to be inscribed in a circle; when it is, the circle signifies the “Bebedicta Linea” of the Qabalists. The Name of God in any form is not necessarily inscribed thereon, seeing the figure itself is a Glyph of the Almighty, and to each of its angles is attributed one of the Six-fold Forms of the Ternary of the Awful Schema of the Tetragrammaton. For it is the Name which rusheth through the Universe and returneth to the Abyss of the Unity, when “before the Throne of the Countenance of His Synthesis are prostrate the Ten Sephiroth Belimah,” “and before the face of the Unity what Numeration wilt thou enumerate?”

The word Seal does not necessarily mean a Signet; it is applied, like the terms Pentacle, or Pantacle, to any synthetical hieroglyph. I may be wrong; but I believe I have seen ancient bronze, as well as stone signets.

 

– I am, dear Sir and Brother, yours in fraternity,

S. L MATHERS, Hon. VIII [degree]
Societas Rosicrucianae in Anglia
London.

The Number 7

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Since ancient times, the number seven (7) has always held a special significance in our universe, the creation of human kind, 7_Chakrasand in religion. The number 7 is often called the holy number, lucky number, the prophetic number, or the mystical number. In Eastern Philosophy there are the seven heavens of the Mohammedans and Hindoos, with the seven hells. The Christians in the West have the seven virtues and seven deadly sins, or what those in the New Age movement might call our seven light bodies, the seven chakras, or the seven states of being.

Plato had written in Timseus, that from the number seven was generated the soul of the World, Anima Mundana (Adam Kadmon). To the Greek Mathematician Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, the number seven is “the essence or first principle of things,” which they applied to the secrets of the universe and creation.  They had called the number seven in Greek ‘heptad, ‘ and thought of it as a religious and perfect number. The Heptad was said to be from the Greek verb “sebo,” to venerate (and from the Hebrew Shbo, seven, or satisfied, abundance), being Septos ” Holy,” “divine,” and “motherless,” and “a Virgin.” Hipporcrates said the number seven, a sepentary number had occult virtues, which ‘lends to the accomplishment of all things, and is the dispenser of life and foundation of all its changes.’

The significance of the number seven in math is explained eloquently In The Works of Philo Judaeus: The Contemporary of Josephus, by Philo of Alexandria;

But seven alone, as I said before, neither produces nor is produced, on which account other philosophers liken this number to Victory, who had no mother, and to the virgin goddess, whom the fable asserts to have sprung from the head of Jupiter: and the Pythagoreans compare it to the Ruler of all things. For that which neither produces, nor is produced, remains immovable. For generation consists in motion, since that which is generated, cannot be so without motion, both to cause production, and to be produced. And the only thing which neither moves nor is moved, is the Elder, Ruler, and Lord of the universe, of whom the number seven may reasonably be called a likeness. And Philolaus gives his testimony to this doctrine of mine in the following words:—”For God,” says he “is the ruler and Lord of all things, being one, eternal, lasting, immovable, himself like to himself, and different from all other beings.

Shakespeare has written on life and the number seven: “And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. Closely allied, of course, is the ‘seven years’ apprenticeship,’ and that dreaded ‘seven years’ penal servitude’—made so conspicuous in the case of Adolf Beck—which, when the sin merits such severity, becomes twice and three times seven.”

The first reference we have to creation and the number seven comes down to us from Babylonia, discovered in the Sumerian creation myth and flood myth that was found on a tablet excavated in Nippur.  These tablets are dated to approximately 1600 B.C. After the Sumerians, the tradition of the number 7 was carried on by Assyrians with evidence of this found on their Tablets such as 7 gods of sky; 7 gods of earth; 7 gods of fiery spheres. 7 gods maleficent; seven phantoms; spirits of seven heavens, spirits of seven earths. There were the seven attendants to Osiris, whose body was divided into seven and twice seven parts; to Apollo (the Sun), between his seven planets.

The Israelites regarded the number 7 as sacred. Their Levitical purifications lasted seven days, the three great feasts lasted seven days, and between the first and second of these feasts were seven weeks.  When someone dies, they perform a ceremony where they walk seven times round the body of the dead repeating prayers, in the belief that this will drive away evil spirits. They also believed, that to cure the body of a sick man, they had to be anointed seven times with purifying oil. All their oaths were witnessed by seven people. In the bible, the number seven is encoded all through the Old and New Testaments, such as the seven days of creation, the seven vices and seven virtues, and Noah who had seven days’ warning from God to build the Ark before the great Flood; all the way to the seven seals of the Revelation of St John.

Seven is also a sacred number in Masonic symbolism. It is said that in the last century, it took seven members to make a lodge perfect, although today 5 may hold one. The seventeeth degree, called the apocalyptic degree of the “Knight of the East and West,” there in the symbology is the Tracing Board with a man clothed in a white robe and surrounded by seven stars, that is direct reference to Revelation i. 16; “and he had in his right hand seven stars.” .

Let us explore the mythical and mysterious number seven below, with examples of how the number 7 has been used in various ways throughout his-story. I’m sure you will also come up with more 7’s to add to this list.

THE NUMBER SEVEN AND OUR BODY

* Our body has seven parts, the head, chest, abdomen, two legs and two arms

* Our 7th body part that rules all else, is the head with the mind that has seven parts for external use, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and a mouth.

* We have seven internal organs, stomach, liver, heart, lungs, spleen and two kidneys.

* An adult is made up of around 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7 octillion) atoms.

* The Seven DNA Polymerase Families that can be further subdivided into seven different families: A, B, C, D, X, Y, and RT.

* Seven endocrines glands in the human body

* Seven Senses or Chakras

* The Seven bodies of the Human microcosm.

* Our voice is made in seven tones

* The Alchemists of the middle ages counted the following seven bodies: Sun- Gold, Moon- Silver, Mars- Iron, Mercury- Quicksilver, Saturn- Lead, Jupiter- Tin, Venus- Copper.

IN THE HEAVENS

* 7 classical planets

* The Moon passes through stages of 7 days in increase, full, decrease, and renewal.

* 7 colors on the rainbow

* 7 days on a week

* 7 sisters on the pleiades

7 of RevelationIN THE BIBLE

* The Seven Seals

* The Seven Churches

* Seven years for Repentance;

* Seven churches of Asia (or Assiah)

* Seven Angels with Trumpets

* Seven candlesticks of the Holy Places

* Seven Spirits stand before the Throne of God: Michael, Gabriel, Lamael, Raphael, Zachariel, Anael, and Oriphel. (Gustavini.)

* Seven trumpets

* Seven lampstands

* Seven stars

* Seven kings

* Seven thousands slain,

* Seven vials of wrath to be poured out, pace the Apocalypse

* Seven vices

* Seven dips in Jordan, to cleanse himself from Leprosy

* The seven spirits of God: 1. The Spirit of Wisdom. 2. The Spirit of Understanding. 3. The Spirit of Counsel. 4. The Spirit of Power. 5. The Spirit of Knowledge. 6. The Spirit of Righteousness. 7. The Spirit of Divine Awfulness.

* The seven deadly sins are: Pride, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony, Avarice and Sloth.

* The seven virtues are: Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. The first three are called “the holy virtues.” (See Seven Deadly Sins.)

* The seven joys of the Virgin Mary are: The Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Presentation in the Temple, Finding Christ amongst the Doctors, and the Assumption.

* The seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary are: Simeon’s Prophecy, the Flight into Egypt, Christ Missed, the Betrayal, the Crucifixion, the Taking Down from the Cross, and the Ascension, when she was left alone.

*  Whoever touches a human corpse will be unclean for seven days. – Numbers 19:11

* Jericho were encompassed seven days, by seven priests, bearing seven rams’ horns

* Solomon was seven years building the Temple, which was dedicated in the seventh month

IN CLASSIC MYTHOLOGY

Seven against Thebes

Seven Kings of Rome

Seven hills of Rome

Seven Emperors (and period; Rome, history)

Julius Caesar, Augustus, Galba, Hadrian, Nerva, Sallust, Vespasian

Seven hills of Constantinople

Seven hills of Rome

Seven Liberal Arts

Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove in China

Seven Wise Masters, a cycle of medieval stories

Seven Wonders of the ancient world

The seven wise men of Greece were:

Bias who said, ” Most men are bad,” B.C. 550.

Chilo „ “Consider the end,” B.C. 590.

Cleobulos,, “Avoid extremes,” B.C. 580. .

* Periander „ “Nothing is impossible to perseverance,” B.C.
600.

* Pitticus „ “Know thy opportunity,” B.C. 569.

* Solon „ “Know thyself,” B.C. 600.

* Thales „ “Suretyship is ruin,” B.C. 550

NUMBER SEVEN IN LITERATURE

In Irish mythology, the epic hero Cúchulainn is associated with the number 7. He has 7 fingers on each hand, 7 toes on each foot, and 7 pupils in each eye.

ROMULUS IS 1ST OF 7 KINGS OF ROME

Rome was founded 21 April 753 BC from settlements around a fjord on the River Tiber by Romulus and Remus, sons of the Trojan prince Aenas. Romulus killed Remus and became the first of the seven kings of Rome.

BENEDICT RULED THE MONESTARY FOR 7 YEARS

Accordingly, St. Ceolfrid, appointed by St. Benet Biscop, “completed and ruled the monastery of St. Paul’s seven years, and afterwards ably governed…….the single monastery of St. Peter and Paul in its two separate localities.”

BEDE IS 7 AT SAME TIME AND CAME TO THE MONESTARY

About the same time as the dedication of St. Paul’s, there came to the monastery; Bede, then a child of seven. He was born, as he himself tells us “in the territory of that same monastery” and was sent there to be educated by Abbott Ceolfrid.