Washington DC Monumental Core Shown to Be
Analogous to the Milan Cathedral

The Tree of Life

The doctrine of the Cabala was summarized, so to speak, by a geometric design that has come to be known as the Tree of Life, composed of 10 spheres, and 22 path between them, for a total of 32 (half the 64 square on an 8x8 chess board). The spheres are divided conceptually into 3 groups, 3 at the top, a middle group of 6, and 1, representing the earth, at the bottom.

The spheres are number 1 to 10 (1:10), and each one is affiliated with a planet and a host of keywords, symbols and ideas. The Tree, as you will see, is basically an expansion of the planet/hex image, although you may not recognize some forms of it as such.

Please note that the Canon ( published in 1897) does not even use the term Tree of Life, but rather refers to "the cabalistic design", so that terminology has been invented in the last century. Note also that the book never mentions the Tree in relationship to the building arts, as I intend to do here. He does however mention the influence of the Cabalistic numbers, three, ten and twenty two, on the structure of literary works, just as Graves mentions that old poetic works were composed of thirteen chapters and an appendix, associated with the 13 lunar months and a day that make up the solar year. 28 x 13 = 364 + 1 = 365.

3, of course, relates to the equilateral triangle and the notion of divinity, 10 is the number of fingers and toes that we have, and 22 is the number of Hebrew letters, which like the Greek letters were also used as numbers. While the Greeks stressed the role of number in the Creation, Hebrews emphasized sound, letters and words, as well as number. The tree of life encompasses both.

In the Bible, a decidely cabalistic work, we see that Psalms 119 contains 22 verses, each headed by a Hebrew letter, and the Revelation is composed of 22 chapters. There are also 22 Tarot Trump cards.

Perhaps the best know cabalistic literary piece is Dante's Inferno, where the hero descends and climbs up the ten levels, and which is composed of a total of 100 (10 x 10) canto or verses.

Kircher' Tree

Oddly enough, the most commonly used version of the Tree today is one generated and first published in the form below by Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit in 1653. Here we see the spheres with their numbers, planets and a key word. Remember that there are more than one keyword per sphere, and that different symbologists prefer different terms.

For an excellent overview of the life of A. Kircher, I would direct you to pages 86-103 of Peter Tompkins "The Magic of Obelisks". It was Kircher who replaced Johann Kepler as the mathematician for Holy Roman Emporer Ferdinand II. Kircher was convinced, like de Lubicz and the author of the Canon, that the temples of Egypt incorporated both the cosmology of the ancients, and their physics or science (the Enoch story). De Lubicz had called Egyptian temples, libraries in stone, vast masonry symbols that incorporated the totality of Egyptian wisdom, including science, mathematics, geodesy, geometry, astronomy, astrology, myth and art.

According to Tompkins, Kircher was a firm believer in the influence of heavenly bodies on earthly happenings and phenomenon.

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Tree Symbolism

Before moving on, I would like to take a look at two seperate sets of symbolisms incorporated in the tree in order to give the uninitiated an idea of how it works. Remember that the elements of the tree follow the soul's journey through the planetary spheres; probably more for reasons of teaching astronomy than for eccesiastical ones. Note that the second and third spheres represent the Zodiac and Saturn respectively.

2 Nuit - Space

Egyptians represented the goddess Nuit as an arching figure of a woman who's body is covered with stars (the zodiac). The name nuit is the origin of the word night, and she is indeed represented figuratively as the vault of the night sky.

Each night she is said to swallow the sun and give birth to it each morning. She carries the same meanings as the Priestess Card (2) in the Tarot, and represents Space and the Possibility of Being, while Geb, her brother represents the earth, matter and the Actuality of Being. In the above image, Nuit, as the heavens, is being seperated from Geb, as the earth, by the god of air; an exile of sorts. Architecturally these three represent the roof or ceiling, the floor and a column or mediator, which in Egypt ultimately refers to the Djed pillar.

So, we see that, to the Egyptians, the sky was female and the earth was male, just the reverse of the way we see things now. Often times, Geb is represented ithyphallic (erect phallis). This appears to be symbolic of the upward striving of things of the earth towards the sky or heavens, a metaphor for spiritual aspirations, as well as the model for the rising church steeples and spires so despised by the Puritans.

Fire and Rain

In the Egyptian cosmology, the rain fructifies the earth. The symbol of water falling works here, rather than lightning or fallings stars used by people worshping "warrior gods". Paternalistic philosopher's had to do some mental calesthenics to come up with a notion to represent fire as falling, since it's natural inclination is upward. Today symboligists say that the (male) sky god fructifies the earth with sunshine (fire), and rain is seen as analogous to sperma.

Also, spires and obelisks as symbols of uprising are hardly symbols that we can associate with a feminine earth. Looking at a Star of David constucted of an upright red triangle on the bottom and a point down blue triangle (the color of the sky), we can see that it makes perfect sense. The female superior mode of the Nuit and Geb image appears to be a remnant of a matriarchal age (see "When God was a Woman).

3 Saturn - Time

The third sphere on the tree is associated with Saturn (rather than Geb), who rules Capricorn, a fixed earth sign (preserving notions associted with Geb). Saturn is, of course Chronos, Father of the Gods, and the symbol for time (chronology). The second two spheres represent then, time and space, man and woman, earth and sky, as well as a host of other dichotomies.

Daath - The Abyss

The blank spot between the top three spheres and the rest of the tree, named Daath but not represented with a sphere, indicates the notion of the Abyss, symbolizing that the top three are beyond full human comprehension. The ancients call the Deity, the nameless One for just this reason.

Mercy and Strength

The next two spheres, 4 and 5, are named mercy and strength or severity, and are associated with Jupiter and Mars respectively. Jupiter is conceptaulized as a ruler on his throne (presumably cubic since Jupiter is number 4 here), while Mars is seen as warrior in his chariot (number 5; pentagon). Looking at a list of symbols associated with the tree we see the shepherd's crook and the flail listed for 4 and 5, alternate symbols for these two forms of governing.

Here we see an image of Osiris superimposed on the image of the tree. As you can see, the tree is conceptualized so that the right shoulder is severity and the left is mercy. In astrological symbolism, the planets on the left side of the tree, Saturn, Mars and Mercury as seen as malefics while those on the right (looking at the tree, not standing in it as Osiris is), Jupiter and Venus are the benefics. You may recall that Venus is said to have sprung full-grown from the forehead of her father Jupiter.

This is the same symbolism utilized by the designers of the US Great Seal, who put an olive branch (peace) in one of the eagles claws, and arrows (war) in the other.

The Book of Daniel

The first four chapters of Daniel are full of cabalistic phrases that even an apprentice can understand. Chapter Four practically screams it's message at you.

Daniel is called before the king to interpret a dream that he has had. He says, I saw a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. [The tree like the axis mundi is considered to be deeply rooted in the earth, and stretching all the way to the heavens as a mediator between the two realms, a symbol of transcendence, like a featherd serpent.] The height thereof reached unto heaven and the fruit thereof was meat for all.

Daniel's response, is the same as that of cabalists all over the world, the tree that thou see, it is thou.

Wisdom and Understanding

Looking at the Tree, you can see that the key words for the second and third spheres are wisdom and understanding. In Chapter one of Daniel, we see Nebuchadnezar request to see "certain of the childen of Israel, of the king's seed (the divine spark, we all have this), who were skillful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge and understanding science. Later we read that, as for these four children, God had given them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

"And in all manners of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers in all his realm. Daniel later says, God giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding; He revealeth the deep and secret things; he knoweth what is in the darkeness, and the light dwelleth in him." Alchemically, as well as cabalistically, darkness represents the body and incarnation, as the soul was seen to experience a kind of death and forgetting of it's origin upon entering a body (Gnosticism here); while the secret things are the divine sparks, the light, the gold if you will, concealed in matter.

Alchemy, gnosticism and the cabala are all centered around the "mysteries associated with matter". The allegorical goal of each being to extract gold from base matter, a psycho-spiritual operation termed "The Great Work", refered to as the spiritualization of man. We liberate the spirit by realizing it.

Notice that the tenth sphere is called Kingdom, and that the phrase, kingdom, power and glory also comes straight from the Tree.

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