The Planetary Spheres

This image plots the Sun, Moon and planets onto the Star of David, and may well remind you of the first chapter of Revelation where the author speaks of the seven churches, the seven stars and the seven spirits before the throne. In verses 12-16 it reads, "I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, and he had in his right seven stars: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength". [The 'menorah', used in the Festival of Lights, is a stand that holds seven candles.]

As you can see, the sun lies at the center of this figure, while the outer planets are above it and the inner planets and the moon are below it.

The Journey of the Soul

You may recall that the ancient Greeks taught that the soul came from and returned to the stars, guided by the god Mercury, through seven planetary spheres. The order of the descent (fall) was : Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. [Remember that Saturn (aka Chronus or Time) is of a different generation than the other gods, as he was the Father of the others.]

Many different metaphors have been used to depict this journey of the soul. The image below tracks the descent with what looks like a lightning bolt, and in Ezekiel 1:14 we read, "The living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning".

In Genesis 1:28 Jacob relates his dream about having seen a ladder set up on the earth whose top reached to heaven and about how he "behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it", and in Revelation 6:13 we see, "And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth", which is exactly what the Greeks said.

Two Gates

Each planet is said to 'rule' a zodiac sign. Looking at the hexagram of planets we see that Saturn (at the top) rules Capricorn, and Jupiter rules Sagittarius, Mars rules Scorpio, Venus rules Libra, Mercury rules Virgo, the Sun rules Leo and the Moon (at the bottom) rules Cancer. In regards to the zodiac signs, we can see that the planets are positioned in reverse order, meaning that the order of descent is backwards through the zodiac.

Cancer, ruled by the Moon, the last sphere before entering the earth plane, was called the Gate of Birth; while Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, the last sphere on the return to the stars, was called the Gate of Death. The tropic of Cancer is where the sun reaches it's high point and the tropic of Capricorn is where it reaches it's low point in the winter.

Nine Worlds

You will note that adding heaven (or the stars) at the top and the earth at the bottom of this conceptual schema raises the number of spheres to nine, and generates a figure that looks like the one below. This image, entitled "The Nine Worlds of the Odinic Mysteries" from Manley P. Hall's book "The Secret Teachings of All Times", is the basic shape of Yggdrasil, the Nordic version of the Tree of Life.

According to Hall, the number 9 relates to chambers used for initiation practices by the Norse:

"The Nordic Mysteries were given in nine chambers or caverns, the candidate advancing through them in sequential order. These chambers of initiation represented the nine spheres into which the Drottars divided the Universe. There is undoubtably a relationship between the nine worlds of the Scandinavians and the nine spheres, or planes, through which the initiates of the Eleusian Mysteries passed in their ritual of regeneration."

As you can see the image is basically the Cartesian coordinate grid which indicates the the six directions in space (left, right, forward, back, up and down). The reason that the Nine Worlds image is labeled N-E-S-W is that, unlike the planet hexagram above, Yggdrasil is a geocentric (earth centered) view of things. Here the Sun instead of the stars, is the goal of the spirit, so it is placed at the top of the figure; other than that the form matches that of an extension of the hexagram above to nine spheres.

[The archetype is a notion about the soul having descended (for what ever reason) from the heights (up) to a 'lower station', some even call birth into a body (incarnation) the death of the soul. Upon release from the body, the soul is said to be returned to it's source. While the number of stations may differ, it seems that the favorite cosmological myth like this features the sun, moon and the planets. Mithric Rites were said to involve a ladder with seven steps, Fulcanelli says the alchemists ladder has seven rungs, Hall mentions nine chambers and nine planes of initiation, and all of these have their visual counter-part which is used to illustrate the legends.]

Metatron's Cube

The Nine worlds image is converted to Metatron's Cube by putting circles where the four direction markers are, and we are back to the hexagram again. Nine becomes 13, or 12 around 1 like the zodiac signs, although I never have seen an attempt to correlate the Cube with either the signs or the celestial spheres. Note that only nine of the spheres are required for everything between the stars and the earth. [Metatron's Cube is heliocentric.]

Enoch

According to kabbalistic legend, the patriarch Enoch (sixth after Adam) lived 365 years (the number of days in a solar year on earth) and was taken to the Throne of God, where he resides as the Archangel Metatron. Metatron is the entity that transmitted the Kabbalah to mankind. Metatron's Cube is named after this entity.

Three favorite kabbalistic themes are the Transmission and Preservation of Knowledge, Loss and Recovery , and Exile and Return (like the soul's journey). The story about Enoch building the twin pillars inscribed with human knowledge is the first kind, the story of the Royal Arch is a story of loss and recovery.

In this Enoch story, the thing that is lost is 'the true name of God'. Due to years in exile, and not having a Temple in which to practice their religion, it is said that the Hebrews 'lost (or forgot) the true name of God'. Up returning to their home, when they were about to erect a new Temple, an excavation revealed to them a series of underground chambers, each with it's own arch. In the ninth or last arched chamber they found a white cube with a golden triangle on it, inside of which was inscribed 'the true name of God'. As it turns out, Enoch had hidden that cube in that chamber years ago guided by the Lord.

It should be clear that since Enoch and Metatron are the same entity, and they each have a cube attributed to them, that Metatron's Cube is Enoch's Cube.

The Scottish Rites degree that deals with Enoch is the thirteenth degree, the Royal Arch of Solomon, and deals with 'nine' chambers (or arches, arcs, circles, spheres, celestial spheres). Metatron's Cube has thirteen circles, but only nine of them correlate to celestial spheres.

Albert Pike writes (M&D page):

"Nothing forbids you to consider the whole legend of this Degree, like that of the Master's, an allegory, representing the perpetuation of the knowledge of the True God in the sanctuaries of initiation. By the subterranean vaults you may understand the places of initiation, which in the ancient ceremonies were generally underground. The Temple of Solomon presented a symbolic image of the Universe... the system of numbers was intimately connected with their religions and worship."

The planet hexagram and the nine worlds images above are also symbolic images of the Universe, each reflecting a different number system.

The Kabbalistic Tree

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is based on the number 10, not 9. The change comes from adding the Throne of God to the top of nine worlds schematic. In order to maintain a symmetry between the top and bottom, Saturn and the Zodiac were moved side by side, and the old Saturn position is called Daath (the Abyss), and is not labeled on the Tree.

Conceptually, the ten sphere tree is composed of three spheres in a triangle at the top, and seven on the bottom; now Saturn is really seperated from the others. These top three represent the yin, the yang and the Tao of eastern philosophy, the thesis, the antithesis and the synthesis of the west. We have already shown that Saturn or Chronos represented time, and was the Father of the other gods. The Egyptians represented the goddess Nuit (night), mother of Osiris and Isis, as an arching female figure with stars all over her body. Among the many things that Nuit represented was Space.

Side by side in the Tree, seperated from the rest of creation by the Abyss at Daath, we see Time and Space as Saturn and the Zodiac. The Abyss marks the limits of man's knowledge and the top three spheres represent aprioris.

The Tree and the Cube

This image does not fit directly on Metatron's Cube formed of thirteen circles. As a matter of fact, there are two different versions of the Tree that put the repositioned zodiac and Saturn in different places. As you can see, only one conforms to the hexagonal/triangular form of the Cube.

What is the conceptual or symbolic advantage of either of the two images above? First of all, the H-shaped figure on the left preserves the notion of 'three pillars' associated with the Tree. As you can see below, this image is composed of two hexagons that resolve into a double cube and a vesica.

Looking at Metatron's Cube (below left), we can see that it is identical to the stellated dodecahedron, that is a figure with points instead of flat pentagonal faces. One circle corresponds to the corner facing you, and the other 12 correspond to corners of the stellation. Note how the faces triangulate and the hexagon that is formed at the center of the figure, as well as the rhombus that is formed by the overlap of that hexagon and the three pentagonal faces.

In the last figure below we see the reason for splitting the Saturn position in two, that being in order to indicate the corners of the pentagon that Saturn's old position was in the center of. While the Cube consists of thirteen circle on three axes (five on each axis), the Tree consists mainly of plane figures.

The Tree of Life, like the nine worlds image, just occupies the middle section of the Cube. Actually, in terms of a dodecahedron, we find that this Tree covers one fifth of that. The top triangle is 1/5 of the top pentagonal faces, while the bottom triangle is the same. Under the top triangle is a whole pentagon, and below that, two half pentagons. The Tree is composed of 2 and 2/5 pentagons, one fifth of the 12 dodecahedron faces.

Ten Spheres

What is the conceptual or symbolic advantage of the change to ten spheres?

The first is that a pentagram has been introduce. Before they were implicit in that the 'circles in the Cube' map to the pentagonal faces of the dodecahedron. The one-to-one relationship to the planet hexagram and the cube has been destroyed, but it has been reaffirmed in the dodecahedron.

The hexagon overlapping the pentagon symbolizes the relationship of the macro and micro-cosms.

Numbers have been added to the symbolism. Spheres on the Kabbalaistic Tree of Life are associated with a number, a celestial sphere, a zodiac sign and different keywords. There are 10 spheres and 22 'paths' on the Tree, just as there are 22 letter/numbers in the Hebrew aleph-bet, 22 Tarot trump cards, and 22 chapters in the Book of Revelation.

The new line-up of celestial spheres looks like this; Saturn has been removed as a gate, the middle path leads from the earth to the moon, the sun, then the Throne of God. The numbers associated with the spheres on the middle pillar are 1, 6, 9 and 10 which totals to 26, which is also the sum of the letter/numbers in the name Yahweh. (Y=10, H=5 and V=6.)

Revelation Chapter 6

With Saturn 'removed', we are left with a rectangle of planets around the sun, which reminds us of the fact that the Greeks and Romans depicted Helios the sun god as being pulled across the sky by four horses, which in turn reminds us of the four horsemen in Revelation Chapter 6.

In Rev 6 first we see a horse/man with a bow who is given a crown which is code for Sagittarius, the archer who is half man and half horse, ruled by Jupiter (king of the Gods). Next we see a red horse and the rider is given a sword and power; Mars is the war god who rules Scorpio, and though it does not say scorpions there, in 9:3 it says "power as the scorpions of the earth have power". Moving backwards through the signs the next would be Libra and we find a black horse and the rider has a set of scales in his hand- the scales being the sign of the equinox when the day and night are equal. Virgo is ruled Mercury (the guide of the souls) whose sign, the cadeusus, is used by medical personel, and the next horse man was followed by Death and Hell.

The early part of Rev 6 deals with four planets, 6:12 mentions both the sun and the moon, 6:13 says the stars from heaven fell onto the earth; that's eight of the nine celestial spheres, only Saturn is missing from Revelation 6.

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Numerals, Magic Squares and Planet Symbols

A Magic Square is a square array of numbers consisting of the distinct positive integers (1, 2,3, etc.), arranged so that the sum of the numbers in any horizontal, vertical, or main diagonal line is always the same number.

As you can see above, the planet Saturn is at sphere 3 on the Tree of Life, while Jupiter is at 4, Mars at 5, 6 is the Sun, 7 is Venus, 8 is Mercury, and 9 is the moon. Looking at the magic squares, we note that the square of Saturn has three rows and three columns, while the one for Jupiter has 4, Mars 5, the Sun 6, etc. That is, the number of the square for each planet corresponds to it's number on the Tree of Life.

In other words the magic square for each of the planets, the sun and the moon, consists of a matrix ofrows and columns equal to the number of the corresponding sephera or sphere on the tree. The Saturn square consists of the first nine digits, and any row or column or diagonal adds to 15. The Jupiter square consists of the first 16 digits and adds to 34. The Mars square is 5x5 and adds to 65, the sun square is 6x6 and adds to 111, the Venus square is 7x7 and adds to 175, the Mercury suqare is 8x8 and adds to 260, the Moon square is 9x9 and adds to 369.

Note that the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 36 arranged in the 6x6 magic square of the sun are 666. The table below summarizes the information for seven magic squares.

Planet	Rows and Columns	Boxes in Square	Sum of Any Line	Sum of Perimeter	Sum of Entire Square
Saturn	3	9	15	40	45
Jupiter	4	16	34	102	136
Mars	5	25	65	208	325
Sun	6	36	111	370	666
Venus	7	49	175	600	1225
Mercury	8	64	260	910	2080
Moon	9	81	369	1312	3321

The use of Magic Squares was popularised by the magician Cornelius Agrippa in his book "De Occulta Philosophia", published in 1534.

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So far we have seen that the spheres on the tree correlate to the planets, and that shape of the magic squares correlate to the number of the corresponding spheres on the tree; now we will see that the shape of the numerals themselves, correlate to the shape of the signs for the different planets.

The symbols for the planets, the sun, moon and earth look like this:

Now consider how the numbers for the spheres resemble the sign for the planet associated with that sphere.

The third sphere is associated with Saturn;

The fourth with Jupiter;

5 with Mars;

6, the Sun;

7, Venus;

8, Mercury;

9, the Moon;

and 10 with the Earth.

To review; the Tree of Life is a symbol used to represent both the descent and possible ascent of the soul. It consists of ten sephera, nine of which correlate to celestial and planetary spheres, which are numbered 1 to 10, starting at the top. We find that the number associated with a sphere, for instance 4 for Jupiter, determines the number of rows and columns in the magic square associated with that planets, and the shape of that number relates to the symbols used to designate that planet.