One of the points of this blog, and it does have a few, is that belief systems correspond to each other and in their various particularities map the same underlying reality. On the other hand, it is also the view of this blog that there is no underlying reality, per se, and that the belief systems we choose create our underlying ‘reality’ as we go along. Do we contradict ourselves? Very well then, we contradict ourselves: we are vast, and contain multitudes…
…ultimately gematria seems no more insane than the mystic theology of any religion
The ancient and voluminous Hebrew mystic methodology known as ‘cabala’ contains many wonders and can even be stretched to contain, just barely, the ignorant maunderings of Madonna and others of her celebrity ilk. But the aspect of cabala that typically captures the interest of Western mathematicians, ceremonial magicians, theologians and other librarians of the invisible is gematria, the alphanumeric system used to investigate and catalog the nature of God as revealed in language and number. Those who practice gematria rejoice in the seemingly more than coincidental associations between aspects of reality that one expects to be completely unrelated. As an example, gematria delights in the fact that there are exactly 22 solid figures that can be composed from regular polygons. This mathematical trivia is then considered alongside the fact that there are exactly 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and exactly 22 pathways on the cabalistic Tree of Life and from there the cabalist can spend days, months or years deciding which solids should be assigned to which pathway. At first blush, gematria can seem obsessive and at second blush, very obsessive, but more study reveals profound beauty in the lengthy chains of association and ultimately gematria seems no more insane than the mystic theology of any religion and a fairly reliable technology for demonstrating to the adherent that, in fact, everything is connected to everything else and that our feelings of separateness are illusory.
Cabalists traditionally had a strained relationship with conventional Jewish religion and were generally viewed as odd intellectuals pursuing unlikely coincidences with little meaning in the ‘real world’, whatever that might be. In this respect they are very like today’s conspiracy theorists, who also sift language obsessively, looking for the connections between worldly phenomena that appear, on the surface, to be completely unrelated. And, like cabalists, as we conspiracy theorists progress in our studies, we also find that, indeed, everything is connected to everything so that, for example, the annual hijinks at the Bohemian Grove can be traced back to Egyptian initiatory ritual and forward from there to Freemasonry and the JFK assassination and from there sideways to Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons whose Amalantrah and Babalon workings invoked the entity Lam and ripped a void in the etheric planes that opened the way for the modern UFO phenomenon and the military industrial complex which—by constructing the High-frequency Active Aural Research Project, HAARP—have brought about most of the modern weather disasters and earthquakes not to mention 9/11 which has numerological associations linking it to the star Sirius and the Secret Chiefs and… well, let’s not even get started on ritual child abuse, MK-ULTRA, Project Paperclip and chemtrails. In fact, lets not only not get started let’s not even acknowledge that we had this conversation because, after all, since we conspiracists believe these things, you don’t have to.
But where Cabala’s interlinked meanings are said to gradually lead the devotee to a beatific vision of God illuminating everything, the face of Maya seems darker to the modern mind and the twisted trails of conspiracy theory end in unsettling revelations, though Illuminati may be involved. And this grimmer vision, sadly, seems considerably more in tune with the world we now find ourselves inhabiting.
Did you like this essay? You’ll love my books!
{ 0 comments… add one now }