Old Aeon vs New Aeon hexagram of Nature
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Thanks Jim for reminding! I forgot about GD polygons and polygrams flying roll.
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Edward – thanks for feedback.
I’m not sure what IAO131 is referring to by “relatively modern system of symbolism” (Qabalah? Hexagram?) in his review, but either way, his assertion is simply not correct. The seven planets date back to Ptolemy.
I find the Old Aeon hexagram’s attribution of Saturn to Daath to be fascinating. While this attribution may be incorrect, I think it's an accurate description of how people thought of Saturn who rules over harvest, karma, structure, limitation, hierarchy, knowledge and science. That the Old Aeon would map this principle onto Daath reinforces the traditional view of Saturn as being essentially a dry, cold, and sterile order – hence Saturn eats his children – but also mirroring the sterility of the Abyss. The image evokes a mechanical clock. Saturn’s attribution to Daath implies our conditioning by the Actual is, in fact, a false one - perhaps one that ruled for an aeon, but no longer providing certainty and security of that old order. Old Aeon conditioning is the belief that no matter what happens in history that life will still “go on as usual” – as regular as the rotation of the mechanical clock, the seasonal cycles.
Saturn’s attribution to Binah, however, changes the stakes of the game in the New Aeon. False knowledge is becoming transformed into real understanding with ultimate stakes at risk. Change is accelerating in history – the best known example being the mapping of the Human Genome in a mere 13 years.
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@he atlas itch said
"I find the Old Aeon hexagram’s attribution of Saturn to Daath to be fascinating."
It's a misunderstanding. Saturn isn't being attributed to Daath. Rather, the entire Supernal triangle is attributed to the top point of the hexagram. (Similarly, Malkuth, like Yesod, is attributed to the bottom point. This doersn't mean that Malkuth is attributed to the Moon.)
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Hi Jim – are you saying the attribution of Saturn to Daath is a recent misunderstanding? Or a misunderstanding to how things “really are” with regard to the corresponding sephiroths? What I’m trying to pinpoint is how long the Saturn>Daath mapping has been misunderstanding – a hundred years? an Aeon? Saturn influences science and knowledge so this would neatly map onto Daath, no?
I was under the impression that Crowley was the person responsible for mapping Saturn to Binah/Supernals, but you seem to suggest 1) the mapping of Saturn/Daath is not such an old misunderstanding and 2) the attribution of Saturn to Binah/Supernals has always been the correct one – i.e. Saturn’s shift from Daath to Binah has nothing to do with revelation of aeonic change.
I hope my above questions are clear.
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@he atlas itch said
"Hi Jim – are you saying the attribution of Saturn to Daath is a recent misunderstanding?"
I know of no attribution of Saturn to Daath by any reliable source (ever).
"What I’m trying to pinpoint is how long the Saturn>Daath mapping has been misunderstanding – a hundred years? an Aeon? Saturn influences science and knowledge so this would neatly map onto Daath, no?"
Where do you find a correspondence of Saturn to Daath? As mentioned above, I know of no such attribution anywhere in the Qabalistic traditions.
"I was under the impression that Crowley was the person responsible for mapping Saturn to Binah/Supernals, but you seem to suggest 1) the mapping of Saturn/Daath is not such an old misunderstanding and 2) the attribution of Saturn to Binah/Supernals has always been the correct one – i.e. Saturn’s shift from Daath to Binah has nothing to do with revelation of aeonic change. "
Saturn's attribution to Binah goes back as far as planetary mappings to Sephiroth can be found. It is as ancient an attribution as Yesod and Luna, Mercury and Hod, or any others.
It is not a New Aeon attribution per se. Crowley was not responsible for it (but, rather, learned it in the Golden Dawn or earlier). The attribution of Saturn to Binah has always been the attribution taught. There was no "shift of Saturn from Daath to Binah" because it Saturn has never been attributed to Daath. (The attribution of Saturn to Binah is much older than the existence of Daath in the Kabbalistic schema.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Where do you find a correspondence of Saturn to Daath? As mentioned above, I know of no such attribution anywhere in the Qabalistic traditions."
I obtained that from Gunther’s book. His comments are accompanied by an illustration of the Hexagram of Nature with the following planets/sephiroths attributed to each point of the hexagram:
- Top point = Saturn/Daath
- Upper right point = Jupiter/Chesed
- Lower right point = Venus/Netzach
- Bottom point = Moon/Yesod
- Lower left point = Mercury/Hod
- Upper left point = Mars/Geburah
- Middle of the hexagram = Sun/Tiphareth
Hence Gunther writes:
The uppermost point is in Daath, the “false” Sephirah, to which the planet Saturn is attributed in the diagram. The correct attribution of Saturn, however, is Binah; Daath does not exist on the Tree of Life.His whole point is that this “wrong” attribution of Saturn to Daath is because the Old Aeon did not have any practical instructions for knowing how to cross the Abyss and the concept of the Supernals was merely an intellectual construction albeit informed by Neschamah. The symbolism found in alchemical texts and medieval occult books would seem to confirm Gunther’s assertion of Saturn’s wrong attribution to Daath as being quite old. For example, I would say this wrong attribution is due to the “fallen” character of the Old Aeon.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Saturn's attribution to Binah goes back as far as planetary mappings to Sephiroth can be found. It is as ancient an attribution as Yesod and Luna, Mercury and Hod, or any others."
Are you referring to the Seven Palaces of the Tree of Life diagram? Or is it older than that? When did planetary mappings on to the Tree first appear?
@Jim Eshelman said
"The attribution of Saturn to Binah has always been the attribution taught. There was no "shift of Saturn from Daath to Binah" because Saturn has never been attributed to Daath."
If so, that blows Gunther's larger point on the Old Aeon vs New Aeon out of the water - unless I'm misunderstanding his comments.
@Jim Eshelman said
"(The attribution of Saturn to Binah is much older than the existence of Daath in the Kabbalistic schema.)"
That's interesting - I didn't know that.
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@he atlas itch said
"I obtained that from Gunther’s book. His comments are accompanied by an illustration of the Hexagram of Nature with the following planets/sephiroths attributed to each point of the hexagram:"
This is what I mentioned above about not confusing the Sephirothic attribution with those of the points of the hexagram.
A hexagram only has so many points - six, to be precise
If you overlay it on the Tree of Life, the top point doesn't skew off to the left to Binah, but falls at the place Daath is usually drawn. This is a diagrammatic issue. That point of the hexagram is related to the planet Saturn, and to the Supernal Triad in general. For example, it is also the point used to invoke or banish Chokmah or Kether. But that doesn't mean that Saturn is attributed to those Sephiroth either.
Similarly, the bottom point of the hexagram falls where Yesod falls on the Tree and, of course, invokes or banishes the Moon. But it also is used to invoke or banish Malkuth. That's a convention.
"Hence Gunther writes:
The uppermost point is in Daath, the “false” Sephirah, to which the planet Saturn is attributed in the diagram. The correct attribution of Saturn, however, is Binah; Daath does not exist on the Tree of Life."The key words are "in the diagram." It's a badly written sentence. Every individual statement made in the quote is correct, but the composition was vulnerable to the misinterpretation you placed on it.
"His whole point is that this “wrong” attribution of Saturn to Daath is because the Old Aeon did not have any practical instructions for knowing how to cross the Abyss and the concept of the Supernals was merely an intellectual construction albeit informed by Neschamah."
If that's his premise, then I would disagree with it entirely. (I still haven't cracked the book, so I don't know if that's his premise or not.) And, if it were true, the above would be a device of rhetoric at best, and mistaken history at worst.
"The symbolism found in alchemical texts and medieval occult books would seem to confirm Gunther’s assertion of Saturn’s wrong attribution to Daath as being quite old."
But it just isn't true. Don't check alchemical texts for Kabbalistic correspondences - check Kabbalistic texts. (Daath was barely an existing idea in Kabbalah at all until deep into the Middle Ages.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Saturn's attribution to Binah goes back as far as planetary mappings to Sephiroth can be found. It is as ancient an attribution as Yesod and Luna, Mercury and Hod, or any others."Are you referring to the Seven Palaces of the Tree of Life diagram? Or is it older than that? When did planetary mappings on to the Tree first appear?"
At the time of writing, I was referring to the Tree of Life. - For your last question, I'd have to do some digging. (I take your question to refer to planetary mappings to the Sephiroth.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"(The attribution of Saturn to Binah is much older than the existence of Daath in the Kabbalistic schema.)"That's interesting - I didn't know that."
The idea of Daath is a very late development, relative to the rest of the Tree.
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hi Jim - thanks for that concrete feedback.
I don’t want to misinterpret Gunther’s words but his reasoning is laid out pretty clearly in the opening quote (the relevant argument underlined):
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The New Aeon completely changed the formula of Supreme Initiation, for it has “fixed the Volatile” above the great desert which is the Abyss. Prior to this the dogma of the Sephiroth above the Abyss was an intellectual construction, albeit informed by Neschamah. There was no method of instruction for crossing this great gulf which separates the Ideal and the Actual. In fact, the Osirian systems had no concept of “crossing the Abyss” at all. Evidence of this may be found in the symbolism of the planetary hexagram of nature.The uppermost point is in Daath, the “false” Sephirah, to which the planet Saturn is attributed in the diagram. The correct attribution of Saturn, however, is Binah; Daath does not exist on the Tree of Life.*
Following his above description of Daath, Gunther writes:
Some adepts of the old time proclaimed Daath to be the result of the union of Chokmah and Binah; it is merely the [censored] of the Swastika. In practise the cult of Jehovah/Jesus did not even reach up to Daath, or even to Chesed. The “great father” of their religion was merely a false image of the Dyad (Chokmah) reflected into the Sephira of Netzach.
In a footnote Gunther explains his reference to the “Swastika”:
The Swastika here signifies Kether, the 1st Sephira. The Hebrew letter Aleph, which has the value of 1, is by shape a Swastika, which signifies the Rashith ha Gilgalim, or First Motion, which was the First appearance of “Evil” since it disrupted the perfection of the Zero. It was the “Wrong of the Beginning.” Knowledge, or Daath, is not the Child of Wisdom and Understanding, but it merely a false image of the Unity of Kether the Crown. Upon analysis, it is revealed to be a false monad that shatters into the dust of the Abyss. Cf. Liber CDXVIII, 3rd Aethyr.
(Initiation in the Aeon of the Child, pp. 41 – 44)
I understand Gunther’s comments to mean 1) the Old Aeon had no concept of crossing the Abyss – i.e. the Supernals were merely an intellectual construction albeit informed by Neschamah and therefore the Supernals held no practical reality in the Old Aeon - and 2) the evidence for his assertion is seen in the planetary hexagram of nature where Saturn is mapped onto Daath, the false Crown of the Old Aeon, which is not just some recent and random misunderstanding due to the hexagram diagram. Further, given Saturn rules Time and the New Aeon is characterized by the light of the Supernals penetrating the lower part of the Tree (a gnosis revealing the reality of the Fall rather than being concealed by the false Crown of Daath), it suggests the (now) correct attribution of Saturn to Binah to be the very signification of aeonic change.
Now I know Saturn’s attribution to the Supernals is found in the Seven Palaces of the Tree of Life diagram and Crowley reiterates this fact in that Book of Thoth comment (“[Saturn] resumes the characteristics of the three Sephiroth above the Abyss”). What I don’t know is whether the Seven Palaces diagram is a recent or old one. Or the earliest Qabalistic sources mapping the seven planets onto the Sephiroths. If anyone has any information on this, it would help determine the earliest dating of Saturn being mapped onto Binah/the Supernals and provide context to what Gunther seems to be saying.
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@he atlas itch said
"I don’t want to misinterpret Gunther’s words but his reasoning is laid out pretty clearly in the opening quote (the relevant argument underlined)"
FWIW (I know you didn't ask), I don't agree with that premise. - I would agree with some similar or tangential ideas, but not with the specific statement set you quoted.
For example, I would agree that for most people (including most Kabbalists), the supra-abyssmal realm was mostly only an intellectual idea. (That's kinda like saying that "God" is, for most people, just an intellectual and emotional idea.) But Neshamah was not in any sense cut off from the possibility of that attainment (given then - as now - issues of capacity, karma, effort, etc.).
I would also agree (if this is, perhaps, part of what he meant) that attainment of Neshamic consciousness will be the level at which routine mature, healthy adult consciousness stablizes over the course of the Aeon of Horus (over the course of the next many centuries), just as Ruach consciousness was that into which humanity stabilized over the course of the Aeon of Osiris.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"(I know you didn't ask)"
Just to clarify, I do appreciate and value your opinion on Gunther’s comments.
On the whole I found *Initiation in the Aeon of the Child *to be interesting and inspiring. Gunther teases out and develops brilliant motifs in particular from Vision and Voice. The 1st Aethyr seems to be the central motif of his book. Also his application of alchemical concepts to the Tree is interesting to note (someone once observed the OTO is Germanic and based on alchemical triads whereas the A.A. is Hebraic and based on Qabalah; I presume Gunther tried to bridge that gap).
But any work that seeks to build on Crowley’s legacy is bound to have a few points requiring fine-tuning over time and, for now, it looks like I will have to put his comments on Saturn/Daath on hold, subject to further research.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The idea of Daath is a very late development, relative to the rest of the Tree."
Is it fanciful to suppose that Daath is coming into existence as a result of more and more people crossing the Abyss, and leaving a legacy of knowledge, like an oasis in the desert, as they attain a state of consciousness where such knowledge is transcended?Then the author of the Sepher Yetzirah insisted there were exactly ten sephiroth because Daath was barely noticeable at the time, or because the Tree of ten sephiroth was made by God, as only God can, whereas Daath is being made by Adam.
(Then this knowledge is presented in the rituals and other techniques of attainment. And now that Horus has taken his seat in the east, and the psychic center of gravity, so to speak, for all humanity is no longer Nephesh or Ruach, but Neshamah, these rituals need some tweaking for the knowledge in them to go aright.)
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@gmugmble said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The idea of Daath is a very late development, relative to the rest of the Tree."Is it fanciful to suppose that Daath is coming into existence as a result of more and more people crossing the Abyss, and leaving a legacy of knowledge, like an oasis in the desert, as they attain a state of consciousness where such knowledge is transcended?[]quote]
Something like that is surely true, even though I might express it differently. In other words, it's an emerging concept.But don't confuse Daath with the Abyss! Daath is IN the Abyss, but the two are not at all equivalent. In some senses (especially the more outer aspects of Daath), they are more opposite. The very nature of the Abyss is that nothing is there.
Notice also that the Ruach itself, in the mature form that now know it, was emerging and "rounding out" over essentially the same period that Daath (Knowledge) was emerging was a doctrinal element. (Ruach wave just a little ahead of the Daath wave.)
"Then the author of the Sepher Yetzirah insisted there were exactly ten sephiroth because Daath was barely noticeable at the time, or because the Tree of ten sephiroth was made by God, as only God can, whereas Daath is being made by Adam."
I think it essential - absolutely essential - to the idea of Daath that we not consider it a Sephirah. There remain 10 Sephiroth, not 11. The punch line to understanding Daath is that no such thing exists.
"(Then this knowledge is presented in the rituals and other techniques of attainment. And now that Horus has taken his seat in the east, and the psychic center of gravity, so to speak, for all humanity is no longer Nephesh or Ruach, but Neshamah, these rituals need some tweaking for the knowledge in them to go aright.)"
"Deed done.
A long time ago.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"But don't confuse Daath with the Abyss! Daath is IN the Abyss, but the two are not at all equivalent."
Well, that's what I meant to imply by saying "like an oasis in the desert."
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@Modes said
"I rather be old aeonish and say that the hexagram represents Kether i.e. Macroprosopus as Microprosopus is the pentagram.
Crowley did better than Gunther or GD attributing the hexagram to the 4 elements, Sun and Moon thereby showing unity of the micro-macroprosopus. It's shocking but Crowley is a wise man.
I would read IAO131 articles about Gunther's book first before asking questions - they are illuminating."Thanks for the mention - Im glad you found it illuminating. I certainly found the book quite frustrating to say the least...
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