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We all owe Patrice Chaplin an enormous debt of gratitude for getting to the truth behind the Rennes-Le-Château mystery. Her book, The Portal, finally exposes the real activities of Bérenger Saunière and his unaccountable wealth. But in solving one mystery, Patrice Chaplin has given us a glimpse into an even greater mystery: the workings of the human soul, no less. And the clues come from a very strange source; a magic square concealed within the landscape of the Pyrenees.
Magic squares shedding light on the workings of the human soul? Surely, modern science replaced that mumbo-jumbo when Newton threw out his old alchemical grimoires and embraced mathematical abstraction? But therein lies the rub. Modern science can never shed light on something it does not acknowledge exists; that is, the human soul. And this is no mere oversight on the part of modern scientists. The abstract, mathematical modelling that underpins all modern science can never include the observer. Heisenberg enshrined this in his ‘uncertainty principle’, but since then quantum physicists have busied themselves studying the probability of events, rather than the actual causality. In order to get to the root of our scientific myopia, we shall have to do some good old-fashioned philosophising.
Thinking was all the rage a hundred years ago. Rudolph Steiner took the great nineteenth-century philosophers on at their own game and showed that, by their own logic, the observable universe is the meeting of ’concept and percept’ – OBSERVER and observed. He was showing them that they had proved that their own thinking, their own soul, could not be left out of the equation. Not surprisingly, they never thanked him, as thinking about the world around us is hard enough, without having to think about thought itself – that seems impossible. Surely thinking about the human soul is the preserve of religious dogma, not rational scientific thought?
There is an ancient axiom that says, “You cannot perceive that which you are”. But if I stand in front of a mirror I can perceive myself! No. You can perceive your body, but your body is not you, as Patrice Chaplin found on her journey through the Pyrenees. Though we cannot perceive our own soul externally, we can certainly perceive it internally, as our thoughts and feelings. In fact, Steiner divided the activity of the soul into thinking, feeling and willing (in the sense that we will our bodies to move). But how can magic squares possibly shed light on our thoughts and feelings?
Magic squares have some of the bizarre properties of that baffling form of light, the hologram, and holograms have the holistic properties of our own thinking. As above, so below? Or, more accurately, as without, so within? Could the light of our souls follow similar principles to external, coherent light? Purists will argue that I am now falling into the same trap as modern science and reducing the soul to some form of sophisticated computer. To escape from that trap, magic squares would have to somehow encapsulate that most important element of thinking, free will. Magic squares would have to be ’free’ to balance themselves in myriad different ways. Well, apparently, there are 275,305,224 different ways to balance a 5-square, one of the smaller squares.
Human free will contained within a numerical pattern? Surely, a step too far? Interestingly, in Steiner’s own cosmogenesis, free will evolves in distinct stages over aeons of time, so free will seems to be something far more complex than the simple capacity for ‘either/or’ decisions.
Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia 1 engraving of 1514
Dürer was a contemporary of Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, the alchemist, who believed there were at least three different forms of ‘Melencolia’. Were they represented by different forms of magic square? We shall probably never know, as the other engravings were either never completed or have been lost.
What we do know is that the alchemists attributed a magic square to each of the planetary bodies known at the time.
The Magic Squares of the Planets
These squares were believed to manifest, in constructive or destructive ways, as ’Intelligences’ or ’Spirits’ respectively and the names of these Intelligences and Spirits had strict numerical values, as in the ancient science of gematria (“In the beginning was the Word…”). The value of the Intelligence of a square was equal to the sum of any one line of the square, and the value of the Spirit of a square was the sum of the whole square. So, the Intelligence of the Sun square was 111 and the Spirit of the Sun square was 666. Steiner was at pains to point out that this is not the number of the antichrist, but of the Sun Spirit, Sorat, whose destructive influence reaches humanity once every 666 years or so, the last time most probably being the destruction of the twin towers in New York on 9/11. This is the only indication we have of how the magic squares of the planets manifest over time. ’The harmony of the Spheres’ is almost certainly contained within them. If Steiner drew on this alchemical wisdom, where had the alchemists get it from? The answer to that seems to lie in the ancient mystical teachings of the Cabbala.
The Tree of Life and the 32 paths from Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah
The Cabbalists divide ’God’s Light’ into 10 Sephiroth, or sapphires, connected by 32 pathways that manifest on at least 4 different levels. There are endless versions of this ’Tree of Life’, but the one above, from Dion Fortune’s Mystical Qabalah, reveals a striking parallel with the magic squares of the planets; the first and second Sephiroth are not ascribed to a planet, as they are ’unmanifest’. The third Sephiroth is ascribed to Saturn, the fourth to Jupiter, the fifth to Mars, the sixth to the Sun and so on. And this is not just coincidence; even a cursory reading of the Cabbala shows that the sixth Sephiroth has the same characteristics as the Sun square – it is the centre of equilibrium of the whole tree; “The point of transmutation between the planes of force and the planes of form,” as Dion Fortune puts it. It is also called the Christ Centre.
Steiner himself divided mankind into Body, Soul and Spirit and then subdivided these into 9 ’layers’ of our being. In a lecture he gave on 19 September 1922 he said:
“If we consider the whole human being as I have presented the subject in my Theosophy, in his nine parts, we find that from above down they are spirit human being, life spirit, spirit self, spiritual soul, rational soul, sentient soul, sentient body, ether body and physical body. These are nine. They would not connect with earthly life in the right way if there were not also a synthesis, which is the tenth. This gives us ten, and these also appear in the Sephiroth of pre-Christian times”.
The connections between the structure of our souls, the Sephiroth of the Cabbala and magic squares seem undeniable. However, for the ancient maxim, ‘as above, so below’ to hold true, the world around us would also have to be formed from magic squares. What a ridiculous proposition - we know the physical world is composed of atoms. But what are atoms, really? Since 1946, the inventor John Searl has been building devices that defy the ’laws’ of physics, based on his understanding of atoms as . . . magic squares. Like all those who do not follow the consensus, John Searl has been marginalised and ignored by academia, with the added complication, in his case, that he is now reluctant to share everything he knows, as so many have tried to steal his work. We can still glean an enormous amount, however, from his cryptic, 11-volume series The Law of The Squares.
John Searl divides magic squares into 3 types. Group 1 are the ’odd’ squares: 3x3, 5x5, 7x7 etc. These can rotate, like atoms, as the central number is immobile, whilst the others have some mobility. The simplest 3x3 square must always have the number 5 in the centre square, otherwise it cannot be balanced. Group 2 are the squares that are divisible by 4: 4x4, 8x8, 12x12 etc. These do not have a fixed central square, so they ’oscillate’, rather than rotate. They seem to form the basis of structure, as John Searl states that the 4x4 square manifests as a triangle, from which 3 of the 5 platonic solids form. Group 3 are the remaining squares: 6x6, 10x10, 14x14, which ’rotate and oscillate’. John Searl also points out that magic squares do not have to start with number 1; they can start from any number and still form a balanced square, so there are infinite ’levels’ of every square. Every square has a ’Time Frame’ and ’Space Frame’, which they can share with other squares so they can combine in myriad different ways. He also states that magic squares are ’Observer and Observed’.
Out of this numerical fog some interesting patterns emerge. The 4 square, 6 square and 8 square can never ’share space’, be it the internal space of our souls or the external space of matter. This may be the basis of the solidity of matter – that with which our physical body cannot share space. However, thinking about how these squares manifest around us is very difficult, as we have left the strictly objective world, in which our own existence seems of little consequence, and entered a phenomenological world, in which we are of central importance. Anthroposophists might also notice that the 6 square, the Sun square, holds the balance between two eternally incompatible foes, the 4 square and 8 square. Critics will argue that neither of Christ’s adversaries came from the 8 square, Mercury, but Steiner did say that, at some point, Mercury and Venus had become transposed in spiritual teachings.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about magic squares is what has not been said about them. Steiner himself never referred directly to them. They seem to be ’persona non grata’ in both scientific and spiritual circles. A clue may lie in the alternative name for the Sephiroth of the Cabbala, the Tree of Life. Since the fall of man, as we pass through this brutish stage of our collective development, it has been necessary to keep the knowledge of the Tree of Life from us. Knowledge of how to alter the thoughts and feelings of others, and much, much more, simply cannot be entrusted to us at this time.
And what can we learn from Patrice Chaplin’s adventure in the Pyrenees? I do not think it is giving too much away by saying that her journey seemed to involve balancing the 7 square or Venus square within herself, which allowed body and soul to briefly separate so she could observe Bérenger Saunière’s activities first hand! |
