Babylonian, and Chaldean Mysteries.2 [Author's emphasis]
Theon of Smyrna declares that the ten dots, or Tetractys of Pythagoras, was a symbol of the greatest importance, for to the discerning mind it revealed the mystery of universal nature.3
Fig. 2.1—Tetractys
The Judaic Kabbalists, who follow mystical rabbinic teachings based on an esoteric interpretation of Hebrew scripture, study the Tetragrammaton. The Tetragrammaton plainly means “four-letter word.” The four-letter word it addresses is the Hebrew name for God, Yod Heh Waw Heh, again represented in a triangular format. P.D. Ouspensky goes into detail on the study of the Tetragrammaton:
The study of the Name of God in its manifestations constitutes the basis of the Cabala…These four letters have been given a symbolic meaning…According to the Cabalists the four principles permeate and compose each and everything…The idea is quite clear. If the Name of God is really in everything (if God is present in everything), then everything should be analogous to everything else, the smallest part should be analogous to the whole, the speck of dust analogous to the Universe and all analogous to God. “As above, so below.”…In Alchemy the four principles of which the world consist are called the four elements. These are fire, water, air, and earth, which exactly correspond in their meaning to the four letters of the name Jehovah.4
Fig. 2.2—Tetragrammaton
This treatise will show that Ouspensky's description is exactly the case—a case for Oneness. The Cayce reading 288-27 concurs with Ouspensky, the alchemists, and Plato as to the four principles that make up the world:
Q-4. What are “the forces of the natural elements?” A-4. Fire, earth, air, and water. These are the natural elements in the physical plane, and—as the forces of these have influences—as the spirit of the air…the spirit of each! See?
The Ennead, Greek for nine, is a group of nine related Egyptian gods and is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts which are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious writings dating from at least 2200 BCE and from which The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day evolved. The Ennead is usually represented in the shape of a pyramidal (triangular) hierarchy of gods or principles that they represent.
Author and student of Egyptology Marie Parsons comments on the Ennead:
…the group of nine gods that embodied the creative source and chief forces of the universe (though this number was not always nine; at some times it was as few as five, and other times as many as twenty or more; and often, the traditional Ennead includes a tenth god, Horus the Elder).5
Author John Anthony West in his book Serpent in the Sky describes it as:
The Grand Ennead emanates from the Absolute, or ”central fire” (in the terminology of Pythagoras). The nine Neters (Principles) circumscribed about the One (The Absolute) becomes both One and Ten. This is the symbolic analog of the original Unity; it is repetition, the return to the source.6
While within the Pyramid Texts themselves it states:
Utt. 442
The king becomes a star.
Truly, this Great One has fallen on his side, He who is in Nedyt was cast down. Your hand is grasped by Re, Your head is raised by the Two Enneads…Who live by the gods’ command, You shall live! You shall rise with Orion in the eastern sky; You shall set with Orion in the western sky.7
Fig. 2.3—Ennead
The fact that the title of the quote is “the king becomes a star” and in said quote it states that “…Your head is raised by the Two Enneads…Who live by gods’ command, you shall live!”, then it is not difficult to picture two triangular tablets of commandments (“god's commands”), which, when overlapping each other, create the King's Star, a six-pointed star similar to the Star of David, also known as the Seal of Solomon and the Creator's Star. Such a star could be considered akin to a spiritual periodic table of the makeup of the universe and humankind, not only in laws but also in the way it represents the four principle elements of fire, water, air, and earth.
The Bible itself confirms Moses’ awareness of such Egyptian esoteric knowledge. In Acts 7:22 (KJV) it states that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Along these lines, the laws of the Ten Commandments as found in the Bible also have comparisons to the Egyptians’ negative confession found in their Book of the Dead—a book Moses would have had familiarity with. In the Ten Commandments when a law states “Thou shall not…,” the negative confession laws of ancient Egypt state “I have not…” (See Appendix 1 for a comparison of the two documents.)
I also find it curious that it seems confirmation of Moses’ understanding of Egyptian wisdom is noted in Acts 7:22 which when the numbers are listed as 22/7, they become pi? Pi is an important, advanced mathematical constant necessary to determine different aspects of a circle, and the circle often is a representation of God and eternity. Though the concept of pi seems to have been known to the Egyptians, it is still debated today as to whether it is represented in the Great Pyramid. Is this a hint in the Bible of the importance of geometry, particularly sacred geometry and the universal wisdom contained within it?
An Egyptian hieroglyph adds further support to the framework of this triangular tablet hypothesis. This hieroglyph, pictured on the following page, appears as a bowl with a diamond shape or the shape of two triangles placed base to base etched in its center. One of its translations is an alabaster bowl, but this bowl with its triangular shapes is also at the core for another translation which is a scroll or a priest carrying a scroll.8 Moses, the Hebrews’ lawgiver, could easily be identified as “a priest carrying a scroll,” or in this case, two triangular tables.
Fig. 2.4—“A Priest Carrying a Scroll” Hieroglyph—Temple at Edfu, Egypt
The bowl by itself in hieroglyphs means “lord,” and I wonder if by adding the diamond in the bowl that such a stone or jewel is being signified within ourselves as houses of the soul? This meaning could be similar to the New Testament quote calling us living stones and reminiscent of the Buddhist mantra Om mani Padme hum, behold the jewel in the lotus. Such connections will be explored in more detail in later chapters. Interestingly there is biblical New Testament writing where Jesus has an alabaster bowl or box of unguent poured over his head. This “baptism” is in his preparation for fulfilling the laws and becoming the covenant. In the biblical Old Testament perhaps there is another clue at the beginning of Moses’ life. As written in the New Jerusalem Bible, the King of Egypt instructed the midwives to watch the two stones (possibly birthing bricks) at birth (Ex 1:16 New Jerusalem Bible), and if a boy was born, they should kill him, but all girl infants could live. Is this a symbolic reference for the coming of the two tablets of the Ten Commandments and identifying the future lawgiver who is to receive them? At this point Moses the infant, the future high priest and lawgiver of the Hebrews, is placed in a papyrus basket (bowl) and placed in the river Nile. So right from his beginning we have
