The Washington DC Map as Glass Bead Game
The Glass Bead Game a novel by Herman Hesse My thesis in regard to Hesse's novel, "The Glass Bead Game", is that it represents an allegorical presentation of the Rosicrucian and Masonic scholarly enterprises, the goal of which has been stated as "mankind's moral, spiritual and intellectual developement". The Game itself, a game of ideas based on the concept of Indra's Net, is a metaphor for a tradition of esoteric philosophical cosmology (called the Perrenial Philosophy by Joseph Campbell) which has existed throughout every culture known to man. This philosophical cosmology is an expression of the fundamental system of order existent in the universe. Such systems of cosmology are usually expressed in symbolic forms such as sacred geometry, architecture, alchemy, mythology, arithmetic, astronomy, and the like, but what they all have in common is a unified vision of the process of manifestation of the universe from the absolute to the relative, and the notion of inter-connectedness. As God is supposed to have made man in his image and likeness, then man was thought to exemplifying in miniature, a part of the whole that includes all the forces of the macrocosm in a the microcosm. The Glass Bead Game is the artistic, philosophical or cosmological manipulation of the symbolic forms which express these systems of knowledge. It is a game of the inter-connections between ideas. In Castalia, The Glass Bead Game is no longer played with glass beads but with a system of symbols; in the same manner that I suggest that it is being played in the Washington DC layout. "These rules, the sign language and grammar of the Game, constitute a kind of highly developed secret language drawing upon several sciences and arts, but especially mathematics and music (and/or musicology), and capable of expressing and establishing interrelationships between the content and conclusions of nearly all scholarly disciplines." "The Glass Bead Game is thus a mode of playing with the total contents and values of our culture; it plays with them as, say, in the great age of the arts a painter might have played with the colors on his palette." "All the insights, noble thoughts, and works of art that the human race has produced in its creative eras, all that subsequent periods of scholarly study have reduced to concepts and converted into intellectual property -- on all this immense body of intellectual values the Glass Bead Game player plays like the organist on the organ." - Hesse "Glass Bead Game" The structure and dimensions of the Game What makes the story simultaneously enchanting and maddening, is that Hesse never gives any explicit description of how The Game might actually work. There are, however, concrete examples to which we can refer. The Bead Game begins with a player presenting a starting point, that might be an image or symbol, a piece of music or text, on which he begins to elaborate; then others are given a chance to contribute, after which there is a meditation on the subject of the Game. In the context of the book, this is a finite process, with a definite beginning, middle and end, but in real life, this is the same process as the developement of science, religion and philosophy. [Compare to the definition of Masonry as "a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols".] For his first Ceremonial Game as Magister, Joseph Knecht's "idea was to base the structure and dimensions of the Game on the ancient ritual Confucian pattern for the building of the Chinese house: orientation by the points of the compass, the gates, the spirit wall, the relationships and functions of buildings and courtyards, their co-ordination with the constellations, the calendar and family life, and the symbolism and stylistic principles of the garden. Long ago ... he had thought that the mythic order and significance of these rules made an unusually appealing and charming symbol of the cosmos and of man's place in the universe". We might consider the Great Pyramid and the Bible, as archived Bead Games, and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life glyph a game map for an ongoing process of game play. My thesis in regard to the Washington, D.C. map is that it too constitutes an ongoing Bead Game for members of the Order. I contend that the city's planners and developers based "the structure and dimensions of the Game" on two different patterns, those being Metatron's Cube which encompasses the Kaballistic Tree of Life and the cross-section image of the Great Pyramid. Continue

The Washington DC Map as Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game
a novel by Herman Hesse
My thesis in regard to Hesse's novel, "The Glass Bead Game", is that it represents an allegorical presentation of the Rosicrucian and Masonic scholarly enterprises, the goal of which has been stated as "mankind's moral, spiritual and intellectual developement".
The Game itself, a game of ideas based on the concept of Indra's Net, is a metaphor for a tradition of esoteric philosophical cosmology (called the Perrenial Philosophy by Joseph Campbell) which has existed throughout every culture known to man. This philosophical cosmology is an expression of the fundamental system of order existent in the universe.
Such systems of cosmology are usually expressed in symbolic forms such as sacred geometry, architecture, alchemy, mythology, arithmetic, astronomy, and the like, but what they all have in common is a unified vision of the process of manifestation of the universe from the absolute to the relative, and the notion of inter-connectedness.
As God is supposed to have made man in his image and likeness, then man was thought to exemplifying in miniature, a part of the whole that includes all the forces of the macrocosm in a the microcosm.
The Glass Bead Game is the artistic, philosophical or cosmological manipulation of the symbolic forms which express these systems of knowledge. It is a game of the inter-connections between ideas. In Castalia, The Glass Bead Game is no longer played with glass beads but with a system of symbols; in the same manner that I suggest that it is being played in the Washington DC layout.
"These rules, the sign language and grammar of the Game, constitute a kind of highly developed secret language drawing upon several sciences and arts, but especially mathematics and music (and/or musicology), and capable of expressing and establishing interrelationships between the content and conclusions of nearly all scholarly disciplines."
"The Glass Bead Game is thus a mode of playing with the total contents and values of our culture; it plays with them as, say, in the great age of the arts a painter might have played with the colors on his palette."
"All the insights, noble thoughts, and works of art that the human race has produced in its creative eras, all that subsequent periods of scholarly study have reduced to concepts and converted into intellectual property -- on all this immense body of intellectual values the Glass Bead Game player plays like the organist on the organ." - Hesse "Glass Bead Game"

The structure and dimensions of the Game
What makes the story simultaneously enchanting and maddening, is that Hesse never gives any explicit description of how The Game might actually work. There are, however, concrete examples to which we can refer.
The Bead Game begins with a player presenting a starting point, that might be an image or symbol, a piece of music or text, on which he begins to elaborate; then others are given a chance to contribute, after which there is a meditation on the subject of the Game. In the context of the book, this is a finite process, with a definite beginning, middle and end, but in real life, this is the same process as the developement of science, religion and philosophy. [Compare to the definition of Masonry as "a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols".]
For his first Ceremonial Game as Magister, Joseph Knecht's "idea was to base the structure and dimensions of the Game on the ancient ritual Confucian pattern for the building of the Chinese house: orientation by the points of the compass, the gates, the spirit wall, the relationships and functions of buildings and courtyards, their co-ordination with the constellations, the calendar and family life, and the symbolism and stylistic principles of the garden. Long ago ... he had thought that the mythic order and significance of these rules made an unusually appealing and charming symbol of the cosmos and of man's place in the universe".
We might consider the Great Pyramid and the Bible, as archived Bead Games, and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life glyph a game map for an ongoing process of game play.
My thesis in regard to the Washington, D.C. map is that it too constitutes an ongoing Bead Game for members of the Order. I contend that the city's planners and developers based "the structure and dimensions of the Game" on two different patterns, those being Metatron's Cube which encompasses the Kaballistic Tree of Life and the cross-section image of the Great Pyramid.

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