Islamic influences

The 12th century emergence of the written Kaballah and the notion of a tree with ten spheres is an Islamic Hebrew blend. We know this because of the use of Arabic numbers for the spheres. In the Kabbalistic cosmogeny, the Creation process utilizes ten numbers and twenty two letters. While the twenty two letters appear to be the Hebrew letters, the numbers appear to be Hindu-Arabic numerals. I say this because for the Hebrews (like the Greeks) their letters, words and phrases are also numbers, so the ten numbers would be the first ten letters.

The Gates of Light tree does not label the 'paths'; the Kircher tree labels the spheres with Hindu-Arabic numerals and the paths with Hebrew letters. Kircher achieves a total of 22 paths by altering the shape of the Gates of Light tree which has only 16. The primary concern of the GOLT designers was the ten spheres and a particular shape and not 22 letters. Kircher's new design depicts the notion of 'three pillars' better, too.

I suggest that the move to ten spheres and the adoption of the use of Arabic numerals in the tree parallels the displacement of the use of Roman numerals by Europeans in general. The person that has been credited with spreading the Hindu-Arabic numeral system throughout Europe, primarily through the publication of his 1202 Liber Abaci (Book of Calculation) is our old friend Fibonacci.

Oddly Arabic numbers look like the signs for the planets for different spheres. Saturn is at sphere three and the sign for Saturn looks like a 3; the one for Jupiter looks like a 4. The significance of this is that earlier system had used letters as numbers so that words were also numbers, here numbers are astronomical insignia as well as a sphere on the tree image. (The Z in zodiac looks like a 2.) This does not work with the nine worlds image. Creating the symbol for the earth requires a circle and straight lines, the number ten exactly.

The tree depicts a ten body system that is 6 centered. Saturn (Chronos/Time) has been removed from his position at the top of the hexagram - and is placed beside the zodiac or space. In positions 1, 2 and we have the Source, Space and Time. Jupiter is the new father figure.

    

Consider how the numbers for the spheres resemble the sign for the planet associated with that sphere.

The third sphere is associated with Saturn;

The fourth with Jupiter;

5 with Mars;

6, the Sun;

7, Venus;

8, Mercury;

9, the Moon;

and 10 with the Earth.

Magic Squares

A Magic Square is a square array of numbers consisting of the distinct positive integers (1,2,3, etc.), arranged so that the sum of the numbers in any horizontal, vertical, or main diagonal line is always the same number. There are seven planetary Magic Squares, one each for Saturn, Jupiter, Mars the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon.

These also depend on the number of the planet's sphere. As we showed earlier, the planet Saturn is at sphere 3 on the Tree of Life, while Jupiter is at 4, Mars at 5, 6 is the Sun, 7 is Venus, 8 is Mercury, and 9 is the moon. Looking at the magic squares, we note that the square of Saturn has three rows and three columns, while the one for Jupiter has 4, Mars 5, the Sun 6, etc. That is, the number of the square for each planet corresponds to it's number on the Tree of Life.

In other words the magic square for each of the planets, the sun and the moon, consists of a matrix of rows and columns equal to the number of the corresponding sephera or sphere on the tree. The Saturn square consists of the first nine digits, and any row or column or diagonal adds to 15.

The Jupiter square consists of the first 16 digits and adds to 34.

The Mars square is 5x5 and adds to 65, the sun square is 6x6 and adds to 111, the Venus square is 7x7 and adds to 175, the Mercury suqare is 8x8 and adds to 260, the Moon square is 9x9 and adds to 369.

Note that the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 36 arranged in the 6x6 magic square of the sun are 666. The table below summarizes the information for seven magic squares.

Planet	Rows and Columns	Boxes in Square	Sum of Any Line	Sum of Perimeter	Sum of Entire Square
Saturn	3	9	15	40	45
Jupiter	4	16	34	102	136
Mars	5	25	65	208	325
Sun	6	36	111	370	666
Venus	7	49	175	600	1225
Mercury	8	64	260	910	2080
Moon	9	81	369	1312	3321

The use of Magic Squares was popularised by the magician Cornelius Agrippa in his book "De Occulta Philosophia", published in 1531 (begun in 1509). Since there is no magic square for the number 2, a system with ten spheres moved Saturn to sphere three in order for it to work like this.

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To review; the Tree of Life is a symbol used to represent both the descent and possible ascent of the soul. It consists of ten sepheroth (nine of which correlate to celestial and planetary spheres) which are numbered 1 to 10, starting at the top. We find that the number associated with a sphere, for instance 4 for Jupiter, determines the number of rows and columns in the magic square associated with that planets, and the shape of that number relates to the symbols used to designate that planet.

In 1993 Llewwllyn's Worldwide published an English translation of Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy edited and annotated by Doanld Tyson. In Appendix VI The Sepheroth (p 754), Tyson suggests that the most important association attached to the spheres on the Tree of Life is 'the series of ten divine names' and that the association of the spheres of heaven with individual sepheroth is of 'far less philosophical importance' than the names of God.

I would like to suggest that the above shows that the association with the first ten arabic numbers is just as important as that of the divine names, and that the association with the heavenly spheres is not of less philosophical importance than the divine names, but is integral to the notion of the tree itself. As the quintessential symbol of transcendence, the Tree of Life and the System of Sepheroth were intended primarily to provide conceptual intemediaries between Deity and the material world, to bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite, the micro and macrocosms, and the model that philosophers used was the solar system.

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