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Tav or Tau is the twenty-second and final letter of the Hebrew alphabet of consonants, and last of the seven double letters. The three septenaries were completed with Schin. Tav or Tau concludes the entire alphabet. It signifies the number 400. As twenty-second in the procession of letters, Tau incorporates the powers of two 2's, symbolizing the lower and the higher Feminine, which are shown biblically in Mary Magdalen and the Virgin Mary, always together at the foot of the cross.
In our discussion of Teth, the ninth letter, we said that there was no X or T in the symbolism of the exoteric Hebrew alphabet and that the T was introduced into the Greek alphabet by Kadmus the Phoenician who gave to the Greeks their "Kadmean letters." A faint remembrance of ancient cultural and racial ties with the Greeks still lingered in the centuries just before the advent of the Christ, as we learn from the first Book of Maccabees, wherein we are told how Onias the High Priest wrote to the Lacedemonians, reminding them of this ancient kinship, and received this reply from Areus, King of the Lacedemonians, "It is found in writing that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham; now therefore, since this is come to our knowledge, ye shall do well to write unto us of your prosperity. We do write back to you again that your cattle and goods are ours and ours are yours. We do command therefore our ambassadors to make report unto you on this wise."
Both T and X are found in the Greek alphabet, and the apocryphal Hebrew legends also have something to say about them, and from this source the symbolism enters modern Freemasonry. An X-mark does occur in old Hebrew alphabets.
Apocryphal Masonic legends ascribe the Books of Tau and the symbolic T to Methusael, the descendant of Cain, as we learned in our study of the letter Teth, which is also T in sound; and we reviewed the story of Hiram Abiff, the Master Architect of Solomon's Temple, who plunged through the raging molten sea to the center of the earth where he met his ancestor Tubal-Cain and received from him a disk and a hammer, with which he returned to the surface of the earth and completed his masterpiece. Afterward he was attacked by three ruffians, but succeeded in throwing into a well the golden plate upon which was inscribed the Master's Word, which was thus lost. Rosicrucian legends state that Hiram Abiff was reborn as Lazarus, taking the name of John in Initiation, and becoming the author of the Fourth Gospel. Only in John's Gospel do we have the story of the raising of Lazarus, and only there does Mary Magdalen receive the supreme honor of being first to see the Risen Christ.
Four, and therefore 400 (the number of Tau), which is 4 raised to a supernal plane, relates to the number of the planet Earth. When Hiram arose from earth's center he bore within himself the mystic symbols; the disk and the hammer which became the ROSE AND THE CROSS.
The wonderful Books of Tau recorded the history of the Sons of Fire and detailed all of their wondrous wisdom and their secrets of the arts, crafts and sciences including also those deep mysteries pertaining to Earth's center, into which Hiram had been initiated by Tubal-Cain.
A hint has come down to modern man as to the esoteric significance of the Tau in Lucian's satire, "Trial in the Court of Vowels," in which he writes, "Men weep and bewail their lot and curse Kadmus with many curses for introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up the erections on which men are crucified. Staurus (cross) the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him." The legendary Kadmus is variously ascribed to a period close to that of Moses, approximately twelve or thirteen hundred years B.C. Scholars and historians are not unanimously agreed on the dates for Moses and the Patriarchs of the Bible; some ascribe the Mosaic period to the century following the Pharaoh Akhnaton, and many Hebrew historians believe that Moses was indeed a disciple of the monotheistic Pharaoh of Egypt who led the Hebrews and a few surviving Egyptian Aton-worshippers out into the wilderness and on to the borders of the Holy Land. Nor is this an unreasonable deduction, since verses closely similar to some of Akhnaton's hymns are still to be found in the Old Testament, although all trace of the Pharaoh was destroyed in Egypt, and even in the Zohar the tradition lingers that the name Adonai is found in the orb of the Sun.
From the Book of Exodus we learn that the Hebrews were builders, working on the pyramids in Egypt. The famous motion picture, "The Ten Commandments," portrays these scenes vividly, showing Moses as the architect in charge of the building operations. Important to these builders in Egypt was the Tau-cross, used for measuring the rise of the waters in the Nile. Together with the Pythagorean triangle, it constituted the most important of the builder's tools; it is well known that the so-called Pythagorean triangle was used by both Babylonians and Egyptians before the time of Pythagoras. Pythagoras was deeply indebted to the sages of Babylonia and Egypt, and reverence for Egypt continued throughout Greek history.
A triangle is the symbol of the pyramids, which are composite triangular structures. Some pyramids are built on a triangular base, but the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, and similar pyramids in Egypt, has a square base with triangular sides sloping to the apex where, however, the capstone is missing. Similarly, some Bible historians believe that Solomon's Temple was in reality a stepped pyramid, like that of Bel at Babylon, or perhaps like the three-staged pyramid of the Moon God of Ur in Chaldea whence Abraham came. The esotericist notes with interest the following parallels: that in the foundation of the pyramid of Bel, there was an empty sepulcher supposed to be that of the god Bel, who should one day return to be the savior of mankind; that in the Great Pyramid are two chambers, both containing empty sepulchers; that in the Holy of Holies of the Hebrew Temple was the Ark of the Covenant, and that legend says that the Holy of Holies and the Ark were both reminiscent of the King's Chamber and Sepulcher in the Great Pyramid. The Ark of the Covenant suggests an esoteric "measure of a (divine) Man." MAN HIMSELF IS THE ARK OF THE COVENANT.
A further consideration of "The Measure of a Man" is that in the Egyptian Osiris Mysteries the death of Osiris was enacted in which the evil Set made a coffin to fit Osiris and enticed him to lie in it; the coffin was then locked and thrown into the Nile River. It floated down to Byblos in the Egyptian Delta; this Byblos is often confused with the Byblos in Syria, where also the Osiris Mysteries were celebrated.
Isis found the coffin lodged in an acacia or tamarisk tree, which had grown up around it. The tree was cut down and made into a pillar. Isis took the pillar with her and hid the body, but Set found it and cut it into fourteen pieces. Again Isis searched for the fourteen parts of the body of Osiris and found all but one, which had been eaten by a fish.
Mystery legends vary according to the lesson which they teach in dramatic form; but one of the Osiris stories says that Isis again buried the fourteen parts where she found them, and so throughout the land of Egypt there were Temples sacred to one part or another of the body of the god. The shrine at Busiris, in the Delta of Lower Egypt, held the sacred relic of his backbone and sacrum, while in the shrine at Abydos, in the mountainous high south of Upper Egypt, the sacred head was the relic of the Mysteries. At one time in Egyptian history the Osirian Festival as a whole must have included a pilgrimage up and down the entire length of the Nile River from one shrine to another. The second and culminating form of this legend shows Isis as successfully putting the parts of Osiris' body together and raising him to immortality as god of the underworld and symbol of the Resurrection of all mankind.
Ancient astrologers also saw "the Measure of a Man" in the zodiacal stars, from Aries to Pisces, where the Divine Child of the Sky Goddess Nut was visible, and some divined by means of a "coffin" inscribed among the stars.
Solomon built his Temple on Mount Moriah at Jerusalem, which was the old stronghold of Melchizedek. This is one of the sacred mountains of the world. It was on Mount Moriah that Abraham became the adopted son and heir of Melchizedek in the Supper which is the prototype of the Last Supper of Our Lord with his disciples.
David procured the site for his proposed Temple, which Solomon built with the aid of King Hiram of Tyre and the Master Builder, Hiram Abiff who, the Bible tells us, was the son of a workman of Tyre and a widow of the tribe of Dan-Naphtali. (The two tribes in the north were virtually one and their names interchangeable.) We may add that Hiram Abiff was,.however, no common workman but a prince in his own right. The tribe of Dan was a builder's tribe, and there was a Temple in the district of Dan and also in Ephraim (Samaria) for many centuries as well as other sacred shrines throughout the entire land.
Moriah is a mystery mountain. It is honeycombed with passages, many of them artificial, created when the site was enlarged to make possible the buildings necessary to the governing of the land by Solomon, and by later Kings who also enlarged the top of the hill. The westernmost chamber of the Temple was the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant.
It was on Mount Moriah that Abraham offered up Isaac but substituted a ram in his place, in the ancient Chaldean manner; and so it was here in the forecourt of the Temple that the Brazen Altar was set up, on which were sacrificed many thousands of animals each year.
When Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, however, it was not in the Temple area but on Mount Golgotha, which adjoined the estate of Joseph of Arimathea. Yet in the Temple the "Shadow of the Cross" was visible to those who had eyes to see. From the Brazen Altar the upright of the cross ran straight and true to the Ark in the Holy of Holies; and across it lay the Holy Place with articles suggesting the crossbeam in the manner of their arrangement.
The relationship of geometry to the human body was a natural corollary of the architectural knowledge of the Egyptian priests who were able to observe in the bodies dissected by them or their assistants the architectural principles which caused them to think of the human body as a Temple in which the spirit dwelt as a god.
In the early centuries of our era, the Christian Fathers at Alexandria still knew of the nature of the brain, and of small organs lying within it, and of the fact that certain parts of the brain influenced specific localities of the body. They spoke of a fiery essence generated in the brain which passed through the spine, and while we may think of this physiologically as the spinal fluid, it is evident that they also knew of the electricity or life-force which flows through the nerves and the magnetism which holds the body together. Part of this was the result of experimentation, but much of it came from the visions of clairvoyance. Thus the seer visually beheld the "fire" and the "forces" which flowed in blood, bone, muscles and nerves, and this knowledge is hinted of even in the writings of the Church Fathers.
The T which was the builder's square and which consisted of two right angles was the basis of the Tet, which is the backbone of Osiris, also known as the Ladder of Osiris. The backbone of Osiris is pictured as nine (or 33, 3 x 3) steps which suggest a series of T's placed one upon another. It is the symbol of the Acacia tree, and a head or face is sometimes seen upon it.
Upon the ladder of the spine the life forces both descend and ascend, flowing through the central canal of the spinal cord as a stream of light. Eventually these forces pass through the twenty-eight plus three vertebrae at the top of the spine, which are ruled by the three fiery signs, Aries, Leo and Sagittarius; and as these are vivified a new cycle of unfoldment begins. These are the 31 vertebrae of the human spine, which attune man to the solar cycle, whereas the spine of the animal with 28 vertebrae is attuned to the cycle of the Moon. The Osiris pillars often show 30 steps or stages plus a base or a capital which may also be double or triple.
At last the forces enter the head, flowing toward the point at the root of the nose where the seed atom of the mind is located, and where the Divine Spirit (Will Principle) of the spirit has its citadel. Just below, and nearby, is the pituitary body, above the roof of the mouth. Impinging upon the root center in the frontal sinus, the forces set into vibration "the Crown of Thorns," which means that the cranial nerves are being sensitized and are becoming responsive to the vibrations from the spiritual worlds.
It was the activity of this ascending fire-force as it reached the center in the frontal sinus that was viewed by Egyptian seers and portrayed as the Uraeus serpent upon the crown of the Pharaoh, signifying that he was an Initiate in the Mysteries.
These are the Mysteries of Thoth-Hermes, or the letter T, the sign by which the Master Workman called forth to labor upon the Temple of Solomon and the sign by which Moses called their Egyptian brethren forth in an earlier time to labor upon the pyramids of Egypt. The fact that T may also have the sound S, the hiss of the serpent, suggests an esoteric relationship between Samekh, Schin, Moses' staff and the Tau cross, and Aaron's Rod that budded, as well as with the letter Teth and the number nine.
When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and when they were wandering in the desert, many were grievously stung by scorpions. Moses raised up a serpent on his staff, commanding them to look upon it and be saved. This is the Hebrew Caduceus, emblem of the God of Healing, who in the ranks of the ancient Hebrew gods corresponds with Mercury of the Greeks. All students of biblical history know that the Hebrew "angels" are in fact no other than the "gods" and "goddesses" of the pagans, as many ancient pictures and statues clearly show. Mercury and Iris were chief of the "angeloi" or "messengers" of God; both are winged, and Iris is surrounded with a rainbow halo.
By the Serpent raised up on the Staff within himself Moses performed his miracles, healed the multitude in the desert, provided manna and water, and led them to the borders of the promised land. By the same power within himself the Lord Christ multiplied the loaves and fishes, healed the sick, raised Lazarus from the tomb and performed for himself the miracle of the Resurrection.
But the work of Tau is not complete until it is joined to the circle. This is the Work of the Mysteries of Isis. When a circle was added above the T-cross it became the Ankh cross, or Cross of Life, sacred to the divine Mother Isis. Isis it was who resurrected Osiris from the dead, collecting the parts of his body together and speaking over them the "words of life" which she had obtained from the Sun God. Her sign surmounts the Tet.
The circle drawn over or upon the cross has also a special connotation in the serpent of the rainbow. The commonly accepted picture of the rainbow is that of an arc of colors in the heavens opposite to the Sun, but if one ascends to a high place in the mountains the rainbow is seen as a circle. Mountain-dwelling peoples would have known this. The rainbow is the Circle Glory of the Divine Feminine, symbol of the Shekinah Glory in kabbalism, the Covenant of the Rainbow.
And so it is that in Temple symbolism the two pillars are crowned with globes and with pomegranates, which are the sign of the Sun and Moon and also of the Divine Mother and her life-giving powers.
Following upon this, the relationship of the T, the T-square, and the equal-armed cross is obvious. The equal-armed red cross is often termed "the solar cross," but the symbol for the Earth always was, and still is, the circle divided into fourths by two intersecting diameters. In many of these ancient mysteries we must know that the priesthood understood that the Earth was round and knew that it journeyed around the Sun in its orbit; the priests knew, too, that Venus was one star, not two. And so the secret of Freemasonry and of Moses is that the tomb of Osiris is the Earth itself, from which he rises unto his throne of the Sun in the heavens.
In esoteric Christianity it is the Christ Ray which penetrates to the core of the planet Earth, and when the 3 x 3 Initiate has gone through the Nine Lesser Mysteries founded by Hermes Trismegistus, he is joined to the Liberator and is released from the Wheel of Death and Rebirth, for at the center of the wheel there is rest. The central Earth Mysteries are symbolized geometrically in The Point, the Square and the Circle, all drawn in one figure.
Masonic symbolism shows a widow weeping over a broken column. This has been interpreted as signifying Isis weeping over the broken column, which contains the body of Osiris, and also as the Queen of Sheba weeping for Hiram Abiff. Esoterically it is the Divine Feminine who weeps over the chaos caused by the misuse of her powers by mankind.
Tau is the emblem of humanity-the widow, the Queen of Sheba, weeping over the slain Hiram; Mary weeping for the Christ; Isis weeping for the slain Osiris; the Voice of the Shekinah crying in the streets, "Unto you, O man, do I call."
The Tau shows us the human spirit bound to the cross of matter. The entire cycle of evolution (the way of the masses) and of Initiation (the way of the few) are bound up in this mystery of the Divine Feminine. In the "fall" of this principle in man lies the origin of the cross, which is a universal symbol, not the exclusive property of any one people or nation. All Mystery Temples have two columns before the portal, emblematic of the masculine and feminine in equilibrium. These will be the symbol of the religion of Initiation of the Aquarian Age. It is significant that among the early Christians Resurrection and Exaltation were synonymous terms.
So long as the "fallen" Feminine, or Love Principle attached to wrong objects, gives rise to the cross as a universal symbol, so long will Mars, the lord of war and separation, reign supreme over the lives of men; and so long will earth continue to be known as the "Sorrowful Star."
It now becomes clear why the two female figures are always pictured together at the foot of the Cross in the Rite of the Crucifixion. The path trod by Christ Jesus was not laid out for himself alone. Each and every disciple must tread the same path, to the same goal. Tau, as the twenty-second letter, is 2 plus 2 or 4, and again the 400 which is the same principle raised to a cosmic level and potency.
Four is the number of letters in the Tetragrammaton: Yod-HeVau-He (which becomes the I.N.R.I. of the New Testament). These are the letters engraved upon the Rod of Aaron which is preserved in the Holy of Holies, within the Ark of the Covenant, which is Man himself in the image and likeness of God. There also to our own day is the mystical Staff of Moses, called the Brazen Serpent by means of which he performed miracles. "All things are possible in My Name," the Power of Four.
The Tarot glyph for Tau is symbolic of the human race being left without protection of the Divine Feminine until it has passed through all manner of trials and tests. This is shown in the broken obelisk, covered with hieroglyphics. We see a lightly clothed man, laden down with a burden which hangs front and back, blindfolded and is oblivious of the crocodile which lurks behind the fallen obelisk waiting to devour his prey. The man leans on a thin frail staff which fails to warn him of the gaping jaws into which he will surely fall. The Sun is partially eclipsed by a shadow, symbolizing fear, but also hope, since the Sun will shine again in due course. Truly,
In every human being there lies concealed the Point of Perfection which is the Fire of Aleph. Upon this Point without dimension are inscribed all of the geometric figures which form the archetypes of the cosmos.
Within every human soul the Dual Powers of Aleph and Beth make manifest the hidden mystery of the Point of Perfection.
Within the Head of the human body is the Triangle of Light, and the three mother letters, Aleph, Mem and Schin are the Triple Glory which form the halo around the head.
From the Triple Glory have come the other nineteen letters, descending to the outermost and returning once more to be lifted up on the Tau. The Point, the Square, and the Circle have shone in the heavens for a cycle of time and return to their source.
Man, consisting of a series of triple formations, has fulfilled his labors, and has become once more one of the Sons of God, the Bene Elohim. The disk and the hammer (Tau) have become the Rose and the Cross.
The mystic septenaries ended with Schin, picture of the glorified man of the future. Tau belongs to the present, which must pass away when mortality is swallowed up in immortality, and the cross, formed by the feminine pillar fallen across the masculine, disappears from the esoteric symbolism where the two upright pillars stand firmly in nobility and strength before the entrance to the Temple. Matter has been transmuted into Spirit, and Time swallowed up in Eternity.
To those who are still wandering in the wilderness of sense gratification and materialism, Tau remains the cross of sorrow and suffering, and its keyword is Destruction; but when the serpent is raised up on the staff of Moses, and they lift their eyes to gaze thereon, they are healed, for this staff with its serpent, or Serpent Staff, is the FIERY GOD POWER WITHIN. Its keyword is CONSUMMATION, as revealed in the words spoken by Christ Jesus on the cross, taken from the 22nd Psalm, "it is finished."
The course has been run from Alepli to Tau.
We have shown in another place that after the number 400 has been reached with the letter-number Tau, the count returns once more to Kaph, which is the first of five letters having a "final" form. That is, this letter and four others are written in a special way when they fall at the end of a word.
K, Kaph, the eleventh letter, which in its ordinary form denotes the number 20, is used in its final form to denote 500.
M, Mem, the thirteenth letter, which in its ordinary form denotes 40, is used in its final form to denote 600.
N, Nun, the fourteenth letter, which in its ordinary form denotes 50, is used in its final form to denote 700.
P, Phe, the seventeenth letter, which in its ordinary form denotes 50, is used in its final form to denote 800.
TZ, Tzaddi, the eighteenth letter, which in its ordinary form denotes 90, is used in its final form to denote 900.
For 1000, a word translated "many" is used in the Old Testament, which also signifies tribe or family. The Egyptian symbol for 1000 — one of the very first hieroglyphs to be deciphered by Egyptologists — is the lotus. A botanist has said that upon the stamen of the blue Egyptian lotus one may see the symbol of two interlaced triangles — the family emblem of David, and sign of the Messiah. This is not the five-pointed Star which is the Seal of Solomon and the "Endless Knot" — it can be drawn without lifting the pen from the paper — and symbolizes the Silver Cord and the forces of the ego in embodiment. Nor is it the eight-pointed star of Phe, which associates with the Star Sirius.
It was commonly held in antiquity that the average cycle of reincarnations was one thousand years; hence the Messiah was to come one thousand years after David. The exact time would be shown by signs in the heavens and signs upon earth. Again we note that the lily has a special significance for Israel as a nation.
Tzaddi we see as the eighteenth letter-number, signifying 90 and 900. As there are eighteen kabbalistic worlds, so there are eighteen "Lesser Mysteries" — the 3 x 3, or Ennead, repeated — after which the Initiate enters the School of the Greater Mysteries as they were created by the Christ. There are seven Schools which teach the Nine Lesser Mysteries (sometimes called Seven); there are five Schools which teach the Four Greater Mysteries. These Four Greater Mysteries correlate with the four terminal letters, Koph or Quoph, 100; Resch, 200; Schin. 300; and Tau, 400.
In Freemasonry the number 18 denotes the Degree of the Rose Cross, which is one of the seven Schools devoted to the Nine Lesser Mysteries.
From the time of the introduction of the Arabic numerals into Europe there is a revolution in the mystical numerology of the kabbalists; and since the new knowledge was applied to the ancient texts, a certain confusion may be observed.
However, the basic principles of Kabbalah do not change. The Hebrew theosophy is based throughout on the Ptolemaic astronomy of the second century A.D., which looked upon all mathematics and all cosmic phenomena as manifestations of the Will of God. Each number had a sacred power and a sacred meaning, in the Pythagorean tradition. Mathematical processes were revelations of divine Wisdom. Further unfolding of mathematical mysteries was simply the continuing revelation of God's infinite and therefore illimitable Wisdom.
On the basis of numbers, when Zero was added to the scheme, the higher numbers were read as pertaining to divine powers on ever-ascending planes of consciousness, and this was shown by the addition of zeros. The Zero separated the real Decads, but One was still basic, symbolizing the Unity of Infinity and Eternity. The number 10, was the same Unity acting in the worlds of manifestation, through Ten Aspects or powers. The 100 was the tenth power or level of expression of the 10, a further unfolding in terms of the Age. The number 100 denotes an Age. This may have been determined on the reckoning of the precession of the equinoxes, which was well known to ancient astronomers, but their figures were not the same as those used today. One ancient figure yields the rate of precession as 1 degree in 100 years. The Indian texts show 1 degree for 600 years. The modern figure is 1 degree for 72 years (or nearly so), and some Egyptologists declare that the ancient Egyptians actually used a number very close to this.
Because 1000 was the reincarnation number, it was associated with the coming of World Saviors. Hence the coming of the Messiah was looked for in Palestine, and other ancient nations were also looking for their Savior at the same time. Virgil wrote of a Savior before the time of Christ, and his prophecy was taken to refer to the Caeser Augustus. Egyptologists tell us of an ancient Egyptian prophecy of the coming of a Shepherd-King for whom the people waited throughout their history as a nation.
Egypt and the Greco-Roman world, and also Persia and India, held that the creation of the universe had taken place in the myriads of years before their time; but the Hebrew-Christian scholars in later centuries in Europe, calculating from the genealogies of the Old Testament, placed the creation of the world by God as 3761 B. C. (Hebrew) and 4004 B.C. (Christian). Other dates are found in the apocryphal books. These dates would seem to refer to the rise of a new astronomy in the area extending through Persia, Assyria and Babylonia, Palestine and Egypt, as shown in the Old Testament.
The modern kabbalist is under no compulsion to accept these traditional figures and their interpretation. The kabbalistic principle, however, still holds true, for it is the recognition of the fact that God's Intelligence is present throughout the universe, and that in the unfolding of new mysteries of mathematics and astronomy, man is receiving a new revelation of God's Will for himself and for the universe.
Today the mystic must harmonize the spiritual revelations familiar to him with the further unfolding of science and mathematics, for he continues to hold with his ancient predecessors that all knowledge, all mathematics, all number, is in very fact the revelation of the continued unfolding of God's Will in time and space. It is for us to learn to read the divine script aright.
— Corinne Heline
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