The 8th Sphere

reply to post by Bybyots



This made me think of a series of drawings i did a few years ago with black pastel crayon which were about such things, the sort that people generally can't see the point of but i tend to explore ideas in visual terms.






Some of what you bring up reminds me of the spirit Ruha tradition of the Mandaeans, were she is found in the Underworld and becomes the intermediary between the three realms, she gives birth to a dragon named Ur, and i had this in mind when making the drawings, the optical illusion of the moon resting upon the horn of the dragon, and the 'dragon lines' of composition.








Ruha also had a magical mirror in the underworld, which gave her powers of sorcery, this is described as a bittersweet jewel in terms of naming, also held to contain black waters and the Dragon seed of Ur, but having the capacity to reflect the world of light into the Underworld, and thus it's confiscated from her, in many ways this reminds of the black scrying mirror of John Dee.

Rehabilitation of Ruha






In general terms the Moon does have the capacity to reflect the Celestial light of the Sun and thus illumines in the darkness, in it's fullness it is indicative of the soul, the pearl of the deep, in it's transitory stages it is indicative of spirit and the capacity to reflect light or simply be an aspect of darkness, in this sense then the individual is the mirror, and can choose to cover over the soul such that nothing is reflected of the light, simply absorbed

reply to post by Bybyots


Interesting, Very interesting. bookmarked to come back when time allows.


Star and flag,

Nothing to add at the moment or most likely in future.

reply to post by Kantzveldt


You drew these yourself? Good work!!!

Love your writing as well.

So no one can explain the "8th sphere" to me?

reply to post by Bybyots


Lovely work (both of you), great overview. Had to stay and read through, made me late. But thank you. bbl

reply to post by MamaJ



Yes i enjoy crayoning, my pictures are here. Like i say though those are a little bleak because i was only thinking in terms of black and white fundamentals, it's more fun to bring a little colour and life into play, but i also like to see this emerge from the dragon like scales of the rock.





It's my strange version of cosmology...

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Hi Afterinfinity,

Thanks for coming by and contributing to the thread.

The actual nature of the Eighth sphere in astrology has been a culture-spanning point of contention for hundreds of years.

So, it depends on whose answer you are looking for. Many myths and legends are associated with celestial objects and the zodiac. Even the lunar nodes have myths related to them. The 8th sphere has a mythology too, it's just a lot more difficult to get ahold of, but the fun part is that it has very modern proponents that have tried to add to the tale.

The concept of the Celestial Spheres was the basic cosmological model used by the likes of Ptolemy, Aristotle and Copernicus to try and understand the mechanics of the Earth and 'Heavens'. A "sphere" was attributed to each of the planets. The 8th Sphere was thought by classical astrologers of both east and west to to be the celestial sphere upon which the constellations of stars that make up our Zodiac are fixed upon.

The contention came from what exactly the "field" of the sphere encompassed, some thought that it encompassed Saturn and the Moon as well as the fixed stars and called it The Crystal Sphere, some tried to remove the 8th Sphere from their cosmologies altogether.

The Theosophists seem to be responsible for the idea that we all "reincarnate" through these spheres, but it would be wrong if I left out W.B. Yeats and his wife who scryed a "System" within which we evolve through the Mansions Of The Moon, living alternatively "subjective" and "objective" lives; they published it as a treatise called A Vision.

Although we can elaborate on what we have posted, we have posted all we know.

We brought it here in the hopes of exploring the narrative all together.

Thanks again,

Interesting write up.

While reading it, I wasnt sure of a certain thing, and that thing was not explicitly specified either that I saw. That thing is whether, especially the sufis but really all of the people who have delved into the moon philosophy with earnest, are presenting their ideas in a literal way, or a figurative way. I was having a hard time believing that people were thinking that you literally went INTO the moon, and that they were not using the moon as a representation of something else, perhaps an ineffable something else that can only be explained through metaphor.

What is your take on that, you two?

reply to post by Bybyots

Ever read The reality of Being(The fourth Way of Gurdjieff )?
I enjoyed the read.

I thought the Moon was the 1, the harmonious frequency picked up by waveforms, the frequency 'increase and diminish'.
But I did not study in depth the 8 spheres, my interest is in Being(or the oneness).

Eidolon23

Ah, my bad, by "our", I meant B. and I.

That makes much better sense.

Eidolon23
We tried (hopefully successfully) to track it through Russia to the Greeks by way of the Islamics, but we could have made a case for direct-to-Russia by way of the Greeks; after all, the Cyrillic alphabet comes from the Greek, and the Russian Orthodox Church is pretty much the Greek Orthodox Church. We just couldn't find as substantial a case for that as for the indirect route.

In terms of the particular theme you outline, I don't think the Islamics play too much of a role in the connectivity. Neo-Platonics such as Plotinus were a continuance of Platoism which is subsequently absorbed and stifled, or rather contained, by Orthodox, particularly Roman, thought. While the evolution of Platonic ideas continues apace during the European Dark Ages in Islam, it's re-emergence into Europe occurs via Islamic Spain and into the Languedoc bringing it into conflict with both the Church and state as a largely social heresy, but leading, via the preservation within secret societies, to the Enlightenment. In isolation within the orthodoxy, in monastic as well as hermitage settings, by revelation, of course you find that the same 'conclusions' are reached, but much depends on the administration, religious and social, as to how those are handled and/or suppressed.

Eidolon23
If we could track it back to China? That would be pretty damn mind-splodingly nifty.

You would have to narrow it down somewhat. Bearing in mind that there are only a limited number of stories but infinite variations thereof. In terms of the Theosophical movement, I am much more familiar with the minds of Nicholas Roerich and Hermann Hesse, and their more positivist vision and how that creatively expresses itself. But if you let me know the specific story that you want to trace, in it's earliest version, I might be able to help, ideological conduits being my particular passion.

Eidolon23
What I am personally leaning toward, is that just like with the Flood story, there is no original source, as the story documents a universal event.

But I have no way of proving it.

Proving it is secondary, it is, first and foremost, a story. Understand the meaning of the story and you will understand it's importance. That is all there really is.

Also, the Flood story is not universal, there are areas that were not effected by the Flood to which the story was transmitted and routes that can be followed on which that story travelled. The Moon, in whatever context though, is, if not universal, certainly global, so a different kettle of fish, hence the need to be a little bit more specific.

reply to post by CaticusMaximus

I was having a hard time believing that people were thinking that you literally went INTO the moon, and that they were not using the moon as a representation of something else, perhaps an ineffable something else that can only be explained through metaphor.

What is your take on that, you two?

Well, I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we have both found all of this to do with the Moon to be a powerful metaphor. I think that it is a great elaboration of the different ways that we as human beings have tried to understand the battle between spirit and matter through myth and philosophy.

But on the other hand, if it weren't for the Moon, I would not even be here to type this response to you.

These are a couple of videos that we both watched as we created this thread. This first is an older one narrated by Patrick Stewart that has been with us for a very long time as we have tried to figure our way through this Moon stuff.

The second is one that Eidolon23 found, and we have been watching it over the last week, we really love it and the scientist that hosts it is awesome.

I hope that everyone will have a watch when they are able.

Excuse/forgive my lack of knowledge of this topic, but can you tell me the 1-8 spheres?
And if earth is not a womb for the children of moon (matter) mother and sun ( spirit) father then is it the 8th sphere?
Isn't all existence in separation cause this suffering, thinking we are just matter not knowing our father.

reply to post by Eidolon23


Absolutely fantastic post. One of the best I've ever read, and I've been lurking a while.
Thanks.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

In terms of the particular theme you outline, I don't think the Islamics play too much of a role in the connectivity.

Hi KG,

Do you mean by "Islamics" the parts that we mention about the Sufis? Although we added (my emphasis really) the Sufis the point of connection that we meant to emphasize is the Picatrix

KilgoreTrout

In terms of the particular theme you outline, I don't think the Islamics play too much of a role in the connectivity.

Here are a few passages from the Picatrix which support the idea that part of this story, as it comes to us from the late 19th century Russian occultist crew, was appropriated by them from Enlightenment-era esoteric scholars who lifted it from the Picatrix, which was in turn a hodge-podge of much older Greek and Hebraic Hermetic scraps collected in the 11th century.

Islamic scholars preserved and elaborated on a lot of the good stuff we'd lost in the West during the Dark Ages, as you mentioned.

Gnostic trope tied to lunar function:





And, one of those functions being to "separate combined souls". To isolate them, in other words.

You would have to narrow it down somewhat. Bearing in mind that there are only a limited number of stories but infinite variations thereof. In terms of the Theosophical movement, I am much more familiar with the minds of Nicholas Roerich and Hermann Hesse, and their more positivist vision and how that creatively expresses itself. But if you let me know the specific story that you want to trace, in it's earliest version, I might be able to help, ideological conduits being my particular passion.

You won't find it in Roerich or Hesse's work, and I think Blavatsky was probably lying when she attributed it to some secret strain of Vedic tradition; it does really only appear to be the Russians who were carrying it at that point in time. But regardless of date or provenance, if you can find any other instance of an account wherein the Moon was originally a part of the Earth (or vice-versa), the two planets having a dysfunctional relationship with one another, that would be wonderful.

hello. thank you both so much for this. it was a riveting read.

you guys put so much work into your posts that i was inspired to share something of my own. i have adapted my own reality map from the work of Ken Wilber into the drawing below.....

i cannot say for sure that my drawing and your writing are referring to the same mythic symbology. however, i was struck by your opening image (reposted below) and its resemblance to the essential characteristic i have tried to capture in my model.

i am sure that it is too vague to be useful, yet just enough to be interesting.....






thanks again!

Bybyots
Hi KG,

Do you mean by "Islamics" the parts that we mention about the Sufis? Although we added (my emphasis really) the Sufis the point of connection that we meant to emphasize is the Picatrix

Doesn't matter in terms of distinctions, other than we already have an established route of Sufi Mysticism into Europe, by the route I described, via contact with Islamic traders. Picking that up in terms of the Picatrix, it was translated from the Arabic by the Toledo School under the leadership of Alphonso X of Castille, which, importantly, means that it entered into Europe in the vernacular before it was translated into Latin. That gives it a much better chance of transmission ideologically and in terms of it entering into the imaginative consciousness.

reply to post by Eidolon23


Thanks for that, I will have a dig, I have one or two ideas of places to start. No promises of course

One other thing that occurred to me, with regards to what you said about the Cyrillic connection, was the Bogomils. Cyrillic and Bogomilism correlate both in terms of time and space, but furthermore, that they were a branch of Manichaeism, provides the link to China, especially when that is combined with the Radhanite routes. And what is most interesting about that, is that it gives you a fixed point for closure of the transmission, around the 10th century. This is important in terms of identifying the common denominators in the development of the narrative and seperating it from those elements developed in isolation thereafter.

Bybyots

Started watching that and soon remembered having seen it when it was first broadcast.

Also though, that ties in with the Italo Calvino story that I mentioned...

The Distance of the Moon, the first and probably the best known story. Calvino takes the fact that the Moon used to be much closer to the Earth, and builds a story about a love triangle among people who used to jump between the Earth and the Moon, in which lovers drift apart as the Moon recedes.

en.wikipedia.org...

Here is a pdf of Cosmicomics including the story in question...

irenebrination.typepad.com...

And the book from which he drew the idea...

archive.org.../n15/mode/2up

And a nicely succinct overview...

The Moon is thought to have formed when an object roughly the size of Mars hit the Earth. The impact was so violent that it threw large amounts of the Earth's mantle into orbit. This material evenually coalesced and formed the Moon.

It is not easy to estimate how far away from the Earth the Moon was when it formed, but simulations suggest is was about 3-5 times the radius of the Earth, or about 19-30 thousand km. (The Moon is currently about 384,000 km away from Earth or 3-4 thousand times further away than this.) The Moon probably couldn't have formed closer than 3 Earth radii because tidal forces from the Earth would just pull it apart again, and it is unlikely that the impact could have ejected material further than 5 Earth radii. It's not a totally easy questions to answer though as it depends a lot on the (unknown) details of the impact and how the hot material behaved in space.

The exact rate of the Moon's movement away from Earth has varied a lot over time. It depends both on the distance between the Earth and the Moon, and the exact shape of the Earth. The details of continents and oceans moving around on Earth actually change the rate, which make it a very hard thing to estimate. The rate is currently slowing down slightly, and it is estimated that in about 15 billion years the Moon's orbit will stop increasing in size.

curious.astro.cornell.edu...

Looking at this Theosophical Tradition overall it suggests to me that it is Anti-Catholic disinformation, a promotion of individuation as opposed to the Catholic collective body, which is represented by the white Host bread placed within the Luna.

The monstrance was most often made of silver-gilt or other precious metal, and highly decorated. In the center of the sunburst, the monstrance normally has a small round glass the size of a Host, through which the Blessed Sacrament can be seen. Behind this glass is a round container made of glass and gilded metal, called a luna, which holds the Host securely in place. When not in the monstrance, the Host in its luna is placed in a special standing container, called a standing pyx, in the Tabernacle

The Monstrance


The Moon is innocent and not really a monstrance...