Thoth, Egyptian deity of writing.
By: Jay
In January of 2014, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde gave a speech that was lost on most of her audience and amongst the media. She stated:
“Now, I’m going to test your
numerology skills by asking you to think about the magic seven, okay?
Most of you will know that seven is quite a number in all sorts of
themes, religions. And I’m sure that you can compress numbers as well.
So if we think about 2014, all right, I’m just giving you 2014, you drop
the zero, 14, two times 7. Okay, that’s just by way of example, and
we’re going to carry on. So 2014 will be a milestone and hopefully a
magic year in many respects. It will mark the hundredth anniversary of
the First World War back in 1914. It will note the 70th anniversary,
drop the zero, seven– of the Breton Woods conference that actually gave
birth to the IMF.”
In his classic Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare,
Hoffman wrote of coincidence, synchronicity and curious connections
between 007 and 2001 that also relate to obscure subjects like
numerology and gematria. The first 007 was Dr. John Dee, as
will be investigated below, but the reason this is of import is the
similarity between Christine Lagarde’s seemingly strange comments to her
Press Club audience. Hoffman has recently commented on this, and I
myself at the time of Lagarde’s comment speculated on the connections
between the numbers of sevens that appeared in the downed Malaysian
Plane incident(s). Numerous conspiracy sites and speculators got in on
the action, but what no one (other than Hoffman) did was look at the
motivations behind such a mindset. The natural approach of those in
conspiratorial and alternative media circles would be to leap at the
occult. While I don’t intend to deny such associations, I would like to
highlight another element that almost none have considered. Yes, there
are believers in dark forces in high places, but there is also another
factor that should be kept in mind, as I myself had conversations with
individuals about this that appeared a frightened by such calculating
mumbo jumbo.
Simon Singh, in his recent The Code Book, explains of the process of cracking ciphers and codes as follows:
“Kerchoff’s Principle: The security of
a crypto-system must not depend on keeping secret the crypto-algorithm.
The security depends only on keeping secret the key. In addition to
keeping the key secret, a secure cipher system must also have a wide
range of potential keys.” (The Code Book, Simon Singh, pg. 12)
As researchers and analysts of the world-historical, we attempt to do
just this on a much grander scale. Discovering the secrets of nature
and supernature yield fulfilling mental rewards in their own right, but
they also free us from the slavery to superstition. While I have
attacked the Enlightenment many times over, and I think I am right in
doing so for its excesses, it’s also worth considering the positive
aspects of the Enlightenment, which did serve to rid the Roman dominated
West of numerous bizarre superstitions and excesses that should not be
excused. I doubt many of us in modernity would truly like to return to a
world where we expect to almost certainly be damned, spending our days
working out a complex system of penitential indulgences to try to settle
debts in an absurd punishment-based system. Such is part of my reason
for leaving Western Christianity years ago, but this should also not be
seen as endorsement of one side of a false western dialectic of Rome
versus Enlightenment. On the contrary, the truth lies somewhere
in-between extremes that the cunning of history is yet to work out (as
we still live under the excesses of the quantification-obsessed
Enlightenment). Let us see if we can locate at least one key to
cracking the code of our modern overlords and decipher the Lagardian
linguistic mysteries, surveying numerology, biblical gematria and cryptography.
First, the subjects of numbers, numerology and ancient perspectives
on them, are helpful. For ancient man, numbers were magical,
semi-divine entities that somehow related to all things, despite being
in no particular time and locale. Obviously in an article, the scope of
such an analysis must be limited, so I have chosen influential
representative examples. My friend James Kelley explains in his
“Prajapati Purusa and Vedic Altar Construction” essay the means by which
the Pythagorean Theorum was actually encoded in Vedic altar designs,
much earlier than Pythagoras himself:
Simon Singh’s The Code Book.
“This blurb fails to mention the amazing insights of
Dr. Abraham Seidenberg, who found the so-called “Pythagorean theorem” at
work in the Indian texts known as the Sulvasūtras, which date from the 8th
century B.C., but which crystallize procedures and teachings that reach
back into the Neolithic mists. Though historians of mathematics before
Seidenberg noted the connection between the famous theorem and Vedic
texts, it is our contention that Dr. Seidenberg was the first to offer a
coherent presentation of the significance of this influence. The Sulvasūtras
contain explicit instructions for how to construct the altars for Vedic
worship using only ropes, stakes, and possibly rods. But what has Vedic
altar worship to do with “a² + b² = c²”?
In his seminal article “Ritual Origin of Geometry,”
Seidenberg demonstrates exactly how the “Pythagorean theorem” was used
in creating the falcon-shaped altar used in the Vedic fire ritual, the
agnicayana. The altar was built based upon an aerial measure called a
“Purusa”! The falcon altar, we are told in the sutra, must be a square
with an area of 7 ½ square Purusas (about 56 ¼ square feet). A śulba,
or cord, is used to measure out a “Purusa” (about 7 ½ feet, and marked
on a section of the cord from an end), and this section is stretched
taut between two pegs, one end of the pegged-down cord extending out
past a peg, the other end being a meeting point of peg and cord-end.
Next, the loose cord is stretched back and wrapped around the apposite
peg. This peg-to-peg cord stretch is repeated until the desired length
is reached (to achieve the “half Purusa,” the initial Purusa-length has
been measured by joining both ends of the section and pulling the loop
taut by hand and marking the new end with chalk or ink).
The square is created next, in a manner that we would
find odd, by stretching a second cord from the midpoint of the initial 7
½ Purusa cord, the end result being a “T” shape. Then the altar
boundary parallel to the initial side is stretched, making an “H,” the
final step being a simple stretching of two boundaries parallel to the
central connecting cord. It is not important to trace the subsequent
“unnecessary” (from our “practical” perspective) steps in creating a
square that is 7 ½ Purusa by 7 ½ Purusa (we moderns would simply stretch
the loose cord, once measured, to make a 7 ½ Purusa “L,” then repeat
the process twice more to get a square). Instead, our attention must be
focused upon what the Vedic priests did next: They believed that it
was necessary to increase the area of the altar by 1 Purusa, without
changing the altar’s shape!”
In this fascinating and illustrative section we have
an important insight that is lost on many: the primal and archetypal
rites of ancient man, in what might be considered a serious contender
for the origin of the “perennial tradition” (India), we see that the
rites of the gods here encode mathematical forumlae.
Specifically in this case, the message is a geometrical formula, and in
fact the most famous one. While one is left to speculate on his own as
to the divine status of such “gods,” what can be divined from this
section is the fact that the ritual encodes a mathematical form and
functions as a veil for a more axiomatic principle. This seems to
suggest a conscious desire to cloak abstract principles from the profane
by the priestclass, keeping the secrets from the populace through
religious fear.
Continuing with this survey of ancient thought,
Egyptologist Wim van den Dungen analyzes the Pythagorean and Western
conceptions of basic number principles and numerology. Dungen’s linked
chart also demonstrates the similarity in the various religious
traditions through the numerological principles. We see again the theme
of hiding numerological doctrines under the divine:
“The first standard is immanent. Using the first ten cardinal numbers of N, the set of all natural numbers, the decadic set N’
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10} is isolated (cf. Pythagorism based on
Ancient Egyptian thought and later replicated by the Qabalah). By means
of N’, all subsequent natural numbers can be derived. Each cardinal number of N’ is then coupled with a symbol one-to-one. These combinations give form to the famous neo-Platonic formula : exitus a Deo, reditus in Deum (outgoing
from and return to God). This “numerology” is backed by a process in
which the “exit” is an involution (a materialization of spirit) and the
“return” an evolution (a spiritualization of matter). Immanence and the
realms of process (becoming) prevail.
The second standard is transcendent. Transcendence is approached with negatives (radical apophatism).
Three kinds emerge : unknowing itself, virtuality (the possible, or
{Ø}) and nothingness (the void, or “0”). The first is a nothingness with
potential, the second the non-existent (cf. Nature abhors a void). The
set of all relevant criteria of measurable differences is given 10
ordinal positions defining 10 dimensions. The logic of creation
(transcendence into immanence and vice versa) links with this.” (Van Den Dungen, “Tabularm Esotericum”)
Platonic forms.
In another influential example, the first century collection of documents known as the Corpus Hermeticum relates these numbers to the original creation act, echoing the same Indian, Hellenic and Egyptian principles:
“I saw in the darkness of the deep, chaotic water without form
permeated with a subtle intelligent breath of divine power, Atum’s Word
fell on fertile waters making them pregnant with all forms. Ordered by
the harmony of the Word, the four elements came into being, combining to
create the brood of living creatures the fiery element was articulated
[aether] as the constellations of the stars, and the gods of the seven
heavenly bodies, revolving forever in celestial circles. The Word leapt
up from the elements of Nature and reunited with the mind of the Maker,
leaving mere matter devoid of intelligence….
In the beginning there is unity. Unity separates into two
fundamental forces, which like negative and positive poles of a battery,
generate everything. Hermes describes them as Life and Light, which
become Mind and Soul. We experience them as thoughts and feelings.” (The Hermetica, By; Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, pgs. 13, 14, 35)
This tradition would continue in the Jewish and biblical tradition,
as van den Dungen expounded, with Kabbalah and gematria. In Kabbalah,
the first ten numbers, like in Pythagoreanism, correspond to the divine
energies or attributes that shine forth from the One (or God). With
this belief, ancient Jewish belief considered the very letters of the
Torah to be divinely inspired and their particular forms and lexical
constructs could encode secret meanings. Jewish scholar and Kabbalah
expert Gershom Scholem defines gematria as follows:
“Gematria (from Gr. geometria), is
one of the aggadic hermeneutical rules for interpreting the Torah (in
the Baraita of 32 Rules, No. 29). It consists of explaining a word of
group of words according to the numerical value of the letters, or of
substituting other letters of the alphabet for them in accordance with a
set system. Whereas a word is normally employed in this sense of
manipulating according to a numerical value, it is sometimes found with
the meaning of “calculations” (Avot 3:18)….The use of letters to signify
numbers was known to the Babylonians and the Greeks. The first use of
gematria occurs in an inscription of Sargon II (727-707 B.C.E.) which
states that the king built the wall of Khorsabad 16,283 cubits long to
correspond with the numerical value of his name. The use of gematria was widespread in the literature of the magi and among interpreters of dreams in the Hellenistic world.” (Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, pg. 337)
What is relevant to our analysis of Lagarde’s comments is that we
begin to see that the learned and priest classes would naturally see the
pragmatic usage of gemtaria and numerology for conveying messages in a
covert fashion. Espionage and statecraft have always gone hand in hand,
and the desire of rulers to send encrypted messages is an ancient art.
Thus, religious traditions and languages (such as Hebrew and Greek)
where letters also functioned as numbers would naturally serve as a
medium for secret communications.
Given Lagarde’s comments involve a peculiar focus on sevens, it might
be worthwhile to look, not just at the hermeneutical principle of
gematria, but at the symbology in Scripture of the number seven. Seven
serves to convey the idea of completion, finality and perfection, as the
Oxford Bible Companion relates:
“Number Symbolism. In common with most people in the
ancient world, the Israelites attached symbolic significance to
numbers. So whenever the biblical writers mention a number, it is
likely that they had a symbolic meaning in mind; in many cases the
numbers must not be taken in their literal sense at all….
Seven. The sum of three plus four, of heaven and of
earth, signifies completeness and perfection. There were seven chief
heavenly bodies (sun, moon and the five planets known to ancients),
seven days of the week, seven archangels. The great festivals lasted
seven days, and there were seven weeks between the Passover and the
Festival of Weeks (Pentecost). Every seventh year was a Sabbath year,
when the land would lie fallow, and Hebrew slaves were allowed to go
free; and every fiftieth year was a jubilee, when alienated property had
to be returned. The seventh day represented God’s completed work (Gen.
2:2-3), and in the Book of Revelation, the seventh seal, trumpet, bowl,
etc., represent the completion of God’s plan. The seven spirits of God
(Rev. 1-4) represent either the seven archangels, or “all spirits,” of
the Holy Spirit. Seven churches represent the universal church (Rev.
1:20). It is necessary to forgive, not just seven times, but seventy
times seven (Matt. 18:21-22, Gen. 4:24), that is to say, always.” (Oxford Guide to the Bible, pg. 562-3)
The most famous example of gematria most are familiar with
is the reference in the Apocalypse to “666,” the number of the beast.
Biblical scholars have long considered it a usage of gematria,
where John encoded the name of Nero Caesar or another contemporary
Roman Emperor. Biblical scholar Dr. Kenneth Gentry elucidates of “666”:
“‘This method, called gematria, or geometrical, that is,
mathematical, was used by the Jews in exegesis of the Old Testament.’
The point is clear: cryptograms were common among the ancients, even
among Christians. Hence, the gematria in Revelation is not something created de novo by John; rather, the idea involved a familiar concept to the ancients.” (Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating of the Book of Revelation, pg. 196)
Another relevant association with “666” is the number squares that
can be generated with that give rise to various speculations, but for
the purposes of our discussion relate to the topic of magic squares.
Biblical scholar E.W. Bullinger gives an example on page 286 of his Number in Scripture:
Bullinger’s number square of “666,” which gives 111 in all directions.
The number square is alleged to derive from the geometrical
structure of the pattern found on the shell of a tortoise in ancient
China (See “The Malekulan Journey of the Dead” by John Layard in Spiritual Disciplines: Papers From the Eranos Yearbooks).
Ancient mathematicians associated the number or magic square with
various planets and planetary deities and their representative angelic
sigils. However, rather than fixating on the religious, it is my thesis
that the number square also has a relation to cryptography and the rise
of the computer. Since the square gives an ordered regularity, it was
reasonable to suppose that a machine might be constructed to calculate
and encode. I have written elsewhere of Leibniz’s speculations
regarding a machine that would mirror the human mind, storing
information and mirroring it back. The medieval mythology of the golem
also factored into this equation, linking once again gematria
and Kabbalah, where the matrix of external reality itself could be
imaged in a 2D virtual realm, which I will touch on later. Before that,
consider biblical scholar David Chilton’s arrangement of “666” in
triangulation in his Days of Vengeance, page 349.
The triangulation of “666” produces a pyramid that recalls the tetraktys of Pythagoras, as well as other esoteric notions.
My purpose here is not to speculate as to the identity of an
antichrist, but to look at how the ancient mind viewed numbers and
symbols. One can see in these visual pictorals that recall
Pythagoreanism the topological principles of mathematical abstraction
that would be highly useful for statecraft in constructing ciphers. One
of the famous ancient examples of just such a cipher is known as the
scytale, used by the Greeks. Singh, in his Code Book gives an
example of the syctale that resembles the tabled structure of a magic
square. Given that the Greek alphabet functioned as a number system
like Hebrew did, the jump from magic squares to lettered codes is not a
big leap. It would therefore be natural to ancient man to encode messages in such a fashion.
When wrapped around the right size staff, the scytale revealed a hidden message.
At this point, it would be requisite to consider more historic
examples of cryptography, its origins and usages. One of the earliest
is found in Greek historian Herodotus. Herodotus describes the Greek
danger presented by the invading Persian forces and the need for secret
communications to help aid the cause:
“As the danger of discovery was great, there was only one way in
which he could contrive to get the message through: this was by scraping
the wax off a pair of wooden folding tablets, writing on the wood
underneath what Xerxes intended to do, and then covering the message
over with wax again. In this way the tablets, being apparently blank,
would cause no trouble with the guards along the road. When the message
reached its destination, no one was able to guess the secret, until, as I
understand, Cleomenes’ daughter Gorgo, who was the wife of Leonides,
divined and told the others that if they scraped the wax off, they would
find something written on the wood underneath. This was done; the
message was revealed and read, and afterwards passed on to the other
Greeks.” (The Histories, Bk. V)
Likewise, in the case of Julius Caesar, we have examples of what
would become known as the “Caesar Cipher,” in messages to Cicero.
Suetonius recounts of this transposition process:
Caesar Salad Alphabet Soup Cipher.
“There are also letters of his to Cicero, as well as to his intimates
on private affairs, and in the latter, if he had anything confidential
to say, he wrote it in cipher, that is, by so changing the order of the
letters of the alphabet, that not a word could be made out. If anyone
wishes to decipher these, and get at their meaning, he must substitute
the fourth letter of the alphabet, namely D, for A, and so with the
others.” (Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars, “Caesar,” No. 56)
The substitution cipher is the oldest form of encryption, but was not
immune to being cracked, and this honor fell to the Arabs in the Middle
Ages, who in fact invented the practice of cryptanalysis. Singh
comments: “This simplicity and strength meant that the substitution
cipher dominated the art of secret writing throughout the first
millennium A.D. Codemakers had evolved a system for guaranteeing secure
communication, so there was no need for further development – without
necessity, there was no need for further invention…..The breakthrough
occurred in the East and required a brilliant combination of
linguistics, statistics and religious devotion.
“Had Arabs been merely familiar with the use of monoalphabetic
substitution cipher, they would not warrant a significant mention in any
history of cryptography. However, in addition to employing ciphers,
the Arab scholars were also capable of destroying ciphers. They in fact
invented cryptanalysis, the science of unscrambling a message without
knowledge of the key. While the cryptographer develops new methods of
secret writing, it is the cryptanalyst who struggles to find a weakness
in these methods in order to break into secret messages. Arabian
cryptanalysts succeeded in finding a method for breaking the
monoalphabetic substitution cipher, a cipher that had remained
vulnerable for several centuries.” (Ibid., 15)
In fact, it was not merely Arabs who were interested in cracking
cryptological codes, but medieval monastics and the Vatican, too, who
were also skilled in the same arts. Singh explains of the medieval
monks who encountered another example of Jewish encoding in the text of
Jeremiah:
“Medieval monks were intrigued by the fact that the Old Testament
contained deliberate and obvious examples of cryptography. For example,
the Old Testament includes pieces of text encrypted with atbash, a
traditional form of Hebrew substitution cipher. Atbash involves taking
each letter, noting the number of places it is from the beginning of the
alphabet, and replacing it with a letter that is an equal number of
places from the end of the alphabet. In English this would mean that a,
at the beginning of the alphabet, is replaced by Z, at the end of the
alphabet, b is replaced by Y, and so on. The term atbash itself hints at
the substitution it describes, because it consists of the first letter
of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph, followed by the last letter taw, and then
there is the second letter, beth, followed by the second to last letter
shin. An example of atbash appears in Jeremiah 25: 26 and 51: 41, where
“Babel” is replaced by the word “Sheshach”; the first letter of Babel
is beth, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and this is replaced
by shin, the second-to-last letter; the second letter of Babel is also
beth, and so it too is replaced by shin; and the last letter of Babel is
lamed, the twelfth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and this is replaced
by kaph, the twelfth-to-last letter.” (Singh, The Code Book, pg. 26)
Renaissance Europe was awash in intrigues and subterfuges that often
called forth the use of encryption. It is at this point we should shift
back to the esoteric and consider Cornelius Agrippa, considered the
father of western hermeticism. Agrippa was accused of being a conjurer,
but was also learned in the arts described above. The Renaissance
brought classical learning back into fashion and, as a result, the
desire to crack hidden codes by the means of linguistics and numerology
and gematria was again en vogue. In the below section Agrippa
is an excellent example of the associations and connections of
numerology, theology, alchemy and techne. Agrippa writes:
“God himself though he be only one in Essence, yet hath diverse
names, which expound not his diverse Essences or Deities, but certain
properties flowing from him, by which names he doth pour down, as it
were by certain Conduits on us and all his creatures many benefits and
diverse gifts; ten of these Names we have above described, which also Hierom reckoneth up to Marcella. Dionysius reckoneth up forty five names of God and Christ. The Mecubales
of the Hebrews from a certain text of Exodus, derive seventy-two names,
both of the Angels and of God, which they call the name of seventy two
letters, and Schemhamphores, that is, the expository; but others
proceeding further, out of all places of the Scripture do infer so many
names of God as the number of those names is: but what they signifie is
altogether unknown to us: From these therefore, besides those which we
have reckoned up before, is the name of the Divine Essence, Eheia äéäà, which Plato translates wn, from hence they call God TO ON , others O UNthat is the being. Hu àåä is another name revealed to Esay, signifying the Abysse of the Godhead, which the Greeks translate TAUTON , the Latins, himself the same….
Vitruvian Man in Agrippa, recalling Kelley’s essay.
Which the Ancient Doctors of the Hebrews have especially observed, who were wont to do many wonderful things by words; the Pythagorians [Pythagoreans]
also have shewed, how to cure very wonderfully the diseases both of
body and mind, with certain words; we read also, that Orpheus,being one of the Argonauts diverted a most fierce storm by certain words; in like manner that Apollonius, by certain words whispered, raised up a dead maide at Rome; and Philostratus reporteth that some did by certain words call up Achilles Ghost; and Pausanias relates, that in Lydia in the Cities of Hiero-Cesarea and Hypepis, were two temples consecrated to the Goddess whom they called Persica,
in both of which when divine service was ended, a certain Magitian
[magician], after he had laid dry wood upon the Altar, and in his native
language had sang Hymnes, and pronounced certain barbarous words, out
of a book which he held in his hand, presently the dry wood, no fire
being put to it, was seen to be kindled, and burn most clearly. Also Serenus Samonicus delivereth amongst the precepts of Physick, that if this name Abracadabra be written, as is here expressed, viz.diminishing
letter after letter backward, from the last to the first, it will cure
the Hemitritean Fever or any other, if the sheet of paper or parchment
be hanged about the neck, and the disease will by little and little
decline and pass away.
a b r a c a d a b r a
a b r a c a d a b r
a b r a c a d a b
a b r a c a d a
a b r a c a d
a b r a c a
a b r a c
a b r a
a b r
a b
a
Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Bk. III, XI
The pyramidal structure of abracadabra is reminiscent of the triangulation of “666” or the tetraktys.
It is not merely an encoded hermetic message, but also a geometric
form – a triangle. As an undergrad I read a large portion of volume 1
of Charles Heckethorn’s The Secret Societies of All Ages, and
one aspect that came to the fore was the pigpen cipher. Not only is the
pigpen cipher an ancient method of secret communication, the nine
squared box can also enclose all the letters of the English alphabet as
well as the first 9 numerals (which make up all numbers). It is easy to
see how the magic square, the emergence of linguistics, number forms,
the pigpen cipher and various esoteric ideas would all intertwine. Yet
aside from the religious and esoteric views, there is also the
ever-present usage of these ideas by the state for secret
communications.
The classic pigpen cipher. When the “X” is laid over the #, the entire English alphabet and the first 9 numerals are present.
Fast forward now to Renaissance England, and think of Dr. John Dee,
the first “007,” and court astrologer for Queen Elizabeth. Dee was
involved in many intrigues, one of which was cryptology. However, as NSA
scholar Leslie Rutledge explains, not a very good one. In fact,
despite the many legends of Dee as a conjurer talking to the dead with
his crystal ball, the evidence seems to weigh in on Dee as a con man,
calling to mind Agrippa. Regardless, Dee is another example of the
intersect of the esoteric and cryptography. Rutledge writes in his “John Dee: Consultant to Queen Elizabeth”:
“Mathematics lifts the heart above the heavens by invisible lines,
and by its immortal beams melteth the reflection of light
incomprehensible, and so procureth joy and perfection unspeakable.” -Dr.
John Dee citing Plato
“The book was notorious, I just now pointed out. Trithemius, the
Abbot of Spaheim, began to write it in the year 1500, and he sent a
partial copy of it to a clerical friend in another religious
establishment. But unknown to Trithemius, his friend had died. His
friend’s abbot opened the correspondence, and he was appalled. “Secret
writings,” he read, “will reveal secrets not found by ordinary means.”
And there was more. In order to send a secret message, you make an image
of a planetary angel, speak the message over it at a moment determined
by complicated astrological calculations, wrap the image up with an
image of the addressee, and bury the images. This network of planetary
angels could always be used for messages-and even for thought
transference.
Cryptography, even of this heavenly sort, was not just a means of
disguising messages; it was the medium through which intelligence from
the spirit world might be transmitted. The secrets of the universe-the
philosopher’s stone “The elixir of life-might be received in a heavenly
cipher, like the obscure oracles of Delphi.” The abbot denounced
Trithemius as a conjuror, trafficking with spirits, and he lost his
clearance. Although he stopped all work on the Steganographia,
the manuscript of it appears to have circulated as an underground
classic for nearly a century until Dee copied it in 1563. was finally
published in Frankfurt, near the end of Dee’s life, in 1606.
It was, you see, the supernatural context of the Steganography which
attracted attention. Heads of state-or adventurers of all sorts could
be persuaded that secrets of the future, hidden in the stars, and the
marvelous formulae for prolonging life and for converting base metals
into gold were knowable-and might be revealed by the supernal powers in
cipher. It is hard perhaps to realize, but rational and wholly illusory
notions like this could and did exist in the 16th Century scientific
mind. Even Copernicus did not disbelieve in astrology. There were two
gates to the other world. There was a gate of horn, through which came
the rational finding which would lead to our times, and an extraordinary
perception of the nature of man and his world. But there was also a
gate of ivory, through which dreams and illusions came.”
According to Rutledge, Dee was not successful at this magical,
astrological means of cryptography. However, the essay does relate the
story of Dee mentioning the ability to project images through screens,
which I have noted elsewhere appears to relate to the seminal idea of
the computer, and it is to Leibniz that we once again return. Leibniz’s
idea of a characteristica universalis would be instrumental in
the development of calculation machines, arising from the project of a
universal logic for all phenomena. Milkov explains:
“The first variant of Leibniz‘s project for a new language was set
out in a letter from Marin Mersenne to Descartes. In fact, Mersenne‘s
idea was that of pasigraphy, a general language that helps one to
understand all languages. In his reply to Mersenne of 11 November 1629,
Descartes found this project rather interesting; however, he suggested a
much wider variant of it: a project for ideography that mirrors human
thoughts. This ideography would be connected with a mathesis universalis
that could conceive of anything thinkable as a calculation. ―The
greatest advantage of such a language would be the assistance it would
give to men‘s judgment, representing matters so clearly that it would be
almost impossible to go wrong.” (Nikolay Milkov, “Leibniz Project for a Characteristica Universalis in Relation to the Early Analytical Philosophy,” pg. 2)
Amazingly, Leibniz wrote of a possible “imagined” machine:
“17. It must be confessed, moreover, that perception and that which
depends on it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is by figures
and motions. And, supposing that there were a machine so constructed
as to think, feel and have perception, we could conceive of as enlarged
and yet preserving the same proportions, so that we might enter into it
as into a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it,
pieces which push one against another, but never anything by which to
explain a perception. This must be sought for, therefore, in the simple
substance and not in the composite or in the machine. Furthermore,
nothing but this (namely perception and their changes) can be found in
the simple substance. It is also in this alone that all the internal
activities of simple substances can consist. 18. The name of entelechies might
be given to all simple substances or created monads, for they have
within themselves a certain perfection; there is a certain sufficiency
which makes them sources of internal activities, and so to speak,
incorporeal automata.” (pg. 536)
Grandfather Patriarch to all Computers.
In Leibniz, the father of calculus, the convergence of symbology and
earlier cryptographic and esoteric ideas combine to produce a further
exposition and advance on the idea of creating a logic machine that
functioned like a mind. While my intention here is not to delve into
the history of the computer, it is worth considering that the history of
cryptography and cryptanalysis was directly connected to the emergence
of the idea of the computer. Only in a world where mathematical
principles are “mirrored” from the realm of forms to our external world
could such a machine function. As you read this, you are in fact using
the very thing described – a machine that transmits encrypted
information from one person to another.
Physicist Paul Davies relates an interesting story about the
advancement of computers by Los Alamos Laboratory scientists that also
recalls Leibniz’s walk-in computer, based on the same principle of
universal logic and a characteristica universalis. This time, however, the purpose is to mimic life. Davies explains:
“The fact that universal computers can simulate each other has some
important implications. On the practical level it means that, properly
programmed and with enough memory space bolted on, a modest IBM PC can
perfectly imitate, say, a powerful Cray computer as far as output (not
speed) is concerned. In fact, a universal computer need be nowhere as
sophisticated as an IBM PC. It might consist of nothing more than a
checkerboard and a supply of checkers! Such a system was first studied
by the mathematicians Stanislaw Ulam and John von Neumann in the 1950s
as an example of what is called “game theory.” Ulam and von Neumann
were working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the Manhattan
atomic bomb project was conducted….He [von Neumann] was fascinated to
know whether a machine could in principle be built that is capable of
reproducing itself, and if so, what its structure might be. If such a
von Neumann machine is possible, then we would be able to understand the
principles that enable biological organisms to reproduce themselves.
The basis of von Neumann’s analysis was the construction of a “universal
constructor” analogous to a “universal computer.” This would be a
machine programmed to produce anything, much as a Turing machine can be
programmed to execute any computable mathematical operation.” (Paul
Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, pgs. 111-2)
In Leibniz, the principle of gnomonicity is applied to the monads,
and with computers, supercomputers and personal computers, the same
gnomonic principle applies. This is reminiscent of Chilton’s
trangulation of “666,” where removing one layer leaves a smaller, yet
same shape. The point here is that the gnomonic principle is based on
the mirroring principle, that what is true in thought, logic and nature
is also true from the macro-scale to the micro-scale. It is in this way
that the secrets of nature encode the rites of the gods. What we see at
the subatomic level mirrors what we see in galaxies and the solar
system. Wisdom 11:20 states, “But you have disposed all things by
measure and number and weight.” However, that scientists will create a
“sentient” computer is impossible, given the objective truth of Godel’s
Theorums and the impossibility of accounting for all infinite
potentialities. AI scientist and semiotician Douglas Hofstadter
comments:
“Clearly there is much more going on in typefaces than meets the
eye–literally. The shape of letterform is a surface manifestation of
deep mental abstractions. It is determined by conceptual considerations
and balances that no finite set of merely geometric knobs could
capture. Underneath or behind each instance of “A” there lurks a
concept, a Platonic entity, a spirit, This Platonic entity is not an
elegant shape such as the Univers A, not a template with a finite number
of knobs, not a topological or grouping-theoretical invariant in some
mathematical heaven, but a mental abstraction–a different sort of
beast. Each instance of the “A” spirit reveals something new about the
spirit without ever exhausting it. The mathematization of such a such a
spirit would be a machine with a specific set of knobs on it, defining
all its “loci of variability” for once and for all. I have tried to
show that to expect this is simply not reasonable.” (Douglas Hofstadter,
Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern, pg. 279)
In other words, there is clearly something beyond the letter on
paper, the letter spoken, and the letter in mind. Something invariant
and not bound by time must link all these particular instantiations, and
thus by the wayside falls reductionist materialism (though they are
almost incapable of grasping this). The danger is not from sentient
supercomputers like some ridiculous Hollywood blockbuster, but from the
actual supercomputer spy grid that was erected under the auspices of the
Cold War. in his 1982 book on the NSA, James Bamford mentions a
curiously titled cryptographic program:
“The timing could not have been better for IBM, which submitted for
consideration its Lucifer cipher. Labeled by David Kahn “the tiniest
known ‘cipher machine’ ever produced,” Lucifer actually consisted of a
thumbnail-sized silicon “chip” containing an extremely complex
integrated circuit. The “key” to the cipher was a long string of bits –
0s and 1s – the combination of which would vary from user to user…From
the very beginning, the NSA had taken an enormous interest in Project
Lucifer.” (James Bamford, Puzzle Palace, pg. 435)
First, remove the chip in your all-seeing eye.
Along the same lines, mathematician Calvin Clawson expands on this
program in his 1996 book, Mathematical Mysteries, which shows the level
of advanced surveillance that existed in the 90s! Clawson says:
“The German version of this [cipher] machine was called the Enigma,
on of which was obtained by the British. The Enigma, in conjunction
with cryptanalysis techniques allowed the British to decipher many
German messages, which significantly altered World War II’s
outcome….Companies and governments worldwide are not adopting the
public-key cipher system. RSA Data Security, Inc. has grown to be the
leading cryptographic marketing company in the nation….
With the phenomenal growth in the use of public-key encryption
methods, such as the RSA system, we might be led to believe that public
key codes will soon become the national, or even world standard.
However, the U.S. Government has been fighting to avoid such a
situation. The National Security Agency of the U.S. Government is
responsible for breaking the codes of foreign governments- they are our
secret spy agency. But the NSA knows it cannot break the public
key-codes….No wonder the NSA is upset about the RSA success story.
The government has not been idle, and is now working on a competing
system to public-key encryption. In 1987, Congress authorized NIST to
develop an acceptable encryption system that would satisfy the needs of
user privacy, yet allow law enforcement agencies and the NSA to decipher
transmitted messages. This effort became the Capstone Project. Under
Capstone, a computer chip, called a Clipper Chip, would be manufactured
and installed in computers that interface with the U.S. Government.” (Mathematical Mysteries, pgs. 186, 199-200)
Lucifer and Capstone: Names undoubtedly imbued with esoteric
significance. Even in my semi demythologizing project in this essay, I
am unable to avoid esoteric notions as we move into the 20th century.
It seems that cyrptography, which developed from ancient message
writing and gematria, and eventually produced the Enigma
machine of World War II and the computer itself, is still deeply related
to occult ideas. Does that mean we can decode Lagarde’s cipher? We
may not have all the keys for her message, but what we do have is a
grounding in the understanding that Lagarde is primarily using her
message as a message of statecraft, as old as the art of language
itself. Whether one regards the “magic” as real or not, one thing we
can be certain of is statecraft and cryptography.
What of gods, then? Must we conclude that it is all statecraft and sciencia and techne,
man in search of secret ways of communicating and being, apart from
anything religious? No, not at all. Man is more religious than ever,
only his gods have changed. Instead, just as we plumb the depths of
nature and science, like Hofstadter’s comments on the Platonic nature of
signs and symbols, each new revelation conceals as much as it reveals.
We are not left with a dry, barren Enlightenment rationalism, nor are
we returning to an ancient superstition. We are involved in the
ever-progressing revelation of reality that spirals for all eternity, as
St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote, up, eternally into the divine. It’s not
dialectics, it’s a principle of unification, and synthesis, and not in a
Hegelian sense (Hegel’s view was based on dialectical tension). This
eternal learning constantly removes superstition as it simultaneously
invites us deeper into theological mystery. It is the acceptance of
paradox, which
is very different from a contradiction in philosophy,
that is the appropriate (and Eastern) attitude.
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