Introduction

This is one of a few brief pieces I am writing on Western esoteric thought and belief for those interested in these things. I have not drawn conclusions from what is written, as I have not yet formed many myself.

August 18th 1999

August 18th 1999 was an interesting day for a variety of reasons. For one, coming seven days after the last solar eclipse of the millenium, it was the day on which a 'Grand Cross' astrological pattern formed in our skies, of a type which only occurs roughly four times every hundred thousand years. The Sun, Moon and all the original planets studied by the ancients grouped themselves within four astrological houses - Aquarius, Leo, Taurus and Scorpio. These four houses take the form of a cross with relation to each other, hence 'grand cross'. And these four signs represent esoterically the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, via the symbols Man, the Lion, the Bull and the Eagle. These four symbols are clearly referred to in the Biblical books of Ezekiel (Ch 1), and Revelation, (Ch 4).

Tarot

The four creatures also appear in two cards of the esoteric Tarot pack - keys 10 and 21, the Wheel of Fortune and The World. The esoteric Tarot has never been fully published or made available to the general public. But the designs drawn by Jessie Park Burns, under the instruction of Paul Foster Case, are widely believed to be the most faithful to the original. This pack is what I've used here.

The Wheel of Fortune symbolises the concept of rotation or periodicity, the natural circular motion of the forces of nature. The 'wheel' motif in the centre of the card is the 'wheel of Ezekiel', seen by the Biblical prophet and referred to in Ezekiel 1.The eight letters on the outer ring of the wheel symbolise the concept of cyclical motion via their various occult meanings. The alchemical symbols in the second ring are those of salt, sulphur and mercury - representing the three Hindu 'gunas'. The symbol of Aquarius below them here indicates that it is the activity of Man that will perform the 'inner alchemy' needed to bring about the completion the 'Great Work' of the esotericists. The three creatures that surround the wheel symbolise the process of human evolution.

The snake represents the fiery life force, kundalini, that occultists believe is the basic, root energy of evolution. The jackal-headed figure of Hermanubis represents man as he currently is, partially evolved. The jackal head infers that our mind is the part of us that has yet to evolve, and that it is here that the next phase of evolution will take place. And the fact that only his ears rise above the horizontal centre line of the circle infers that it is the development of 'inner hearing' or intuition that leads to evolutionary progress. The sphinx represents the perfected human state, according to the occultists - Christ consciousness, or soul consciousness. The storm clouds behind the Sphinx give indication of how easy the designers of the esoteric Tarot believed it will be to achieve this state.

The Wheel of Fortune can therefore be said to represent the evolutionary progress of Man through the periodic cycles of nature. It should be remembered that occultists believe that 'nature unaided always fails', that it will require great human effort for our species to reach its highest level, to complete their 'Great Work'.

The World is similar to the Wheel of Fortune in both layout and symbolic meaning. But this card represents the completion of the process outlined in the former key - the return of human consciousness to the state known as 'Christ' or 'soul' consciousness. The 'world dancer' figure represents this state. The layout of the two cards is clearly similar. Both feature the four creatures, and a central design. But in the latter card, the head of the bull is facing outward. This signifies that the completion of the evolutionary cycle.

Numerology

The number pattern of the date itself is interesting. In the US, August 18th 1999 is rendered 8-18-1999, which reduces to 8181999. Here are a few interesting things that can be got from playing with this sequence a little.

In Tarot, 81 infers the power of 1 operating through the agency of 8. This has a very strong evolutionary feel to it. 8 is the evolutionary, kundalini energy in its dormant state. What makes it active is the action of self-consciousness upon it, symbolised by number 1. And 81 is the only number, number 1 aside, I believe, for which the sum of its digits squared equals the number itself. (8+1=9, 9x9=81). This gives 81 a cyclical feel to it. These two aspects together, kundalini awakening and periodicity, would seem to infer something relating to the completion or commencement of a cycle of evolutionary activity.

999 - This is of course a powerful symbol of completion, (also 'emergency', if you're in the UK!)

8181999 - splitting this up a little produces some interesting patterns:

The middle - 81 + 99 = 180 - the half circle
The ends - 81 + 9 = 90 - the quarter circle
As digits - 8+1+8+1+9+9+9 = 45 - the eighth circle, and 'number of Man'.

These numbers, as degrees of a circle, thus strongly allude to the representation of the 'Wheel of Ezekiel' seen in the centre of Key 10.

Also of interest is what happens when we multiply the digits together.

8x1x8x1x9x9x9 = 46656. 46,655 is an interesting number. Its sixth root is exactly 6. Thus the above multiplication gives the number six raised to the power of six. This is an important numeral concept in occult numerology and multidimensional geometry.

Cassini

Another interesting thing about August 18th 1999 is that this was the date, (GMT), that NASA had scheduled to undertake the highly perilous 'Earth fly-by' of the space probe, Cassini. What made this fly-by hazardous was that Cassini is powered by 72.3 lbs of radioactive plutonium, the most toxic substance known. And the slightest navigation error could have caused the probe to have re-entered our atmosphere, thus burning up and dumping its fuel rod supply onto us. Cassini, needless to say, did not re-enter our atmosphere, and is currently flying away from us.

That these two events, the Grand Cross and the Cassini fly-by, should have occurred on the same day could of course be complete coincidence. But it seems strange that NASA should have picked a day so charged with Christian religious significance to have undertaken this exceptionally dangerous manoeuvre. Conspiracy theorists might like to indulge in a little speculation about what might have happened to Cassini should, by some chance, a significant proportion of the world's population have by then woken up to what might really going on on our planet.

Nick Sandberg, 2000

Resource - The Tarot, Paul Foster Case.

Recommended further reading - The Tower of Alchemy, David Goddard.