Seven of Batons (II)

Notes of a Hermetic Conversation between Phillip and Joel on February 6, 2023.

The weaving in the center creates four small diamonds.

And the “extra” crossing creates a smaller X within the larger X of the whole image. A double X.

The eye was drawn first to the “extra” crossing that we had noticed at the end of the previous conversation. Then noticed the diamonds.

The spear wound of Christ, or of Anfortas. In those situations, the lance was the implement that brought about the wound. Here, however, it is the lance piercing the lance. The implement wounding itself.

What does that indicate? The piercing instrument piercing itself?

Which side was the spear wound on Christ? The left? No, the wound was on the right, and penetrated all the way to the heart on the left. This gives us the proper orientation, perhaps, for this Arcanum: the “extra” crossing, the wounding of the lance, on the right.

Either way we orient it, it is always on the diagonal that moves from lower right to upper left.

With Anfortas, he was wounded in the groin. Was that wound exactly in the middle? Or did it come from on direction or another? That would have been a question for Estelle back in the day.

Does this “wound” have something to do with the imbalanced white on the vertical?

In comparison to the Emperor…noticing his sceptre is entirely yellow. Why no other colors? It’s very striking after working with the Suit of Batons.

Can we see any kind of formal link between these two images?

The crossed legs are like the X. The vertical baton and his sceptre. The leaves are like his shield. Yet also somehow reminiscent of the crown, or his necklace.

We also recall the spine of Death. At some point—perhaps during the Suit of Swords?—we discovered that Death was, in almost ever detail, a metamorphosis of Emperor. He becomes the implement (scythe), and the sceptre becomes the “being” (Death) using the implement.

They yellow flower/root is somewhat similar to the shape of the braid of his necklace.

The necklace as a kind of curved spine, leading directly into the helm/head.

Look at the strange ripple in his helmet—how did we never notice that before??! Like it’s liquid at the top.

And the spikes don’t all point the same way. A chaotic growth. A phallus growing out of a Pacman mouth. Or an eyeball growing out of an eyelid. It’s like another, smaller sceptre.

The third eye. If it was actually a visible formation, it would be so grotesque. “What on earth am I looking at??”

Steiner speaks about the humanity of Ancient Lemuria, prior to the division of the sexes, as having a kind of lantern-eye growing out of their heads. Pineal gland. Simultaneously a kind of sex organ. Then the division of the sexes also divided the brain/cognition from reproduction. Steiner says if you were to actually see an Ancient Lemurian human being, you would be horrified.

The “arm” of the throne that is mostly obscured by him, that pokes out on his right side. Could be like a bulge, on his groin or his side, his thigh.

The roundness throughout—round pendant at the heart, round 3rd eye in the head, round bump on the loins.

Anne Catherine Emmerich—she describes the passing of the Blessing, from Isaac to Jacob. There is an actual physical/etheric effect. Natural heredity occurs through the sex organs, but the heredity of the Blessing occurs through the hip or the thigh? Wasn’t it the right thigh that was effected? And this is also bound up with the blessing that Jacob receives from the angel, his dislocated hip. Maybe that is what we are seeing here on the Emperor.

What exactly is the unfallen mode of procreation? Are there still vestigial forms of that in existence?

The purity of initiates—at times it is incompatible with the way the world is. Results in a serious awkwardness at times.

Our reading at the start of Rev 21, the New Jerusalem descending from God. This is the feeling. A new version of that which was unfallen. A new sky, a new earth (but no sea?). A sudden shift occurs in this part of Revelation. No more sea, no more waters above (He) and waters below (Vau). Yod and the second He, heaven (sky) and earth unite with no more intermediaries. The waters above are the hierarchies. The waters below are the subearthly spheres. The hierarchies divide the Father from Earth, and the sub earthly spheres hide the Mother within the Earth. The Father and the Mother finally reunite.

What if the white portion of the vertical baton is actually just part of the white background of the image? And the central baton is actually two yellow batons, separate from each other?

Clearly, these black lines do their own thing, as evidenced by the “extra” entanglement in the blue. So these black lines surrounding the apparently white part are just tethers with no substances between then, lines hanging onto the yellow batons above and below. Keeping them attached to the center.

So if that is actually two batons, the Seven is immediately becoming Eight.

So after the Six, the flowers didn’t reunite with the center as before, becoming a single vertical baton again. Instead something is reaching out from the center, touching the flowers and gently transforming them.

It now feels strange to see the Five and earlier. The Six and Seven are a total departure. Two—Three—Four—Five were their own distinct story. And still linked to what had come before. Now, all is new.

We’ve had two entirely new leaf forms in a row.

The oak leaves in the Seven, and their connection to the Emperor’s crown. The Emperor is Jupiter—Jovis, Jove, Zeus. Jahve/Yahweh. Kingly. Crown of oak leaves. Orange is the Jupiter color (and still so weird that orange has suddenly appeared!).

A little autumnal, but more of that Indian summer feeling—strength, harvest time, Michaelmas, apples growing.

Joel has this theory that the land of the Elves in Tolkien’s work is so magical because it is a perpetual Autumn. We can find places on earth that have a perpetual winter, or summer, or spring. But we cannot have a perpetual Autumn—leaves perpetually producing colored leaves, abundant crops constantly being harvested. This perpetual, magical Tolkein Autumn is not to be found on Earth. It is that kind of Autumn that is expressed in the Seven of Batons. The New Jerusalem, the perpetual ending.

As in a symphony, when you are waiting for that final note that just isn’t coming…you’re not sure whether you should keep enjoying the music, but you do anyway.

The base of the Emperor’s sceptre is akin to the top of the sceptre of the Queen of Coins:

Looking to the 4th Letter-Meditation. What is a shield? What is a sceptre? It’s very clear cut and compartmentalised in the Letter-Meditation. The sceptre is this purely symbolic representation of Authority, Authority bestowed from above for free beings to recognise. The shield is the mission, name, or purpose. These two pieces are separate in the Emperor.

But in the Suit of Batons, it isn’t so cut and dry (as usual!). We have multiple sceptres—not just one sole Authority. And these sceptres are being laid down and woven together. As they weave together, they become a shield. A shield composed of sceptres.

Is it the background, vertical sceptre, the unusual one, that is the focal point? Like the hand on the belt in the Emperor, the focal point or origin of that restraining. The weaving is a restraining. The sceptres themselves are being restrained and doing the restraining.

The restraint, laying down, sacrifice of personal authority for the sake of a community of freedom to arise.

In the Seven, the X is the crossed legs; the central baton is the sceptre; and the curves leaves are the shield. The elements are there, but they are all mixed together.

And a face-on view, not a profile.

Brian gave Phillip this book The Light by an Italian anthroposophist, Massimo Scaligero. Focusing on this theme that we cannot see light. That the light dies in us, making things visible. The light is the inner nature of things becoming visible. Matter is a stratified, fallen light.

Ideas such as these take so long to assimilate, because they go so against what we’re raised with. Is there even light? Is it even real? There is a presumption of light as spiritually real due to luminosity. But phenomenologically, there is no light to be perceived.

We don’t perceive light, but we also don’t perceive things, objects. We only perceive form and color. That which is light (which makes form and color visible to us) is also that which is in us as concept. It is only through discovering the corresponding concept (through thinking) of that which we perceive that we actually arrive at the “thing” or “object.” The concept brings unity to the disparate percepts.

This is Philosophy of Freedom. “I think the light,” i.e. when we observe our own thinking activity, we can observe light. When we observe thinking, we think about thinking. The unique, unobserved element in consciousness is thinking. Just as light goes unobserved and allows us to see.

And yet we are ignorant of the true nature (concept) of a thing until we have the perceptions. Then the concept is able to bring these pieces back together.

The question of Personal Certainty for Tomberg. Formal logic (which is merely conceptual, lacking the perceptual element) is not good enough. One needs material logic or what he calls moral logic, the conceptual must always be grounded in the perceptual to be “real” or “certain.” This is the same conclusion that Steiner reaches in POF. The other extreme from formal logic (pure idealism, lacking any perceptual content) is naive realism, which takes all perceptions as they appear and disregards thinking/concepts entirely.

In POF Steiner describes that it is the thinking ego herself who splits the unity of the world (a conceptual-perceptual unity) into pieces. She is then confronted with the perceptual tableau of disjointed pieces, which can only be reunited by the ego discovering the corresponding concept through thinking. Thus the ego splits the world and then has the task of reuniting it where she split it.

We experienced the unity directly in distant ages, and in our sleep—only when we lack ego-consciousness. We cannot be aware of this unity unless we split it first with our consciousness and subsequently reunite it.

Concepts can take on a life of their own. They need the percept in order to shape them. And vice versa.

An interesting example that Joel often refers to is the elephant which killed Eleazar in the Book of Maccabees. This became a popular symbol of a sacrifice that pre-figured Christ’s sacrifice on Golgotha. It was often illustrated in early Bibles. But those who were illustrating it had never seen an elephant before. All they had ever heard were descriptions of elephants. I.e., they had the concept of an elephant, but no percepts with which to join the concept and thereby form it into a distinct mental image. The representations of elephants that they created, however, are wonderful:

We tend to be focused on the product of consciousness, rather than the activity of consciousness. We assume consciousness is a particular thing due to association with its products rather than its activity. Similarly one reshapes the products once the activity is recognised, and vice versa.

The Batons are all about this wholeness coming into being as a generative/fragmenting activity.

The Autumn harvest…the highlighted mood of the never-ending magical ripe moment.

The activity and the product asymptotically identifying.

Wokeness is described totally by the concept divorced from the percept. A perfecting of a conceptual element along with a degrading of the perceptual. Ungrounded. Excarnated. Disassociated. The part that doesn’t conform to the concept you choose not to feel or recognise, you pass over it. This buzzy tingling of dissociation.

Each one laying down their own sceptre. Their own perfect system. Their own authority, the activity of command. So that a shield, a mission, a name can come about. In relation to something new arising, the white portion—as opposed to the Five.

The white is the spear wound. The shield is strong enough to receive its wound. Ready to go into battle.

You don’t protect a shield from battle.

Eternal Autumn—the wound isn’t the end. The tree is perpetually fruiting, the blood is always flowing from Christ’s spear wound. The Resurrection Body is eternally wounded.

It is still impossible to see the conversation’s content in the image of the Arcanum. It’s in the periphery of the image, the mood, the “open gaze” sense. The conversation is about the counterimage—the Light.

This was not as perceptible in prior Batons, but it is necessary to notice this in the Seven of Batons, and is shown by it.

(Edit: the apparent contradiction of the prior two paragraphs is part and parcel of the gesture of the Batons)

In the Two and Three, there were no small diamonds in the center. Then in the Four and Five, one small diamond. In the Six and Seven, four small diamonds.

Now we come to the Eight: Many diamonds!

Where do they end and where do they begin? Which of those forms in the center are diamonds, and which are not?

Recalling this film Uncut Gems…seeing inside of a perfect uncut diamond with the jeweller’s loupe. A perfect, psychedelic world inside of a perfect jewel, one could get lost/hypnotized within it. Obsessive.

These simple little torpedo flowers. Like dragonflies.

Six, Seven and Eight are no longer a continuity of Two, Three, Four, Five. Like a trampoline to heaven in the Eight. Like a jumping sheet. Native American pattern.