by E. Alan Meece
author of The Philosopher's Wheel
I am talking today about God's name, God's throne, and God's chariot.
God's name is YHVH. This name is actually related in its structure and appearance to the Native American and neo-pagan symbol of the Medicine Wheel. We'll see that it is also related to the tarot card called The World. The similarity of God's name, and the symbols in God's vision, to these non-Christian symbols, as well as to Buddhist, Greek and Moslem ones, can lead us to a universal vision found in all religions; a vision of God as our higher self, our world and our life journey; a God that is in all, through all, and as us all.
These 4 Hebrew consonants YHVH are like high, middle, low and middle. Y looks like it comes from above, H has a connecting line in the middle, V looks like it comes from below, and the 4th letter is another H. H can also stand for horizontal, and V for vertical. If we stand the Medicine Wheel upright, we see that high, middle, low and middle are also its 4 directions. They represent, among other things, the 4 seasons. In Summer, the Sun is at its highest in our sky. At Fall, the Sun is in between. At Winter, the Sun is lowest in the sky, and in Spring it is in between again. So it looks like the name for God is also a description of the motion of the Earth. This is also known as the solar cross within the wheel.
I like to chime and tone each direction of the Medicine Wheel with the Yahweh ritual. We tone eeeeeee, ah-ah-ah-ah, uuuuuuuu, eh-eh-eh-eh. This is God’s name, spelled the way it's pronounced, with vowels instead of consonants. The 4 vowels have a high sound eee, middle sound ah, low sound uuu, and middle sound ae. I need 4 volunteers to ring the chimes in each direction, four people besides our 4 minister angels please. (Note: some people pronounce YHVH as Jehovah)
We start in the North, the Summer Solstice, toning EEEEEEEEEEEE, the highest sound. Tone E with me after the chime (chime) EEEEEEEEEEEEEE
The West, the Fall Equinox, we sing AH. (chime) AH-AH-AH-AH.
The South is the Winter Solstice. And it has the lowest and most sexy sound: UUUUUUUUUUUUUU (chime) UUUUUUUU
The East, the Spring Equinox. It’s sound is long AAAAAAAAAA (chime) AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You can hear the Yahweh or God chords very often in Bach's Toccata in F: they are high notes, middle, low, and middle notes. In music, these notes are called a 3rd, an 8th (or tonic), a 7th, and an 8th. As the piece goes along, the tonic chord is heard an octave higher more often. The numbers 3,8,7 & 8 add up to 26.
The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of God in around 590 BC. This was a time of great transformation and discovery. Historians call it the Axis Age. At this time, all the world's philosophies and religions were founded or transformed into the religions we know today. Buddha was born around 570 BC, and so was Pythagoras, creator of sacred geometry and music. Confucius appeared and taught in China at this very time, and so did Lao Tzu, and Mahavira, and Zoroaster. The Greek natural philosopher Thales discovered the first of what we know today as the four elements or states of matter, fire, earth, air and water. Today astrologers use these elements in describing the signs of the zodiac. Many astrologers also know that around 590 to 570 BC, the three outer planets, URANUS, NEPTUNE AND PLUTO, which represent mystical knowledge and transformation, came together in an alignment in the sky for the only time in human history. We know what alignments of these planets mean, because in our lifetime, two of them came together in the mid-1960s, and again in the early 1990s. I really want you to remember that, at a time when everyone is talking about the Mayan calendar, the Age of Aquarius, and galactic alignments, it is the movements and cycles of these outer planets that really do the most to illuminate our past and future.
Ezekiel's vision was the beginning of Jewish mysticism, which we know as Kaballah. Ezekiel showed that it was possible to experience God. He went on to define and teach Jewish religious practices that have come down to us today. In Ezekiel's vision, God was sitting on a throne and riding in a chariot. God's throne, and God's chariot, are the mystical symbols of the divine nature, and how it manifests in the world. That means we can learn a lot from them about manifesting our own divine nature. Later, after the time of Christ, the prophet John also had a similar vision of God's throne, which he described in the book of Revelation. We'll see this vision in the video.
Seated around God’s throne in these mystic visions of God are 4 winged creatures, the Bull, Lion, Eagle and Man. They represent the 4 seasons and the 4 elements: earth, fire, water and air. They are the symbols of the 2nd astrology sign Taurus, the 5th sign Leo, the 8th sign Scorpio, and the 11th sign Aquarius. These numbers 2,5,8,11 also add up to 26. As the mystical Kaballah developed after the time of Ezekiel, numbers were given to correspond to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The 4 letters of God's name YHVH correspond to the numbers 9,6,5,6, which also add up to 26. I call this the numerology of God.
Buddha taught that the way to nirvana is the 8-fold path. In numerology the number 26 also adds up to an 8. The numbers 4 and 8 seem to indicate what frames or surrounds God's throne. You don't see God without also seeing his surroundings, his companions, and the pathways to the divine. When you add the center as #1, you have the number 9, which represents completion or integration. 4 and 8-sided mandalas are very common in Buddhist and Hindu art.
Ezekiel's vision of the Merkaba or chariot throne of God is described by Ellie Crystal in her on-line metaphysical encyclopedia. Four angels called "chayot" are the 4 angelic creatures with wings around the chariot, and they all have four faces, corresponding to the four directions the chariot can go. Ellie says "the Merkaba offers insight into the world's ecosystem, and teaches us how to become better people."
Below the "Chayot" angels are 4 other angels that look like "a wheel inside of a wheel", called "Ophannim". "Wheel within a wheel" is similar to the astrolabes which show the equator and the ecliptic intersecting, and this is the very basis of the zodiac cycle. Ezekiel said that the spirit of the creatures was within the wheels, which means to me that these wheels are the zodiac, the sacred wheel of life, the very spirit of the Earth's movement.
Ezekiel also mentions a third type of angel found in the Merkaba called "Seraphim" (lit. burning) angels. These 4 angels are like flashes of fire that power the movement of the 4 "Chayot," who in turn control the Ophannim or chariot wheels. These 3 types of angels are like the cardinal, fixed and mutable types of signs in the zodiac. In astrology, cardinal signs initiate, fixed signs concentrate, and mutable signs adapt. That means that all 12 signs are found in the Chariot of God. Cardinal, fixed and mutable are like other sacred trinities representing the process of life, such as G.O.D., or Generate, Organize, Distribute, or Father, Mother and Child; or the trinity in Divine Science: Creator, Creating and Creation. Using numerology, the English letters G O D also add up to: 26.
The Likeness of a Man on the throne, however, can only drive the chariot when the four creatures connect their wings. For us, the Man on the Throne is the God within. This means God is revealed in our lives when the 4 elements which oppose each other, like the cross within the wheel, work together in complete harmony. A person, Ellie Crystal writes, "should strive to be like a Merkaba, that is to say, to realize all our angels, meaning our different qualities, talents and inclinations." In other words, we can drive our divine chariot when we connect our various functions in harmony. Ellie says that focusing on a higher purpose brings them together to work as a whole.
The four angelic creatures, Taurus the Bull, Leo the Lion, Scorpio the Eagle and Aquarius the Man, also represent the four functions in Jungian psychology: sensation, intuition, feeling and thinking, respectively. In Ezekiel the four creatures each had 4 faces, making 16 in all. These represent the 16 Myers-Briggs types of people. But the spiritual journey leads to integration. By the time of John's vision later on, there are only 4 faces, one for each creature. The last book in the Bible, Revelation, represents the highest stage in the spiritual journey, where we each have developed all four functions in harmony, instead of some being stronger than others. John's vision is represented in tarot by the World card, the last card in the parade of major trump cards, number 21, which represents the goal of the spiritual journey, the throne of God.
Today I honor our 4 minister angels at Divine Science Community Center, who are now sitting around the sacred wheel, the throne of God, each at their positions on the World card and in the zodiac. (They lead us in worship, like the 4 creatures do around God's throne.) Each in their own horoscope has both their Sun and Moon in one of the 4 fixed signs representing the four angelic creatures around God's throne. Each brought a symbol for their sign today. Rev. Christine is Aquarius, the Man holding the pitcher, Mona Angel is Taurus the Bull, and Rev. Hilde is Leo the Lion. All 3 of them have the Moon in Taurus. Rev. Pat is also Aquarius, but her Moon is in Scorpio, so today she represents its higher symbol, the Eagle. And the throne of God was also known to Moslem Sufi mystics, who inspired the Taj Mahal, dedicated to a Mogul emperor's wife, the Lady of Wisdom shown in the center of the World card. You can see the four smaller domes in the 4 corners, surrounding the main dome in the center.
The cardinal or initiating signs are located at the four directions that we toned for the Medicine Wheel. EEE is the North, or Cancer, the sign of the Summer Solstice, AH is the West, Libra, my sign of Autumn, UU is the South, Capricorn the sign of Winter, and AE is the East, Aries the sign of Spring. The number of cardinal and fixed signs together add up to 8, the 8-fold path. The mutable signs are the wheels that keep everything moving and mixing together. In English, using I for yod, the 4 vowels in Yahweh in English (IAUA) add up to 28, known in mathematics as the perfect number.
Although in Ezekiel it is basically the same symbol, The Chariot is often seen in a slightly different way from the Throne, as two creatures pulling the driver. It is the vehicle for our spiritual journey that takes us up to God. The Chariot is tarot card #7, and is based on the image from Plato's book Phaedrus (see page 37). The Charioteer is a soul, and Plato says soul has charge of all, but the soul has 3 parts, and the other 2 are represented by the two horses, one more manageable than the other. They are often considered male and female, like the two yin and yang currents that move up and down our chakras. As we grow spiritually, we learn to direct our two horses toward our higher purpose, instead of letting them pull us in random directions. Then the chariot can take us to the divine regions of truth, the planets, and the gods, who also ride chariots, led by Zeus and the 12 Ruling Gods.
The Merkabah, which means chariot, is our chariot of ascension. We might need to know how to activate it someday, if we want to travel while still alive into the divine dimensions. Drunvalo Melchizedek describes how to activate it, which involves breathing techniques, and seeing two rotating triangles or pyramids around you, one pointed up and the other pointed down, rotating in opposite directions and centered in the heart, in the midst of a saucer-shaped field. Extending from this are connecting pillars of light above and below you. You can hear it in Bach's chariot theme in the Toccata in F: notice the six sets of two chords each, each preceeded by pedal notes, alternating between up and down. Thus six intersecting triangles, and capped off by the God chord; except here the first note is 2 notes higher, so the chord adds up to 28. (the chariot theme is heard at the end of section 2)
We learn to handle this chariot by learning the virtues that Plato taught, which are represented in the tarot cards. The highest virtue mentioned by name in the set is card #14, Temperance. We see the angel pouring water between two cups, finding the right mixture. (represented in Bach's Temperance theme in the fifth chakra section in the Toccata). Yogis teach a breathing technique to balance our two chakra currents, our two horses. This technique reveals which current, yin or yang, is strongest, according to which side of your nose, right or left, flows the easiest, and it leaves you refreshed and peaceful. Hold your thumb and forefinger up to the two openings of your nose. Close your right nostril with your thumb and inhale. Then open your right nostril, and close your left nostril with your finger and exhale. Then reverse the process. Keep holding your finger to your left nostril and inhale. Then let go and close your right nostril with your thumb and exhale. Do this 4 times. Notice how this is like the angel pouring liquid between two cups.
The Hindu word chakra means the wheel of a chariot. We take charge of our chariot's horses through Temperance, mastering the unconscious, addictive side of our 4 functions. These three cards, Chariot #7, Temperance #14, and World #21, are the highest cards in each of the 3 parts of the tarot parade, which represent the 3 parts of our soul. In the World card, the charioteer and his two horses become the four angels around the throne of God (at the crown chakra,) two each of yin and yang (as in Ezekiel, two faces on each side).
God on the Throne is eternal and stable, living forever and ever. The Chariot is always moving, it is our journey of life. In our inner Mind, we change constantly, and yet are always the same. Sometimes, especially when I hear Bach's Toccata, or great ambient sounds, I get a larger vision of the landscape of my journey. I know, as Plato said in the opening to Phaedrus, where I've been, and where I'm going (like the creatures around the throne who have eyes in front and in back). And always during the journey, I am here, connected to that holy one guiding me to the throne, the God within. For the world, and the divine, are one, which is Divine Science, and that, as Robert Place said, is the meaning of the World card, where we know the naked truth, like the Lady Goddess in the Center, that the world is sacred: a cosmos of consciousness.
The Who's Quadrophenia and The World