The Names of God and Houses 9-12

by the Editors of Astronoesis

Paper V09P

3-LETTER CODE: ASN

TOPIC: Astronoesis

SUBJECT: Nature

SUBSUBJECTS: Houses 9-12, Names of God, Ibn 'Arabi, Universal Manifestation, Demiurge, Jupiter, Kabbalah, Tetractys, Tetragrammaton

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME: nasnames.doc

CONTENTS:

Distinction between universal manifestation framework (houses 9-12) and 12th house alone; universal principles vs. individual centers of manifestation

Jupiter in Sagittarius as Demiurge; divine attribute transforming Void Consciousness into form; power of Name as primary characteristic

Zeus swallows Phanes to manifest the World-Idea

Ibn 'Arabi's theophany framework: first theophany as realm of mystery (9th house); revelation of Demiurge to itself as One Name; manifestation of Names as distinct deities in 10th house

Kabbalistic foundation: God as 'ancient of days' (יהוה - yud hey vuv hey); precipitation of first crown (9th house); letters vs. names distinction

House 9: the Unity of Name

House 10: the 72 Names; first tentative illumination of manifestation; mathematical derivation

House 11: multiplicity of meanings; sequentialization of reason-principles; commentary on different schools of language interpretation

House 12: phenomenalized names; superimposition of names onto objects/concepts; Buddhist perspective on naming and imputation

Four perspectives on houses 9-12: 1) as structured ideas; 2) as thoughts; 3) as states of consciousness; 4) as reflections of quadrants 1-4

BOOKS / PAPERS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Anthony Damiani, Astronoesis (Astronoesis Master (draft); and published book 2000)

• AD Archives, papers and diagrams

• Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi [for more on Names of God]

• Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), The Garland of Letters

• Papus (Gérard Encausse), The Qabalah: Secret Tradition of the West

• Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages [for more on the Hebrew letters and Tetractys]

DIAGRAMS embedded in this paper:

• FIGURE Names 9-12-1. Twofold Zeus.

• FIGURE Names 9-12-2. Jupiter and the 3rd house-9th house axis.

• FIGURE Names 9-12-3. 4th house (Idea of 4 states) and houses 10-12 (causal, subtle, gross).

• FIGURE Names 9-12-4. Hebrew Letters—Tetragrammaton.

• FIGURE Names 9-12-5. 4th house as paradigm and houses 9-11 as Names of God.

• FIGURE Names 9-12-6. The 72 Names in the Tetractys.

REFORMATTED/CORRECTED by IT, MW 2025

NOTES:

• RETYPED ASTRONOESIS ENDNOTE (V09P).

• After Anthony's death, his students held seminars and classes on different Astronoesis topics. This endnote was originally based on class discussion dated 11/07/88, 12 years before the publication of Astronoesis, and put together by the Editors/AS. It was rejected by Larson Publications for inclusion in Astronoesis. The version below is cut down & slightly revised from the original paper. This endnote was revised and has been read/studied in Astronoesis class 2003 and ongoing, whenever the class revisited the System of Nature material.

• Astronoesis endnote #38, pp. 333-35, "The Henad of Jupiter," has discussions and diagrams related to this endnote and used this endnote version as an earlier basis.

• See also the endnotes/papers on "The 72 Powers of the Central Sun" and "Ibn 'Arabi and Plotinus on Universal Theophany."

THE NAMES OF GOD AND HOUSES 9-12

In distinguishing the framework of universal manifestation in houses 9-12 from that of the 12th house, the larger framework is referring to the universal principles of every cosmos, without reference to individual manifestation, while the 12th-house kind of manifestation requires an individual center of manifestation--a solar logos. In this sense, the individual centers of awareness are necessary: manifestation in 12 involves the individual epistemology.

[FIGURE Names 9-12-1. Twofold Zeus. Facsimile scan of diagram from Astronoesis, p. 237.]

GENERAL: 9-12 FRAMEWORK

Jupiter in Sagittarius is called the Demiurge, "Twofold Zeus," referring to the Divine principle which is the interface of the Void and manifestation: inwardly facing the Void Mind, and outwardly depicted as the threefold manifestor or Tri-Murti. Zeus, the Demiurge, is also called the primal Logos--the God of Sound (Shabda Brahman in Shaivism) or the God-called-"Names" in the Kabbalah. This is because the Demiurge is that divine attribute which can transform the Void Consciousness into form--the power of ideation, Thought, manifestation, dianoia (divided Nous). Naming seems to bring something into actuality by making it stand out. Zeus thus represents the divine power or attribute whereby the formless intelligence of the Ideas is translated into manifestation.

Universal manifestation (the fourth quadrant) is the entire epiphany of universal phenomena. Zeus swallows Phanes, which is the intelligible Ideas, in order to manifest the World-Idea. In the 9th-house symbolism, Zeus subsumes the Reason Principle of the Universe (the Tail) within himself (i.e., Zeus swallows Phanes). Through the power of Name, which is the primary characteristic of the Demiurge, the Mind of the World, the Ideas are made to stand out from their state of inseparable, infinite, formless consciousness as distinct representations. (From the metaphysical mandala, we also notice that in the 3rd house, Jupiter, the unity of Demiurgic activity, is subordinate to the Unity of Intellect--the Head. Thus the Word or Idea is unmanifest.)

[FIGURE Names 9-12-2. Jupiter and the 3rd house-9th house axis. Sketch from original endnote.]

Ibn 'Arabi describes the first Theophany or revelation of God to himself as the realm of mystery (9th house). The first "theophany" of these names is the revelation of the Demiurge to itself as the One Name; immediately following is the manifestation of the Names or deities as naming the one principle of manifestation, yet having a distinct existence in their own right. This latter revelation or theophany is the same as the 10th-house "tentative illumination of matter," the imposition of Ideation onto the formless "matter" resulting in the first or causal state of the World-Idea in its universality. This causal state of the World-Idea is in the 10th house; the stratification of Reason Principles there mirrors the 4 states of being (in the 4th house) as four levels of existence. The subtle state is represented by the 11th house grades of life and thought, in which the central sun pours forth its creative imagination. The manifested wakeful state is in the 12th, represented by the 5 great elements.

[FIGURE Names 9-12-3. 4th house (Idea of 4 states) and houses 10-12 (causal, subtle, gross). Sketch from original endnote.]

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THE GOD-CALLED-NAMES IN 9-12

In Kabbalah, God is called the "ancient of days" - yud hey vuv hey - (read Hebrew letters right to left).

[FIGURE Names 9-12-4. Hebrew Letters—Tetragrammaton.]

The Kabbalists speak about the precipitation of the first crown (in the 9th house). Before that there are no names, only pure Ideas called by letters. This means that, prior to the God-called-"Names," things aren't completely manifested. (See chapter 3 in Papus [Gérard Encausse], The Qabalah: Secret Tradition of the West [New York: Samuel Weiser, 1977], which presents a derivation of the Divine Names.)

Letters refer directly to the Ideas; they are symbols of the Ideas prior to the way they are known in soul. Name is the power to combine Ideas in certain ways so they are interrelated. Name refers to reason-principle. The way in which an Idea is known in the mode of soul is as a name; in this mode, the Idea is manifested in life as a multiple reason-principle. So the function of the Demiurge can also be represented through word or Name: making a thing stand out as distinct from others through allowing it to be represented as distinct from its essence.

9th house: In the 9th house, the Principle of Name refers only to the Unity or Essence. In 9 we place the one Name of the God-called-"Names," whereas the primal name of manifest divinity (in house 10) is fourfold (yud hey vuv hey) referring to the four states. . Note that the four-letter Sacred Tetragram has a value of 26; the derivation is given below in the section on the 10th house.

10th house: The opening of Genesis, "In the beginning was the God-called-"Names" (Elohim)," refers to the God which provides the first tentative illumination of manifestation. Symbolically, the Kabbalists derive the 72 names of God from the single name of God as distributed by the tetractys, or Pythagorean tenfold triangle. The numerical value of the letters gives 72, all of which refer to the World-Mind, just as the Ideas in the Intellectual-Principle are Ideas in their own right yet also interpenetrate as forms of the Intellectual-Principle. In the 10th house, the names of the attributes of god are differentiated as distinct deities according to the paradigm of four-fold Being:

[FIGURE Names 9-12-5. 4th house as paradigm and houses 9-11 as Names of God. The Sacred Tetragram of House 4 is expanded in the opposite House 10 (the Tetractys, name as letters, 72; in house 9, the One Name), and becoming Many Meanings in 11. Sketch from original endnote.]

The 72 Names of God are in House 10 and add up as follows:

yud = 10

hey = 5

vuv = 6

yud = 10

hey + yud = 5+10 = 15

vuv + hey + yud = 6 + 5+10 = 21

hey +vuv + hey + yod = 5+6 + 5+10 = 26

total 10+15+21+26 = 72

Another way of counting up the 72 Names in the Tetractys:

[FIGURE Names 9-12-6. The 72 Names in the Tetractys. Diagram from Wikipedia.]

11th house: In 10, these primary essences and the associated names are inseparable, whereas in 11, the Names are concatenated in order to allow a multiplicity of meanings for each essence. The principle of differentiation or multiplication in 11 represents the way in which a reason-principle is sequentialized. The idea is more available but is not complete (whereas in 10 the idea is geometrically infinite; essence and name are essentially connected). Thus the different schools of interpretation of language have their roots in these metaphysical principles. In some systems (Vedanta?), the name is inseparable from the thing which allows it to be, whereas in other systems it is separable. In root languages, there is a big difference between the letters and the names they get put together to make. But in the Kabbalah, letters stand for numbers.

12th house: In the 12th house names are phenomenalized; the name may be separated from its essence. There may also be superimposition of names onto objects/concepts: any name can be imputed onto an object, and the connection is lost between the name and the essence. The appearance of a universe is an imputation of the names from house 11, but in 12 each moment is separate from other discrete moments—there are discrete names; objects seem separate and disconnected. Perhaps this is what the Buddhists mean by naming (their theory of nominalism): that all experience is an imputation, and imputation is totally name. If by name they mean that which brings a thing into existence, they clearly don't mean by name just the term you give something but include on the side of imputation not only productive imagination but the point-instant itself. The Buddhists claim that the only thing they are dealing with is phenomena, but not universal or cosmic phenomena (they disallow creator gods). The Buddhists' focus is rather about how this is mirrored in the individual microcosm.

* * *

9-12 as structured ideas: In 9, each Soul is determined as a universal Idea--following a basic lineage or Divine Name such as the Idea of Man, Sun, etc., according to the immortal Reason Principle (Tail) given by Zeus. In 10, each Idea has an essential structure of four levels of being; it is given shape in an essential and immutable way. Each deity is an intuition continuum, a whole which is a unique form of the other ideas, yet refers to the One Deity called Zeus. In 11 the ideas are logoized--there is an ordering, a relationalization, so that each idea is a concatenation or diversity in unity of an indefinite sequence of viewpoints. A mathematical analogy is that the 10th house is geometrically infinite--the shape of the material universe in 10 is Shape without extension. 11 is potentially infinite: an idea has potentially infinite sequential approaches. 12 is finite.

9-12 as thoughts: 9, the principle of the Demiurge, is that which takes the unmanifest into the manifest, is that principle of thought. The God-called-"Names" allows something to eventually stand out. And 10, 11, & 12 are showing up the aspects of that. 10 is analogous to saying the mind can be anywhere; 11 is saying mind can take on any form in an ordered way; and that in the 12th house thought has the power to concrete itself. By saying 9 contains the principle, it's like saying that's thought itself. Every time you have a thought you're manifesting something about thought, but you can't manifest the principle of the power of thought itself. Jupiter is the manifester, the mind's power to think--space and the forms of combination of change, and the appearances are the manifestations of the power of thought. The 10th, 11th, and 12th houses are expressions of the Demiurge's power to think. The levels of manifestation are the very essential constituents of the thought itself. At each level it leaves behind one of its essential characteristics.

9-12 as states of consciousness: The 9th house represents the unity of the System of Nature, in the sense that the World-Mind, as the consciousness of the Demiurgic Soul, provides the underlying ground or idea. Or, in another context, the 10th house is the causal state of the World-Idea, Prajna, the principle of the Sleep state, of absorption into the Idea-essence, a shape without extension, where the representation as Name is inseparable from the essence. The 11th house is the principle of the dream (taijasa) state of idea-images, apprehended through reasoning, always circling the idea and adjusting the outer image to the inner essence. In the 12th house wakeful (vaishvanara) consciousness is discrete, with objects and events separate in space and time.

9-12 as reflections of the quadrants: Each of these realms mirrors the mathematics of the principle quadrants 1-4: In the 1st quadrant, there is the interpenetration of unities. In the 2nd quadrant, each idea is unique but is a form of the whole. In the 3rd quadrant, each soul is a distinct reason-principle, defined only in relation to other reason-principles, not in its own right--a subjective conception. In the 4th quadrant there is the objective and separate manifestation. This fourfold logic will continue down into and be reduplicated in the 12th house.