The Mouth of the Sandworm is the Wrath of God

I have been discussing on this blog the many hermetic associations of the phallus, and frankly, would be glad to be off this specific topic.  Nevertheless, I have a few more connections to make before I move on to other ideas.  It’s not time, not yet, to send one-eyed-jack down the river.

The Tower Tarot Card, which I identify with concepts from Frank Herbert’s novel Dune is no mere fleeting reference.  I would be oversimplifying a much (much) larger concept by focusing on the aspects of a singular Sephira, Path or Card, but I am starting to realize that these blog posts are just too big already.  Therefore, in an attempt to make this blog palatable, today's morsel of myth is: a kernel of Kabbalah!

The study of Tarot and the study of Kaballah are essentially the same thing.  Jungian Archetypes and Freudian Psychoanalysis are also based on Kaballah.  

Crowley's The Tower card has some non-traditional imagery which illuminates several major symbolic attributes of the card.  In my previous post, I explained how Jung had a vision of a ritual phallus which he identified with light, or the God's-eye.  The triangle or pyramid-with-eye is a common esoteric symbol for God.  The eye reference is a beginning for those who are making an attempt to discover why Crowley associated this card with “sex magick.”  But where does the Sandworm come in? 

Ah!  The beauty of the Kaballah!

There is a Tarot card equivalent for all 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  The 17^th Hebrew letter, associated with The Tower is Pey or Phe, which means mouth.  The Egyptian Hieroglyph equivalent for the Hebrew Pey is the hieroglyphic letter Viper, specifically named for the horned desert viper, Cerastes cersaste; a sand snake.   The Viper is depicted in Hieroglyphics as fully extended, in profile with horns, as if in motion.  The Heiroglyph Viper is associated with the English F sound or Hebrew Ph.  The Horned Viper is also known as the asp, as depicted on royal Egyptian crowns.  I always wondered why Frank Herbert had called his God a worm, and not a snake.  The circular maw of crystalline teeth is a sure giveaway that the “old man of the desert” was more snake than worm. 

The mouth of the Sandworm is the wrath of God, as depicted on Crowley's Thoth Tarot and made myth in Frank Herbert's Dune.    In the imagery invented by Crowley, and drawn by Lady Frieda Harris, the mouth of god destroys the tower, which is a reference to the phallus.

The traditional The Tower card depicts a tower, (go figure) which is referred to as The House of God.  This tower is commonly depicted being struck by lightning from the heavens.  The lightning flash design is familiar to kabbalists as the image made when the Tree of Life is connected via numerically connecting the ten Sephiroth from the top to the bottom. 

According to Lon Milo DuQuette, the original design of the Tower tarot card is “A tower struck by forked lightning.  Human figures thrown thence to suggest the letter Ayin by their attitude” Ayin is the previous 16^th Hebrew letter, coming just before Peh, the 17th. 

So, we are talking about two tarot cards here, the sixteenth which is associated with the ritual phallus and the seventeenth with the destruction of the phallus. 

There are, strangely enough, many modern religious archetype-symbols contained in the pictographic form of ancient languages.  To keep it short, we can focus clearly on one important symbol: the Vesica Piscis.  As anyone who has experimented with sacred Geometry will know, the Vesica Piscis is the origin of all other sacred Geometry forms: they enter through it; it is the vagina, entry point of the womb.  Modern inane opera entertainment has made a mockery of the “womb with teeth” as “man's greatest fear.”  Perhaps it is, sexually.  But this toothed-Vesica may actually be the high-initiate symbol of God's wrath.    

The Vesica Piscis appears twice on The Tower card, first on the bottom as the toothed mouth which breathes destructive fire, and second as the shape of the eye which casts its lightning bolt from above.

Crowley’s version of the 16^th Hebrew letter, The Devil card, represents the Hebrew letter Ayin.  Ayin translates to eye.  On this card is depicted the same symbolism which occurred in Jung’s mithraeum vision, the ityphallically displayed Khaire Phalle.  Crowley’s The Devil contains imagery with a symbolic Horus reference, a third-eye reference, and a well endowed goat.

Therefore, upon study of these two cards, we see that they also reference each other.  The Tower, according to Lon Milo DuQuette, references Ayin by the shape of the tower with “figures thrown.”  The 16^th letter, ayin/eye makes an appearance as the eye atop the 17^th card!

A similar “mouth of God” can be seen in the movie Dark City, where the alien creatures The Strangers, (which inhabit the bodies of the dead) take a similar “wrathful” true form.

“The house of God appears to me as a vortex not a mouth” -Crowley

This vortex reference brings us full circle, synchromystically, back to our original vortex victim Philip K Dick.  Dick experienced the Vesica in many of its's forms.  The Itchthys, which began PKD's mystical vision, is simply an extended Vesica.  DNA, God's Map of Light, is a further extended Vesica with teeth! 

Ecstatic Visions of euphoric knowing, such as Philip K Dick’s, in which an aspirant is blessed with visions of the meaning of life, are often inconvertible into language.   Language as we know it is an aspect of the rational and linear side of the brain.  We shall, nevertheless, have deep lineage and noble precursors in the attempt to marry the knowledge of experience with the meaning of myth!

Is the Sandworm representative of the Linga; the male sexual symbol?  Or is it a symbol of the Yoni; the Vesica Piscis, the womb of creation?  If you have trouble reconciling the two symbols, perhaps it’s the concept “either-or” biting you in the butt!  The more sublime concept is “either and.”  The Shiva Deity represents this union of Yoni and Linga, or Ardhanarishwara.  DuQuette thinks the eye on top of The Tower Card is none other than the eye of Shiva.  Go figure!

According to Crowley: “The Serpent is portrayed as the Lion-Serpent Xnoubis or Abraxas.  These represent the two forms of desire; what Schopenhauer would have called the Will to Live and the Will to Die.  They represent the feminine and masculine impulses; the nobility of the latter is possibly based upon recognition of the futility of the former.  This is perhaps why the renunciation of love in all the ordinary senses of the word has been so constantly announced as the first step to initiation.  This is an unnecessarily rigid view.  This card is not the only Trump in the Pack, nor are the “will to live” and the “will to die” incompatible.” 

So, here we have the Abraxis serpent, what Crowley doesn’t come out and say is that this serpent, crowned with a halo of light, depicted at the top right of The Tower card, is truly known as the Serapis, who is also Mithra, the Sun god.

Let me say again:  The Lion Serpent is the sacred Apis, the lion-headed snake of Egyptian's symbolic-drowning myth.  Thank you Aleister, for spelling it out so clearly.

(Above Left, Crowley’s Thoth Tarot The Devil versus on right, a more traditional design.)

I have one more point, which will lead into my next post.  The figure of Pan or Priapus, According to Crowley, makes the original design of this card.  “Levi’s Baphomet is sound commentary on this Mystery, but should not be found in the text.” -Crowley

So, if you are following my train of thought, Baphomet, which is a post figuration of Mithra is the meaning of The Devil card.

As an apology to Thelemites out there, I affirm again that my connections and interpretations are my own and unaffiliated as of yet with any Thelemic order or Lodge.  I have reread my own previous posts, and aspects of them seem stale and unenlightened.  At best, my ideas represent my own logical view of religion which is at best understood as a living movement of rite and ritual.

In my previous posts, I made a reference to an aspect of the Horus God-form Harendotes, a term which signifies the vengeance or wrathful aspect of God.  Crowley's Thelema religion adopts the Isis myth as the middle pillar of significance.  Some helpful terminology:

Crowley's Names of Horus and his aspects:

Heru-ra-ha:  Horus sun-flesh composed of the two other forms:

Hoor-paar-kraat: Horus the Child

Ra-Hoor-Khuit: Horus on the Horizon

Traditional Egyptian Names of Horus (with Dune equivalent in parenthesis)

Harpocrates: Horus the Child (Paul)

Harsomtus: Horus who unites two lands, represents divine Kingship of Pharaoh (Usul, the base of the pillar)

Harendotes:  Horus avenging death of his father  (Maud'Dib)

Horus of Edfu: All encompassing form of Horus, God of Heaven  (Paul Maud'Dib who is known as Usul to his tribe, who sits on the Golden Lion Throne as ruler of the Universe)

Sources:

The Thoth Tarot (itself probably the greatest book ever drawn)

Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot by Lon Milo DuQuette

The Chicken Qabalah by Lon Milo DuQuette