This led me to the question of whether any actual star in the heavens could be considered the Star of Chaos. Since chaos is a negative thing, I at first thought this should be a star of ill omen, perhaps Saturn, the Greater Malefic, which was previously associated with the Black Hole Sun. No sooner had I thought it than I knew it was impossible. Saturn represents constraints, limits, structure, solidity, stasis -- the polar opposite of chaos. This then led me to consider the polar opposite of Saturn: Jupiter.
Jupiter, as everyone knows, is Zeus.
The most fundamental character of Jupiter and Saturn in astrology is that they are centripetal and centrifugal, respectively. Jupiter is expansion and outward motion, while Saturn is contraction and inward motion (hence its association with the black hole). What better representation of outward, centrifugal motion than the Star of Chaos itself?
In the Tarot, the Jovian, centrifugal suit is that of Swords -- the principle of cutting, division, separation, and thus outward motion.
The Star of Chaos is a visually striking symbol, and I vividly remember the first time I saw it: in the 1980 D&D manual Deities & Demigods, where it is the backdrop for a portrait of a character whose title references one of the cards in the Tarot suit of Swords.
Swords is an entire suit, though, and Zeus would naturally be the King rather than the Knight. Which single Tarot card stands for chaos? The answer is uncontroversial. If you ask Google which tarot card represents chaos, the first 17 results all single out the same card: the Tower.
Arrowsmith's post "Syn-crow-nicity: Order out of Chaos," which begins by discussing Goldblum's starring role in Kaos, repeatedly references the Tower card and finds many allusions to it in the various movies in which Goldblum has appeared.
Tower is a modern name for that card. The Tarot de Marseille calls it the House of God, but the very oldest (Italian) documents to give names to the cards call it La Sagitta "the Arrow" (cf. again the Star of Chaos) or Il Fuoco, "Fire" -- indicating that the main subject of the card was not originally the tower itself but rather the lightning bolt that destroys it. Sagittarius, a Fire sign, is ruled by Jupiter and shares that planet's centrifugal nature. Central to the Sagittarian personality is supposed to be "a relentless drive for freedom," and one of Zeus's most important epithets in Athens was Eleutherios "giver of freedom." One positive interpretation of the usually negative Tower card is that the tower is a prison, and the lightning bolt is liberating its inmates. It is for this reason that the card is associated with the Mystery of the Resurrection.
The thunderbolt is of course the most important and iconic attribute of Zeus. Although Goldblum's character is very much a modern, "reimagined" Olympian, who dresses like a Russian gangster and expresses his godly wrath by saying things like, "I'm gonna wipe these fuckers off the face of the fucking earth," his image remains traditional in this one respect.
One nagging doubt I had regarding the Jupiter-chaos equation was that it seemed that Zeus in his role as kosmokrator ought to embody law rather than chaos. I went to the Wikipedia article on Zeus, did a word search for law, and unexpectedly found this:
The picture shows an Indo-Greek coin depicting Zeus with "the Wheel of Law, symbol of Buddhism." In Hindu usage (for example on the modern flag of India), the dharmachakra can have as many as 24 spokes. Within Buddhism, though, it is much more typical to show it with eight spokes, representing the Eightfold Noble Path. The post that introduced the Star of Chaos into the sync stream was "Ambrose and the eight-spoked wheel" -- so even deliberately searching for associations of Zeus with law led me directly back to the Symbol of Chaos.
The Ambrose featured in that post entered the sync stream by way of "Ambrosia." Nectar and ambrosia are the food and drink of the Olympian gods, chief among whom is Zeus.
My original post about the eight-spoked wheel of Ambrose was "The staurogram, the eight-spoked wheel, and the Wheel of Fortune," part of a series on the history behind the symbolism of the Wheel of Fortune card. In the hugely influential Golden Dawn system of astrological correspondences for the Tarot (followed by both Waite and Crowley, whose two systems dominate modern Tarot), the Wheel of Fortune is mapped to, you guessed it, Jupiter.
3 comments:
On one hand, Jupiter could be considered a sync with Peter - Jupiter comes from "Dyeu-Peter", and as you have noted I did explore a possible storyline between Pharazon and Peter. So that is interesting to note.
On the other hand, Dyeu-Peter literally translates as "Godfather", and this actually takes my mind to the movie "The Godfather", for whatever reason. That seems to jive with some of the secret combination symbols, and even your callout of Jeff Goldblum acting like some sort of Russian mafioso.
I looked up The Godfather title, and noted that it involves a cross attached to a marionette, all descending to the "father" word. The marionette suggests a puppet master, I guess with power and manipulation the theme. But it was interesting to note that the "father" was the puppet being manipulated by the strings and the hand holding the cross.
The cross is a symbol of crucifixion, and in my own take has become synonymous with the Great and Abominable Church and the Whore who leads it (Ungoliant), since crucifixion specifically and torture more generally is one of the hallmarks of that Church, per Nephi's account.
One of my open questions regarding Pharazon was he sick like the other Numenoreans and acting ultimately against some better inner will, or was he part of the problem in accelerating and expanding that sickness. The symbolism of the Father being the puppet manipulated might support the former idea, as does your recent callouts of "Noah" and hypnoticism, or ultimately mind control.
Marionette is a word the means "little Mary". I didn't make much more of it until I went for a run this morning. For the first time that I can remember, the song "Mary on a cross" came on my running playlist, which isn't really a running vibe for me. Anyway, made me realize that in the Godfather imagery, you had, quite literally, a "Mary on a Cross", or a Marionette/ Puppet hanging from a cross.
I think you may have brought up Mary on a Cross - on my Spotify, the image that came up was a Blue Butterfly surrounded by lighting. Which brings us full circle back to Zeus and Jupiter, since Zeus was considered the God of the Sky and Lightning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKPSRi3XKwM
I've never heard of Mary on a Cross, but the symbolism checks out. Butterfly imagery appears on both the King and the Knight of Swords, and the blue butterfly in particular has been a long-running theme
Yes, and specifically the butterfly imagery from Lord of the Flies.
The classic thunderbolt of Zeus/Jupiter is another connection to Pharazon tying these symbols together. In History of Middle Earth, Tolkien portrayed the Numenoreans at one stage as possessing “darts”that were compared to thunder. In addition, when the ships said for Eressea, it was said their trumpets outrang the thunder.
Another term for thunder dart would be Thunderbolt (aka Lightningbolt) like the one you show Zeus wielding here.
Anyway, the Mary on a Cross symbolism with respect to the puppet on string symbolism in that Godfather imagery really does get at Pharazon’s final days, as I think on it a bit more. Pharazon literally became Sauron’s puppet. I also thought more on that phrase regarding a dying man’s wish you called out from Leo’s writing earlier. Pharazon was a dying man, and it was his impending death and his wish for immortality that gave Sauron the final ability to manipulate him and cause what happened.
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