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The Sword

There are many swords that have formed a central part of the myths and legends that have been handed down to us. The most significant of these are revealed in the Book of Genesis, the Book of Revelation, The Tarot and more recently the Grail stories which include Parzival’s sword and Arthur’s famous sword Excalibur which only he can extract from the stone and which he surrenders to the lake at the end of his life.

All of these swords are different aspects of the same phenomenon and relate to the same observable truth that was, in ancient times, interpreted as a sword.

In Genesis 3:24 of the Septuagint Bible we are told; ‘And he cast out Adam and caused him to dwell over against the garden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs and the fiery sword that turns about/whirls to keep the way of the tree of life.’ Revelation 1:16, the most intriguing of all the biblical treatises tells us; ‘and having in the right hand of him (a person resembling offspring of human posterity) seven stars and from the mouth of him a sharp two-edged sword proceeding.’ In chapter 2, Revelation goes on to mention ‘The Tree of Life which is in the Paradise of the (one) God’, leaving us to postulate that that the sword in 1.16 was the same sword mentioned in Genesis 3.24.

The line from Ursa Major to The Tarot

Corona Borealis

Wolfram Von Eschenbach wrote Parzival. In this medieval tale, he tells us that his story is true, that he obtained it from someone named Kyot and that it relates to patterns in the stars. In this romance the King gives to Parzival a sword with a precious stone set in the hilt, which his cousin later tells him is a ‘magic sword.’ The sword became broken and was made whole again when it was plunged into ‘magic water.’

Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur is first mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain. According to this account, King Arthur gets a sword called “Caliburn,” which was made on the Isle of Avalon. Later legends have the sword being returned to the Lady of the Lake following the mortal wounding of King Arthur at Camlann. It was not until Robert de Boron wrote Merlin (c. 1200) that the author introduced the story of the young King Arthur drawing the sword Excalibur from a rock.

All these medieval tales have three things in common therefore, a sword with special qualities, a stone or rock and a lake.

No one knows where the Tarot originated. There are researchers who claim that it came from ancient Egypt but these claims have no scientific foundation. The only thing we do know is that was born in antiquity. However, the clue that Eschenbach gave about the Grail story being related to patterns in the stars becomes invaluable when we examine the picture of ‘The Sword’ in the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck. When we compare this picture with the line through Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) that goes on to the constellation of Corona Borealis (the crown) we can see that the principal stars of Ursa Major form the hand and that they are almost exactly the same shape as the hand in The Tarot.

The pattern of the sword passing through the Great Bear or Big Dipper is attractive in relation to these medieval grail stories since the cup of this constellation is know to have been attributed with the shape of a pentagram, the shape of a human being that was graphically shown to us by Leonardo DaVinci.

Leonard’s figure

In this picture, the bottom right triangle represents the head and the line of the sword goes through the location of the mouth. The bottom left point of the pentagram would be his right hand and it is one of the seven key stars of the constellation. On this basis he is holding seven stars in his right hand.

Furthermore, because of the earth’s rotation, the constellation appears to travel a complete circle around the pole each day. The bible stories were created when the pole was in the constellation of Ursa Major. At that time the constellation was turning quickly around a point very close to itself and the sword could have been described as whirling. This provides a good explanation to the claim in Genesis 3.24 that the sword turns about/whirls. At other times, part of the sword will have dropped below the horizon, giving explanation to the idea of it being broken and put back together in a lake or sea.

If we can now locate The Tree of Life and Adam with his back to and lying superimposed upon the tree of life then the Genesis picture will be complete.

Adam The Tree

The tree is entirely within The Big Dipper and the fruit are clearly visible. The fits well with the claims in the Egyptian Book of the Dead that Paradise lay within and behind this constellation.

Adam is located in the constellations Bootes and Ursa Major, his ribs being the four principal stars of The Big Dipper. This location is fascinating since it takes one seventh of the precessional cycle for the pole to pass through these two constellations giving us a very real clue to the meaning of ‘the seven days of creation’. It also fits nicely with the claim that he was over and against the tree.

The magic sword comes out of the sea/lake in the northern sky and (depending on the particular legend), whirls, is pulled from a stone, has a stone on its hilt, guards the way of the tree of life.

Learn more about these fascinating mysteries in ‘The God Secret’

www.thegodsecret.net