The Number 7 has for ages been regarded as the Number of
mystery relating to the spiritual side of things. It may
be remarked that all through the Bible and other sacred
books, the seven, whenever mentioned, always stands in relation
to the spiritual or mysterious God force, and has a curious
significance in this sense whenever employed.
You will probably notice during your studies that the number
7 is extremely prominent in many aspects of the ancient
kabbala, but you may not have considered how frequenty it
appears, not only in mystical studies but all asoects of
our lives. Below you will find some of the most common occurances
of the number 7, an enlightening article written by H.P.
Blavatsky and finally we have supplied some thinks to related
"7" articles. Enjoy.
Consider:
Seven Days of Creation
Seven Archangels of Revelation
Seven Seals of Revelation
Seven Heavens
Seven Thrones
Seven Churches
Seven Wells
Seven Fires of Hell
Seven Doors to Heaven
Seven Days of the Week
Seven Directions: North, South, East, West, Up, Down and
the Center.
Seven Classical Planets
Seven Colours of the Rainbow
Seven Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice,
Prudence and Temmperence
Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger
Greed and Sloth
Seven Devas of the Hindu's Bible.
Seven Angels of the Chaldeans
Seven Amschaspands of Persian Faith
Seven Sephiroth of the Hebrew Cabala
Seven Double Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet
The list goes on and one. Clearly a mystical number! What
followis the reproduction of an article given by Madam H.
P. Blavatsky - Theosophist, June, 1880.
The
Number Seven
A DEEP significance was attached to
numbers in hoary antiquity. There was not a people with
anything like philosophy, but gave great prominence to numbers
in their application to religious observances, the establishment
of festival days, symbols, dogmas, and even the geographical
distribution of empires. The mysterious numerical system
of Pythagoras was nothing novel when it appeared far earlier
than 600 years B.C. The occult meaning of figures and their
combinations entered into the meditations of the sages of
every people; and the day is not far off when, compelled
by the eternal cyclic rotation of events, our now sceptical
unbelieving West will have to admit that in that regular
periodicity of ever recurring events there is something
more than a mere blind chance. Already our Western savants
begin to notice it. Of late, they have pricked up their
ears and begun speculating upon cycles, numbers and all
that which, but a few years ago, they had relegated to oblivion
in the old closets of memory, never to be unlocked but for
the purpose of grinning at the uncouth and idiotic superstitions
of our unscientific fore-fathers.
As one of such novelties, the old, and matter-of-fact German
journal Die Gegenwart has a serious and learned article
upon "the significance of the number seven" introduced
to the readers as a "Culture-historical Essay."
After quoting from it a few extracts, we will have something
to add to it perhaps. The author says:
"The number seven was considered sacred not only by
all the cultured nations of antiquity and the East, but
was held in the greatest reverence even by the later nations
of the West. The astronomical origin of this number is established
beyond any doubt. Man, feeling himself time out of mind
dependent upon the heavenly powers, ever and everywhere
made earth subject to heaven. The largest and brightest
of the luminaries thus became in his sight the most important
and highest of powers; such were the planets which the whole
antiquity numbered as seven. In course of time these were
transformed into seven deities. The Egyptians had seven
original and higher gods; the Phœnicians seven kabiris;
the Persians, seven sacred horses of Mithra; the Parsees,
seven angels opposed by seven demons, and seven celestial
abodes paralleled by seven lower regions. To represent the
more clearly this idea in its concrete form, the seven gods
were often represented as one seven-headed deity. The whole
heaven was subjected to the seven planets; hence, in nearly
all the religious systems we find seven heavens."
The beliefs in the sapta loka of the Brahminical religion
has remained faithful to the archaic philosophy; and--who
knows--but the idea itself was originated in Aryavarta,
this cradle of all philosophies and mother of all subsequent
religions! If the Egyptian dogma of the metempsychosis or
the transmigration of soul taught that there were seven
states of purification and progressive perfection, it is
also true that the Buddhists took from the Aryans of India,
not from Egypt, their idea of seven stages of progressive
development of the disembodied soul, allegorized by the
seven stories and umbrellas, gradually diminishing towards
the top on their pagodas.
In the mysterious worship of Mithra there were "seven
gates," seven altars, seven mysteries. The priests
of many Oriental nations were sub-divided into seven degrees;
seven steps led to the altars and in the temples burnt candles
in seven-branched candlesticks. Several of the Masonic Lodges
have, to this day, seven and fourteen steps.
The seven planetary spheres served as a model for state
divisions and organizations. China was divided into seven
provinces; ancient Persia into seven satrapies. According
to the Arabian legend seven angels cool the sun with ice
and snow, lest it should burn the earth to cinders; and
seven thousand angels wind up and set the sun in motion
every morning. The two oldest rivers of the East--the Ganges
and the Nile--had each seven mouths. The East had in the
antiquity seven principal rivers (the Nile, the Tigris,
the Euphrates, the Oxus, the Yaksart, the Arax and the Indus);
seven famous treasures; seven cities full of gold; seven
marvels of the world, &c. Equally did the number seven
play a prominent part in the architecture of temples and
palaces. The famous pagoda of Churingham is surrounded by
seven square walls, painted in seven different colours,
and in the middle of each wall is a seven storied pyramid;
just as in the antediluvian days the temple of Borsippa,
now the Birs-Nimrud, had seven stages, symbolical of the
seven concentric cycles of the seven spheres, each built
of tiles and metals to correspond with the colour of the
ruling planet of the sphere typified.
These are all "remnants of paganism" we are told--traces
"of the superstitions of old, which, like the owls
and bats in a dark subterranean, flew away to return no
more before the glorious light of Christianity"--a
statement but too easy of refutation. If the author of the
article in question has collected hundreds of instances
to show that not only the Christians of old but even the
modern Christians have preserved the number seven, and as
sacredly as it ever was before, there might be found in
reality thousands. To begin with the astronomical and religious
calculation of old of the pagan Romans, who divided the
week into seven days, and held the seventh day as the most
sacred, the Sol or Sunday of Jupiter, and to which all the
Christian nations especially the Protestants--make puja
to this day. If, perchance, we are answered that it is not
from the pagan Romans but from the monotheistic Jews that
we have it, then why is not the Saturday or the real "Sabbath"
kept instead of the Sunday, or Sol's day?
If in the "Rámáyana" seven yards
are mentioned in the residences of the Indian kings; and
seven gates generally led to the famous temples and cities
of old, then why should the Frieslanders have in the tenth
century of the Christian era strictly adhered to the number
seven in dividing their provinces, and insisted upon paying
seven "pfennigs" of contribution? The Holy Roman
and Christian Empire has seven Kurfursts or Electors. The
Hungarians emigrated under the leadership of seven dukes
and founded seven towns, now called Semigradyá (now
Transylvania). If pagan Rome was built on seven hills, Constantinople
had seven names--By-sance, Antonia, New Rome, the town of
Constantine, The Separator of the World's Parts, The Treasure
of Islam, Stamboul--and was also called the city on the
seven Hills, and the city of the seven Towers as an adjunct
to others. With the Mussulmans "it was besieged seven
times and taken after seven weeks by the seventh of the
Osman Sultans." In the ideas of the Eastern peoples,
the seven planetary spheres are represented by the seven
rings worn by the women on seven parts of the body--the
head, the neck, the hands, the feet, in the ears, in the
nose, around the waist--and these seven rings or circles
are presented to this time by the Eastern suitors to their
brides; the beauty of the woman consisting in the Persian
songs of seven charms.
The seven planets ever remaining at an equal distance from
each other, and rotating in the same path, hence, the idea
suggested by this motion, of the eternal harmony of the
universe. In this connection the number seven became especially
sacred with them, and ever preserved its importance with
the astrologers. The Pythagoreans considered the figure
seven as the image and model of the divine order and harmony
in nature. It was the number containing twice the sacred
number three or the "triad," to which the "one"
or the divine monad was added: 3 + 1 + 3. As the harmony
of nature sounds on the key-board of space, between the
seven planets, so the harmony of audible sound takes place
on a smaller plan within the musical scale of the ever-recurring
seven tones. Hence, seven pipes in the syrinx of the god
Pan (or Nature), their gradually diminishing proportion
of shape representing the distance between the planets and
between the latter and the earth--and, the seven-stringed
lyre of Apollo. Consisting of a union between the number
three (the symbol of the divine triad with all and every
people, Christians as well as pagans) and of four (the symbol
of the cosmic forces or elements), the number seven points
out symbolically to the union of the Deity with the universe;
this Pythagorean idea was applied by the Christians--(especially
during the Middle Ages)--who largely used the number seven
in the symbolism of their sacred architecture. So, for instance,
the famous Cathedral of Cologne and the Dominican Church
at Regensburg display this number in the smallest architectural
details.
No less an importance has this mystical number in the world
of intellect and philosophy. Greece had seven sages, the
Christian Middle Ages seven free arts (grammar, rhetoric,
dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). The
Mahometan Sheikh-ul-Islam calls in for every important meeting
seven "ulems." In the Middle Ages an oath had
to be taken before seven witnesses, and the one, to whom
it was administered, was sprinkled seven times with blood.
The processions around the temples went seven times, and
the devotees had to kneel seven times before uttering a
vow. The Mahometan pilgrims turn round Kaaba seven times,
at their arrival. The sacred vessels were made of gold and
silver purified seven times. The localities of the old German
tribunals were designated by seven trees, under which were
placed seven "Schoffers" (judges) who required
seven witnesses. The criminal was threatened with a seven-fold
punishment and a seven-fold purification was required as
a seven-fold reward was promised to the virtuous. Every
one knows the great importance placed in the West on the
seventh son of a seventh son. All the mythic personages
are generally endowed with seven sons. In Germany, the king
and now the emperor cannot refuse to stand as god-father
to a seventh son, if he be even a beggar. In the East in
making up for a quarrel or signing a treaty of peace, the
rulers exchange either seven or forty-nine (7 X 7) presents.
To attempt to cite all the things included in this mystical
number would require a library. We will close by quoting
but a few more from the region of the demoniacal. According
to authorities in those matters--the Christian clergy of
old--a contract with the devil had to contain seven paragraphs,
was concluded for seven years and signed by the contractor
seven times; all the magical drinks prepared with the help
of the enemy of man consisted of seven herbs; that lottery
ticket wins, which is drawn out by a seven-year old child.
Legendary wars lasted seven years, seven months and seven
days; and the combatant heroes number seven, seventy, seven
hundred, seven thousand and seventy thousand. The princesses
in the fairy tales remained seven years under a spell, and
the boots of the famous cat--the Marquis de Carabas--were
seven leagued. The ancients divided the human frame into
seven parts; the head, the chest, the stomach, two hands
and two feet; and man's life was divided into seven periods.
A baby begins teething in the seventh month; a child begins
to sit after fourteen months (2 X 7); begins to walk after
twenty-one months (3 X 7); to speak after twenty-eight months
(4 X 7); leaves off sucking after thirty-five months (5
X 7); at fourteen years (2 X 7) he begins to finally form
himself; at twenty-one (3 X 7) he ceases growing. The average
height of a man, before mankind degenerated, was seven feet;
hence the old Western laws ordering the garden walls to
be seven feet high. The education of the boys began with
the Spartans and the old Persians at the age of seven. And
in the Christian religions--with the Roman Catholics and
the Greeks--the child is not held responsible for any crime
till he is seven, and it is the proper age for him to go
to confession.
If the Hindus will think of their Manu and recall what
the old Shastras contain, beyond doubt they will find the
origin of all this symbolism. Nowhere did the number seven
play so prominent a part as with the old Aryas in India.
We have but to think of the seven sages--the Sapta Rishis;
the Sapta Loka--the seven worlds; the Sapta Pura--the seven
holy cities; the Sapta Dvipa--the seven holy islands; the
Sapta Samudra--the seven holy seas; the Sapta Parvatta--the
seven holy mountains; the Sapta Arania--the seven deserts;
the Sapta Vriksha--the seven sacred trees; and so on, to
see the probability of the hypothesis. The Aryas never borrowed
anything, nor did the Brahmans, who were too proud and exclusive
for that. Whence, then, the mystery and sacredness of the
number seven?
More? Have a look at some other
articles which relate to the Number seven:
See Link: The Seven Seals
See Link: The Seven
Days of Creation
See Link: The Seven Rays
Finally, the following link to the Wikipedi website gives
a good introduction to the mysteries of the number 7 in
sport, literature etc etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_%28number%29
References:
Blavasky, H.P. - THE NUMBER SEVEN - http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/NumberSeven.htm
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