Some years ago, when half the world was clamouring for new angles on the DaVinci Code fiasco, I happened upon an article written by a Dr. Frank Lynn Meshberger. This persuaded me, for a time, to take a small interest in the works of Leonardo’s younger contemporary, Michelangelo.
Dr. Meshberger’s article has nothing to do with conspiracies or Grails, or even bible codes; though it does focus on a hidden meaning in a fresco of Michelangelo’s in the Sistine Chapel. The full article may be seen here:
http://www.wellcorps.com/Explaining-The-Hidden-Meaning-Of-Michelangelos-Creation-of-Adam.html
The good Doctor’s hypothesis, that Michelangelo’s
Creation of Adam accurately reflects the anatomy of a human brain, is quite convincing, and mostly plausible. Though I draw the line at the idea that Michelangelo could have known anything about neural synapses.
What I think Michelangelo and Leonardo had in common was a contempt for the then Church’s dogmatic attachment to institutional ignorance. Some of their paintings are delightfully sacrilegious, though both artists needed to be cautious about waking the slumbering dragon. Their caution is one thing they undoubtedly shared in common with that earlier, faltering renaissance, marked by the rise of the Cathars, the Knights Templar and a new style of Grail Quest literature. It seems it was inevitable that the artistic class would have to take the lead in the slow march out of darkness. I went on to examine other works by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel and found further evidence of his unorthodox outlook. For example, his
Original Sin (also including
The Banishment from the Garden of Eden) is a subtle allegory for oral sex. So, the anatomy revealed in
The Creation of Adam is not the only kind of hidden meaning in Michelangelo’s paintings. But I do not, for one second, believe that either Leonardo or Michelangelo was privy to any deep secret, or involved in a meaningful, concerted conspiracy.
Then I discovered that my own thoughts about Michelangelo’s contempt for the Church had been anticipated in a work of fiction:
A Guerra das Imaginações, by Doc Comparato (only available in Portuguese).
It was relatively recently that I began to think more on Michelangelo’s (and Leonardo’s) knowledge of human anatomy, and what other insights into the human condition might have been known even before their time. For example, in the biblical creation account of Genesis 1, Man is created in God’s image, but is created as both male and female. Are we to understand that those were male and female bodies? After all, if God isn’t a physical body then how can a physical man and woman be in his image? I started to wonder if the proper understanding might not have more to do with male and female ways of thinking – even, perhaps, the difference between left-brain and right-brain processes. There was surely nothing to stop astute observers in ancient times noticing the effects on behaviour patterns caused by head injuries and brain damage.
I admit I didn’t come to this idea directly; it dawned only slowly while I was contemplating the Genesis Seal. For example, the well-known Tree of Life diagram of the Kabbalah, which attempts to map the attributes of God, has a left column with mostly feminine attributes and a right column with mostly masculine attributes. On the left we see ‘understanding’ and ‘mercy’, while on the right there are ‘wisdom’ (ie logic) and ‘justice’. So I shall now home in on the concepts of wisdom and understanding, which this Tree of Life contrasts as a matched pair.
The words ‘wisdom’ and ‘understanding’ are used together in a very instructive way at the end of Revelation Chapter 13, thus:
This calls for wisdom; let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.
In my post #654, I suggested that the number 666 is used there to represent the physical body (the beast), a condition of human life that applies equally to everyone - the beast in us all - rather than a specific, evil individual. The Cathars appear to have fully embraced this interpretation.
The whole of Revelation 13 is an unmitigated, beastly vision, which concludes with the number 666. Whereas Revelation 14 opens with an altogether more compassionate outlook, though it does soon introduce a balancing dose of divine justice. My reference to balance here is by no means spurious, especially given the pivotal position of the number 666. I am inclined to suggest that the inner balance of Revelation 14 is intended as the counterpart of Genesis 1:27, where man is made to a pattern of both male and female attributes. What, then, does the Genesis Seal have to say about this point of view?
It seems to me the Genesis Seal could have been the sole model (story board) on which Genesis 1:27 and Revelation 13-14 were all based. See below the G1 numerical view of the Seal, in which the number 666 (the body) occurs in the lower part of the vertical diagonal. Then the bi-lateral halves of the square are a fair analogue of the left and right halves of the brain (the Tree of Knowledge). The two halves of the brain tend to apportion the functions of logic and creativity, which are characteristics that typically emerge in different proportions in men and women.
The position of the vertical 666 in the G1 Square is also reminiscent of the same number placed at the transition from Revelation 13 to 14. But, as part of a prominent Y-shaped artefact in G1, it is equally redolent of the brain-stem, through which both sides of the brain are connected to the rest of the body (beast).
The transition from the G1 Square to G2 also reflects a merging of male and female attributes in an ideal balanced blend. Where the G1 Square had the prominent Y-shape, in G2 its three upper elements are replaced by the letters of
rechem (a womb) (see illustration below). In addition, where the prominent Y in G1 was composed entirely of the letter
vav, in G2 eight of those letters combine into a single meandering sequence that passes through the womb in two stages. The same meandering sequence also resembles a shape seen in the 4x7 matrix obtained from Genesis 1:1 that I likened to a serpent. While an alternative path (obeying the same rule) in that matrix is a stylised image of human male genitalia. The combination of serpent and genitals is yet another allusion to the Tree of Knowledge incident in the Garden of Eden.
It is my own conclusion that the Eden incident and early Christian beliefs were not about original sin or its forgiveness. They are more to do with a type of knowledge that should be accessible to anyone who demonstrates the right kind of balanced outlook. This is an outlook that would have to manifest as a willing demonstration of both teaching and learning, respectively active male and receptive female characteristics. According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ represented both of those characteristics in his simultaneous, symbolic roles as Shepherd and Lamb. The Cathars, however, would have seen him not as
The Christ, but as
a Christ such as anyone may aspire to become.
