Pythagoras Taught the
Process of Number Symbolism

Pythagoras created Western philosophy, empirical science, occult initiation, geometrical symbolism, and number theory. Most of what is generally known is gleaned from the works of Plato and the remnants of his Academy—the academic perspective. The difference is that Plato was escaping from reality into abstract idealized alternatives which fit so well with the cloistered Medieval Scholastic monks.

The fundamental distinction is between the objective use of mathematical principles and the subjective process of learning to abstract one’s own experience in terms of symbolic patterns and relationships. The joy of science is finding that your favorite theoretical perspective is useful for explaining the actual events which unfold in your life.

The additional development of following this living process of symbolism toward personal inner growth and maturation is only available through the Portals of Occult Initiation. The scientific use of number patterns or symbolism is restricted to objective descriptions without any personal involvement. Creative scientists delight in their ability to see the world given meaning by their application of their mathematics. However, they are obliged to keep that a personal sidelight kept separate from their objective work.

Even the most subjective and enthusiastic of creative scientists have no framework to use their insights for individual psychological maturation of their students. Pythagoras developed the total package of objective empirical study of the natural world as a means to learn how to use the process of symbolism for personal growth and individual freedom.

Objective number patterns and symbolism are interesting curiosities. It is only when one learns the personal process of abstracting one’s experience into symbolic patterns; then using those patterns to gain understanding and confidence of the living process of one’s life that the magic of it all comes alive.

Pythagoras taught his students to learn to live simply, gently, peaceably and with understanding. The vital part was to learn to see one’s own life in terms of the symbolic patterns so that one could use the mathematics to put one’s personal life in perspective. It is not the number patterns or the symbolism that is essential. Rather it is the living process of using the mathematical and symbolic patterns to give meaning to the events in one’s life.

Pythagoras set out the symbolic patterns upon which horoscopes, I Ching hexagrams and oracles, and Dice analysis explain the living details of our lives. As we can see our own lives as part of the cyclic process of the living interaction of sunshine with Planet Earth topography we come to peace and personal understanding.

Marc E. Jones developed an entire system of instruction and explanation based upon the principles established by Pythagoras. He called his working group the Sabian Assembly and his system of occult initiation the Sabian Portal to the Solar Mysteries. Further information about the Sabian techniques is available through the Sabian Astrology button on the Nav Bar at the top left of his page.

Solar is taken in two senses simultaneously. Solar refers to the rhythms and tides of the Solar System which we can map through astrology and the horoscope. Also, Solar refers to the symbolic reality of the sun as the only celestial body in the solar system that shines with its own light. The Solar Mysteries are the understandings and techniques to develop one’s own internal sense of Self and to shine within with one’s own personal energy.

Pythagoras blended his philosophical and ethical development to the celestial observations available. He used a system of spheres or orbits for the sun, moon, Earth and the visible planets. The sun is observed to rise and set like other celestial bodies, so Pythagoras put a special fire at the center of his Solar System.

Pythagoras also found it useful to speak of a mirror planet where one's actions or karma would be manifest. This unseen Earth, through the looking glass or inside the individual made his ethical teachings concrete. His system added up to a set of 10 spheres which was the completed number of the Tetraktys.

Pythagoras opened the Portal to personal maturity using the patterns of mathematics and the insights of individual subjective symbolization. It is this inner realization of mastery of symbolic technique which allows an individual to grow up and cease to operate as a child taking direction from elders in order to learn how to survive.

The process of domesticating animals uses the innate mammalian mechanism of all many social animals to learn from their parents who feed them and keep them close the things they need to know to survive long enough to produce offspring. The more advanced process of learning to be an independent adult able to fend for themselves and create new realities for their species tends to be less universally appreciated.

The inner process of psychological maturation requires subjective rather than objective instruction. This has always been the dividing line from the radical objectivist or logical positivists and the occult. The question the academics, objectivists and typical science types can’t answer is where are YOU as a living individual in your theoretical system?

Pythagoras taught number symbolism as a means of allowing his students to understand themselves and their experience in their own subjective terms. As long as number patterns or mathematical symbolism is kept solely distant, objective and impersonal it is useless for personal growth. The living individual ends up reduced to mathematical systems and never grows up to be an exciting and free adult.

Pythagoras is credited with instituting weights and measures in ancient Greece. This would arise from his work with the high tech invention of the time, the pan balance. The ability to find the equality in weight of various objects of different size, shape, material was a vital philosophical principle.

Even today too many are unable to distinguish equality from sameness. The notion that everyone can be different yet equal the way a pound of all sorts of objects has the same weight though no other quality being at all similar is yet to be generally understood. The concept of equality is very difficult to comprehend without experience with a pan balance.

Even then, it takes a considerable exercise in using a pan balance, not just to weigh, but also to make clear in what way various objects share an inner quantity not visible outside at all. To fully accept the notion of diversity with equality requires training in how to see the subjective reality of the objective process of the pan balance.

Pythagoras is only slightly known by direct sources. The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie is a major advance in making materials available today. It doesn’t quite understand the subjective implications or the implicit meanings of the Pythagorean concepts and symbolism.

Pythagoras taught the symbolism of the Monad, the Dyad and the Triad. These can be described in the geometry of the circle as well as the number patterns of dots. In ancient Greek number there is first a unit that established the dimension and symbolism.

The circumference of the circle is a unified whole—the monad. Everything can be visualized within this circle. All the relationships within the plane circle can be used to work within the Monad. The center of the circle is not part of the circumference but it determines the circumference. At a larger scale, the circle becomes just the center of a much larger circumference. The center can be expanded in scale to become the circumference of another circle with its own center.

The dyad is the division of the circle into two smaller circles. If this dyad is colored in, one half white and one half black, the Tai Chi of the I Ching symbolism emerges. If the line between the two inner circles is noted, it forms the sine wave of Western physics. The three inner circles of the Triad or harmony extend this metaphor further. At this point the second mathematical pattern of the dot numbers come into play.

The four-dot combines two-dot patterns to form a figure, the box. When the 1-dot, two-dot, three-dot, and four-dot are all combined they form the quincunx the 5-dot pattern. The 6-dot pattern takes a new form, where the line of three dots is doubled away from center making an open chimney to draw in the next.

Pythagoras also used dots to represent numbers. He illustrated number patterns by arranging the dots in various geometrical forms. Some odd numbers could be formed into triangles. These triangle numbers if added together formed squares--numbers whose dots would form square blocks.

Together these form a total philosophical analysis. The first 10 hexagrams of the I Ching in the King Wen Sequence is a simple and effective example.

The first set of 10, from 1-Creative/Sunshine to 10- the deep water lake (or sea) under the sunshine that would next evaporate water to complete the water cycle. Hex 1 is quite literally the water cycle--sunshine burns off mist to make clouds (Ch'ien). This is the monad, the whole water cycle described in a single term. The ideogram of Ch’ien is an image of the rays of the sun evaporating the miasmal mist of a swamp to form clouds to water the fields.

Hexagram 2 and 3 form the Dyad—the polar opposites that describe the water cycle. First the negative pole, the water cycle without any animating energy. Hexagram two, is the depths of the Earth, The Planet Earth topography that interacts with sunshine to create the water cycle. Hex 3 water over thunder, the rain activated by the spring thunderstorms. This is the positive pole of spring energy causing rain to fall.

Next is the Triad, the process of the water cycle, beginning with hexagram four the energy of water at the base of the mountain which forms springs. It is the formative origin of the water cycle on Earth where the water that falls now takes on the energy of the topography to move along forming springs, creeks, rivers.

Hex 4 water under mountain, the motive power of spring water or the potential energy of rain upon high ground. Hex 5--water over Sunshine, the clouds or water vapor in the heavens energized by sunshine causing weather systems. This is the middle stage of the process of the water cycle. Water vapor evaporated by sunshine now in the atmosphere forming clouds that move along the weather currents.

The end stage of the water cycle is the water falling through the sunshine, the actual water raining down upon the topography. Hex 6 the rain (water) falling from heaven.

The final set of the Tetraktys is the double dichotomy. Hexagram 7 and 8 represent the dichotomy of water fallen upon the Earth which must either soak into the ground or flow across the surface as creeks and rivers.Hex 7 water under the Earth or the water that falls on the Earth and is absorbed. Hex 8 Water over Earth flowing downward as the topography of the land lets some rain stay upon the fields, other rain water flows into creeks to streams to mighty rivers en route to the sea.

The second dichotomy is the first and last stages of the water cycle, the events high in the atmosphere and at the bottom of the flow on Earth. Hexagram 9 is the weather systems formed by wind over sunshine while hexagram 10 is the final quiescent water in the lake or sea that is being evaporated by sunshine to start the cycle all over again.

Hex 9 Wind over sunshine, the weather fronts that control where there is rain and how much. Hex 10 we finish with the deep lake of water under the sunshine where evaporation starts all over all. These ten hexagrams represent the complete philosophical analysis of the water cycle by Pythagoras’ Tetraktys.

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