Tetractys: the Unfolding of Power
Among the symbols endowed with realizational power, one of the oldest and most ubiquitous is the Tetractys, which maps the stages of the manifestation of Power.
The ancient Oath of the Pythagoreans is known:
“…I swear by the name of the Tetractys, sent down to our souls. In it is the source and roots of ever-flourishing Nature…”.
This single line already signals the exceptional significance the ancients gave the Tetractys.
The Egyptians regarded the Tetractys as the supreme symbol of the universal forces and processes that unfold in the Universe.
The idea of the Tetractys is simple: a neutral unity, in order to manifest itself, becomes a potential difference — the dyad, outwardly expressed as a triad (the binary gives birth to the androgyne), against the ground of the tetrad. Together these stages form the Decade, the sacred unit of Western thought.
The One was conceived as a universal essence: an activity that is the form of all things and the active principle. Through participation in the One by way of “imitation,” every thing becomes equal to itself — i.e., “One.” The second characteristic of essence — the Two — is pure inequality: indeterminacy and opposition as such, the object of “knowing,” of manifestation. The Two, a passive category, results from the One added to itself: the One goes beyond itself and gives birth to motive force. The One and the Two are the fundamental characteristics of essence; therefore they were regarded as universal modes of the existence of things. The third characteristic of essence is the Triad, in which the One attains its reality and completion. It arises from the wholeness of the one and the many, when the One forms a unity with the indeterminate multitude of the Two; in other words, the Two gives rise to the neutral, balanced Triad. This is the first equilibrium of unities. The Universe and all things are determined through the Triad, the object of appearance. The fourth characteristic of essence — the Fourfold — arises from the doubling of the pure difference of the Two: from passive passivity, passive even with respect to the neutrality of the Triad. In the Fourfold, the object of “sensory perception,” the Trinity finds bodily embodiment. The numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 form the Tetractys; it therefore expresses the entire cosmos.
In the Tetractys, one signifies a point; two, extension; three (a triangle), a plane; four, volumetricity, or space.
Plutarch held that nothing can be named that does not rest upon the Tetractys. It is the Cause and Maker of all things: the intelligible God, the Creator of heavenly and sensory good.
The Tetractys is divided by ten points of intersection into nine equilateral triangles, embodying World Fullness. In the tenfold, absolute pre-eternal unity is embodied as potency and as the given-ness of being; having passed the necessary steps of evolution, it gains being and essence in itself. Pythagoras says the Decade is the nature of number, because all things come to it, and, having come to it, return to the Monad. The Decade was also called both heaven and the world, because the first contains the second.
This very simple idea became the basis of the sacred Kabbalistic teaching on the Tetragrammaton and the Tree of Life; of numerous spells (for example, the widely known Abracadabra); of the system of Tarot ; and of many other ideas — so the Tetractys can rightfully be regarded as the foundation of European mysticism.
The Tetractys is a symbol of the cosmos — perfection, order, and measure. The Pythagoreans identified the Tetractys with harmony itself. The Universe, created by number and opposing principles (finitude and infinity), proceeds logically, commensurate with necessity and measure.
The Tetractys is an extraordinarily widespread sign. It appears in ancient manuscripts and alchemical treatises, and on the facades of buildings and cathedrals historically associated with the Templars and the Masons. It also took many modified forms: rearranged, truncated by removing its apex — activity; a row of points removed or new points added. Every such manipulation of so universal a sign produced specific realizational consequences.
Because every symbol that composes the Tetractys matters to its meaning and its Power, any alteration entails consequences. Activity increases from bottom to top; its right side is active, while the left and the bottom are relatively passive. Accordingly, a truncated tetractys signifies a controlled, “domesticated” Power; a Tetractys deprived of one of its points loses balance and becomes a weight that shifts the Flow of Power.
Thus, the Tetractys (or the “Sacred Pyramid”) embodies a visible form of the Universe’s wholeness, moving from unity toward the multiplicity of the material world.
Quaternary
Dodecade
Septener
The Turning Wheel. The World Wheel
Numbers and Symbols
The Magic of Numbers
The Shield of David and the “Hexagram Rituals”
The Great Arcanum of Magic
Hello! Enmerkar, you say that ‘the truncated tetractys means managed, “tamed” Power…’. How should this be understood? After all, if we truncate the tetractys, we at least lose the ‘unit’ or ‘Yod’, which is related to the ascilut or to Chokhmah, which, due to the blockage of the source, reduces (or halts) the flow of power, plus decreases its potency since it, in a particular sense, is ‘not legitimized’ at the designated levels. Or is the ‘truncation’ in this sense executed after actualizing the power and is seen as a temporary procedure, so to speak ‘conserving’ the power, and later, to implement the tetractys, its apex is returned?
In this case, the own apex of the Tetractys, the source of its activity, is replaced with an external controlling factor. By depriving the Tetractys of its highest point, one can use its resources, similar to how a bird’s wings are clipped or a horse’s eyes are blindfolded. It is clear that such action, in essence, implies violence against the energy of the Tetractys and is, in its essence, not very noble.
Informative. Thank you.