The Franklin Files

The concept of the Djed as a sacred object can be broken down into three categories:

1) Djed as an idea is found from early Dynastic times associated with the Uas and the Ankh, as in the three in one concept "life/stability/serenity." From this came the verb djed, which meant stable, to be permanent.

2) The Djed-pillar is the sacred object worshiped in pre-Dynastic times in the Delta as the world tree. In a small Osiris shrine against the north wall of the Karnak complex, there is a beautiful relief of the World Tree blossoming from the djed.

3) The third category is the djed amulet, a small usually gold or bone replica of the djed pillar that was worn to ensure that the deceased had the permanence and stability of Osiris. The name, "backbone of Osiris," is written as a djed pillar with a sperm-like tear drop shape moving upward toward an hemi-sphere. We can see this as emblematic of the sexual force, the sperm, moving upward to the dome of the cranium ­­ the rise of the force of kundalini.

This concept is made even clearer by the specialized word for astral light or psychic brilliance in Egyptian, which is also pronounced djed. Written as the combination of the "kaw" powers light and stability, this word has very definite magical connotations. The light ideograph, a sun disk shown radiating energy downward, has no phonetic value but indicates a being of light. In this sense it finds its way into the word aakhu, a spirit being, a description or title very similar to the Mayan Ahau. Light in this sense is divine light, the cosmic beam mediated through the vibrations of the sun itself. It also shows us the nature of the Equinox of the Gods and gives us a clue to creation of the twin soul RA/Osiris.

The Djed is the ancient image of the world tree as the focus of a sort of planetary kundalini force. To be disconnected ­­ the Djed on its side ­­ is to be out of touch with the greater galactic community. To raise the djed was to open a portal between the worlds, to reconnect the human community with the greater community of sentience in the galaxy. It was the function of the Pharaoh to perform this essentially magical feat, as it was the function of the Mayan Kings. Djed is the channel for the galactic communication beam, as well as the beam itself. The raising occurs in all of us as we become in tune with the flow of telluric kundalini, and then we become Djedi, the "stable ones."

Religion and the Mysteries passed down from Bablyon thru Egypt of the
Great Work was Cosmology and Astronomy used in Hermes and Isis
alchemy to tell the time.


Later, as Pope, Sylvester designed and commissioned a new armilary sphere incorporating the information in Ali ibn Yunus' tables. The new sphere showed the plane of the ecliptic, the milky way, and the ecliptic and planetary poles. It was, in simple terms, a bronze machine for calculating the secret of time, alchemy's third and most important component. In symbolic terms, this became the "head" possessed by all famed students of the art in the middle ages.

The mysterious name of the Templar's "head," to briefly jump ahead of our story, confirms this assumption. Baphomet, in Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew, is simply "bet' amet," or "place of truth." The root ba or bet is the same as the ba in Baal, and can signify a house, a place, or the action of filling space. The "place of truth" used as a title could well be meant to signify the space filling "house" of the celestial sphere and the truth of its temporal indicators. Over time, the simple phrase became a code word for the secret itself. The Templars did not worship their bronze head, they meditated on it and studied it closely for clues about the secret of time and the timing of their alchemical processes.

These similarities are not accidents, but glimpses of the design behind the symbols. Richer, in his Histories, gives us the clue. In the sentence after he mentions Gerbert's Hermetic accomplishments, Richer informs us that Gerbert had also designed an armiliary sphere with which he could determine the location of the sun and the planets in relation to the celestial sphere. Interestingly enough, the earth in this model was round, five hundred years before Columbus.

Gerbert studied in Spain and absorbed there his ideas on mathematics, astronomy and geometry, subjects required for an understanding of the secret of time. Something he learned, either in Spain or during his negotiations with the Greek Emperor's courtiers, led him to choose Rheims as his homebase. The importance of the ancient town of Rheims lies in its association with St. Remy and Clovis I, its connection that is with the ancient Merovingian rites of kingship. While at Rheims, Gerbert orchestrated the transfer of royal power from the Carolingian usurpers back to the rightful line of kings, the mysterious Merovingians. The dynasty he initiated, and its collateral branches, would rule France down to the French Revolution.

The key is of course alchemy. The early Merovingian priest-kings understood the secret, the triple transformation of the alchemical process, and could make it work. Merovee, son of two fathers, did much more than found a dynasty. He received, from his spiritual father across the sea, the secret of the triple transformation. If he was indeed "the son of Mary," that is Mary Magadelene's descendent, then the secret of alchemy might just have been a family inheritance. Merovee passed the secret to Clovis, his son, who became instantly and fabulously wealthy. Inside of a generation, the Merovingians controlled most of France and western Germany.




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Jesus, who ever he was, was indeed revealing "things hidden since the creation of the world.

the Tree which grows from this mustard seed in terms of the ancient ideas

reveals the structure of the Cube of Space and the jewel of the celestial Tree within it. This structure is based on the ancient concepts of the Axis, the Sphere and the Heart

the key, although in a truly oblique fashion. The first verse informs us that as proof of the existence of the Tree of Life, the twelve, the seven and the three, "He set them in the Teli, the Cycle and the Heart.

The secret lies in the mysterious word Teli

from the root of the word, talah or to hang

the celestial axis around which the heavens rotate is a kind of imaginary string from which the celestial globe hangs.


'In The Beginning,' " tells us that it "hangs (by a thread) from the fin of the Leviathan." This ancient serpent is nothing other than the constellation of Draco, the Pole Serpent mentioned in Job 26:13 -- "By His Spirit the heavens were calmed, His hand pierced the Pole Serpent" -- and in 2nd Isaiah 27:1 -- "On that day (the day of judgment) with His great sharp sword, God will visit and overcome the Leviathan, the Pole Serpent, and the Leviathan, the Coiled Serpent, and He will kill the dragon of the sea." Note that three such dragons are mentioned here.


To understand this, we must look up at the stars. We can all find the Pole Star, Polaris in the tail of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. This marks our north celestial pole and is directly above the north pole of our planet. There is another pole in the sky however. This the pole of the solar ecliptic, the path of the sun through the constellations. The earth is tilted on its axis against the ecliptic, so that the celestial pole above our planetary pole describes a great circle in the sky over time. In 4500 BCE, Thuban, a star in the tail of Draco, marked the celestial pole.

The ecliptic pole however does not change, since the path of the sun through the sky never changes. Around this point, which has no star visible to the naked eye to mark it, the constellation of Draco, the Great Dragon, spirals through all of the zodiacal signs, with the stars appearing to hang, talah, from it. Draco thereby becomes the Teli, which the Sepher Yetzirah in chapter 6:3 tells us, is "over the universe like a king on his throne." This is perhaps an echo of an ancient form of worship, that of the God Most High identified with Baal, that predated the arrival of the Hebrews in Palestine. It is also the serpent of the garden, climbing its way up the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the brazen serpent used by Moses in the wilderness and even Hermes' caduceus staff.

the serpent for giving us freedom from the Demiurge and thought that Mary Magdalene was one of the founding women of alchemy, formulated the image of a snake spiraling around an egg. In simple terms, this is the serpent of Draco coiled around the elliptical circle made by the celestial pole. The image expands however when we think of the egg as the celestial sphere and the serpent as the spiral connecting the projected spheres of the Tree of Life. The Teli here would be the axis of the ecliptic poles through the head and tail of the dragon at Keter and Malkut, and the center of the celestial sphere. This is the first dragon, the Pole Serpent.

There are however two other ways to interpret the dragon-axis of the Teli. Hebrew astronomers used the term Teli to denote the inclination of the orbit of a planet from the ecliptic. In the case of the moon, this allows you track eclipses, since eclipses occur only when the sun and moon arrive at the nodes, the head and tail of the dragon to the ancient astronomers, at the same time. Solar eclipses were seen as occasions where the dragon caught and swallowed the sun for a period of time. The concept of ascending and descending nodes, the head and tail of the dragon, or Teli, is also used with the other planets. The major nodes for the sun are the vernal and autumnal equinox, the point where the celestial equator crosses the ecliptic. This is the Coiled Serpent.

And there is still another way to look at the concept of the Teli. If we think of the Milky Way as the Leviathan, then the Teli, or axis of the dragon of the sea, our third dragon-axis, then becomes the galactic axis, running through the ecliptic from Sagittarius/Scorpio to Gemini/Taurus. Like the ecliptic axis, the galactic axis is constant and unmoving. Within these pillars, or perpendicular axis, the coiled dragon of the equinox, the crossing point of ecliptic and equator, spins slowly backward through time, one degree of arc every 72 years.

A Talmudic example makes this even clearer: "The stormwind hangs (talah) between the arms of God like an amulet." The hanging is of course the Teli, the axis of its suspension. The stormwind is the slowly backward turning spiral of the equinoxes and a metaphor for the mystical experience itself. The arms of the universe are the unmoving Teli, the ecliptic and galactic axis, from which the initiatory spiral of the equinoxes is suspended like an amulet.

The Bahir, in verse 106, announces that the Teli is nothing but "the likeness before the Blessed Holy One," or the face of God. And then the Bahir quotes the Song of Songs 5: 11 -- "His head is a treasure of gold, his locks are hanging, black like a raven." It is somewhat shocking to find the Teli refereed to an image that is so suggestive of alchemical motifs. But, as we will discover later from Fulcanelli, these are indeed very important symbols.

Verse 96 of the Bahir addresses other key alchemical symbols, and may in fact be our earliest mention of that medieval alchemical standard, The Philosopher's Stone. It begins: "What is the earth from which the heavens were graven (created)? It is the throne of the Blessed Holy One. It is the Precious Stone and the Sea of Wisdom." The verse continues to suggest the spiritual value of the color blue, the traditional color of kingship, by associating the sea with the sky, and the sky with the higher light coming from the Throne of Creation.

From the Bahir, we learn that the Tree of Life is actually the Precious Stone whose facets are projected onto the celestial sphere and which is part of the continuous flow of the Sea of Wisdom. John's Revelation is a version of this, with the Tree of Life on the banks of the flowing river, deep inside New Jerusalem's Cube of Space.

that the Tree of Knowledge forms itself round the axis of the celestial pole, whose Teli or dragon-axis would be the backward spiraling axis of the equinox. The celestial pole, as it circles around the fixed point of the ecliptic pole, first leans in toward the angle of the galactic axis, that is toward the center of the galaxy, and then moves away in a large precessional cycle. The timing of the Fall, when the Tree is tilted away from the galactic axis, and the timing of the resurrection and redemption, the arrival of the kingdom of heaven when the Tree tilts toward the galactic axis, is regulated by the cycles of the intersecting Teli.

The whirlwind, sufah, of our Talmudic reference is the mystical experience of the galgal, or cycle, of the Tree of Knowledge. The galgal is also spoken of in the Bahir as a womb, that is a cycle of time in which the future is born. All of time happens within the Sphere defined by the Teli, and, the Bahir tells us, is revealed in the Heart of Heaven. This is both our own personal spiritual center, the heart, and the heart of our galaxy, pulsating in harmonic fractals of the same wave.

Rabbi Nehuniah and his followers developed a complex system of illumination based on a deep understanding of the cycles inherent in the three Teli of the projected Tree of Life, the Precious Stone of the celestial sphere. The good Rabbi himself died or disappeared around the time of the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, but his students kept the work going until late in the 2nd century. After that point, the teaching of the Bahir went deep underground for a thousand years. In the late 12th century, a manuscript version began to circulate among the Jewish mystical community of Moslem Spain.

Two hundred years later, a Parisian bookseller would find an illustrated copy of the Bahir and come to Spain in search of its meaning. With the help of an elderly Jewish sage, he would rediscover the inner secret of alchemy and the nature of time. Nicholas Flamel was perhaps the most famous and believable of all historical alchemists, and it is hard to deny that he found a transmutational secret of great value.