The Mystery of the Twelve
All the peoples of the world find the measuring of their lives done by twelves and dozens, baker's dozens, fifty-twos, fours, threes, and innumerable variants of these numbers, even though we in the West have used a decimal system since the Crusaders brought the notation, and zero, back from the Arabic world.
We have also used fingers and toes, ten of each, since we walked upright and began to count. And yet, in spite of few knowing where "Twelveness" acquires its poer, it rules some very important things. A recent press release proclaimed the discover of the top quark, the last of 12 subatomic building blocks thought to sonstitute all of the material world.
When asked about its origins most people refer back to the zodiac, but that is only one example of the twelve, although an important one. Some academics ahve said that since the Babylonians and the Mayans both used a notation based upon 20 and 60, and 60 is divisible by twelve, that might be the origin of twelve's magic. Others suggest that since people once belied that there were 360 days to a year, a division into 12 months was simple and inevitable.
Chichen Itza - Mexico
Not that simple, since the Romans used a year of ten 36 day months until Julius and then Augustus Caesars both, gratified their craving for immortality and created July and Ausust. But they didn't begin it; there were already twelve signs of the zodiac.
Again, why twelve? There is a lot of room up there, and the night sky could easily have been divided into 10 or 15 or 22 patterns, for that matter. While we are discussing the night sky, a good clue may be found in the signifcance the Egyptians placed upon the stars and their positions in relationship to the celestial horizon. All the stars that were permanently above the horizon represented immortal gods, while the ones which dipped below the horizon for a time each year were believed to be heroes and pharaohs, those humans who had attained the rank of the lesser gods.
I mentioned a lot of numbers not based on ten, although twelve is the fundamental one in this search through the mysteries. However, fifty-two, honored in our number of weeks, was also a key mystery number. Jason's ship, the Argo, was rowed by 25 sets of twins, which, with Jason and Orpheus, made fifty-two Argonauts. There is a long and exciting history of the meaning of the Golden Fleece (a magical transformative tool for an initiate) which they sought, and the way that the snake-haired Medusa enabled them to overcome the guardian serpents about the tree in wich it hung.
Ultimately, fifty-two represents a teaching about the orbit of the twinned star system of Sirius. This was at the root of one of the greater Egyptian mysteries, and became famous in modern times when the Dogun tribe of Mali described the orbit to the anthropologist Levi-Strauss before astronomers cound confirm it via radio telescope. font>
Symbol of the Integrated Twelve
A baker's dozen is thrteen which draws significance from the same pattern that had Jesus select twelve apostles, with he being the thirteenth. It became unlucky after Judas' betrayal, when Judas was then identified as the unlucky thirteenth.
Jesus was also a student of the mysteries; most scholars believed him to have been a member of the Essenes, a Jewish mystery group. In a teaching to his disciples, as recorded in the apocrypha of John, he says in part. "The twelfth number dances on high. To the universe belongs the dancer; he who does not dance, does not know what happens."
In some ways this may suggest that last quark just discovered, or it could sound as if it was the zodiac dancing on high; but why does the universe belong to the twelve?
Because Jesus was referring, as ultimately were all the other sources, to the ruling gods, twelve in number, who were believed to be the root source of all the lesser gods and of the higher nature of human beings.
In the oldest teachings, these beings, although far more than humans, were not quite immortals. They could die after many years, or be killed by each other. In some traditions it is suggested that they came here from another planet. The character of the principle gods of the Greeks and Romans were dervied from the far older stories about the twelve, learned mostly from the Egyptians.
And so, in order to do them honor, inall the ancient cultures we began to measure and count important things by twelves to match these gods. We also use the divisions of twelve to represent many dynamics; four usually represents energies important to the earh, and three to more universal ones.
The Oseirion
There are many versions of the Twelve's identities, but I have suggested to my students that they consider that the twelve may be thought of as having six male and six female aspects, and those each in turn have three light and three dark versions. This division will seem more familiar if it is recognized as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; or the Mother, Maiden and Wisewoman. (There is an interesting connection and parallel here. When the Holy Spirit is identified as the Wisdom of Jesus, it is called Sophia, a feminine name. Similar, the Wisewoman in the feminine trinity may often be masculine, as was Athena who was a warrior born from Zeus, a man, instead of her mother.)
“This then is the ultimate myster of the Twelve. It represents the gods, gods so fundamental to the fabric of the universe that even montheists believed in their role as controllers and moderators of the flow of vital essence from the one above to the many below. You will find their influence everywhere.
The Temple of Dendera
Ron Mangravite was a scientist and a mystic, a teacher and a healer. He gave workshops throughout the country on spirituality, myth, ancient mysteries, and energy techniques.
