Number 9

1,500 words; 7 minute read

In an earlier post, Aletheia Today decoded the Beatles’ Revolution 9 from their White Album (1968). At the end of that article we speculated on the Beatles’ choice of #9 to symbolize their revolutionary ideology. Why 9 and not 42…or 67? 

We noted that 9 is 3², the third member of the sequence 3^n,  where n is a positive whole number. We also noted that the universe seems to be organized as a fractal, i.e. self-similar at all scales. If you accept that the universe is organized around the number 3 (e.g. Triangles in Plato’s Timaeus, Trinity in the Gospel of John), then the idea that other orders of reality might be described using exponents of 3 (e.g. 3²) makes perfect sense.

Sidebar: The best known 20^th century advocate of this ‘triangles all the way down’ theory, Buckminster Fuller, famously wrote: “Universe is plural and at minimum two.” He was wrong! Every 2 (x, y) is implicitly 3: (x, y, and  xRy - the relationship between x and y, provided x ≠ y.) 

A universe consisting of two inert terms (x, y) is somewhere between impossible and meaningless. If x and y are part of the same universe, and not identical, then that universe must also include xRy which by definition cannot be reduced to either x or y (since x ≠ y); so Universe is plural and at minimum 3 (Council of Nicaea, 325 CE): 

• Speaking of Nicaea, in Trinitarian theology, the Relationship between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is one of God’s three ‘persons’, along with the Father and the Son.

• In Marxist ontology, every thesis (x) is accompanied by an antithesis (y) and a synthesis (xRy).

• In Jewish spirituality, Kabbalah consists of 9 sefirot or aspects of Being, plus Keter (crown), the ineffable Godhead encompassing and grounding the 9 sefirot. 

• The paradigm of Christian spirituality, the Lord’s Prayer, consists of three stanzas of three verses each: 3 x 3 = 9.

• Finally, the Christian spiritual practice known as Enneagram (ennea = nine), outlined by Evagrius the Solitary toward the end of the 4^th century CE and refined by Jesuits in the latter half of the 20^th century, is based on an inner triangle (3,6,9) and an outer hexagon (1,4,2,8,5,7). Each of its 9 ‘sefirot’ corresponds to a different human personality type. Intriguingly, the repeating decimal 0.142857… is precisely equal to 1/7. 

However, the high priest of the Number 9 is a virtually unknown philosopher/theologian (c. 1300 CE), Ramon Lull. As above, Lull’s ontology is fractal, but his underlying pattern is 9-fold. His life’s work is a detailed and complex ‘map’ of the universe with the number 9 as its unifying concept. 

Lull begins with 9 letters of the alphabet (B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K) arranged as nodes of a 9-gram. ‘A’ is the center of the circle, the ineffable El, Keter in Kabbalah (and there is no ‘J’ in the Roman alphabet).

According to Lull’s scheme, A unfolds into 9 Avatars, each corresponding to one of nine core ‘subjects’ (substance), one of nine core ‘predicates’ (quality), and one of nine core ‘modifiers’ (adverb):

        A         A         A         

B  God Goodness Whether

C  Angel Greatness What

D Heaven Eternity Which

E Human Power Why

F Imaginative Wisdom How Much/Many

G Sensitive Will What

H Vegetative Virtue When

I Elemental Truth Where

K Instrumental Glory (Efficacy) How/With What

Some of these associations are self-explanatory. For example, Human/Power/Why seems obvious. Likewise, Instrumental/Efficacious/How. Others are a stretch, but I think we can get there: God/Goodness/Whether (Cosmogenesis), Heaven/Eternity/Which (Judgment). And still others, to this head at least, seem impenetrable: Vegetative/Virtue/When. 

Lull’s Map of Nines expands, presumably indefinitely. Initially, each of his 9 core Subjects (above) expands into its own 9 pointed map, recapitulating the original map but at scale. For example, C, Angel, expands to the 9 Angelic orders; and E, Human, expands to the 9 classes/castes in the social hierarchy:

      God     Angel       Heaven       Human        

B  Mind Seraphim Premum Mobile Priests

C  Intellect Cherubim Stars Princes

D Love Thrones Saturn Magistrates

E Competence Powers Jupiter Doctors

F Presence Virtues Mars Soldiers

G Knowledge Dominions Sun Merchants

H Providence Principalities Venus Craftsmen

I Judgment Archangels Mercury Farmers

K Justice Angels Moon Servants

  Imaginative     Sensitive Vegetative  

B  Reminiscence Memory Procreation

C  Argument Forethought Growth

D Natural Arts Imagination Elimination

E Proportionality Sense (Common) Digestion

F Locality Sight Attraction

G Caution Hearing Drive

H Sexuality Smell Appetite

I Acculturation Taste Knowing

K Education Touch Life

Elemental             Instrumental   

B  Orientation Pride/Humility/Contempt

C  Generation Lust/Chastity/Frigidity

D Alteration Gluttony/Sobriety/Asceticism

E Generalizable Lying/Honesty/Vain Speech

F Alterable Obstinacy/Constancy/Fickleness 

G Divisible Nosiness/Caring/Sloth

H Differentiable Envy/Satisfaction/Emulation

I Potential Wrath/Forbearance/Obliviousness

K Existential Frugality/Generosity/Avarice

The ‘Instrumental’ is the realm of the accidental continuum (Parmenides’ Doxa). Therefore, it is not only necessary to designate the core Virtue in each category but also to mention the negative consequences of deviation, in either direction, from that ideal. 

Importantly, Lull rejects the Good vs. Evil paradigm of Gnosticism. Instead he follows the Augustinian tradition of Degrees of Goodness. Imperfection is a privation of perfection; evil is a privation of Good. 

The ineffable (A) manifests as 9 ‘core subjects’ etc. Each of these core subjects in turn unfolds in 9 different ways (e.g. angels as their ranks, society as its classes). Presumably, this process of 9-fold elaboration continues all up and down the ontological ladder.

Lull’s universe may be best described in terms of origami, the folding and unfolding of paper, creating worlds. He is in good company. Parmenides, the father of Western philosophy, grounded his cosmology on Aletheia, the uncovering or unfolding of Truth.

We can only scratch the surface of Lull’s system in this article. Like the 4 bases that make up DNA, Lull’s 9 ‘bases’ can be combined in myriad ways (genes) with complex and unexpected results. 

Of course, Lull’s system is only one attempt to develop a simple but heuristic model of the World, based on fractals. One immediately thinks of I Ching, Kabballah, Totem, Tarot, and the Standard Model of Particle Physics. All of which provokes a fundamental question: Can the World be meaningfully modeled via a classification scheme based on qualia?

Estimates vary but there are about 8 billion human beings alive on Planet Earth today. Another 100 billion have lived and died. Now imagine a public opinion poll:

Q: Can the world be modeled based on qualia?

A: (living souls) 72% say No 

A: (dearly departed) 84% say Yes 

We happen to live at a peculiar time in the Intellectual History of Planet Earth. Since 1600 CE, especially in the North Atlantic Community, causality has replaced correlation as the  explanatory principle of choice. Prior to Newton and Leibniz, folks took it for granted that things that looked alike, sounded alike, smelled alike, and behaved alike were in fact alike.

Now we take it for granted that we live in an alienated world: Paraphrasing St. Paul, ‘what I wish to do I do not do and what I wish not to do I do’. Machiavelli heralded this new age when he separated ends from means. Ends can justify means only if they are essentially alienated from those means. Otherwise, what’s to justify?

Without alienation, there is no separation between ends and means. No one ever asked Mother Theresa to justify her means by their ends; her means were her ends. They were of one cloth. Justification is only meaningful in the context of alienation.

Models based on causality have produced huge material advances. Pragmatically, they have succeeded in predicting and duplicating a wide range of physical phenomena, but at the cost of massive alienation. I leave it to you, my dear readers, to consider whether they have been equally successful in helping us find deeper meaning in our lives.

Are there unique phenomena, one-offs that can’t be predicted or reproduced? Are such phenomena related to one another by pathways outside the realm of physical causality, e.g. via their qualia? What role, if any, do such phenomena play in our lives? 

Imagine you are standing on the floor of a forest. Beneath all the flora is the Wood Wide Web of roots and fungi that supports them. But look up. Foliage, the canopy of the forest, also plays a critical role in the evolution of events on the floor. The roots are analogous to causality, the foliage to correlation. Perhaps we would do well to pay renewed attention to patterns in the qualia we experience; they may contain keys to the meaning we’ve been missing for 400 years. And where better to begin than with Ramon Lull, the Beatles, and the number nine.

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Gustav Klimt’s Birch Wood is a masterclass in sensory immersion, utilizing a flattened, tapestry-like perspective that pulls the viewer directly into the dense verticality of the forest floor. By cutting off the treetops and focusing on the rhythmic patterns of the bark and fallen autumn leaves, Klimt emphasizes the tactile and atmospheric qualia of the woods over a traditional landscape view. The painting’s shimmering, mosaic-like application of oil on canvas transforms a natural scene into a meditative, near-abstract study of color and light.