The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades Read online

  This unchallenged anthropological authoritative voice on Aboriginal people and their cultures often ignores Aboriginal realities and experiential ways of being. These sorts of perceptions and claims about Aboriginal numeracy fail to comprehend how number operates within Indigenous cultures and sciences, especially mathematics. As David Peat points out in Blackfoot Physics, ‘number and mathematics have always played a special role’ in Indigenous cultures.55 Also, because number is tied to spiritual and ritual significance in some instances ‘its importance is so high that number may not be used for secular or commercial purposes.’56 This is especially true of esoteric lore surrounding the Dreaming of the Seven Sisters in Australia. Even the ancient Inca civilisation, which depicted thirteen Pleiades stars in their artwork and written astronomical codes, still referred to the Pleiades as the ‘Seven Eyes of Viracocha’ — their god of thunder and creation.57 This suggests the number seven was of enormous significance, spiritually and otherwise. It tells us that the number seven is not coincidental to world mythology surrounding the Pleiades but is, in fact, intrinsic to the legend of the Seven Sisters.

  This preoccupation with seven is not just a matter of numeric convenience. Neither is it because people felt they had to assign this particular number to the Pleiades to match or imitate the seven stars of the Big Dipper, or Ursa Major, as Krupp suggests.58 While it is true that the Pleiades star pattern does appear as a miniature Big Dipper in the Northern Hemisphere, and in this sense may be said to ‘mimic’ its shape, the argument is not convincing for viewers in the Southern Hemisphere on two accounts. Firstly the Pleiades, like so many of the other stars visible to both hemispheres, appears ‘upside down’ in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore any possible resemblance to the Big Dipper in shape or form is not immediately apparent to observers in the Southern Hemisphere.59 Secondly, as amateur astronomer Patrick Moore points out in Stars of the Southern Skies, while the seven prominent stars of the Big Dipper (for there are more that comprise the constellation of Ursa Major) may be a familiar, distinctive constellation to viewers in the Northern Hemisphere, in large areas of Australia and South Africa they can only be partially seen in places below 30° S latitude, and cannot be seen from New Zealand at all.60 The seven stars of the Pleiades, therefore, hold their own symbolism in at least half of the world that either knows nothing or else very little of the seven stars of Ursa Major. Thus Krupp’s argument does not satisfactorily explain why the number seven is given more emphasis to the Pleiades within the cultures of that region.

  An ancient Egyptian calendar found buried with a mummy clearly illustrated seven stars as part of a twelve-star column that did not represent the seven stars of the Big Dipper but those of the Pleiades.61 At this latitude in Egypt, the stars of Ursa Major are just as visible as the Pleiades and, to distinguish between the two, ancient Egyptians (whose astronomical knowledge and expertise is well documented) drew the constellation of Ursa Major as a single bull’s thigh.62 By assigning the primary motif of seven stars as the sole emblem of the Pleiades and not that of Ursa Major, ancient Egyptians clearly afforded a central role to the Pleiades. Obviously they regarded them as important in their own right, not merely as a carbon copy of Ursa Major.

  The relationship of the Pleiades with number seven has a far deeper cosmological and spiritual significance than is immediately apparent. Occasionally the myths refer to six young people, not seven, but this merely reflects aspects of yet another familiar theme — that of the lost or missing sister. A number of mythical, historical and scientific theories have been offered to explain the persistence of this idea, some satisfactorily, others less so. Predictably, Blavatsky offers a more esoteric explanation. Writing on the significance of seven in astronomy, magic and science in The Secret Doctrine she says this number is closely connected with the occult significance of the Pleiades, particularly in regard to the lost sister, ‘the six present, the seventh hidden.’63 This theme, she argues, is not coincidental to astronomy but has a much deeper, hidden meaning relating to the various cycles of time. These cycles govern our universe and include the Kali Yuga, the Age of Aquarius and the Apocalypse of St John’s Revelation.64 The spiritual and scientific aspects of the Lost Pleiad in relation to time are explored throughout this book, especially in the Hindu chapter on the Krittika.

  Seven, the sacred number of creation*

  Number plays an important role in many cultural traditions. On a practical level, it enables us to measure and quantify our world to assist in carrying out a wide variety of tasks. These range from the ordinary, mundane chores of daily life through to more complex computations of science, which facilitate technological advances leading to exploration of spatial domains from the macrocosm to nano realities. From a spiritual perspective, number takes on a more profound, consecrated dimension. This was particularly true of the early Hermetic and Pythagorean teachings, which gave rise to the sacred sciences of numerology and geometry. As David Peat eloquently says, within these traditions, as in Indigenous sciences, ‘number is seen in a profoundly different way; not as dry, abstract, and dehumanising, but as alive, real, and immediate.’65 Within this context numbers symbolise the ‘fundamental principle from which the whole objective world proceeds,’66 and because they possess ‘a quality and a spirit of (their) … own,’ numbers therefore serve as epiphanies of spiritual and scientific revelation, perhaps none more so than the mystical number seven.67

  Throughout many cultures and in many of the world’s leading religious texts from ancient Egypt’s sacred canon, the Hermetica to the Jewish Zohar, the Muslim Koran and the Christian Bible, seven is the number par excellence. Its application to music, mythology, science and religion is prolific, as evidenced by the myriad references to its numerical value in popular sayings and phrases. These include the seven days of the week, seven colours of the rainbow, seven root chakras of the body, seven rays of the sun, seven notes of the musical scale, seven gates of Ishtar, seven heavens, seven seas, seven major planets, seven wonders of the world and more. Seven represents ‘the number of the universe, the macrocosm,’ says Jeanne Cooper in her Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols.68 It exemplifies completeness, totality and perfection, safety and security, rest and plenty, reintegration and synthesis. Its significance is drawn from the fact that it combines ‘the three of the heavens (the soul) and the four of the earth (the body).’69 Therefore ‘it is the first number which contains both the spiritual and temporal.’70

  Seven also stood for virginity, says Cooper, as in the seven vestal virgins, and it represents ‘the number of the Great Mother.’71 Exploring the symbolism behind its parthenogenic nature Blavatsky notes Pythagoreans believed that number seven was neither born of a mother or a father but that it proceeded ‘from the Monad directly’ and was therefore considered ‘to be a religious and perfect number.’72 In mathematical terms this means ‘it is not generated as the product of 3 x 2, nor does it give birth, as do 2 and 4 in producing 8, 2 and 5 in producing 10, and so on,’ says John Michell and Christine Rhone in Twelve-Tribe Nations.73 In this sense, seven represents eternity for ‘Only that which has not been born can be called eternal.’74 Writing on the secret numbers of the gods in The Cosmic Code, Zecharia Sitchin points out that the number seven played a central role in the Christian creation story, which explains why it is a key digit in the Book of Revelation.75 In ancient Sumer seven not only represented the code number for Enlil (the chief commander of the Annunaki) but it also stood for the ‘planetary number’ of Earth.76 In other words, visitors entering our solar system would count Earth as the seventh planet as opposed to the third planet from the Sun, if they were coming from the other direction. Enlil’s other official duties included overseeing treaties and administering oaths says Sitchin, who points out that the English word ‘swear’ (as in the undertaking of an oath) is derived from the Hebrew root word for seven.77

  Many people once believed ‘that the existence of the universe depends on the harmony of the seven,’ say the Jobes, largely because of its relation to the biblical ‘seven days of creation’ that ‘control the cycle of the week.’78 Others relate this dependence to the Pythagorean theory of the ‘Harmony of the Spheres,’ whose seven tones or ‘voice of nature’ lies at the heart of all creation.79 These musical symphonies are seen to govern the endless cycle of world ages, which bring with them cataclysmic changes to our physical environment and spiritual consciousness. Ancient beliefs in the creative powers of number seven have been recently affirmed by science. In Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe, astronomer Martin Rees has identified one number as the source of our creation, and that is 0.007. What is so remarkable about this number, says Rees, ‘is that no carbon-based biosphere could exist if this number had been 0.006 or 0.008 rather than 0.007.’80

  In other words, as Robert Temple points out in The Crystal Sun, we simply ‘wouldn’t even exist if the tiny number had varied slightly.’81 In an involved and detailed discussion of the laws of physics, Temple equates 0.007 close to one-half of a process and equation known as the ‘Particle of Pythagoras’ which makes up the ‘Comma of Pythagoras’ — the ‘tiny gap’ that exists between measuring or distinguishing ‘between the ideal and real.’82 This mathematical equation, says Temple, lies at the heart of the Pythagorean harmony of the spheres. In the sacred science of numerology, zero is not counted for it is whole and complete in itself.83 This means that the tiny sum of 0.007 therefore translates to the magical number seven that lies at the heart of music, science and creation.

  Curiously, as with my grandmother’s people, many other Indigenous peoples around the world claim to be of Pleiadian origin and because of the emphasis placed on the Seven Sisters in their mythologies, the number seven is central to this creation. Hindu myt
hology, for instance, refers to the Pleiades as the Seven Mothers of the World.84 What could this possibly mean? Were there just seven women who gave birth to humanity and if so, were they the legendary Seven Sisters of the Pleiades? If the recent genetic research conducted on people of European ancestry by Professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford University is anything to go by, it is possible that science may one day confirm the beliefs of many Indigenous peoples about the stars of the Pleiades. Sykes’ research led to the discovery that the gene pool of European peoples is centred on ‘seven major genetic clusters.’85 An even more exciting breakthrough was the fact that just one woman in each case carried ‘the single founder sequence at the root of each of the seven clusters.’86 What this means effectively is that almost everyone of European descent in the world ‘can trace an unbroken genetic link … way back into the remote past, to one of only seven women.’87 Referring to these women as ‘Clan Mothers’, Sykes was able to trace their existence through the mitochondrial gene sequence in our DNA, which is only inherited maternally.88

  Although these women lived in different regions of Europe and at different time periods from one another (and not simultaneously in the same generation, as one would expect of siblings), nonetheless these amazing genetic discoveries affirm the septenary nature of creation. If Indigenous claims about our beginnings are true, then it is possible that this star seeding may have occurred over an equally longer period of time, which parallels the genetic history of these female progenitors or the Seven Daughters of Eve. Regardless of the outcome, Sykes’ work is enormously exciting for what it can potentially tell us about our human origins, and to what extent it may confirm or negate human mythologies, including Blavatsky’s more controversial ‘Seven Root Races’ theory espoused in the late nineteenth century. This aspect of the sevening of creation is looked at in more detail in the Greek chapter, for Blavatsky sees within the story of the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades allegories of the Seven Rounds of creation.

  Seven Fates

  An additional association between the Pleiades and number seven concerns matters of fate and destiny. At the beginning of this chapter we saw that the Pleiades were known as the Seven Fates in ancient Egypt. Their prophetic influences are further revealed in the game of dice, which was often used as a divinatory tool in India and other parts of the ancient world because of its numerical arrangement and the perceived magical qualities of number seven.89 And as we have seen, Madame Blavatsky has much to say about the occult significance of number seven and its connection with these stars, including their celestial relationship with the cyclical creation, destruction and reconstruction of the universe. The Pleiades are implicated through their relationship with the black goddess Kali and the numeric symbolism of the die where the throws represent the four ages of time.90 Although six-sided, its numerals are arranged so that its opposite faces all add to the mystical seven — six plus one, five plus two, four plus three, three plus four, two plus five and one plus six.

  What can we make of this observation? Quite apart from their symbolic representation of the world ages or yugas, how might we read the different combinations of these equations? A possible clue provided by Peat suggests that gambling games involving chance are not designed purely for entertainment purposes at all but are a form of ‘sacred ceremony that acknowledges the basic metaphysics of the cosmos.’91 Their existence, he says, ‘implies that such people have a knowledge of the laws of probability and are able to compute the odds of various outcomes.’92

  It may be that the range of combinations speaks to eternal mysteries relating to time and the creation of the universe, including that of the Lost Pleiad. The numeric layout of the die with its six sides and opposing numbers, which add up to the magic seven, is a perfect visual illustration of the interplay between the numbers six and seven that feature in the aspect of the missing sister. This interaction is repeated in the popular saying to be ‘at sixes and sevens’ with someone or something. According to The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, the saying means ‘to be careless of consequences, or let things go to disorder’, and derives from the game of dice.93 The original expression, says the author, was to be ‘on six and seven’.94 Given the connection of the Pleiades with dice and time, the six sides of the die may be seen to represent the group less the lost sister, who is incorporated into the dice through the above additions. She is simultaneously both visible and invisible, there and not there.95

  The Lost Pleiad is now immortalised in the company logo of an international car manufacturer, who chose the emblem of six stars to represent their organisation which is named for the popular and better known Japanese name for the Pleiades — Subaru.96 Strangely, even though their legends refer to Seven Sisters, Subaru decided to depict six stars as their insignia, on the basis that most people can only ever see this number of stars, not because the legends refer to a lost sister. No matter the reasons for their decision, the logo naturally incorporates this mythic aspect into the design — which happens to be astronomically accurate — for the individual stars are placed in their correct celestial alignment and spatial distance from one another.97

  The Sevenfold Deity, One in the Many and Many in the One

  The stars of the Pleiades are mentioned at least twice in the Book of Job, where they are referred to as Kimah, a Hebrew term for ‘cluster’ or ‘heap’.98 Many cultures have emphasised the collective, bunched nature of the Pleiades star cluster. The Pawnee Indians of the North American plains look on them as symbols of unity and pray to these stars to teach their people how to be united as them.99 Likewise, the Aboriginal people of Bandaiyan (Australia) explain the cluster’s closeness ‘by their being close kin.’100 The emphasis of these stories, says Bell, is that sisters ‘should stay together for safety and through affection, shared rights in land, and shared responsibilities.’101 Those who wander or stray from the group’s safety are considered lost or endangered in a spiritual, emotional and physical sense, which explains Aboriginal people’s concern for the lost or missing sister.

  A Polynesian myth tells how the Great Star of Matariki once formed a single, bright, big star before breaking up into the individual stars of the Pleiades.102 Although their names for the star cluster vary among the different Polynesian languages there remains obvious linguistic similarities between them. Maori people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) still refer to this cluster as Matariki collectively, and individually as Matariki and her six daughters.103 The Arapaho native people of Turtle Island (America) tell a remarkably similar tale of an exploding star, Alcyone, which they refer to as the ‘Broken Chest Star,’ which created the star cluster.104 As the brightest star in the Pleiades this may explain her selection as the original intact star from which the others may have emerged.105 Oddly, Robert Graves refers to Alcyone as the ‘mystic’ leader of the cluster.106 What he was alluding to is not known, but the possible meaning of this epithet is explored in the Greek chapter.

  This tale of a single star giving birth to other suns in a starburst is a wonderful visual image from nature that perfectly illustrates the popular notion of the Godhead as the ‘One in the Many and Many in the One’. This phrase refers to the emanation of divinity from zero (the source of all) to two, three, four and even more multiple deities. The idea of a sevenfold deity in particular appears to have been a common phenomenon in the ancient world and in some contemporary civilisations. In ancient Mesopotamia the Pleiades are referred to as Mul in their religious texts Mul Apin, which ‘literally means star,’ says Krupp.107 Another name for the star cluster refers to them as the Sevenfold One.108 The seven stars of the Pleiades were viewed in a similar manner in ancient Egypt where they were seen as the stars of Hathor the Cow Goddess, hence their epithet as the Seven Cows.109 The Blackfoot native peoples of the American and Canadian plains refer to their god as ‘Ekitsikuno the Seven One’.110 Although they place their Supreme Being in Ursa Major, the seven stars of the Pleiades still play an equally important role in their initiation ceremonies and sacred mysteries.111 As the Seven Cows, Hathor represents the embodiment of the multiple goddess as expressed and understood by this spiritual axiom. Their Arabic name Al Thuraya or ‘the many little ones’, bears a remarkable similarity to their Egyptian name Athurai or Atauria, says Allen.112 Also known as Chu or Chow they were said to represent either the goddess Nit or Neith.113