The Tower of Babel

[Jiva]

Unless I am missing things left, right and centre, there isn't much use of the Tower of Babel as a symbolic device in anything connected to esotericism. The only example I can think of is Jung who mentions the tower of Babel once in the books of his I've read, namely The Symbols of Transformation. He describes it in relation to his definition of the libido as part of his interpretation of a patient's dream rather than as part of an ascension/descension metaphor.

Although in the Bible I think the story's supposed to be interpreted as a cautionary tale of hubris as an offence towards God, it's not especially clear. Particularly from the perspective of alchemists and theosophers, I would have thought that the metaphor of people from different languages (cultures) coming together to gain some knowledge of God would have resounded with them due to the fact that they were typically influenced to some degree by authors' works from different religious perspectives.

So basically, anyone know of any examples of the use of the Tower of Babel in an esoteric context?

[Nefastos]

I think there are some references. Didn't Kircher have a book Turris Babel? But I think his works have not been translated from Latin, which is a shame if true.

In the book Vasemman Käden Tie ("The Left Hand Path") I wrote the following:

Who loves a vision constructed by himself more than truth cannot avoid hurting seriously both himself and the world around him. This is the reason why the wrong pride and separatistic thought have always been considered as the most destructive factors of all in the world views striving for development. So let us try to avoid these distorting elements of selfishness even while we are rising our own self and our own consideration in the creation of our world view to the key position belonging to it; even while we're striving to build the "tower of Babel" as the most perfect intellectual and ethical construction possible - regardless of the cognition that something will be left unreachable my our own mind. Because the "war against heaven" will come to redeem itself if carried out for the right motives, and through the heaven stricken asunder we ourselves will grow into forms that can't be imprisoned by a concrete mind.

"A diebus autem Iohannis Baptistae
usque nun regnum caelorum
vim patitur, & violenti rapiunt illud"

(From the prologue of the 2009 edition. The tower of Babel is also spoken of in the chapter 7, as a positive symbol of the idealistic work. The last quote is from the Gospel of Matthew, 11:12. "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.")

Tree?

In the context of the Star of Azazel, very much so. The living tree as the symbol of the brotherhood's construction (much pressed symbol when making the inside decisions) is the same as this "building of the tower", which - as fra Jiva said - religions have given bad interpretation, but occultists often a positive one. But the very reason why more is spoken of a tree than of the said tower is because the holistic construction of the former: it can't grow by its own will alone, but must take into consideration the needs or possibilities of the whole. In a way, this growing of a tree or constructing of the tower is a difference between the emphasis of âtma-buddhi & âtma-manas.

I think some thoughts on the tower of Babel can also be found from works dealing with the Tarot arcana 16, but as such are likely to stress the negative possibilities.

The symbolism can easily be well known, but its exploration by practical means is never complete until we step another realm finally; but there is also no division.

Indeed. About this stepping to another realm (not astral but spiritual) compare to the end of the quote above.

[Fomalhaut]

Can Tower of Babel be interpreted as the sign of positive spiritual development & Ascension?

[Jiva]

But the very reason why more is spoken of a tree than of the said tower is because the holistic construction of the former: it can't grow by its own will alone, but must take into consideration the needs or possibilities of the whole. In a way, this growing of a tree or constructing of the tower is a difference between the emphasis of âtma-buddhi & âtma-manas

That's a really good point. Perhaps one could say that this difference in emphasis is roughly similar to the difference between generic present mentalities and historical mentalities, especially as the comparative method (if I can call it that) is emphasised to a greater degree at present.

I think there are some references. Didn't Kircher have a book Turris Babel? But I think his works have not been translated from Latin, which is a shame if true.

Unfortunately it looks like it hasn't been translated, at least into English anyway. It's always frustrating when something hasn't been translated from a language like Latin. I remember being similarly frustrated when I tried to find some translations of Gerhard Dorn after first reading Jung. Fitting thread to complain about language issues though .

[Nefastos]

Today I was searching a specialist bookshop for an English translation of the letter written by Blavatsky to prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, and as a complete accident - as they say - came across yet another mention of the tower of Babel. Here's the whole text, from "How to understand your Bible" (quite a populistic name for an occult book, eh) p.61-63:

THE TOWER OF BABEL

In the the ancient Hebrew language the word which is translated "ladder" can also mean a hill, a mound, or any artifically contrived means of ascent. It is quite possible therefore that the Jews used the term ladder to include the type of building now called a pyramid. Most early illustrations of the Tower of Babel show it to be the type of building called by the Chaldeans a ziggurat, or astronomical observation tower. The ziggurat was an artifical hill with a circluar stairway ascending in a spiral aroun the outside. Of such type of buildings some ruins still remain and reconstructions of Hanging Gardens of Babylon invarially show this type of structure.

The Tower of Babel, as described by the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher, was undoubtedly an astronomical tower. The building was said to have been erected by the descendants and servants of the ancient hero Nimrod, who was called the mighty hunter. This building, built of mud and held together with slime, was the prototype of Jacob's Ladder which led up through the seven worlds to the sphere of the Zodiac. The story of the Tower of Babel has many meanings:

(1.) It is a form of the World Mountain - Asgaard, Meru, Olympus, the Axis Mountain of the ancient Egyptians, the symbol of the North Pole.

(2.) It is the Mystery School or philosophical ladder, the rungs of which are the degrees of initiation. Man, climbing upward through the sacred stations of the initiatory rite, was declared to be ascending toward the gods. The levels and platforms of the ziggurat were appropriate symbols of the planes of consciousness through which the human soul ascends toward Reality.

(3.) The Tower of Babel is the physical earth itself. The ancient ziggurats nearly always had seven steps of six platforms rising from a foundation. The foundation in this case is physical matter, and the six ascending platforms are the superphysical parts of the earth's septenary.

(4.) The Tower of Babel is man's own seven-fold body, the organism through the perfection of which he becomes "as a god, knowing good and evil".

(5.) The Tower of Babel was physically and actually an astronomical monument. The Magian star-gazers, ascending this tower and examining the stars, were said to be communing with the gods.

In the Biblical account, Babel is man's monument to pride, and in the end the gods confused the tongues of men and prevented the completion of the towers; so the word Babel has come to mean a confusion of tongues. The original word was a form of Babylon. The confusion of tongues is symbolical of the corruption of the ancient Mysteries and the intellectual darkness which descended upon ancient man as a punishment for the perverting of the sacred rites. The secrets of the esoteric wisdom were lost and, as in the Greek mythology, the gods punished mankind for its presumptions and vanity. The Jewish story of Babel is of the same type as the Greek myth of Prometheus. But it was while studying the stars from the heights of Babel that the Chaldean star-gazers discovered the sacred alphabets of constellations, which later recur in the account of handwriting on the wall of heaven at the feast of Belshazzar. The Hebrew alphabet is composed of letters based upon star groups. For the sacred alphabet the student should consult Gaffarel's Unheard of Curiosities Concerning the Talismanic Magic of the Persians.