Monday Movie ~ The Seventh Sign & Seven Seals

In May 2009 I wrote a post about a movie we'd watched via a cheapo VHS tape:
The Seventh Sign. I began:

Transiting Jupiter and Neptune are now close enough (2 degrees) to be considered conjoined. Jupiter represents religion, among other things. Neptune relates, among other things,to imagination.

It could be coincidental that as Neptune, now transiting Pisces, conjoins my own natal Jupiter at 6 degrees, I should come back to this post. What sent me searching for it were my ponderings on thoughts leftover from the weekend's post on possible future climate catastrophe, with its potential as a path leading to...well, "The End". I feel that hope is something we should nurture in such situations, even in the face of severe threat.

An edited version of the 2009 post, which I still find of interest; followed by some additional information:

Last night I had a kind of Jupiter/Neptune-ish experience watching an old movie, dating from 1988: The Seventh Sign, with Demi Moore. Moore is very pregnant in the movie.

The theme of the movie is apocalypse and Bible horror. Made in the 1980s, its references and flavour are somewhat different from current movies on a similar theme. It's not a preachy film, by any means, I've seen many worse - and recently (and since!)! A certain something in the movie had me feeling goose-bumpy. Towards the end, Demi's character asks if there is any way the world can be saved; the answer: "HOPE".




The movie caused me to do a little research to satisfy curiosity about "The Guf", something mentioned in the movie. The seventh sign of the coming "End" was said to be when The Guf is empty of souls and a baby is born dead. Turns out that this wasn't a concept invented for the movie as I had suspected. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

In Jewish mysticism, the Chamber of Guf (or Guph or even Gup) (Hebrew for "body" or "corpse") also called the Otzar (Hebrew for "treasury") is the Hall of Souls, located in the Seventh Heaven. Every human soul is held to emanate from the Guf. The Talmud teaches that the Messiah will not come until the Guf is emptied of all its souls (Yevamot 62a).

The mystic significance of the Guf is that each person is important and has a unique role which only he, with his unique soul, can fulfill. Even a newborn baby brings the Messiah closer simply by being born.

In keeping with other Jewish legends that envision souls as bird-like, the Guf is sometimes described as a columbarium, or birdhouse. Folklore says sparrows can see the soul's descent and this explains their joyous chirping.

The peculiar idiom of describing the treasury of souls as a "body" may be connected to the mythic tradition of Adam Kadmon, the primordial man. Adam Kadmon, God's "original intention" for humanity, was a supernal being, androgynous and macro-cosmic (co-equal in size with the universe). When this Adam sinned, humanity was demoted to the flesh and blood, bifurcated and mortal creatures we are now. According to Kabbalah, every human soul is just a fragment (or fragments) cycling out of the great "world-soul" of Adam Kadmon. Hence, every human soul comes from the "guf" [of Adam Kadmon].

I like the legend. It fits well with a Jupiter/Neptune conjunction too.

By the way, the world does, narrowly, avoid apocalypse at the end of this movie - and all because of HOPE!

At imdb.com FAQs on the movie there's this:

The Bible does not include a definitive list of seven signs. Popular culture and various Christian sects created this concept based on their interpretations of events prophesied to take place before Armageddon, or the final battle of good and evil on Earth. The book of Revelation, which details the Apocalypse, speaks only of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Rev. 6.12 and the seven seals, seven vials, and seven trumpets that will signal the destruction of the earth. The seven seals are ennumerated towards the end of the movie when Abby (Demi Moore) and Avi (Manny Jacobs) figure out what's going on. The seven seals are the four Horsemen, the death of the last martyr (seal 5), earthquakes and a blood moon (6th seal), and the birth of a baby without a soul (7th seal).

More at Wikipedia's page on the Book of Revelation's mention of seven seals.

Regarding the practicality of the mundane seven seals, Alyce McPherson in The Book of Seven Seals explains that in Roman times

The seal of each family was a mark of ownership and served as legal protection and guarantee in many ways, especially in relation to property. The seal belonged to the owner alone, and no one else had the right to it. If a will was written and sealed, it could be opened only in the event of the testator's death. In order to insure the will was opened legally, the testator many times removed the seal himself at the point of death.

According to Roman law, each legal document was sealed by the owner himself, and six witnesses had to affix their personal seal also. In order to be a legitimate witness, a person had to have a close relationship with the testator, and have first hand knowledge of their will and purpose in the disposition of his estate.

When the testator died, the will was opened and each of the six witnesses broke his own individual seal. Therefore, in order to be recognized as a legal document, the article had to have seven seals.

I prefer to see most Bible stories as symbolic, so found the following an interesting idea; it's on a message board HERE. : The seven seals can be seen as symbolic, and related to the seven Chakras. The message details each seal individually then summarises thus:

So now we have the ingredients. We have humans (spirits) falling to Earth (connecting to Earth as in the 1st Seal and Chakra) and are left without the arrow to point our way. This results in the breaking of the Second Seal and Chakra to manifest. With the arrow missing (most now call this the Veil) we desire to conquer and war in attempts to find the 'arrow'. The Third Seal is broken and the Third Chakra manifests. The result of war is death and famine. And in order to survive we must procreate and hope through sex and love. The Third Seal and Chakra is the duality of the first two seals and chakras. The Fourth Seal and Chakra allow us to begin thinking about what is after death, resulting in the belief that their is life beyond the Veil. Which breaks the Fifth Seal manifesting our longing for 'spirit'. We begin realizing that in order to do that, we need to break the Sixth Seal and allow the Sixth Chakra to open our Third Eye. And this glimpsing, through the Third Eye, of HOME, makes us long to break the Seventh Seal to FULLY and permanately open ourselves to the Divine, to reach HOME while remaining physical. One of the blocks, the reasons, why the Seventh Seal hasn't opened, is that we think HOME is outside ourselves, like we need to bring Heaven down to Earth. The Seventh Seal will open when WE ALL realize that HOME we need not search outside ourselves for it, for it is inside of us.
THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE.

A comment further down the page points out that the seven seals "Can also be compared to the seven classical planets." Any thoughts?

Lurking at World's End

Disclaimer: This post was not prompted by the situation in Syria, but by a movie we saw on HBO some days ago.

If there were certain knowledge of an imminent date and time when the world would end - not just our world, THE world - how would we spend the short time, one or two weeks, still remaining to us?

In Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, a 2012 film written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, that question arose. The movie had been shown on HBO several times recently, we purposely avoided it. I prefer dystopian dramas, husband prefers straight sci-fi, this film seemed to promise no sci-fi and even more doomy doom than the worst dystopian flick available, with a promised sprinkle of.....comedy (?). Well, we would either laugh or cry I guess!

I accidentally allowed this movie to start while searching the schedule for something else. I was drawn in. We ended up watching it. Much to my surprise I enjoyed it, in a perverse kind of way, several songs featured in the soundtrack helped....among others songs from: Walker Brothers, Beach Boys, The Hollies.

There wasn't a whole lot of comedy, a few titter-worthy one-liners, and the odd try for a touch of satire. Ms Scafaria depicted a range of reactions to the terrible news that a huge (70-mile-wide) asteroid was about to collide with Earth, all attempts to deflect or destroy it had failed. The exact time of impact was known and there was absolutely no room for doubt on this.

How would any of us react to such news? In the film, along the way, we encounter a mix of characters' reactions, some predictable, some not.

Displaying a form of denial, the urge to just carry on as usual - a cleaning lady and a police officer on highway patrol fell into this category.

Attempting one long orgy, for example at a bar/restaurant called Friendsy's where it was drinks, drugs and sex-a go-go.

Joining a riot gang to rape, pillage, burn - remembering to get it in the right order (?)

Attempting survival - in special shelter with lots of food, water, and weaponry ("the new world will need leaders!")

Seeking before-the-end baptism on a beach: joining a growing line of those wanting to be "saved".

Looting for luxuries - that one's always on the cards!

Hiring a hitman to do the job before time - it'd save waiting for the inevitable - the waiting is always the worst.

Going out on the road to find lost loves or absent family.

What would any of us do? Would our astrology, perhaps, direct our reaction? Let's surmise. Earth-prominent people might choose to go the denial route, carry on as usual in spite of everything. Water-led groups would go for emotional endings - seeking loved ones, beautiful landscapes, as much peace as possible. Fire-led groups might include the two opposites : survivalists and rioters - but the need to "do something" would be strong. Air-prominent people, hmm, I don't know; they'd probably over-think things, maybe join the survivalist types, or using what logic (and money) they had left , hire a hitman (why wait?)

What would I do? I think I'd try to carry on as usual. I do have more Fire than Earth, but neither riots nor survival appeals in those particular circumstances. Must be my Earth Grand Trine leading the way.

At the end of the late Roger Ebert's review of the film (linked at the top of the post) he added an insightful thought - his last sentence: "Isn't the dilemma of the plot the essential dilemma of life?"