Chess: Sacred Geometry & Mystery

Chess is an ancient game which some scholars have attributed to Egypt and yet others to ancient China. As a whole the game of chess is a physical, philosophical, and cosmological allegory. The board is composed of 64 squares alternating in black and white. 64 is the same as 43. Cubing a number was symbolic of perfecting the cycle or symbol of that number, and therefore the game board of chess itself constitutes the realm of earth and all powers thereon. The board may also represent the mysteries in which one must obtain to traverse the worldly journey. The white king is Ormuzd; the black king is Ahriman; ancient Gods of Light and Darkness respectively and reveal that upon the planes of cosmos the armies of Light and Darkness are in eternal battle. According to Manly P. Hall’s treatise in The Secret Teachings of All Ages, each piece of the chess board had specific representations to both the human constitution: “...the kings represent the spirit; the queens the mind; the bishops the emotions; the knights the vitality; the castles, or rooks, the physical body. The pieces upon the king’s side are positive; those upon the queens’ side, negative. The pawns are the sensory impulses and perceptive faculties—the eight parts of the soul. The white king and his suite symbolize the Self and its vehicles; the black king and his retinue, the not-self—the false Ego and its legion. The game of chess thus sets forth the eternal struggle of each part of man’s compound nature against the shadow of itself. The nature of each of the chessmen is revealed by the way in which it moves; geometry is the key to their interpretation.”

Notice that each piece moves in accordance to cosmic patterns. The rook representing the body moves to the square or cross, symbolic of earth and its connection to the heavens. The knight, or vitality, moves in the design of the filfot cross, or swastika, an ancient symbol representing the recurrence and resurgence of cycles. The bishop, or emotions, move in the order of the cosmic cross representing the opposition required for deification. The queen, or mind, moves by the square and the compass representing the powers over body and emotions. The king is the head piece and is the Spirit our Soul of the individual and orders all other pieces in their moves. The king can never be taken from the board. If victorious, the king surpasses this earth and its environs and moves to a higher order in the cosmos. If the king fails, he is trapped, eternally damned by the the pieces mating him, which represent the darkside of himself. Lastly, the pawn may move straight forward, or when taking a piece, diaganol to the left or right, forming a bent cross, which is a type of the initiates path of becoming as well as the initiate’s need for prayer, as this is also a representation of a man with his arms stretched to heaven. It should be noted that if the pawn traverses the game board reaching the opposite end it becomes a queen, transcending its own innate form and becoming the ultraform embedded in its constitution.

Posted by john at December 23, 2003 04:18 PM