Seven Soldiers Kabbalah Mapping

From Barbelith


Given Grant Morrison's love for encoding hermetic symbolism into his choice of characters (all the Horus avatars, from Jack Frost through Aztek, and the arguable Scott=fire, Jean=water, Emma=spirit, Hank=air, Logan=earth elemental lineup on his New X-Men), two correspondences between kabbalah and these seven characters suggest themselves, one perhaps overt and one possibly hidden but much more crucial.

Table of contents
1 Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
2 Spiral Dynamics
3 Seven Transitions
4 "There's a Third Road"
5 correspondences: VMemes, the Sephira and the Seven Soldiers storyline
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Sunday, Monday, Tuesday

From the release dates of their Seven Soldiers first issues, the characters seem to correspond to the seven planets (and their associated kabbalistic sephira) in near-precise weekday order:

Only Zatanna and Guardian are reversed here from actual release date order, but this can easily depend on plot requirements for the "time tailor" theme in the final issues of Guardian and Zatanna. At any rate, in weekday order golden-armored Sir Justin would kabalistically and consistently stand for beauty of soul; Zatanna, for lunar imagination; Guardian, martial judgement; Klarion, mercurial cleverness; Mister Miracle, jovian mercy under the open sky, the Bulleteer, venusian love and empathy; and Frankenstein, saturnine wisdom-as-silence. But these are fairly overt correspondences. More telling ones may rely on kabbalistic and non-kabbalistic associations of the "Spiral Dynamics" model, for which these Promethea-level connections may merely serve as a feint.

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Spiral Dynamics

The concept of spiral dynamics, as espoused by prominent Grant Morrison influence Ken Wilber, bases prospects for human betterment on -- and describes human history in terms of -- our adoption and application of different value systems called "VMemes."

Although more or less equal in value, these can be ranked in order of increasing complexity. Attainment of higher, or more complex, VMeme "levels" is a long-term goal for human survival and betterment; however, people or societies that achieve these higher levels may be required by changing situations to adopt any prior VMeme -- each value system is appropriate to a different type of situation. Hence, all VMemes are near-equally valid, although a more complex level can generally only be "built" by a person or culture after attaining the level immediately beneath it in complexity.

Here's a list swiped from wikipedia.org:

  • Beige: Archaic-Instinctive — survivalistic/automatic/reflexological
    • From 100,000 BC on
    • "Express self to meet imperative physiological needs through instincts of Homo sapiens."
  • Purple: Animistic-Tribalistic Magical-Animistic
    • From 50,000 BC on
    • "Sacrifice to the ways of the elders and customs as one subsumed in group."
  • Red: Egocentric-Exploitive Power Gods/dominionist
    • From 7000 BC on
    • "Express self (impulsively) for what self desires without guilt and to avoid shame."
  • Blue: Absolutistic-Obedience mythic Order — purposeful/authoritarian
    • From 3000 BC on
    • "Sacrifice self for reward to come through obedience to rightful authority in purposeful Way."
  • Orange: Multiplistic-Achievist Scientific/strategic
    • From 1700 AD on (as early as 600 AD according to Graves and Calhoun)
    • "Express self (calculatedly) to reach goals and objectives without rousing the ire of important others."
  • Green: Relativistic-Personalistic — communitarian/egalitarian
    • From 1850 AD on (surged in early 20th century)
    • "Sacrifice self interest now in order to gain acceptance and group harmony."
  • Yellow: Systemic-integrative
    • from 1950s on
    • "Express self for what self desires, but to avoid harm to others and so that all life, not just own life, will benefit."
  • Turquoise: Holistic
    • From 1970s on
    • A sacrifice/self-interest system which is still forming.

The open-ended theory suggests many more systems to come, including:

  • Coral
  • Teal


In some versions, Yellow essentially revisits Beige from a more complex perspective, Turquoise elaborates on Purple, Teal would elaborate on Turquoise, and so on.

Although explicitly discouraged by the system's creators (http://www.spiraldynamics.org/learning/faq.htm#chakras), it is possible to map the kabbalistic Tree of Life onto the progression of VMemes -- the VMemes' color values and overt meanings correspond closely to the seven planets and their sephira on the Tree of Life, as follows:

  • Archaic/Instinctive = Earth/Malkuth, an earthy "BEIGE" for the usual "brown" (traditionally seen as blending black, russet, olive and citrine),
  • Magical/Animistic = Moon/Yesod, an imaginative "PURPLE,"
  • Egocentric-Exploitive = Mars/Geburah, a warlike "RED,"
  • Absolutistic-Obedience = Jupiter/Chesed, a sky-god "BLUE,"
  • Scientific/strategic = Mercury/Hod, a cerebral "ORANGE,"
  • communitarian/egalitarian = Venus/Netzach, an empathic "GREEN,"
  • Systemic-Integrative = Sun/Tiphereth, a soulful "YELLOW".
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Seven Transitions

The spiral dynamics model includes exact descriptions of the specific external and internal conditions which generally prompt and accompany the "transitions" from each level to the other -- seven paths to connect the different levels. Grant seems to have designed each character's story to describe one of these transitions. In each four-issue series the lead character spends three issues meeting a different kind of obstacle, both mirroring and frustrating his or her particular general approach to the world - a set of obstacles in facing which his or her values are nonfunctional - and in each series' fourth issue, each radically alters his/her values in response. Each seems to attain a new VMeme at the moment that it is being abandoned by another soldier down the line or around the circle, like musical chairs, so their paths upwards describe seven completely distinct and yet mutually self-contradictory transcendences. Two detailed mappings are put at the end for spoilers' sake: this author's mapping is: Frankenstein, Beige-Purple; Shining Knight, Purple-Red; Guardian, Red-Blue; Klarion, Blue-Orange; Mr. Miracle, Orange-Green; Bulleteer, Green-Yellow(/???); Zatanna, Yellow-Coral/??/??.

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"There's a Third Road"

According to Wilber, different persons in any society operate, and should operate, at different (equally valid) levels of this hierarchy from each other (and from themselves depending on situation), although long-term human survival depends upon a general movement upwards by all people, level by level, into greater complexity over time. Seven Soldiers is about an extinction threat, about human survival, and Grant has stated, hokily enough, that this series is about what it means to be a "hero." These characters, each at a different level of this hierarchy, are characterized by radically different and mutually contradictory approaches to the world, different VMemes, linked only by their progress upward into higher complexity: Each becomes a "hero" by rejecting a level which some other character is busily, heroically, attaining.

There are seven necessary transitions here, seven mutually contradictory tasks which must all be accomplished. This is ultimately why the Seven Soldiers, in assuring human survival, never meet. All the transitions are necessary and must start from completely different levels, and for humanity to survive they do not need to all adopt one ideal value, one ideal program -- they simply have to progress from where they are and add to a project of salvation too large for any one of them to perceive at the time. So, with us: facing our own extinction crises, with little or no shared vision on how to surpass them, there is still hope in our own dedicated thoughts and actions, along whatever right path.

If we're using Crowley's view of the sephira, then the path magically, paradoxically, actually ends up exactly where it starts, not even one spiralling level higher: merely the activity of right movement on the path is enough. On the Hermetic Kabbalah's Tree of Life, the heroic path upward, composed of many transitions between spheres, is called "The Sword", which may be why a sword is the central feature of the cover of Seven Soldiers 0, contrasted not only with a skull (extinction) but with a lightning-bolt, traditionally the symbol of the downward path (similar to the spacetime path, also opposite to our heroes', which the Sheeda are taking). Thus, the sword as a symbol of victory may here represent an upward progression on the (magically mutable) Tree of Life, and not merely an attainment of higher complexity in spiral dynamics.

These are the "Seven Soldiers of Victory", and the stories describe the main seven struggles toward victory from one commonly recognized value and strategy system to another. Victory here is not getting to some exalted level, or coming to share any exalted or even "right" way of looking at the world, in conformity with everyone else –- it is not a road to heaven or to hell, but a third road: incremental movement upwards in complexity from wherever one's head is at.

If this model holds, then this is how Grant Morrison does Promethea -- unlike Alan Moore, he is describing a tree with up and down but without a top or bottom, with no dominant values but everybody living their own lives and changing paths when circumstances demand. That may be Grant Morrison's notion of how humanity will be saved in this special time of threatened human extinction, and thus Grant’s specific magickal intention (you know there had to be one) in creating Seven Soldiers.


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correspondences: VMemes, the Sephira and the Seven Soldiers storyline

((Spoilers Ahead!))

One chain of correspondences (with two paths reversed since the release of Frankenstein 4, so it's grain-of-salt time):

  • Frankenstein moves from the archaic sphere of violent and reactive confrontation (appropriately facing rabid vermin, alien zombies, and high-school students) where he rejects salvation from elders (including a potential solution to the Sheeda problem in issue 2) until at last, in issue 4, he enters a community with tribal elders to be obeyed.
  • Shining Knight starts in that same world of tribal deference to shamanic figures - the Knight's Arthurian pantheon, the mind destroyer, and the LAPD in issue 3: unil a climactic and very graphic gesture of independence from a beloved authority (using two swords no less) initiates the Knight into solitary war against the hostile powers "red am I in battle, red the ravens that follow at my heels".
  • Guardian starts with "red" egoistic/impulsive goal-seeking (going after the dream-job, -wife, -story) but is repeatedly thwarted by similar ambition in others: the impulsive crews of the Worm and the Clinton, the residents (human and otherwise) of Century Hollow, and of course the dream-wife herself -- until he joins the prototypical Boy Scout troop in issue 4, embracing blue duty and reverence.
  • Klarion tests but never rejects his commitment to blue-eyed puritan ignorance ("If this is what witches know I'll stay a boy forever!") until he goes literally orange in issue 4 and enters an adulthood of materialist mastery (contrast his terrified cab ride with what he's driving in that last panel) and confident self-liberation "I would like to be many things before I die, mother."
  • Mister Miracle begins in that same orange VMeme life of capitalist success -- an empty, endless ritualistic self-liberation whose meaninglessness Shilo Norman must escape by using green empathy in (and on) the Omega Trap, and moving beyond self-liberation to his green destiny to "free all of us"...
  • ...a green empathy whose dark side is the common destructive element in all of Bulleteer Alix Harrower's trials (especially her final one) until she decides to start acting like the hard-shelled person she's become, attaining yellow-level integration or perhaps something else.
  • That same yellow-level integrated diversity of approaches and masks (an "identity crisis" if you will) fails Zatanna at every turn, up to and including her shape-shifting final battle -- until she falls back on a kind of magical/animal instinct to pass outside the fractured panel and ascend the next level up the spiral, which in Grant Morrison's metafictional scheme appears to mean attaining a higher (3-dimensional) reality and perhaps meeting seven unknown DC Editors (who do have showers (used in Seven Soldiers #0) that can rinse skin color off minor DC villains). Has she attained holistic turquoise? Or was this a move from black Da'ath (the stop on Crowley's kabalistic path missing from Wilber's spiral) to yellow Tiphareth(Or perhaps Malkuth? -- Like magic generally, and much of Morrison I guess, including the whole ludicrous attack on "Zor" - this a stretch).

Chad from the Barbelith list inspired this essay by suggesting the following transitions, ascending the spiral in issue-release order.

Shining Knight: instinctual Beige -> animist Purple

Guardian: Purple moving into warlike Red

Zatanna: Red moving into devotional Blue

Klarion: puritan Blue into liberal Orange

Mr. Miracle: capitalist Orange into pluralist Green

Bulleteer: pluralist Green - integrative Yellow

Frankenstein: Yellow - Holistic Turquoise

  • Shining Knight transitions from Beige to Purple.
    • Ystin, the first of the Seven Soldiers, found hirself in present-day Los Angeles became a stranger in a strange land, lost among the bright lights and alien forms of the contemporary urban landscape. Ystin ate from garbage, hid from others, and surrendered to despair. Hir moment of change occurred after being threatened at gunpoint, whereupon Ystin responded in kind. Instead of allowing the "kill or be killed" instinct to continue, Ystin knelt and acknowledged the legendary ethic that befit a proper Knight of Camelot.
    • Ystin then resolved to seek the assistance of those whom ze thought were also Knights of a similar ethic, and was magically duped and apprehended by the immortal destroyers of Camelot. Forced into a deathmatch against hir true love, Ystin's unwavering ethic allowed hir to emerge victorious. In the end, Ystin found hirself still lost in a strange land, but with a mythical purpose and self-image.
    • "Red am I in battle. Red the ravens that follow at my heels. Gloriana. I am your death." — Sir Ystin, Shining Knight, 7S:SK#4
  • The Manhattan Guardian transitions from Purple to Red.
    • Jake Jordan was suffering from severe depression after accidentally killing a 13-year-old while in uniform as a New York City policeman. After two years of unemployment, he was persuaded by is father-in-law to pursue a job at the Manhattan Guardian as its very first living masthead: a newspaper superhero who would make and report the sensationalist stories of the day. Jake's first assignment led him underground to uncover stories surfacing about warring tribes of "subway pirates". He made contact with one of the subway captains, who informed him they were after a magickal item hidden deep under New York City. Eventually, both crews were killed, but Jake saved his wife Carla, who had been captured by the rival captain.
    • His next assignment took him to save the lives of several people held at gunpoint in Century Hollow. His enemies there were the animatronic representations of global cultures, directed by the maniacal jealous rage of Jorge Control. Jorge's rage mirrored Jake's own, who had previously asked Carla to marry him. Carla refused Jake, insisting that he was enthralled by the fame, risks and power of his career as a superhero.
    • Enraged and defiant, Jake turned on his employer, Ed Stargard, and discovered Ed to be an old man in an immatured body. Stargard thereupon informed Jake of the secret history of the Newsboys of Nowhere Street, the horrifying magic that occured in Slaughter Swamp, and how it led both of them to that exact moment. Jake refused to listen to Stargard's pleas to leave him to die, and instead chose to face the impending Sheeda invasion of New York City alongside Stargard and the Newsboy Army.
    • "Baby, it's not about the job or the money; it's about being in the right place at the right time to do the right thing. And knowing you're gonna do it even if you don't want to." — Jake Jordan, The Manhattan Guardian, 7S:TMG#4
  • Zatanna transitions from Red to Blue.
    • Zatanna, former member of the JLA and the third of the Seven Soldiers, is gifted with the magical ability to reshape reality by means of speaking backwards. She is, in effect, equipped with a pleasure principle deus ex machina, but events stemming from the uninhibited use of her powers resulted in an enormous guilt complex that prevented her access to that ability. In seeking out her father's lost tomes of magick, Zatanna's friends were mysteriously killed.
    • In dealing with the fallout of those events, Zatanna joined a therapy group, attended by an adolescent girl named Misty. Misty, idolizing Zee's power and skill, informed her that she too had magic powers and requested that Zatanna take her on as an apprentice. On the run from Zatanna's conjure-gone-wrong, Misty is instructed in basic rules over magick and life, mimicking in no small way Zatanna's tutelage under her deceased father.
    • After running into the ghost of Ali Ka-Zoom, the pair are met by agents of the Sheeda. Upon realizing Misty's secret origins, and narrowly escaping death, the two split up. Misty heads to Tibet while Zatanna seeks the assistance of the Seven Unknown Men. There, Zatanna is ambushed by the Terrible Time Tailor, Zor. Zatanna employs her conjured man to represent her in the battle of wills versus Zor. As the two mages grow in exponential sizes, Zee uses the opportunity to strike back at Zor, but falters. In a last ditch attempt to conquer her enemy, Zatanna reaches out to the only higher power available, the Seven Unknown Men.
    • The Men, who'd been watching as an audience, subdue Zor and grant Zatanna an audience with the shade of her father. Zatara informs her that she, herself, is the living embodiment of his books, his greatest spell, and his gift to the world. The following day, Zatanna reports to her counselor, and is stengthened by her words.
    • "Whatever you once did that you thought was wrong, you've more than redeemed yourself with all the good you've done." — Etta Candy, 7S:Z#4
  • Klarion transitions from Blue to Orange.
    • Bored to tears with the strict oppressive lifestyles of the hidden Witch-people, fourth Soldier Klarion imagined beyond the cave walls of underground Limbotown. Due to the controlling machinations of the religious Submissionaries, the Witch-people were all but ready to shut themselves off from the only access to other places. Through Teekl, Klarion witnessed the Submissionaries transform into a monster, and rushed off to warn the Witch-men. He was too late and was met by their slaughtered bodies, and the Submissionary monster, Horigal.
    • Thinking quick, Klarion used a totem to command the Grundy slaves to attack Horigal, and escaped with the help of a stranger Witch-man, Ebeneezer Goode. Goode took Klarion through the underground caverns of New York City and saw a subway, dead homeless pirates, a superorganism made of children called Leviathan, and the empty room where their god Croatoan was supposed to be. After discovering atheism, Klarion also discovered he was to be betrayed by Goode and captured by thugs. Klarion turned the tables by allying himself with the children of Leviathan, and attacking.
    • He ventured upwards and found the fabled "Blue Rafters" in Manhattan. He was in turn found by Mr. Melmoth, a strange benefactor who took in lost children and encouraged mayhem, vandalism, theft, and shifts in group dynamics. After inciting another boy to harm Klarion, Teekl again witnessed a betrayal, this time in Melmoth's supposed authority. The children, once aged to 16, were sent to Mars as slaves to mine gold. Klarion abruptly left Melmoth's care, but was persuaded to return to warn Limbotown that Melmoth was coming to raid their town.
    • On returning to Limbotown, Klarion was put to burn at the stake for madness and heresy. Instead or perishing, Klarion was saved through the timely arrival of Melmoth, who revealed himself to be the original, immortal Sheeda ancestor of the Witch-people. Melmoth easily dispatched of the Grundy forces leveled against him, but was repelled by Klarion, who'd used the Horigal spell to unite himself and Teekl into an unstoppable killing machine. Melmoth, burning alive, grew bored with the resistance and left. Klarion resolved to follow Melmoth and join the fight against the coming Sheeda invasion.
    • "I would like to be many things before I die, mother. Today... today I shall be a soldier." — Klarion, 7S:K#4
  • Mister Miracle transitions from Orange to Green.
    • We first meet Shiloh Norman, Mister Miracle, as he is preparing to enter his latest daring escape from a miniature black hole. Our fifth Soldier is, to say the least, surprised to meet Metron once past the event horizon. Metron mysteriously pleas Shiloh to take up his responsiblities to "free the New Gods" and accept his true destiny. After receiving visions of New Genesis and Apokolips, Shiloh is thrown out of the black hole, succeeding in his escape.
    • Later, at Shiloh's posh New York City penthouse, he and his manager ZZ discuss Shiloh's strange behaviour since the black hole escape. ZZ decides to shake Shiloh out of his funk by introducing him to professonal escorts, which goes awry when Shiloh freaks out. After a visit to his therapist Shiloh has another episode upon meeting a man in a wheelchair, and is suddenly being chased and gunned down by black sedans. Mister Miracle escapes by using a manhole as a trapdoor.
    • Shiloh meets again with his therapist, Doctor Dezard, who dismisses Shiloh's emotional episodes and "visions", and instead inquires about Shiloh's Motherboxxx device. In another session, Dezard manipulates Shiloh into asking a rival escape artist into becoming his opening act. At the Dome show, Mister Miracle meets his rival, Baron Bedlam, backstage, only to discover Bedlam's crew has brainwashed ZZ as well as his girlfriend Jonelle. Shiloh attacks Bedlam, and finds his rival to be a series of robotic replicants operating with one competitive operating system. Dezard appears and hold Shiloh while Dark Side whispers the "Anti-Life Equation", which Shiloh overcomes through understanding purpose, kindness and love. Dark Side commands his henchmen to beat, break, burn, and castrate Shiloh.
    • Shiloh subsequently commits suicide, and suddenly finds himself in another simultaneous life, instead of death. Experiences speed up, and Shiloh senses that something is terribly wrong with the sequencing of his life's events. He begins to remember his childhood dreams of being a super-celebrity escape artist, and the trajedy of his brother's death. He remembers his time as the warden of the Slab, and the events that led to his career as Mister Miracle. His lives continue to speed up and repeat in an unending cycle of pain and suffering, until Motherboxxx triggers a final episode: Shiloh perceives the Omega Sanction, a semi-sentient New God machine in the employ of Dark Side. Shiloh halts the repetition of pain by empathizing with hhis captor and asking Omega to escape Dark Side with him.
    • Shiloh reassembles himself inside the black hole, and has another vision of Metron, who states that this has all been but an initiation into the New Gods, and that Shiloh is ready to transcend the Life Trap and achieve his true destiny.
    • "...there's a fundamental force in me too. I gave my life over to representing something that's in all of us. So whatever's holding you down, wherever you are, however hard it seems... how about you and me escape together?" — Shilo Norman, Mister Miracle, 7S:MM#4
  • Bulleteer transitions from Green to Yellow.

more to come

  • Frankenstein transitions from Yellow to Turquoise.

more to come

  • The Sheeda

What's interesting is that the Seven Soldiers, once fully progressed to a new set of values, are called on to battle representatives of the following two "theoretical" vMemes, Coral and Teal.

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