I do keep getting distracted, sorry. Now I am almost finished a book by Laurence Rees, The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler - Leading Millions into the Abyss.

I can justify a link to the Inferno because I think Hitler deserves a place in the ice lake with Satan at the centre of the earth in the ninth circle of hell. So do Stalin, Pol Pot and various other mad tyrants who inflicted suffering and death on a grand scale.

Starting from the worst evil, I think tyranny deserves a spot in the worst part of hell. It is surprising that Dante steers away so carefully from anything political - perhaps illustrating how Christian tyranny had infected his brain and made him timid about calling it out.

Robert Tulip wrote:I do keep getting distracted, sorry. Now I am almost finished a book by Luarence Rees, The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler - Leading Millions into the Abyss.

I can justify a link to the Inferno because I think Hitler deserves a place in the ice lake with Satan at the centre of the earth in the ninth circle of hell. So do Stalin, Pol Pot and various other mad tyrants who inflicted suffering and death on a grand scale.

Starting from the worst evil, I think tyranny deserves a spot in the worst part of hell. It is surprising that Dante steers away so carefully from anything political - perhaps illustrating how Christian tyranny had infected his brain and made him timid about calling it out.

Hmmm...I had recalled dimly that Dante does get political in the book. But I haven't reread very much yet. No doubt you're right, though, that our criteria for assigning folks to whatever level of Hell have changed since his time. Tyranny and even mass killing in the name of the true faith might have seemed a worthy thing back then. The viciousness that was accepted in theological writing is astounding. Look at Martin Luther as an example. He wasn't an exception in his vilification of groups, especially Jews.

Actually of course you are right about the politics. Dante is continually consigning his political enemies to hell. What I was getting at was that the nine circles are not explicitly political in the sense of applying directly to bad kings. Treachery and violence can be political crimes, but are not restricted to the political sphere. Heresy is a uniquely political crime, but is applied to enable the tyrant to suppress diversity. So we get this archaic Christendom vision of God in heaven enabling His divinely appointed representatives to ensure a smothering uniformity of belief and oppress any sign of dissent.

And now that I check again, tyrants are listed in the seventh circle, with murderers and warriors, as a subset of the violent. Dante includes Alexander the Great as a tyrant, which I found surprising since it is more common to read of Alexander as a hero.

My own thoughts on this book seem so trite. Dante was a creative thinker.

Dante did so much to construct the modern vision of hell. It is interesting to compare his vision to the various ideas at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell

I see it in terms of connection. Heaven is where everything is connected. Hell is where everything is disconnected. If our life promotes connection, we are remembered positively. If our life promotes disconnection, we are remembered negatively. But the concepts "go to heaven" and "go to hell" are meaningless.

In past times, the fear of hellfire was used by preachers to warn people to live morally. The lake of fire features five times in Revelation chapters 19, 20 and 21. "as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." It is far from clear who is "detestable" and this gives plenty of wiggle room for detesters and detestees.

The idea of revenge against the wicked through perpetual torment is rather primitive. I prefer to think of morality in terms of actual consequences on earth in the future. Displacing the effects of a bad life into hell is somewhat irrelevant.

I was thinking once of giving out Bibles but Gideons told me that I had to believe in the lake of fire.

This entire post is about Dante Alighieri's life being structured based upon the Golden Spiral and La Divina Commedia being structured mathematically according to the formula of the Golden Spiral.

Don't forget to view the accompanied attachment.

More than twenty-years ago I broke the mathematical system that the authors of La Divina Commedia use in their compositional structure. Since then I have published three separate works and in each I have save a chapter exclusively to demonstrate La Divina Commedia magnificent system. My website is listing those works is http://www.williamjohnmeegan.com and of course amazon.com

I am not an academic and I believe that this is the reason why Dante Societies will not recognize my achievement in Dante Studies; however, my accomplishment is well secured from would-be plagiarists and they know it.

I am about to publish an article on World Mysteries blog discussing several different art forms La Divina Commedia being one of them having the same mathematical anomaly; but, I wanted to also place the material on a Dante forum that was discussing La Divina Commedia.

1. DANTE ALIGHERI’S LIFE

When Dante Alighieri began writing La Divina Commedia he was a dead man walking. What is meant by this is that he completed the two halves of his life on earth; and yet, as the author of this epic poem (trilogy) he was still physically here on earth writing La Divina Commedia. This means that allegorically Dante Alighieri the author had to begin writing La Divina Commedia on September 15th 1321 the anniversary date of the Eleusinian mysteries . This is a clear and unambiguous allusion to that ancient mystery school in which the entire city of Athens participated in a yearly pageantry. This is, actually, the exact same allusion that is outlined in the first four chapters of Genesis where the second, third and fourth chapters of Genesis allude to the four months that Persephone had to reside in hell as Hades’ (Pluto’s) queen. I agree that Dante Alighieri allegorically began his sojourn into the regions of the Inferno on the Ides of March: the date of Julius Caesar death: March 15, 1300. This literary anomaly of the author being the same as the character in the book brings to the fore that Dante Alighieri never lived as a human being; rather, he was merely an allegorical character created by the mythical author Dante Alighieri. In just reading the first stanza of La Divina Commedia and understanding what it is conveying spiritually more than suggest that some anonymous medieval author (possibly a monastery of monks ) took the name Dante Alighieri as a pen name and this will become clearer as I continue.

In reading the first stanza of La Divina Commedia it is apparent that the text immediately tells the reader that the mythical character Dante Alighieri has a three part existence:

INFERNO 1:1-3; Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood ,
for I had wandered off from the straight path .

The first verse of La Divina Commedia is a clear unambiguous assertion that Dante Alighieri’s life is over with. How else could Dante the author had known that “Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood”, unless his life was over with? Only Dante could have compared the length of his entire life with the first half of his life. Immediately the reader should be asking him or herself is, what in the world is Dante Alighieri talking about? How can he be writing the book and telling the reader that he is dead? Notice that Dante uses the phrase ‘our life’ to express their ‘journey’ through life’s experiences. The problem grows exponentially when considering the alleged lifespan of the author. The first verse of La Divina Commedia has always been interpreted in light of the sacred scriptures, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; (Psalms 90:10)”: inferring that Dante was thirty-five years of age (actually 34.789...) when he ‘woke to find himself in a dark wood’. This is quite an interesting enigma because Dante is said to have died on September 14, 1321, which is an additional twenty-one and a half year (21.5) years: totalizing the two halves gives a quotient of 56.29… years and that is nowhere near seventy (70) years. Dante is said to have been born in Gemini, which would make the earliest possible date of his birth to be on June 1, 1265 . He found himself in the dark wood: La Divina Commedia on the Ides of March (March 15, 1300) and died on September 14, 1321. The earliest that Dante could have started narrating his epic poem was after September 14th 1321. In other words the third part of Dante’s existence began on September 15, 1321, which happens to be the anniversary date of the Eleusinian mysteries. Does anyone truly believe that nuance escape the attention of the authors that penned La Divina Commedia? It was allegorically this date that he came back from his spiritual quest and began narrating his experiences. I am not saying that these events actually took place in real time on those dates. I am saying they are allegorical dates expressing a very important spiritual concept. These dates happen to coincide perfectly mathematically with the spiritual concept that Dante wanted to relay to his readers esoterically. The entire La Divina Commedia is a commentary on the first four chapters of Genesis: both mathematically (esoterically) and allegorically.

The most fascinating feature in the above discussion is that all four of the most important dates of Dante Alighieri’s life is being inferred in the first verse of La Divina Commedia: the beginning, the middle, the end of life and finally September 15th 1321 (anniversary of the Eleusinian mysteries), which points very clearly to a set in the Fibonacci sequence (21/34) of the Golden Ratio. At the least it is curious and at most it is extraordinary.

a. June 1, 1265 – March 15, 1300 ( first day of Gemini and the Ides of March)
1. 365.25 x 34.789 = 12,707-days (12,707 reduced to its lowest common denominator = 8,
which represents Yahweh (26 = 8): A + B = set in the Fibonacci sequence 5/8.

b. March 15, 1300 – September 14, 1321 (day before the anniversary of the Eleusinian mysteries)
1. 365.25 x 21.501 = 7853-days (7853 reduced to its lowest common denominator = 5,
which represents Elohym (86 = 5): A + B = set in the Fibonacci sequence 5/8.

c. June 1, 1264 – September 14, 1321
1. 365.25 x 56.29 = 20,560-days
a. 12,707 / 20,560 = 0.6180… (the Golden Ratio)
b. 7,853 / 20,560 = 0.3819…

There may be those that want to tweak some of the days of Dante Alighieri’s life (whatever) here and there; however, there is extremely little to play with: so little in fact that according to how those revisionists juxtaposition those dates the subsequent calculations of their revisions would not be too far off either way to influence or to discount the above hypothesis whatsoever in any way, shape or form. It is because of this inability of future Dantists from being able to juxtaposition the dates of Dante Alighieri’s life in any meaningful way, no matter what dates they come up with, my analysis of Dante’s life symbolically patterning the Golden Ratio has to stand and be taken into account: however, even after twenty-years academia still has its head in the sand like a scared ostrich: they published the mathematical thesis but for the most part have refused to recognized it. Not a single article has been written about Dante Alighieri’s mathematical system in all that time.

Now the reader can picture what the two halves of Dante Alighieri’s life looks like and have some kind of an idea as to what he was talking about when he began writing the first stanza of his epic poem. Dante as spiritual being that has come back from materialistic death is talking about his life and in doing so he is discussing the first and second halves of it, which he equated to two swings of the Golden Ratio: from the beginning of the Inferno to the end of the Paradiso. By doing this he is simultaneously talking about both swings of the Golden Spiral by structuring La Divina Commedia accordingly; therefore, the enigma is solved because Dante has to be talking outside of his life: while living in the Garden of Eden here on earth: he could not have written La Divina Commedia while he was materialistically alive living in the material and commercial world; rather, he was discussing his life from the mindset of the Eleusinian mysteries (symbolically the spiritual vision of the Trinity). The first verse of La Divina Commedia has therefore been demonstrated to represent the three parts of Dante Alighieri’s life:

HOW DID THE AUTHOR OF LA DIVINA COMMEDIA FINESSE THE GOLDEN
SPIRAL INTO THE LIFE OF THE FICTIONAL CHARACTER OF DANTE Alighieri?

FIRST: The author made a decision to write a book based upon the Golden Spiral and the character’s life would also be based upon that formula. In looking at the Fibonacci sequence, even though Fibonacci wasn’t alive at the time, the mathematics of it was known – it is not difficult to choose an age level coinciding with the biblical mandate of thirty-five years as half a lifetime. The ratio of the Fibonacci sequence would be 21/34. The minimal amount of years the fictional author would live would be 55-years; however, now the calendar would have to be tweaked to satisfy other considerations in this literary creation.

SECOND: The author had to pick a birth date for his character. In this case he picked Gemini: June First.

THIRD: The day of the author’s death would have to be selected and in this case it was September 14th singularly because it was the day before the anniversary date of the ancient Eleusinian mysteries. This was in accordance with the overall spiritual message the author was conveying.

Fourth: The percentage of the year between June 1st and September 14th had to be determined.
a. June = 30-days, July = 31-days, August = 31-days and September = 14-days totaling 106-days
b. 106 / 365 = 0.29… percent of a year.

FIFTH: The day that the author would allegorically begin his epic journey through the three realms of spirit: Inferno, Purgatorio and the Paradiso would have to be decided. The Ides of March (15 of the month) 1300, the day of Julius Caesar’s death was chosen. The percentage of the year from June 1st to March 15th would have to be determined.
a. March 16-31 = 16-days, April = 30-days, May 31-days: total 77-days
1. 365 – 77 = 288-days
2. 288 / 365 = 0.789… percent of a year

SIXTH: The year of Dante Alighieri’s birth would therefore be 34.789 years before March 15, 1300, which is June 1, 1265.

SEVENTH: From June 1, 1265 – September 14, 1321 is precisely 56.29-years.

EIGHT: It is exactly half a year from March 15th to September 14th.
a. March 16-days, April 30-days, May 31-days, June 30-days, July 31-days, August 31-days
and September 14-days totally 183-days.
b. 183 / 365 = 0.501… percent of a year.

NINE: Once the three crucial dates of the fictional author’s life were known the rest was easy.
a. 56.29 / 1.618034 = 34.7891… years
b. 34.7891 / 1.618034 = 21.5008… years

It actually took me longer to explain all this in detail than the author would have taken to plan it all out. Usually, when an idea like this comes to someone the complete plot is already encapsulated in the author’s thought process the mathematics are mere incidental to the planning process. For example, in this case the crucial date was September 15th the anniversary of the Eleusinian mysteries.

LIVING IN THE EMBRACE OF THE TRINITY

Dante Alighieri could only experience his life in the Trinity as every soul does.

1. June 1, 1265 - March 15, 1300 (Yahweh) = Inferno
Living in the material world is not knowing God; whatsoever, it is only knowing the dictates of
the god of this world: Yahweh = ego-consciousness: the light of the world.

When Dante descended into the Inferno with his guide Virgil (reason) he was taking a journey into the past reevaluating all the lost souls living out their lives in materialism; actually, this is solely an evaluation of his own soul: it really has nothing to do with anybody else; however, La Divina Commedia gives an overall generic account of the seven cardinal sins.

2. From March 15 – September 14, 1321 (Elohym) = Purgatorio
The teachings of the Catholic Church are mythological accounts of its traditions and dogmatic
teachings: similes to the symbolism of the unconscious mind: Elohym: angels or pure thoughts
from God.

Ascending Mount Purgatorio was/is living in the present. Moving from Purgatorio to the Garden of Eden and then on to experiencing the Paradiso Dante had to first go through a wall of flames. Persistent reasoning (Virgil in Purgatorio 27) can only get the soul so far and then FAITH has to take the soul the rest of the way. Moving through that wall of scorching flames is analogous to going through the agonizing search for God as if it was all true not having an iota of an idea whether it really was true or not but acting as if it was. Eventually, the soul ceases to act as if or realizes it is no longer acting at all but is just going through its religious studies with a true heartfelt DESIRE to know what is being esoterically and/or mystically conveyed. It is this final transmutation process that prepares the soul for its mystical vision of the Trinity; however, nothing can really prepare the soul for something it is totally unprepared for: the vision of the Trinity is inexplicably incomprehensible.

3. September 15, 1321 (anniversary date of the Eleusinian mysteries) - His spiritual life: writing La
a. Divina Commedia (Most High El (God)) = Paradiso
b. Holy Spirit: Orenda
c. Writing La Divina Commedia for Dante was living in the future (the eternal now) after his materialistic death; hence forth, the existence of the allegorical figure Dante is spiritual with the Holy Spirit as his only confidant: Orenda.

All of this was experienced in a nanosecond of time: it is/was an experience that cannot be conveyed across the great chasm that exists between two individuals: it is the secret of all secrets.

The life of Dante Alighieri and the trilogy La Divina Commedia are forever intertwined as one but they had to be divided into parts in order to discuss sensibly their individual artistic expressions. It is by separating these three parts from the whole of his life that La Divina Commedia takes on a far more important interpretation of the allegorical figure: Dante Alighieri.

2. LA DIVINA COMMEDIA

This is the easiest of the four artistic expressions of the Golden Ratio that I will be presenting because it is ‘somewhat’ repetitious of the formatting of Dante Alighieri’s Life in the shape of the Golden Spiral.

In studying the compositional structure of La Divina Commedia it will be found to contain a very sophisticated mathematical system , which in itself is a commentary on the first chapter of Genesis. Whereas, La Divina Commedia 100-cantos/chapters on their own holds the formula for the Golden Ratio though this is not readily apparent to the reader. What has been described above in relations to Dante Alighieri’s Life and how he began writing La Divina Commedia, it now can be theorized that the entire poem will be structured to format that formula. If we take the first canto/chapter of La Divina Commedia as the beginning of the first swing of the Golden Spiral then the second swing of the Golden Spiral would have to begin in the twenty-ninth (29th) canto/chapter of La Purgatorio. This would actually be the sixty-third (63rd) canto/chapter of La Divina Commedia equating to all that previously transpired in the trilogy as being 0.618 or the Golden Ratio. Because the sixty-third (63rd) up to the 100-canto/chapter has nothing to do with the first swing of the Golden Spiral it has nothing to do with the short formula of the Golden Spiral: 0.618.

In the twenty-seventh canto/chapter of La Divina Commedia Virgil gets Dante to walk through a searing wall of flames and the only way that he could possibly go through this torment is through FAITH. At the end of the twenty-seventh (27th) canto/chapter Dante and Virgil arrive at the edge of the forest that represent the area of the Garden of Eden and there they go to sleep. This is the end of the sixty-first (61st) canto/chapter of the entire La Divina Commedia. Virgil says his last words in the entire poem at the end of this canto/chapter. Theologically, intellect and reason (Virgil) would have nothing to say in light of the realm of FAITH. In fact it may very well be possible that Matilda, the young woman Dante meets while she is picking flowers, was symbolically FAITH. Dante had to get to know FAITH before that second swing of the Gold Spiral took place in the twenty-ninth (29th) canto/chapter of Purgatorio. How can it be determined that this is where the second swing of the Golden Spiral took place in La Divina Commedia besides being in the sixty-third (63rd): the answer is in two separate parts.

The first part is in reading the seventh (7th) to the twenty-first (21st) verse in the twenty-ninth (29th) canto/chapter of Purgatorio .

7 she moved against the current's flow,
8 walking along the bank, while I on my side
9 tried to match her shorter steps with mine.
10 We had not taken a hundred steps between us
11 when the two banks curved as one around a bend
12 so that once more I was headed toward the east.
13 And we had not gone far in that direction
14 when the lady turned and faced me,
15 saying: 'My brother, look and listen.'
16 Suddenly a shining brightness
17 flared through all the forest
18 so that I thought it must be lightning.
19 But since lightning is gone even as it flashes
20 and that light, shining on, became more lustrous,
21 I asked myself: 'Now what is this?'

Here it is seen that the curve in the river bank narrated in the eleventh (11th) and twelfth (12th) verses would be the second swing of the Golden Spiral. Without that swing or curve of the river bank that sudden light would not have appeared. Dante had gone into the inexplicable realm of FAITH and he had become comfortable living with and in FAITH. This is what the twenty-seventh (27th) and twenty-eighth (28th) cantos/chapters are all about.

Whereas, the next proof of the Golden Spiral is found by totalizing the amount of verses in the first sixty-two (62) cantos/chapters: see above La Divina Commedia Mathematical Matrix and then dividing them by 14,233: the total amount of verses in the poem. Totalizing the first six columns and the first two cantos/chapters of the seventh column of the matrix provides: 1351 + 1342 + 1447 + 1420 + 1432 + 1444 + 290 = 8,726 / 14,233 = 0.61308…, which is shy seventy (70) verses from 0.618, which is less than half of one percent. This is an acceptable margin of error and an incredible feat within the confines of the data Dante had to work with considering the enumerable constrictions on the numerical database in which he had to work with simultaneously creating the mathematical structure for La Divina Commedia.

That is three pieces of evidence that La Divina Commedia is structured based upon the Golden Spiral:
a. The splitting of the 100-Cantos/Chapter into 62/38
b. Purgatorio 27:11-12 showing a curve in the river bank at the most appropriate time
c. The splitting up of the verses in the 62/38 ratio of canto/chapter

Any two of these proofs should be satisfactory; however, modernity has proven itself to be a hard nut to crack.

I don't know if y'all have visited this. http://foxtwin.com/inferno/ It is an interactive inferno. I use it Brit Lit teaching the Canterbury Tales, among other things

I've read through the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation and find the descriptions haunting and inspiring. I find my self coming back to this book reading through the same cantos over and over. This book is a work of art. I strongly recommend getting the version with illustrations by Gustave Dore. His illustration great add to the sense of foreboding doom. Still have yet to finish Purgatory and Paradise, but will soon.