A spade (spadille), or what is often called the ace of spades, is normally the highest card in the deck of playing cards. For centuries in popular legends, it is also known as the death card, the spade of the grave-digger, and the symbol of death. In Freemasonry, the Symbol of Mortality is represented with a spade, a coffin, and an open grave.

If we explore the etymology of the word spade, we will find it is composed of the words “spa and de.” The meaning of the root word spa is “to draw”; from the Greek orcaw, “to draw, or draw out.” The meaning of de is down, down from, and off. Therefor the meaning I have come to, is that the word spade means to draw down or draw out and down, or draw from the down.

Now that we know the etymology of the word spade, we can search the hidden meaning of the symbol, which the great Manly P. Hall had said the spade is actually related to our own anatomy being that of our spinal column, and the sacrum bone. This will all start to make sense to you once you realize that the highest degree in Freemasonry is the 33rd, there are 33 turns in a complete sequence of human DNA, and the human vertebral column usually consists of 33 vertebrae.

The English word sacrum is derived from the full Latin expression os sacrum, a translation of Ancient Greek ἱερόν ὀστέον, attested in the writings of Greek physician Galen.  Both os and ὀστέον mean bone, and sacrum and ἱερόν mean holy or sacred. Formerly the os sacrum was called holy bone. The human sacrum bone is known as the “holy bone” for a reason. It is a large, triangular bone that looks very similar to the symbol of the spade. It is located at both the base of the spine between our two hip bones with the coccyx (tailbone), and also at the top of our spine which connects with the last lumbar vertebra, and its lower part.  The sacrum bone normally forms from five unfused vertebrae at birth and they begin to fuse together between the approximate ages of 16–18 years old, and by the age of 33-34 years it fuses into one bone that looks just like a spade.

Manly Hall had written in the Initiates of the Flame; “He sees in the spade, which has for ages been the symbol of death, a certain part of his own anatomy. If you will again turn to the picture of the spade, you will see, if you have ever studied anatomy, that the grave digger’s spade is the spinal column, and the spade-shaped piece which is used on the deck of cards, is nothing more nor less than the sacrum bone.”

I want to briefly explore the number 33 because it is interesting for several scientific reasons, and we modern Gnostics should pay close attention to this divine number. For example, as I mentioned above, our spines have 33 vertebrae, there are 33 sequences in DNA, and in Freemasonry 33 is the highest degree. This is not all a coincidence, but by design.

The spinal column is like a serpent that directly is connected to your brain, DNA and central nervous system. For a person to rise above their lower animal selves and emotions in order to reach the 33rd vertebrae to the house of illumination in their brain, they can then become an illuminated Gnostic. This is when an initiate uses his brain to control his body, emotions and animals self to then operate at the 33rd degree by properly activating his or her DNA, spinal column and central nervous system to become a master of thyself and thyworld. You see, the Number 33 is a Master Number that is also the Master Teacher. The master Jesus was crucified at Golgotha (place of the skull) at age 33 in the year 33 A.D. There are 788,280 words in the King James Bible, and if you add the number 7+8+8+2+8+0 = 33.

In the occult, 33 is also the numerical equivalent of AMEN: 1+13+5+14=33. Below you can see the relation of the spine, 33, and the God Amon (Amen, Amun etc) to the Nazirutha (The Secret Nazorean Doctrine), which gave us the Nazarene Kabbalah of the Abrahamic religions and some of the first true Gnostics known as the Essenes.

The God Amen, Amon, or Jupiter Ammon was an ancient Egyptian, and Greco Egyptian Gnostic Deity who is known as the God of Truth, The hidden one, Lord of the visible and the invisible worlds, and the mysterious soul of the universe which reveals itself in light. Here is in image below of Ammon or Jupiter Ammon, and please note that the horns on his head proves that they had known about this science long before our modern medical establishment.

In many of my previous articles, I explained the science of the God Amen by detailing how in the middle of the brain is part of the temporal lobe called the Ammon’s horn (Amuns Horn) or the hippocampus. In neuroanatomy, Ammon’s horn is a metaphor that relates to the gods and the brain. Ammon’s horn and the gyrus. Ammon’s Horn, or the hippocampus plays one of the most important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation.

As Plato had said, déjà vu is an actual real memory of events, and that all learning is remembering. When a person becomes awakened, or illuminated to these past memories and lives, they have connected to their spade in the sacrum bone, 33 degrees all the way up to their higher power to the God of Truth and hidden one that we know in reality is our Ammon’s horn (hippocampus), using their spine which is sometimes called the kundalini, and their chakras, AKA nervous system.

Hall had further written on the holy sacrum bone stating; “This bone forms the base of the spinal column, and is also the spear of the Passion. Through it and the form which pierce it, pass the roots of the spinal nerve, which indeed are the roots of the Tree of Life. It is the center through which are nourished and fed the lower vertebrae of the spine, and the sacrum and energies it has reached its present proportions.”

These energies control your lower animal body, and  organs such as your genitals through the sacrum bone and sacral nerves. The sacral regions of the spinal cord are called the peripheral nerves. There are five pairs of spinal nerves which exit the sacrum and connect to the central nervous system that supply the thighs and lower parts of the legs, the feet, most of the external genital organs, and the area surrounding the anus.

This is why the symbol of the spade is known as the death card, the spade of the grave-digger, and the symbol of death. If you concentrate all your energies in the sacral regions of the spinal cord, you are essentially living like an animal controlled by your sexual pleasures and animal passions such as sex, food, alcoholism, drugs, sports etc. You have essentially killed your own Christ at Golgotha (place of the skull) within because you have not raised your energies 33 degrees to your higher self. You are not truly illuminated or enlightened, and your souls evolution has met with death in this life, symbolized by the spade or death card.

I will finish with some more great wisdom from Manly Hall; “This point has been beautifully symbolized by the grave digger’s spade, which has been used by the brothers of many mystic organizations for ages. The currents and forces working through these lower spinal nerves must be transmuted and lifted upward to feed the altar fire at the positive or upper end of the spine.”

Moe

Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.