I'm going to post this here, and link from another thread that is straying pretty far off topic.
First, let me stress that I am only reporting stuff that I was told. I am not endorsing or confirming any beliefs in anything. This is information that has been passed down word of mouth. Let me stress again, at least that's what the guy who told me this stuff said it came from. All I can say is that I trust his integrity, and he probably trusted his source, but beyond that, how can we know? I suspect that there is at least some truth in this story, however, and I can give you my word of honor that this is what was told to me, if that's worth anything to you.
Beyond that, you are on your own.
The story is a long one, of course, but we take it up after the burning of the great library of Alexandria. As far as we know, the treasure of this library, the great collection of scrolls, was destroyed in stages, but the main burning of the facilities occurred when, in the first century B.C. (to hell with you and your 'before common era' revisionist bullshit!) Julius Caesar
purposely lit it up because he was jealous of learned people, and had determined (certainly correctly) that educated people where harder to rule. 'Whoops, it was an accident' my ass!
The adepts (or professors) of this first arctypical university re-convened in Fez, Morocco, and discussed what was to be done now.
Interesting historical note; the local hat, the 'Fez' that the town is named for and the scholarly robes affected by the adepts is reputedly the precursor to our modern black robes and mortarboard hats that we traditionally use at graduations.
The great library was gone. How was the ancient wisdom to be preserved and passed to future generations? The remaining texts were not going to be honored for their learned information. Writing down out of memory what they knew was generally agreed to not be of any avail.
No, respect for intellectual knowledge was obviously not going to work. How about claiming it was sacred? It was quickly decided that that wouldn't work, either. One religions sacred texts and symbols are another's evil demonic blasphemes, to be destroyed.
These clever guys then decided that one way to secure the transmission of info was to hide it in games. If you can't appeal to mans virtues, you can sure as hell rely on his vices. After all, the first thing a conquering army did when occupying a country is to take up the recreations and games of that culture.
I should mention at this point that these guys (not necessarily me, got it?) believed that all knowledge sort of already existed in the 'akashic records' and all discoveries where really just recoveries from it. Think of the hypothetical situation where everyone who has ever seen, used, or known about chairs was offed. someone would still come up with a chair some day, and figure it was a new invention.
It would speed the process along quite a bit if a symbol of a chair was some how preserved. Get the idea?
So, games where fashioned that incorporated aspects of a sort of ancient parapsychology, for want of a better term.
The Tarot, which later evolved into our modern playing cards were one of these. I've already expounded on how various symbols represent different aspects of consciousness and their activities and effects.
Another game was the game of chess.
I'm sure I'll get blasted by people who are well versed in more traditional explanations of how chess came about, but let me reiterate; I'M NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP, I'M ONLY REPORTING IT! Thank you.
Anyhoo, the eight by eight chessboard is really none other that the masonic 'treasleboard' that was used in actual stonemasonry to lay out patterns. The idea is that with the angle made by points in three places on the grid, you can get a real close approximation of all 90 degrees in a square, which lends itself to stonemason construction plans.
The pieces, like the symbols in the Tarot deck, but simpler, are aspects of consciousness. The King is super-consciousness, (or intuition) the Queen the sub-consciousness, the Bishop is self-consciousness, the Knight is the mind, and the Castle is the body. The pawns of each piece represent their activity, sort of like the second tier of the Tarot tableaux. The two sides are the light and dark natures that exist in all of us.
There is also a four sided version usually called 'enochian chess' that first seemed to make an appearance with John Dee, the famous sorcerer to the Queen. God knows if he only received it from his connects, or reconstituted it like the chair analogy. It of course takes the symbolism into the four Qabalistic worlds of Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah, and Atziluth.
We are still playing the games designed by the scholars of the sacked Great Library.
Let the persecution begin, I'm ready.