# The Bestiary > **▶ Ten animals, one ladder.** Scattered through the [[Hall of Mirrors]] is a menagerie of hand-drawn creatures. Read together they line up into a single structure: one animal on each rung of the Tree of Life, each creature standing for a planet, each a part of one cosmic body. The same ten animals then appear a *second* time, written not as pictures but as plain identities. This guide calls them **the two series**: **the Portraits** (below) and **[[Hall of Mirrors/The Bestiary - The Equations|the Equations]]** (their own page). --- ## What it is The animals are not decoration and not a zoo. They are a **map of consciousness drawn as creatures**. The frame is the **Tree of Life**, the ten-rung diagram at the centre of Hermetic and Kabbalistic thought (see [[Kabbalah - The Tree of Life]]): ten "seats," called *sephirot*, descend from the Crown at the top to the Kingdom at the bottom, and most of the seats carry a traditional planet. The Bestiary sets **one animal on each seat**, so the ten creatures, read from the top down, are a ladder you can climb: swan, owl, whale, dolphin, horse, spider, dove, fox, cat, rabbit. Two things are happening in every figure at once. Each animal **is a planet** (the dolphin is Jupiter, the horse is Mars, the dove is Venus), and each animal **is a body part** (its unlock code is a coordinate like *cranium of a swan*, *left hip of a dove*, *teeth of a whale*). Assemble them and you get one being, drawn joint by joint: a single cosmic anatomy that is also the ladder of the soul. ## What the positions and the planets mean On the Tree, the seat sets the meaning. The Crown (Kether) is the source; the Kingdom (Malkuth) is the manifest world at our feet; the Sun-seat at the centre (Tiphareth) is the heart. Each seat also has a planet, and the animal is that planet's traditional creature. Most of the planet placements are **loose correspondences**, held lightly. **Two are not.** In the project's **basic symbol map**, the fixed points are these: - **Roy is the Venus pole**: the dove, the heart. Venus's seat is Netzach, and the dove is drawn there. - **[[Sir Lucius|Lucius]] is the Mercury pole**: the intellect, the mind. Mercury's seat is Hod, and the fox, "the scientist," is drawn there. So the ladder quietly seats Roy's bird and Lucius's fox at their own planets. Everything else in the planet column is a pointer, but those two are stated plainly by the work itself. ## Where the animals come from The bestiary is **mostly inherited, not invented**, and knowing that is the key to reading it honestly. Nine of the ten creatures are **standard attributions of the Hermetic and Golden Dawn tradition**, the planet-and-animal tables in Crowley's *777* and Agrippa's *Three Books of Occult Philosophy*: - **Seven sit on their planet's own animal.** *777* seats the **swan** at the Crown and the **spider** at the Sun; Agrippa makes the **dolphin** Jovial (Jupiter), the **horse** Martial (Mars), the **fox** Mercurial (Mercury) and the **cat** Lunary (the Moon); the **dove** is "sacred to Venus." - **Two are "path animals."** The **owl** and the **whale** sit at seats with no planet of their own, pulled from a connecting path and seated where that path descends from. (The whale even labels itself *"Great Sea,"* the classical title of its seat.) - **One is genuinely invented: the rabbit.** There is no rabbit anywhere in the traditional tables, and the seat it lands on, the Kingdom, is the one the borrowing method structurally cannot reach. Within the work it reads as a self-portrait, the searching rabbit at the foot of the ladder (see [[Sir Rabbit]]). So the authored move is **not** the choice of animals. It is the **regularisation**: taking a tradition that scatters creatures messily across paths and combing it into a clean, climbable **one-animal-per-seat ladder**, then encoding each one twice (as planet and as body part) and giving it a name. A note on sourcing, kept honest: *777* is the closest match but the one book Roy is not documented reading, and the two Qabalah books that *are* evidenced inside the work, Dion Fortune's *Mystical Qabalah* and W.G. Gray's *Ladder of Lights*, carry no animal table at all. These are widely circulating attributions available from almost anywhere, so this guide names the **tradition** as the source and leaves the exact route open. ## The names, counted carefully The ten names fall into **three registers**, and the arithmetic is 1 + 7 + 2: - **One human being** raised out of humanity: **Enoch**, the swan, the man scripture says "walked with God, and was not," whom later mystical tradition turns into the archangel Metatron. The ladder does not begin with a god. It begins with someone who was here, and left. - **Seven angel, planet, or divine names**, each landing on its correct seat: **Ratziel** (owl), **God the Mother** (whale), **Jupiter** (dolphin), **Raphael** (spider), **Venus** (dove), **Michael** (fox), **Gabriel** (cat). - **Two ordinary pet names**: **Cinnamon** the horse and **Lemon** the rabbit. Those two pet names are the finding. They land on the ladder's **two clearest transformations**, the two rungs where the speaker is stated to change: *"the child became a warrior"* at Mars, and *"I woke up in my shadow"* at the Kingdom. And of all ten figures, Cinnamon and Lemon are the **only two drawn holding a weapon**, a dagger and an "acorn grenade." A sweet, domestic name on an armed body, twice, at exactly the two seats where a self turns into something else. --- ## Series 1 — The Portraits The ten drawings, in ladder order from the Crown down to the Kingdom. Each card is tinted with its seat's colour on the Tree of Life (white Crown, grey and black at the top, down through the planetary colours to the four-part Kingdom). Click a name to open that room in the maze, which will want a wallet connected; click a picture to see it full size. <div class="legend"><b>Read the ladder top to bottom</b><span>1 · Crown → 10 · Kingdom</span><span>each card carries its seat's traditional colour</span><span>code = the room's unlock key</span></div> | Animal | Image | Planet | Key | Reading | Connects | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | **[1 · Swan — Enoch](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/80)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-10"></span>Kether · the Crown</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0x03713ef7ffbd93989ca4e46975668d5ca48250385158624dfea7fa321ae799be..png) | *(no planet)* | `CRANIUM OF A SWAN` | The crown of the ladder, and the only rung named for a human being. The swan is the classical soul-bird; its cranium is the launchpad for the ascending soul, with a sun-monad hovering above the head. | [[Kabbalah - The Tree of Life]] · [[Concepts/The Pattern]] | | **[2 · Owl — Ratziel](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/108)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-9"></span>Chokmah · Wisdom</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0x6666c117460bf11e8591a4e4ad66cef72d3fa646bc55d443d72368a3171a00d2..png) | *(no planet)* | `GREY` | Wisdom's bird. Ratziel is the archangel of secrets at the second seat; his angelic order is the Auphanim, "the Wheels" (the drawing's *"wheels of whirling forces"*), and his scale-colour is grey, which is the room's key. | [[Kabbalah - The Tree of Life]] · [[Hall of Mirrors]] | | **[3 · Whale — God the Mother](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/78)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-8"></span>Binah · Understanding</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0x918baee33033b370951514ca5c356575d0dde2520797978da425fc537e590932..png) | ♄ Saturn | `TEETH OF A WHALE` | The Supernal Mother, drawn as a whale breaching over ringed Saturn and a labelled *"Great Sea,"* captioned *"God the Mother."* Those are Binah's exact classical correspondences: Saturn, the womb, the great deep. | [[Mary]] · [[Kabbalah - The Tree of Life]] | | **[4 · Dolphin — Jupiter](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/7)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-7"></span>Chesed · Mercy</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0x86154a585c03e88a49b4f8a91b5119b60356f5aee3203585979a1c26d6cad56e..png) | ♃ Jupiter | `LADDER` | Jupiter, mercy and the expansive sky-father, as the dolphin that crosses the waters, captioned *"Jupiter the Blue Dolphin"* (blue is Chesed's own scale-colour). A triangle-and-cross floats above it and its key, `LADDER`, files it on the ladder of ascent. | [[Kabbalah - The Tree of Life]] · [[Concepts/Jacob and Esau]] | | **[5 · Horse — Cinnamon](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/81)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-6"></span>Geburah · Severity</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0x906809c415dae59822a6d11f9bfedd9e421e1ae8ad6dcd6a34e42b13f0891b9d..png) | ♂ Mars | `RIGHT SHOULDER OF A HORSE` | Mars, drawn as a warhorse with a Mars glyph and a small sword, captioned *"Cinnamon the Horse (who lives on Mars)."* The title fuses the Trojan Horse with the project's "Trojan Horse" songwriting method: a bright song that smuggles a darker payload past your guard. | [[Happy Face]] · [[Superhuman]] · [[Concepts/The Upload]] | | **[6 · Spider — Raphael](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/154)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-5"></span>Tiphareth · the Sun</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0xb77eb3b1feda1f3504409f96c18b5e41eb816ada555589fa0d559cc57b0ee66a..png) | ☉ Sun | `PLEIADES HONEY BEE` | The Sun, the heart-seat at the centre of the Tree. Tradition calls the spider *"particularly sacred to Tiphareth,"* sitting at the centre of her web as the Sun sits at the centre. Captioned the *"Christmas Spider (on the mountain of the Soul),"* with a child's face on her body. | [[Concepts/The Pattern]] · [[SARAVI]] | | **[7 · Dove — Venus](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/79)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-4"></span>Netzach · Victory</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0xaf2fbf7256dd50ea670c4d937856f8e953277ed3bc6ae03db5d539bb09f47041..png) | ♀ Venus | `LEFT HIP OF A DOVE` | Venus, love and art, drawn as a dove with a rose at the chest and a lamp in her hand (the lamp is Netzach's own tool). In the basic symbol map, Venus is **[[Roy]]'s** pole: the dove, the heart. | [[Roy]] · [[Symbols/The Dove]] · [[Mary]] | | **[8 · Fox — Michael](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/34)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-3"></span>Hod · Splendour</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0xe4b1702d9298fee62dfeccc57d322a463ad55ca201256d01f62b45b2e1c21c10..png) | ☿ Mercury | `8` | Mercury, the quicksilver intellect, as a fox holding the Mercury glyph, captioned *"Michael the Fox (who is a scientist)."* Its key is simply `8`, Hod's number. In the basic symbol map, Mercury is **[[Sir Lucius\|Lucius]]'s** pole: the mind. | [[Sir Lucius]] · [[Concepts/Heart and Mind]] | | **[9 · Cat — Gabriel](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/0xe0c8f894133abd1ec0383346e5ca54ae9fb1f6834bebbd140e1f8aa554af7c1f)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-2"></span>Yesod · Foundation</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0xe0c8f894133abd1ec0383346e5ca54ae9fb1f6834bebbd140e1f8aa554af7c1f..png) | ☽ Moon | `STOMACH OF A CAT + 9 LIVES` | The Moon at the ninth seat: a cat's face with a crescent moon at its ear, captioned *"Gabriel the Willow Cat (standing on the Moon),"* Gabriel being the Moon's archangel. Its feet are labelled *"sandals,"* the Moon-seat's footwear in the Qabalah, and the key writes the seat's number into the body, nine lives at seat nine. | [[Symbols/The Moon]] · [[Kabbalah - The Tree of Life]] | | **[10 · Rabbit — Lemon](https://mirrors.jagwartwin.com/rooms/76)**<span class="t-drawings artchip"><span class="rung rung-1"></span>Malkuth · the Kingdom</span> | [](https://storage.googleapis.com/jagwar-twin-33.appspot.com/artifacts/0x105696945071ed4aab05c06fe11d4825af2d0d3f2680ec6c52547263c1b50957..png) | ⊕ Earth | `THE GATE OF THE WORLD` | The Kingdom, the world at the foot of the Tree, and the one animal with no source in the old tradition, invented rather than inherited. A long-eared rabbit with a cross on its forehead, an *"acorn grenade"* in hand and its feet labelled, captioned *"Lemon the Rabbit (at the Gate of the World)."* | [[Sir Rabbit]] · [[Symbols/The Rabbit]] | *Fuller readings of the drawn creatures live in [[Hall of Mirrors/Artifacts - Drawings and Sketches#The planetary bestiary|Drawings & Sketches → The planetary bestiary]], and each animal's room is catalogued in the [[Artifacts|Artifacts galleries]].* --- ## The two shelves: pictures hidden, meanings seeded The maze files its rooms on named "shelves," and the two series are shelved apart in a way that reads like a statement. **All ten portraits above are filed on one shelf, *Unseen Things / Concealed Generations*** — the hidden shelf. **The second series, [[Hall of Mirrors/The Bestiary - The Equations|the Equations]], is filed on another, *Seeds of Infinity / Childhood*.** Read plainly: **the pictures are concealed; the knowledge of what they mean is planted as a seed.** The same ten creatures live on both shelves, once as images you have to find and once as meanings you can grow into. That second series turns this ladder from a map into something you can actually walk, and it has its own page. **→ [[Hall of Mirrors/The Bestiary - The Equations|Series 2 — The Equations]]** ## The eleventh animal: the vulture On the board's animal column there is an **eleventh creature**, drawn between the whale (3) and the dolphin (4): a **vulture, never given a number**. It is the only animal with a position and no number, and, tellingly, the one animal with **no portrait in either series**. Its slot is the seam the tradition calls the **Abyss** (Da'at), the gap on the Tree that is not a seat. There is a clean reason it ends up there. In the old tables the vulture is the *Sun's* bird and also the bird of the *ninth* rung, but Roy had already given the Sun to the spider and the ninth rung to the cat. Displaced from both of its traditional homes, the leftover bird lands in the one place on the ladder that is not a seat at all. A creature drawn, and deliberately left uncounted, sitting over the one gap the climb has to cross. --- ## Read next - **[[Hall of Mirrors/The Bestiary - The Equations|The Bestiary — The Equations]]** — the second series: the same creatures as identities, wired into a walkable chain. - [[Kabbalah - The Tree of Life]] — the ten-seat frame the whole bestiary hangs on. - [[Hall of Mirrors/The I'm 33 Board|The "I'm 33" Board]] — Roy's working cosmology sheet, where the animal column and its two poems live. - [[Concepts/The Pattern]] — the single cosmology these creatures are body parts of. - [[Roy]] · [[Sir Lucius]] — the Venus and Mercury poles the ladder seats at their planets.