How To Reverse Engineer The First Miracle

The transformation of water into wine at the Marriage at Cana is the first miracle of Jesus. In a book filled with so many names, its curious that this parable doesn’t mention the names of the couple who were married, only the town. It’s worth taking a closer look.

Reverse engineering is taking apart an object to see how it works in order to duplicate or enhance the object.

First we will ‘take apart’ or sherlock Cana and then we will ‘take apart’ or transform water into wine.

The First Miracle

If your not familiar with the first miracle of Jesus, you might want to read the story in John 2: 1-11 from your own bible.

Here is the full text from the 1612 King James Bible.
I share it in this form so that you become familiar with seeing words spelt differently.

And the third day there was a mariage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Iesus was there. And both Iesus was called, and his disciples, to the mariage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Iesus saith vnto him, They haue no wine.

Iesus saith vnto her, Woman, what haue I to doe with thee? mine houre is not yet come.

His mother saith vnto þ^e seruants, Whatsoeuer he saith vnto you, doe it. And there were set there sixe water pots of stone, after the maner of the purifying of the Iewes, conteining two or three firkins apeece.

Iesus saith vnto them, Fill the water pots with water. And they filled them vp to the brimme. And hee saith vnto them, Drawe out now, and beare vnto the gouernor of the feast. And they bare it.

When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was, (but the seruants which drew the water knew) the gouernor of the feast called the bridegrome, And saith vnto him, Euery man at the beginning doth set foorth good wine, and when men haue well drunke, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine vntill now.

This beginning of miracles did Iesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory, and his disciples beleeued on him.

Where was Cana?

The exact location  and even the existence of Cana has been questioned by scholars.

Wikipedia writes:

“There has been much speculation about where Cana might have been. In his Gospel, the author makes no claim to have been at the wedding. Many would regard the story of the wedding at Cana as of theological rather than historical or topographical significance; it is the first of the seven miraculous “signs” by which Jesus’s divine status is attested, and around which the gospel is structured.”

What insight might sherlocking “Cana” give?

“Jesus was constantly revealing the hidden wisdom of God, but only those who had eyes to see and ears to hear could understand in their hearts.”

It is important to appreciate that the biblical character Jesus taught by the SPOKEN WORD or words that have life of their own, imbued with vitality. From the moment anything is born and is alive, it continues to grow by periodically renewing its cells. The only constant is change.

If you can accept that SPOKEN WORD is alive, then it too can renew itself periodically. This is what happens with each step in the Sherlocking Insightful Answers or SIA process. Each renewal is a morph of the step before and creates a new form or phorm.

One more thing to get your head around before we sherlock “Cana” is to ignore the New Testament suggestion, that Cana was actually a town in Galillee. Now, if it was, so be it. Our immediate quest is to extract ‘hidden wisdom’ from the word itself.

The fact that I am using English to sherlock in the four step example below is another furphy to ignore. The SIA word morphing process applies to any language.

Step 1: Sound the word “CANA”

CANA → canah

Step 2: Sound “canah”

canah → canar

Step 3: Isolate & replace the letter ‘r’ with “ar”

canar → ar-cana

Step 4: Connect the letters to make ARCANA

ar-cana → ARCANA

Sherlocking CANA to ARCANA

• Let’s put the four steps together in a logical morphing progression, left to right

CANA → canah → canar → ar-cana → ARCANA

What is Arcana?

You may have heard of the word arcana if you have had a tarot reading. In this case, arcana is defined as:

either of the two groups of cards in a tarot pack: the twenty-two trumps (the major arcana ) and the fifty-six suit cards (the minor arcana ).

Tracing the Latin roots of arcana we find:

Arcana: profound secrets arcanum: secret/mystery (usually in plural)  arcane: understood only by a few [<Latin arcanus – hidden < arca – chest, box]

The wise possess “profound secrets” that we call wisdom. This definition of arcana suggests that ‘hidden wisdom (is) understood by a few.’

Jesus was the master of teaching in parables. His parables often have an unexpected twist or surprise ending that catches the reader’s attention.

They are also cleverly designed to draw listeners into new ways of thinking, new attitudes and new ways of acting (Getty-Sullivan, pp 2-4).

This can be another way of interpreting “For those that have eyes to see and ears to hear.” It really is about access the Great Silence or Stillness within. Either way you see things differently.

By last week we realized that it was impossible to connect 9 dots with 4 straight lines INSIDE THE BOX and that it required different thinking.

The only way to do so was to EXPAND our thinking and remove limiting beliefs of what you had to do or what you were allowed to do. This meant that the solution is found by starting OUTSIDE THE BOX (see ‘umbrella’ on the right).

Begin to think of INSIDE THE BOX as the KNOWN or SEEN and OUTSIDE THE BOX as the UNKNOWN or UNSEEN.

How can we interpret ARCANA?

Given that ‘arca’ means “box,” then arcaNA must mean more than ‘box’ such as, ‘beyond the box,’ suggesting that its secret or ‘hidden wisdom’ is to be found (by thinking) OUTSIDE THE BOX.

Flammarion Universum

The Flammarion woodcut puts it another way.

• The traveller is on his knees with his back turned on his known world
• His lowly position and raised eyes and body suggest he is SEEKING HIGHER TRUTH
• The OPEN hand reaches out (READY TO GRASP) and the head pierces the veil (THE BOX), going beyond his known world into the unknown world.
• The walking stick is “grounded” with its straight shaft in the known world and its hook in the unknown world

Together, the traveller (Seeker of Truth) is being asked to expand his consciousness with an OPEN mind and make CONNECTIONS
between the known and unknown.

A few SIA secrets

N.B. The first letters of Sherlocking Insightful Answers spells SIA

Letter ‘c’ and letter ‘s’

The letter ‘c’ and the letter ‘s’ are interchangeable. For instance, cite, site, and sight are all different words with their own meanings and uses and have identical pronunciations.

Letter ‘c’ and ‘n’

Rotating the letter ‘n’ anticlockwise and it creates a letter ‘c’

Letter T and ‘CH’

In some words, the pronunciation of t is actually closer to ch, as in creature, feature and fortune.

Letter ‘i’ and the letters ‘ee’

Pronouncing the Spanish word, ‘sí’ sounds just like saying the English word ‘see.’

In American English ‘i’ can be pronounced as  /ee/, in four main cases:

1. At the end of a word with several syllables. As in “taxi” or “jacuzzi.”
2. When “i” is followed by a vowel. As in “studio,” “audience,” “curious.”
3. When “i” is followed by an “e”, a “c” then another silent “e”. As in: “piece”, “niece”, or “believe”
4. In “ing”. As in “finger”, “acting”, “eating”…

Turning Water into Wine in 8 steps

Take whatever time you need to follow each step. If you have any questions about any step you can pose these in Comments and I will reply.

[N.B. There is a shorter 5 step SIA process, however it requires the
sharing of historical precedent which we will look at in a later post.]

Remember, ‘→’ or arrow means ‘morphs to’, ‘changes to’ or ‘becomes’

Step 1: Regroup the letters

WATER → w-are-T

Step 2: Replace letter ‘T’ with ‘CH’ & ‘are’ with the same sound, spelled ‘ah’

w-are-T → w-ah-CH

Step 3: Replace letter ‘c’ by the letter ‘n’ & count the number of h’s

w-ah-CH → w-two-hs-n-a

Step 4: Replace letter ‘s’ by the letter ‘c’ & replace letter ‘n’ by its sound ‘en’ & regroup

w-two-hs-n-a → w-two-en-ach

Step 5: Replace and isolate the letter ‘n’ again by its sound ‘en’ & replace the sound ‘ach’

w-two-en-ach →  w-two-e-en-h

Step 6: Drop the silent letter ‘h.’ Replace ‘two e’ by ‘ee’ & Reorder the letters ‘en’ as ‘ne’

w-two-e-en-h → w-ee-ne

Step 7: Replace ‘ee’ by the letter ‘i’ (as in taxi)

w-ee-ne → w-i-ne

Step 8: Connect the letters to form ‘WINE’

w-i-ne → WINE

Sherlocking WATER to WINE in 8 steps

• Let’s put the four steps together in a logical morphing progression, left to right

WATER → w-are-T → w-ah-CH → w-two-hs-n-a → w-two-en-ach
→  w-two-e-en-h → w-ee-ne → w-i-ne → WINE

 

Unite in Unity