The Code in Poussins Self-Portraits

Part 2: The All-Seeing Eye

Written by Gary Osborn 2004. This article is composed of additional material originally written for the book, Axis: The Greatest Heresy.

Copyright © Gary Osborn 2004. All Rights Reserved.

In the painting behind the inscribed canvas, a woman is portrayed quite explicitly. A man’s hands are held out to her, as if to embrace her affectionately. Some say this is the goddess Venus – identified with the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis – and she wears a crown or diadem. Other interpretations are quite “airy-fairy” and incomprehensible as if purposely glossing over the truth.

‘The woman with the crown has been seen as a personification of painting as the supreme art and as Amicitia, friendship. The diamond [Poussin’s ring] has been taken as a reference to 17th-century optics, or as a symbol of Constantia, strength of character’. [3] 

These are quite lame interpretations and remain on the surface for the uninitiated public, because there are indeed details that allude to a deeper meaning – again associated with Egypt.

  For instance, on the front of this diadem worn by the woman (Isis,) and on her brow, is the ‘All-Seeing Eye of Vigilance’ – the eye of the ‘Supreme Being’ according to Freemasonry. In terms of Egyptian cosmology this would be the ‘Eye of Ra’, the supreme god who personifies the ‘source-centre of creation’. This also appears to be an allusion to the mystical ‘third eye’.

The ring with the small diamond, cut like a four-sided pyramid, speaks for itself and as many of us will know, there is indeed a connection between these two telling details – the eye and the pyramid.

  Poussin was a Jesuit, however, we seem to have here a reference to the ‘All-Seeing Eye’ as well as its connection with the apex or capstone of the pyramid as symbolised by the ring.

  The ‘eye in the pyramid’ symbol or insignia, has been attributed to the Freemasons and in particular that shadowy secret society (which has become the main subject of all conspiracy theorists) the Illuminati. 

  Sometimes the ‘Eye of the Supreme Being’ is symbolically placed within the pyramid – or rather, it is depicted inside a detached capstone that hovers above a truncated pyramid and from which rays of light radiate.

  A perfect example can be seen on the American Dollar bill.

It is said that Adam Weishaupt (1748–1811,) a Professor of Natural and Canon Law at the University of Ingoldstadt, founded the Bavarian Illuminati in 1776 – the same year that the Declaration of Independence in America was signed.

  But why would Poussin bring attention to the pyramid and the all-seeing eye in the capstone? Many would indeed ask, ‘how could he?’ After all, Poussin’s self-portrait was completed more than one hundred and twenty years before the founding of the infamous Illuminati.

  Well, based on what has come to light recently, Poussin’s code is quite logical.

  The ‘all-seeing eye’ is associated with the ancient Egyptian pyramids and in the Museum of Cairo there exists a fine example of one of these Benben pyramidion capstones that once adorned the tops of pyramids and obelisks with the ‘winged solar disk’ and eyes (Udjat) engraved on it. This is standard knowledge. What is not well known, is that the ‘eye in the pyramid’ symbol, as used by certain esoteric groups, was around long before the Illuminati was founded. In 1754, and from the age of six, the orphaned Weishaupt was brought up and educated by the Jesuits; was later a former Jesuit priest and founded the Illuminati on the principles of his Jesuit training.

  Because of this it has been suggested that he would have certainly known of the work of Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) – again, a fellow Jesuit, who was also a Hermeticist and Cabbalist and an authority on ancient Egypt at that time. Indeed, as Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval point out in their book, Talisman (2004), Kircher made use of the ‘eye in the pyramid’ symbol in his work, and the symbol can be seen in his book published in 1669 – Ars Magna Sciendi (The Great Art of Knowledge) . . .

‘ . . . and also on top of an Egyptian obelisk surmounted by the so-called ‘Hapsburg double-eagle’ that Kircher had designed specially for the German Emperor Ferdinand III. Let us point out in passing that the same ‘double eagle’ symbol, as well as the ‘eye in the pyramid’ symbol, are commonly used in the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree Scottish Rites of Freemasonry’. [4]

As I discovered, the double-headed eagle symbolises the two saints worshipped by the Freemasons, and before them the Templars – a not so well known fact. These are St. John the Baptist, and St. John the Evangelist (otherwise known as ‘John the Divine’).

  One head of the eagle is looking due east and the other due west. This symbol is based on the Roman god Janus, who also has two faces looking in opposite directions – one older and bearded and one younger and clean-shaven or even female. Take note that in his first self-portrait (1649) and behind Poussin, we see two figures back-to-back each joined by a funeral reef, and with a square plaque between them.

  However, as we now know, Janus is the Roman equivalent of the ancient Egyptian god Aker who is represented by two lions back to back – an important detail which I have gone into detail elsewhere in regard to the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. It is said that the effeminate-looking John the Evangelist is really Mary Magdalene.

  The Jesus story of the Gospels is really symbolic and based on the ancient Egyptian Triad consisting of Osiris, Isis and Horus – the Secret Combination of Masonic lore.

  The ‘two Johns’ then represent the male and female opposites as represented by Osiris and Isis, who stand on either side of Horus (Jesus). We have here the Triad of positive (male,) negative (female) and the higher neutral, being the composite of both opposites (androgynous), which the third eye and the ‘all-seeing eye in the pyramid’ represent. This symbol depicts man’s union with God through a state of consciousness we would call ‘neutral,’ compared to the two opposites (duality) to which man’s consciousness is divided and on which it often has its focus.

  As some of us are now aware, Kircher, who was also living in Rome, became a close friend of Poussin and visited him often. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Poussin learned much from Kircher – information about the Giza monuments that he then encoded in his paintings, and perhaps on the suggestion and guidance of Kircher.

  There is more about the All-Seeing Eye in the Pyramidion or capstone.

  As I later discovered, the pyramidion is angled at 23.5 degrees - being the obliquity angle of the earth's polar axis. This angle of 23.5 degrees is also associated with the the code in Poussin's paintings, and again, it is all leading to the Great Pyramid of Giza and the encoded information in the pyramid regarding the tilt of the earth's axis. See here:

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