[RexNorton]

Part III: The Riddle of the Promised Land
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Sephiroth's name comes from the Jewish mystical text, the Kaballah. Sephiroth's goal in the game is his Jenova influenced desire to converge with the Planet and become a God. The murder of Aeris manipulates the player into hating Sephiroth, thus diverting our attention from the fact that he is really just a tragic character who is being manipulated by Jenova. Note the look of horror on his face as he dies. Sephiroth obviously wasn't afraid of dying. It was his goal to kill his body and become a new life form. His fear at the end of the game seems to imply a terrifying revelation, as if he has suddenly realized what was being done to him and the terrible actions it caused him to perform. Personally, I like to think that Sephiroth's life energy visits his real mother, Lucretia, to say good-bye and then returns to the planet.

The Sefirot of the Kaballah represents the ten branches of the Tree of Life, which are interconnected by twenty-two paths. The first nine branches are symbolized in the game by its 9 heroes. The tenth branch is called Malkut and is characterized by Harry Gersh in his work, "The Sacred Book of the Jews," like this, "Malkut has no special attributes but is a kind of funnel through which the qualities of the upper nine sefirot are transmitted to the physical world. It is therefore also called Shechinah, the Spirit of God."
Malkut, the tenth branch, is portrayed in the game by the White Materia (Remember
what Aeris first says about the White Materia, "...but mine is special. It is good for absolutely nothing." This quote from George Sassoon and Rodney Dale in their work, "The Mana Machine," illustrates Sephiroth and his fate perfectly, "To the Babylonians, it [the Tree of Life] was a tree with magical fruit, which could only be picked from the gods. Dire consequences befell any mortal who dared to pluck from its branches."
The Kaballah also speaks of an eleventh, hidden branch. This branch is called Da'ath and is represented in the game by the Lifestream. This quote from Rebecca Salem describes the Da'ath, "Here is the highest point of the human mind: the home of the brainstorm or creative energy that is brought into manifestation on the earthly plain."
In Celtic Mythology, the development of which was highly influenced by the mystical ideas found in the Kaballah, magic is a process of altering the structure of the physical reality through the sheer force of ones own will. The use of magic requires one to gain mastery over the five elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Spirit and use them in the construction of spells. Note how this parallels the magical system of Final Fantasy (and almost every other RPG in existence), which features magical spells based on all these elements. As Bugenhagen puts it when he first meets Cloud, "Spirit energy is a word you should never forget."
Celtic Mythology often uses numbers to symbolize mystical ideas. Three and all multiples of three are the fundamental numbers which were believed to have magical power. Nine was considered the most important of these multiples for its ability to return to itself. If you multiply nine by any single digit number and then add the two numbers you get as your answer, their sum will always be nine (Example: 2x9=18, 1+8=9 / 6x9=54, 5+4=9).
In Final Fantasy VII, the number 3 and all its multiples are employed in a strange repetition. (Just before the final battle, Barrett says, "Look at the number.") Here is a list of some examples.
1. There are three characters in the player's party at any one time.
2. There are nine characters in the game total (Note that Sephiroth is in your party briefly during Clouds flashback bringing the number to 10, the same number as the branches found on the tree of life. This is another way of symbolizing that Sephiroth is a victim, not a villain.)
3. There are three incarnations of Jenova fought during the game (Jenova Birth, Life, and Death)
4. There are six primary characters which lead the Shinra at the beginning of the game (President Shinra, Hojo, Scarlet, Heidegger, Palmer, and Reeve) When President Shinra
dies, Rufus immediately shows up, stabilizing the number.
5. On the world map, there are a total of thirty locations which can be entered (I counted these up by looking at the world map in the official strategy guide. There were actually 36 locations, but six of them were just chocobo tracks, although this still comes to another multiple of three.)
6. Each character has 6 Limit Break attacks which come naturally to them (except Cait Sith, who only has two, which is one third of six, and is not a real character, but rather Reeve of Shinra.) The seventh limit break can only come through mastery of the fist six.
7. Aeris, the true hero, is the third character we meet in the game (after Cloud and Barrett). Note that we don't learn Aeris' name until after we meet Tifa, making her seem to be character number four (another contrast between the 'apparent' and 'hidden' realities of the story.)
8. In the game's final battle, we fight four different monsters. Yet each of these four monsters represents 3 different forms of both Sephiroth and Jenova. Numerically, the
pattern can be illustrated like this, with the left side representing Jenova and the right side, Sephiroth: 1-2/3-3/2-1. If you add these numbers up (1+2+3+2+3+1) you will get 12, another multiple of 3. Note that 4 (the number of battles) times 3(the number of forms of Jenova and Sephiroth) also equals 12. If you add only the center numbers of the conversion up (2+3+2+3) you will get 10, the number of spheres on the Tree of Life, which represents the state of immortality that Sephiroth/Jenova are trying to attain.
9. There are 69 floors in the Shinra headquarters. '69' is a numerical symbol for convergence (as well as being... well, you know <g> ). Shinra translates as meaning 'God.' If you put these to words into a sentence summarizing Jenova's goal in the game you'll come up with something like, "Jenova wishes to destroy the planet and 'converge' with its Lifestream energy to become a 'God.'" (Square sure did put some intense planning into this game, didn't they?)
10. There are 241 species of monsters spread throughout this game (not counting the final battle). Multiply 2x4 and then add 1 and you will get 9.
11. The first Cait Sith is destroyed in the Temple of Ancients and is replaced by another. Add another 1 (Reeve) to this 2 and you get 3.
12. In the Mural room in the Temple of Ancients, there are nine pillars in the room, eight on the wall and one different looking pillar, characterized by a sphere at its top, that is located on the altar on the right side of the room. There are eight torches in the room with another point of light represented by the Black Materia illusion floating above the pillar. The Black Materia illusion is a light color when we first see it, but turns dark after we touch it.