The opening riff of “Thunderstruck” is a flash in the dark, the violent descent of a force that splits the heavens apart. This bolt is the arrow of a higher order, the discharge of a current that belongs to realms above the seven planetary spheres. This is the domain of the Ogdoad, the Eighth Heaven, where the fixed stars sing in unison beyond the cycles of time. The name of the band itself, AC/DC, carries the signature of that current. Alternating and direct, two faces of the same energy, a principle that strikes without warning, shattering illusions so that Light may pass through. The lightning is the voice of God to Job, the sword of Michael, the blinding radiance on the road to Damascus. It is the crack that redeems the Tower in the Tarot, turning ruin into revelation.
I. The Lightning and the Name
The name AC/DC stands as a modern sigil. It speaks of raw voltage, channels that either oscillate or run in a straight, unbroken line. This current recalls the dual nature of Divine energy: it can pulse through the fabric of creation in rhythms that ascend and descend, or it can pour down as a single stroke that alters everything it touches. “Thunderstruck” embodies that second mode. The opening guitar figure is an incantation, as it repeats itself with mechanical precision, calling down the storm.
In the ancient world, lightning was always a sign from the highest realm. Zeus hurled it as a weapon. In the prophetic books, it marked the arrival of the Lord’s judgement. The electric imagery of AC/DC turns this symbol into sound and, when it reaches the listener, works like the lightning on the mountaintop.
Lightning is not passive. It chooses its path and, when it strikes, it leaves behind a different landscape. In this sense, “Thunderstruck” may be read as an enactment of the moment when the Divine decides to intervene. It is the irruption of the infinite into the finite. For those with eyes to see, it is a sign that the veil has been torn and the Light from beyond the planets is now falling into the world.
II. Uranus and the Eighth Heaven
Uranus is the planet of sudden change and revelation. Its nature is electric, unpredictable, and transformative. Positioned above Saturn, the ruler of the limits of form, Uranus signals the breaking of the old structure. It is the first step into the infinite expanse beyond the planetary spheres. In late antiquity, the Ogdoad stood as this realm beyond the seven. The number eight was a leap into a new order. It represented the sphere of the fixed stars, the place of permanence and divine patterns, untouched by the shifting heavens below.
The Ogdoad was celebrated in the Egyptian temples of Hermopolis as the primal ensemble of gods who gave birth to the sun. In Gnostic tradition, it was the realm of Sophia and the fullness of light. The lightning of Uranus is the key that unlocks this gate. To be “thunderstruck” in this higher sense is to be seized by the power of the Eighth Heaven, to be pulled out of the temporal circuits and shown a pattern that is eternal.
The guitar and beat in “Thunderstruck” acts as aural Uranus. The track embodies the quality of the eighth: something outside the normal scale, above the ordered week. In the Tarot, Uranus is attached with the Fool, the unnumbered card that exists at the beginning and the end, and with the Tower when seen as the necessary crack that lets the higher light in. This is the paradox: the same strike that destroys is the one that liberates.
III. The Redeemed Tower
The Tower in the Tarot is often feared. Its image is of a fortress struck by lightning, flames pouring from its crown, figures falling into the void. But there is another way to read it. When the lightning is Divine, the collapse release. The walls fall so that the prisoner can see the sky. The crown shatters so that the head can be anointed by a higher fire.
The redeemer’s strike is always sudden. It may come as sound, as vision, as pure knowing. When it comes, the only response is awe. One cannot rebuild the old Tower; the point is to walk out into the Light. The eighth thunder remakes the ground, rewrites the map, and renews the heart. To be thunderstruck in this way is to be marked forever by the touch of the Divine current, the one that comes from beyond the planets and will return there when its Work is done.
Fiat Lux.