The phrase “over the moon” means extreme joy and has religious meanings in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The number seven is significant in these religions and symbolizes completeness. The phrase is associated with the luck, wisdom, and positive feelings of Cassiel, an archangel who oversees the seventh heaven in Judaism.
Fortunate is the person who is over the moon, a state of absolute bliss and contentment or extreme joy. While the phrase is often used specifically to mean heaven on earth, being over the moon has specific religious meanings for some groups, and reference to it even exists in the writings of ancient astronomers. From an astronomical point of view, the seven bodies of the heavens were numbered. Before the advent of the telescope, the farthest body seen was Saturn, and it was literally the seventh heaven, where people believed that the souls of the dead met God.
In some sects of Judaism, heaven is seen as divided into seven parts. The seventh heaven is called Araboth. It is the home of the Cherubim, the Seraphim and the Seven Archangels. An archangel oversees each heaven and Cassiel guides Araboth. There is some relation to the colloquialism and characteristics of Cassiel. He is associated with luck, wisdom and extremely positive feelings. Thus, in a sense, the use of the phrase suggests a small mental encounter with Cassiel’s attributes. A statement like, “I would be over the moon if I won the lottery,” is based on Cassiel’s association with luck, even if the speaker is unaware of the connection.
Islam also divides heaven into seven levels, referring to the seventh and highest level as al-Wasilah. According to Islamic thought, only a person can reach this seventh heaven, and that honor is usually reserved for Muhammad. In Muhammad’s spiritual journeys, he describes each of the heavens and is afforded a brief glimpse of al-Wasilah.
Christianity too has a multi-layered view of heaven, although many Christians argue that it’s virtually impossible to figure out exactly what heaven will look like. St. Paul refers to Christ in the third heaven, and then there is Dante’s interpretation of the levels of heaven, hell and purgatory. Dante describes nine circles of hell, seven terraces of purgatory and nine spheres of heaven.
There have been numerous interpretations of why the number seven still gets associated with heaven. People who study the symbolic aspect of numbers consider seven to be particularly important. Seven are the days of the week. It is also the sum of three and four, numbers traditionally attributed to masculine and feminine or animus and anima, as Carl Jung called them. A marriage between masculine and feminine to create seven is considered whole and perfect. Jung and Joseph Campbell point out numerous instances of cults used in various mythologies to indicate that a person has made a complete hero’s journey and is now “complete” or individualized. So being over the moon is the happiness Campbell claims we try to follow and find.
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