2320 lines
114 KiB
Plaintext
2320 lines
114 KiB
Plaintext
(6067) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:27
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By: Grendel
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To: all
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Re: Kabala
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St:
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63177559
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Notes on Kabbalah (a continuing series of many parts)
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Copyright Colin Low 1991 (cal@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
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Chapter 1.: The Tree of Life
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At the root of the Kabbalistic view of the world are three
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fundamental concepts and they provide a natural place to begin.
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The three concepts are force, form and consciousness and these
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words are used in an abstract way, as the following examples
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illustrate:
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- high pressure steam in the cylinder of a steam engine
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provides a force. The engine is a form which constrains the
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force.
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- a river runs downhill under the force of gravity. The
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river channel is a form which constrains the water to run in
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a well defined path.
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- someone wants to get to the centre of a garden maze. The
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hedges are a form which constrain that person's ability to
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walk as they please.
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- a diesel engine provides the force which drives a boat
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forwards. A rudder constrains its course to a given
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direction.
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- a polititian wants to change the law. The legislative
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framework of the country is a form which he or she must
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follow if the change is to be made legally.
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- water sits in a bowl. The force of gravity pulls the water
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down. The bowl is a form which gives its shape to the water.
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- a stone falls to the ground under the force of gravity.
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Its acceleration is constrained to be equal to the force
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divided by the mass of the stone.
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- I want to win at chess. The force of my desire to win is
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constrained within the rules of chess.
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- I see something in a shop window and have to have it. I am
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constrained by the conditions of sale (do I have enough
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money, is it in stock).
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- cordite explodes in a gun barrel and provides an explosive
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force on a bullet. The gas and the bullet are constrained by
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the form of the gun barrel.
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- I want to get a passport. The government won't give me one
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unless I fill in lots of forms in precisely the right way.
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- I want a university degree. The university won't give me
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a degree unless I attend certain courses and pass various
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assessments.
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In all these examples there is something which is causing change
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to take place ("a force") and there is something which causes
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change to take place in a defined way ("a form"). Without being
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too pedantic it is possible to identify two very different types
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of example here:
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1. examples of natural physical processes (e.g. a falling
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stone) where the force is one of the natural forces known to
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physics (e.g. gravity) and the form is is some combination
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of physical laws which constrain the force to act in a well
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defined way.
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2. examples of people wanting something, where the force is
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some ill-defined concept of "desire", "will", or "drives",
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and the form is one of the forms we impose upon ourselves
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(the rules of chess, the Law, polite behaviour etc.).
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Despite the fact that the two different types of example are
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"only metaphorically similar", Kabbalists see no fundamental
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distiniction between them. To the Kabbalist there are forces
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which cause change in the natural world, and there are
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corresponding psychological forces which drive us to change both
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the world and ourselves, and whether these forces are natural or
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psychological they are rooted in the same place: consciousness.
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Similarly, there are forms which the component parts of the
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physical world seem to obey (natural laws) and there are
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completely arbitrary forms we create as part of the process of
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living (the rules of a game, the shape of a mug, the design of an
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engine, the syntax of a language) and these forms are also rooted
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in the same place: consciousness. It is a Kabbalistic axiom that
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there is a prime cause which underpins all the manifestations of
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force and form in both the natural and psychological world and
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that prime cause I have called consciousness for lack of a better
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word.
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Consciousness is undefinable. We know that we are conscious
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in different ways at different times - sometimes we feel free and
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happy, at other times trapped and confused, sometimes angry and
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passionate, sometimes cold and restrained - but these words
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describe manifestations of consciousness. We can define the
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manifestations of consciousness in terms of manifestations of
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consciousness, which is about as useful as defining an ocean in
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terms of waves and foam. Anyone who attempts to define
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consciousness itself tends to come out of the same door as they
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went in. We have lots of words for the phenomena of consciousness
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- thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, emotions, motives and so
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on - but few words for the states of consciousness which give
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rise to these phenomena, just as we have many words to describe
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the surface of a sea, but few words to describe its depths.
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Kabbalah provides a vocabulary for states of consciousness
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underlying the phenomena, and one of the purposes of these notes
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is to explain this vocabulary, not by definition, but mostly by
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metaphor and analogy. The only genuine method of understanding
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what the vocabulary means is by attaining various states of
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consciousness in a predictable and reasonably objective way, and
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Kabbalah provides practical methods for doing this.
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A fundamental premise of the Kabbalistic model of reality is
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that there is a pure, primal, and undefinable state of
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consciousness which manifests as an interaction between force and
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form. This is virtually the entire guts of the Kabbalistic view
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of things, and almost everything I have to say from now on is
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based on this trinity of consciousness, force, and form.
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Consciousness comes first, but hidden within it is an inherent
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duality; there is an energy associated with consciousness which
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causes change (force), and there is a capacity within
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consciousness to constrain that energy and cause it to manifest
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in a well-defined way (form).
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First Principle
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of
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/ Consciousness \
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/ \
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/ \
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Capacity Raw
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to take ________________ Energy
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Form
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Figure 1.
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What do we get out of raw energy and an inbuilt capacity for form
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and structure? Is there yet another hidden potential within this
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trinity waiting to manifest? There is. If modern physics is to be
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believed we get matter and the physical world. The cosmological
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Big Bang model of raw energy surging out from an infintesimal
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point and condensing into basic forms of matter as it cools, then
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into stars and galaxies, then planets, and ultimately living
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creatures, has many points of similarity with the Kabbalistic
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model. In the Big Bang model a soup of energy condenses according
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to some yet-to-be-formulated Grand-Universal-Theory into our
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physical world. What Kabbalah does suggest (and modern physics
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most certainly does not!) is that matter and consciousness are
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the same stuff, and differ only in the degree of structure
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imposed - matter is consciousness so heavily structured and
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constrained that its behaviour becomes describable using the
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regular and simple laws of physics. This is shown in Fig. 2. The
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primal, first principle of consciousness is synonymous with the
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idea of "God".
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First Principle
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of
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/ Consciousness \
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/ | \
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/ | \
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Capacity | Raw
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to take _____________ Energy/Force
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Form |
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\ | /
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\ | /
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\ | /
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Matter
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The World
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Figure 2
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The glyph in Fig. 2 is the basis for the Tree of Life. The first
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principle of consciousness is called Kether, which means Crown.
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The raw energy of consciousness is called Chockhmah or Wisdom,
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and the capacity to give form to the energy of consciousness is
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called Binah, which is sometimes translated as Understanding, and
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sometimes as Intelligence. The outcome of the interaction of
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force and form, the physical world, called Malkuth or Kingdom.
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This quaternery is a Kabbalistic representation of God-the-
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Knowable, in the sense that it the most primitive representation
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of God we are capable of comprehending; paradoxically, Kabbalah
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also contains a notion of God-the-Unknowable which transcends
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this glyph, and is called En Soph. There is not much I can say
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about En Soph, and what I can say I will postpone for later.
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God-the-Knowable has four aspects, two male and two female:
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Kether and Chokhmah are both represented as male, and Binah and
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Malkuth are represented as female. One of the titles of Chokhmah
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is Abba, which means Father, and one of the titles of Binah is
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Aima, which means Mother, so you can think of Chokhmah as God-
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the-Father, and Binah as God-the-Mother. Malkuth is the
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daughter, the female spirit of God-as-Matter, and it would not be
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wildly wrong to think of her as Mother Earth. One of the more
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pleasant things about Kabbalah is that its symbolism gives equal
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place to both male and female.
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And what of God-the-Son? Is there also a God-the-Son in
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Kabbalah? There is, and this is the point where Kabbalah tackles
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the interesting problem of thee and me. The glyph in Fig. 2 is a
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model of consciousness, but not of self-consciousness, and self-
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consciousness throws an interesting spanner in the works.
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The Fall
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Self-consciousness is like a mirror in which consciousness
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sees itself reflected. Self-consciousness is modelled in Kabbalah
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by making a copy of figure 2.
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Consciousness
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of
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/ Consciousness \
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/ | \
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/ | \
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Consciousness | Consciousness
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of ________________ of
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Form | Energy/Force
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Consciousness
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of the
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World
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Figure 3
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Figure 3. is Figure 2. reflected through self-consciousness. The
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overall effect of self-consciousness is to add an additional
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layer to Figure 2. as follows:
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First Principle
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of
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/ Consciousness \
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/ | \
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/ | \
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Capacity | Raw
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to take _____________ Energy/Force
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Form |
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\ | /
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\ | /
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\ | /
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Consciousness
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of
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/ Consciousness \
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/ | \
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/ | \
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Consciousness | Consciousness
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of ________________ of
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Form | Energy/Force
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\ | /
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\ | /
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\ | /
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Consciousness
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of the
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World
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Matter
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The World
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Figure 4
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--- FD 1.99c
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* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
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(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
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PATH: 5004/9
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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(6068) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:28
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By: Grendel
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To: all
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Re: kab 2
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St:
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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@MSGID: 84:5004/9 631777d7
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Fig. 2 is sometimes called "the Garden of Eden" because it
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represents a primal state of consciousness. The effect of self-
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consciousness as shown in Fig. 4 is to drive a wedge between the
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First Principle of Consciousness (Kether) and that Consciousness
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realised as matter and the physical world (Malkuth). This is
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called "the Fall", after the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden
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of Eden. From a Kabbalistic point of view the story of Eden, with
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the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent and the
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temptation, and the casting out from the Garden has a great deal
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of meaning in terms of understanding the evolution of
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consciousness.
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Self-consciousness introduces four new states of
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consciousness: the Consciousness of Consciousness is called
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Tipheret, which means Beauty; the Consciousness of Force/Energy
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is called Netzach, which means Victory or Firmness; the
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Consciousness of Form is called Hod, which means Splendour or
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Glory, and the Consciousness of Matter is called Yesod, which
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means Foundation. These four states have readily observable
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manifestations, as shown below in Fig. 5:
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The Self
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Self-Importance
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Self-Sacrifice
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/ | \
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/ | \
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Language | Emotions
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Abstraction_______________Drives
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Reason | Feelings
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\ Perception /
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Imagination
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Instinct
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Reproduction
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Figure 5
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Figure 4. is almost the complete Tree of Life, but not quite -
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there are still two states missing. The inherent capacity of
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consciousness to take on structure and objectify itself (Binah,
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God-the-Mother) is reflected through self-consciousness as a
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perception of the limitedness and boundedness of things. We are
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conscious of space and time, yesterday and today, here and there,
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you and me, in and out, life and death, whole and broken,
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together and apart. We see things as limited and bounded and we
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have a perception of form as something "created" and "destroyed".
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My car was built a year ago, but it was smashed yesterday. I
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wrote an essay, but I lost it when my computer crashed. My granny
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is dead. The river changed its course. A law has been repealed. I
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broke my coffee mug. The world changes, and what was here
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yesterday is not here today. This perception acts like an
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"interface" between the quaternary of consciousness which
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represents "God", and the quaternary which represents a living
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self-conscious being, and two new states are introduced to
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represent this interface. The state which represents the creation
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of new forms is called Chesed, which means Mercy, and the state
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which represents the destruction of forms is called Gevurah,
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which means Strength. This is shown in Fig. 6. The
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objectification of forms which takes place in a self-conscious
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being, and the consequent tendency to view the world in terms of
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limitations and dualities (time and space, here and there, you
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and me, in and out, God and Man, good and evil...) produces a
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barrier to perception which most people rarely overcome, and for
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this reason it has come to be called the Abyss. The Abyss is also
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marked on Figure 6.
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First Principle
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of
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/ Consciousness \
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/ | \
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/ | \
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Capacity | Raw
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to take _____________ Energy/Force
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Form | |
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--------------Abyss---------------
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Destruction | Creation
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of_____\_____|_____ /____of
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Form \ | / Form
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| \ Consciousness / |
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| of |
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| / Consciousness \ |
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|/ | \|
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Consciousness | Consciousness
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of ________________ of
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\ Form | Energy/Force
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\ \ | / /
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\ \ | / /
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\ \ | / /
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\ Consciousness /
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\ of /
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\ the World /
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\ /
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Matter
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The World
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Figure 6
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The diagram in Fig. 6 is called the Tree of Life. The
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"constructionist" approach I have used to justify its structure
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is a little unusual, but the essence of my presentation can be
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found in the "Zohar" under the guise of the Macroprosopus and
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Microprosopus, although in this form it is not readily accessible
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to the average reader. My attempt to show how the Tree of Life
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can be derived out of pure consciousness through the interaction
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of an abstract notion of force and form was not intended to be a
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convincing exercise from an intellectual point of view - the Tree
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of Life is primarily a gnostic rather than a rational or
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intellectual explanation of consciousness and its interaction
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with the physical world.
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The Tree is composed of 10 states or sephiroth (sephiroth
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plural, sephira singular) and 22 interconnecting paths. The age
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of this diagram is unknown: there is enough information in the
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13th. century "Sepher ha Zohar" to construct this diagram, and
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the doctrine of the sephiroth has been attributed to Isaac the
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Blind in the 12th. century, but we have no certain knowledge of
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its origin. It probably originated sometime in the interval
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between the 6th. and 13th. centuries AD. The origin of the word
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"sephira" is unclear - it is almost certainly derived from the
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Hebrew word for "number" (SPhR), but it has also been attributed
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to the Greek word for "sphere" and even to the Hebrew word for a
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sapphire (SPhIR). With a characteristic aptitude for discovering
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hidden meanings everywhere, Kabbalists find all three derivations
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useful, so take your pick.
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In the language of earlier Kabbalistic writers the sephiroth
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represented ten primeval emanations of God, ten focii through
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which the energy of a hidden, absolute and unknown Godhead (En
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Soph) propagated throughout the creation, like white light
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passing through a prism. The sephiroth can be interpreted as
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aspects of God, as states of consciousness, or as nodes akin to
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the Chakras in the occult anatomy of a human being .
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I have left out one important detail from the structure of
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the Tree. There is an eleventh "something" which is definitely
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*not* a sephira, but is often shown on modern representations of
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the Tree. The Kabbalistic "explanation" runs as follows: when
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Malkuth "fell" out of the Garden of Eden (Fig. 2) it left behind
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a "hole" in the fabric of the Tree, and this "hole", located in
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the centre of the Abyss, is called Daath, or Knowledge. Daath is
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*not* a sephira; it is a hole. This may sound like gobbledy-gook,
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and in the sense that it is only a metaphor, it is.
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--- FD 1.99c
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* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
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(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
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PATH: 5004/9
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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(6069) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:28
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By: Grendel
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To: all
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Re: Kab 3
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St:
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63177a48
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The completed Tree of Life with the Hebrew titles of the
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sephiroth is shown below in Fig. 7.
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En Soph
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/-------------------------\
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/ \
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( Kether )
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/ (Crown) \
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/ | \
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/ | \
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/ | \
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Binah | Chokhmah
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(Understanding)__________ (Wisdom)
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(Intelligence) | |
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| \ Daath / |
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| \ (Knowledge) / |
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| \ | / |
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Gevurah \ | / Chesed
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(Strength)\_____|_____/__ (Mercy)
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| \ | / (Love)
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| \ \ | / / |
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| \ \ | / / |
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| \ Tipheret / |
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| / (Beauty) \ |
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| / | \ |
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| / | \ |
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|/ | \|
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Hod | Netzach
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(Glory) _______________(Victory)
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(Splendour) | (Firmness)
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\ \ | / /
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\ \ | / /
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\ \ | / /
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\ \ | / /
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\ \ Yesod / /
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\ (Foundation) /
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\ /
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\ | /
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\ | /
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Malkuth
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(Kingdom)
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Figure 7
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From an historical point of view the doctrine of emanations and
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the Tree of Life are only one small part of a huge body of
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Kabbalistic speculation about the nature of divinity and our part
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in creation, but it is the part which has survived. The Tree
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continues to be used in the Twentieth Century because it has
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proved to be a useful and productive symbol for practices of a
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magical, mystical and religious nature. Modern Kabbalah in the
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Western Mystery Tradition is largely concerned with the
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understanding and practical application of the Tree of Life, and
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the following set of notes will list some of the characteristics
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of each sephira in more detail so that you will have a "snapshot"
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of what each sephira represents before going on to examine the
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sephiroth and the "deep structure" of the Tree in more detail.
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Notes on Kabbalah (a continuing series of many parts)
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Copyright Colin Low 1991 (cal@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
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--- FD 1.99c
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* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
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(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
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PATH: 5004/9
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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(6070) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:29
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By: Grendel
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To: all
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Re: Kab 4
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St:
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63177bd6
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Chapter 2.: Sephirothic Correspondences
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The correspondences are a set of symbols, associations and
|
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qualities which provide a handle on the elusive something a
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sephira represents. Some of the correspondences are hundreds of
|
|
years old, many were concocted this century, and some are my own;
|
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some fit very well, and some are obscure - oddly enough it is
|
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often the most obscure and ill-fitting correspondence which is
|
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most productive; like a Zen riddle it perplexes and annoys the
|
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mind until it arrives at the right place more in spite of the
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correspondence than because of it.
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There are few canonical correspondences; some of the
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sephiroth have alternative names, some of the names have
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alternative translations, the mapping from Hebrew spellings to
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the English alphabet varies from one author to the next, and
|
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inaccuracies and accretions are handed down like the family
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silver. I keep my Hebrew dictionary to hand but guarantee none of
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the English spellings.
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The correspondences I have given are as follows:
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1. The Meaning is a translation of the Hebrew name of the
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sephira.
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2. The Planet in most cases is the planet associated with
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the sephira. In some cases it is not a planet at all
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(e.g. the fixed stars). The planets are ordered
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by decreasing apparent motion - this is one
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correspondence which appears to pre-date Copernicus!
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3. The Element is the physical element (earth, water, air,
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fire, aethyr) which has most in common with the nature
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of the Sephira. The Golden Dawn applied an excess of
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logic to these attributions and made a mess of them, to
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the confusion of many. Only the five Lower Face
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sephiroth have been attributed an element.
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4. Briatic colour. This is the colour of the sephira as
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seen in the world of Creation, Briah. There are colour
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scales for the other three worlds but I haven't found
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them to be useful in practical work.
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5. Magical Image. Useful in meditiations; some are astute.
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6. The Briatic Correspondence is an abstract quality
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which says something about the essence of the way the
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sephira expresses itself.
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7. The Illusion characterises the way in which the energy
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of the sephira clouds one's judgement; it is something
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which is *obviously* true. Most people suffer from one
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or more of these according to their temperament.
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8. The Obligation is a personal quality which is demanded
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of an initiate at this level.
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9. The Virtue and Vice are the energy of the sephiroth as
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it manifests in a positive and negative sense in the
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personality.
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10. Klippoth is a word which means "shell". In medieval
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Kabbalah each sephira was "seen" to be adding form to
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the sephira which preceded it in the Lightning Flash
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(see Chapter 3.). Form was seen to an accretion, a shell
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around the pure divine energy of the Godhead, and each
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layer or shell hid the divine radiance a little bit
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more, until God was buried in form and exiled in matter,
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the end-point of the process. At the time attitudes to
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matter were tainted with the Manichean notion that
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matter was evil, a snare for the spirit, and
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consequently the Klippoth or shells were "demonised" and
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actually turned into demons. The correspondence I have
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given here restores the original notion of a shell of
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form *without* the corresponding force to activate it;
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it is the lifeless, empty husk of a sephira devoid of
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force, and while it isn't a literal demon, it is hardly
|
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a bundle of laughs when you come across it.
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11. The Command refers to the Four Powers of the Sphinx,
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with an extra one added for good measure.
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12. The Spiritual Experience is just that.
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13. The Titles are a collection of alternative names for the
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sephira; most are very old.
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14. The God Name is a key to invoking the power of the
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sephira in the world of emanation, Atziluth.
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13. The Archangel mediates the energy of the sephira in the
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world of creation, Briah.
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14. The Angel Order administers the energy of the sephira in
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the world of formation, Yetzirah.
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15. The Keywords are a collection of phrases which summarise
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key aspects of the sephira.
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--- FD 1.99c
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* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
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(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
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PATH: 5004/9
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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(6071) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:29
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By: Grendel
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To: all
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Re: kab 5
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St:
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63177e05
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=================================================================
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Sephira: Malkuth Meaning: Kingdom
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------- -------
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Planet: Cholem Yesodeth Element: earth
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--------(the Breaker of -------
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the Foundations, sphere of the elements, the Earth)
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Briatic Colour: brown Number: 10
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------------- (citrine, russet-red,------
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olive green, black)
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Magical Image: a young woman crowned and throned
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-------------
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Briatic Correspondence: stability
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----------------------
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Illusion: materialism Obligation: discipline
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-------- ----------
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Virtue: discrimination Vice: avarice & inertia
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------ ----
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Klippoth: stasis Command: keep silent
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-------- -------
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Spiritual Experience: Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel
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------
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Titles: The Gate; Gate of Death; Gate of Tears; Gate of Justice;
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------ The Inferior Mother; Malkah, the Queen; Kallah, the
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Bride; the Virgin.
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------
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God Name: Adonai ha Aretz Archangel: Sandalphon
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-------- Adonai Malekh ---------
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Angel Order: Ishim
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-----------
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Keywords:the real world, physical matter, the Earth, Mother
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Earth, the physical elements, the natural world, sticks
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& stones, possessions, faeces, practicality, solidity,
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stability, inertia, heaviness, bodily death, incarnation.
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=================================================================
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Sephira: Yesod Meaning: Foundation
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------- -------
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Planet: Levanah (the Moon) Element: Aethyr
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-------------- -------
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Briatic Colour: purple Number: 9
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------------- ------
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Magical Image: a beautiful man, very strong (e.g. Atlas)
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-------------
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Briatic Correspondence: receptivity, perception
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----------------------
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Illusion: security Obligation: trust
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-------- ----------
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Virtue: independence Vice: idleness
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------ ----
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Klippoth: zombieism, robotism Command: go!
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-------- -------
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Spiritual Experience: Vision of the Machinery of the Universe
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--------------------
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Titles: The Treasure House of Images
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------
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God Name: Shaddai el Chai Archangel: Gabriel
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-------- ---------
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Angel Order: Cherubim
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----------
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Keywords: perception, interface, imagination, image, appearance,
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glamour, the Moon, the unconscious, instinct, tides,
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illusion, hidden infrastructure, dreams, divination,
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anything as it seems to be and not as it is, mirrors
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and crystals, the "Astral Plane", Aethyr, glue,
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tunnels, sex & reproduction, the genitals, cosmetics,
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instinctive magic (psychism), secret doors, shamanic
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tunnel.
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=============================================================
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Sephira: Hod Meaning: Glory, Splendour
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------- -------
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Planet: Kokab (Mercury) Element: air
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------ -------
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Briatic Colour: orange Number: 8
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------------- ------
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Magical Image: an hermaphrodite
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-------------
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Briatic Correspondence: abstraction
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----------------------
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Illusion: order Obligation: learn
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-------- ----------
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Virtue: honesty, truthfulness Vice: dishonesty
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------ ----
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Klippoth: rigidity Command: will
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--------
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Spiritual Experience: Vision of Splendour
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------
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Titles: -
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------
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God Name: Elohim Tzabaoth Archangel: Raphael
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-------- ---------
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Angel Order: Beni Elohim
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Keywords: reason, abstraction, communication, conceptualisation,
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logic, the sciences, language, speech, money (as a
|
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concept), mathematics, medicine & healing, trickery,
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writing, media (as communication), pedantry,
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philosophy, Kabbalah (as an abstract system), protocol,
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the Law, ownership, territory, theft, "Rights", ritual
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magic.
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===============================================================
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Sephira: Netzach Meaning: Victory, Firmness
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------- -------
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Planet: Nogah (Venus) Element: water
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-------------- -------
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Briatic Colour: green Number: 7
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------------- ------
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Magical Image: a beautiful naked woman
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-------------
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Briatic Correspondence: nurture
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----------------------
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Illusion: projection Obligation: responsibility
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-------- ----------
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Virtue: unselfishness Vice: selfishness
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------ ----
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Klippoth: habit, routine Command: know
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--------
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Spiritual Experience: Vision of Beauty Triumphant
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------
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Titles: -
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------
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God Name: Jehovah Tzabaoth Archangel: Haniel
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-------- ---------
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Angel Order: Elohim
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----------
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|
Keywords: passion, pleasure, luxury, sensual beauty, feelings,
|
|
drives, emotions - love, hate, anger, joy, depression,
|
|
misery, excitement, desire, lust; nurture, libido,
|
|
empathy, sympathy, ecstatic magic.
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6072) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:29
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: all
|
|
Re: Kab 6
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
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@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63177f77
|
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|
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================================================================
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Sephira: Tipheret Meaning: Beauty
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------- -------
|
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Planet: Shemesh (the Sun) Element: fire
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-------------- -------
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Briatic Colour: yellow Number: 6
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------------- ------
|
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Magical Image: a king, a child, a sacrificed god
|
|
-------------
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Briatic Correspondence: centrality, wholeness
|
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----------------------
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Illusion: identification Obligation: integrity
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-------- ----------
|
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Virtue: devotion to the Great Work Vice: pride, self-importance
|
|
------ ----
|
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Klippoth: hollowness Command: dare
|
|
--------
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Spiritual Experience: Vision of Harmony
|
|
--------------------
|
|
|
|
Titles: Melekh, the King; Zoar Anpin, the lesser countenance, the
|
|
------ Microprosopus; the Son; Rachamin, charity.
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|
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God Name: Aloah va Daath Archangel: Michael
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|
-------- ---------
|
|
Angel Order: Malachim
|
|
-----------
|
|
Keywords: harmony, integrity, balance, wholeness, the Self, self-
|
|
importance, self-sacrifice, the Son of God, centrality,
|
|
the Philospher's Stone, identity, the solar plexus,
|
|
a King, the Great Work.
|
|
|
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================================================================
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Sephira: Gevurah Meaning: Strength
|
|
------- -------
|
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Planet: Madim (Mars)
|
|
--------------
|
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Briatic Colour: red Number: 5
|
|
------------- ------
|
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Magical Image: a mighty warrior
|
|
-------------
|
|
Briatic Correspondence: power
|
|
----------------------
|
|
Illusion: invincibility Obligation: courage & loyalty
|
|
-------- ----------
|
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Virtue: courage & energy Vice: cruelty
|
|
------ ----
|
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Klippoth: bureaucracy
|
|
--------
|
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Spiritual Experience: Vision of Power
|
|
--------------------
|
|
Titles: Pachad, fear; Din, justice.
|
|
------
|
|
God Name: Elohim Gevor Archangel: Kamael
|
|
-------- ---------
|
|
Angel Order: Seraphim
|
|
-----------
|
|
Keywords: power, justice, retribution (eaten cold), the Law (in
|
|
execution), cruelty, oppression, domination & the Power
|
|
Myth, severity, necessary destruction, catabolism,
|
|
martial arts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
===============================================================
|
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Sephira: Chesed Meaning: Mercy
|
|
------- -------
|
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Planet: Tzadekh (Jupiter)
|
|
--------------
|
|
Briatic Colour: blue Number: 4
|
|
------------- ------
|
|
Magical Image: a mighty king
|
|
-------------
|
|
Briatic Correspondence: authority
|
|
----------------------
|
|
Illusion: being right Obligation: humility
|
|
-------- (self-righteousness) ----------
|
|
|
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Virtue: humility & obedience Vice: tyranny, hypocrisy,
|
|
------ ---- bigotry, gluttony
|
|
Klippoth: ideology
|
|
--------
|
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Spiritual Experience: Vision of Love
|
|
--------------------
|
|
Titles: Gedulah, magnificence, love, majesty
|
|
------
|
|
God Name: El Archangel: Tzadkiel
|
|
-------- ---------
|
|
Angel Order: Chasmalim
|
|
-----------
|
|
Keywords: authority, creativity, inspiration, vision, leadership,
|
|
excess, waste, secular and spiritual power, submission
|
|
and the Annihilation Myth, the atom bomb, obliteration,
|
|
birth, service.
|
|
|
|
================================================================
|
|
Non-Sephira: Daath Meaning: Knowledge
|
|
----------- -------
|
|
Daath has no manifest qualities and cannot be invoked directly.
|
|
|
|
Keywords: hole, tunnel, gateway, doorway, black hole, vortex.
|
|
|
|
================================================================
|
|
Sephira: Binah Meaning: Understanding,
|
|
------- -------
|
|
Planet: Shabbathai (Saturn)
|
|
------
|
|
Briatic Colour: black Number: 3
|
|
------------- ------
|
|
Magical Image: an old woman on a throne
|
|
-------------
|
|
Briatic Correspondence: comprehension
|
|
----------------------
|
|
Illusion: death
|
|
--------
|
|
Virtue: silence Vice: inertia
|
|
------ ----
|
|
Klippoth: fatalism
|
|
--------
|
|
Spiritual Experience: Vision of Sorrow
|
|
--------------------
|
|
Titles: Aima, the Mother; Ama, the Crone; Marah, the bitter
|
|
sea; Khorsia, the Throne; the Fifty Gates of
|
|
Understanding; Intelligence; the Mother of Form; the
|
|
Superior Mother.
|
|
|
|
God Name: Elohim Archangel: Cassiel
|
|
-------- ---------
|
|
Angel Order: Aralim
|
|
-----------
|
|
Keywords: limitation, form, constraint, heaviness, slowness, old-
|
|
age, infertility, incarnation, karma, fate, time,
|
|
space, natural law, the womb and gestation, darkness,
|
|
boundedness, enclosure, containment, fertility, mother,
|
|
weaving and spinning, death (annihilation).
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6073) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:30
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: all
|
|
Re: Kab 7
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 631780dd
|
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|
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==================================================================
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Sephira: Chokhmah Meaning: Wisdom
|
|
------- -------
|
|
Planet: Mazlot (the Zodiac, the fixed stars)
|
|
--------------
|
|
Briatic Colour: silver/white Number: 2
|
|
------------- grey ------
|
|
|
|
Magical Image: a bearded man
|
|
-------------
|
|
Briatic Correspondence: revolution
|
|
----------------------
|
|
Illusion: independence
|
|
--------
|
|
Virtue: good Vice: evil
|
|
------ ----
|
|
Klippoth: arbitrariness
|
|
--------
|
|
Spiritual Experience: Vision of God face-to-face
|
|
------
|
|
Titles: Abba, the Father. The Supernal Father.
|
|
------
|
|
God Name: Jah Archangel: Ratziel
|
|
-------- ---------
|
|
Angel Order: Auphanim
|
|
-----------
|
|
Keywords: pure creative energy, lifeforce, the wellspring.
|
|
|
|
|
|
==================================================================
|
|
Sephira: Kether Meaning: Crown
|
|
------- -------
|
|
Planet: Rashith ha Gilgalim (first swirlings, the Big Bang)
|
|
--------------
|
|
Briatic Colour: pure white Number: 1
|
|
------------- ------
|
|
Magical Image: a bearded man seen in profile
|
|
-------------
|
|
Briatic Correspondence: unity
|
|
----------------------
|
|
Illusion: attainment
|
|
--------
|
|
Virtue: attainment Vice: ---
|
|
------ ----
|
|
Klippoth: futility
|
|
--------
|
|
Spiritual Experience: Union with God
|
|
--------------------
|
|
Titles: Ancient of Days, the Greater Countenance
|
|
(Macroprosopus), the White Head, Concealed of the
|
|
Concealed, Existence of Existences, the Smooth Point,
|
|
Rum Maalah, the Highest Point.
|
|
|
|
God Name: Eheieh Archangel: Metatron
|
|
-------- ---------
|
|
Angel Order: Chaioth ha Qadesh
|
|
-----------
|
|
Keywords: unity, union, all, pure consciousness, God, the
|
|
Godhead, manifestation, beginning, source, emanation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Notes on Kabbalah (a continuing series of many parts)
|
|
|
|
Copyright Colin Low 1991 (cal@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
|
|
|
|
Chapter 3: The Pillars & the Lightning Flash
|
|
============================================
|
|
|
|
In Chapter 1. the Tree of Life was derived from three
|
|
concepts, or rather one primary concept and two derivative
|
|
concepts which are "contained" within it. The primary concept was
|
|
called consciousness, and it was said to "contain" within it the
|
|
two complementary concepts of force and form. This chapter builds
|
|
on the idea by introducing the three Pillars of the Tree, and
|
|
uses the Pillars to clarify a process called the Lightning Flash.
|
|
The Three Pillars are shown in Figure 8. below.
|
|
|
|
Pillar Pillar Pillar
|
|
of of of
|
|
Form Consciousness Force
|
|
(Severity) (Mildness) (Mercy)
|
|
|
|
Kether
|
|
/ (Crown) \
|
|
/ | \
|
|
/ | \
|
|
/ | \
|
|
Binah | Chokhmah
|
|
(Understanding)__________ (Wisdom)
|
|
(Intelligence) | |
|
|
|\ | /|
|
|
| \ Daath / |
|
|
| \ (Knowledge) / |
|
|
| \ | / |
|
|
Gevurah \ | / Chesed
|
|
(Strength)\_____|_____/__ (Mercy)
|
|
| \ | / (Love)
|
|
| \ \ | / / |
|
|
| \ \ | / / |
|
|
| \ Tipheret / |
|
|
| / (Beauty) \ |
|
|
| / | \ |
|
|
| / | \ |
|
|
|/ | \|
|
|
Hod | Netzach
|
|
(Glory) _______________(Victory)
|
|
(Splendour) | (Firmness)
|
|
\ \ | / /
|
|
\ \ | / /
|
|
\ \ | / /
|
|
\ \ | / /
|
|
\ \ Yesod / /
|
|
\ (Foundation) /
|
|
\ /
|
|
\ | /
|
|
\ | /
|
|
\ | /
|
|
Malkuth
|
|
(Kingdom)
|
|
|
|
Figure 8
|
|
|
|
Not surprisingly the three pillars are referred to as the pillars
|
|
of consciousness, force and form. The pillar of consciousness
|
|
contains the sephiroth Kether, Tiphereth, Yesod and Malkuth; the
|
|
pillar of force contains the sephiroth Chokhmah, Chesed and
|
|
Netzach; the pillar of form contains the sephiroth Binah, Gevurah
|
|
and Hod. In older Kabbalistic texts the pillars are referred to
|
|
as the pillars of mildness, mercy and severity, and it is not
|
|
immediately obvious how the older jargon relates to the new. To
|
|
the medieval Kabbalist (and this is a recurring metaphor in the
|
|
Zohar) the creation as an emanation of God is a delicate
|
|
*balance* (metheqela) between two opposing tendencies: the mercy
|
|
of God, the outflowing, creative, life-giving and sustaining
|
|
tendency in God, and the severity or strict judgement of God, the
|
|
limiting, defining, life-taking and ultimately wrathful or
|
|
destructive tendency in God. The creation is "energised" by these
|
|
two tendencies as if stretched between the poles of a battery.
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6074) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:30
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: all
|
|
Re: Kab 8
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63178284
|
|
Modern Kabbalah makes a half-hearted attempt to remove the
|
|
more obvious anthropomorphisms in the descriptions of "God";
|
|
mercy and severity are misleading terms, apt to remind one of a
|
|
man with a white beard, and even in medieval times the terms had
|
|
distinctly technical meanings as the following quotation shows
|
|
[1]:
|
|
|
|
"It must be remembered that to the Kabbalist, judgement [Din
|
|
- judgement, another title of Gevurah] means the imposition
|
|
of limits and the correct determination of things. According
|
|
to Cordovero the quality of judgement is inherent in
|
|
everything insofar as everything wishes to remain what it
|
|
is, to stay within its boundaries."
|
|
|
|
I understand the word "form" in precisely this sense - it is
|
|
that
|
|
which defines *what* a thing is, the structure whereby a given
|
|
thing is distinct from every other thing.
|
|
As for "consciousness", I use the word "consciousness" in a
|
|
sense so abstract that it is virtually meaningless, and according
|
|
to whim I use the word God instead, where it is understood that
|
|
both words are placeholders for something which is potentially
|
|
knowable in the gnostic sense only - consciousness can be
|
|
*defined* according to the *forms* it takes, in which case we are
|
|
defining the forms, *not* the consciousness. The same
|
|
qualification applies to the word "force". My inability to define
|
|
two of the three concepts which underpin the structure of the
|
|
Tree is a nuisance which is tackled traditionally by the use of
|
|
extravagent metaphors, and by elimination ("not this, not
|
|
that").
|
|
The classification of sephiroth into three pillars is a way
|
|
of saying that each sephira in a pillar partakes of a common
|
|
quality which is "inherited" in a progressively more developed
|
|
and structured form from of the top of a pillar to the bottom.
|
|
Tipheret, Yesod and Malkuth all share with Kether the quality of
|
|
"consciousness in balance" or "synthesis of opposing qualities",
|
|
or but in each case it is expressed differently according to the
|
|
increased degree of structure imposed. Likewise, Chokhmah, Chesed
|
|
and Netzach share the quality of force or energy or
|
|
expansiveness, and Binah, Gevurah and Hod share the quality of
|
|
form, definition and limitation. From Kether down to Malkuth,
|
|
force and form are combined; the symbolism of the Tree has
|
|
something in common with a production line, with molten metal
|
|
coming in one end and finished cars coming out the other, and
|
|
with that metaphor we are now ready to describe the Lightning
|
|
Flash, the process whereby God takes on flesh, the process which
|
|
created and sustains the creation.
|
|
|
|
In the beginning...was Something. Or Nothing. It doesn't
|
|
really matter which term we use, as both are equally meaningless
|
|
in this context. Nothing is probably the better of the two terms,
|
|
because I can use Something in the next paragraph. Kabbalists
|
|
call this Nothing "En Soph" which literally means "no end" or
|
|
infinity, and understand by this a hidden, unmanifest God-in-
|
|
Itself.
|
|
Out of this incomprehensible and indescribable Nothing came
|
|
Something. Probably more words have been devoted to this moment
|
|
than any other in Kabbalah, and it is all too easy to make fun
|
|
the effort which has gone into elaborating the indescribable, so
|
|
I won't, but in return do not expect me to provide a
|
|
justification for why Something came out of Nothing. It just did.
|
|
A point crystallised in the En Soph. In some versions of the
|
|
story the En Soph "contracted" to "make room" for the creation
|
|
(Isaac Luria's theory of Tsimtsum), and this is probably an
|
|
important clarification for those who have rubbed noses with the
|
|
hidden face of God, but for the purposes of these notes it is
|
|
enough that a point crystallised. This point was the crown of
|
|
creation, the sephira Kether, and within Kether was contained all
|
|
the unrealised potential of the creation.
|
|
An aspect of Kether is the raw creative force of God which
|
|
blasts into the creation like the blast of hot gas which keeps a
|
|
hot air ballon in the air. Kabbalists are quite clear about this;
|
|
the creation didn't just happen a long time ago - it is happening
|
|
all the time, and without the force to sustain it the creation
|
|
would crumple like a balloon. The force-like aspect within Kether
|
|
is the sephira Chokhmah and it can be thought of as the will of
|
|
God, because without it the creation would cease to *be*. The
|
|
whole of creation is maintained by this ravening, primeval desire
|
|
to *be*, to become, to exist, to change, to evolve. The
|
|
experiential distinction between Kether, the point of emanation,
|
|
and Chokhmah, the creative outpouring, is elusive, but some of
|
|
the difference is captured in the phrases "I am" and "I
|
|
become".
|
|
Force by itself achieves nothing; it needs to be contained,
|
|
and the balloon analogy is appropriate again. Chokhmah contains
|
|
within it the necessity of Binah, the Mother of Form. The person
|
|
who taught me Kabbalah (a woman) told me Chokhmah (Abba, the
|
|
Father) was God's prick, and Binah (Aima, the mother) was God's
|
|
womb, and left me with the picture of one half of God
|
|
continuously ejaculating into the other half. The author of the
|
|
Zohar also makes frequent use of sexual polarity as a metaphor
|
|
to describe the relationship between force and form, or mercy and
|
|
severity (although the most vivid sexual metaphors are used for
|
|
the marriage of the Microprosopus and his bride, the Queen and
|
|
Inferior Mother, the sephira Malkuth).
|
|
The sephira Binah is the Mother of Form; form exists within
|
|
Binah as a potentiality, not as an actuality, just as a womb
|
|
contains the potential of a baby. Without the possibility of
|
|
form, no thing would be distinct from any other thing; it would
|
|
be impossible to distinguish between things, impossible to have
|
|
individuality or identity or change. The Mother of Form
|
|
contains the potential of form within her womb and gives birth to
|
|
form when a creative impulse crosses the Abyss to the Pillar of
|
|
Force and emanates through the sephira Chesed. Again we have the
|
|
idea of "becoming", of outflowing creative energy, but at a lower
|
|
level. The sephira Chesed is the point at which form becomes
|
|
perciptible to the mind as an inspiration, an idea, a vision,
|
|
that "Eureka!" moment immediately prior to rushing around
|
|
shouting "I've got it! I've got it!" Chesed is that quality of
|
|
genuine inspiration, a sense of being "plugged in" which
|
|
characterises the visionary leaders who drive the human race
|
|
onwards into every new kind of endeavour. It can be for good or
|
|
evil; a leader who can tap the petty malice and vindictiveness in
|
|
any person and channel it into a vision of a new order and
|
|
genocide is just as much a visionary as any other, but the
|
|
positive side of Chesed is the humanitarian leader who brings
|
|
about genuine improvements to our common life.
|
|
No change comes easy; as Cordova points out "everything
|
|
wishes to remain what it is". The creation of form is balanced in
|
|
the sephira Gevurah by the preservation and destruction of form.
|
|
Any impulse of change is channelled through Gevurah, and if it is
|
|
not resisted then something will be destroyed. If you want to
|
|
make paper you cut down a tree. If you want to abolish slavery
|
|
you have to destroy the culture which perpetuates it. If you want
|
|
to change someone's mind you have to destroy that person's
|
|
beliefs about the matter in question. The sephira Gevurah is the
|
|
quality of strict judgement which opposes change, destroys the
|
|
unfamiliar, and corresponds in many ways to an immune system
|
|
within the body of God.
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6075) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:30
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: All
|
|
Re: Kab 9
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63178417
|
|
There has to be a balance between creation and destruction.
|
|
Too much change, too many ideas, too many things happening too
|
|
quickly can have the quality of chaos (and can literally become
|
|
that), whereas too little change, no new ideas, too much form and
|
|
structure and protocol can suffocate and stifle. There has to be
|
|
a balance which "makes sense" and this "idea of balance" or
|
|
"making sense" is expressed in the sephira Tiphereth. It is an
|
|
instinctive morality, and it isn't present by default in the
|
|
human species. It isn't based on cultural norms; it doesn't have
|
|
its roots in upbringing (although it is easily destroyed by it).
|
|
Some people have it in a large measure, and some people are (to
|
|
all intents and purposes) completely lacking in it. It doesn't
|
|
necessarily respect conventional morality: it may laugh in its
|
|
face. I can't say what it is in any detail, because it is
|
|
peculiar and individual, but those who have it have a natural
|
|
quality of integrity, soundness of judgement, an instinctive
|
|
sense of rightness, justice and compassion, and a willingness to
|
|
fight or suffer in defense of that sense of justice. Tiphereth is
|
|
a paradoxical sephira because in many people it is simply not
|
|
there. It can be developed, and that is one of the goals of
|
|
initiation, but for many people Tiphereth is a room with nothing
|
|
in it.
|
|
Having passed through Gevurah on the Pillar of Form, and
|
|
found its way through the moral filter of Tiphereth, a creative
|
|
impulse picks up energy once more on the Pillar of Force via the
|
|
Sephira Netzach, where the energy of "becoming" finds its final
|
|
expression in the form of "vital urges". Why do we carry on
|
|
living? Why bother? What is it that compels us to do things? An
|
|
artist may have a vision of a piece of art, but what actually
|
|
compels the artist to paint or sculpt or write? Why do we want to
|
|
compete and win? Why do we care what happens to others? The
|
|
sephira Netzach expresses the basic vital creative urges in a
|
|
form we can recognise as drives, feelings and emotions. Netzach
|
|
is pre-verbal; ask a child why he wants a toy and the answer will
|
|
be
|
|
"I just do".
|
|
"But why," you ask, wondering why he doesn't want the much
|
|
more "sensible" toy you had in mind. "Why don't you want this
|
|
one here."
|
|
"I just don't. I want this one."
|
|
"But what's so good about that one."
|
|
"I don't know what to say...I just like it."
|
|
This conversation is not fictitious and is quintessentially
|
|
Netzach. The structure of the Tree of Life posits that the basic
|
|
driving forces which characterise our behaviour are pre-verbal
|
|
and non-rational; anyone who has tried to change another person's
|
|
basic nature or beliefs through force of rational argument will
|
|
know this.
|
|
After Netzach we go to the sephira Hod to pick up our last
|
|
cargo of Form. Ask a child why they want something and they say
|
|
"I just do". Press an adult and you will get an earful of
|
|
"reasons". We live in a culture where it is important (often
|
|
essential) to give reasons for the things we do, and Hod is the
|
|
sephira of form where it is possible to give shape to our wants
|
|
in terms of reasons and explanations. Hod is the sephira of
|
|
abstraction, reason, logic, language and communication, and a
|
|
reflection of the Mother of Form in the human mind. We have a
|
|
innate capacity to abstract, to go immediately from the
|
|
particular to the general, and we have an innate capacity to
|
|
communicate these abstractions using language, and it should be
|
|
clear why the alternative translation of Binah is
|
|
"intelligence"; Binah is the "intelligence of God", and Hod
|
|
underpins what we generally recognise as intelligence in people -
|
|
the ability to grasp complex abstractions, reason about them, and
|
|
articulate this understanding using some means of communication.
|
|
The synthesis of Hod and Netzach on the Pillar of
|
|
Consciousness is the sephira Yesod. Yesod is the sephira of
|
|
interface, and the comparison with computer peripheral interfaces
|
|
is an excellent one. Yesod is sometimes called "the Receptacle of
|
|
the Emanations", and it interfaces the emanations of all three
|
|
pillars to the sephira Malkuth, and it is through Yesod that the
|
|
final abstract form of something is realised in matter. Form in
|
|
Yesod is no longer abstract; it is explicit, but not yet
|
|
individual - that last quality is reserved for Malkuth alone.
|
|
Yesod is like the mold in a bottle factory - the mold is a
|
|
realisation of the abstract idea "bottle" in so far as it
|
|
expresses the shape of a particular bottle design in every
|
|
detail, but it is not itself an individual bottle.
|
|
The final step in the process is the sephira Malkuth, where
|
|
God becomes flesh, and every abstract form is realised in
|
|
actuality, in the "real world". There is much to say about this,
|
|
but I will keep it for later.
|
|
The process I have described is called the Lightning Flash.
|
|
The Lightning Flash runs as follows: Kether, Chokhmah, Binah,
|
|
Chesed, Gevurah, Tiphereth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malkuth, and if
|
|
you trace the Lighning Flash on a diagram of the Tree you will
|
|
see that it has the zig-zag shape of a lightning flash. The
|
|
sephiroth are numbered according to their order on the lightning
|
|
flash: Kether is 1, Chokhmah is 2, and so on. The "Sepher
|
|
Yetzirah" [2] has this to say about the sephiroth:
|
|
|
|
"When you think of the ten sephiroth cover your heart and
|
|
seal the desire of your lips to announce their divinity.
|
|
Yoke your mind. Should it escape your grasp, reach out and
|
|
bring it back under your control. As it was said, 'And the
|
|
living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a
|
|
flash of lightning,' in such a manner was the Covenant
|
|
created."
|
|
|
|
The quotation within the quotation comes from Ezekiel 1.14, a
|
|
text which inspired a large amount of early Kabbalistic
|
|
speculation, and it is probable that the Lightning Flash as
|
|
described is one of the earliest components of the idea of
|
|
sephirothic emanation.
|
|
The Lightning Flash describes the creative process,
|
|
beginning with the unknown, unmanifest hidden God, and follows it
|
|
through ten distinct stages to a change in the material world. It
|
|
can be used to describe *any* change - lighting a match, picking
|
|
your nose, walking the dog - and novices are usually set the
|
|
exercise of analysing any arbitrarily chosen event in terms of
|
|
the Lightning Flash. Because the Lightning Flash can be used to
|
|
understand the inner process whereby the material world of the
|
|
senses changes and evolves, it is a key to practical magical
|
|
work, and because it is intended to account for *all* change it
|
|
follows that all change is equally magical, and the word "magic"
|
|
is essentially meaningless (but nevertheless useful for
|
|
distinguishing between "normal" and "abnormal" states of
|
|
consciousness, and the modes of causality which pertain to each).
|
|
It also follows that the key to understanding our "spiritual
|
|
nature" does not belong in the spiritual empyrean, where it
|
|
remains inaccessible, but in *all* the routine and unexciting
|
|
little things in life. Everything is is equally "spiritual",
|
|
equally "divine", and there is more to be learned from picking
|
|
one's nose than there is in a spiritual discipline which puts you
|
|
"here" and God "over there". The Lightning Flash ends in Malkuth,
|
|
and it can be followed like a thread through the hidden pathways
|
|
of creation until one arrives back at the source. The next
|
|
chapter will retrace the Lightning Flash by examining the
|
|
qualities of each sephira in more detail.
|
|
|
|
[1] Scholem, Gershom G. "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism",
|
|
Schoken Books 1974
|
|
|
|
[2] Westcott, W. Wynn, ed. "Sepher Yetzirah". Many reprintings.
|
|
|
|
Notes on Kabbalah (a continuing series of many parts)
|
|
|
|
Copyright Colin Low 1991 (cal@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6076) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:31
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: all
|
|
Re: Kab 10
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 631785b6
|
|
|
|
Chapter 4: The Sephiroth
|
|
========================
|
|
This chapter provides a detailed look at each of the ten
|
|
sephiroth and draws together material scattered over previous
|
|
chapters.
|
|
|
|
Malkuth
|
|
-------
|
|
Malkuth is the Cinderella of the sephiroth. It is the
|
|
sephira most often ignored by beginners, the sephira most often
|
|
glossed over in Kabbalistic texts, and it is not only the most
|
|
immediate of the sephira but it is also the most complex, and for
|
|
sheer inscrutability it rivals Kether - indeed, there is a
|
|
Kabbalistic aphorism that "Kether is in Malkuth, and Malkuth is
|
|
in Kether, but after another manner".
|
|
The word Malkuth means "Kingdom", and the sephira is the
|
|
culmination of a process of emanation whereby the creative power
|
|
of the Godhead is progressively structured and defined as it
|
|
moves down the Tree and arrives in a completed form in Malkuth.
|
|
Malkuth is the sphere of matter, substance, the real, physical
|
|
world. In the least compromising versions of materialist
|
|
philosophy (e.g. Hobbes) there is nothing beyond physical matter,
|
|
and from that viewpoint the Tree of Life beyond Malkuth does not
|
|
exist: our feelings of identity and self-consciousness are
|
|
nothing more than a by-product of chemical reactions in the
|
|
brain, and the mind is a complex automata which suffers from the
|
|
disease of metaphysical delusions. Kabbalah is *not* a
|
|
materialist model of reality, but when we examine Malkuth by
|
|
itself we find ourselves immersed in matter, and it is natural to
|
|
think in terms of physics, chemistry and molecular biology. The
|
|
natural sciences provide the most accurate models of matter and
|
|
the physical world that we have, and it would be foolishness of
|
|
the first order to imagine that Kabbalah can provide better
|
|
explanations of the nature of matter on the basis of a study of
|
|
the text of the Old Testament. Not that I under-rate the
|
|
intuition which has gone into the making of Kabbalah over the
|
|
centuries, but for practical purposes the average university
|
|
science graduate knows (much) more about the material stuff of
|
|
the world than medieval Kabbalists, and a grounding in modern
|
|
physics is as good a way to approach Malkuth as any other.
|
|
For those who are not comfortable with physics there are
|
|
alternative, more traditional ways of approaching Malkuth. The
|
|
magical image of Malkuth is that of a young woman crowned and
|
|
throned. The woman is Malkah, the Queen, Kallah, the Bride. She
|
|
is the inferior mother, a reflection and realisation of the
|
|
superior mother Binah. She is the Queen who inhabits the Kingdom,
|
|
and the Bride of the Microprosopus. She is Gaia, Mother Earth,
|
|
but of course she is not only the substance of this world; she is
|
|
the body of the entire physical universe.
|
|
Some care is required when assigning Mother/Earth goddesses
|
|
to Malkuth, because some of them correspond more closely to the
|
|
superior mother Binah. There is a close and deep connection
|
|
between Malkuth and Binah which results in the two sephiroth
|
|
sharing similar correspondences, and one of the oldest
|
|
Kabbalistic texts [1] has this to say about Malkuth:
|
|
|
|
"The title of the tenth path [Malkuth] is the Resplendent
|
|
Intelligence. It is called this because it is exalted above
|
|
every head from where it sits upon the throne of Binah. It
|
|
illuminates the numinosity of all lights and causes to
|
|
emanate the Power of the archetype of countenances or
|
|
forms."
|
|
|
|
One of the titles of Binah is Khorsia, or Throne, and the image
|
|
which this text provides is that Binah provides the framework
|
|
upon which Malkuth sits. We will return to this later. Binah
|
|
contains the potential of form in the abstract, while Malkuth is
|
|
is the fullest realisation of form, and both sephiroth share the
|
|
correspondences of heaviness, limitation, finiteness, inertia,
|
|
avarice, silence, and death.
|
|
The female quality of Malkuth is often identified with the
|
|
Shekhinah, the female spirit of God in the creation, and
|
|
Kabbalistic literature makes much of the (carnal) relationship of
|
|
God and the Shekhinah. Waite [7] mentions that the relationship
|
|
between God and Shekhinah is mirrored in the relationship between
|
|
man and woman, and provides a great deal of information on both
|
|
the Shekhinah and what he quaintly calls "The Mystery of Sex".
|
|
After the exile of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Kabbalists
|
|
identified their own plight with the fate of the Shekhinah, and
|
|
she is pictured as being cast out into matter in much the same
|
|
way as the Gnostics pictured Sophia, the outcast divine wisdom.
|
|
The doctrine of the Shekhinah within Kabbalah and within Judaism
|
|
as a whole is complex and it is something I don't feel competent
|
|
to comment further on; more information can be found in [3] &
|
|
[7].
|
|
Malkuth is the sphere of the physical elements and
|
|
Kabbalists still use the four-fold scheme which dates back at
|
|
least as far as Empedocles and probably the Ark. The four
|
|
elements correspond to four readily-observable states of matter:
|
|
|
|
solid - earth
|
|
liquid - water
|
|
gas - air
|
|
plasma - fire/electric arc (lightning)
|
|
|
|
In addition it is not uncommon to include a fifth element so
|
|
rarified and arcane that most people (self included) are pushed
|
|
to say what it is; the fifth element is aethyr (or ether) and is
|
|
sometimes called spirit.
|
|
The amount of material written about the elements is
|
|
enormous, and rather than reproduce in bulk what is relatively
|
|
well-known I will provide a rough outline so that those readers
|
|
who aren't familiar with Kabbalah will realise I am talking about
|
|
approximately the same thing as they have seen before. A detailed
|
|
description of the traditional medieval view of the four elements
|
|
can be found in "The Magus" [2]. The hierarchy of elemental
|
|
powers can be found in "777" [4] and in Golden Dawn material [5]
|
|
- I have summarised a few useful items below:
|
|
|
|
Element Fire Air Water Earth
|
|
|
|
God Name Elohim Jehovah Eheieh Agla
|
|
|
|
Archangel Michael Raphael Gabriel Uriel
|
|
|
|
King Djin Paralda Nichsa Ghob
|
|
|
|
Elemental Salamanders Sylphs Undines Gnomes
|
|
|
|
|
|
It amused me to notice that the section on the elemental kingdoms
|
|
in Farrar's "What Witches Do" [6] had been taken by Alex Saunders
|
|
lock, stock and barrel from traditional Kabbalistic and CM
|
|
sources.
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
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|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6077) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:31
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: All
|
|
Re: Kab 11
|
|
St:
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|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63178735
|
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The elements in Malkuth are arranged as follows:
|
|
|
|
South
|
|
Fire
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
East Zenith Aethyr+ West
|
|
Air Nadir Aethyr- Water
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
North
|
|
Earth
|
|
|
|
I have rotated the cardinal points through 180 degrees from their
|
|
customary directions so that it is easier to see how the elements
|
|
fit on the lower face of the Tree of Life:
|
|
|
|
Tiphereth
|
|
Fire
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hod Yesod Netzach
|
|
Air Aethyr Water
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Malkuth
|
|
Earth
|
|
|
|
It is important to distinguish between the elements in Malkuth,
|
|
where we are talking about real substance (the water in your
|
|
body, the breath in your lungs), and the elements on the Tree,
|
|
where we are using traditional correspondences *associated* with
|
|
the elements, e.g.:
|
|
|
|
Earth: solid, stable, practical, down-to-earth
|
|
|
|
Water: sensitive, intuitive, emotional, caring, fertile
|
|
|
|
Air: vocal, communicative, intellectual
|
|
|
|
Fire: energetic, daring, impetuous
|
|
|
|
Positive Aethyr: glue, binding, plastic
|
|
|
|
Negative Aethyr: unbinding, dissolution, disintegration
|
|
|
|
Aethyr or Spirit is enigmatic, and I tend to think of it in terms
|
|
of the forces which bind matter together. It is almost certainly
|
|
a coincidence (but nevertheless interesting) that there are four
|
|
fundamental forces - gravitational, electromagnetic, weak nuclear
|
|
& strong nuclear - known to date, and current belief is that they
|
|
can be unified into one fundamental force. On a slightly more
|
|
arcane tack, Barret [2] has this to say about Aethyr:
|
|
|
|
"Now seeing that the soul is the essential form,
|
|
intelligible and uncorruptible, and is the first mover of
|
|
the body, and is moved itself; but that the body, or matter,
|
|
is of itself unable and unfit for motion, and does very much
|
|
degenerate from the soul, it appears that there is a need of
|
|
a more excellent medium:- now such a medium is conceived to
|
|
be the spirit of the world, or that which some call a
|
|
quintessence; because it is not from the four elements, but
|
|
a certain first thing, having its being above and beside
|
|
them. There is, therefore, such a kind of medium required to
|
|
be, by which celestial souls [e.g. forms] may be joined to
|
|
gross bodies, and bestow upon them wonderful gifts. This
|
|
spirit is in the same manner, in the body of the world, as
|
|
our spirit is in our bodies; for as the powers of our soul
|
|
are communicated to the members of the body by the medium of
|
|
the spirit, so also the virtue of the soul of the world is
|
|
diffused, throughout all things, by the medium of the
|
|
universal spirit; for there is nothing to be found in the
|
|
whole world that hath not a spark of the virtue thereof."
|
|
|
|
Aethyr underpins the elements like a foundation and its
|
|
attribution to Yesod should be obvious, particularly as it forms
|
|
the linking role between the ideoplastic world of "the Astral
|
|
Light" [8] and the material world. Aethyr is often thought to
|
|
come in two flavours - positive Aethyr, which binds, and negative
|
|
Aethyr, which unbinds. Negative Aethyr is a bit like the
|
|
Universal Solvent, and requires as much care in handling ;-}
|
|
Working with the physical elements in Malkuth is one of the
|
|
most important areas of applied magic, dealing as it does with
|
|
the basic constituents of the real world. The physical elements
|
|
are tangible and can be experience in a very direct way through
|
|
recreations such as caving, diving, parachuting or firewalking;
|
|
they bite back in a suitably humbling way, and they provide CMs
|
|
with an opportunity to join the neo-pagans in the great outdoors.
|
|
Our bodies themselves are made from physical stuff, and there are
|
|
many Raja Yoga-like exercises which can be carried out using the
|
|
elements as a basis for work on the body. If you can stand his
|
|
manic intensity (Exercise 1: boil an egg by force of will) then
|
|
Bardon [9] is full of good ideas.
|
|
Malkuth is often associated with various kinds of intrinsic
|
|
evil, and to understand this attitude (which I do not share) it
|
|
is necessary to confront the same question as thirteenth century
|
|
Kabbalists: can God be evil? The answer to this question was
|
|
(broadly speaking) "yes", but Kabbalists have gone through many
|
|
strange gyrations in an attempt to avoid what was for many an
|
|
unacceptable conclusion. It was difficult to accept that famine,
|
|
war, disease, prejudice, hate, death could be a part of a perfect
|
|
being, and there had to be some way to account for evil which did
|
|
not contaminate divine perfection. One approach was to sweep evil
|
|
under the carpet, and in this case the carpet was Malkuth.
|
|
Malkuth became the habitation for evil spirits.
|
|
If one examines the structure of the Tree without prejudice
|
|
then it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that evil is quite
|
|
adequately accounted for, and there is no need to shuffle evil
|
|
to the periphery of the Tree like a cleaner without a dustpan.
|
|
The emanation of any sephirah from Chokhmah downwards can
|
|
manifest as good or evil depending on circumstances and the point
|
|
of view of those affected by the energy involved. This appears to
|
|
have been understood even at the time of the writing of the
|
|
"Zohar", where the mercy of God is constantly contrasted with the
|
|
severity of God, and the author makes it clear that one has to
|
|
balance the other - you cannot have the mercy without the
|
|
severity. On the other hand, the severity of God is persistently
|
|
identified with the rigours of existence (form, finiteness,
|
|
limitation), and while it is true that many of the things which
|
|
have been identified with evil are a consequence of the
|
|
finiteness of things, of being finite beings in a world of finite
|
|
resources governed by natural laws with inflexible causality, it
|
|
not correct to infer (as some have) that form itself is
|
|
*intrinsically* evil.
|
|
The notion that form and matter are *intrinsically* evil, or
|
|
in some way imperfect or not a part of God, may have reached
|
|
Kabbalah from a number of sources. Scholem comments:
|
|
|
|
"The Kabbalah of the early thirteenth century was the
|
|
offspring of a union between an older and essentially
|
|
Gnostic tradition represented by the book "Bahir", and the
|
|
comparatively modern element of Jewish Neo-Platonism."
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6078) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:32
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: all
|
|
Re: Kab 12
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 631788f3
|
|
|
|
There is the possibility that the Kabbalists of Provence (who
|
|
wrote or edited the "Sepher Bahir") were influenced by the
|
|
Cathars, a late form of Manicheanism. Whether the source was
|
|
Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, Manicheanism or some combination of
|
|
all three, Kabbalah has imported a view of matter and form which
|
|
distorts the view of things portrayed by the Tree of Life, and so
|
|
Malkuth ends up as a kind of cosmic outer darkness, a bin for all
|
|
the dirt, detritus, broken sephira and dirty hankies of the
|
|
creation. Form is evil, the Mother of Form is female, women are
|
|
definitely and indubitably evil, and Malkuth is the most female
|
|
of the sephira, therefore Malkuth is most definitely evil...quod
|
|
erat demonstrandum. By the time we reach the time of S.L. Mathers
|
|
and the Golden Dawn there is a complete Tree of evil demonic
|
|
Klippoth *underneath* Malkuth as a relection of the "good" Tree
|
|
above it. I believe this may have something to do with the fact
|
|
that meditations on Malkuth can easily become meditations on
|
|
Binah, and meditations on Binah have a habit of slipping into the
|
|
Abyss, and once in the Abyss it is easy to trawl up enough junk
|
|
to "discover" an averse Tree "underneath" Malkuth. This view of
|
|
the Klippoth, or Shells, as active, demonic evil has become
|
|
pervasive, and the more energy people put into the demonic Tree,
|
|
the less there is for the original. Abolish the Klippoth as
|
|
demonic forces, and the Tree of Life comes alive with its full
|
|
power of good *and* evil. The following quotation from Bischoff
|
|
[10] (speaking of the Sephiroth) provides a more rational view of
|
|
the Klippoth:
|
|
|
|
"Since their energy [of the sephiroth] shows three degrees
|
|
of strength (highest, middle and lowest degree), their
|
|
emanations group accordingly in sequence. We usually imagine
|
|
the image of a descending staircase. The Kabbalist
|
|
prefers to see this fact as a decreasing alienation of the
|
|
central primeval energy. Consequently any less perfect
|
|
emanation is to him the cover or shell (Klippah) of the
|
|
preceeding, and so the last (furthest) emanations being the
|
|
so-called material things are the shell of the total and are
|
|
therefore called (in the actual sense) Klippoth."
|
|
|
|
This is my own view; the shell of something is the accretion of
|
|
form which it accumulates as energy comes down the Lightning
|
|
Flash. If the shell can be considered by itself then it is a dead
|
|
husk of something which could be alive - it preserves all the
|
|
structure but there is no energy in it to bring it alive. With
|
|
this interpretation the Klippoth are to be found everywhere: in
|
|
relationships, at work, at play, in ritual, in society. Whenever
|
|
something dies and people refuse to recognise that it is dead,
|
|
and cling to the lifeless husk of whatever it was, then you get a
|
|
Klippah. For this reason one of the vices of Malkuth is Avarice,
|
|
not only in the sense of trying to acquire material things, but
|
|
also in the sense of being unwilling to let go of anything, even
|
|
when it has become dead and worthless. The Klippah of Malkuth is
|
|
what you would get if the Sun went out: Stasis, life frozen into
|
|
immobility.
|
|
The other vice of Malkuth is Inertia, in the sense of
|
|
"active resistance to motion; sluggish; disinclined to move or
|
|
act". It is visible in most people at one time or another, and
|
|
tends to manifest when a task is new, necessary, but not
|
|
particularly exciting, there is no excitement or "natural energy"
|
|
to keep one fired up, and one has to keep on pushing right to the
|
|
finish. For this reason the obligation of Malkuth is (has
|
|
to be) self-discipline.
|
|
The virtue of Malkuth is Discrimination, the ability to
|
|
perceive differences. The ability to perceive differences is a
|
|
necessity for any living organism, whether a bacteria able to
|
|
sense the gradient of a nutrient or a kid working out how much
|
|
money to wheedle out of his parents. As Malkuth is the final
|
|
realisation of form, it is the sphere where our ability to
|
|
distinguish between differences is most pronounced. The capacity
|
|
to discriminate is so fundamental to survival that it works
|
|
overtime and finds boundaries and distinctions everywhere - "you"
|
|
and "me", "yours" and "mine", distinctions of "property" and
|
|
"value" and "territory" which are intellectual abstractions on
|
|
one level (i.e. not real) and fiercely defended realities on
|
|
another (i.e. very real indeed). I am not going to attempt a
|
|
definition of real and unreal, but it is the case that much of
|
|
what we think of as real is unreal, and much of what we think of
|
|
as unreal is real, and we need the same discrimination which
|
|
leads us into the mire to lead us out again. Some people think
|
|
skin colour is a real measure of intelligence; some don't. Some
|
|
people think gender is a real measure of ability; some don't.
|
|
Some people judge on appearances; some don't. There is clearly a
|
|
difference between a bottle of beer and a bottle of piss, but is
|
|
the colour of the *bottle* important? What *is* important? What
|
|
differences are real, what matters? How much energy do we devote
|
|
to things which are "not real". Am I able to perceive how much I
|
|
am being manipulated by a fixation on unreality? Are my goals in
|
|
life "real", or will they look increasingly silly and immature
|
|
as I grow older? For that matter, is Kabbalah "real"? Does it
|
|
provide a useful model of reality, or is it the remnant of a
|
|
world-view which should have been put to rest centuries ago? One
|
|
of the primary exercises of an initiate into Malkuth is a
|
|
thorough examination of the question "What is real?".
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6079) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:32
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: all
|
|
Re: kab 13
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63178a6c
|
|
The Spiritual Experience of Malkuth is variously the
|
|
Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA), or
|
|
the Vision of the HGA (depending on who you believe). I vote for
|
|
the Vision of the HGA in Malkuth, and the Knowledge and
|
|
Conversation in Tiphereth. What is the HGA? According to the
|
|
Gnosticism of Valentinus each person has a guardian angel who
|
|
accompanies that individual throught their life and reveals the
|
|
gnosis; the angel is in a sense the divine Self. This belief is
|
|
identical to what I was taught by the person who taught me
|
|
Kabbalah, so some part of Gnosticism lives on. The current
|
|
tradition concerning the HGA almost certainly entered the Western
|
|
Esoteric Tradition as a consequence of S.L. Mather's translation
|
|
[11] of "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage",
|
|
which contains full details of a lengthy ritual to attain the
|
|
Knowledge and Conversation of the HGA. This ritual has had an
|
|
important influence on twentieth century magicians and it is
|
|
often attempted and occasionally completed.
|
|
The powers of Malkuth are invoked by means of the names
|
|
Adonai ha Aretz and Adonai Melekh, which mean "Lord of the World"
|
|
and "The Lord who is King" respectively. The power is transmitted
|
|
through the world of Creation by the archangel Sandalphon, who is
|
|
sometimes referred to as "the Long Angel", because his feet are
|
|
in Malkuth and his head in Kether, which gives him an opportunity
|
|
to chat to Metatron, the Angel of the Presence. The angel order
|
|
is the Ashim, or Ishim, sometimes translated as the "souls of
|
|
fire", supposedly the souls of righteous men and women.
|
|
|
|
In concluding this section on Malkuth, it worth emphasising that
|
|
I have chosen deliberately not to explore some major topics
|
|
because there are sufficient threads for anyone with an interest
|
|
to pick up and follow for themselves. The image of Malkuth as
|
|
Mother Earth provides a link between Kabbalah and a numinous
|
|
archetype with a deep significance for some. The image of Malkuth
|
|
as physical substance provides a link into the sciences, and it
|
|
is the case that at the limits of theoretical physics one's
|
|
intuitions seem to be slipping and sliding on the same reality as
|
|
in Kabbalah. The image of Malkuth as the sphere of the elements
|
|
is the key to a large body of practical magical technique which
|
|
varies from yoga-like concentration on the bodily elements, to
|
|
nature-oriented work in the great outdoors. Lastly, just as the
|
|
design of a building reveals much about its builders, so Malkuth
|
|
can reveal a great deal about Kether - the bottom of the Tree and
|
|
the top have much in common.
|
|
|
|
References:
|
|
|
|
[1] Westcott, W. Wynn, ed. "Sepher Yetzirah", many editions.
|
|
|
|
[2] Barrett, Francis, "The Magus", Citadel 1967.
|
|
|
|
[3] Scholem, Gershom G., "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism",
|
|
Schocken 1974
|
|
|
|
[4] Crowley, A, "777", an obscure reprint.
|
|
|
|
[5] Regardie, Israel, "The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic",
|
|
Falcon, 1984.
|
|
|
|
[6] Farrar, Stewart, "What Witches Do", Peter Davies 1971.
|
|
|
|
[7] Waite, A.E, "The Holy Kabbalah", Citadel.
|
|
|
|
[8] Levi, Eliphas, "Transcendental Magic", Rider, 1969.
|
|
|
|
[9] Bardon, Franz, "Initiation into Hermetics", Dieter
|
|
Ruggeberg 1971
|
|
|
|
[10] Bischoff, Dr. Erich, "The Kabbala", Weiser 1985.
|
|
|
|
[11] Mathers, S.L., "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin
|
|
the Mage", Dover 1975.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright Colin Low 1991
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6080) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:33
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: All
|
|
Re: Kab 14
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63178e38
|
|
|
|
Chapter 4: The Sephiroth (continued)
|
|
========================
|
|
This chapter provides a detailed look at each of the ten
|
|
sephiroth and draws together material scattered over previous
|
|
chapters.
|
|
|
|
Yesod
|
|
-----
|
|
|
|
Yesod means "foundation", and that is what Yesod is: it is
|
|
the hidden infrastructure whereby the emanations from the
|
|
remainder of the Tree are transmitted to the sephira Malkuth.
|
|
Just as a large building has its air-conditioning ducts, service
|
|
tunnels, conduits, electrical wiring, hot and cold water pipes,
|
|
attic spaces, lift shafts, winding rooms, storage tanks, a
|
|
telephone exchange etc, so does the Creation, and the external,
|
|
visible world of phenomenal reality rests (metaphorically
|
|
speaking) upon a hidden foundation of occult machinery.
|
|
Meditations on the nature of Yesod tend to be full of secret
|
|
tunnels and concealed mechanisms, as if the Creation was a Gothic
|
|
mansion with a secret door behind every mirror, a passage in
|
|
every wall, a pair of hidden eyes behind every portrait, and a
|
|
subterranean world of forgotten tunnels leading who knows where.
|
|
For this reason the Spiritual Experience of Yesod is aptly named
|
|
"The Vision of the Machinery of the Universe".
|
|
Many Yesod correspondences reinforce this notion of a
|
|
foundation, of something which lies behind, supports and gives
|
|
shape to phenomenal reality. The magical image of Yesod is of "a
|
|
beautiful naked man, very strong". The image which springs to
|
|
mind is that of a man with the world resting on his shoulders,
|
|
like one of the misrepresentations of the Titan Atlas (who
|
|
actually held up the heavens, not the world). The angel order of
|
|
Yesod is the Cherubim, the Strong Ones, the archangel is Gabriel,
|
|
the Strong or Mighty One of God, and the God-name is Shaddai el
|
|
Chai, the Almighty Living God.
|
|
The idea of a foundation suggests that there is a substance
|
|
which lies behind physical matter and "in-forms it" or "holds it
|
|
together", something less structured, more plastic, more refined
|
|
and rarified, and this "fifth element" is often called aethyr. I
|
|
will not attempt to justify aethyr in terms of current physics
|
|
(the closest concept I have found is the hypothesised Higgs
|
|
field); it is a convenient handle on a concept which has enormous
|
|
intuitive appeal to many magicians, who, when asked how magic
|
|
works, tend to think in terms of a medium which is directly
|
|
receptive to the will, something which is plastic and can be
|
|
shaped through concentration and imagination, and which transmits
|
|
their artificially created forms into reality. Eliphas Levi
|
|
called this medium the "Astral Light". It is also natural to
|
|
imagine that mind, consciousness, and the soul have their
|
|
habitation in this substance, and there are volumes detailing the
|
|
properties of the "Etheric Body", the "Astral Body", the "Causal
|
|
Body" [1,2] and so on. I don't take this stuff too seriously, but
|
|
I do like to work with the kind of natural intuitions which occur
|
|
spontaneously and independently in a large number of people -
|
|
there is power in these intuitions - and it is a mistake to
|
|
invalidate them because they sound cranky. When I talk about
|
|
aethyr or the Astral Light, I mean there is an ideoplastic
|
|
substance which is subjectively real to many magicians, and
|
|
explanations of magic at the level of Yesod revolve around
|
|
manipulating this substance using desire, imagination and will.
|
|
The fundamental nature of Yesod is that of *interface*; it
|
|
interfaces the rest of the Tree of Life to Malkuth. The interface
|
|
is bi-directional; there are impulses coming down from Kether,
|
|
and echoes bouncing back from Malkuth. The idea of interface is
|
|
illustrated in the design of a computer system: a computer with a
|
|
multitude of worlds hidden within it is a source of heat and
|
|
repair bills unless it has peripheral interfaces and device
|
|
drivers to interface the world outside the computer to the world
|
|
"inside" it; add a keyboard and a mouse and a monitor and a
|
|
printer and you have opened the door into another reality. Our
|
|
own senses have the same characteristic of being a bi-directional
|
|
interface through which we experience the world, and for this
|
|
reason the senses correspond to Yesod, and not only the five
|
|
traditional senses - the "sixth sense" and the "second sight" are
|
|
given equal status, and so Yesod is also the sphere of
|
|
instinctive psychism, of clairvoyance, precognition, divination
|
|
and prophecy. It is also clear from accounts of lucid dreaming
|
|
(and personal experience) that we possess the ability to perceive
|
|
an inner world as vividly as the outer, and so to Yesod belongs
|
|
the inner world of dreams, daydreams and vivid imagination, and
|
|
one of the titles of Yesod is "The Treasure House of Images".
|
|
To Yesod is attributed Levanah, the Moon, and the lunar
|
|
associations of tides, flux and change, occult influence, and
|
|
deeply instinctive and sometimes atavistic behaviour -
|
|
possession, mediumship, lycanthropy and the like. Although
|
|
Yesod is the foundation and it has associations with strength, it
|
|
is by no means a rigid scaffold supporting a world in stasis.
|
|
Yesod supports the world just as the sea supports all the life
|
|
which lives in it and sails upon it, and just as the sea has its
|
|
irresistable currents and tides, so does Yesod. Yesod is the most
|
|
"occult" of the sephiroth, and next to Malkuth it is the most
|
|
magical, but compared with Malkuth its magic is of a more subtle,
|
|
seductive, glamorous and ensnaring kind. Magicians are drawn to
|
|
Yesod by the idea that if reality rests on a hidden foundation,
|
|
then by changing the foundation it is possible to change the
|
|
reality. The magic of Yesod is the magic of form and appearance,
|
|
not substance; it is the magic of illusion, glamour,
|
|
transformation, and shape-changing. The most sophisticated
|
|
examples of this are to be found in modern marketing, advertising
|
|
and image consultancies. I do not jest. My tongue is not even
|
|
slightly in my cheek. The following quote was taken from this
|
|
morning's paper [3]:
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6081) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:33
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: All
|
|
Re: Kab 15
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63179013
|
|
|
|
Although the changes look cosmetic, those responsible for
|
|
creating corporate image argue that a redesign of a
|
|
company's uniform or name is just the visible sign of a much
|
|
larger transformation.
|
|
|
|
"The majority of people continue to misunderstand and think
|
|
that it is just a logo, rather than understanding that a
|
|
corporate identity programme is actually concerned with the
|
|
very commercial objective of having a strong personality and
|
|
single-minded, focussed direction for the whole
|
|
organisation, " said Fiona Gilmore, managing director of the
|
|
design company Lewis Moberly. "It's like planting an acorn
|
|
and then a tree grows. If you create the right *foundation*
|
|
(my itals) then you are building a whole culture for the
|
|
future of an organisation."
|
|
|
|
I don't know what Ms. Gilmore studies in her spare time, but the
|
|
idea that it is possible to manipulate reality by manipulating
|
|
symbols and appearances is entirely magical. The same article on
|
|
corporate identity continues as follows:
|
|
|
|
"The scale of the BT relaunch is colossal. The new logo will
|
|
be painted on more than 72,000 vehicles and trailers, as
|
|
well as 9,000 properties.
|
|
The company's 92,000 public payphones will get new decals,
|
|
and its 90 shops will have to changed, right down to the
|
|
yellow door handles. More than 50,000 employees are likely
|
|
to need new uniforms or "image clothing".
|
|
|
|
Note the emphasis on *image*. The company in question (British
|
|
Telecom) is an ex-public monopoly with an appalling customer
|
|
relations problem, so it is changing the colour of its
|
|
door handles! This is Yesodic magic on a gigantic scale.
|
|
The image manipulators gain most of their power from the
|
|
mass-media. The mass-media correspond to two sephiroth: as a
|
|
medium of communication they belong in Hod, but as a foundation
|
|
for our perception of reality they belong in Yesod. Nowadays most
|
|
people form their model of what the world (in the large) is like
|
|
via the media. There are a few individuals who travel the world
|
|
sufficiently to have a model based on personal experience, but
|
|
for most people their model of what most of the world is like is
|
|
formed by newspapers, radio and television; that is, the media
|
|
have become an extended (if inaccurate) instrument of perception.
|
|
Like our "normal" means of perception the media are highly
|
|
selective in the variety and content of information provided, and
|
|
they can be used by advertising agencies and other manipulative
|
|
individuals to create foundations for new collective realities.
|
|
While on the subject of changing perception to assemble new
|
|
realities, the following quote by "Don Juan" [4] has a definite
|
|
Kabbalistic flavour:
|
|
|
|
"The next truth is that perception takes place," he went on,
|
|
"because there is in each of us an agent called the
|
|
assemblage point that selects internal and external
|
|
emanations for alignment. The particular alignment that we
|
|
perceive as the world is the product of a specific spot
|
|
where our assemblage point is located on our cocoon."
|
|
|
|
One of the titles of Yesod is "The Receptacle of the Emanations",
|
|
and its function is precisely as described above - Yesod is the
|
|
assemblage point which assembles the emanations of the internal
|
|
and the external.
|
|
In addition to the deliberate, magical manipulation of
|
|
foundations, there are other important areas of magic relevant to
|
|
Yesod. Raw, innate psychism is an ability which tends to improve
|
|
as more attention is devoted to creative visualisation, focussed
|
|
meditation (on Tarot cards for example), dreams (e.g. keeping a
|
|
dream diary), and divination. Divination is an important
|
|
technique to practice even if you feel you are terrible at it
|
|
(and especially if you think it is nonsense), because it
|
|
reinforces the idea that it is permissible to "let go" and
|
|
intuite meanings into any pattern. Many people have difficulty
|
|
doing this, feeling perhaps that they will be swamped with
|
|
unreason (recalling Freud's fear, expressed to Jung, of needing a
|
|
bulwark against the "black mud of occultism"), when in reality
|
|
their minds are swamped with reason and could use a holiday. Any
|
|
divination system can be used, but systems which emphasise pure
|
|
intuition are best (e.g. Tarot, runes, tea-leaves, flights of
|
|
birds, patterns on the wallpaper, smoke. I heard of a Kabbalist
|
|
who threw a cushion into the air and carried out divination on
|
|
the basis of the number of pieces of foam stuffing which fell
|
|
out). Because Yesod is a kind of aethyric reflection of the
|
|
physical world, the image of and precursor to reality, mirrors
|
|
are an important tool for Yesod magic. Quartz crystals are also
|
|
used, probably because of the use of crystal balls for
|
|
divination, but also because quartz crystal and amethyst have a
|
|
peculiarly Yesodic quality in their own right. The average New
|
|
Age shop filled with crystals, Tarot cards, silver jewelry (lunar
|
|
association), perfumes, dreamy music, and all the glitz, glamour
|
|
and glitter of a daemonic magpie's nest, is like a temple to
|
|
Yesod. Mirrors and crystals are used passively as focii for
|
|
receptivity, but they can also be used actively for certain kinds
|
|
of aethyric magic - there is an interesting book on making and
|
|
using magic mirrors which builds on the kind of elemental magical
|
|
work carried out in Malkuth [5].
|
|
Yesod has an important correspondence with the sexual
|
|
organs. The correspondence occurs in three ways. The first way is
|
|
that when the Tree of Life is placed over the human body, Yesod
|
|
is positioned over the genitals. The author of the Zohar is quite
|
|
explicit about "the remaining members of the Microprosopus", to
|
|
the extent that the relevant paragraphs in Mather's translation
|
|
of "The Lesser Holy Assembly" remain in Latin to avoid offending
|
|
Victorian sensibilities.
|
|
The second association of Yesod with the genitals arises
|
|
from the union of the Microprosopus and his Bride. This is
|
|
another recurring theme in Kabbalah, and the symbolism is complex
|
|
and refers to several distinct ideas, from the relationship
|
|
between man and wife to an internal process within the body of
|
|
God: e.g [6].
|
|
|
|
"When the Male is joined with the Female, they both
|
|
constitute one complete body, and all the Universe is in a
|
|
state of happiness, because all things receive blessing from
|
|
their perfect body. And this is an Arcanum."
|
|
|
|
or, referring to the Bride:
|
|
|
|
"And she is mitigated, and receiveth blessing in that place
|
|
which is called the Holy of Holies below."
|
|
|
|
or, referring to the "member":
|
|
|
|
"And that which floweth down into that place where it is
|
|
congregated, and which is emitted through that most holy
|
|
Yesod, Foundation, is entirely white, and therefore is it
|
|
called Chesed.
|
|
Thence Chesed entereth into the Holy of Holies; as it is
|
|
written Ps. cxxxiii. 3 'For there Tetragrammaton commanded
|
|
the blessing, even life for evermore.'"
|
|
|
|
It is not difficult to read a great deal into paragraphs like
|
|
this, and there are many more in a similar vein. Suffice to say
|
|
that the Microprosopus is often identified with the sephira
|
|
Tiphereth, the Bride is the sephira Malkuth, and the point of
|
|
union between them is obviously Yesod.
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6082) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:34
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: All
|
|
Re: Kab 16
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 631791f7
|
|
The third and more abstract association between Yesod and
|
|
the sexual organs arises because the sexual organs are a
|
|
mechanism for perpetuating the *form* of a living organism. In
|
|
order to get close to what is happening in sexual reproduction it
|
|
is worth asking the question "What is a computer program?". Well,
|
|
a computer program indisputably begins as an idea; it is not a
|
|
material thing. It can be written down in various ways; as an
|
|
abstract specification in set theoretic notation akin to pure
|
|
mathematics, or as a set of recursive functions in lambda
|
|
calculus; it could be written in several different high level
|
|
languages - Pascal, C, Prolog, LISP, ADA, ML etc. Are they all
|
|
they same program? Computer scientists wrestle with this problem:
|
|
can we show that two different programs written in two different
|
|
languages are in some sense functionally identical? It isn't
|
|
trivial to do this because it asks fundamental questions about
|
|
language (any language) and meaning, but it is possible in
|
|
limited cases to produce two apparently different programs
|
|
written in different languages and assert that they are
|
|
identical. Whatever the program is, it seems to exist
|
|
independently of any particular language, so what is the program
|
|
and where is it? Let us ignore that chestnut and go on to the
|
|
next level. Suppose we write the program down. We could do it
|
|
with a pencil. We could punch holes in paper. We could plant
|
|
trees in a pattern in a field. We can line up magnetic domains.
|
|
We can burn holes in metal foil. I could have it tattooed on my
|
|
back. We can transform it into radically different forms (that is
|
|
what compilers and assemblers do). It obviously isn't tied to any
|
|
physical representation either. What about the computer it runs
|
|
on? Well, it could be a conventional one made with CMOS chips
|
|
etc.....but aren't there a lot of different kinds and makes of
|
|
computer, and they can all run the same program. It is also quite
|
|
practical to build computers which *don't* use electrons - you
|
|
could use mechanics or fluids or ball bearings - all you need to
|
|
do is produce something with the functionality of a Turing
|
|
machine, and that isn't hard. So not only is the program not tied
|
|
to any particular physical representation, but the same goes for
|
|
the computer itself, and what we are left with is two puffs of
|
|
smoke. On another level this is crazy; computers are real, they
|
|
do real things in the real world, and the programs which make
|
|
them work are obviously real too....aren't they?
|
|
Now apply the same kind of scrutiny to living organisms, and
|
|
the mechanism of reproduction. Take a good look at nucleic acids,
|
|
enzymes, proteins etc., and ask the same kind of questions. I am
|
|
not implying that life is a sort of program, but what I am
|
|
suggesting is that if you try to get close to what constitutes a
|
|
living organism you end up with another puff of smoke and a
|
|
handful of atoms which could just as well be ball-bearings or
|
|
fluids or....The thing that is being perpetuated through sexual
|
|
reproduction is something quite abstract and immaterial; it is an
|
|
abstract form preserved and encoded in a particular pattern of
|
|
chemicals, and if I was asked which was more real, the transient
|
|
collection of chemicals used, or the abstract form itself, I
|
|
would answer "the form". But then, I am a programmer, and I would
|
|
say that.
|
|
I find it astonishing that there are any hard-core
|
|
materialists left in the world. All the important stuff seems to
|
|
exist at the level of puffs of smoke, what Kabbalists call form.
|
|
Roger Penrose, one of the most eminent mathematicians living has
|
|
this to say [7]:
|
|
|
|
"I have made no secret of the fact that my sympathies lie
|
|
strongly with the Platonic view that mathematical truth is
|
|
absolute, external and eternal, and not based on man-made
|
|
criteria; and that mathematical objects have a timeless
|
|
existence of their own, not dependent on human society nor
|
|
on particular physical objects."
|
|
|
|
"Ah Ha!" cry the materialists, "At least the atoms are
|
|
real." Well, they are until you start pulling them apart with
|
|
tweezers and end up with a heap of equations which turn out to be
|
|
the linguistic expression of an idea. As Einstein said, "The most
|
|
incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is
|
|
comprehensible", that is, capable of being described in some
|
|
linguistic form.
|
|
I am not trying to convince anyone of the "rightness" of the
|
|
Kabbalistic viewpoint. What I am trying to do is show that the
|
|
process whereby form is impressed on matter (the relationship
|
|
between Yesod and Malkuth) is not arcane, theosophical mumbo-
|
|
jumbo; it is an issue which is alive and kicking, and the closer
|
|
we get to "real things" (and that certainly includes living
|
|
organisms), the better the Kabbalistic model (that form precedes
|
|
manifestation, that there is a well-defined process of form-ation
|
|
with the "real world" as an outcome) looks.
|
|
|
|
The illusion of Yesod is security, the kind of security which
|
|
forms the foundation of our personal existence in the world. On a
|
|
superficial level our security is built out of relationships, a
|
|
source of income, a place to live, a vocation, personal power and
|
|
influence etc, but at a deeper level the foundation of personal
|
|
identity is built on a series of accidents, encounters and
|
|
influences which create the illusion of who we are, what we
|
|
believe in, and what we stand for. There is a warm, secure
|
|
feeling of knowing what is right and wrong, of doing the right
|
|
thing, of living a worthwhile life in the service of worthwhile
|
|
causes, of having a uniquely privileged vantage point from which
|
|
to survey the problems of life (with all the intolerance and
|
|
incomprehension of other people which accompanies this insight),
|
|
and conversely there are feelings of despair, depression, loss of
|
|
identity, and existential terror when a crack forms in the
|
|
illusion, and reality shows through - Castaneda calls it "the
|
|
crack in the world". The smug, self-perpetuating illusion which
|
|
masquerades as personal identity at the level of Yesod is the
|
|
most astoundingly difficult thing to shift or destroy. It fights
|
|
back with all the resources of the personality, it will
|
|
enthusiastically embrace any ally which will help to shore up its
|
|
defenses - religious, political or scientific ideology;
|
|
psychological, sociological, metaphysical and theosophical
|
|
claptrap (e.g. Kabbalah); the law and popular morality; in fact,
|
|
any beliefs which give it the power to retain its identity,
|
|
uniqueness and integrity. Because this parasite of the soul uses
|
|
religion (and its esoteric offshoots) to sustain itself they have
|
|
little or no power over it and become a major part of the
|
|
problem.
|
|
There are various ways of overcoming this personal demon
|
|
(Carroll [8], in an essay on the subject, calls it Choronzon),
|
|
and the two I know best are the cataclysmic and the abrasive. The
|
|
first method involves a shock so extreme that it is impossible to
|
|
be the same person again, and if enough preparation has gone
|
|
before then it is possible to use the shock to rebuild oneself.
|
|
In some cases this doesn't happen; I have noticed that many
|
|
people with very rigid religious beliefs talk readily about
|
|
having suffered traumatic experiences, and the phenomenon of
|
|
hysterical conversion among soldiers suffering from war neuroses
|
|
is well known. The other method, the abrasive, is to wear away
|
|
the demon of self-importance, to grind it into nothing by doing
|
|
(for example) something for someone else for which one receives
|
|
no thanks, praise, reward, or recognition. The task has to be big
|
|
enough and awful enough to become a demon in its own right and
|
|
induce all the correct feelings of compulsion (I have to do
|
|
this), helplessness (I'll never make it), indignation (what's
|
|
the point, it's not my problem anyway), rebellion (I won't, I
|
|
won't, not anymore), more compulsion (I can't give up), self-pity
|
|
(how did I get into this?), exhaustion (Oh No! Not again!),
|
|
despair (I can't go on), and finally a kind of submission when
|
|
one's demon hasn't the energy to put up a struggle any more and
|
|
simply gives up. The woman who taught me Kabbalah used both the
|
|
cataclysmic and the abrasive methods on her students with
|
|
malicious glee - I will discuss this in more detail in the
|
|
section on Tiphereth.
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
(6083) Thu 6 Jun 91 23:34
|
|
By: Grendel
|
|
To: kab 17
|
|
Re: Kab 17
|
|
St:
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
@MSGID: 84:5004/9 63179461
|
|
The virtue of Yesod is independence, the ability to make our
|
|
own foundations, to continually rebuild ourselves, to reject the
|
|
security of comfortable illusions and confront reality without
|
|
blinking.
|
|
The vice of Yesod is idleness. This can be contrasted with
|
|
the inertia of Malkuth. A stone is inert because it lacks the
|
|
capacity to change, but in most circumstances people can change
|
|
and can't be bothered. At least, not today. Yesod has a dreamy,
|
|
illusory, comfortable, *seductive* quality, as in the Isle of the
|
|
Lotus Eaters - how else could we live as if death and personal
|
|
annihilation only happened to other people?
|
|
The Klippothic aspect of Yesod occurs when foundations are
|
|
rotten and disintegrating and only the superficial appearance
|
|
remains unchanged - Dorian Gray springs to mind, or cases where
|
|
the brain is damaged and the body remains and carries out basic
|
|
instinctive functions, but the person is dead as far as other
|
|
people are concerned. Organisations are just as prone to this as
|
|
people.
|
|
|
|
[1] A.E. Powell, "The Etheric Double", Theosophical Publishing
|
|
House, 1925
|
|
|
|
[2] A.E. Powell, "The Astral Body", Theosophical Publishing
|
|
House, 1927
|
|
|
|
[3] "It's the Image Men We Answer To", The Sunday Times, 6th.
|
|
Jan 1991
|
|
|
|
[4] Castenada, Carlos, "The Fire from Within", Black Swan, 1985.
|
|
|
|
[5] N. R. Clough, "How to Make and Use Magic Mirrors", Aquarian
|
|
1977
|
|
|
|
[6] S.L. Mathers, "The Kabbalah Unveiled", Routledge & Kegan Paul
|
|
1981
|
|
|
|
[7] Roger Penrose, "The Emperor's New Mind", Oxford University
|
|
Press 1989
|
|
|
|
[8] Peter J. Carroll, "Psychonaut", Samuel Weiser 1987.
|
|
|
|
Copyright Colin Low 1991
|
|
|
|
--- FD 1.99c
|
|
* Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle, Washington
|
|
(206)634-1980 (84:5004/9.0)@
|
|
PATH: 5004/9 |