[Historic/Archival] 20. Qabalah II
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 3:59 am
Qabalah II
Historical Veritas / V-Society Magick Articles archive
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The Qabalah
Lecture II
In the last lecture I gave a basic outline of the Tree of Life, a little bit of its history, and a brief description of the sephiroth. Today we will go a little more in depth to consider the properties of all the sephiroth, as well as the three pillars which suspend them. But first, let us consider the Qabalah for a moment as a means of both magical and mystical attainment, through the two main methods of knowledge and pathworking.
To do this, we first consider precisely what might be considered to be the difference between a mystic and a magician, and therefore what seperates magical attainment from mystical attainment, and how they both may be blended together to create a spiritually evolving effective magician. A mystic is here defined as a person who pursues spiritual knowledge not for its practical use, but as a means of only his own spiritual evolution. In the Qabalah then, a Qaballistic mystic would be someone who concerns himself principally with climbing the Tree of Life for the purpose of spiritual attainment, with comparative ignorance of the many powers lended to the individual along the way. What powers may be accomplished are seen by such a person as mere stepping stones, and the mystic of this fashion does not consider their practical applications, nor is he concerned with authority. His first and last goal is to arrive at God, embrace it, and then dissolve into the Light for what may be called "eternal bliss."
The magician on the other hand concerns himself with acquiring a thorough knowlege of the Tree of Life, of its sephiroth, paying particular attention to the spirits and angels therein as well as the forces governed thereby. With this knowledge he acquires a way to bring this forces into harmony at a time and situation of his own desire, be it entirely mental or be it the creation of a proper ritual atmosphere so that a particular operation has the required "umph." By knowing the name of the Archangel of a particular sphere, he can divise a sigil which connects to that archangels energies and the powers at that being's command shall flow into the magician's hands as water flows into a bowl. This is the true essence of Qaballistic magic: the alignment of forces so that they flow freely to where they are directed. This same principle applies to all the other forces involved: the choirs, the angels, the gods, the theurgic images, the planets, ect, all allow the magician to refine and perfect the conduit which shall bring the sephirothic energy desired into his sphere to be worked with. The magician is however still concerned first and foremost with his spiritual evolution. The difference is merely that he believes that as each new level is met, it should be understood and conquered so that it becomes a firm foundation for the next step. By rising through the spheres his consciousness alone does not expand, but quite literally his empire does as well.
So how is this rising on the planes accomplished? Connecting the ten sephiroth on the Tree of Life are twenty-two hidden paths, all of which recieve their light and essence by the two spheres which any particular path connects. These twenty-two paths are the essences of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Starting in lower Malkuth, our simple physical world, a person who knows the path of Tav (the final hebrew letter) may arise from Malkuth to Yesod by its means. These paths are strange things, and their essences can only really be understood by those who move within them during pathworking. However in general they represent a blend of color, starting with one definite color, which is the base sephiroth from which the path emerges, and ending in an entirely different color, which is the sephiroth at the head of the path. The path itself represents a manner of union between these colors. Tav, then, may be understood by the two sephiroth it connects: Malkuth and Yesod. Through experimentation and exploration, all of the paths have been found also to have their own peculiar energies and forces, as well as governing angels and the likes. These are learned once the path is commenced: until then, the magician arms himself with the knowledge of the two sephiroth the path connects. Knowing what he does then, and armed with knowledge and confidence, the magician ascends up each path to the sphere at its head. This spiritual and mental process is an externalization of an internal process. With each new path that is conquered, and each new sephiroth that is reached, channels of powerful energy are opened within his entire spiritual unit that make him a vessel to recieve supernal and empowering forces. Gradually the range of powers at his command are expanded, and his authority expands with this. When he conquers the sphere of Yesod for example, placing his consciousness therein, his consciousness expands to an understanding of the hidden natures of things, and the energy present in Yesod is then free to be channeled into his own spiritual makeup.
Each of these paths and each of these sephiroth represent the bones and body-parts of the Supernal Man, Adam if you will, and as each one is conquered another part of that supernal man is added to the makeup of the Qaballist. Piece by peice he literally reconstructs his mind and his soul, bringing them into harmony with the more perfected forces of higher worlds, until one day he eventually becomes a spiritual personification of that Celestial Man. Along the way his sphere of influence expands, until eventually the whole of the universe can be said to reside in his being.
This then is the manner of the ascent of the magician up the paths. However, this is, as has already been hinted at, not the limit of the magician's use for the Qabalah. Each of the sephiroth with their qualities represent keys to celestial forces which can, if the method be known, be channeled down into the operations of the magician so that his operations have even a cosmic effect. The magician then does not need to spiritually ascend to each sephiroth in order to begin to use their powers, and even someone who is spiritually low on the Some of the basic details as to how this is done shall be considered in the third lecture. In the mean time this information shall certainly suffice, and we may now move on to a consideration of the properties of the ten sephiroth.
As has been mentioned at an earlier time, Kether is the first sephiroth of creation. It is the crown on top of the head, and this is important, for it is not the head itself. By being the crown it represents something above the person; something outside of it, which depicts complete and absolute authority. It is called the Ancient of Ancients, and the Cause above all Causes. The latin philosophers sometimes referred to it as Lux Occulta, the Hidden Light, for it connects to a vast ocean of Endless Light which can never be known save by God Himself, and which can only be expressed by a single spark. This single spark lands in the center of a circle, meaning that a small piece of light makes itself perpetual, and so Kether arises as the point where a beam of the great Endless Light enters into what we may begin to call existence on an active level. Ehieh Asher Ehieh, "I Am that which I Am," is the name of this sephira. It is depicted in some branches of occultism as the "I Am" consciousness, for the only thing one could say about God's Being at this point is to say quiety to himself, "I Am." It is from this sephira that all spirit originates, that the divine LVX, the supernal Akasha, comes into being so that a substance may appear with which the rest of the universe may be crafted. The light emitting from here can only be called Brilliance, for it pierces the entire universe. So great is it that this light in its primordial form is to great to be the substance which can create the rest of existence. This Supernal LVX is not yet fitting to become that Astral Light which interpenetrates everything, and which is the primary medium of nearly all conceivable occult phenomena. It suffices at this point merely that this Light has been brought into the same general universe wherein creation shall occur. In order for this light to become workable, it must be lowered into another sephira: Chokmah.
Chokmah is The Ancient. It is the first level wherein God can lower Himself to be directly concerned with His Creations. Starting here alone can this supernal Light be filtered through enough dimensions so that it is no longer purely destructive by the sheer force of its magnificence. This is why it is called "Wisdom," as it is said "The Beginning is Wisdom." It is Wisdom because it was from here that God first came to consider all the dynamics that would be involved in the act of creation. It was only when the God-Consciousness decended into and created Chokmah that the creative Light was in such a state that He could begin to create it. This power, then, is the first essential "giver" in the act of creation. For this reason this sephira is associated with "The Father." It is the first giving, male aspect of creation and so the seeds for gender are planted within it. Because it is here where God sat to create the World, the attainment of Chokmah is called "The Vision of God Face to Face." This male aspect is again reinforced by the presence of the letter Yod, the first letter of the Tetragrammaton YHVH, the creative Four Letter Name of God. The letter Yod itself is made to resemble a sperm, and for the creation of the comprehendable world all this seed needs is a womb.
This womb it creates out of the light which it has channeled, and the resulting sephira is Binah. Binah acts as the clothes of Chokmah, the sheaths which conceal and mold the light in such a way that the understandable world can come into being. For this reason Binah literally means Understanding. If Chokmah is the wisdom by which means God saw what had to occur in order for existence to come into being, then Binah is the level of completion on the supernal levels which allows this creation to be understood. It has its double representation in that likewise, it is the highest understandable level of creation, and therefore the highest attainable plateau. Simultaneously with the creation of Binah occured the finalization of gender, the seperation of existence into two definable sides: left and right as they are understood Qaballisticaly, and male and female as they are understood conceptually. Both of these two kinds of division occured with the creation of Binah. Binah had the sperm, the Yod, of Chokmah concealed deep within its bosom. At this time, Malkuth was created, establishing what was said: "Elohim created the heavens and the Earth." Here the supernal triad of Kether, Chokmah and Binah are considered the heavens, and the Earth is Malkuth.
Why was Malkuth created before the rest of the sephiroth in the lower world? Because Malkuth had to be the beginning of spiritual evolution for His intended creations, and in order for the natural magnetism to exist which would compel human souls to try and climb higher, Malkuth must year for Binah (the highest spiritual attainment) as an offspring yearns for a parent. This fulfills what is written, "You hung the firmaments for the world." Malkuth was brought up into Binah, and impregnated with the sperm of Chokmah, Binah worked upon Malkuth. Concealed within Her bosom Malkuth was made so that all of Malkuth's inner chambers resembled all those of Binah. This was the creation of the Garden of Eden in the physical world. When the preparation was done and Binah concieved, a daughter was born: the Malkuth of the present world, who is called "The Daughter." Malkuth then descended from the Mother, which is Binah, who is called the Supernal Mother. Through her descent, God clothed her with many adornments and decorated her with many jewels. These became the six sephiroth between Binah and Malkuth, and because it was during Malkuth's decent that this occured, a path was created which would connect Malkuth to Binah.
The sephira which came from the extension downwards of the light of Binah is Chesed, and this is the first thing created on the other side of the abyss which seperates "above" from "below." Chesed, then, is the first sephira of the active universe. Because all higher channels were necessarily channeled through Chesed into the lower world in the beginning, it is written: "I have built the world through Love (Chesed)." Chesed is a place of love. Magically, it is depicted as a mighty crowned king on a throne: the priest king, who rules with a benevolent and forgiving hand. In the lower world it is the most beautiful of the sephiroth, containing the most light. On The Tree it is immediately below Chokmah, and so just as Chokmah was the Creative Father, Chesed is the loving and benevolent father. Chesed also has a necessarily creative and malleable nature, for by the working of the Divine Light through Chesed were al of the lower sephiroth created. By the creation of Chesed the first of the three pillars was established: the right pillar, called the pillar of Mercy. It connected Chesed to Chokmah, and then extended down into the bottom of the cosmos. At this point only the pillar of mercy existed because in the lower world there was only Chesed, the power of Love, which had no desire to pass judgment on anything, but only to continue to love. This all tells us that Chesed is the benevolent father who desires only to forgive and to love. Chesed is also a creative force, taking something otherwise difficult to comprehend and rendering it in a form more tangible, for it brings things from the higher worlds down into this, the lower one. Chesed represents love before it was countered by judgment: it represents unconditional love, in all situations, and therefore a most powerful attraction. It is through the magnetic love of Chesed that one finds the portal leading through the abyss and into Binah. This was the first day of creation.
On the second day of creation, the sephira Geburah was created. With Geburah the pillar of severity was formed by the connection of Geburah and Binah, and this pillar likewise extended down into the cosmos. Left and right have now been created: two complete opposites, with no immediate reconciliation, unlike male and female. Geburah is the force of judgment, and therefore was the first obstruction to the love of Chesed. It regulates this love as it comes down into the universe, so that love is not given to those who truly do not deserve it. It is the great administer of justice, the warrior-king, who weighs all that come before him on the scales of justice. Immediately upon the creation of this sephiroth the power of choosing between one thing and another emerged, for in order for judgment to exist there must necessarily be actions which require judgment. The powers of the loving Chesed flow into the judgment of Geburah, which decides how much love the world has earned. Necessarily alongside the creation of judgment and actions which require that judgment came the equally necessary punishment for those who are judged and found unworthy. We see then that by the interaction of Chesed and Geburah, the place called Gehenom was created.
Gehenom, one of the Hells of the Qaballah, is not the same as the Hell of the Christians. Indeed there is much torture and pain here, for there is much fire here, but this fire acts in a cleansing way. To those who are filthy and covered with much slime, more fire is required to melt that filth away. For those with less, less fire is required. The reward of this "painful" purging is that the soul is renewed and made clean again. Souls which have become irreversibly tainted, with no hope of a subsequent incarnation being able to level out this taint, are completely broken down back into their base elements in Gehenom. It is to this dissintegration that Jesus referred when he said "Much weeping and gnashing of teeth." Because the creation of judgment on the second day also created Gehenom, a place of pain and torment and also a house of evil, God does not say about this day "And it was good."
There is a necessary resolution between left and right, or else existence would be entirely divided, and so as the judging fires of Geburah and the comforting waters of Chesed poured forth, they meet in another sephiroth: Tiphareth. Tiphareth here presents a point of complete balance, where all forces are equilibriated. Here the powers of Chesed are comforted by the presence of a place which rewards the righteous, and the powers of Geburah are comforted by the fact that because it only rewards the righteous, not everyone is allowed into this sphere. Both love and judgment are then fulfilled. This is why Jesus, an apparent representation of Tiphareth, was a kind and merciful individual who taught only forgiveness and compassion, and yet also said "I have come to baptize the world by fire." The forgiveness is the persence of Chesed, and the fire the presence of Geburah. Tiphareth is the supernal Israel, the house of the righteous, and is also the sun. It illuminates all of the other sephiroth from its position in the center of the Tree of Life, and likewise with its creation emerged the middle pillar, a pillar of balance. It is called the sun because it is the first sephira below Kether, and is connected to it by the Middle Pillar. As we have discussed, Kether is a pure and radiant light too powerful in its original form to be a thing of creation. Tiphareth is just far away enough from Kether that, when the light comes from Kether directly down the middle pillar and connects with Tiphareth, the light is then useable, and reflects off of Tiphareth with such power that it becomes the sun, and lights up all the other sephiroth. Tiphareth, by virtue of the middle pillar, is the first reflection of the supernal power of Kether. Because Kether is the God Consciousness, the attainment of Tiphareth represents this consciousness on a small scale. For this reason so much emphasis has always been placed on the attainment of Tiphareth, for here the soul consciousness first begins to really manifest in the magician. Such a monumental accomplishment is this that in nearly all genuine Magical Orders of the Qaballistic Tradition, once the initiate has reached Tiphareth he is considered an Adept, and at that point is given the option of either leaving the Order and continuing his own path, or staying and helping the Order's aims and goals.
Next in the order of Sephiroth from above to below is Netzach. It is here that the creative powers of Chesed channel down into Netzach to become formative forces, and so the divine splendour of Tiphareth is given form. Found here are essentially blind forces of energy, and so Netzach is associated with natural forces and the formation of power into something useable for the creation of the physical world. These natural forces can be seen as essentially blind, but they flow into the next sephira, which is called Hod. Hod recieves from above the decision-making intelligence of Geburah, and so Hod is associated with Intelligence. It takes the forces of Netzach, purely spiritual forces, and connects them with purely mental forces. Hod then can be seen somewhat as the sphere of the mind, and netzach as the sphere of energy.
When thought and form are attached to one another, they trickle down to create Yesod, where the two become inseperable. This combination of thought and energy should be familiar, for Yesod is the astral sphere, where both are found in union. Yesod then acts as a prototype for the created world, the world of Malkuth, and the forces are first brought together here before they are channeled through the Archeus (the path of Tav) down into the physical world. Just as the world recieves all its influences from the astral, Malkuth recieves it all from Yesod. As we may observe, Yesod rests also on the Middle Pillar, and therefore may be seen as an even smaller parallel of the accomplishment depicted by Tiphareth. Just as Tiphareth is the first sephiroth that represents stepping through the portal and over into adepthood, Yesod represents the actual first step into that portal to begin with. It was mentioned earlier that Tiphareth shines its light to all of the sephiroth, and you may not think that this is so, for Yesod is between Tiphareth. However, just as Tiphareth is the sun, Yesod is the moon. What does the moon do? It reflects the light of the sun down into the world, so that even night is not completely dark.
The culminating end, the place which ultimately recieves all the above powers from all of the sephiroth, is Malkuth. This is the completion of the universe, wherein all the universe is concealed. This is our physical world. It is represented by four colors: citrine, olive, russet and black. By four directions: North, South, East and West. By four elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. By the equilateral four-armed cross. By the equilateral square and its four points.
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The magician becomes filled with God, fed upon God, intoxicated with God. Little by little his body will become purified by the internal lustration of God; day by day his mortal frame, shedding its earthly elements, will become in very truth the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Day by day matter is replace
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Historical Veritas / V-Society Magick Articles archive
Article metadataArchival notice: This is an archival republication of a historical forum article. The text is preserved for research, citation, and continuity; authorship remains with the original forum author where identifiable, and dates/replies/views reflect the surviving capture or Wayback-era ledger where available.
- Author: Prophecy
- Original post date: March 11, 2007, 09:55:28 AM
- Author quote / captured profile/signature line: Hermetic Magician / Veritas Teacher / Posts By Osmosis
- Article title: Qabalah II
- Length: 3708 words (~17 min read)
- Replies / views: 0 / 693
- Last visible board activity: March 11, 2007, 09:55:28 AM
- Source archive: Forum topic archive
- Local capture source: res/The Qabalah II.rtfd
- Archival flag/tag: historical archive; Veritas Society; Magick Articles; preserved forum post
Additional archival context
- Archivist abstract: Second article in the Qabalah instructional sequence, continuing the symbolic and metaphysical framework introduced in Qabalah I.
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The Qabalah
Lecture II
In the last lecture I gave a basic outline of the Tree of Life, a little bit of its history, and a brief description of the sephiroth. Today we will go a little more in depth to consider the properties of all the sephiroth, as well as the three pillars which suspend them. But first, let us consider the Qabalah for a moment as a means of both magical and mystical attainment, through the two main methods of knowledge and pathworking.
To do this, we first consider precisely what might be considered to be the difference between a mystic and a magician, and therefore what seperates magical attainment from mystical attainment, and how they both may be blended together to create a spiritually evolving effective magician. A mystic is here defined as a person who pursues spiritual knowledge not for its practical use, but as a means of only his own spiritual evolution. In the Qabalah then, a Qaballistic mystic would be someone who concerns himself principally with climbing the Tree of Life for the purpose of spiritual attainment, with comparative ignorance of the many powers lended to the individual along the way. What powers may be accomplished are seen by such a person as mere stepping stones, and the mystic of this fashion does not consider their practical applications, nor is he concerned with authority. His first and last goal is to arrive at God, embrace it, and then dissolve into the Light for what may be called "eternal bliss."
The magician on the other hand concerns himself with acquiring a thorough knowlege of the Tree of Life, of its sephiroth, paying particular attention to the spirits and angels therein as well as the forces governed thereby. With this knowledge he acquires a way to bring this forces into harmony at a time and situation of his own desire, be it entirely mental or be it the creation of a proper ritual atmosphere so that a particular operation has the required "umph." By knowing the name of the Archangel of a particular sphere, he can divise a sigil which connects to that archangels energies and the powers at that being's command shall flow into the magician's hands as water flows into a bowl. This is the true essence of Qaballistic magic: the alignment of forces so that they flow freely to where they are directed. This same principle applies to all the other forces involved: the choirs, the angels, the gods, the theurgic images, the planets, ect, all allow the magician to refine and perfect the conduit which shall bring the sephirothic energy desired into his sphere to be worked with. The magician is however still concerned first and foremost with his spiritual evolution. The difference is merely that he believes that as each new level is met, it should be understood and conquered so that it becomes a firm foundation for the next step. By rising through the spheres his consciousness alone does not expand, but quite literally his empire does as well.
So how is this rising on the planes accomplished? Connecting the ten sephiroth on the Tree of Life are twenty-two hidden paths, all of which recieve their light and essence by the two spheres which any particular path connects. These twenty-two paths are the essences of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Starting in lower Malkuth, our simple physical world, a person who knows the path of Tav (the final hebrew letter) may arise from Malkuth to Yesod by its means. These paths are strange things, and their essences can only really be understood by those who move within them during pathworking. However in general they represent a blend of color, starting with one definite color, which is the base sephiroth from which the path emerges, and ending in an entirely different color, which is the sephiroth at the head of the path. The path itself represents a manner of union between these colors. Tav, then, may be understood by the two sephiroth it connects: Malkuth and Yesod. Through experimentation and exploration, all of the paths have been found also to have their own peculiar energies and forces, as well as governing angels and the likes. These are learned once the path is commenced: until then, the magician arms himself with the knowledge of the two sephiroth the path connects. Knowing what he does then, and armed with knowledge and confidence, the magician ascends up each path to the sphere at its head. This spiritual and mental process is an externalization of an internal process. With each new path that is conquered, and each new sephiroth that is reached, channels of powerful energy are opened within his entire spiritual unit that make him a vessel to recieve supernal and empowering forces. Gradually the range of powers at his command are expanded, and his authority expands with this. When he conquers the sphere of Yesod for example, placing his consciousness therein, his consciousness expands to an understanding of the hidden natures of things, and the energy present in Yesod is then free to be channeled into his own spiritual makeup.
Each of these paths and each of these sephiroth represent the bones and body-parts of the Supernal Man, Adam if you will, and as each one is conquered another part of that supernal man is added to the makeup of the Qaballist. Piece by peice he literally reconstructs his mind and his soul, bringing them into harmony with the more perfected forces of higher worlds, until one day he eventually becomes a spiritual personification of that Celestial Man. Along the way his sphere of influence expands, until eventually the whole of the universe can be said to reside in his being.
This then is the manner of the ascent of the magician up the paths. However, this is, as has already been hinted at, not the limit of the magician's use for the Qabalah. Each of the sephiroth with their qualities represent keys to celestial forces which can, if the method be known, be channeled down into the operations of the magician so that his operations have even a cosmic effect. The magician then does not need to spiritually ascend to each sephiroth in order to begin to use their powers, and even someone who is spiritually low on the Some of the basic details as to how this is done shall be considered in the third lecture. In the mean time this information shall certainly suffice, and we may now move on to a consideration of the properties of the ten sephiroth.
As has been mentioned at an earlier time, Kether is the first sephiroth of creation. It is the crown on top of the head, and this is important, for it is not the head itself. By being the crown it represents something above the person; something outside of it, which depicts complete and absolute authority. It is called the Ancient of Ancients, and the Cause above all Causes. The latin philosophers sometimes referred to it as Lux Occulta, the Hidden Light, for it connects to a vast ocean of Endless Light which can never be known save by God Himself, and which can only be expressed by a single spark. This single spark lands in the center of a circle, meaning that a small piece of light makes itself perpetual, and so Kether arises as the point where a beam of the great Endless Light enters into what we may begin to call existence on an active level. Ehieh Asher Ehieh, "I Am that which I Am," is the name of this sephira. It is depicted in some branches of occultism as the "I Am" consciousness, for the only thing one could say about God's Being at this point is to say quiety to himself, "I Am." It is from this sephira that all spirit originates, that the divine LVX, the supernal Akasha, comes into being so that a substance may appear with which the rest of the universe may be crafted. The light emitting from here can only be called Brilliance, for it pierces the entire universe. So great is it that this light in its primordial form is to great to be the substance which can create the rest of existence. This Supernal LVX is not yet fitting to become that Astral Light which interpenetrates everything, and which is the primary medium of nearly all conceivable occult phenomena. It suffices at this point merely that this Light has been brought into the same general universe wherein creation shall occur. In order for this light to become workable, it must be lowered into another sephira: Chokmah.
Chokmah is The Ancient. It is the first level wherein God can lower Himself to be directly concerned with His Creations. Starting here alone can this supernal Light be filtered through enough dimensions so that it is no longer purely destructive by the sheer force of its magnificence. This is why it is called "Wisdom," as it is said "The Beginning is Wisdom." It is Wisdom because it was from here that God first came to consider all the dynamics that would be involved in the act of creation. It was only when the God-Consciousness decended into and created Chokmah that the creative Light was in such a state that He could begin to create it. This power, then, is the first essential "giver" in the act of creation. For this reason this sephira is associated with "The Father." It is the first giving, male aspect of creation and so the seeds for gender are planted within it. Because it is here where God sat to create the World, the attainment of Chokmah is called "The Vision of God Face to Face." This male aspect is again reinforced by the presence of the letter Yod, the first letter of the Tetragrammaton YHVH, the creative Four Letter Name of God. The letter Yod itself is made to resemble a sperm, and for the creation of the comprehendable world all this seed needs is a womb.
This womb it creates out of the light which it has channeled, and the resulting sephira is Binah. Binah acts as the clothes of Chokmah, the sheaths which conceal and mold the light in such a way that the understandable world can come into being. For this reason Binah literally means Understanding. If Chokmah is the wisdom by which means God saw what had to occur in order for existence to come into being, then Binah is the level of completion on the supernal levels which allows this creation to be understood. It has its double representation in that likewise, it is the highest understandable level of creation, and therefore the highest attainable plateau. Simultaneously with the creation of Binah occured the finalization of gender, the seperation of existence into two definable sides: left and right as they are understood Qaballisticaly, and male and female as they are understood conceptually. Both of these two kinds of division occured with the creation of Binah. Binah had the sperm, the Yod, of Chokmah concealed deep within its bosom. At this time, Malkuth was created, establishing what was said: "Elohim created the heavens and the Earth." Here the supernal triad of Kether, Chokmah and Binah are considered the heavens, and the Earth is Malkuth.
Why was Malkuth created before the rest of the sephiroth in the lower world? Because Malkuth had to be the beginning of spiritual evolution for His intended creations, and in order for the natural magnetism to exist which would compel human souls to try and climb higher, Malkuth must year for Binah (the highest spiritual attainment) as an offspring yearns for a parent. This fulfills what is written, "You hung the firmaments for the world." Malkuth was brought up into Binah, and impregnated with the sperm of Chokmah, Binah worked upon Malkuth. Concealed within Her bosom Malkuth was made so that all of Malkuth's inner chambers resembled all those of Binah. This was the creation of the Garden of Eden in the physical world. When the preparation was done and Binah concieved, a daughter was born: the Malkuth of the present world, who is called "The Daughter." Malkuth then descended from the Mother, which is Binah, who is called the Supernal Mother. Through her descent, God clothed her with many adornments and decorated her with many jewels. These became the six sephiroth between Binah and Malkuth, and because it was during Malkuth's decent that this occured, a path was created which would connect Malkuth to Binah.
The sephira which came from the extension downwards of the light of Binah is Chesed, and this is the first thing created on the other side of the abyss which seperates "above" from "below." Chesed, then, is the first sephira of the active universe. Because all higher channels were necessarily channeled through Chesed into the lower world in the beginning, it is written: "I have built the world through Love (Chesed)." Chesed is a place of love. Magically, it is depicted as a mighty crowned king on a throne: the priest king, who rules with a benevolent and forgiving hand. In the lower world it is the most beautiful of the sephiroth, containing the most light. On The Tree it is immediately below Chokmah, and so just as Chokmah was the Creative Father, Chesed is the loving and benevolent father. Chesed also has a necessarily creative and malleable nature, for by the working of the Divine Light through Chesed were al of the lower sephiroth created. By the creation of Chesed the first of the three pillars was established: the right pillar, called the pillar of Mercy. It connected Chesed to Chokmah, and then extended down into the bottom of the cosmos. At this point only the pillar of mercy existed because in the lower world there was only Chesed, the power of Love, which had no desire to pass judgment on anything, but only to continue to love. This all tells us that Chesed is the benevolent father who desires only to forgive and to love. Chesed is also a creative force, taking something otherwise difficult to comprehend and rendering it in a form more tangible, for it brings things from the higher worlds down into this, the lower one. Chesed represents love before it was countered by judgment: it represents unconditional love, in all situations, and therefore a most powerful attraction. It is through the magnetic love of Chesed that one finds the portal leading through the abyss and into Binah. This was the first day of creation.
On the second day of creation, the sephira Geburah was created. With Geburah the pillar of severity was formed by the connection of Geburah and Binah, and this pillar likewise extended down into the cosmos. Left and right have now been created: two complete opposites, with no immediate reconciliation, unlike male and female. Geburah is the force of judgment, and therefore was the first obstruction to the love of Chesed. It regulates this love as it comes down into the universe, so that love is not given to those who truly do not deserve it. It is the great administer of justice, the warrior-king, who weighs all that come before him on the scales of justice. Immediately upon the creation of this sephiroth the power of choosing between one thing and another emerged, for in order for judgment to exist there must necessarily be actions which require judgment. The powers of the loving Chesed flow into the judgment of Geburah, which decides how much love the world has earned. Necessarily alongside the creation of judgment and actions which require that judgment came the equally necessary punishment for those who are judged and found unworthy. We see then that by the interaction of Chesed and Geburah, the place called Gehenom was created.
Gehenom, one of the Hells of the Qaballah, is not the same as the Hell of the Christians. Indeed there is much torture and pain here, for there is much fire here, but this fire acts in a cleansing way. To those who are filthy and covered with much slime, more fire is required to melt that filth away. For those with less, less fire is required. The reward of this "painful" purging is that the soul is renewed and made clean again. Souls which have become irreversibly tainted, with no hope of a subsequent incarnation being able to level out this taint, are completely broken down back into their base elements in Gehenom. It is to this dissintegration that Jesus referred when he said "Much weeping and gnashing of teeth." Because the creation of judgment on the second day also created Gehenom, a place of pain and torment and also a house of evil, God does not say about this day "And it was good."
There is a necessary resolution between left and right, or else existence would be entirely divided, and so as the judging fires of Geburah and the comforting waters of Chesed poured forth, they meet in another sephiroth: Tiphareth. Tiphareth here presents a point of complete balance, where all forces are equilibriated. Here the powers of Chesed are comforted by the presence of a place which rewards the righteous, and the powers of Geburah are comforted by the fact that because it only rewards the righteous, not everyone is allowed into this sphere. Both love and judgment are then fulfilled. This is why Jesus, an apparent representation of Tiphareth, was a kind and merciful individual who taught only forgiveness and compassion, and yet also said "I have come to baptize the world by fire." The forgiveness is the persence of Chesed, and the fire the presence of Geburah. Tiphareth is the supernal Israel, the house of the righteous, and is also the sun. It illuminates all of the other sephiroth from its position in the center of the Tree of Life, and likewise with its creation emerged the middle pillar, a pillar of balance. It is called the sun because it is the first sephira below Kether, and is connected to it by the Middle Pillar. As we have discussed, Kether is a pure and radiant light too powerful in its original form to be a thing of creation. Tiphareth is just far away enough from Kether that, when the light comes from Kether directly down the middle pillar and connects with Tiphareth, the light is then useable, and reflects off of Tiphareth with such power that it becomes the sun, and lights up all the other sephiroth. Tiphareth, by virtue of the middle pillar, is the first reflection of the supernal power of Kether. Because Kether is the God Consciousness, the attainment of Tiphareth represents this consciousness on a small scale. For this reason so much emphasis has always been placed on the attainment of Tiphareth, for here the soul consciousness first begins to really manifest in the magician. Such a monumental accomplishment is this that in nearly all genuine Magical Orders of the Qaballistic Tradition, once the initiate has reached Tiphareth he is considered an Adept, and at that point is given the option of either leaving the Order and continuing his own path, or staying and helping the Order's aims and goals.
Next in the order of Sephiroth from above to below is Netzach. It is here that the creative powers of Chesed channel down into Netzach to become formative forces, and so the divine splendour of Tiphareth is given form. Found here are essentially blind forces of energy, and so Netzach is associated with natural forces and the formation of power into something useable for the creation of the physical world. These natural forces can be seen as essentially blind, but they flow into the next sephira, which is called Hod. Hod recieves from above the decision-making intelligence of Geburah, and so Hod is associated with Intelligence. It takes the forces of Netzach, purely spiritual forces, and connects them with purely mental forces. Hod then can be seen somewhat as the sphere of the mind, and netzach as the sphere of energy.
When thought and form are attached to one another, they trickle down to create Yesod, where the two become inseperable. This combination of thought and energy should be familiar, for Yesod is the astral sphere, where both are found in union. Yesod then acts as a prototype for the created world, the world of Malkuth, and the forces are first brought together here before they are channeled through the Archeus (the path of Tav) down into the physical world. Just as the world recieves all its influences from the astral, Malkuth recieves it all from Yesod. As we may observe, Yesod rests also on the Middle Pillar, and therefore may be seen as an even smaller parallel of the accomplishment depicted by Tiphareth. Just as Tiphareth is the first sephiroth that represents stepping through the portal and over into adepthood, Yesod represents the actual first step into that portal to begin with. It was mentioned earlier that Tiphareth shines its light to all of the sephiroth, and you may not think that this is so, for Yesod is between Tiphareth. However, just as Tiphareth is the sun, Yesod is the moon. What does the moon do? It reflects the light of the sun down into the world, so that even night is not completely dark.
The culminating end, the place which ultimately recieves all the above powers from all of the sephiroth, is Malkuth. This is the completion of the universe, wherein all the universe is concealed. This is our physical world. It is represented by four colors: citrine, olive, russet and black. By four directions: North, South, East and West. By four elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. By the equilateral four-armed cross. By the equilateral square and its four points.
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The magician becomes filled with God, fed upon God, intoxicated with God. Little by little his body will become purified by the internal lustration of God; day by day his mortal frame, shedding its earthly elements, will become in very truth the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Day by day matter is replace
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