The Tree of Life
8:14 AM
This past weekend, my beloved Autumn and I taught an introductory workshop on the Qabalah Tree of Life. We are committed to doing a 15 month Pathworking on the Tree of Life and are trying to recruit who we can to come along this incredible journey with us. So, people have been asking....what is the Qabalah? What is the Tree of Life? What is a Pathworking?
Well, glad they've been asking...read below for a fresh 101-style intro to the Tree. But, keep in mind, this is preschool Qabalah...it doesn't even touch the surface of the depth that is the Great Work. In fact, the Qabalah begs lifetimes (yes, that's plural) of study. However, I have attempted a quick throw-down of the material here on the Daedalus Thread.
THE QABALAH
The word Qabalah (or Kabbalah)
means “reception” or “accounting.” The Qabalah is an esoteric method, discipline, and
school of thought that is typically thought to have originated in Judaism, but
can also find its origins in the Mystery Schools of Greece and Egypt. The Tree
of Life is the primary symbol and tool used in working the Qabalah system.
One of the greatest mystics of the 20th
Century, Dion Fortune calls the Qabalah the “Yoga of the West.” She says in her
seminal work The Mystical Qabalah (p.13):
The curious symbol-system known to us as the Tree of
Life is an attempt to reduce to diagrammatic form every force and factor in the
manifested universe and the soul of man; to correlate them one to another and
reveal them spread out as on a map so that the relative positions of each unit
can be seen and the relations between them traced. In brief, the Tree of Life
is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology.
The
Tree of Life
In essence, the Tree of Life seeks to
define the nature and purpose of the universe and the individual, which are one
and the same. It is a road map exploring the nature of God/the Divine, and
man’s relationship to It and the natural world. There are pathways and there
are destinations (which themselves are pathways, as well). It is the role of
the mystic Qabalist, the Initiate, to traverse this road map as on a journey of
discovery. Gareth Knight, Fortune’s protégé, says the Qabalah “is a system of
relationships among mystical symbols which can be used […] to open up access to
the hidden reaches of the mind – beyond the frontiers of reason.” (A
Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, p.7)
The Tree of Life is a
symbol. What is a symbol? It is
important to truly understand symbolism before undertaking serious study into
the Qaballah. A symbol can be any object in which “a group of people agrees
that it means more than just itself.” (Liungman, Carl G. Dictionary of
Symbols, p.5) It is important to note that, especially in esotericism,
symbols are representations of something beyond their intrinsic nature and not
ends in themselves. Gareth Knight expounds on this notion: “The whole aim of
symbolism is its own destruction so that one can get to the reality which it
represents.” (A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, p. 20-21)
The Tree of Life is a symbol comprised of symbols,
and working with the Tree begets discernment in the usage of symbols, what they
embody, and uncovering the meaning behind it. It is the meaning one is trying to reach in a Pathworking, not the symbol
itself. Symbols exist to define the concepts which we cannot define with
language. “What words are to thought, symbols are to intuition.” (Fortune,
Dion. The Mystical Qabalah, p.15)
Sephiroth
The Tree of Life consists of 10 spheres (with an
invisible 11th sphere) called Sephiroth.
A sphere referred to in the singular form is called a Sephirah. Knight defines the Sephiroth as the “stages in the
emanations of the Spirit of God or man in its progress from noumenal existence
to its building of a physical vehicle in the phenomenal world.” (A Practical
Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, p.24) Imagine the Tree of Life as a process
chart, from top to bottom, each sphere or Sephirah a phase in the process which
then establishes itself as its own emanation but then precedes the force of
movement toward the next phase. A Sephirah is a phase of evolution in the
process of the Unmanifest becoming Manifest, from non-physical existence to
physical existence, Spirit to Matter.
Paths
The Sephiroth are connected by lines of association
called Paths. Dion Fortune concretes the relationship between the Paths and
Sephiroth perfectly:
The Paths between [the Sephiroth] are phases of
subjective consciousness, the Paths or grades (Latin, gradus, step) by which the soul unfolds its realization of the cosmos. The
Sephiroth are objective; the Paths are subjective. (The Mystical Qabalah,
p. 34)
The Paths help us understand that there is no
stagnation within the Tree. No Sephirah can be understood in and of itself, by
itself; it can only be understood in relation to the other Sephirah around it.
Life itself is a multifaceted synthesis of relationships, as is the Tree. Life is relationship; therefore the Paths
represent our experience upon the Tree, our experience within the dynamic
landscape of the cosmos.
The point is that as no aspect of life can be fully
understood devoid of its relationship with a great complex of other aspects, so
no Sephirah on the Tree can be described without reference to all the other
Sephiroth. And the same thing applies to the Paths between them. (Knight, Gareth. A Practical Guide
to Qabalistic Symbolism, p. 30)
PATHWORKING
Pathworking is the term used when employing spiritual work with the paths on the Tree of
Life. It is a relatively new term used
in the place of such phrases as ‘scrying in the Spirit,’ which was common usage
in the Mystery Schools of old. Although various Mystery Schools have had their
own institutional implementations of Pathworking in the past, in modern times
it is a fairly subjective process. Pathworking is a period of time for complete
meditation upon each path of the Tree of Life, including the Sephiroth, making
32 Paths of contemplation. The great mystic and founder of the Servants of the
Light School, Dolores Aschcroft-Nowicki, defines Pathworking as: “The ability to
project the mind self into a series of situations, landscapes and events, that
can either be run on a mental screen and watched like a film, or, once the mind
has been trained, experienced as a participant with full sensory perception.” (The
Shining Paths, p. 12)
So, when Pathworking it's not just a process of picking a Sehpirah and/or a Path and meditating on what it means. One has to understand the relationships among everything within the Tree. Including...
The
Pillars of Manifestation
The Qabalah
teaches the Hermetic principle of polarity: that there is a dual nature to all
aspects of being within man and the Universe. In the Qabalah, as well as many
spiritual traditions across the planet, this principle can best be achieved
through three fields embedded on the Tree of Life:
- The Pillar of Severity – considered to be the feminine, or negative, field of the Tree. This is the side of the Tree which manifests form, and the breaking down of things. It consists of the Sephirah on the left-hand side of the Tree: Binah, Geburah, and Hod.
- The Pillar of Mercy – considered to be the masculine, or positive, field of the Tree. This is the side of the Tree which manifests force, and the building up of things. It consists of the Sephirah on the right-hand side of the Tree: Chokmah, Chesed, and Netzach.
- The Pillar of Mildness – the consciousness of the higher Self brought into the personality. In the Mystery Schools the Initiate would stand in between two pillars, him/herself being the middle pillar as a balancing force between Severity and Mercy. It consists of the Sephirah in the center of the Tree: Kether, Tiphareth, Yesod, and Malkuth.
The
Three Triads
The Qabalah is further enhanced by a series of
trilateral relationships called the Triads. Three (3) is an important number in
all traditions of the Mysteries. It is the number for which form is created.
With one (1) you have a single point, with two (2) is generated a line by the
interaction of two points, then with three (3) a shape can now be generated
with a third point connecting all three lines: a triangle. Because the Tree of
Life represents the qualities of force manifesting into form, separating the
Tree into distinct Triads can be useful in understanding the various
relationships among the Sephiroth.
- The Supernal Triad – The uppermost triad composed of Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. This triad represents the upper most origins of form, the relationship among The Head Which Is Not, the Father, and the Mother (otherwise known as the Holy Trinity). This triad is the root concept of the cosmogony of the entire Qabalah.
- The Ethical Triad – The triad composed of Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth. In this triangle the ethics of the Universe are balanced and maintained through the beneficent rule of Jupiter (Chesed) with the fiery and destructive force of Mars (Geburah), thus both equilibrated by the Sun in the Redeeming Christ Consciousness of Tiphareth.
- The Astral Triad – The triad composed of Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. This triad can also be called the Magical Triad, where the Venus aspects of Netzach (Lady of Nature) and the Mercury aspects of Hod (Lord of Books) are thus equilibrated by in the Moon aspects of Yesod (the Mistress of Witchcraft). In this is created the etheric framework which is foundation for physical matter.
The
Four Worlds
Along with the Triads there is yet another way to
integrate an understanding of Universe with the philosophy of the Tree of Life:
the Four Worlds. These worlds represent the emanations of creative life-force
from the Divine Intelligence. They can be attributed to various geographical
placements upon the glyph of the Tree. However, what is most important to note
is these worlds are prevalent not only for the Tree as a whole, but within each
individual Sephirah. They can usually be associated with a realm of influence,
an element, a Tarot attribution, and an associated God Name (which together
make up the True Name of God).
ATZILUTH
|
BRIAH
|
YETZIRAH
|
ASSIAH
|
|
Realm
|
Archetype
|
Creative
|
Formative
|
Action
|
Element
|
Fire
|
Water
|
Air
|
Earth
|
Tarot
|
Wands
|
Cups
|
Swords
|
Pentacles
|
God
Name
|
Yod
|
He
|
Vav
|
He
|
YHVH = the True Name of God
(Tetragrammaton)
|
||||
The Celestial Man, the image of the human embedded
into the glyph of the Tree of Life aligned so that the chakras of the body
align with the Sephirah of the Tree. Some say Adam Kadmon is the secret Fifth
World. This the pure being, standing within and behind manifestation, so that
he can emanate and project it. The goal is, as Dion Fortune says, “. . . a
man’s works do not constitute his personality, but are the expression of its
natural activity.” (The Mystical Qabalah, p.105)
The
Flaming Sword/The Lightening Flash
The successive diagonal pathways of emanation from
Kether to Malkuth, which reveals the creative path of manifestation from the
Unmanifest to the Manifest, from Idea to Matter, from God to Man, Heaven to
Earth. Following this path, one can trace a model of the Universe as it was
created. The Adepts of the Mystery Traditions generally follow this pathway in
reverse, from Malkuth to Kether, in order to complete the Great Work.
The
Tarot
One of the primary modes of implementing a Pathworking with the Tree of Life is by using the Tarot.
“The Tarot is an ancient teaching disguised as a
game. […] The Tarot is a game disguised as ancient teachings…” (Pollack,
Rachel. The Vertigo Tarot, p.9)
The Tarot is a deck of cards with
images, divided into suits, which act as a divinatory tool for the individual
to use for personal and universal understanding. It helps relate the abstract
symbols inherent in the cosmos to the personal symbol-system of man’s
consciousness.
The tarot is a mirror of reality. Its construction,
based on the four elements, the celestial phenomena, the Holy Qabalah, and a
very evolved psychology, can lead its devotees to the inner recesses of psychic
and intuitive awareness. (Dowson,
Godfrey. The Hermetic Tarot, p.9)
In fact, many Adepts in the Mystery Traditions
believe that the creation of the Tarot was based solely on the design,
philosophy, and cosmogony of the Tree of Life. One of the great magicians of
the 20th Century Aleister Crowley states that the Tarot, “was
designed as a practical instrument for Qabalastic calculations and for
divination.” (The Book of Thoth, p.34). Even though there is not much
traditional historical data to show the cohesive use of the Tarot and Qabalah,
certainly the occultists of the late 19th and early 20th
Centuries (Fortune, Crowley, the Golden Dawn, etc.) found the incorporation of
these two systems was a successful endeavor in the esoteric arts. By linking
these two together, the Mystery Traditions found the process of
self-illumination and exploration to be enhanced dramatically. In fact, as
Crowley stressed, it was almost as if the two systems were always made for each
other from the beginning.
The Tarot, like the Tree of Life, is a narrative;
telling the story of both man and the Universe, which are one and the same.
The Tarot is divided into the Major Arcana and Minor
Arcana. There are twenty-two (22) cards in the Major Arcana, each correlating
with the twenty-two (22) letters of the Hebrew alphabet, thus with the paths on
the Tree of Life.
The letters of the Hebrew alphabet were said to
connect with the twenty-two paths of the cabalistic Tree of Life, which, among
other things, illustrates how the world came into being through the ten divine
emanations or spheres that correspond to the Minor Arcana cards, Ace to Ten. (Sharman-Burke, Juliet. The
New Complete Book of Tarot, p.19)
The four suits of the Minor Arcana each represent
not only the four elements of nature, but also the four worlds of the Qabalah.
Thus, the Minor Arcana itself comprises the full emanation of the name of God:
Y-H-V-H. (See Four Worlds chart above.)
The Qabalah and the Tarot work hand-in-hand as the
prime initiatory process of the Great Work for the Mystery Traditions. In
executing a Pathworking, use of the Tarot is a key element in accessing a
successful relationship with the abstract entities and symbols of the Tree of
Life.
FINALE
I can't even begin to describe how much fun it has been to dive into this stuff. Autumn and I feel like we have already experienced so much with it, and we haven't even officially begun a Pathworking yet....we've only been preparing! Looking forward to sharing our experiences as we continue this exploration of consciousness. Let us know if you're interested in tagging along! We are teaching another class March 1st before the Pathworking begins....RSVP here: dmoler777@gmail.com.
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