The Mystic Path - Path 23
7:01 PM
We are currently engaged in an almost two-year initiatory Pathworking with The Qabalah Tree of Life. You can read what that's all about here. In the meantime, I have been documenting our work as we explore the Paths.
It is important to know these are brief notes. A true understanding of each Path begs a vital understanding of the Sephiroth connecting them. Further research on your own is highly recommended.
It is important to know these are brief notes. A true understanding of each Path begs a vital understanding of the Sephiroth connecting them. Further research on your own is highly recommended.
We have completed Path 24, now for Path 23 .....
The Dark Night of the Soul has passed. Personally, I am very excited for this Path, as this is my Life-Path according to Gematria attributions to my birth-date.
In Path 23, we are engaging in first contact with Geburah. If for any reason you need to re-prime yourself on the meaning of the individual Sephirah, now would be a good time to go back and refer to your notes. The Paths themselves become more and more abstract, so the more research one can do on the Sephiroth will lead to deeper results.
Hod is the sphere of mental forms and communication. Geburah is the sphere of breaking down of forms so that Creation remains pristine. Geburah is a sphere of fire, of purification. The Hebrew letter for this path, mem, means water. So what we have is a type of spiritual technology where "the fire aspect when linked with water produces tremendous power much akin to an hydraulic pump." (Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, The Shining Paths, p. 96)
The lesson in this Path is taught sufficiently from the Trump of The Hanged Man, showing how to train the human mind to work from the spiritual perspective. This indicates that the values of the higher world are most often the reverse of the lower. Again, a deeper understanding of the Sephiroth denotes a more intimate understanding of this Path's place in terms of our relationship with the Individuality (Higher Self): "Chesed is the Sephirah associated with what the Individuality is, Geburah is the Sephirah associated with what the Individuality does. Geburah also has a corrective or assessing element in it which implies the ability to see what is, the ability to see what should be, and then the ability to take action to merge the two kinds of reality so that after the Geburic action everything that is is as it should be." (Gareth Knight, A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, Vol. II, p. 140)
Crowley calls this Path/Trump the "card of the Dying God" (Book of Thoth, p. 97) and perhaps he has a point. This is the place where old ideas are purged to make way for a new, higher perspective in accordance with the Spiritual Will of the Universe. Ascending the Tree, the fiery heart of Geburah tests the purity of forms to discern what is useful and what isn't.
Another principle of water is reflection. It is in Hod that the principles of the Higher Mind (via Geburah) should be reflected. Also, we are immediately connected to Binah via water, whose influence passes directly through Geburah. "Binah is of the Spirit, the most concrete form of the Spirit qua Spirit, wherein the true image of the Self and Destiny rests." (Knight, p. 143)
In order to mirror this most pristine reflection of the God Reflection (Itself the mirror-image of the Unmanifest) we must inherit the symbol of the Cup for our being: " . . . the first task is to make the mind into a clear receptive vessel, capable of registering pure reason without being occluded by false opinions or mental taboos." (Knight, p.142-143)
Turning one's point of view upside down, in reverse, is the magical formula of seeing the world via the perspective of Spirit. Further, in the obvious attributions of self-sacrifice as seen in the Tarot Trump, we can understand that the result of this formula rests in relinquishing personal will for the Will of the Greater All.
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