Chapter 5: Practical Kabbalah
==============================
"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I
looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and
wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's
all right said I, it only means I had another smaller suit
on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it
too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled
off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside
the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I
thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got
to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I
scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin,
just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon
as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no
good.
"Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke -
"You will have to let me undress you." I was afraid of his
claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate
now. So I just lay flat down on my back and let him do it.
"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought
it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling
the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt.
The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the
pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off."
C.S. Lewis
From an historical and traditional perspective the practical
techniques of Kabbalah include techniques of mysticism and (to a
lesser extent) magic to be found the world over: complex
concentration and visualisation exercises, meditation, breath
control, prayer, ritual, physical posture, chanting and singing,
abstinence, fasting, mortification and good works. Many different
combinations of practice were used at different times and places,
and it is clear that practice grew more out of the temperament of
the individual than from a long historical tradition. From time
to time an outstanding teacher would appear, and a school would
form, but these schools tended to be short-lived, and one is
struck more by the diversity and individuality of the different
approaches, than by (what is often presumed) a chain of masters
handing down the core of a secret tradition through the
centuries. A problem with trying to find an authentic tradition
of Kabbalistic practice is not only is it difficult to identify
just what such a tradition might be (given the diversity of
approaches over the centuries), but more importantly, the keys to
many of the practical techniques have been lost. In her book on
Kabbalah [1], Perle Epstein makes a number of wry comments about
the state of Kabbalah in Judaism today, and regrets the loss of a
practical mystical tradition. Outside of Judaism the situation is
little better; Kabbalah has become an element in the syllabus of
many traditions, but its practical application is often limited
to exercises such as pathworking. It is instructive to examine
the Golden Dawn initiation rituals [2] as an example of what
happens when Kabbalah is boiled up with a mixture of ingredients
drawn from Greek, Egyptian, Rosicrucian and Enochian sources -
there is a pervasive smell of Kabbalah throughout, but it rarely
amounts to a meal.
The following description of Kabbalistic practice makes no
attempt to be comprehensive; on the contrary, I have chosen only
those practices with which I am personally familiar. This will
be unsatisfactory to those readers with an academic or historical
interest, but these notes were intended to have a practical
value, and I see no value in trying to describe techniques I have
not used. Epstein [1] provides a useful introduction to the
breadth of Kabbalistic practice, and the personalities which have
shaped Kabbalistic thought. I am aware that there will be those
who would not wish to associate the name "Kabbalah" with the
practices I am about to describe - although I am not Jewish, I
respect the beliefs of those who are - but at the same time there
is a great deal of variety in nearly two thousand years of
Kabbalah, and one living tradition is worth at least as much as
several dead traditions. There is no right or canonical tradition
of Kabbalistic practice.
The practice of Kabbalah as I will describe it is
underpinned by the theosophical structure I have outlined
previously in these notes. First and foremost comes the belief
that there is a God. The ultimate nature of God is neither known
nor manifest to us, but just as light can be passed through a
prism to produce a rainbow of colours, so God manifests in the
creation as ten divine lights or emanations, usually referred to
as sephiroth. Each of one of us is a part of God, a microcosm, a
complete and functioning simulacrum of the whole, and so God
similarly manifests within us as ten divine lights. Because we
can look in the mirror of our own being and see the reflection of
the macrocosm it follows that self-knowledge shades imperceptibly
into knowledge of God, and as the whole of creation is an
emanation of God, so self-knowledge moves the centre of
consciousness away from a subjective awareness of reality towards
an objective and non-dualistic union with everything that is.
The second key idea is that the emanations or sephiroth are
aspects of the *creative* power of God. On a macrocosmic scale,
the creation is seen as the continuing outcome of a dynamic
process in which creative energy manifests progressively through
the sephiroth; at a microcosmic and personal level the same
process is at work, and this is the Kabbalistic interpretation of
the notion that we are "made in God's image". By understanding
the elements which comprise our own natures, by going far enough
inside ourselves to understand the energy and dynamics operating
within our own consciousness, so we touch the same energies
operating in the universe. When we have touched these energies we
can call on them; one name for this process is "magic".
Traditionally these energies are called upon by name, and are
characterised in concrete ways - the list of correspondences
given in Chapter 2 of these notes provides many ideas as to how
these energies are likely to be observed at a level where we are
most likely to observe them. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is an
abstract representation or map describing the creative energy of
God and the process of manifestation.
And that is it, in essence. How literally you take these
assumptions is up to you; my attitude resembles that of the
engineer Oliver Heavyside, who didn't care whether his self-
invented mathematical methods made sense to mathematicians (they
didn't), as long as his calculations produced the right answers
(they did). I will talk about angels and archangels and names of
God, powers and sephiroth and invocations, and leave it to you to
make your own sense of it.
But to return to the discussion of practical Kabbalah: one
can identify two major kinds of practical work arising out of the
assumptions above. From the idea that we are made in the image of
God we can conclude that by knowing ourselves we can (in some
degree) know God; this leads to practical work designed to
increase self-knowledge to the greatest degree possible, a
process I will refer to as *initiation*. From the idea that we
can call upon aspects of the creative energy of God to change
reality we arrive at practices intended to increase *personal
power*. Kabbalah has divided along these two paths, and I believe
it is accurate to say that traditional Jewish Kabbalah is
predominantly mystical, with the emphasis on union with God,
while non-Jewish Kabbalah is predominantly magical.
It is easy to sit in judgement of these two approaches; many
authors have done so. To seek for union with God is to seek to do
God's will; the world-wide mystical agenda is composed largely of
the subjugation of ego and the replacement of personal wilfulness
with divine union. Magic is seen to be predominantly wilful, and
so shares the original Satanic impulse of pride and rebellion
against the divine will. It is easy to conclude that mystical
union (devekuth, or "cleaving to God") is the true goal, and
magic an "egocentric" aberration of consciousness.
It is difficult to provide a *rational* counter to this
argument: to be rational is to fail to appreciate the
ineffability of mystical insight, and to argue is to demonstrate
Satanic wilfulness - one is condemned out of one's own mouth.
Nevertheless, there is a middle way between the two extremes, and
in what follows the process of initiation is combined with the
use of magical techniques in a blend which I believe captures the
best of both approaches. I have chosen to describe the process of
initiation first because I have the romantic notion that an
ethical sense grows out of self-knowledge. I follow that with a
discussion of some general magical techniques.
Initiation
----------
One of the meanings of the word "initiation" is "the process of
beginning something". What is one beginning? One is committing
oneself to find answers to certain questions. What questions? The
questions vary, but they are usually fundamental questions about
the nature of life and personal existence: "why is the world the
way it is?", "why am I alive?", "what lies behind the phenomenal
world?", "why should I continue living?", "what is good and
what is evil?", "how should I live?", and "how can I become rich,
famous and sexually attractive without expending any effort?". It
happens (for no obvious reason) that there are people who cannot
escape the nagging conviction that some or all of these questions
can be answered, and the same people are determined to wring the
answers out of somebody or something. The situation resembles a
cat in a new house; the poor creature will not rest until it has
explored every nook and cranny from the attic to the crawlspace.
So it is with certain people; they look out on the world with
cat's eyes, and metaphysical and philosophical questions are like
dark openings into the attic and crawlspace of existence. And it
happens that every question, when followed with enough
determination, leads back to the questioner. What is the pre-
condition for knowing anything? We are the attics and crawlspaces
of existence, and so in the end we forced to look within, and
know ourselves.
There is another aspect to initiation: on one hand we have
the desire to *know*, and on the other hand we have the desire to
*be something else*. Initiation is also the beginning of a
process of self-transformation, a process of becoming something
else. Becoming what? Answers vary, but in the main, people have a
vision of "myself made perfect", and if they believe in saints,
they want to be saintly; if they believe in God, they want to be
united with God. Some want to be more powerful, and some want to
be rich, famous, and sexually attractive. Two easily observable
characteristics of people looking for mystical or magical
training are a lust for knowledge and a desire to be something
other than what they currently are. A bizarre situation indeed;
not only do they seek to know what they are and why they are, but
even before they know the answers, they want to be something
else.
Kabbalistic initiation is a process of increasing self-
knowledge, and an accompanying process of change. It is based on
a practical experience of the sephiroth: if each of us is
potentially a simulacrum of God, and if the creative energy of
God can be described in terms of the dynamics of the ten
sephiroth, then by understanding the dynamics of the sephiroth
within us we begin to understand the nature of the God within,
and by extrapolation, the nature of God in the absolute. The
learning process (like most learning) mirrors the alchemical
operation of "solve et coagula" - that is, before we can reach
the next stage in knowledge and understanding ("coagula") it is
necessary to break down what already exists into its component
parts ("solve"). This can be observed whenever we attempt to
learn a new skill; we begin in a state of unconcious competence
where we can do many tasks without difficulty, but when we try a
new skill we find that our old habits are a positive obstacle,
and we become unconsciously incompetent - we approach a new task
in an old way and make a mess of it. When we have made enough
messes we either give up, or we realise the necessity of change,
drop old habits as a prerequisite for acquiring new habits
(solve), and become consciously incompetent. Finally, with enough
practice (coagula), we return once more to a state of unconscious
competence, ready to begin the cycle one more time. The process
of kabbalistic initiation leading to increased self-knowledge
begins with the sephiroth, and each sephira contains within it a
world of "solve et coagula", a world where one may function with
limited unconscious competence, but to reach a new level of
understanding and competence one must go through the fire and
experience the energy of the sephira deliberately and
consciously.
What possible advantage could there be in understanding the
nature of a sephira? What "things" are there to be learned? In
answer, there are no "things" to be learned. A sephira is not a
particular manifestation of consciousness (e.g. pleasure), or a
particular behaviour (e.g. being honest, being kind); the
sephiroth underpin manifestations of consciousness, they are the
earth in which behaviours (and their opposites) are rooted, and
by understanding a sephira one burrows underneath the *phenomena*
of consciousness and grasps an abstract state of *becoming*
(emanation, or sephira) which gives rise to phenomena. This is a
magical procedure; when one ceases to identify with the shopping
list of qualities, beliefs and behaviours which can be mistaken
for personal identity (a necessarily fixed and limited
abstraction) then one touches the raw substance of becoming, and
it is on the power to manipulate the "becoming" of reality that
magic is based. The closer one tries to get to the energy of a
sephira, the more one must abandon the artificial restrictions of
personality; the mystical quest for self-knowledge and the
magical quest for personal power unite in the same place.
There are many ways to investigate the nature of the
sephiroth, but one of the simplest and most direct is to ask the
powers of the sephiroth for help. In principal all one has to do
is call upon the powers of a sephira, and ask to be instructed.
There are three potential problems with this procedure. The first
is that it is like asking to be dropped in a wilderness; you may
learn to survive, or you may not. The second possible problem is
that people tend to have a natural affinity for some sephiroth
and not others, and left to themselves tend to develop their
knowledge in a lop-sided manner. Lastly, many people do not know
how to call upon the powers - you can't ask Gabriel to help you
if you don't know Gabriel, and you don't know how to contact
Gabriel. But, if you knew someone who knew Gabriel....
The time-honoured method of initiation into the nature of a
particular sephira is to ask someone who has had that experience
to invoke to powers of the sephira on your behalf. The person
chosen as initiator would use the techniques of ritual magic to
invoke the powers of a sephira with the intention that you should
receive instruction and insight into the nature of that sphere.
It works. Metaphysical theories may be impossible to prove or
disprove, supposed magical powers evaporate in the physics
laboratory, but people who undergo this kind of initiation can
change visibly and even claim to have learned something. One can
argue about the objective reality of the Archangel Gabriel and
the Powers of the sephira Yesod, but it is difficult to dispute
the validity of initiation when someone changes his or her
outlook on reality and actually does things differently as a
consequence.
I would like to clarify some possible misunderstandings.
This kind of initiation is not a ceremony with a fixed and
lengthy script, like the masonic-type rituals which have become
so closely associated with magical initiations. The initiation
ritual I am describing is a challenge; it is a one-to-one
encounter between an initiatee, and an initiator who acts as
agent for the invoked powers. If there is a script it is minimal;
the purpose of the ritual is not to impart secrets, or impose a
view of the world, but to challenge the initiatee to demonstrate
a personal and individual understanding relevant to the
initiation. The success of the initiation depends on the
initiator's ability to invoke and channel the powers, and on the
initiatee's willingness to be challenged at a deeply personal
level in an atmosphere of trust. The challenge aspect of
initiation is a vital part of its success; it creates a catalytic
stress which can act to bring about sudden and sometimes dramatic
changes in perspective. The initiation is also a challenge for
the initiator; each initiatee is different and approaches the
same place from a different direction.
This kind of initiation is not a lightweight procedure. It
is easy to abuse it. The purpose of initiation is not to select
for conformity (quite the opposite), but it must be said that it
is easy for an initiator to use an initiation to enhance personal
power. This is a problem in esoteric systems which use an
apprenticeship system and is not unique to this particular form
of initiation.
Self-initiation is possible and may be the only option for
many people. It suffers from a number of disadvantages:
- people are naturally self-important and endow their
opinions, attitudes and prejudices with far more
importance than another person would. Working with another
person produces beneficial friction.
- it is easy to make excuses to yourself which you wouldn't
make to another person. Their presence is a challenge to
make an effort, or do things differently.
- magical work can produce dramatic changes in behaviour. An
observer can provide useful feedback.
- most of Kabbalah isn't "facts"; it is "ways of being", and
an excellent method of learning is to let someone else
demonstrate.
- it is easy to reinvent the wheel when working by oneself.
None of these difficulties are insurmountable. Joining an
amateur dramatic group as a conscious and deliberate magical
exercise should provide some of the raw input needed, and provide
lots of stress, friction, and challenges to one's personal world
view. It is easy to think up other examples. What is important is
not to treat practical Kabbalah as something separate from normal
life, but to use normal life as the stimulus to put Kabbalah into
practice - this is a traditional Kabbalistic idea. If you can't
do it in ordinary life, you can't do it.
It is easy to mystify initiation and pretend it leads
somewhere different from the "school of hard knocks". It doesn't.
Ordinary life is a perfectly adequate initiator, and people do
change in many ways (sometime dramatically) as they grow older.
At most initiation may go further. It can and should accelerate
the process of acquiring self-knowledge and (in theory at least)
lead to someone who has explored their personal microcosm in a
broader, deeper and more systematic way than someone who has had
to suffer "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" in the
patchy and random sequence that is our common lot. The Kabbalist
should be able to go further in exploring and analysing the
extremes of consciousness, boundless steppes in the shadowland of
"not-me", where daemons of "otherness" threaten the fragile ghost
of personal identity.
Much of what an initiator does is to ask questions. If you
want to carry out a self-initiation you will have to ask your own
questions. I will use the sephiroth of Hod and Netzach as
examples to show how the sephirothic correspondences can be used
to ask questions. Suppose you want to identify those behaviours
and attitudes in your personality which are underpinned by Hod
and Netzach. Read the correspondences in Chapter 2 for Hod and
Netzach and try to decide. Are you impulsive? Do you do what you
want to do and ignore people who warn you of the consequences? Do
you have strong passions for things, people, places. If asked why
you are doing something, how do you explain yourself - do you
give elaborate rationalisations, or do you say things like "I
haven't any choice", or "you made me do it", or "I just want to",
or "I can't explain why". Do other people tell you to stop being
irrational? Do you find it hard to suppress your emotions, do you
think you are transparent to others? Are you furious one minute,
miserably sad the next, do your moods and feelings change
on the fly?
On the other hand, you might be someone who is concerned
with the protocol of relationships and situations (you worry
whether it is right to kiss on the first date!). You like to talk
about things and have definite ideas about the right and wrong
way to conduct a discussion - you refer to this as "being
rational". You analyse your conduct in some detail according to a
constantly developing set of rules, and you dream up hypothetical
situations to test your ability to apply these rules - you don't
want to make a mistake. You are skilled at handling problems with
many rules, and may be adept at cheating the rules. You have a
clear grasp of high-level abstractions and might work in law,
medicine, finance, science, or engineering, where you can use
your ability to apply rule-based knowledge. You might feel
uncomfortable with a display of emotion in another person,
particlarly when it cuts across your sense of protocol, and you
keep a tight rein on your own emotions. Other people may find you
sharp but clinical, able to communicate verbally but poor at
responding to real-life situations involving emotional conflict,
poor at any problem where there is insufficient information,
where variables cannot be quantified, or where there is no
abstract model.
The first set of behaviours is appropriate to Netzach, while
the second set is appropriate to Hod. Few people are purely one
thing or another, and behaviours change according to circumstance
- drinking alcohol tends to shift people from Hod-type behaviours
to Netzach-type behaviours. A person may sustain a Hod persona at
work, then go to a bar in the evening and become the complete
opposite. My favourite Hod/Netzach joke concerns the (real)
couple who were asked which of the two sephiroth they had the
greatest affinity to. The man responded "Well, I feel I'm Hod",
and the woman replied "I think I'm probably Netzach".
The analysis can be taken further. Suppose you have
identified a large number of Hod-type behaviours in yourself. The
virtue of Hod is honesty or truthfulness, and its vice is
dishonesty - the power of language to represent and communicate
information about the world automatically brings with it the
power to *misrepresent* what is going on. How often are you
dishonest? With yourself? With others? In what situations do you
sanction dishonesty? What value do you perceive in dishonesty?
Are you capable of giving a purely factual account of a failed,
close relationship without rationalising your own behaviour? Try
it, and ask a good friend to score the attempt. I must emphasise
that there is no moral intent in this dissection of personal
honesty - it is an exercise designed to expose the way in which
we represent events so as to make ourselves feel comfortable.
The illusion of Hod is Order, and the qlippa or shell of Hod
is Rigid Order. It is easy to observe during discussions and
arguments how people try to defend and preserve the structure (or
form) of their beliefs. Do you know anyone with an unshakeable
view of the world? Does it annoy you that no matter how ingenious
you are in finding counter-examples to his or her view, this
person will always succeed in "fitting" your example into their
world view? What about yourself? Do you collect evidence which
reinforces your beliefs like someone collecting stamps? Are you
conscious of trying to "fit" and "interpret" the evidence to
support your beliefs? Why are your beliefs important? What is
their actual *value* to you. What would happen to you if you gave
them up?
You can do the same thing with the sephira Netzach. The
illusion of Netzach is projection, the averse face of empathy,
the tendency to incorrectly attribute to others the same feelings
and motives as I have. Suppose I am sexually attracted to
someone; I look at this person and they smile in return. What
does that smile mean to me at that instant? How many different
mistakes might I have made? Suppose I say to someone "I know how
you feel", and they retort angrily "No you bloody well don't!".
One of the fastest ways of alienating someone is to consistently
misinterpret how they feel. Are you constantly puzzled why people
don't share your taste in clothes, music, literature, films, art,
or decor? Do you feel that if only their eyes were opened, they
might? Do you ever try to convert people to your taste? How do
react when they aren't impressed? Do you make secret judgements
which affect the way you treat them? Have you ever discounted
someone because their taste offended yours? What *value* does
your personal aesthetic have to you? What would happen if you
gave it up?
As you can see, this is not a procedure where anyone
(barring yourself) is going to provide answers. Questions, yes;
lots of questions, but no answers. Asking the right questions
isn't easy; we tend to have a peculiar blindness about our own
behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes, and that translates into an
unconsciousness of what we are. One of the oldest jokes that
children play is to stick a notice on someone's back saying "Kick
Me". The poor unfortunate walks around and wonders why his
acquaintances are behaving oddly - tittering, sneaking up behind,
and so on. He can't see what other people can see clearly, and he
hasn't the power to understand (and possibly influence) their
behaviour until he does see. Suppose an "initiator" walks up and
says:
"Have you looked at your back recently?"
"Ahhhh....!" says the victim in a sudden flash of insight.
According to folk wisdom, asking questions is a dangerous
business. Asking yourself questions certainly is. It hurts. It
has no obvious benefit. You may find yourself hating yourself as
you penetrate layers of self-deception and dishonesty only to
discover a fear (or terror) of changing, and pious resolutions
and commitments fall apart in the face of that fear. You take off
the first skin, and then you take off the next skin, and then you
take off the skin under that. Then you get stuck. You can't go
any further by yourself - you haven't the courage to do it - and
at the same time you can't go back to what you were. A blind and
deaf man can stand happily in the middle of a busy road, but give
him sight and hearing for only a second and that happiness is
gone. It is at this point where it helps to have a faith in a
power greater than yourself - your Holy Guardian Angel, God, the
Lion, whatever.
In summary, the process of kabbalistic initiation described
above is based in detail on the map of consciousness provided by
the Tree of Life and the correspondences. The sephiroth are
explored by using ritual magic to invoke the powers of the
sephiroth for the purposes of initiation. Incidents in
ordinary life are interpreted as challenges or learning
experiences supplied by the powers. Major steps in the process of
initiation are marked by observable changes in the initiatee, and
confirmed by an initiator whose role is primarily that of a
catalyst. This technique of initiation has been used for at least
one hundred years, but its execution has tended to be marred by a
good deal of superfluous dross - elaborate ceremonials and
scripts, pompous and often meaningless grades and titles, and
magical systems so vastly elaborate that the would-be initiate
spends more time looking at the finger than the moon.
Ritual
======
The Kabbalistic ritual technique I am about to describe is based
on an assumption which may or may not be valid, but which gives
the technique a characteristic style. The assumption is "form
precedes manifestation"; that is, anything which manifests in
this, the real, physical world, is preceded by a process of
"formation", a process described in its general outline by the
doctrine of sephirothic emanation and the Kabbalistic Tree of
Life. This premise is not so odd or metaphysical as it might
seem. Every object in the room I am sitting in is a product of
human manufacture. The mug I am drinking my tea out of was once
clay, and its form existed in someone's mind before taking shape
in fired clay. The house I live in was once an architect's
design, and before that, an abstract object in a land developer's
scheme for making lots of money. Every object of human
manufacture originally existed as an idea or form in someone's
mind, and each idea went through a process of development, from
inspiration to manufacture - I have described much of this
elsewhere in these Notes. It is not a large step to conceive of
the whole universe as the product of mind, so that every form of
substance - the physical elements, each species of plant and
animal - are the result of a process of formation occuring in
mind. Where are these abstract minds? They compose a whole which
the Kabbalist conveniently labels "God", and the parts, if we
want to refer to them seperately as subordinate components, we
call "archangels", and "angels" and "spirits", and "elementals"
and "devils". Each of these minds or intelligences holds a
portion of the archetypal form of the world in place, and each
mind is a form in its own right; each of these archetypal
intelligences can be comprehended as a part of Binah, the
Intelligence of God and Mother of all form.
When I drop a stone, it falls to the ground. It does this
because the spirit of matter inhabiting the stone uses messenger
spirits (or angels) called gravitons to communicate with the
spirit of matter inhabiting the Earth. It turns out that the
curvature of space-time (its form) is determined by the Lords of
Matter in an intricate but completely exact way according to the
distribution of mass-energy - the details can be summarised in an
equation first written down by Albert Einstein. It may seem
absurd and retrograde (and William of Occam would certainly turn
in his grave) to suggest that what we call the laws of physics
are forms maintained in the minds of archetypal intelligences,
but as Einstein himself stated, "The most incomprehensible thing
about the world is that it is comprehensible"; that is, it can be
described using language. There *are* abstract forms which
describe change in the physical world, and they *can* be
comprehended by mind, and although it is a large step to propose
that mind takes primacy over matter, it is a view attractive to
the practising magician. It is a view completely consistent with
Kabbalah. When I call upon a spirit to modify the law of gravity
at a specific time and place, I am not violating a physical law;
I am *changing* it at its source.
If "form precedes manifestation", then practical magic is
about understanding how the future is formed out of the present.
The seeds of many futures are planted in the present, and
accessible to the magician as the forms of the future. The forms
of the future are being progressed by many minds; where they
overlap, there is conflict and inconsistency, a situation
resembling a bus where each passenger has a steering wheel
providing an unknown and variable input to the eventual direction
of the bus. In one interpretation (primacy of will) the magician
is the person with the most powerful steering wheel; in another
interpretation (Taoist nudging) the magician is a person who
understands the dynamics of steering sufficiently well to use
opportune moments to move the bus in a desired direction. Perhaps
both interpretations are valid. In either case, if one accepts
the simile, then it should be clear that magic is rarely about
certain outcomes. In both cases the magician must have a clear
notion of direction, what is usually called *intention*.
Formation is a process of increasing limitation or
constraint. Once something is manifest it is constrained or
limited by what it is at that instant. Suppose I want to make a
film. It could be a film about *anything*. Once I have a script I
am more limited, but have a lot of scope in directing the film -
choice of actors, sets, locations etc. Once I have the rushes my
choices are even more constrained, but I still have some freedom
in the editing. Finally, once the film is released, I have no
more freedom to change it, unless, like some directors, I choose
to re-edit and re-issue it. Intention is also a limitation: it is
a limitation of will. I chose to make a film, but I could have
chosen to write a book instead, or chosen to take a holiday. In
choosing to make a film I limited my free-will. I could of course
abandon the film project, but a life of incomplete, abandoned
projects is not very satisfactory to most people, so my will to
complete (i.e. to bring into manifestation) sustains my intention
and I have to learn to live with this fairly considerable
limitation on my theoretical free-will.
The limitation of will and the formation of the film go
hand-in-hand. I can't just intend to make a film: I have to
intend to get a script, find some money, borrow the equipment,
recruit some actors and a crew. The formation of the film is
driven by a fragmentation of my original intention into many
components and sub-components as the task proceeds, and activity
and intention feed off each other until, knee-deep in the details
of film making, I might find myself thinking "I'd give anything
if we could get this scene in the can and knock off for a beer."
We have gone from a person with theoretically unlimited free-will
to someone who cannot knock off for a beer. Most people who go to
work and attempt to bring up a family are in this situation of
being so limited by previous choices and past history that they
have very little actual free-will or uncommitted energy, a
situation which has to be understood in some detail before
attempting serious magical work.
To summarise: if magic is about making things *happen*, then
the magician might want to understand the process of formation
which precedes manifestation, and understand not only the forms
which other people are *intending*, forms which may be
competitive, but also the detailed relationship between formation
and intention. You don't have to understand these things; many
people like magic to be truely *magical* (i.e. without causality
or mechanism), but Kabbalah does provide a theoretical model for
magical work (the lightning flash on the Tree) which many have
found to be useful. I think it is a mistake to confuse a lack of
consciousness of mechanism with a lack of mechanism, just as
someone might look at a clock and assume that it goes round "by
magic", and so I'd like to say something more about the concept
of limitation, a concept essential to understanding the ritual
framework I am going to describe.
We are limited beings: our lives are limited to some tens of
years, our bodies are limited in their physical abilities, and
compared to the different kinds of life on this planet we are
clearly very specialised compared with the potential of what
we could be if we had the free choice of being anything we
wanted. Even as human beings we are limited, in that we are all
quite distinct from each other; we limit ourselves to a small
number of behaviours, attitudes and beliefs and guard that
individuality and uniqueness as an inalienable right. We limit
ourselves to a few skills because of the effort and talent
required, and only in exceptional cases do we find people who are
expert in a large number of different skills - most people are
happy if they are acknowledged as being an expert in one thing.
It is a fact that as the sum total of knowledge increases, so
people (particularly those with technical skills) are forced to
become more and more specialised.
This idea of limitation and specialisation has found its way
into magical ritual because of a magical (or mystical) perception
that, although all consciousness in the universe is One, and that
Oneness can be perceived directly, it has become limited. There
is a process of limitation (formation) in which the One
(God, if you like) becomes progressively structured and
constrained until it reaches the level of thee and me. Magicians
and mystics the world over are relatively unanimous in insisting
that the normal everyday consciousness of most human beings is
a severe limitation on the potential of consciousness, and it
is possible, through various disciplines, to extend
consciousness into new regions. From a magical point of view the
personality, the ego, the continuing sense of individual "me-
ness", is a magical creation, an artificial elemental
or thoughtform which consumes our magical power in exchange
for the kind of limitation necessary to survive, and in order to
work magic it is necessary to divert energy away from this
obsession with personal identity and self-importance.
Now, consider the following problem: you have been
imprisoned inside a large inflated plastic bag. You have been
given a sledghammer and a scalpel. Which tool will get you out
faster? The answer I am obviously looking for is the scalpel. The
key to getting out of large, inflated, plastic bags is to apply
as much force as possible to as sharp a point as possible.
Magicians agree on this principle - the key to successful ritual
is a "single-pointed will". A mystic may try to expand
consciousness in all directions simultaneously, to encompass more
and more of the One, to embrace the One, perhaps even to
transcend the One, but this is hard, and most people aren't up to
it in practise. Rather than expand in all directions
simultaneously, it is much easier to limit an excursion of
consciousness in one direction only, and the more precise and
well-defined that limitation to a specific direction, the easier
it is to get out of the plastic bag. Limitation of consciousness
is the trick we use to cope with the complexities of life in
modern society, and as long as we are forced to live under this
yoke we might as well make a virtue out of a necessity, and use
our carefully cultivated ability to concentrate attention on
minutiae to burst out of the bag.
We find the concept of limitation appearing in the process
of formation which leads to manifestation; in the limitation of
will which leads to intention; now I suggest that a focussed
limitation of consciousness is one method to release magical
energy. Limitation is the key to understanding the structure of
magical ritual as described in these notes, and the key
to successful practice.
Essential Steps
---------------
I decided against giving the details of any rituals. All the
rituals I have taken a part in were written by one or more of the
people present. I do not think any of the rituals would be worth
preserving for their literary or poetic content. On the other
hand, the majority of the rituals I have taken a part in have
conformed to a basic structure which has rarely varied; this
structure we called "the essential steps".
There is never going to be agreement about what is essential
in a ritual and what is not, any more than there will ever be
agreement about what makes a good novel. That doesn't mean there
is nothing worth learning. The steps I enumerate below are
suggestions which were handed down to me, and a lot of insight
(not mine) has gone into them; they conform to a Western magical
tradition which has not changed in its essentials for thousands
of years, and I hand them on to you in the same spirit as I
received them.
These are the essential steps:
1. Open the Circle
2. Open the Gates
3. Invocation to the Powers
4. Statement of Intention and Sacrifice
5. Main Ritual
6. Dismissal of Powers
7. Close the Gates
8. Close the Circle
Step 1: Opening the Circle
The Circle is the place where magical work is carried out.
It might literally be circle on the ground, or it could be a
church, or a stone ring, or a temple, or it might be an imagined
circle inscribed in the aethyr, or it could be any spot hallowed
by tradition. In some cases the Circle is created specifically
for one piece of work and then closed, while in other cases (e.g.
a church) the building is consecrated and all the space within
the building is treated as if it was an open circle for long
periods of time. I don't want to deal too much in generalities,
so I will deal with the common case where a circle is created
specifically for one piece of work, for a period of time
typically less than one day. The place where the circle is
created could be anywhere: indoors, outdoors, top of a hill, a
cellar. It could be an imaginary place, the ritual carried out in
a lucid dream for example. Most often a ritual will take place in
a room in a house, and the first magical ability the magician
develops is the ability to turn any place into a temple. I like
to prepare a room with some kind of cleaning, and clear enough
floor space for a real or visualised circle. I secure the room
against access as far as possible, take the phone off the hook
etc.
The Circle is the first important magical limit: it creates
a small area within which the magical work takes place. The
magician tries to control everything which takes place within the
Circle (limitation), and so a circle half-a-mile across is
impractical. The Circle marks the boundary between the rest of
the world (going on its way as normal), and a magical space where
things are most definitely not going on as normal (otherwise
there wouldn't be any point in carrying out a ritual in the first
place). There is a dislocation: the region inside the circle is
separated from the rest of space and is free to go its own way.
There are some types of magical work where it may not be sensible
to have a circle (e.g. working with the natural elements in the
world at large) but unless you are working with a power already
present in the environment in its normal state, it is best to
work within a circle.
The Circle may be a mark on the ground, or something more
intangible still; my own preference is an imagined line of blue
fire drawn in the air. It is in the nature of consciousness that
anything taken as real and treated as real will eventually be
accepted as Real - and if you want to start an argument, state
that money doesn't exist and isn't Real. From a ritual
point of view the Circle is a real boundary, and if its
usefulness is to be maintained it should be treated with the same
respect as an electrified fence. Pets, children and casual
onlookers should be kept out of it. Whatever procedures take
place within the Circle should only take place within the Circle
and in no other place, and conversely, your normal life should
not intrude on the Circle unless it is part of your intention
that it should. From a symbolic point of view, the Circle marks a
new "circle of normality", a circle different from your usual
"circle of normality", making it possible to keep the two
"regions of consciousness" distinct and separate. The magician
leaves everyday life behind when the Circle is opened, and
returns to it when the Circle is closed, and for the duration
adopts a discipline of thought and deed which is specific to the
type of magical work being undertaken; this procedure is not so
different from that in many kinds of laboratory where scientists
work with hazardous materials.
Opening a Circle usually involves drawing a circle in
the air or on the ground, accompanied by an invocation to
guardian spirits, or the elemental powers of the four quarters,
or the four watchtowers, or the archangels, or whatever. The well
known Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram [2] can be used as the basis
for a Kabbalistic circle-opening. The precise method isn't so
important as practicing it until you can do it in your sleep, and
it should be carried out with the same attitude as a soldier on
formal guard duty outside a public building. The kind of ritual I
am describing is formal; much of its effectiveness derives from a
clinical precision. For example, I never at anytime turn or move
in an anti-clockwise direction within the circle. When I work in
a group one of the most important officers is the sword-
bearing sentinel, responsible for procedure and discipline within
the circle. When you create a circle you are establishing a
perimeter under the watchful "eyes" of whatever guardians you
have requested to keep an eye on things, and a martial attitude
and sense of discipline and precision creates the
right psychological mood. When working in a group it is
helpful if the person opening the circle announces "the circle is
now open" because there should be no doubt among those present
about whether the opening has been completed to the satisfaction
of the person carrying it out, and the sacred space has been
established.
Step 2: Opening the Gates
The Gates in question are the boundary between normal and
magical consciousness. Just as opening the Circle limits the
ritual in space, so opening the Gates limits the ritual in time.
Not everyone opens the Gates as a separate activity; opening a
Circle can be considered a de-facto opening of Gates, but there
are good reasons for keeping the two activities separate.
Firstly, it is convenient to be able to open a Circle without
going into magical consciousness; despite what I said about not
bringing normal consciousness into the Circle, rules are made to
be broken, and there are times when something unpleasant and
unwanted intrudes on normal consciousness, and a Circle can be
used to keep it out - think of pulling blankets over your head at
night. Secondly, opening the Gates as a separate activity means
they can be tailored to the specific type of magical
consciousness you are trying to enter. Thirdly, just as bank
vaults and ICBMs have two keys, so it is prudent to make the
entry into magical consciousness something you are not likely to
do on a whim, and the more distinct steps there are, the more
conscious effort is required. Lastly - and it is an important
point - opening the Circle is best done with a martial attitude,
and it is useful to have a breathing space to switch out of that
mood and into the mood needed for the invocation. Opening the
Gates provides an opportunity to make that switch.
There are many ways to open the Gates, and many Gates you
could open. I imagine the gates in front of me, and I physically
open them, reaching out with both arms. I visualise different
gates for different sephiroth, and sometimes different gates for
the same sephira.
Step 3: Invocation to the Powers
The invocation to the Powers is normally an excuse for some
of the most leaden, pompous, grandiose and turgid prose
ever written or recited. Tutorial books on magic are full of this
stuff. If you are invoking Saturn during a waxing moon you might
be justified in going on like Brezhnev addressing the Praesidium
of the Soviet Communist Party, but as in every other aspect of
magic, the trick isn't what you do, but how you do it, and
interminable invocations aren't the answer. On a practical level,
reading a lengthy invocation from a sheet of paper in dim
candlelight will require so much conscious effort that it is hard
to "let go", so try to keep things simple and to the point, so
that you can do an invocation without having to think about it
too much, and that will leave room for the more important
"consciousness changing" aspect of the invocation. When I do
sephirothic work I use the sephirothic God, Archangel, Angel
Order and sephira names as part of my invocation, and put all my
effort into the intonation of the name rather than memorising
lengthy invocations.
An invocation is like a ticket for a train: if you can't
find the train there isn't much point in having the ticket.
Opening the Gates gets you to the doorstep of magical
consciousness, but it is the invocation which gets you onto the
train and propels you to the right place, and that isn't
something which "just happens" unless you have a natural aptitude
for the aspect of consciousness you are invoking. It does happen
that way however; people tend to begin their magical work with
those areas of consciousness where they feel most at home, so
they may well have some initial success. Violent, evil people do
violent and evil conjurations; loving people invoke love - most
people begin their magical work with "a free ticket", but in
general invoking takes practice, and the power of the invocation
comes from practice, not from deathless prose.
I can't give a prescription for entering magical
consciousness. Well devised rituals, practised often, have a way
of shifting consciousness which is surprising and unexpected. I
don't know why this happens; it just does. I suspect the peculiar
character of ritual, the way it involves every sense, occupies
mind and body at the same time, its numinous and exotic
symbolism, the intensity of preparation and execution, involve
dormant parts of the mind, or at least engage the normal parts in
an unusual way. Using ritual to cause marked shifts in
consciousness is not difficult; getting the results you want, and
avoiding unexpected and undesired side-effects is harder.
Ritual is not a rational procedure. The symbolism of magic is
intuitive and bubbles out of a very deep well; the whole process
of ritual effectively bypasses the rational mind, so expecting
the outcome of a ritual to obey the dictates of reason is
completely irrational. The image of a horse is appropriate:
anyone can get on the back of a wild mustang, but getting to the
point where horse and rider go in the same direction at the same
time takes practice. The process of limitation described in these
notes can't influence the natural waywardness of the animal, but
at least it is a method of ensuring the horse gets a clear
message.
Step 4: Statement of Intention and Sacrifice
If magical ritual is not to be regarded as a form of
bizarre entertainment carried out for its own sake, then there
has to be a reason for doing it - healing, divination, personal
development, initiation, and the like. If it is healing, then it
is usually healing for one specific person, and then again, it is
not just healing in general, but healing for some specific
complaint, within some period of time. The statement of intention
is the culmination of a process of limitation which begins when
the Circle is opened, and to return to the analogy of the plastic
bag, the statement of intention is like the blade on the scalpel
- the more precise the intention, the more the energy of the
ritual is applied to a single point.
The observation that rituals work better if their energy is
focussed by intention is in accord with our experience in
everyday life: any change, no matter how small or insignificant,
tends to meet with opposition. If you want to change the brand of
coffee in the coffee machine, or if you want to rearrange the
furniture in the office, someone will object. If you want to
drive a new road through the countryside, local people will
object. If you want to raise taxes, everyone objects. The more
people you involve in a change, the more opposition you will
encounter, and in magic the same principle holds, because from a
magical point of view the whole fabric of the universe is held in
place by an act of collective intention involving everything from
God downwards. When you perform a ritual you are setting yourself
up against that collective will to keep most things the way they
are, and your ritual will succeed only if certain things are
true:
1. you are a being of awesome will (you have the biggest
steering wheel on the bus).
2. you have allies (lots of people on the bus want to get to
the same place as you).
3. you limit your intention to minimise opposition (Taoist
nudging); another analogy is the diamond cutter who exploits
natural lines of cleavage to split a diamond.
Regardless of which is the case, I will suggest that precision
and clarity of intention will generally produce better results.
And so to sacrifice. The problem arises from the perception
that in magic you don't get something for nothing, and if you
want to bring about change through magic you have to pay for it
in some way. So far so good. The question is: what can you give
in return? You can't legitimately sacrifice anything
which is not yours to give, and so the answer to the question
"what can I sacrifice" lies in the answer to the question "what
am I, and what have I got to give?". If you don't make the
mistake of identifying yourself with your possessions you will
see that the only sacrifice you can make is yourself, because
that is all you have to give. Every ritual intention requires
that you sacrifice some part of yourself, and if you don't make
the sacrifice willingly then either the ritual will fail, or the
price will be exacted without your consent.
You don't have to donate pints of blood or your kidneys.
Each person has a certain amount of what I will call
"life energy" at their disposal - Casteneda calls it "personal
power" - and you can sacrifice some of that energy to power the
ritual. What that means in ordinary down-to-earth terms is that
you promise to do something in return for your intention, and you
link the sacrifice to the intention in such a way that the
sacrifice focuses energy along the direction of your intention.
For example, my cat was ill and hadn't eaten for three weeks, so,
as a last resort, fearing she would die of starvation, I carried
out a ritual to restore her appetite, and as a sacrifice I ate
nothing for 24 hours. I used my (very real) hunger to drive the
intention, and she began eating the following day.
Any sacrifice which hurts enough engages a very deep impulse
inside us to make the hurt go away, and the magician can use that
impulse to bring about magical change by linking the removal of
the pain to the accomplishment of the intention. And I don't mean
magical masochism. We are creatures of habit who find comfort and
security by living our lives in a particular way, and any change
to that habit and routine will cause some discomfort and an
opposing desire to return to the original state, and that desire
can be used. Just as a ritual intends to change the world in some
way, so a sacrifice forces us to change ourselves in some way,
and that liberates magical energy. If you want to heal someone,
don't just do a ritual and leave it at that; become involved in
caring for them in some way, and that active caring will act as a
channel for the healing power you have invoked. If you want to
use magic to help someone out of a mess, provide them with
active, material help as well; conversely, if you can't be
bothered to provide material help, your ritual will be infected
with that same inertia and apathy - "true will, will out", and
in many cases our true will is to do nothing at all.
From a magical perspective each one of us is a magical being
with a vast potential of power, but that is denied to us by an
innate, fanatical, and unbelievably deep-rooted desire to keep
the world in a regular orbit serving our own needs. Self-
sacrifice disturbs this equilibrium and lets out some of that
energy, and this may be why the egoless devotion and self-
sacrifice of saints has a reputation for working miracles.
Step 5: The Main Ritual
After invoking the Powers and having stated the intention
and sacrifice, there would seem to be nothing more to do, but
most people like to prolong the contact with the Powers to carry
out some kind of symbolic ritual for a period of time varying
from minutes to days. Ritual as I have described it so far may
seem like a fairly cut-and-dried exercise, but it isn't; it is
more of an art than a science, and once the Circle and Gates are
opened, and the Powers are in attendance, whatever science there
is gives way to the art. Magicians operate in a world where ordinary
things have deep symbolic meanings or correspondences, and they
use a selection of consecrated implements or "power objects" in
their work. The magician can use this palette of symbols in a
ritual to paint of picture which signifies an intention in a non-
verbal, non-rational way, and it is this ability to communicate
an intention through every sense of the body, through every level
of the mind, which gives ritual its power.
Here are a few suggestions:
- each sephira has a corresponding number which can be used
as the basis for knocks, gestures, chimes, stamps etc.
- each sephira has a corresponding colour which can be used
throughout the working area: altar cloth, candle(s),
banners, flowers, cords etc.
- many occult suppliers make sephirothic incenses. The
quality is so variable that it is best to try a few
suppliers and apply common sense.
- each sephira has corresponding behaviours which can be
used during the central part of the ritual.
- if you are working with several people then they can take
their roles from the sephira, and wear corresponding colours
etc. For example, a sentinel would use Gevuric
correspondences, a scribe would use Hod correspondences.
- each sephira has ritual weapons or "power objects" which
can be used in a symbolic way.
- every sephira has a wide range of individual
correspondences which can be used on specific occasions e.g.
a ritual of romantic love in Netzach might use a rose
incense, roses, a copper love cup, wine, a poem or song
dedicated to Venus, whatever gets you going...
Step 6: Dismissal of Powers
Once the ritual is complete the Powers are thanked and
dismissed. This begins the withdrawal of consciousness back to
its pre-ritual state.
Step 7: Close Gates/Close Circle
The final steps are closing the Gates (thus sealing off the
altered state of consciousness) and closing the Circle (thus
returning to the everyday world). The Circle should not be closed
if there is a suspicion that the withdrawal from the altered
state has not been completed. It is sensible to carry out
a sanity check between closing the Gates and closing the Circle.
It sometimes happens that although the magician goes through the
steps of closing down, the attention is not engaged, and the
magician remains in the altered state. This is not a good idea.
The energy of that state will continue to manifest in every
intention of everyday life, and all sorts of unplanned (and often
unusual) things will start to happen. A related problem (and it
is not rare) is that every magician will find sooner or later an
altered state which compensates for some of their perceived
inadequacies (in the way that some people like to get drunk at
parties), and they will not want to let go of it because it makes
them feel good, so they come out of the ritual in an altered
state without realising they have failed to close down correctly.
This is sometimes called obsession, and it is a difficulty of
magical work. Closing down correctly is important if you don't
want to end up like a badly cracked pot. If you don't feel happy
that the Powers have been completely dismissed and the Gates
closed correctly, go back and repeat the steps again.
Using the Sephiroth in Ritual
-----------------------------
The sephiroth can be invoked during a ritual singly or in
combination. This provides a vast palette of correspondences and
symbols to work with, and one of the most difficult aspects of
planning this kind of ritual is deciding which sephiroth are the
key to the problem. It is an axiom of Kabbalistic magic that
every sephira is involved somewhere in every problem, and it is
sometimes difficult to avoid the conclusion that all ten
sephiroth should be invoked; there is nothing wrong with doing
this, but if one goes the whole hog with colours, candles etc.,
then the temple begins to look like an explosion in a paint
factory, and this tends to dilute the focus of rituals if done
regularly.
A ritual would involve typically one to three sephiroth. An
important consideration is balance: when invoking sephiroth on
either of the side pillars of the Tree one is creating or
correcting in imbalance, and it is worthwhile to consider the
balancing sephira. For example, when using Gevurah destructively,
what fills the vacuum left behind? When using Chesed creatively,
what gives way for the new? The same principle applies to the
pairs of Hod/Netzach and Binah/Chokmah.
The Tree is naturally arranged in many triads, or groups of
three sephiroth, and after one has gained an understanding of
individual sephira it is natural to go on to investigate the
triads. From the point of view of balance there is a great deal
to be said for initiation into triads of sephiroth rather than
individual sephira. The sephiroth are interconnected by paths,
and again, the paths can be investigated by invoking pairs of
sephiroth. This further extends the palette of correspondences
and relationships, and over time the Tree becomes a living tool
which can be used to analyse situations in great depth and
detail. Unless one works closely with a group of people over a
period of time the Tree must remain largely a personal symbol and
vocabulary, but if one *does* work closely with other people it
becomes a shared vocabulary of great expressive and executive
power - ideas which would otherwise be inexpressible can be
translated directly and fairly precisely into shared action via
ritual magic.
Clues as to when to invoke a given sephira can found in the
correspondences, but for the sake of example I have given an
indication in a list below:
The sephira Malkuth is useful for the following magical work:
- where you want to increase the stability of a situation.
Particularly useful when everything is in a turmoil and you
want to slow things down.
- when you want to earth unwanted or unwelcome energy. Also
useful for shielding and warding (think of a castle).
- when working with the four elements in the physical world.
- when you want an intention to materialise in the physical
world; when it is essential that an intention "really
happens". e.g. it is one thing to write a book, it is
another thing to get it printed, published, and read.
- when invoking Gaia, Mother Earth.
The sephira Yesod is useful for the following magical work:
- for divination and scrying; to increase psychism -
telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition.
- when changing the appearance of something, for works of
transformation, for shape changing (e.g. marketing and
advertising!)
- when trying to manipulate the foundation of something, the
form behind the appearance.
- for works concerning the sexual urge, the sexual organs,
fornication, instinctive behaviours, atavism.
- for intentions involving images of reality - painting,
photographs, cinema, television etc.
- for lucid dreaming, astral projection.
The sephira Hod is useful for the following magical work:
- for healing and medicine (Raphael is the healer of God).
- when dealing with spoken or written communication.
- the media, particularly newspapers and radio.
- propaganda, lying, misinformation.
- teaching and learning.
- philosophy, metaphysics, the sciences as intellectual
systems divorced from experiment.
- computers and information technology.
- the nervous system.
- protocol, ceremony and ritual.
- the written law, accounting.
The sephira Netzach is useful for the following magical work:
- when working with the emotions.
- the endocrine system.
- when nurturing or caring for someone or something. Charity
and unselfishness, empathy.
- for works involving pleasure, luxury, romantic love,
friendships etc. (e.g. parties).
- anything to do with aesthetics and taste: decor, art,
cinema, dress, fashion, literature, drama, poetry, gardens,
song, dance etc.
The sephira Tiphereth is useful for the following magical work:
- work involving integrity, wholeness and balance.
- work involving the Self (the Jungian archetype), self-
importance, self-sacrifice, devotion, compassion.
- overall health and well-being.
- communion with your Holy Guardian Angel.
- the union of the microcosm and the macrocosm.
The sephira Gevurah is useful for the following magical work:
- active defense.
- destruction.
- severance.
- justice and lawful retribution.
The sephira Chesed is useful for the following magical work:
- growth and expansion.
- vision, leadership and authority (e.g. in business
management, in politics).
- inspiration and creativity.
The sephiroth Gevurah and Chesed are best considered as a pair,
since any work concerning one usually requires consideration of
the other. For example, if you want something to grow and expand
(Chesed), will it grow at the expense of something else
(Gevurah)?
The supernal sephiroth of Binah, Chokmah and Kether can be
invoked, but I would not recommend doing so until you have
considerable experience of invoking the other sephiroth - either
nothing will happen, or the scope of the results may go beyond
your intention.
Other Practical Work
--------------------
The sephirothic ritual technique described can be used to
design an enormous variety of rituals quickly and easily, as the
basic format can remain the same. A ritual involving Yesod should
have an utterly different feel and effect from a ritual involving
Tiphereth, and yet the basic construction of the two rituals can
be identical. Because a ritual can be quickly carried out (not
necessarily easily, but certainly quickly), sephirothic ritual
can be used to add clout to other magical and mystical
techniques, such as meditation, divination, scrying, oath-making,
prayer, concentration and visualisation, mediumship and so on.
In Conclusion
-------------
I wanted to provide in these notes approximately the same
information as I was given when I began to study Kabbalah. The
person who gave me this information said "You don't need to read
lots of books, just go off and do it." It was sound advice. If
you want to learn how to build bridges, read books about building
bridges, but if you want to learn about yourself, just go off and
do it. "Doing It" consists of invoking the sephiroth and asking
to be instructed. It consists of jumping in with both feet when
something new comes along. It involves trusting your intuition
and conscience. It requires you to question everything. It also
requires countless meditations, concentration and visualisation
exercises, self-examination, rituals, dream-recording, prayer,
whatever you want, but there is no prescription for this, and
each person tends to find their own happy medium. As a chronic
reader I found the advice about not reading books on magic and
Kabbalah hard to take, but I took it, and for something like ten
years I lost the habit completely. I'm very glad I did.
There is almost enough information in these notes to go off
and "just do it". The information I have withheld I have done so
deliberately, as it consists of little things which any person
with a small amount of common sense, initiative and trust in
themselves can work out. You don't need to learn other peoples'
rituals: trust your own imagination and creativity, however
insufficient they might seem, and write your own. You need to
trust yourself, and that is why I haven't provided a
detailed prescription. If you think Kabbalah should be more
complicated, then make it more complicated. If you think it is
essential to learn about the four worlds, or the parts of the
soul, or the beard of Arik Anpin or whatever, then learn about
them, but I don't think it is essential to begin with, and there
are better and quicker ways of learning than running off and
buying the "Zohar". If you trust in yourself, you will learn what
you need to know at the rate at which you can learn it. Kabbalah
is only a map (but for the record I believe it is an accurate and
useful map), and the entrance to the territory lies within you.
In my experience the sephirothic magical rituals are the key
to everything else. If you are afraid of ritual that is fine;
lots of people are. If you are afraid of ritual but you invoke
the Powers with the attitude and respect that is their due, and
you are not afraid to give freely for what you get, then you will
get a great deal, and almost certainly a great deal more than you
would have expected.
Colin Low 1992
[1] Epstein, Perle, "Kabbalah", Shambhala, 1978
[2] Regardie, Israel, "The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic",
