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Notes on Kabbalah
The author grants the right to copy and distribute these Notes provided
they remain unmodified and original authorship and copyright is retained.
The author retains both the right and intention to modify and extend
these Notes.
Release 2.0
Copy date: 17th. Jan 1992
Copyright Colin Low 1992 (cal@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
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Chapter 1.: The Tree of Life
At the root of the Kabbalistic view of the world are three
fundamental concepts and they provide a natural place to begin.
The three concepts are force, form and consciousness and these
words are used in an abstract way, as the following examples
illustrate:
- high pressure steam in the cylinder of a steam engine
provides a force. The engine is a form which constrains the
force.
- a river runs downhill under the force of gravity. The
river channel is a form which constrains the water to run in
a well defined path.
- someone wants to get to the centre of a garden maze. The
hedges are a form which constrain that person's ability to
walk as they please.
- a diesel engine provides the force which drives a boat
forwards. A rudder constrains its course to a given
direction.
- a polititian wants to change the law. The legislative
framework of the country is a form which he or she must
follow if the change is to be made legally.
- water sits in a bowl. The force of gravity pulls the water
down. The bowl is a form which gives its shape to the water.
- a stone falls to the ground under the force of gravity.
Its acceleration is constrained to be equal to the force
divided by the mass of the stone.
- I want to win at chess. The force of my desire to win is
constrained within the rules of chess.
- I see something in a shop window and have to have it. I am
constrained by the conditions of sale (do I have enough
money, is it in stock).
- cordite explodes in a gun barrel and provides an explosive
force on a bullet. The gas and the bullet are constrained by
the form of the gun barrel.
- I want to get a passport. The government won't give me one
unless I fill in lots of forms in precisely the right way.
- I want a university degree. The university won't give me
a degree unless I attend certain courses and pass various
assessments.
In all these examples there is something which is causing change
to take place ("a force") and there is something which causes
change to take place in a defined way ("a form"). Without being
too pedantic it is possible to identify two very different types
of example here:
1. examples of natural physical processes (e.g. a falling
stone) where the force is one of the natural forces known to
physics (e.g. gravity) and the form is is some combination
of physical laws which constrain the force to act in a well
defined way.
2. examples of people wanting something, where the force is
some ill-defined concept of "desire", "will", or "drives",
and the form is one of the forms we impose upon ourselves
(the rules of chess, the Law, polite behaviour etc.).
Despite the fact that the two different types of example are
"only metaphorically similar", Kabbalists see no fundamental
distiniction between them. To the Kabbalist there are forces
which cause change in the natural world, and there are
corresponding psychological forces which drive us to change both
the world and ourselves, and whether these forces are natural or
psychological they are rooted in the same place: consciousness.
Similarly, there are forms which the component parts of the
physical world seem to obey (natural laws) and there are
completely arbitrary forms we create as part of the process of
living (the rules of a game, the shape of a mug, the design of an
engine, the syntax of a language) and these forms are also rooted
in the same place: consciousness. It is a Kabbalistic axiom that
there is a prime cause which underpins all the manifestations of
force and form in both the natural and psychological world and
that prime cause I have called consciousness for lack of a better
word.
Consciousness is undefinable. We know that we are conscious
in different ways at different times - sometimes we feel free and
happy, at other times trapped and confused, sometimes angry and
passionate, sometimes cold and restrained - but these words
describe manifestations of consciousness. We can define the
manifestations of consciousness in terms of manifestations of
consciousness, which is about as useful as defining an ocean in
terms of waves and foam. Anyone who attempts to define
consciousness itself tends to come out of the same door as they
went in. We have lots of words for the phenomena of consciousness
- thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, emotions, motives and so
on - but few words for the states of consciousness which give
rise to these phenomena, just as we have many words to describe
the surface of a sea, but few words to describe its depths.
Kabbalah provides a vocabulary for states of consciousness
underlying the phenomena, and one of the purposes of these notes
is to explain this vocabulary, not by definition, but mostly by
metaphor and analogy. The only genuine method of understanding
what the vocabulary means is by attaining various states of
consciousness in a predictable and reasonably objective way, and
Kabbalah provides practical methods for doing this.
A fundamental premise of the Kabbalistic model of reality is
that there is a pure, primal, and undefinable state of
consciousness which manifests as an interaction between force and
form. This is virtually the entire guts of the Kabbalistic view
of things, and almost everything I have to say from now on is
based on this trinity of consciousness, force, and form.
Consciousness comes first, but hidden within it is an inherent
duality; there is an energy associated with consciousness which
causes change (force), and there is a capacity within
consciousness to constrain that energy and cause it to manifest
in a well-defined way (form).
First Principle
of
/ Consciousness \
/ \
/ \
Capacity Raw
to take ________________ Energy
Form
Figure 1.
What do we get out of raw energy and an inbuilt capacity for form
and structure? Is there yet another hidden potential within this
trinity waiting to manifest? There is. If modern physics is to be
believed we get matter and the physical world. The cosmological
Big Bang model of raw energy surging out from an infintesimal
point and condensing into basic forms of matter as it cools, then
into stars and galaxies, then planets, and ultimately living
creatures, has many points of similarity with the Kabbalistic
model. In the Big Bang model a soup of energy condenses according
to some yet-to-be-formulated Grand-Universal-Theory into our
physical world. What Kabbalah does suggest (and modern physics
most certainly does not!) is that matter and consciousness are
the same stuff, and differ only in the degree of structure
imposed - matter is consciousness so heavily structured and
constrained that its behaviour becomes describable using the
regular and simple laws of physics. This is shown in Fig. 2. The
primal, first principle of consciousness is synonymous with the
idea of "God".
First Principle
of
/ Consciousness \
/ | \
/ | \
Capacity | Raw
to take _____________ Energy/Force
Form |
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
Matter
The World
Figure 2
The glyph in Fig. 2 is the basis for the Tree of Life. The first
principle of consciousness is called Kether, which means Crown.
The raw energy of consciousness is called Chockhmah or Wisdom,
and the capacity to give form to the energy of consciousness is
called Binah, which is sometimes translated as Understanding, and
sometimes as Intelligence. The outcome of the interaction of
force and form, the physical world, called Malkuth or Kingdom.
This quaternery is a Kabbalistic representation of God-the-
Knowable, in the sense that it the most primitive representation
of God we are capable of comprehending; paradoxically, Kabbalah
also contains a notion of God-the-Unknowable which transcends
this glyph, and is called En Soph. There is not much I can say
about En Soph, and what I can say I will postpone for later.
God-the-Knowable has four aspects, two male and two female:
Kether and Chokhmah are both represented as male, and Binah and
Malkuth are represented as female. One of the titles of Chokhmah
is Abba, which means Father, and one of the titles of Binah is
Aima, which means Mother, so you can think of Chokhmah as God-
the-Father, and Binah as God-the-Mother. Malkuth is the
daughter, the female spirit of God-as-Matter, and it would not be
wildly wrong to think of her as Mother Earth. One of the more
pleasant things about Kabbalah is that its symbolism gives equal
place to both male and female.
And what of God-the-Son? Is there also a God-the-Son in
Kabbalah? There is, and this is the point where Kabbalah tackles
the interesting problem of thee and me. The glyph in Fig. 2 is a
model of consciousness, but not of self-consciousness, and self-
consciousness throws an interesting spanner in the works.
The Fall
Self-consciousness is like a mirror in which consciousness
sees itself reflected. Self-consciousness is modelled in Kabbalah
by making a copy of figure 2.
Consciousness
of
/ Consciousness \
/ | \
/ | \
Consciousness | Consciousness
of ________________ of
Form | Energy/Force
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
Consciousness
of the
World
Figure 3
Figure 3. is Figure 2. reflected through self-consciousness. The
overall effect of self-consciousness is to add an additional
layer to Figure 2. as follows:
First Principle
of
/ Consciousness \
/ | \
/ | \
Capacity | Raw
to take _____________ Energy/Force
Form |
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
Consciousness
of
/ Consciousness \
/ | \
/ | \
Consciousness | Consciousness
of ________________ of
Form | Energy/Force
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
Consciousness
of the
World
|
|
|
Matter
The World
Figure 4
Fig. 2 is sometimes called "the Garden of Eden" because it
represents a primal state of consciousness. The effect of self-
consciousness as shown in Fig. 4 is to drive a wedge between the
First Principle of Consciousness (Kether) and that Consciousness
realised as matter and the physical world (Malkuth). This is
called "the Fall", after the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden
of Eden. From a Kabbalistic point of view the story of Eden, with
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent and the
temptation, and the casting out from the Garden has a great deal
of meaning in terms of understanding the evolution of
consciousness.
Self-consciousness introduces four new states of
consciousness: the Consciousness of Consciousness is called
Tipheret, which means Beauty; the Consciousness of Force/Energy
is called Netzach, which means Victory or Firmness; the
Consciousness of Form is called Hod, which means Splendour or
Glory, and the Consciousness of Matter is called Yesod, which
means Foundation. These four states have readily observable
manifestations, as shown below in Fig. 5:
The Self
Self-Importance
Self-Sacrifice
/ | \
/ | \
/ | \
Language | Emotions
Abstraction_______________Drives
Reason | Feelings
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ Perception /
Imagination
Instinct
Reproduction
Figure 5
Figure 4. is almost the complete Tree of Life, but not quite -
there are still two states missing. The inherent capacity of
consciousness to take on structure and objectify itself (Binah,
God-the-Mother) is reflected through self-consciousness as a
perception of the limitedness and boundedness of things. We are
conscious of space and time, yesterday and today, here and there,
you and me, in and out, life and death, whole and broken,
together and apart. We see things as limited and bounded and we
have a perception of form as something "created" and "destroyed".
My car was built a year ago, but it was smashed yesterday. I
wrote an essay, but I lost it when my computer crashed. My granny
is dead. The river changed its course. A law has been repealed. I
broke my coffee mug. The world changes, and what was here
yesterday is not here today. This perception acts like an
"interface" between the quaternary of consciousness which
represents "God", and the quaternary which represents a living
self-conscious being, and two new states are introduced to
represent this interface. The state which represents the creation
of new forms is called Chesed, which means Mercy, and the state
which represents the destruction of forms is called Gevurah,
which means Strength. This is shown in Fig. 6. The
objectification of forms which takes place in a self-conscious
being, and the consequent tendency to view the world in terms of
limitations and dualities (time and space, here and there, you
and me, in and out, God and Man, good and evil...) produces a
barrier to perception which most people rarely overcome, and for
this reason it has come to be called the Abyss. The Abyss is also
marked on Figure 6.
First Principle
of
/ Consciousness \
/ | \
/ | \
Capacity | Raw
to take _____________ Energy/Force
Form | |
|\ | /|
| \ | / |
--------------Abyss---------------
| \ | / |
Destruction | Creation
of_____\_____|_____ /____of
Form \ | / Form
| \ \ | / / |
| \ \ | / / |
| \ Consciousness / |
| of |
| / Consciousness \ |
| / | \ |
|/ | \|
Consciousness | Consciousness
of ________________ of
\ Form | Energy/Force
\ \ | / /
\ \ | / /
\ \ | / /
\ Consciousness /
\ of /
\ the World /
\ /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
Matter
The World
Figure 6
The diagram in Fig. 6 is called the Tree of Life. The
"constructionist" approach I have used to justify its structure
is a little unusual, but the essence of my presentation can be
found in the "Zohar" under the guise of the Macroprosopus and
Microprosopus, although in this form it is not readily accessible
to the average reader. My attempt to show how the Tree of Life
can be derived out of pure consciousness through the interaction
of an abstract notion of force and form was not intended to be a
convincing exercise from an intellectual point of view - the Tree
of Life is primarily a gnostic rather than a rational or
intellectual explanation of consciousness and its interaction
with the physical world.
The Tree is composed of 10 states or sephiroth (sephiroth
plural, sephira singular) and 22 interconnecting paths. The age
of this diagram is unknown: there is enough information in the
13th. century "Sepher ha Zohar" to construct this diagram, and
the doctrine of the sephiroth has been attributed to Isaac the
Blind in the 12th. century, but we have no certain knowledge of
its origin. It probably originated sometime in the interval
between the 6th. and 13th. centuries AD. The origin of the word
"sephira" is unclear - it is almost certainly derived from the
Hebrew word for "number" (SPhR), but it has also been attributed
to the Greek word for "sphere" and even to the Hebrew word for a
sapphire (SPhIR). With a characteristic aptitude for discovering
hidden meanings everywhere, Kabbalists find all three derivations
useful, so take your pick.
In the language of earlier Kabbalistic writers the sephiroth
represented ten primeval emanations of God, ten focii through
which the energy of a hidden, absolute and unknown Godhead (En
Soph) propagated throughout the creation, like white light
passing through a prism. The sephiroth can be interpreted as
aspects of God, as states of consciousness, or as nodes akin to
the Chakras in the occult anatomy of a human being .
I have left out one important detail from the structure of
the Tree. There is an eleventh "something" which is definitely
*not* a sephira, but is often shown on modern representations of
the Tree. The Kabbalistic "explanation" runs as follows: when
Malkuth "fell" out of the Garden of Eden (Fig. 2) it left behind
a "hole" in the fabric of the Tree, and this "hole", located in
the centre of the Abyss, is called Daath, or Knowledge. Daath is
*not* a sephira; it is a hole. This may sound like gobbledy-gook,
and in the sense that it is only a metaphor, it is.
The completed Tree of Life with the Hebrew titles of the
sephiroth is shown below in Fig. 7.
En Soph
/-------------------------\
/ \
( Kether )
/ (Crown) \
/ | \
/ | \
/ | \
Binah | Chokhmah
(Understanding)__________ (Wisdom)
(Intelligence) | |
|\ | /|
| \ Daath / |
| \ (Knowledge) / |
| \ | / |
Gevurah \ | / Chesed
(Strength)\_____|_____/__ (Mercy)
| \ | / (Love)
| \ \ | / / |
| \ \ | / / |
| \ Tipheret / |
| / (Beauty) \ |
| / | \ |
| / | \ |
|/ | \|
Hod | Netzach
(Glory) _______________(Victory)
(Splendour) | (Firmness)
\ \ | / /
\ \ | / /
\ \ | / /
\ \ | / /
\ \ Yesod / /
\ (Foundation) /
\ /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
Malkuth
(Kingdom)
Figure 7
From an historical point of view the doctrine of emanations and
the Tree of Life are only one small part of a huge body of
Kabbalistic speculation about the nature of divinity and our part
in creation, but it is the part which has survived. The Tree
continues to be used in the Twentieth Century because it has
proved to be a useful and productive symbol for practices of a
magical, mystical and religious nature. Modern Kabbalah in the
Western Mystery Tradition is largely concerned with the
understanding and practical application of the Tree of Life, and
the following set of notes will list some of the characteristics
of each sephira in more detail so that you will have a "snapshot"
of what each sephira represents before going on to examine the
sephiroth and the "deep structure" of the Tree in more detail.
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