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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. January 1992
Copyright Colin Low 1992 (cal@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
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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.
(to be continued)
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