Lovecraftian Tree of Life, “Hecate’s Fountain”, 1992.
The eleven Power Zones of the Tree of Life in relation to the Necronomicon Mythos and Mauve-zone Magick, showing Planetary and Chromatic attributions, associated Esoteric functions, and Totemic Symbols. These correspondences are not in any sense absolute, and vary in detail as required by specific Occult workings.
Quite apart from common table salt, or any other purely chemical salt
for that matter, the medieval alchemists refer to the ‘Salt of the
Philosophers’ or ‘Salt of the Sages’ (Sal Sapientie). One thing
that distinguishes what is often designated as “our Salt”—i.e.
“philosophical salt”—from common chemical salts is the fact that it is
seen to possess the ability to preserve not plants but metals. Basil Valentine, in Key IV of his Zwölf Schlüssel, states:
Just
as salt is the great preserver of all things and protects them from
putrefaction, so too is the salt of our magistry a protector of metals
from annihilation and corruption. However, if their balsam—their
embodied saline spirit (eingeleibter Salz-Geist)—were to die,
withering away from nature like a body which perishes and is no longer
fruitful, then the spirit of metals will depart, leaving through natural
death an empty, dead husk from which no life can ever rise again.
Once
again, through its dual nature—preserving and corrupting—a fundamental
ambivalence adheres to the reality embodied in salt. And yet, the key to
salt resides in its ultimately integrating function. It is the clavis which
binds and unbinds, preserves and corrupts. It itself does not undergo
the process which it enacts, embodies or disembodies. Importantly,
however, as one learns from Schwaller, salt acts as the permanent
mineral “memory” of this eternal process of generation and corruption.
Perhaps
the most interesting and influential synthesis of esoteric theological
and cosmological ideas on salt are those that crystallise in the
tradition of Jacob Boehme, where salt emerges as a spiritual-material
integrum central to a trinitarian theosophia. Here one learns that earthly or material salt recapitulates a heavenly potency called by Boehme salliter; this heavenly salt is an explosive force of light and fire likened to gunpowder (sal-nitre,
cf. Paracelsus’ ‘terrestrial lightning’). For Boehme, this
heavenly and earthly salt are indicated by the two “halves” of the
conventional salt symbol, which resemble two hemispheres, one turned
upon the other (one “giving” and the other “receiving”). These theories
reach a magnificent depth of expression in Georg von Welling’s Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum et Theosophicum
(1721). Welling (1655–1727), an alchemist for whom the books of
theology and nature were thoroughly complementary, worked as a director
of mining in the town of Baden-Durlach (a position that allowed him to
explore his extensive knowledge and passion for both the practicalities
and the mysteries of geology). His monumental Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum explores
how the rich relationship of salt as fire/air/sulphur on one hand, and
water/earth/mercury on the other, is played out in all its intricacies
to convey the mysterious dynamic of the fire-water juncture embodied in
heavenly and earthly salt (Welling uses the Hebrew term for heaven, schemajim, literally,
‘fire-water’ alongside the superimposed alchemical triangles of fire
and water to form the Star of David). In his initial chapters, Welling
describes the common symbol of salt as a ‘cubical’ figure and thus the
figure of an ‘earthly body’; ‘its form is diaphanous or transparent,
like glass’; it is ‘malleable and fluid and all bodies penetrate it with
ease’. ‘Its taste is sour or acidic and a little astringent’; it is of a
‘desiccating nature and character’; moreover, it is ‘cooling’ and yet
‘in its interior there is a natural or genuine fire’.
As
Magee has demonstrated, hermetic influences in general, and Paracelsian
and Boehmian ideas in particular, fed into and informed the work of G.
W. F. Hegel. ‘According to an ancient and general opinion’, writes
Hegel, ‘each body consists of four elements. In more recent times,
Paracelsus has regarded them as being composed of mercury or fluidity,
sulphur or oil, and salt, which Jacob Böhme called the great triad’. To
this, Hegel adds: ‘It should not be overlooked […] that in their essence
they contain and express the determinations of the Concept’. According
to Magee, this admission is highly significant, for Hegel is saying that
‘if the alchemical language of Paracelsus, Böhme, and others is
considered in a nonliteral way, its inner content is, in essence,
identical to his system’ (i.e. the ‘determinations of the Concept’).
Interestingly, despite Boehme’s known influence on mainstream
academic philosophers such as Schelling and Hegel, it is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra that
emerges from the modern German academic tradition with the most abiding
insights into the phenomenon of salt. Curiously, although it possesses
no apparent connections to esoteric or alchemical discourse, Zarathustra as
a whole is nevertheless pervaded with a pronounced Hermetic ambiance;
somehow, Nietzsche’s remarks on salt penetrate right to the heart of its
mysterium. At the end of book three, Zarathustra not only speaks of
salt as binding opposites, but also connects this to a desire for
eternity which cannot be satisfied through simple procreation:
If ever I drunk a full draught from that vessel of foaming spice, in which all things are well-blent: If ever my hand fused the nearest to the farthest, fire to spirit, desire to suffering and the worst to the best: If I myself were a grain of that redeeming salt that makes all things in the vessel well-blent:— —for there is a salt that binds good with evil; for even the most evil is worthy to be a spice for the final over-foaming— O how should I not be rutting after eternity and after the conjugal ring of rings—the ring of recurrence! Never have I found the woman by whom I wanted children, for it would be this woman that I love: for I love you, O Eternity! For I love you, O eternity!
Salt
as the redeeming juncture of opposites is framed by Nietzsche in terms
that evoke the themes of autonomous morality expressed in his Jenseits von Gut und Bösen.
Running deeper, however, is the surprising link that Nietzsche makes
between salt and a desire for eternity that cannot be met through
procreation; here one recognises not only the Indo-European ‘path of the
fathers’ versus the ‘path of the gods’, but also the two paths in
alchemy known as la voie humide and la voie sèche—the wet and the dry ways. Nietzsche taps directly into the crux of the human œuvre.
Genetic continuity, i.e. continuity of and through the species, does
not satisfy the soul’s desire for eternity; only the desire that is
fixed in the salt, deep in the bones, has the capacity to survive
biological generation and corruption. Nietzsche’s love for eternity
expresses the same reality that Schwaller articulated in terms of the
saline nucleus in the femur: the path of eternity, palingenesis and resurrection, hinges not on the chromosomes but upon a fixed mineral salt.
Unity manifests itself as Trinity. It is the
“creatrix” of form, but still not form itself; form emerges through
movement, that is, Time and Space. —Schwaller de Lubicz
Schwaller’s understanding of the tria prima
as the creatrix of form is essentially consonant with the trinitarian
conceptions of Egyptian (and later Pythagorean) cosmogonic theology.
Here, the creator’s divine hypostases—Hu, Sia and Heka—manifest as the
extra- or hyper-cosmic forces that exist before creation; they are the forces necessary to the establishment of creation rather than creation per se.
This may be compared to the identical conception that emerges in
Iamblichean theurgy, which distinguishes between hypercosmic and
encosmic divinities, or the same essential principles as carried through
into the trinitarian theology of Eastern Orthodoxy, which distinguishes
between uncreated and created energies. Beyond these general point of
orientation, Schwaller’s hermetic metaphysics accorded the tria prima some very specific characteristics:
The
Trinity, that is to say the Three Principles, is the basis of all
reasoning, and this is why in the whole “series of genesis” it is
necessary to have all [three] to establish the foundational Triad that
will be[come] the particular Triad. It includes first of all an abstract
or nourishing datum, secondly a datum of measure, rhythmisation and
fixation, and finally, a datum which is concrete or fixed like seed.
This is what the hermetic philosophers have transcribed, concretely and
symbolically, by Mercury, Sulphur and Salt, playing on the metallic
appearance in which metallic Mercury plays the role of nutritive
substance, Sulphur the coagulant of this Mercury, and Salt the fixed
product of this function. In general, everything in nature, being a
formed Species, will be Salt. Everything that coagulates a nourishing
substance will be Sulphur or of the nature of Sulphur, from the
chromosome to the curdling of milk. Everything that is coagulable will
be Mercury, whatever its form.
The image of coagulation—with
Sulphur as the coagulating agent, Mercury as the coagulated substance,
and Salt as the resulting form—is used repeatedly by Schwaller. The
formal articulation of this idea, as published in his mature œuvre, connects the motif to the embryological process:
In
biology, the great mystery is the existence, in all living beings, of
albumin or albuminoid (proteinaceous) matter. One of the albuminoid
substances is coagulable by heat (the white of the egg is of this type),
another is not. The albuminoid substance carrying the spermatozoa is of
this latter type. The albuminoid sperm cannot be coagulated because it
carries the spermatozoa that coagulate the albuminoid substance of the
female ovum. As soon as one spermatozoon has penetrated the ovum, this
ovum coagulates on its surface, thus preventing any further penetration:
fertilisation has occurred. (In reality, this impenetrability is not
caused by a material obstacle, the solid shell, but by the fact that the
two equal energetic polarities repel one another). The spermatozoon
therefore plays the role of a “vital coagulating fire” just as common
fire coagulates the feminine albumin. This is the action of a
masculine fire in a cold, passive, feminine environment. Here also,
there are always material carriers for these energies, but they manifest
the existence of an energy with an active male aspect and a passive
female aspect that undergoes or submits to it. Ordinary fire brutally
coagulates the white of an egg, but the spermatozoon coagulates it
gently by specifying it into the embryo of its species. This image shows
that the potentiality of the seed passes to a defined effect through
the coagulation of a passive substance, similar to the action of an acid
liquid in an alkaline liquid, which forms a specified salt. Now the
sperm is no more acid than the male albumin, but it plays in the animal
kingdom [animalement] the same role as acid; ordinary fire is
neither male nor acid and yet it has a type of male and acid action.
This and other considerations incline the philosopher to speak of an
Activity that is positive, acid and coagulating, without material
carrier, and of a Passivity, a substance that is negative, alkaline, and
coagulable, also without material carrier. From their interaction
results the initial, not-yet-specified coagulation, the threefold Unity, which is also called the “Creative Logos” (Word, Verbe) because the Logos, as speech, only signifies the name, that is, the definition of the “specificity” of things.
To
salt as the mean term between the agent and patient of coagulation, he
occasionally adds other revealing expressions, such as the following:
In geometry, in a triangle, the given line is Mercury, the Angles are Sulphur, and the resultant triangle is Salt.
Whereas here, Schwaller identifies Salt with a ‘datum’ or ‘given’ which is ‘fixed like seed’ (une donnée concrète ou fixée comme semence), elsewhere he identifies the active, sulphuric function with that of the seed (semence).
What this means is that the neutral saline product, once formed, then
acts in the sulphuric capacity of a seed and ferment, but also
foundation:
It can only be a matter of an
active Fire, that is, of a seminal “intensity”, like the “fire” of
pepper, for example, or better: the “fire” of either an organic or a
catalysing ferment. The character of all the ferments, i.e. the seeds,
is to determine into Time and Space a form of nourishment—in principle
without form; clearly, therefore, it plays a coagulating role. The
coagulation of all “bloods” is precisely their fixation into the form of
the species of the coagulating seed, the coagulation being, as in other
cases, a transformation of an aquatic element into a terrestrial or
solid element, without desiccation and without addition or diminution of
the component parts.
In the identification of both sulphur and salt as semence,
one discerns a specific coherence of opposites that, in elemental
terms, is described by the expression ‘Fire of the Earth’. The salt is
described in the passage quoted above as a seed (semence). This seed “becomes” seed again through the process of tree and fruit (growth, ferment, coagulation). It is at once a beginning and a finality (prima and ultima materia).
The reality described is non-dual. Beginning and end partake of
something that is not describable by an exclusively linear causality;
and yet it is seen to “grow” or “develop” along a definite “line” or
“path” of cause and effect; at the same time it partakes of a cyclic or
self-returning character; and yet, for Schwaller, it is not the circle
but the spherical spiral that provides the true image of its
reality: a vision which encompasses a punctillar centre, a process of
cyclic departure and return from this centre (oscillation), as well as
linear “development”, all of which are merely partial descriptors of a
more encompassing, and yet more mysterious, reality-process. The
fundamental coherence of this vision to the Bewußtwerdungsphänomenologie of
Jean Gebser (1905–1973) consolidates the significance of Schwaller’s
perception for the ontology of the primordial unity which is at once
duality and trinity. For Gebser, consciousness manifests through
point-like (vital-magical), polar-cyclic (mythic-psychological) and
rectilinear (mental-rational) ontologies, each being a visible
crystallisation of the ever-present, invisible and originary ontology
which unfolds itself not according to exclusively unitary, cyclic or
linear modalities of time and space, but according to its own innate
integrum.
Thus there is no contradiction in finding the presence
of fiery sulphur in the desiccating dryness of the salt, for it is
precisely in the one substance that the sulphuric seed (active function)
and saline seed (fixed kernel) cohere. The fixed, concrete seed-form
(itself a coagulation of mercury by sulphur) contains the active
sulphuric functions (the coagulating rhythms) which it will impose upon
the nutritive mercurial substance (unformed matter). ‘One nature’, as a
Graeco-Egyptian alchemical formula puts it, ‘acts upon itself’.
Images are from the Tarot deck designed by de Lubicz himself.
Among
the various perspectives that have been surveyed on the nature and the
principles inherent to salt, it is perhaps the Pythagorean
statement—‘salt is born from the purest sources, the sun and the
sea’—that pertains most directly to the deeper meaning of Schwaller’s
hermetic phenomenology. Salt for Schwaller was placed in a septennial
relationship comprising the tria prima and the four elements.
Elementally, salt was situated by Schwaller at the end of a progression
beginning with fire and air and ending in water and earth. Fire and air
form a triad with sulphur; air and water form a triad with mercury;
water and earth form a triad with salt. But salt was also understood to
join the end of this progression to a new beginning, to a new
fire/sulphur, exactly as the octave recapitulates the primordial tonos in
musical harmony. For Schwaller, it was precisely this ‘juncture of
abstract and concrete’ (fire and earth) that was identified with the
formation of the philosopher’s stone (or at least the key to the formation of the philosopher’s stone):
Relationship between Tria Prima
and Tetrastoicheia. Trinity (Sulphur-Mercury-Salt) begets quaternary
(Fire-Air-Water-Earth). The juncture of Fire and Earth (abstract and
concrete) is the means by which the end of the series is linked to its
beginning. Diagram after Schwaller and VandenBroeck.
In
this configuration (which prefigures the discussion of de Lubicz’s
colour theory undertaken elsewhere), one begin to see the hermetic
“problem” of salt, i.e. its mysterium. Salt partakes of something that
stands between water and fire (Pythagoras’ ‘purest sources’) in a way
that is intimately related to earth, to which it imparts its dryness.
Here one finds an imbroglio that suggests at once an element and a
principle. Its connection to fire is felt in the hermetic associations
of the elements (the sulphuric triad, fire and air, is characterised by
heat; the mercurial triad, air and water, is characterised by humidity
or wetness, while the saline triad, water and earth, is characterised by
coldness; however, it salt’s dryness—its desiccating quality—can only come from fire. Visser’s remarks, once again, prove cogent and penetrating:
Salt,
once isolated, is white and glittering. It is the opposite of wet. You
win it by freeing it from water with the help of fire and the sun, and
it dries out flesh. Eating salt causes thirst. Dryness, in the
pre-Socratic cosmic system which still informs our imagery, is always
connected with fire, heat, and light.
Thus, inherent to salt
is an equal participation in fire, sulphur and heat (+) and water,
mercury, and wetness (–), such that it may be analogised with a chemical
neutralisation reaction in which the positive and negative values
become electrically equalised. This neutral condition is for Schwaller
the very ground of being in which we are existentially and
phenomenologically situated (‘everything in nature, being a formed
Species, will be Salt’). Thus, to see existence—reality as we know it—as
a neutralisation reaction between an active sulphuric function (divinity, logos, eidos) and passive mercurial substance (prima materia),
to perceive the coagulating sulphur and the nourishing mercury through
the “cinnabar” of all things, this is to “find” the philosopher’s stone.
It is fundamentally, for Schwaller, a metaphysics of perception.
The World LAShTAL includes: LA—Naught. AL—Two. L is “Justice,” the Kteis fulfilled by the Phallus, “Naught and Two” because the plus and the minus have united in “love under will.” A is “The Fool,” Naught in Thought (Parzival), Word (Harpocrates), and Action (Bacchus). He is the boundless air, and the wandering Ghost, but with “possibilities.” He is the Naught that the Two have made by “love under will.” LA thus represents the Ecstasy of Nuit and Hadit conjoined, lost in love, and making themselves Naught thereby. Their child is begotten and conceived, but is in the phase of Naught also, as yet. LA is thus the Universe in that phase, with its potentialities of manifestation. AL, on the contrary, though it is essentially identical with LA, shows “The Fool” manifested through the Equilibrium of Contraries. The wieght is still nothing, but it is expressed as it were two equal weights in opposite scales. The indicator still points to zero. ShT is equally 31 with LA and AL, but it expresses the secret nature which operates the Magick or the transmutations. ShT is the formula of this particular Æon; another æon might have another way of saying 31. Sh is Fire as T is Force; conjoined they express Ra-Hoor-Khuit. “The Angel"3 represents the Stèle 666, showing the Gods of the Æon, while “Strength” is a picture of Babalon and the Beast, the earthly emissaries of those Gods. ShT is the dynamic equivalent of LA and AL. Sh shows the Word of the Law, being triple, as 93 is thrice 31. T shows the formula of Magic declared in that Word; the Lion, the Serpent, the Sun, Courage and Sexual Love are all indicated by the card. In LA note that Saturn or Satan is exalted in the House of Venus or Astarté and it is an airy sign. Thus L is Father-Mother, Two and Naught, and the Spirit (Holy Ghost) of their Love is also Naught. Love is AHBH, 13, which is AChD. Unity, 1, aleph. who is “The Fool” who is Naught, but none the less an individual One, who (as such) is not another, yet unconscious of himself until his Oneness expresses itself as a duality. Any impression or idea is unknowable in itself. It can mean nothing until brought into relation with other things. The first step is to distinguish one thought from another; this is the condition of recognizing it. To define it, we must perceive its orientation to all our other ideas. The extent of our knowledge of any one thing varies therefore with the number of ideas with which we can compare it. Every new fact not only adds itself to our universe, but increases the value of what we already possess. In AL this “The” or “God” arranges for “Countenance to behold countenance,“4 by establishing itself as an equilibrium, A the One-Naught conceived as L the Two-Naught. This L is the Son-Daughter Horus-Harpocrates just as the other L was the Father-Mother Set-Isis. Here then is Tetragrammaton once more, but expressed in identical equations in which every term is perfect in itself as a mode of Naught. ShT supplies the last element; making the Word of either five or six letters, according as we regard ShT as one letter or two. Thus the Word affirms the Great Work accomplished: 5○=6□. ShT is moreover a necessary resolution of the apparent opposition of LA and AL; for one could hardly pass to the other without the catalytic action of a third identical expression whose function should be to transmute them. Such a term must be in itself a mode of Naught, and its nature cannot encroach on the perfections of Not-Being, LA, or of Being, AL. It must be purely Nothing-Motion as they are purely Nothing-Matter, so as to create a Matter-in-Motion which is a function of "Something.” Thus ShT is Motion in its double phase, an inertia compose of two opposite current, and each current is also thus polarized. Sh is Heaven and Earth, T Male and Female; ShT is Spirit and Matter; one is the word of Liberty and Love flashing its Light to restore Life to Earth, the other is the act by which Life claims that Love is Light and Liberty. And these are Two-in-One, the divine letter of Silence-in-Speech whose symbol is the Sun in the Arms of the Moon.5 But Sh and T are alike formulæ of force in action as opposed to entities; they are not states of existence, but modes of motion. They are verbs, not nouns. Sh is the Holy Spirit as a “tongue of fire” manifest in triplicity, and is the child of Set-Isis as theirlogos or Word uttered by their “Angel.” The card is XX, and 20 is the value of yod (the secret seed of all things, the Virgin, “The Hermit,” Mercury, the Angel or Herald) expressed in full as IVD. Sh is the spiritual congress of Heaven and Earth. But T is the Holy Spirit in action as a “roaring Lion” or as “the old Serpent” instead of an “Angel of Light.” The twins of Set-Isis, harlot and beast, are busy with that sodomitic and incestuous lust which is the traditional formula for producing demi-gods, as in the cases of Mary and the Dove, Leda and the Swan, etc. The card is XI, the number of Magick AVD: aleph “The Fool” impregnating the woman according to the Word of yod, the Angel of the Lord! His sister has seduced her brother Beast, shaming the Sun with her sin; she has mastered the Lion, and enchanted the Serpent.
We devised the Alchemy Thoth Tarot Spread primarily for the
purpose of problem solving, though no doubt it has more subtle uses. The
three-card groups allow the Tarot dignities to be used. One advantage of this
layout is its simplicity; it is based on the idea that Rajas (Sulphur, action)
acts upon Tamas (Salt, inertia) to bring about Sattwas (Mercury, wisdom).
Alchemical Salt (5 2 8): The inertia that must be overcome; the
problem or any difficulties around the question.
Alchemical Sulphur (6 3 9): Activity; the action that is most likely to be taken by the Querent.
Alchemical Mercury (4 1 7): A synthesis of forces; the solution; that
which will come to pass.
If desired, a card may be chosen and placed in the centre of
the triad before shuffling and laying the other cards, to represent the
Querent.
Aleister Crowley defined magick as the “Science and Art of causing
Change to occur in conformity with Will”. However, all magical working
concerns the manipulation of glamours, and none of these results or the
desires that fuel them have any substance or reality in themselves.
Hadit is the Magician and the Exorcist, and all phenomena appear
spontaneously—there are no causes and no effects.— Hermetic Qabalah Initiation Workbook
Advaita or Non-Dual reality is often ascribed exclusively to Eastern
mysticism, as though it had no part in the Western Hermetic Tradition.
And yet, the Hermetic Tree of Life does not begin with Kether, the
‘One’, or Chokmah, the ‘Two’. The three veils of Negativity that precede
Kether—Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur—have a vital role in all
practical working, whether the aim is mystical, magical or both. When we
begin meditation on the Tree of Life with Kether, or the Rituals of the
Pentagram with the word “IAO”, aspiring upwards, there is a momentary
pause. In that pause, we clear our minds of all thought and sensation,
and contemplate the Ain as no-thing, no object, no subject—pure
emptiness and spaciousness. Then when we utter the first words, Kether
is truly formulated from the three veils of the infinite.
Kether and Atziluth as a concentration of the three veils of Negative Existence
The Mexican sorcery or shamanism that
is described in the writings of Carlos Castaneda is none too different
from the magick of the Hermetic tradition. The trick of following a
symbol back to its source with the infinite—analogous thought as opposed
to analytical thought—is vital to both traditions. With the Mexican
sorcerers, there is more emphasis on the natural world, whereas the
urban magician is usually inclined towards more abstract ciphers. The
hieroglyphs are ‘out there’ in nature, in rocks, plants, mountains,
physical places and their genius loci.
However, this is no
different than the magick practiced by our ancient Egyptian forebears.
Every bird, animal, creature, stone, plant, building or place is a
cipher of the infinite. The word “cipher” itself is derived from the
Arabic sifre , meaning “zero”, and there is a meaningful correspondence between sifre and sephira or “number”. In the Egyptian Book of the Law, Liber AL vel
Legis, Nuit says: “Every number is infinite; there is no difference.”
The teachings of Castaneda’s Don Juan insist that the nagual —the
Mexican word for the formlessness and space that is the true nature of
matter—is the only source of real power to the magician or shaman. The nagual—more
or less equivalent to the thread of the Ain Soph of the Qabalah—is the
timeless source of all magick and sorcery. It is said that if a sorcerer
has enough power, then he or she can enter the nagual and leave
it at any point in space or time. A shaman can thus disappear from one
place and in an instant be transported to some other place a thousand
miles away. The Mexican shaman gains knowledge of every thing, object,
creature or plant, by entering into the formless reality that is veiled
by the object. Likewise, the Kemetic and Hermetic magician follows every
symbol back to its source with the infinite.
Lightning Flash
One unique thing about the Hermetic practice is that we start at the top
and then draw down the force, before working upwards again. In other
traditions, it is more common to begin from the ground and work your way
up. So it appears from our practical work that we begin with Kether the
Crown, the first emanation of the Tree of Life. Kether more or less
approximates with the Atman of Eastern philosophy. The Egyptian god Atem
or Atem Ra embodies much the same principle. However, numbers begin
from zero, not one. The idea of negative existence or Non-Being is as
integral to the Hermetic tradition as it is to Eastern Advaita. In the
Qabalah we have three veils of the negative light, the Ain, the Ain Soph
and the Ain Soph Aur—No-thing, Limitless Space, and Limitless Light.
Kether is the first appearance, and is really a concentration or mirror
reflection of those three veils of the infinite. The traditional name of
Kether in Atziluth is AHIH, “I Am”, the pure existence,
undifferentiated. If we say “I Am” backwards, we declare “Maya”—that
the ‘One’ is the root of the delusion of appearances. The Ain, Ain Soph
and Ain Soph Aur reflected in Kether is Light in Extension, the LVX
formulation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. When this is
reversed, we formulate NOX or Night, the threefold eye of Ain, Not-Self
or Non-Being. The word Ain is closely related to the letter and word
Ayin, the eye of the void.
The Qabalist bears in mind at all times that the sephiroth of the
Hermetic Tree exist at four worlds or levels, and that there is a tree
in every sphere. The divine world, Atziluth, is more or less the plane
of the gods at the cosmic level. The Egyptian gods are Neters,
“Principles”, that are the divine expressed in nature by natural laws.
Nuit and Hadit, the primary gods of the Egyptian Book of the Law, Liber
AL vel Legis, are the most cosmic or absolute of all the gods. As such,
their first place on the Hermetic Tree is with the Ain and the Ain Soph.
There is some correspondence with Shiva and Shakti of the Eastern
Tantras.
On the plane of time and space, the temporal world, all things, objects
and creatures appear to be a result of causes. We therefore tend to
perceive everything as a chain of cause of effect. Malkuth in Assiah is
the world of action and elements, identical to the Sanskrit “karma”. In
the cosmic world of Nuit and Hadit, there are no causes and no
effects—there is no time. The notion of time where there seems to be a
past that is no more, a present that is ‘here’, yet constantly moving
forward, and a future that is as yet unborn, does not come about until
the midpoint of the Tree, Tiphereth. Even then, time does not fully
obtain until we reach Malkuth, the world of manifest appearances. The
perception of cause and effect, although real enough on its own plane,
is a trick of how we perceive things.
Form vs. Formless Reality
The argument between the advocates of a formless absolute and those that
revere gods, divinities, is an exceedingly ancient one. The great Hindu
sage Ramakrishna proposed a satisfying solution to that argument. The
story goes that one day Ramakrishna encountered some ardent followers of
Shiva, and they said to him, “Why are you worshipping this goddess? She
is Maya, the great delusion. We are followers of Shiva, who is Formless
and absolute, the only Reality.” Ramakrishna went away to think and
meditate on this. When he returned, he found the Shivaites again and
told them, “You are right! However, so am I! The goddess that I love is
the Form of the Formless. Ultimately, the Form and Formless are
perfectly equal and amount to an expression of the same Reality.”
The thread of the Ain Soph does not only exist ‘above Kether’, for it is
the key to transformation at every conceivable level. How does Geburah,
the 5th sephira, become Tiphereth, the 6th? How does the world of
Yetzirah become the world of Assiah? It is through the thread of the Ain
Soph that weaves throughout the worlds. In the numerical scheme of
things, Malkuth is ‘below’ and Kether is ‘above’. And yet, Malkuth is
Kether, but after another fashion. The Ain Soph is hidden in Malkuth—and
so present at all times—as much as it is ‘above’ even Kether.
In the practice—whether it is a meditation on the Hermetic Tree, the
Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, or an operation to consecrate a
talisman, we start at the ‘top’, the most absolute that we can conceive,
then work towards manifestation. And that is the transformation or
Great Work that is essential to magick and alchemy, the working upon the
plane of matter. When this is reversed, so that each symbol is followed
back to its source in the infinite, the Non-Dual reality may be
realised. To use the Eastern terminology, which is more familiar to many
than the symbolism of the Hermetic tradition, Jnanamudra leads naturally to Mahamudra. According to “The Rites and Ceremonies of Hormaku”, Ritual Magick
:The adept embraces both heaven and hell, becoming at the last a
flame—and then the fire itself. Enoch provides the primary example of
magical invisibility since, after the translation of his Ka into spirit
or Khu, he was never seen again on earth by mortals. When the adept
knows that which he loves even as he is known and loved, a universe is
crushed to nought (i.e. returned to Nuit). “That which remains” (Liber
AL, II: 9) is not created from the substance of the earth—for it is not
of created things. The adept—unless he falls back into time and space at
the crossroads—is therefore invisible to all men, even while dwelling
in the body of flesh.
The True Will in the tradition of Thelema is a wonderful conception, and
can be truly liberating. It is inevitably confused, though, with the
personal will that appears to drive choices and decisions that, in turn,
seem to affect changes in the material life. If too much personal
energy is applied to effecting change on its own plane , that
energy becomes depleted and the Ka (vital body) becomes a vampirical
force. Although vampires and ghouls are a glamorous concept, especially
to those that have never experienced the psychic planes directly, the
(relative) reality of such things is unpleasant, to put it mildly.
The Great Work of magick and alchemy is identical, and the work of
transformation is effected downwards on the planes, “As above so below”.
The world of Assiah is ‘negative’ to the ‘positive’ of the world of
Yetzirah. Geburah is negative to Binah and Chesed, but positive to
Tiphereth and Hod. To work upon Malkuth, the plane of material illusion,
one does not begin with a wish or desire—though such a wish may have
served as a lever to turn the magician towards the Great Work. With the
Ain or non-conceptual reality there is no subject, no object and no will
to do anything or to change anything. There are no things or objects
with Ain, there is no-thing to desire or crave and no one to desire it.
Yet it is from Ain that magick is worked and it is only by embracing
Non-Being that the true Will is known. Magick and mysticism can easily
be seen as two entirely different paths, one leading this way, the other
leading that way. The magick of the true Will, however, works
simultaneously from the Formless to Form, and from Form to the Formless.
This mirroring or doubling of the worlds is described in the writings
of Kenneth Grant as the “Aeon of Zain”, named after the 17th path of the
Hermetic Tree to which the symbol of the sword is referred.
The downward striking action of the Flaming Sword or Lightning Flash—the
word or utterance of Kether which is itself a mirror of the void of Ain
Soph—automatically invokes a reflex, a current of return from Malkuth.
This simultaneous, two-way relationship between the Formless void and
its expression in matter and substance weaves the very fabric of
anything we can perceive as existence. By travelling to and fro across
the planes, a ‘substance’ is created that has an existence outside of
the gates of matter and time. This is no different than the immortal
stone or elixir of life that was described by medieval alchemists.
Referring once more to the writings of Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan was
always insistent that the ‘tricks’ of the shamans, whether to travel
over vast distances, to effect magical transmutations upon things,
creatures or humans, or to play some humiliating practical joke upon an
unwary acolyte, has deadly serious intent. And that intent is the
ultimate liberation of the soul from all constraints of matter, time and
death. This is no different in any way from the Great Work of the
Hermetic tradition or the goal of liberation of the Advaitans.
“Magic is the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced.”
Occult Aspects 