Explore the mystical teachings of Kabbalah on creation

Unveiling the Hidden: Creation According to Kabbalah

Kabbalah, the mystical heart of Judaism, offers a profound and intricate account of creation, far removed from the simplistic narratives of popular understanding. It delves into the very nature of the Divine, exploring the processes by which the infinite Ain Soph brought forth the finite universe. This journey, a cosmic drama of emanation and withdrawal, is mapped out through the symbolic language of the Sephirot and the Tree of Life.

The Kabbalah

Kabalah is the origin of most occidental occult sciences and magical systems. It has been used by all the mages and wise men for thousands of years. In this science, the human being is considered to be a universe in itself. First developed by the Jewish people, then followed the Christian occultists, this profound concept of the workings of the universe is applied to the Macrocosmos, the big universe, and the Microcosmos, the small universe of the human being. Although anyone's interpretation is personnal to each his own path, we will notice that we get a more authentic experience by respecting the original Hebrew texts. In fact, the only way to get to the core of Kabalah is to read the original Hebrew text like a kabalist would, with the understanding of the tradition. Nonetheless, It is useful to start with the simple and mentally accessible tools that kabalah provides.

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life is a graphical representation of the complete system of Kabalah. It represents the 10 planes of existence linked together by 22 types of energies that exist in the universe. Each of the 10 planes of existence is a sphere called “Sephirot” and it contains all the experience and creative power of this specific plane. These 22 links between them took form in the shape of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet gave birth to the 22 major cards of the tarot, to astrological signs, to the name of angels,... almost every occult science of the occident has a link to kabalah.

Kabalah is a very rich science that explains every aspect of human existence in a intellectually understandable way. Beware, this science is deep and mysterious, and it could lead you to break your mind if you are too much in a hurry. Learning must be accompanied with prayer and meditation.

The kabalah theory is based on this diagram, both marvelous and complex. It was first explained in a book called “Sepher Yetzirah”, the book of formation. It is a manual on universal mechanics. It explains how the light of creation condensed itself to create the many aspects of the universe and the human being. The kabalists say “As above, so below, as below, so above”. It’s their way of saying we are made the same way the universe is made.

The great light of creation came from the “Absolute light without end”, and poured down like water to fill in ten spheres of existence, like jars. The water of creation filled the first, then overflowed in the second, then overflowed into the third, down to the tenth jar/sphere. These jars/spheres are called “Sephirot”. The channels used by the flowing light of creation link the sephiroth together and also permit the flow from one to another. There are 22 of these channels, each represented by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

In each sephirot, God takes a shape, one of his infinite manifestations. Each sephirot has a universal soul, an envelope of itself. In each sephirot, a “manager” resides, to lead its operations, and this manager is called an archangel. In each sephirot also live concepts and spiritual beings, and lastly, each sephirot take on a physical shape, a body, a planetary shape. Therefore, each sephirot as 5 distinct componenst: 1- God form, 2- Soul, 3- Regent/manager, 4- Family of spiritual beings, 5- Physical manifestation.

By learning about each aspect of these sephirot, and the 22 links between them, we can invoke the spiritual energy of the universal mechanics to help us in our lives, assist our development and resolve some problems. From this theory came all forms of occidental magic, divination, astrology, numerology, tarot, and so on. The 22 major cards of the tarot are in fact the 22 channels of kabalah. We do not recommend big long rituals with enormous amounts of details and artifacts; at least, not at first. You may learn about these complex forms of rituals if you learn practical kabalah on your own, which is good. Many books are available in good libraries.

The Primordial Void: Ain Soph

Before creation, there was only Ain Soph, the "Infinite," a boundless and unknowable essence. It is not a being, but rather the potential for all being. To bring forth existence, Ain Soph performed a radical act: Tzimtzum, a self-contraction, creating a void within itself. This void, the Chalal, became the space for creation to unfold.

The Emanation of the Sephirot

Within this void, Ain Soph emanated ten divine attributes, the Sephirot, which serve as the building blocks of reality. These Sephirot are not separate entities, but rather aspects of the Divine, flowing and interacting in a dynamic process. They are arranged on the Tree of Life, a symbolic map of the cosmos.

Here's a breakdown of the Sephirot, their associated Divine names, Archangels, and Angelic Orders:

Sephirot	Divine Name	Archangel	Angelic Order	Represents
Keter (Crown)	Ehyeh (I Am)	Metatron	Chaioth ha-Kodesh (Holy Living Creatures)	The will of God, the origin of all creation.
Chochmah (Wisdom)	Yah	Raziel	Ophanim (Wheels)	The first stirring of thought, primordial wisdom.
Binah (Understanding)	Elohim	Tzaphkiel	Aralim (Thrones)	The development of wisdom, divine comprehension.
Chesed (Mercy)	El	Tzadkiel	Chashmalim (Dominions)	Divine love and grace.
Gevurah (Severity)	Elohim Gibor	Kamael	Seraphim (Powers)	Divine judgment and strength.
Tipheret (Beauty)	Eloah Va-Daath	Raphael	Malachim (Virtues)	Harmony, balance, and the center of the Tree.
Netzach (Victory)	Adonai Tzabaoth	Haniel	Elohim (Principalities)	Endurance and perseverance.
Hod (Splendor)	Elohim Tzabaoth	Michael	Beni Elohim (Archangels)	Glory and majesty.
Yesod (Foundation)	Shaddai El Chai	Gabriel	Cherubim (Angels)	The channel through which divine influence flows.
Malkuth (Kingdom)	Adonai Melekh	Sandalphon	Ishim (Souls of Fire)	The material world, the culmination of the Sephirot.

The Tree of Death (Qliphoth) and the Ten Hells

Each of the Qliphoth corresponds to a shadow version of the Sephiroth, ruled by demonic forces that seek to oppose divine order.

Thaumiel (Opposition to Keter) – Ruler: Satan and Moloch
Ghagiel (Opposition to Chokmah) – Ruler: Beelzebub
Sathariel (Opposition to Binah) – Ruler: Lucifuge Rofocale
Gamaliel (Opposition to Chesed) – Ruler: Lilith
Golab (Opposition to Gevurah) – Ruler: Asmodeus
Thagirion (Opposition to Tiferet) – Ruler: Belphegor
Harab Serapel (Opposition to Netzach) – Ruler: Baal
Samael (Opposition to Hod) – Ruler: Adramelech
Gamaliel (Opposition to Yesod) – Ruler: Lilith
Nahemoth (Opposition to Malkuth) – Ruler: Naamah

The Fall of Tetragrammaton

In Kabbalah, the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) represents the divine presence governing creation. The fall of the Tetragrammaton refers to the descent of divine energy into lower, corrupted forms, causing spiritual imbalance and leading to the existence of the Qliphoth.

The Angelic Hierarchy and Their Roles in Creation

Angels are divine messengers and intermediaries between the physical and spiritual worlds. The angelic hierarchy consists of nine choirs, each with unique duties.

The Nine Choirs of Angels and Their Functions

Seraphim – Closest to God, radiate divine love.
Cherubim – Guardians of divine wisdom and knowledge.
Thrones – Represent divine justice and stability.
Dominions – Regulate lower angelic orders.
Virtues – Manifest divine power and miracles.
Powers – Defenders against demonic influences.
Principalities – Protect nations and leaders.
Archangels – Deliver divine messages to humanity.
Angels – Closest to human affairs, serve as personal guides.

The Negative Existence of God

1. Ain Soph Aur

Beyond all which is conceivable, beyond all that Man can imagine, conceive, envisage, beyond all that which is, for him, the GOOD, and beyond all that which is EVIL, there is yet “another thing”. This “some thing” is an “Impossibility”, even more abstract than the impossibilities accessible to our spirit. That is the negative existence of GOD, all that is GOD conceived by Man, that is ‘not’.

To define that which GOD is not is thus impossible for Man. But to admit that this must necessarily be, is to already propose the first term of a particular definition of this ABSOLUTE. Philosophers and mystics, expressed jointly in theodicity, tell us that anagogical reverie and reasoning have allowed them to set down some metaphysical certainties regarding God. In doing so they also set the boundaries of their domain.

Beyond what they have collected in the nets of their researches is EMPTINESS, certainly, but a luminous emptiness since the ultimate image held by man makes him conceive GOD as a Brilliant Light, blinding, cold, immobile, silent, and odorless. This dazzling domain, opening beneath the feet of the mystic at the extreme limit of his journey, is what the Kabbalah calls the “Empty Limitless Light”, in Hebrew: “Ain Soph Aur”.

This composite work derives from Ain: nothing, empty, from Soph: limits, boundaries, and from Aur: light.

2. Ain Soph

If we admit (as was said in paragraph 1), that beyond what is conceivable and translatable, there is a domain from which we cannot draw a single «image», we are then led to recognize that this notion of “Light” is yet another one! Let us reject this, too, as being one of the last veils which masks the Eternity of God from our view, and call Nothingness to our aid! The Nothingness entrusts us with another secret: it makes us conceive of a “region” of the Unknown from which no “Light” emanates. Before us, clinging to the edge of the Abyss, is nothing more than an inky, terrifying “Night” of shadow and silence. These shadows we divine to be without limit, as was itself the preceding “Light”. This, beyond Ain Soph Aur, is the “Luminous Emptiness”, beyond this “Light” which was also a reality, this is called “Ain Soph”, the “Obscure and Limitless Emptiness”.

3. Ain

But this “Night”, so terrifying in itself, is still only a relative reality, since we are able to conceive of it! It ‘is’, in its own way, and if it makes us conceive «Absolute Nothingness», better than the preceding «Light», which was a still more tangible reality, it offers us another possibility of evasion... Let us then plunge into the obscure ocean, into this black and cold immensity. At the end of the Voyage, when, having been beyond the “Limitless Light”, and explored the “Shadows without limit”, we shall have rejected all notion or all image of the INEXPRESSIBLE itself, when we feel our spirit falter, when the vertigo of Folly has carried us towards the “Horror-Which-Has-No-Name”, towards the INCOMPREHENSIBLE, then we shall see appear the end of this demonic “examination”... We will greet with joy the liberating annihilation! For a new metaphysical “region” will open its “Gates” before us, and above these Gates we shall finally read the Word which will allow us to sleep, cradling our sorrows and calming our wildly beating heart, and this final Word is “Ain”, which means: NOTHING...

We can therefore conclude that beyond what is possible, beyond that which is no more, in one case as in the other, is “NON-BEING”.

This “NOTHING”, this domain where God is concealed “that which will not be, that which is not and that which has never been”, is the immediate antipodes of another «region», where God manifests “that which has been, is, and shall be”. Between these two worlds is a “passage”, which we will revisit shortly, which is more accentuated. This passage is in a way a “Threshold” and it is called Kether, the “Eternal Crown”. From Kether is born another manifestation of God, in a different plane or world, and which descends, from “reflection” to “reflection”, to the material

universe, to Man, to plants, and to minerals. If we go still further, descending even lower, towards the Nothingness of origin, towards the Abyss where all the ghosts of “what will be” begin to teem, dance and float, We continue to distance ourselves a little more from Kether. Nevertheless, slowly but surely, passing one after the other through the zones visited by Dante, we pass successively, after “the World”: “the Pit” (or Sheol), “Perdition” (or Abron), “Garbage” (or Tit Aisoun), the “Well of the Abyss” (or Bershoat), the “Shadow of Death” (or Irasthoum), the “Gates of Death”, (or Ozlomoth), the “Valley of Affliction” (or Gehenna), the “Valley of Sleep” (or Gehenom), and finally the “Valley of Forgetfulness” (Gehennain).

Beyond this, Tradition tells us, comes the “Horror-Which-Has-No-Name”. There we find ourselves, on the edge of the ultimate “Threshold”. Night, cold, black as the Grave; and Emptiness too! This Emptiness manifests itself through the sensation of a fall without end. We are before Ain, the “NOTHING”... And we have ringed the periphery.

From this fantastic conception of Absolute Nothingness, required by Maimonides, Ibn Ezra drew his genesis of the Sephiroth. “The concept which reunites the whole of these negations is the concept of Ain Soph (without end, infinite). Ain Soph is limitless, one, in itself, without attribute, without will, without idea, without intent, without word, without action. This Being could not have willed Creation, since will implies an imperfection in the agent which wishes for the change”.

But if this Being is infinite, all is within him, and nothing is outside of him. Now, if all is within him, it follows that the limited and defective universe is also within him, for if he hadn’t the power to realize the end, his power would be limited and would not be infinite. Here we should let the author speak:

The Infinite is a Being who is absolutely perfect and without lacuna. So, when one says that there is within him a limitless power, but not the power to limit himself, one introduces a lacuna into his fullness. On the other hand, if one says that this universe – which isn’t perfect – proceeds directly from him, one is declaring that his power is imperfect. Now, as one cannot attribute a lacuna to his perfection, it is necessary to admit that the Ain Soph has the power to limit himself, which power is itself limitless. “Once this limit issues from him in a progressive line, these are the Sephiroth which constitute both the power of perfection and the power of imperfection. Indeed, when they receive the superabundant fullness which results from his perfection, they have a perfect power, but when the flow does not come to them, they have an imperfect power. In consequence, they have the power to act both in a perfect and an imperfect manner

Perfection and imperfection blend a variety of things. “Moreover, to say that God directed his will upon the creative Act without the intermediary of the Sephiroth is to expose oneself to an objection: that volition implies imperfection in the subject who did the willing. To say on the contrary, that his will did not direct the creative Act, is to raise the objection that Creation was a work of chance. Now, all that is born out of change has no established order. Yet we can see that created things have a sure order: they are born, subsist and perish in compliance with this order. So, this order is the totality of the Sephiroth. The Sephiroth are the power of being of all that is, of all that falls under the idea of numbers. As the existence of created things is due to the intermediation of the Sephiroth, they are necessarily distinguished the one from the other, and within them are a superior, inferior and middle region, though all issue from a single fundamental root, Infinite, without which there are none”.

Thus the existence of the Sephiroth has been demonstrated, but how can one then prove that they number ten, united into a single power? The Sephiroth, as we said, are the beginning and the principle of all which is limited. Now all that is limited is resolved into one substance and one place, for there is no substance without place and there is no place without the presence of a substance. But the substance cannot be recognized by less than a triple power (superior, median, inferior). So, when this triple power extends in length, breadth and depth (height), this gives nine possibilities; then, as a substance cannot subsist without place, and vice versa, it follows that the number which envelops substance and place cannot be less than ten. This is why it is said (in the Sepher Yetzirah) “Ten and not nine, ten and not eleven, for if one may believe that the three become nine, the four become six, which cannot be, for one must consider that the place only exists as a result of substance, and the substance and place constitute but one single and the same power”.

The number ten is not incompatible with the unity of Ain Soph, since unity is the foundation of all numbers, and multiplicity issues from unity; just as a fire, a flame, a spark, a light, a color, though distinct, nevertheless have a single cause. And, as for the proof that the Sephiroth are emanated and not created? This comes from the perfection of God whose means of production of the universe is Emanation; That is to say, a means which can expand itself without losing anything. Otherwise where would the mark of divine perfection be, since the characteristic of created things is precisely to not be identical to each other and to diminish? Moreover, how else could the Sephiroth meets all the needs of the universe without measure and forever? Yet if the Sephiroth are emanated, how can they be limited, measurable and concrete? Concrete and measurable reality is a consequence of their limit and they have a limit in order to mark on the one hand, as we have said, the power of God to limit Himself, and on the other hand because all things must be limited in order to be perceivable to the spirit; so the Sephiroth destined to be raised up to the glory of God are destined also to be known by Man. But if the Sephiroth are limited, their limits emanate from God in an unlimited manner. This is why it has been said (in the Sepher Yetzirah): “their measure is ten without end

Does Emanation have a beginning or is it eternal? If it began one might object: how Can there be novelty and change in the Absolute? And if one says that it is eternal, one is exposed to hear the objection: but then the Sephiroth are equal and identical to Ain Soph. One must admit that among the Sephiroth there is one, the first, which in fact existed in God for all eternity, but only “in power”. As for the objection of the identity of the Sephiroth among themselves, one can reply using the comparison of a flame with which one could have lit all sorts of luminaries, which though coming from the same principle, would be more or less brilliant. In the same way, the Sephiroth differ between themselves in their greater or lesser precedence. One would therefore be wrong to consider the Sephiroth as planes in which the divine essence necessary for the very existence and maintenance of Total Creation are nuanced and unequally apportioned.

On the contrary, they are in a very direct sense of the word demiurges (divine workers) of the Intelligent Energetic Powers. In their more-or-less great distancing from the essence of Ain Soph Aur, the negative- Divinity creates from them a hierarchy. We rediscover this Intelligent Decade deformed and bastardized in the Christian theogony in the nine choirs of Angels, namely: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Powers, Virtues, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. The last choir is constituted, in the opinion of the majority of theologians, of the Glorified Souls.

Common Judaic esotericism designates them under the name of Chayoth ha Kodesh (word for word: animals of sanctity). The Greek translate this as aggelos, messengers, intermediaries. These two latter expressions are correct enough: ‘messenger’ and ‘intermediary’ are near to demiurge or divine worker. Here are their names in Hebrew: Ophanim (“who unravel chaos”), Aralim (who maintain the form of subtle matter), Chashmalim (who assure the representation of the effigy of the body and material forms), Seraphim (who produce the elements), Malachim (who produce the mineral kingdom), Elohim (who produce the vegetable kingdom), Beni Elohim (who produce the animal kingdom), Cherubim (who presided at the creation of Man and who lead them towards Life Eternal), Ishim (who give Men intelligence and understanding of divine things).

We do not commit the error of Manichean authors, who put a Somber Decade opposite the Divine Decade, comprising elements of opposing powers. Dualism is an error. Evil as a pure entity does not exist. It’s the more or less great absence of the Sovereign Good (the divine essence, we have seen, more or less withdrawn from something) which gives this illusion. But there is nevertheless an inverse aspect to the ten Sephiroth. We will return to this soon. The word ‘choir’ employed by Christian angelology is quite precise, signifying in Greek “an assembly of beings or things according to a predetermined order and driven according to precise laws”.

This Sacred Decade is also found in Greek Mythology, with Apollo and the Nine Muses: Apollo (Glory), Clio (History), Urania (Metaphysics), Thalia (Comedy), Melpomene (Tragedy), Polymnia (Eloquence), Calliope (Epic Poetry), Erato (Love Poetry), Euterpe (Music), and Terpsichore (Dance). The esotericism of these definitions, their roots in the psyche of Man and the metaphysical links which result, are easy to discover. In India, Brahmanism gives us the same Divine Decade: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Maya, Om, Harangher-Berah, Persh, Pradjpati, Prakrat and Pran. The Celtic faith knows the “nine daughters of Hugh Kadarn”, which makes ten with this god. Pythagoras underlined more than any other philosophical movement the importance of the Decade and the Ten Pure Numbers composing it. As the Sephiroth are emanations and intelligent planes, it is thus through them and in then that the eternal creations of God are realized.

In the diagram marked figure 1, all the Sephiroth are laid out according to a specific decreasing and proportional order. In truth, the picture does not show their differences, but rather their states; for one cannot affirm from it that the Sephira Malkuth is farther away from Kether than that of Yesod. It is a simple distribution diagram. At the summit of the Tree we have three Names. Kether is the ultimate manifestation of the Son before re-entering into His own essence, and in this we already wait to meet the Total “Divinity”. These three names effectively only arrange the mystery of the Triple-God.

Ain signifies Negation, Ain Soph is Limitless, and Ain Soph Aur, Limitless Light. Immediately after the last emanation Kether, in terms of observing the Divine, we leave the domain of reality, of creation. Then, naturally come the opposites: Unreality and Unbeing. The Son, for us, is the last manifestation of the Divine. He is still perceptible to us in the form of Man-God; and we visualize Him just a little, since we are but fragments of Man-Archetype, made in His image.

If we were reintegrated into His essence (which is impossible since we are only a creature), we would then be able to dimly perceive the Mother, the second Person of the Trinity. We would be unable to go further because it would be impossible for us to be incorporated into Her. This second person obstructs the perception of the first person from us. The Spirit of Man loses itself in Her, and cannot go beyond. She is thus for us the Limitless, as Ain Soph is defined.

On the subject of the Father, about whom we can learn nothing, we are reduced to an intellectual silence. To say nothing, is almost to repudiate Him. Hence the expression Ain: Negation . Hebrew tradition defines the manifestations of the Ten Sephiroth with the assistance of the Ten Divine Names. These Ten Divine Names do not offer their names (as a means of action through the Human Word) as words of power. Man is not permitted to use the Energetic Powers in question for occult service. They do not define ten different gods. They simply express the Son, that is to say despite all, God, manifesting Himself in a manner conferred by one of these planes. So we must translate them into the vernacular in order to understand the name and the nature of the Name and the Sephira. These are modes of definition. But the Practical Kabbalah preserves them in their Hebraic form.

Being Energetic, Creative, Intelligent Powers, the Sephiroth are naturally the realm towards which the evolutionary activity of Man must necessarily turn. For him they should be refuges, protectors, and agents of his salvation. It is through them, from sphere to sphere, that he must elevate himself towards the Divine, as high as he can reach, when he finally succeeds in separating his own essence from the Gehenna which molded and mired him, when he wished to be the equal of God.

THE POSITIVE EXISTENCE OF GOD

The Creation in the Five Worlds

1. Aziluth

We now return to our metaphysical “observatory” of a short time ago. Let us stand upon the “Threshold of Eternity” (Kether), and turn towards Ain Soph Aur, the “Empty and Limitless Light”. We are before the first “Door”, that which leads to NON-BEING. And from this “Door”, by means of one of the first sacred artifices which comprise the “Art of Kabbalah”, arises the BEING, “Manifesting-Manifest” GOD, for we are going to evoke GOD...

If we wish to see the Negative Light, infertile and cold, shed forth from Positive Light, fertile and warm, we must put ourselves, in our imagination, inside a cloud, white as snow, immobile, without warmth and without cold, without taste and without odor. We are “in the white”. This Solely-White, this pervasive “luminescence” which allows us to distinguish all that, is the proof that we have arrived at the limits of Ain Soph Aur.

Then, alone, before us, in the middle of the shining whiteness of the cloud, we bring into existence a great triangle of golden light; we imagine it translucid, more dazzling than the most dazzling summer sun, living, warm, radiant. This Triangle appears alive and beating, a little like a marvelous “heart” belonging to another world. And suddenly, in the very center of this “image”, we feel the presence of the ABSOLUTE, its first manifestation, for the symbolic Triangle is alive, more alive than all ordinary beings. We have met a new concept, a new “state” of BEING, and that is AZILUTH.

It is important for the Student to live these states of the soul in order to understand them... What, then, is Aziluth, this plane of Pure Divinity? It is in it that we shall meet, in the course of our first metaphysical deductions, the essential actions of the ABSOLUTE. Aziluth is still GOD Himself, as we have defined in the course of our ordinary theological conclusions; it is GOD-ALONE, in all His aspects certainly, but without contact with Creatures. Aziluth is the ensemble of the “Divine Persons”

Now let us visualize our Golden Triangle, luminous and living. In our imagination, let us bring to life an “image”, adorned with detail and warm with perfect color, the Face of a majestic Elder with skin warm as bronze, with flowing hair and beard, whiter than snow, with blue eyes “like the very heavens in their brightness”. Let us maintain this “image” to the maximum, and contemplate it for a long time. We will see it detach itself from our imagination, to live a strange and independent life, a little as though we had only called to it.

We are in the presence of He whom the Kabbalah names “the Ancient of Days”, the “White Head”, “the Ancient of Ancients”, “the Existence of Existences”, “the Admirable and Recondite Intelligence”, the “Original Glory”. Let us now name Him! In Hebrew, the sacred language of the Kabbalah, we breathe His mysterious Name: “EHEIEH”, “HE WHO IS”.

Ain Soph is, according to Isaac Luria, “the Omnipotent and Most High Infinite Light, which no human thought or speculation can attain, and whose existence is far above all intellect, which existed before all things which were produced, created, formed and made through emanation, in which time has never existed, and which never had a beginning, for It has always existed, and It lives and shall live forever without beginning or end”.

Aziluth, we now see, is GOD who veils Himself and clothes Himself in an anthropomorphic “form”, the better to unveil Himself.

This first “manifestation” is KETHER, in Hebrew: “The Eternal Crown”. KETHER is the source of ALL. All that we are about to describe has issued from KETHER: and KETHER itself is at the same time the inferior aspect of the unmanifest INFINITE, and the higher aspect of the manifest INFINITE.

Through KETHER, Being passes back and forth, going from GOD to Matter and form Matter to GOD, from the “possible” to the “real-momentary”, and from the “real- momentary” to the “definitive-eternal”

But we already know – and this by theological reasoning – that God is “three in one”. It remains to us to seek the two other “images”. Then, we will have discovered what the Sepher ha-Zohar calls the MACROPROSOPUS, or “Greater Countenance” (the assemblage of the Ancient-of-Days), constituted by the Ancient-of-Ancients and the “Balance”, or Couple (an allusion to the pair which form the two scales of a balance and which seek the perfect equilibrium belonging to them). This Couple is called the “Higher Pair”, composed of the FATHER and the MOTHER, both issued forth from the ANCIENT.

Now we return to our contemplation, focusing on the divine Face of the “Original Glory”. And now it is that, gently, the Holy Face of the majestic Elder becomes blurred and fades, and the luminous Golden Triangle slowly reappears. But this is only for a moment, for, blurring once more, we see a new “image” appear. We leave this to resolve, and now we are in presence of the Face of a younger Being, with a high forehead, brown or light Beard, dark Hair spread across the Head, and soft, grave eyes. It is the Elder of a few moments before, rejuvenated, or His SON! And, effectively, it is the “Son of the Father”... His Name is “the Second Glory”, the “Supreme Father”, the “Creator Power”. These qualifiers define Him well.

This second “manifestation”, issuing from the first, is CHOKMAH, or “Divine Wisdom”. We welcome Him with the Divine Name which is His own: “JAH JEHOVAH”, which is the Hebrew, word for word, for: “You the Being of Beings”, or “God of gods”.

If we continue to contemplate the Face of the “Second Glory”, we will then see it dilute, melt, and disappear: and from the luminous, gilded mist of the great evocatory Triangle, we see that a new “image” seems to be appearing. Slowly, taking form, color and life, we see the wonderful face of a woman appear. Grave and gentle, serious and benevolent, the Face of the “Great Mother”, dear to all ancient peoples, She shines forth in Her turn. The face is that of a mature woman, a “matron”, still beautiful and young despite everything. In her we see the Virgin Maiden that she was, the Woman that she is, and the Mother that she will be, this last work having the sense of grandmother, welcome, protection. And we will not be in perfect accord with this mysterious influence which appears and glows, if we do not feel within us a curious mixture of filial love, platonic love, and intelligent adoration. Let us visualize her as a woman of flesh in whom we rediscover, at different times, the companion of our adolescence, the idealized lover, the collaborator in our works and researches, and the mother, confidant throughout our lives

As we already proposed in our original meditations (simples reveries ventured in the realm of Metaphysics), the “Mother” issues from the “Father”, just as the “Father” issues from the “Ancient of Ancients”.

Let us name her, for she is BINAH, or “Divine Intelligence”, and she is God in his third and last major aspect, which the Kabbalah calls so well “JEHOVAH ELOHIM”, or “SHE-the-Gods”, or again “The Being of Beings”, but in the feminine, the terms being the same as the masculine CHOKMAH.

It is also called the “Sanctifying Intelligence”, the “Foundation of Wisdom”, the “Creator of Faith”, the “Dark Sterile Mother”, and at the same time the “Brilliant Fertile Mother”. Finally, it is the “Throne of Wisdom” of the Litanies of the Virgin, and in Hebrew “Mara”, the “Great Mother”.

These Three Divine “Persons” are thus Veils, Masks, with which the ABSOLUTE clothes Himself before the creature so that he can visualize Him. Metaphysically this is a “parallel”, an “example”, which the master cites to better make the pupil understand. But one would be grossly wrong to imagine three different beings, each with their own personality. It is only in Christian Theodicity that the “Father” is distinct from the “Son”, and the “Holy Spirit”, while proceeding from their mutual Love, is nevertheless separated from the two initial aspects of the One-God.

In the Kabbalah, this division of the ABSOLUTE does not exist, and he who holds to such commits a fundamental error. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord Thy God is One,” we are told by the Scriptures. This is true, for GOD being all is much more than “three” images.

He reveals Himself by as many masks and veils as there are Emanations. This is why, to better understand this mystery, the Kabbalah also calls Him the “Mystery of Mysteries”. We will end with a final visualization exercise.

Now let us visualize BINAH, the “Great Mother”. Merge this image into that which We previously created CHOKMAH, the “Father of All”. When we have mastered these two “thought-forms”, so that they appear to our simple mental call, let us try to visualize both of them at the same time, side by side first of all, then sideways. We will then see their profile, the “Father” being on the right and the “Mother” on the left. Then, slowly, let them dissolve. At the same time that these two image disappear, see that the “Ancient of Ancients” appear... And behind this image, once more, we see the Great Golden Triangle of Light: and when this has, in its turn, disappeared, the Great White, Luminous Cloud. We are before AIN SOPH AUR once more.

The “Sepher ha-Zohar”, and more particularly the “Sepher Dzeniouta”, explain that Before the Beginning of All Things, “the Face did not regard the Face”. It is from this opposition that the six “Kings of Edom” were born. These Metaphysical Powers could not support the presence of the “First Glory” (Kether) and became the “Broken Vessels”.

This allowed Martinez de Pasqually, in his Treatise on “the Reintegration of Beings”, to tell us that in the Beginning, “God emanated spiritual Beings who prevaricate”. Then comes the equilibrium of the two scales of the Balance. The Couple composed of the “Father” and “Mother” are in harmony in their actions, and so are born Emanations which are more harmoniously conceived. These are the “Kings who come to meet with the other Kings” of the Sepher.

In fact the Kabbalah, with its lively, oriental images, has named the ensemble of the three first divine “Persons” the Macroprosopus, or “Greater Countenance”. From this Countenance, it creates a symbolic “Beard”, which is synonymous with the “Kings” standing in opposition to the Kings of Edom, “Members” of the Microprosopus (or “Lesser Countenance”, situated below the former), and which is sometimes called the “Inferior Couple” (as opposed to the “Superior Couple”: Chokmah-Binah), when it envisages them conjointly with a seventh emanation. This Microprosopus, also bears the names of “King” and “Bridegroom”, when it is conjointly evoked with this seventh emanation, about which we will meet shortly.

Now, just as the “Beard” is born at the base of the Countenance, from the very flesh, so the six inferior Emanations giving rise to the six Kings of Edom are born from the three original “Persons”. As the hair of a beard grows, each constitutive cell being born from the previous one, so our six secondary Emanations are born two-by-two from the three superior Emanations.

Here we note that the Kabbalah calls these Emanations, these symbolic Personae of ONE-GOD, spheres, in Hebrew “Sephiroth”, in the singular “Sephira”. Already we can easily see that, since these six secondary Sephiroth are born from the three first, they are inferior to them, subject to them, as a son born to a father is subject to him, as a branch growing from a tree is of lesser importance than it.

In Table we can see the Sephirotic hierarchy, their names, the symbolic “groups” they constitute the relationships which unite them to each other, etc. Let us return to the mental “evocations” already used. Visualize the “Elder” as before, with his hair and beard as white as dazzling snow, his blue eyes “like the very heavens in their brightness”. Then see raying out around him a resplendent golden “glory”, standing out against the silver cloud of our earlier exercises.

Immediately, for these “images” are real, and have been vitalized by centuries of ritual exercises, we truly see in silhouette the shoulders of the “Ancient of Ancients”, his chest, the whole upper part of his profile, covered in a purple tunic. We must now come to a perfect visualization, where the blue of the eyes and the silver of the head and The beard stands out perfectly against the purple of the Robe.

Then we will “conceive” that the six new Sephiroth are not located in the symbolic “Beard” alone, but indeed in the whole body, and if we still do not discern the Feet, this is because we have not yet studied the final Emanation.

On the forehead of the “Ancient of Ancients”, we will immediately see the shining fourth of KETHER, the “Eternal Crown”. We see that KETHER, manifesting itself towards us, in Aziluth, is the Forehead, but that KETHER manifests itself towards Ain Soph Aur, being born there; it is the “Glory” which radiates around the Forehead! And so KETHER is truly the “Threshold of Eternity”.

Since we know that BINAH and CHOKMAH are born out of KETHER, we can but suspect that they are behind the “Forehead”, and effectively, they equate to two brains, and are manifested by the two “Eyes”, doors open to the real, the concrete, organs which serve to bring Understanding and Wisdom from outside the body .

On the “Shoulders” of the “Ancient of Ancients”, we discern that there are two other Sephiroth, whose action is prolonged in the symbolic Arms. We will now name them they are GEBURAH, “Divine Justice” or “Strength”, and CHESED, Divine Mercy.

CHESED is sometimes called GEDULAH, in Hebrew “Love, Grace, Majesty”. She is the “Receptive Intelligence”, or moreover the “Cohesive Intelligence”. GEBURAH is sometimes called DIN, in Hebrew “Justice”, or PACHAD, “Fear”. It is “Radical Intelligence”.

From these two Sephiroth come two mysterious “Powers”, two special magnetisms. These are the “right” and the “left” of GOD of which the Scriptures speak. A third magnetism emanates from the chest, the neutral, equilibrium. In effect, the generative symbolism which presided at the personification of CHOKMAH and BINAH are renewing themselves

KETHER has been redoubled in these two new Emanations. Both are reflected in the two following, CHOKMAH and BINAH, for CHESED (like CHOKMAH) has as a symbol a “King crowned, seated on his throne, meting out justice”. GEBURAH has in opposition: a “King armed, standing upon his chariot”. The King of peace and the King of war.

In their turn, CHESED and GEVURAH constitute a new Triangle, the reverse of KETHER’s triangle, and they fuse together, thus giving birth to: TIPHERETH, or “Divine Beauty”, also named the “Mediating Intelligence”. It has a “Majestic King” as a metaphysical “image”. Later on, those of “A Young Child”, or of a “Sacrificed God” have been added through various influences.

It is further called Zair Anpin: the “Lesser Countenance”, as opposed to KETHER, exactly situated above it, but who is the “Greater Countenance”, since all the other Sephiroth emanates from it.

It is also Melekh: “the King”, Ben: the “Son”, and Adam, “Man”. We will call it: “Eloah”, being the feminine singular of Elohim.

The same emanating process continues to work. Doubling out from the last term envisaged (Tiphereth) into two new Sephiroth: NETZACH, “Glory” or “Eternity”, and HOD, “Victory”; then, in parallel, doubling from the superior Sephiroth BINAH and HOCHMAH, which give on the one side GEBURAH-HOD, and on the other CHESED- NETZACH.

Then, the from the fusion of NETZACH-HOD, a new term is generated: YESOD, “Foundation”, and thus doubling KETHER, which generates TIPHERETH and YESOD, the metaphysical “Sun” and “Moon”.

These Sephiroth are given various names and possess particular “images

NETZACH, the “Occult Intelligence” (the magical arts, forbidden sciences), visualized as a “Beautiful, naked young Woman”.

HOD, the “Absolute and Perfect Intelligence” (the classic arts and sciences); as its “image”, one should see it under the aspect of hermaphrodite Mercury, the Androgyne.

YESOD, the “Pure Intelligence” (as Intuition). Image: “A magnificent nude athlete”.

But all these are only reflections of the central Sephira: TIPHERETH, the “Majestic King”. They all constitute the “Microprosopus”, the “Lesser Countenance”, the “Inferior Couple”. We will use an admittedly heterodox example, to better explain this concept of the group of six Sephiroth in question:

KETHER-CHOKMAH-BINAH form the “Greater Countenance”, the FATHER, and TIPHERETH, manifesting in CHESED-GEBURAH, NETZACH-HOD and YESOD, is the SON, the “Lesser Countenance”.

If we want to visualize this new aspect of the TRINITY, let us take up once more the contemplation we began on the “Threshold” that is KETHER. Visualize the dazzling silver Cloud, then the Golden Triangle of Light, the largest possible, born at its center. Then, now we are sufficiently focused, the “Face” of the “Ancient of Days” itself is born; the Majestic Elder, with hair and beard of silver, with clear skin, blue eyes, “like the very heavens in their brightness”, shoulders and chest covered by a purple Tunic, enlightening image of the interior, shining from within.

From the chest of the “First Glory” is born the “Second Glory”, the SON (already manifested by CHOKMAH). Its Face has already been described above. It is situated immediately below that of the Ancient of Days, and his hair partly masks the white Beard. His tunic is white, a dazzling white like silver in the sun, and, with the purple background of that of the Ancient of Ancients, the contrast is even more accentuated. Thus the Lesser Countenance succeeds the Greater Countenance, the Microprosopus born of the very “Beard” of the Ancient of Days. And that is why the color of his tunic is the same as the Beard.

Are we to conclude then that the esotericism of the Sefer ha-Zohar affirms that we should never take the metaphors of its writers to the letter?... That we should strip them of all anthropomorphism? And yet, it is only by means of a new anthropomorphism that we can achieve this stripping down

The same Kabbalistic teachings tell us that a final Sephira exists, separated from all the others. This is MALKUTH, the “Kingdom”. Make a careful note of this word, for it has a particular importance.

MALKUTH, like all the other Sephiroth, possesses a specific Hebrew expression to define it, ADONAI MELEKH, the “Lord and King”. It is also called the “Resplendent Intelligence”, the “Threshold” (and by this is has a clear analogy with KETHER, since it is through this that one leaves the material “World” to remount towards the Divine); the “Threshold of Death” (this is a second analogy with KETHER, since, like the latter, one passes this “threshold” – leaving the Divine – to descend towards the shadows and the kenome. For MALKUTH is also the “gate” which leads from the material “World” towards the QLIPPOTH, the “external shadows”...). Then it is called the “Threshold of the Shadow of Death”, the “Threshold of Tears”, the “Threshold of Justice”, the “Threshold of Prayer”, the “Threshold of the Daughter of Powers”, the “Threshold of the Garden of Eden”, for it thus evokes realms where, by taking one direction or the Another, one can successively attain the Path of Light or the Path of Shadows. Like KETHER, MALKUTH is a place of passage, a door, a porch, through which one passes.

It is also and above all that which has a “Young Woman, crowned and seated upon a throne” as an “image”. It is the INFERIOR MOTHER, in relation to BINAH, it is “Malkah”, the “Queen”, in relation to TIPHERETH, (the “King”). She is “Kalah”, the Bride of the former, the Black VIRGIN of theogony, and also the “WIDOW” of Freemasonry, since she is partly separated from her SPOUSE. How? By the very function which is attributed to her being a “Door”. Of necessity opened upon the “dark side” (the QLIPPOTH, or infernal Sephiroth), this double nature separates her from complete union with the BRIDEGROOM

It is for this reason that the “Divine Name” given to her by the Kabbalah: ADONAI MELEKH (“Lord and King”) is doubled with another Divine Name: ADONAI HA- ARETZ, “Lord of the Earth”

We know that she is the Queen, the BRIDE, and that she forms a distinct section in the group of ten Sephirotic Emanations. This is who she is - the Spouse of the Microprosopus, the Daughter of the Macroprosopus, the Widow of the Sacrificed God of Tiphereth.

Let us take up our habitual visualization once more. Contemplate for a long time the FATHER, clothed in purple. At his chest is the Face of the SON, clothed in dazzling white. Here at the chest of the latter is born the Face of the Spouse, the Mother, the Daughter. The head of the young woman has dark, ebony hair, with colored skin, her shoulders and chest veiled in black. Let us contemplate these Three Holy Faces, staged the one above the other. On this triple foundation of black, white and purple we have

Scripture tells us that “Woman” was drawn forth from the flanks, or rather from the “side” of “Man”, during his sleep. Later on the Christian Evangelist teach us that Man and Women are one and the same flesh. The first Woman is named Heva, “Alive” and the Hebrew roots which constitute this word preside equally over the words “dream, sleep”. From this comes the esotericism of the Adamic myth.

Thus MALKUTH is the flesh of TIPHERETH, the Queen is the flesh of the King!... Beside The MICROPROSOPUS is the SPOUSE. MALKUTH is thus both one of the Sephiroth, the last of the “Tree of Life”, and at the same time she constitutes a second Tree of Life, as great as the first, its reflection, its shadow or double, if you will.

So the Woman is beside her Husband, but there she is linked to him at the back . In this secondary Tree are reflected all of the Sephiroth of the original Tree. Thus, MALKUTH is the “Shekinah”, or “Presence of God”, for all the Attributes of The original trees are represented in a single Sephira. If we examine the word “represented”, we find within it the word “present”.

Thus is explained the word “ELOHIM”, signifying “She-the-Gods”, a feminine singular word, associated with a masculine plural! ADONAI MELEK (“Lord and King”) is also ADONAI HA-ARETZ (“Lord of the Earth”)! Material Creation issues from MALKUTH, and it is the divine “Person” who rules there. The World is the Work of the “Queen”, the “Mother”, the “Widow”, and that is why Goddesses (Isis, Demeter, Cybele) preside over the Earth, not only the planet earth, but the Earth-Universe.

This also allows us to evoke a mystery belonging to a more recent religion, Christianity. The mystic union of CHRIST and his CHURCH is nothing more than the “Newly-Weds” the “King” and the “Queen”, the union of MALKUTH and TIPHERETH (TIPHERETH being considered as the synthesis of a metaphysical “body” of which it is the “head” and GEBURAH-CHESED, NETZACH-HOD, and YESOD, the “members”), the union of the HUSBAND and the WIFE.

Regarding the idea of “presence”, which constitutes the great mystery of the “SHEKINAH”, we are going to give a simple example. It constitutes the best introduction to the study of the second emanated “world”: that of BRIAH, which follows that of AZILUTH.

Let us imagine a terrestrial realm, very ordinary. The people, going about their business, are a material creation, “Men”. Representing the Supreme Power, the “Royalty”, and set above the people are the administrative authority: policemen, functionaries, etc... These are the Angels, Dominations, etc..., of classical theodicity.

Then comes the true “person” of the King. One might conclude that there where he is situated, is the monarchy, he is its living manifestation, active, and above all he personifies it. But “Monarchy” as a political principle is everywhere, and is everywhere expressed through the Sovereign, his Functionaries, the administrative Attachés, etc... Just as the Monarchy-principle is thus invisible, but everywhere present or represented, so DIVINITY is itself expressed in Attributes, Emanations, Creatures ; but it is itself personified and localized by a series of essential “mysteries”, of which the “Shekinah” constitutes the greatest of all.

2. Briah

The world of AZILUTH expresses PURE-DIVINITY revealing itself through the Divine Persons. These Persons are two distinct groups. One expresses the three highest attributes of God. Their “images”, to better underline their spirituality, have no body but only heads or “faces”. This is the MACROPROSOPUS. The other, to demonstrate the lower side of these secondary “persons”, has complete silhouettes as an image, with limbs, trunk, etc... This is the MICROPROSOPUS.

With the “world” of BRIAH, we penetrate into a definitely inferior domain compared to that of AZILUTH. There, in Aziluth, each Sephirotic “plane”, each Sephira itself, is only “personified” by a divine “person”, or ELOI (“eloi” is the masculine singular of “elohim” and “eloah” is its feminine singular). It is on the contrary, in Briah, a SEPHIROTIC SPIRIT, or ARCHANGEL, which manifests, as a creature closer to us, the Divine-Force of the aforesaid Sephira.

3. Yetzirah

By virtue of the previous, we now find a fourth Sephirotic Tree, that of Yetzirah. There we find more Divine Names expressing divine “Persons”, more Archangels, representing these “Persons”. But these “collectivities”, constitutive cells of the Archangel, constitutive microcosms of this macrocosm which is the living Egregor in BRIAH.

Here they are, disposed as previously according to the Sephirotic diagram:

CHAIOTH HA-KODESH
OPHANIM ARALIM
SERAPHIM CHASHMALIM
MALACHIM
BENI ELOHIM ELOHIM
CHERUBIM
ISHIM

4. Assiah

Let us now leave the “spiritual regions” which we have frequented up till now! Let us descend, and place ourselves in MALKUTH, in the very heart of the “KINGDOM”. We are in the Universe, a Universe which we understand to be dual, half-spiritual and half-material.

Now, MALKUTH reflects the superior Sephiroth in itself (to which we have no direct access). This is why MALKUTH is cleanly separated from the MICROPROSOPUS. But it also reflects these Powers in the planes which are immediately adjacent. The role held by the SEPHIROTHIC SPIRITS, or Archangels, and by the SEPHIROTH themselves, we will return to later. It cotains

1 the Ten Orders of Fortunate Human Souls, or Ishim, for the Sephirotic Choirs

2 the Symbolic Patriarchs, the Evangelists, for the Archangels, Principles of the Sephirotic Orders, for the very Names of these persons, who are claimed to be human beings who are now reintegrated, are “Names of Power”, uniquely useful in ASSIAH

3 the Sidereal “Spheres” (planetary, zodiac) for the Sephiroth themselves. There too their Hebrew Names are Words of Power, as powerful from a magical point of view as those of the Sephiroth.

Being and Non-Being

If we try to summarize the double aspect of God, which we have brought to your attention in the two theologies, both affirmative and negative, we find ourselves with these four groups:

God as the totality of Manifestation, but also as having impermanent and conditional attributes.
God as the totality of possibilities of Manifestation, but also as having permanent and unconditional attributes.
God, as the totality of possibilities of Non-Manifestation, having attributes absolutely beyond all imaginable conception, and beyond plurality as beyond unity.
God, being neither knowing or unknowing from the various modes of Manifestation, the Divine Unconsciousness.

These four states are found in Man, and René Guenon gives us these relationships: state of vigil, which corresponds to gross manifestation; state of dreaming, which corresponds to subtle manifestation; deep sleep, which is a “causal” and an informal state. To this state one may sometimes add another, that of death or of Ecstatic Sleep, considered as an intermediary between Profound Sleep and death.

The Kabbalistic Perspective

And so is the God of the Kabbalah presented in the three “emptinesses”: Ain Soph Aur, Ain-Soph and Ain. But these three terms are themselves capable of allowing us to recover, beyond their abstractions, the ultimate, immanent, eternal Reality. Qu'on en juge.

It is traditional in Kabbalah to seek the secret essence of a sentence, by constituting a keyword using the first letter of each of its words. This is by using notarikon. So, if we contract the aleph (A), the shin (S) and the aleph (A), the initials of Ain Soph Aur, we obtain the word Asha, signifying in Hebrew: “Burning Fire”. The second term: Ain-Soph, gives Ash, being in Hebrew: “He is”. The third term, Ain, only gives only one letter: aleph. Now, in the Phoenician alphabet, it was usually represented by a “bull’s head”. This gives us the final meaning... Let us recall the symbolism of the Golden Calf (the calf is a virgin bull...), whose cult was, in the eyes of the wise men of Israel, “the abomination of abominations”... Let us also recall the “Absurdity of the Bull’s brow”... Let us recall Melkart, or the Carthaginian Moloch, devourer of infants within his furnace. Moloch, who was a bull of bronze...

The Temple of Jerusalem

From the preceding, we can deduce that the God of Israel is well described in the symbolism of the Temple of Jerusalem. In the Holy of Holies, behind the purple Veil, there is no clarity, and obscurity reigns. It is Ain Soph, the obscure emptiness. “Darkness is my domain,” Deuteronomy tells us. His name is Yahweh: “He is”. He is Non-Being, the Primitive Abyss. In the Temple, before the Veil, is the Seven-Branched Candelabra, the sacred light. It is Ain Soph Aur, the “Burning Fire”. Moses, who saw Him in this image, in the burning bush of Mount Horeb, tells us: “God is a fire which burns...”. And Revelation explains: You cannot see my Face without dying. As for the altars of animal sacrifice, they were furnished with bull-like horns at the four corners, as emblems of the places and means of destruction of life, linked to Ain.

The Qlippoth

The Tree of Death

MALKUTH is the “nadir” of evolution, the lowest point – in “ASSIAH” – which the Being in the process of elaboration can normally be faced. Its extreme aspect is thus the “World”, but this “World” of Souls, is called to climb up again towards KETHER. We have seen that these necessarily incarnate souls, during the course of this incarnation, bear the name of the last category of Ishim, that of the Elect. Opposing them, and in the “World”, are lined up the “Damned Souls”, synthesizing these two categories of the front line in the eternal combat of GOOD and EVIL, two Powers equally opposed: HELI, who was Enoch, John the Baptist, and all the great leaders of Humanity, and BEHEMOTH, the personification of all the Antichrists permanently incarnated. This latter is also the “Great BEAST”, whose “Number”, in the sayings of the Apocalypse, is 666.

But, because it is situated at the last rung of the TREE OF LIFE, MALKUTH is in osmotic contact with the TREE OF DEATH, the inverted Tree. Just as the Secondary Tree of MALKUTH is called the “Queen”, the “Bride”, the “Virgin”, and the SPOUSE of the Microprosopus, to this inverted Tree is given an analogous but contrary name: it is called QLIPHOTH, the “Prostitute”. It is effectively this Hebrew term which recurs the most often in the metaphorical expressions of the Prophets, admonishing the people when they degrade themselves or abandon the “WAY” of the Lord. It is this same term which the Apocalypse also employs to designate the BEAST, and we are going to see that this term was not at all an exoteric expression unconsciously chosen by misogynistic ascetics or exaggerating puritans!

The Wheel

All that is corrupt in Life, contrary to the eternal designs of the ABSOLUTE and eternally rejected by Him, must be expelled, and this type of metaphysical “execration” takes place in the inverted Tree the TREE OF DEATH (as opposed to the TREE OF LIFE), beyond the SPOUSE, in the PROSTITUTE... For we cannot ignore that GOD, in Whom reside all “Possibilities” of good and ill as a result of his absolute Omniscience, operates for all ETERNITY and eternal discrimination between what He keeps, chooses, adopts and realizes by means of His “Emanations”, and what he refuses, rejects and reproves. That which He rejects constitutes the Evil Powers, the sinister “KINGS OF EDOM” who existed before all that is now drawn from the Nothingness. These are the broken VESSELS of which the Zohar speaks.

In this fraction of MALKUTH which is in contact with the upper part of the QLIPPOTH (and which is its Malkuth, since the Kether of the QLIPPOTH is evidently situated far below...), cosmic refuse cannot be reborn in the planes of organized form before finding equilibrium, and the eternal purpose which has been assigned to them. Thus, in the World of the Qlippoth (plural of QLIPPOTH), there is a “sphere” which is not “Hell”, but rather “Purgatory”. This is a reservoir of disorganized powers, resulting from forms that have been destroyed and rejected by evolution. It is this reservoir of powers which the “Shells”, to use Dion Fortune’s term, the imperfect entities use to construct their vehicles, which they quickly succeed in. All the entities which manifest in the course of magical subterranean evocations, or of a necromantic characters are partly constructed with this particular substance of CHAOS.

The Kingdom Below and the Qlippoth

To the Sephirotic Tree manifesting in Malkuth corresponds an inverted Tree, which is its tenebrous reflection. Kabbalistic Tradition classifies them as the “Perverse Beings” in categories corresponding to the several Classes of the “Fortunate Ones” or to various Angelic Choirs.

Bright Opposing Sephiroth	Dark Sephiroth or “Qlippoth”	Names of the “Perverse Beings”	Archdemon
Malkuth/Kether	the “Valley of Death”	“False Gods”	Beelzebub
Malkuth/Chokmah	the “Vale of Forgetfulness”	“Spirits of Lies”	Python
Malkuth/Binah	the “Vale of Sleep”	“Vessels of Iniquity”	Belial
Malkuth/Chesed	the “Gates of Death”	“Avengers of Crimes”	Asmodel
Malkuth/Geburah	the “Shadow of Death”	“Conjurers”	Satan
Malkuth/Tiphereth	the “Wells of the Abyss”	“Powers of Air”	Meririm
Malkuth/Netzah	The “Rubbish Pit”	“Furious Sowers of Sickness”	Abbadon
Malkuth/Hod	“Perdition”	“Accusers-Executioners”	Astaroth
Malkuth/Yesod	the “Ditch”	“Tempters and Sneaks”	Mammon
Malkuth/Malkuth	the “World”	“Damned Souls”	Behemoth

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