Happy Winter Solstice 2024

With a primer on the Cabala

Happy Winter Solstice to my readers. This is perhaps the most sacred day of the year, for those of us who measure our days less by the Gregorian calendar and more according to natural cycles. This is the shortest day of the year, and the true beginning of a new year. Wherever there is life there is death, and every death is a rebirth.

May your Christmas and New Year celebrations be joyous and sacred as well.

I recently said this substack would cover esoteric topics more often, less political topics, then I almost immediately launched into a series on the recent killing of a Health Care CEO. Letting politics go for the rest of this year (in posts, not notes), I thought I would offer up a primer on the Cabala, which I have been studying for some time and feel more prepared to discuss in detail. This may or may not be of interest to my readers. It is up to you if you care to continue.

The Cabala is a western, modernized version of the sacred texts and verbal history of the Kabbalah or Qaballah of the Jewish tradition. There is some but not a lot of similarity between this Westernized version and the ancient Jewish traditions. The Jewish tradition was largely about predictions, great cycles of time and the beginning and the end of the universe. The Western Cabala is more about individual spiritual growth. ¹

The core of the Cabala is the Tree of Life.

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Each circle is a sephiroth, Kether the divine spark, creative core energy as bestowed by the Creator, pure being, Adam Cadmon, the original human, the divine template, the pure archetype. That energy flows through Chokmah, the divine masculine, divine force, creative power without form. Chokmah channels through Binah, sacred feminine, divine form. Chokmah is pure creative power that cannot manifest as form without being channeled through the sacred feminine Binah.

These are the great supernal, the first sacred triangle, the unknowable, that which cannot be known but can be sensed, can be experienced briefly on a subconscious level.

Daath is not a true sephiroth. It is the gateway in the great abyss between the knowable and the unknowable, and between the pillars, the mythical pillars of Boaz and Jachin, severity and mercy, the pillars of Binah and Chokmah. It is the gateway to the Tree of Life, the three great supernal, protected by the cherubim with flaming swords, symbolized in the tradition in four forms: ox, lion, eagle and human. Daath is located at the base of the neck, or the throat, as the gateway of the Word.

Chesed (4) is sacred order, the receptacle and container of all the holy powers, as symbolized by the sacred King. Geburah (5) is in the pillar of severity, the essence of Unity, the Radical Intelligence, “Uniting itself to Understanding out of the primordial Wisdom.” As symbolized by the warrior Queen.

Geburah flows into Tiphareth (6), Christ Consciousness, Lord God of Knowledge, the Mediating Intelligence on the middle pillar between the Supernal Kether and those sephiroth knowable, Yesod and Malkuth. There is a veil between Tiphareth and the sephiroth below it.

Tiphareth flows into Netzach (7), as symbolized by the rose, “called the Occult Intelligence because it is the refulgent splendor of all the intellectual virtues, which are perceived by the eyes of the intellect and the contemplation of faith.” The Gate of the Mysteries, “the most important sphere on the tree to the practical cabalist…it represents the highest level of experience that ordinary human consciousness can reach on it’s own, and the closest approach that fallen humanity makes to contact with reality under normal circumstances.”

Netzach flows into Hod (8), the “masculine” sphere in the pillar of severity emanating from Binah. It is the realm of intellect, language and rational thought, giving rise to limits through division and distinction, separating out elements from universal patterns, the Absolute or Perfect Intelligence, the mean of the Primordial. It is protected by the Archangel Raphael “Healer of God”, and also symbolized by the god Hermes or Mercury, the god of arts, sciences, trade, medicine and magic, but also in his duality, god of tricksters, liars and thieves. A great challenge for the cabalist, discerning the difference. This is also symbolized by the Caduceus, which is also a form of the Tree of Life.

Hod flows into Yesod (9), which is the realm of spirit and the supernatural. In some ways the most challenging sephiroth, because it “governs dreams and visions, instinct and biological drives, the animal aspects of human consciousness and the subtle forces of life.” This has all been regarded as contrary modernity, and to many religions, this is the “life force”, denied in much of the Western tradition, but called the chi or ki in the East, in many traditional healing modalities, the breath. It is the ether that is the foundation of material being.

Yesod flows into Malkuth, The Kingdom, material existence, the every day material world we all know. It is the foundation of the middle pillar, the foundation of the ladder of creation, through Yesod, Tiphareth and Kether, the middle pillar. “It has a special status as the completion of the work of Creation, any power or wisdom attained at a higher level must be brought into manifestation on the level of Malkuth if it is to have any lasting significance…the magician ascends to heaven so that he or she may return with it’s gifts to Earth.”

This is the model of descent from the divine into manifestation. The way back up the tree is the path of Redemption. As I have heard Greer say in a podcast, at any given time half of humanity is still descending into manifestation, is still learning what the earth has to teach; the other half is on the return, though not a few of those get stuck in the material.

It is not just the spheres of Sephiroth that have something to teach, there are 22 paths between the spheres, each perhaps as important with as much to teach as any sphere.

Just as an example, the Path Tau from Malkuth to Yesod is traveling into the unconscious. The Path Shin, Malkuth to Hod is as through a desert, as if to burn away every ounce of your flesh. The Path Qoph, Malkuth to Netzach is a path of water, of the sensual, of the flesh and the magical arts. That is a very rough summation. Every path is distinct, something for deep meditation.

In short: a symbolic image of the Garden of Eden. The figure at the top of the image is an amalgam of all three supernals, the highest magical power in creation, a representation of the Goddess (God the Creator separate from the Creation). Adam, crowned, is the emblem of everything human past, present and future, his head in Thiparth and feet in Yesod. Eve, also crowned, is the representation of all manifest, her feet resting on Malkuth, holding up both pillars. The negative powers of the primal world are inactive in the depths of Malkuth, the earth. The direct descent of powers from the supernals flows down through both Adam and Eve unimpeded. Adam and Eve are in effect a reflection of every human.

The Fall: The negative powers of the primal world, the seven headed dragon, has been unleashed from the earth. The purity of Eden could not be sustained. Eve has given us true choice, but in so doing she has descended into the earth and is trapped in the manifest. Adam has descended too, his head only reaching to the abyss between Hod and Netzach. Neither Adam nor Eve remain crowned. The path to the supernals is now blocked by Daath the sword/lightning bolt of power and the Cherubim with their flaming swords. The path home, redemption, is fraught, at every turn the primal powers beset us. There is not unity in the supernals, the three are separate, and Binah the sacred feminine has turned away.

Despite the Fall and the horrors of this life, there is much beauty, wonder and magic, and redemption is ever possible for those who seek it.

1. Much of this article is cribbed by Paths of Wisdom, Cabala in the Golden Dawn Tradition, John Michael Greer, Third Edition, 2017.

Some readers may be somewhat familiar of the Golden Down. The Golden Dawn was founded by William Wynn Wescott and Samuel Mathers in the late nineteenth century. William Butler Yeats was a member, as were Dion Fortune and Israel Regardie. The most infamous member was Aleister Crowley, who was the epic troll of his day, thumbing his nose at every convention. One of several nemeses of his called him “the most evil man who ever lived,” which label stuck and is still oft repeated, which is odd considering his contemporaries Hitler, Stalin and Mao. He is most famous for his statement, “Do what though wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” which was something of a troll to goad his enemies with, but which is used by some even today to describe disdainfully the whole of esoteric studies, as is the image of Crowley.

Those who study the occult these days have little interest in Crowley and his work. If the life lived is the measure of occult studies, Crowley was an abject failure, dying alone, mad, in poverty. He had alienated everybody. He remains much an albatross around the neck of those who study the esotere, despite so little respect for him in the community.

The Golden Dawn has gone through many iterations since it was founded, and the Golden Dawn of today is not the Golden Dawn of yore. I bring it up only because I am using Greer’s work based on the Golden Dawn system, in case any of my readers have an ill impression of it. There are many books on the Cabala that are not of the Golden Dawn.