by Marcus Katz
2. Binah is the Sephirah of form. Observe and enjoy the various ways in which humanity has created form, such as; art, architecture, dance, mathematics, music, religion and science. What is the relationship between form and meaning?
3. Binah can be considered as the temple; draw or sketch your ideal Temple, a place where you could work and find peace. It should also represent your understanding (the meaning of Binah) of the Universe; what does your idealised Temple tell you about yourself and what you want from the Universe? The Temple could be a grove of Trees, an elaborate Grecian Villa, a medieval alchemist’s workshop, or even a futuristic space station. This Temple can also be used in visualisation work, dream work and ritual work.
Chesed: The Unicorn at the Waystation
Chesed, the fourth Sephirah, is most often translated as ‘Mercy’, or ‘Loving Kindness’. The translations include; Mercy, grace, piety, beauty, good-will, favour, benefit, love, kindness, charity, righteousness, benevolence, to do good, to show oneself kind, to insult, reproach. In general it signifies the giving forth aspect of the Universe or the ‘merciful king’ aspect of God.
Whilst Chesed is all-giving, it is also unconstrained force and active. There is no better example of the necessity in the Tree to have balance, as Chesed unchecked would be all-smothering, drowning the universe in everything without form, pattern or structure. It is stupid love without sense, and on the most mundane level, it is the end of the spectrum of love which hosts stalkers and the obsessive.
If we look at Geburah, its opposite, we see the other far end of the scale, with controlling, destructive and manipulative aspects of love and relationship. These two have the Strength tarot card between them in the Golden Dawn model, signifying how we must constantly act to work within this spectrum of relationship.
Chesed is also called GDVLH (Gedulah), meaning ‘greatness’ or ‘magnificence’, and is referred to under this aspect in the line of the Lord's Prayer which states "Thou art the Power and the Glory" (veh Gedulah, veh Geburah). The section of the Lord's Prayer which states "Thou art the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory" is related to the Tree of Life as follows:
Thou Art/"Ateh" = Kether
the Kingdom,/"Malkuth" = Malkuth
the Power/"veh Geburah" = Geburah
and the Glory/"veh Gedulah" = Chesed
This statement is made in the Lesser and Greater Banishing Rituals of the Pentagram which are used within esoteric ritual, with an appropriate gesture pointing to the crown of the head, below the feet, and the left and right shoulders as the Kabbalistic Cross. These rituals allow us to fully embody the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life into our experience and are not merely empty gestures and words. Rituals write into us their informing philosophy as a signature of our living relationship to the divine.
The God-name of Chesed, AL means "unto, towards", and again refers to the dynamic aspect of God, or the expansive force of the Cosmos. Chesed is the first and most active of the Sephiroth below the Abyss in that it is the explosion into manifestation, or Chockmah in a lower order.
In context of the psyche, Chesed is, as Dion Fortune puts it, "the formulation of the archetypal ideal, the concretion of the abstract” which forms the root of any activity.[65] Thus, the abstract principle of "settlement", Maslow's "survival motivator" is above the Abyss, but may manifest at the level of Chesed, and be first presented to ordinary awareness, when one is looking at purchasing a house. At the level of Chesed, the mind begins to formulate a sense of what the house will be when one has finished renovating it. The path connecting this formulation to awareness in Tiphareth is that of the Hermit, which in this sense represents the guide or way one is going to follow to achieve the realization of this formulation.
In formulating this principle, Chesed is reflected in Yesod, the foundation, by images, (Chesed = ChSD = 72, which can be broken down as 7 + 2 = 9, the number of Yesod). The images then drive our actions (Malkuth), powered by the dynamic desire of Netzach, receiving its influence direct from Chesed itself.
Chesed is the grand driving force of the Universe, and is often received as "love, grace or mercy in mystical experience. The experience of rapture (from the Latin, rapere, meaning to 'carry away') is appropriate to Chesed, and is again denoted by the solitary Hermit tarot card which connects Chesed to the Tiphareth (awareness) of the contemplative. Thus the myths of rape by the Gods, for example Leda and Zeus as a Swan (the bird of Kether) depict the various ways in which our awareness is taken away from us when we truly contact the divine, transcendent level of the Universe. The mystical passion, the height of all human devotion, is also applicable here.
Utilizing the experience of Chesed, the Adept is aware of the underlying, and here only just accessible, patterns and archetypes, behind the apparent world (Malkuth), symbols (Yesod) and his consciousness (Tiphareth). Fortune warns that functioning in Malkuth alone is blindness, functioning in Yesod alone is to be deceived by projections, and functioning in Tiphareth alone holds the danger of confusion of context. That is, experiences are taken as a direct dealing of God with the individual rather than as symptoms of progression to be further transcended. Geburah brings with it discernment so that one's own position is realized and, later, Chesed provides the key to the whole Psyche before the whole Psyche itself is flung into the Abyss.
The grade of Adeptus Exemptus is assigned to this Sephirah, signifying that the Adept has transcended his notion of Self as Tiphareth (awareness) and has moved towards the Abyss. Exempt from guilt, from sin, from all human concerns that are born of our illusionary perception of time and space, he turns to face the Great Divide. The path of the tarot card of The Wheel runs down from Chesed, symbolizing that the Adept at this stage has broken his illusionary attachment to apparent cause and effect, and has become the hub of the Wheel. This is a foreshadowing of the perfect state of Chockmah, above Chesed, where the Magus is simultaneously the movement of the wheel and the stillness of the hub in unbroken unity with the flow of the Universe.
Chesed is the source of magical synchronicity, and is thus an important Sephirah for Magicians working ritual or otherwise. It provides a means of magic more mystical than practical, the latter being the province of the Adeptus Major in Geburah.
The numerical value of Chesed is 4, which is the number of manifestation, and the number of the four dimensions of space and time. Thus Chesed is the source of time and the expansion of the Universe in time. Chesed is the first of the manifest Sephiroth, and is represented by the four-sided pyramid. This completes the sequence from the Ain Soph Aur: No Space (Ain), Point (Kether), Vector/Direction (Chockmah), Space (Binah), and Time (Chesed).
The axiom of Maria Prophetissa applies to Chesed, "One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth". Chesed is the Kether of the Manifest, Jupiter as the Demiurge, the Gnostic creator God.
The Fours of the tarot represent the action of Chesed in the four worlds as follows:
Four of Wands/Atziluth = Perfected Work
Four of Cups/Briah = Lord of Pleasure
Four of Swords/Yetzirah = Rest from Strife
Four of Pentacles/Assiah = Lord of Earthly Power
The Atziluth of Chesed is the both the completion and source of all manifest power. The fire of all that may be called energy plays here, but as Crowley notes, "it is also referred to Venus in Aries, which indicates that one cannot establish one's work without tact and gentleness".[66]
At the level of Briah, it can be noted that the number four, the number of Chesed, is also a number of limitation and restriction. The equal-armed cross is not the cross of the four elements redeemed by Spirit, the fifth element, and is in some ways a full-stop to progress in the creation process. It is only once the process continues that Chesed can function as a source of power.
In Yetzirah, the astral world, Chesed functions as the archetype of authority and religion, with again the danger of stagnation as dogma, convention and compromise.
In Assiah, Chesed is the e
stablishment of the Universe in the dimensions, and the generative archetype (reflected in the procreative and generative aspects of Netzach at a further stage of the creative process). Chesed in Assiah signifies security, authority, and the solidity of the material plane.
The Yetziratic text of Hod states that its root is in Chesed, and from this, as Dion Fortune indicates, can be modelled a number of the processes of Magic. As Chesed is taken to be the sphere of the Secret Masters, who are taken by many magicians to guide the process of manifestation from higher planes through human adepts, it is to be approached with due consideration.
If meditation and contemplation (the stilling or focusing of the thought processes), and ritual or ceremony can be assigned to Hod, then through the awareness freed thereby (Tiphareth) we can regain Chesed, the grand waystation of the Universe as it pours into manifestation, and align ourselves to that flow.
A simple rite of magick involving the Egyptian Goddess Ma'at, who can be attributed to Chesed, designed by Maggie Ingalls demonstrates this procedure, by the meditation (Hod) on a flame (Tiphareth) and a feather (Chesed), which combined with a suitable Mantra links the practitioner to the Ma'at Current, which is none other than the evolutionary and stochastic current of the Universe.[67] The Hermit card also resumes this symbolism, and perhaps should be drawn bearing a quill, not a staff.
EXERCISES
1. Using a reference work on Greek legends, or Egyptian Mythology, or Celtic stories and the like, choose a God or Goddess who appeals to you. Create a representation of this deity, be it a picture, or even their name written on a sheet of paper, and place it somewhere convenient with a candle in front of it. Light the candle each morning for a few minutes, and spend that time imagining the deity. Note any synchronicities that occur with connection to the deity. Follow this exercise for a month. This is a simplified version of the devotional exercise practised by the Philosophus in Aleister Crowley's Liber Astarte.
3. Study the works of Jung with reference to synchronicity and archetypes. How are these processes taken into account in terms of the Tree of Life?
4. Place an object or image at each of the four quarters appropriate to each element as follows, where the elemental weapons are given as an example:
North - Earth (Pentacle)
East - Air (Sword)
South - Fire (Wand)
West - Water (Cup)
Note that the four elemental weapons are the primary tools that our species developed as extensions of our own action in the world;
Pentacle: Palm of hand for carrying objects, later a large leaf, then a flat piece of wood or stone.
Sword: Originally, the teeth for cutting and biting, then a sharp flint, and later metal edges.
Wand: First, the arm or leg, then a bone from some animal, and later a stick or wooden staff.
Chalice: The cupped hand, then a hollowed out piece of wood, and later pottery and metal cups.
Geburah: The Folding of the Robe
Geburah is the fifth Sephirah of the creative process, and signifies in Hebrew a number of related meanings around the theme of strength:
Geburah: Strength, power, force, valour, courage, victory, might, God, strong, mighty, hero.
Geburah is connected with the punishment of God, rigor, severity, and justice. An alternative title of this Sephirah is Pachad, meaning ‘fear’. Its most negative aspect is said to be blind fanaticism, which is often the result of a fear of that which is considered different to one's own beliefs. When the seven sins are allocated to the Tree, the sin of Geburah is said to be that of anger. It is also connected, in a more positive sense, with discipline and energy. Obviously, these aspects are counter-balanced by those of Chesed, ‘loving kindness’ or ‘mercy’, on the opposite side of the Tree, across the path marked by the Strength card of the tarot. That card can be taken to depict the harmonized relationship between Geburah, symbolized by the Red Lion, and Chesed, symbolized by the Peaceful Lady, whose own demeanour in sufficient to placate the beast.
It should be noted that Geburah is passive to Chesed, and that as Dion Fortune states, many of the social and psychological problems we face can be modelled by our constant functioning, inappropriately, with an active Geburah. That is to say, we shoot first and ask questions later, or allow our fear to drive us rather than our urges to creativity. If Chesed were not constrained by a correctly functioning Geburah, life would become dysfunctional in the opposite extreme, with chaos and anarchy without point. It is the work of the Adept grades in the initiatory system to learn to balance these states both within and without, to ensure that Tiphareth, the pivotal point of the Tree, is maintained in a dynamic equilibrium.
The Zohar puts it that the "left arm draws the immensity of space in rigor", and that Geburah is associated with the "repentance of God" and the Archangel Samael. It also points out that Mercy and Severity are united in Tiphareth.
The Sepher Yetzirah states "the fifth path is called the Radical Intelligence, because it is more similar than any other to the Supreme Unity and emanates from the depths of the Primordial Wisdom." It is the conciliatory force, restricting and directing the expansion of Chesed. The link with Kether is in its role in defining the process of Zimzum as Din, which will be examined later in this chapter. The connection to "primordial wisdom", or Chockmah represents that Geburah plays a role in connection with the expansion of Chesed (the "Chockmah below the Abyss", as explained in the former chapter) in a similar way to the role played by Chockmah in ordering the first swirling resulting from the expansion of Kether.
Indeed, it is hard to examine Geburah without connecting it with Chesed, or showing how the two merge into Tiphareth as a functional Triad. Geburah, like all the Sephiroth is only one snapshot of a synergetic process, or one node of a network, and thus can only be fully expressed as a relationship to the whole.
If Chesed is the irrepressibly expanding impulse of love and growth, then Geburah is the counteracting restraint and concentration. If Chesed is the inclination towards things, the outgoing nature and the opening-up of the psyche, then Geburah is the inward withdrawal of powers and the concentration of power. In Tiphareth is married these dynamic attributes of attraction and repulsion.
An example of the difference between the two Sephiroth is further provided in the martial arts, and can be found in any other system, where the flow of Tai Chi Chuan is that akin to Chesed, whereas the Chi focusing of Kung Fu is of the nature of Geburah.
Din, or ‘judgment’, associated with Geburah, plays an important role in the doctrine of Zimzum, "contraction", detailing the creative process of manifestation. In this Lurianic doctrine, Ain Soph gathered the roots of Din and placed them aside for the process of Zimzum, thus showing the withdrawal of the point of Kether from the Ain Soph Aur as a concentrated act of judgement and self-limitation. Indeed, it could be called the "original definition", and Geburah embodies the qualities of definition in its aspect as positive limitation.
In cosmological terms, Geburah represents the state 300,000 years after the Point Zero of the Big Bang model, the "Epoch of Recombination" (at -255 degrees), where heavy chemical elements were first formed in the gravitational collapse of stars and the first formation of galaxies. In Kabbalistic terminology, "the Left hand of God traced the firmament". In the Book of the Law, by Aleister Crowley, a similar model is utilized in symbolism:
III.72. I am the Lord of the Double Wand of Power; the wand of the force of Coph Nia - but my left hand is empty, for I have crushed an Universe; & naught remains.
The Zohar describes this development in terms of malbush, a ‘garment’, whose folds create the matrix of manifestation as the letters of the Hebrew alphabet recombine as the folds overlap. This mirrors modern cosmology, as it is stated in Kabbalah that an "unmatched Yod" remains once the combinations have taken place, which then transmits the light of Ain Soph Aur into the creative process and manifestation (signified by the Hermit tarot card).
This is similar to chemistry and physics, where u
nmatched particles form the basis of further reactions and energy bounds. Indeed, the recent discovery of background radiation from the edge of the cosmos is written in identical terms, as the Epoch of recombination, the first ripples of cosmic structure, and is the stage where light was set free from the foggy soup of radiation.
Dion Fortune writes that "Binah is perpetually binding force into form, and Geburah perpetually breaking up and destroying all forms” via the preserving influence of Chesed.[68]
The Sepher ha-Temunah, amongst other works, uses the doctrine of cosmic cycles associated with the Sephiroth. These cycles or the shemittah, are said to last 6000 years, and are associated with the seven Sephiroth below the Abyss, thus making 42,000 years (or 49,000 years if the cycle is 7000 years), leaving the last 8000 or 1000 years to complete the "Great Jubilee", (the Jubilee is a period of 50 years). It is said that we are currently in the Shemittah of Judgement, presided over by Geburah, which matches the Thelemic "Aeon of Horus" and the "Kali Yuga" of the Hindu system.
If this system is applied to the big bang cosmological model, then it is apparent that we had exactly 50 cycles to reach the Epoch of Recombination, the first Cosmic Jubilee, and that cycle would have been that of Malkuth, or manifestation.
The process of Gematria may be applied in a number of ways to this Sephirah, as follows:
Geburah is spelt GBVRH, numerating to 216, which is also the value of DBIR (Holy of Holies, Inner Sanctuary), and ChVBR (Sorcerer, snake-charmer). This latter value reminds us that Geburah functions as the restrictive influence on the process of the Tree, whether that of the lightning flash of creation down the Tree, or the Snake of evolution up the Tree. We can extend that metaphor by suggesting a snake uses fear, Geburah, to freeze its victims and that the vibrations caused by a snake-charmers pipe act as a Chesed on the serpent of fear that is Geburah. When we see these processes around us every day in our world, we come soon to appreciate their power in modelling all aspects of our existence, from the marketplaces of Marrakesh to the inner sanctuary of our soul.