She represents thus that First Matter of the alchemists, the description of which given by Thomas Vaughan in his Coelum Terrae is interesting to quote as indicating further the nature and qualities of the Supernals: “A most pure sweet virgin, for nothing as yet hath been generated out of her … She yields to nothing but love, for her end is generation, and that was never yet performed by violence. He that knows how to wanton and toy with her, the same shall receive all her treasures. First, she sheds at her nipples a thick heavy water, but white as any snow; the philosophers call it Virgin’s Milk. Secondly, she gives him blood from her very heart; it is a quick, heavenly fire; some improperly call it their sulphur. Thirdly and lastly, she presents him with a secret crystal, of more worth and luster than the white rock and all her rosials. This is she, and these are her favors.”
From this first triad, a second triad of emanations is reflected or projected downwards into a more coarse degree of substance. They likewise reflect the negative and positive qualities of two of the Supernals with the addition of a third factor, a resultant that acts as a reconciling principle. In passing, I should add that planetary attributions are given to these Sephiroth as expressing the type of their operation. Kether is Spirit, Chokmah refers to the Zodiac, and Binah is attributed to Saturn.
The fourth Sephirah is Chesed, meaning “Grace or Mercy”; also Gedulah is its other name, meaning “Greatness,” and to it is referred the astrological quality called Jupiter. Its concept is one of construction, expansion, and solidification.
Geburah is the fifth enumeration, Power or Might, and it is a symbol of creative power and force. Its planetary attribution is Mars, its quality being that destructive force which demolishes all forms and ideas when their term of usefulness and healthy life is done. It symbolizes not so much a fixed state of things, as an act, a further passage and transition of potentiality into actuality.
Six is the harmonizing and reconciling Sephirah, Tiphareth. The word itself means beauty and harmony. It is attributed to the sun, the lord and centre of our solar system. Just as Kether referred to the most secret depths of the Unconscious, the core of man’s life, so Tiphareth is its reflection, the ego, the ordinary human consciousness. This Sephirah completes the second triad, which is a triad of consciousness, as the first triad of the Supernal Light may be considered the triad of that which is supremely divine, the Superconscious.
Netzach, Victory, to which the planet Venus is referred, is the first Sephirah of the third and reflected triad, and marks an entirely different order of things. Here we enter the elemental sphere, where nature’s forces have their sway. It is also the region in the human sphere of what we may term the Unconscious. The magical tradition classifies this Unconsciousness into several strata, and to each of them is attributed some one of the four elements—fire, water, air, and earth. Netzach is attributed to the element of fire, and so far as concerns the classification of man’s principles, it represents his emotional life.
Its opposite pole on the Tree of Life, Hod, which means Splendour, receives the attribution of the planet Mercury. Its element is water, and its action represents fluidic mind, the thinking, logical capacity in man, as well as what may be called his magical or nervous force—what the Hindu systems denominate as prana.
The third of that triad is Yesod, the Foundation, the ninth Sephirah, the operation of the sphere of the moon. This is the airy sphere of the fourth dimension, termed in occultism the astral plane. Here we find the subtle electromagnetic substance into which all the higher forces are focused, the ether, and it constitutes the basis or final model upon which the physical world is built. Its elemental attribution is that of air, ever flowing, shifting, and in a constant flux—yet because of that flux, in perpetual stability. Just as the tremendous speed of the particles insures the stability of the atom, so the fleeting forms and motion of Yesod in all its implications constitute the permanence and surety of the physical world.
Pendant to these three triads is Malkuth, the Kingdom, referred to the element of earth, the synthesis or vehicle of the other elements and planets. Malkuth is the physical world, and in man represents his physical body and brain, the temple of the Holy Ghost—the actual tomb of the allegorical Christian Rosenkreutz.
These Sephiroth are not to be construed as ten different portions of objective space, each separated by millions and millions of miles—though of course they must have their correspondences in different parts of space. They are, rather, serial concepts, each condition or state or serial concept enclosing the other. Each Sephirah, be it spiritual, ethereal, or physical, has its own laws, conditions, and “times,” if one may borrow terminology from Dunne’s Experiment with Time. The distinction between them is one of quality and density of substance. The difference may well be one of dimension, besides representing different type-levels of consciousness, the “lower” worlds or Sephiroth being interpenetrated or held by the “higher.” Thus Kether, the Crown, is in Malkuth, as one axiom puts it, by virtue of the fact that its substance is of an infinitely rare, attenuated, and ethereal nature, while Malkuth, the physical universe, is enclosed within the all-pervading spirit which is Kether in precisely the same way that Dunne conceives Time No. 1, to be enclosed or contained, or moving as a field of experience, within Serial Time No. 2.
So far as concerns the Supernals, for these are the ideas which must principally interest us, the Qabalah teaches us that they comprise an abstract impersonal principle. That is, it is explained as an exalted condition of consciousness rather than of substance; an essence or spirit that is everywhere and at all times expressed in terms of light. In one sense, and from a comparative point of view, it may help our understanding if we imagine it to have certain similarities to what our leading analytical psychologists call the collective unconscious.
Though wholly impersonal in themselves and without characteristics that are readily understandable to the ordinary mind, the Supernals are, to all intents and purposes, what is commonly thought of as God. In the Tibetan Buddhist system, an analogous concept is Sunyata, the Void. And the realization of the Void through yoga processes and the technical meditations of the Sangha is, to quote Dr. Evans-Wentz’s book The Tibetan Book of the Dead, to attain “the unconditioned Dharmakaya, or the Divine Body of Truth, the primordial state of uncreatedness, of the Supramundane Bodhic, All-consciousness—Buddhahood.” In man, this light is represented by the very deepest levels of his unconscious—a mighty activity within his soul, which one magical system calls the higher and divine genius. Though the Golden Dawn rituals persistently use phraseology that implies the belief in a personal God, that usage to my mind is a poetic or dramatic convention. A number of its very fine invocations are addressed to a deity conceived of in a highly individualistic and personal manner, yet if the student bears in mind the several Qabalistic definitions, these rituals take on added and profound meaning from a purely psychological point of view. That is, they are seen to be technical methods of exalting the individual consciousness until it comes to a complete realization of its own divine root, and that universal pure essence of mind which ultimately it is.
It may be convenient for the reader if I tabulate the names of the Sephiroth with the grades employed in the Golden Dawn, together with a few important attributions:
1. Kether.
The Crown. Spirit.
Ipsissimus
10° = 1xhx
2. Chokmah.
Wisdom.
Magus
9° = 2xhx
3. Binah.
Understanding.
Magister Templi
8°= 3xhx
4. Chesed.
Mercy.
Adeptus Exemptus
7°= 4xhx
5. Geburah.
Might.
Adeptus Major
6° = 5xhx
6. Tiphareth.
Harmony.
Adeptus Minor
5° = 6xhx
7. Netzach.
Victory. Fire.
4° = 7xhx
8. Hod.
Splendour. Water.
Practicus
3° = 8xhx
9. Yesod.
Foundation. Air.
Theoricus
2° = 9xhx
10. Malkuth.
Kingdom. Earth.
Zelator
1° = 1oxhx
In the consideration of the grades, I shall not discuss any others than those existing between Zelator and Adeptus Minor. My reason for doing so is that it is impossible for the ordinary individual to understand those above the grade of Adeptus Minor, and individuals who lay claim openly to such exalted grades, by that very act place a gigantic question mark against the validity of their attainment. He that is exalted is humble, and to have tasted that which is conveyed by the Adeptus Minor grade is so lofty an experience that few in their right minds, unless they were extremely saintlike in character, would consider themselves as having passed officially to a higher spiritual state.
Before proceeding to an analysis of the grades, and the ceremonies that were supposed to confer them, it has been thought advisable to consider the nature of initiation itself, which was the avowed function and purpose of the Order. What exactly is initiation? Those of us who have read some of the neo-occult and pseudo-Theosophical literature will also have heard the word initiation just too often to feel wholly at ease. Lesser initiations and greater initiations have been written of at some length. But the entire subject was surrounded with that vague air of mystery, that halo of sanctity and ambiguity whose only excuse can be ignorance on the part of the writers thereof. The degree of fantasy and attenuated sentimentality which has obtained expression from these sources, plus the real lack of knowledge as to the objects of these degrees and mysteries, act as a constant source of irritation. Particularly, when we remember that they were issued to satisfy people spiritually hungry and yearning with an indescribable hunger for but a few crumbs of the divine wisdom.
Learned dissertations have been published describing in great detail the folk customs of Australian aborigines and Polynesian and other primitive peoples. All the strange habits and unfamiliar rites of these tribes are paraded before our gaze—from their hour of birth, through the vicissitudes of their emotional life, to the moment of death and interment. We are asked to accept that these are initiations. The sole import attached to the word “initiation” in this connection is that of the formal acceptance of a boy at puberty, for example, into the communal life of his people.
Moreover, Jane E. Harrison, Sir J.G. Frazer, and a host of other excellent scholars have provided us with a wealth of anthropological data so far as the Greeks and Romans of another day are concerned. Some knowledge of their religious rites and observances is displayed. The daily habits of the people are carefully noted and recorded in many a tome.
They also describe, though more haltingly and with rather less confidence, the circumstances surrounding the ancient mystery cults. The symbolism of these mystery religions was, we see, in certain aspects uniform. All were dramas of redemption, plans of salvation, and ways of purgation. Degrees of initiation, baptism by water, a mystical meal for the privileged, dramatic plays depicting the life and death of some god or other—these are the familiar incidents of the cults described by our scholars.
But the obvious question arises, what spiritual value have such things for us? Do they help our own interior development so that we may solve our personal problems and handle more satisfactorily the rather difficult process of living today? And is this sort of thing what the adepts of old implied by initiation? And if this is all there is to it, why should so many moderns have been so curiously perturbed and excited by it all? Some other meaning must be latent herein; some other purpose to the rite must have been understood by their original observers whereby they were spiritually assisted and aided not only to deal adequately with life but to further the conquest and manifestation of their own latent spiritual nature.
For despite every record, and every learned attempt to penetrate into the significance of these rites, as to the exact procedure of the theurgic technique we still obtain no lasting satisfaction or understanding. There was undoubtedly a secret about these celebrations, both ethnic and early Christian, which no exoteric record has divulged or common sense, so-called, succeeded wholly to explain away. And the reason, no doubt, is this. Though the early writers felt no hesitancy in expounding certain principles of the philosophy of their mysteries, none felt it incumbent upon himself to record in black and white the practical details of the magical technique. Hence it is, in the absence of a description of the practical elements of these rites, that our scholars, anthropologists, and philosophers do not feel inclined to attach much significance to the ancient mysteries other than an ordinary religious or philosophic one. That is, it is their belief that ordinary notions of an advanced theological or philosophical nature were promulgated therein. For I may add in passing the complete esoteric technique of initiation has never previously passed into open publication. It has been reserved in all secrecy for initiates of the sacred schools of magic. While various documents explaining the principia of this wisdom were circulated amongst the members of these schools, the oaths of secrecy attaching to their receipt was such that in recent times, as I have said, few lay exponents of the ancient religions and philosophies have never so much as suspected the existence of these principia.
The root of the word itself means “to begin” or “to commence anew.” Initiation is thus the beginning of a new phase or attitude to life, the entry, moreover, into an entirely new type of existence. Its characteristic is the opening of the mind to an awareness of other levels of consciousness, both within and without. Initiation means above all spiritual growth—a definite mark in the span of human life.
Now one of the best methods for bringing about this stimulus of the inner life, so that one does really begin or enter upon an entirely new existence characterized by an awareness of higher principles within, is the ceremonial technique. By this we mean that a ceremony is arranged in which certain ideas, teachings, and admonitions are communicated to the candidate in dramatic form in a formally prepared temple or lodge room. Nor is this all—otherwise, no claim could be made on behalf of magic that it really and not merely figuratively initiates. For the utterance of an injunction does not necessarily imply that it can sink sufficiently deeply into consciousness so as to arouse into renewed activity the dormant spiritual qualities. And we have already witnessed the invalidity and spiritual bankruptcy of innumerable organizations, religious, secular, and fraternal so-called, which have their own rituals and yet, taking them by and large, have produced very few initiates or spiritually-minded men and women, saints or adepts of any outstanding merit.
The efficacy of an initiation ceremony depends almost exclusively on the initiator. What is it that bestows the power of successful initiation? This power comes from either having had it awakened interiorly at the hands of some other competent initiator, or that a very great deal of magical and meditation work has successfully been performed. It is hardly necessary at this juncture to labor at a description of these exercises and technical processes of development that were undertaken by candidates and would-be initiators. These have been delineated at length elsewhere, both in my Tree of Life, and in an incomparably fine form in the Golden Dawn documents presented herein. But it is necessary to emphasize the fact that an anterior personal training and prolonged magical effort are the sole means by which one is enabled so to awaken the dormant spiritual life of another that he may well and truly be called “initiated.”
Now we know from an examination of the above-mentioned documents and of ancient literature that the object of the theurgic art, as the magical concept of initiation was then termed, was so to purify the personality that that which was there imprisoned could spring into open manifestation. As one of the alchemical expositors has expressed it: “Within the material extreme of this life, when it is
purified, the Seed of the Spirit is at last found.” The entire object of all magical and alchemical processes is the purification of the natural man, and by working upon his nature to extract the pure gold of spiritual attainment. This is initiation.
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These Golden Dawn rituals and ceremonies of initiation are worthy of a great deal of study and attention. It is my sincere and fervent hope that meditation and a close examination will be made of the text. Now, if we examine these texts carefully, we shall find that we can epitomize in a single word the entire teaching and ideal of those rituals. If one idea more than any other is persistently stressed from the beginning that idea is in the word light. From the candidate’s first reception in the Hall of the Neophytes when the Hierophant adjures him with these words: “Child of Earth, long hast thou dwelt in darkness. Quit the night and seek the day,” to the transfiguration in the Vault ceremony, the whole system has as its objective the bringing down of the light. For it is by that light that the golden banner of the inner life may be exalted; it is in light where lies healing and the power of growth. Some vague intimation of the power and splendour of that glory is first given to the aspirant in the Neophyte Grade when, rising from his knees at the close of the invocation, the light is formulated above his head in the symbol of the white triangle by the union of the implements of the three chief officers. By means of the Adeptus Minor ritual, which identifies him with the chief officer, he is slain as though by the destructive force of his lower self. After being symbolically buried, triumphantly he rises from the tomb of Osiris in a glorious resurrection through the descent of the white light of the spirit. The intervening grades occupy themselves with the analysis of that light as it vibrates between the light and the darkness, and with the establishment within the candidate’s personal sphere of the rays of the many-coloured rainbow of promise.
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