Lesson 1The QabalahThe symbols, words, and gestures employed in Magick have no inherent power--they are given power by the mind.   Likewise, the gods, angels, elementals, and demons invoked are "all in your head." This is, of course, just as true for any religion as it is for Magick.  Jesus is very real to the Catholic, and the Mass full of power and meaning, but to the Yanomamo tribesman of the Amazon rainforest neither means anything at all.   Likewise the devout Baptist visiting India can dismiss Vishnu and Shiva as "false." But precisely because the spirits you conjure are "in your head," the more your own thoughts are ordered, controlled, and structured, the more power you will have over them.  Technically one could simply perform a banishing ritual by wagging his finger at the four directions saying "get out!"   But such an undisciplined approach would provide a very weak barrier indeed against the malevolent things lurking in the subconscious.  It is for this reason that the beginning magician needs to first build a conceptual framework, a fortress to practice the Art in.  For many in the Western Tradition, the blueprint for that fortress is the Qabalah.

Now, the first thing you need to understand is that the Magickal Qabalah is not the Hebrew Kabbalah. It borrows elements from the Hebrew esoteric system in the same way the Hebrew system borrowed from earlier Egyptian, Greek, and Near Eastern sources. You do not need to be Jewish--or Christian or Muslim--to use it. Qabalah, which comes from a word meaning “receiving” or “accounting,” provides an organized, structured framework to arrange the contents in your head. The better you know it, the more integrated into your thought processes it is, the more control you can exert over your Magick. But it is, above all else, just a tool. Saying that the actual, physical universe is composed of the Hebrew letters is as stupid as saying the letters C-A-T create a living breathing cat. Qabalah is a map, and not the terrain itself.

Having said that, let’s dig in.

We need to start with three concepts, all closely intertwined.

1)The Four Worlds2)The Ten Spheres3)The Twenty-Two Paths

The Four Worlds

The first concept to grasp is the notion of the Four Worlds, four planes of existence that all occupy the same time and space and yet are each distinct from one another. They are conceptual planes, rather than real places, and map out the process by which the universe is “created,” at least from the human point of view. The Tetragrammaton or “Supreme Name” of the Hebrew God, YHVH or יהוה, is connected to these Four Worlds, as are the four classical elements (Fire, Water, Air, and Earth).

The first world is Atziluth, represented by the letter “Yodh,” the element of Fire, and the image of the Father. It is also called the Divine Plane. This is the plane of pure being, the “real” world concealed from us behind the veil of perception. Shortly, I will explain what that means.

The second world is Briah, represented by the letter “Heh,” the element of Water, and the image of the Mother. It is also called the Archangelic Plane. This is the plane of ideas and perceptions. It receives and reflects the image of the Divine Plane.

The third world is Yetzirah, represented by the letter “Vau,” the element of Air, and the image of the Son. It is also called the Angelic Plane. The reality of the first world is perceived in the second, and here in the third world is where the two are married together.

Finally we have the fourth world, Assiah, represented by the letter “Heh Final,” the element of Earth, and the image of the Daughter. This is the everyday world of the physical senses, the world you and I go to work, east, sleep, and pay our bills in. It is the result of the joining process that happens in Yetzirah.

So what is going on here? Well, imagine for example a coffee mug. In reality, that mug is just a bunch of sub-atomic particles and forces that you cannot directly perceive. This is the mug in Atziluth, the First World. Now, your mind and senses can perceive reflections of that little bundle of whirling particles. That happens in the Second World, Briah. There the impressions you receive become paired with ideas like “ceramic,” “coffee,” and “mug” and become married together in the Third World of Yetzirah. Finally, in the Fourth World of Briah it exists as a mug in your hands.

This is an immensely magical process. You have just created a mug out of the sea of elementary particles all around you. Just as the Hebrew God “spoke” the world into existence, you are “spoken” that mug into being by knowing and naming it. This is the first essential concept of the Magickal Qabalah.

Atziluth

Briah

Yetzirah

Assiah

Figure 1: The Four Worlds and Ten Intersections

The Ten SpheresNow, if we take our Four Worlds and draw them out as overlapping circles, the top of each circle touching the center of the one above it, we end up with Figure 1. If we place a “dot” at the center of each circle, and at the positions where the circles overlap, we f i n d o u r s e l v e s w i t h a c u r i o u s arrangement of ten spheres that looks suspiciously something like the odd diagram to the right;

Figure 2: The Tree of Life

This is the Qabalistic “Tree of Life,” a diagram that purports to how the structure of the universe. Please note, however, that the top of the man’s head is actually beneath the First World, Atziluth, because this world is “veiled” or “hidden” from him. Further, the “dot” that should be there, connecting the First and Second Worlds, has been dropped or “fallen” beneath his feet, like this;

1. 3. 2.

5. 4.

6.

8. 7.

9.

10.

Figure 3: The Sephiroth

This is, essentially, a way of signifying the same thing. The highest world, or circle, exists beyond our reach. At least under normal circumstances, that is. The work of Magick is to attain it.

Now, these ten dots or “spheres,” these intersections between the Four Worlds, are called the Sephiroth (singular “Sephirot”). They themselves symbolize the process of manifestation, not of the world around us, but of ourselves. They map out the consciousness of the human being.

1. Kether - The One, the Monad, the Point. To understand Kether, the first Sphere, let’s play with language a moment. If you you strip away the objects, the adjectives, the verbs, and leave yourself with just the subject, any first person statement you make approaches Kether. “I.” It is pure Being, existence, completely unconditioned by any description or action. It simply is. Like the mathematical point, it exists--it has a position in time and space--but on the other hand it has no mass or length or width or breadth. It is and it is not.

2.Chokmah - The Dyad, Duality, Motion. Suddenly, a second point appears. This creates a line, a ray. There is motion and with it time and space suddenly appear (they cannot be measure if nothing moves or changes). Chokmah is this projection, this expansion. If Kether is the singularity, this is the Big Bang. It is seen as the prime Masculine force, but this means it simply is the active force that reaches out and projects.

3.Binah - The Triad, Trinity, Form. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Binah is the reaction triggered by Chokmah. She is the prime Feminine, the Mother to its Father. She receives, and in receiving creates a balance. The first shape, the triangle, becomes possible. Kether is thesis, Chokmah antithesis, and Binah is synthesis.

4.Chesed - The Tetrad, Manifestation. Chokmah ejaculates the seed, Binah receives it, and the result is Chesed. The arrival of a fourth point makes three dimensional reality possible. Kether, Chokmah, and Binah all exist above and beyond our direct perception in the First World of Atziluth, but here in Chesed the reality we perceive begins.

Kether Chokmah Binah Chesed

Please note that in their own way, these four echo their corresponding worlds (Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah, and Assiah). There is the object, then the object is perceived and known. This perception creates reflection, and becomes “reality.”

5. Geburah - The Pentad, the Pentagram. If Chesed is Matter, then its reflection is Geburah, or “Motion.” Now that something “exists” it is capable of movement and change. Geburah is that change, the entropy to Chesed’s order. It is energy and transformation.

6. Tiphareth - The Hexad or Hexagram. Tiphareth is the spark of consciousness or awareness. If Kether, directly above it, is “I,” than

Tiphareth is “I am.” It is the sense of “self,” the individual awareness. Having become “real” and begun to grow and “change,” the point event now “experiences.”

7. Netzach - The Heptad. Now that the point event experiences, those experiences are divided into two categories. The first is “feeling,” or “sensation.” It is emotion.

8. Hod - The Octad. The second form or experience is “knowledge,” which falls here. The point event learns, remembers, and improves. Here lies the “sciences” to Netzach’s “arts.”

9. Yesod - The Ennead. “Feeling” and “Knowledge” recombine to become “being.” In this central pillar, Kether is “I,” Tiphareth is “I am,” and Yesod is both “I have” and “I do.”

10.Malkuth - The Decad. Here we come full circle, as 10 equals 1 + 0 or 1. We come back to Kether. Malkuth is the being the point event thinks it is. It thinks “I am male,” “I am a writer,” I have blue eyes.” It is the root of the tree, the end point and the beginning.

The Two-and-Twenty PathsNow, if we remove the circles or worlds, and instead draw lines between the spheres, we get this;

Figure 4: The Paths

The first thing you will probably notice is that not all the Spheres are connected by lines, and that the top three spheres are less “connected” than those below. This is because the number of lines, or “Paths,” has been carefully chosen, as well as the type of line. Specially there are;

1. Three Horizontal Lines.2.Seven Vertical Lines.3.Twelve Diagonal Lines.

Once again the reason for this is to create a conceptual framework of three dimensional space.

The Three The number three provides us with the number of axises we need to create a three dimensional universe.

These are said to be the elements of Fire, Water, and Air (the Worlds of Atziluth, Briah, and Yetzirah) that combine to create the element of Earth (the physical world we live in, Assiah).

The SevenIf we look at those lines, and then place a point at their ends and intersection, we arrive at seven positions; Up, Down, North, South, East, West, and Center.

The TwelveFinally, if we place a “face” at the six outer points, we end up with a cube.

If you count the edges or lines of that cube, you end up with twelve. So this series of numbers, 3, 7, and 12, is yet another way to map out manifestation and physical space. It also partially explains why the numbers involved in the composition of the Tree of Life, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 12 are all seen as magical and sacred. In the next lesson we will go into more detail. but for now it is clear that the Tree is a very complex diagram encoding some very difficult concepts.