Book Review: Paths of Wisdom

The Mystical Qabalah is the canonical textbook for anyone on the Hermetic Path. Unfortunately, the book isn't very accessible to newbies. To be honest, Paths of Light: A Guide to the Magical Cabala by John Michael Greer, isn't much more accessible, but it's more modern, and could make a nice stepping stone after reading something like The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford: Dilettante's Guide to What You Do and Do Not Need to Know to Become a Qabalist.

As you may expect, the book focuses on the Tree of Life. (If all you know about the Tree of Life is that it was in the Garden of Eden, read The Chicken Qabalah first.) One difference in the treatment of the Tree of Life is the use of the Hebrew letters that spell the name of God associated with each sphere. Each letter is explained in terms of the associated Tarot card, but this isn't a Tarot book, so the associations aren't made explicit. There's also a nice explanation of the Veil of Paroketh, which separates our mundane life from the higher levels of the Tree. The key concept is that the Veil is at least partially composed of our belief systems.

The treatment of the Tree is quite thorough, including even the four color scales and magical images. An instructive exercise for the artistically inclined would be to paint or draw the magical images. The Yeziratic Texts (an obscure description for each of the spheres and paths) are covered, and these can be hard to make sense of, but the book provides good explanations. The Golden Dawn models of the Garden of Eden before and after the fall are also included and explained.

So what's the bottom line? I recommend this book for serious Hermeticists who have read at least one (preferably three or more) books on the subject already. But you still need The Mystical Qabalah.

Book Review: Ceremonial Magic

In this posting, I will be discussing a book about ceremonial magic, specifically the calling forth of spirit beings. I don't do this, and I don't think you should either. There is plenty of less dangerous work to do.

So why am I reviewing a book about it? First, some of you reading this may decide to try it anyway, without the support and safeguards offered by a suitable mystery school. The results of a mistake from this type of operation can be annoying at best, and life-threatening at worst. If anyone is really intent on trying it despite the dangers, Ceremonial Magic & the Power of Evocation by Joseph C. LIsiewski, Ph.D., will at least give them the tools they need. Another reason is the "subjective synthesis" that Dr. Lisiewski mentions in all of his books. Also, the graphic descriptions of what he calls the "slingshot effect" may just convince some of the readers that ceremonial magic is not for the faint of heart, and shouldn't be tried without proper training and preparation, and probably not even then.

There is one thing to be said for this approach, however. Lon Milo Duquette indicated in his Chicken Qabalah that these spirits are actually parts of our minds, and if we don't learn to control them, they will ruin our lives anyway. That is a good point: we don't really know how big our minds are, therefore we can't be sure that these spirits have an independent existence as opposed to being parts of us. And if they are parts of us, learning to control them is of paramount importance. But the method given in Dr. Lisiewski's book seems to me like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. The proper use of Tarot will serve the same purpose, and without any slingshot effects.

Book Review: Kabbalistic Handbook

For anyone who is on the hermetic path, Kabbalistic Handbook for the Practicing Magician by Joseph C. Lisiewski, Ph.D., is recommended reading, but not for the reason you may think. The book, although not for beginners (except maybe beginners who are dedicated to the point of obsession), is very sound technically. It has detailed information about qabalah, tarot, and planetary hours, with references to books containing much more. The reading list at the back of the book is a valuable resource in itself, and could be used with profit as the reading list of a college degree in hermeticism.

That brings me to the reason I recommend this book: it teaches effective study habits. The method of study outlined in the book can be used for any topic. I tried it myself on the Celtic Cross spread. Here's how it works. You pick a primary source and two other sources by different authors. Then you read through the primary source, comparing what's there to what the other authors have to say about the subject. Take notes and write down any questions you may have. You can go back later and answer those questions based on what you've learned since then. By the time you're done, you'll have a much deeper understanding of the topic than you would if you only read the primary source.

I'm trying this method with astrology and tarot. I'll post later with my findings.

Thoughts on the Celtic Cross

Having read a few books on Tarot, I've been thinking about the Celtic Cross spread and have come up with some of my own ideas on it, and my own approach to interpretation. At first I thought the spread was about what factors have an influence on the question at hand. Now my opinion is that the spread is about what lessons need to be learned.

The spread is composed of ten cards, arranged as follows (card 2 is placed horizontally on top of and across card 1):

                10
     5
                9
4   1 2   6
                8
     3
                7

Now, if you have a deck, please shuffle the cards and try it. You'll notice that the first two cards form a small cross. Including the next four cards forms a larger cross, and the four create a circle around the first two. The final four cards form a staff to the right of the circle cross.

Let's talk about the cross first. The esoteric meaning of the cross is the intersection of time and space. In this spread, time is the horizontal axis, and space the vertical axis. But I don't mean the entirety of space, just the vertical axis, as it applies to your mind. That will be clearer as we go examine the focus of each position. Let's begin:

1. This card is your immediate situation.


2. This card is like a large stick held up by a couple of posts in front of you. It appears to block your way, but on closer examination you see that it's not attached to the posts, but simply held up by them. In fact, you can take the stick with you and use it.


3. Now we get into the parameters of your surrounding situation. This card is what's under the surface of your mind. It can also indicate the root cause of the problem if there is one.


4. This card indicates a lesson that needs to be learned for the purpose of letting it go, or an influence that is on the way out.


5. This card indicates a lesson that is here now, or on the way.


6. This card indicates an influence or lesson that is coming in the future.


7. The next four cards indicate a course of evolution, starting from this card, which is the lesson of the physical situation.


8. This card represents thoughts about the situation and environment.


9. This card represents the lesson given about your emotions.


10. This card is the final piece of the puzzle: inspiration, will, intuitiveness.

So the first six cards are about your immediate situation and its parameters, and the next four are a path to evolve out of it. I'll be trying out this interpretation over the next couple of weeks, and I'll let you know how it works out.

Book Review: Kabbalistic Cycles

Joseph C. Lisiewski, Ph.D. has three books that together make a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in the hermetic path. In this post I will talk about Kabbalistic Cycles & the Mastery of Life. This book describes the planetary hours and how to use them in your daily life. I should warn you up front that this book is not only not for beginners, but that it also needs to be studied in depth to be of any practical use.

The basic premise of the book is that there are cycles that affect everything that goes on. The cycles used in the book are daily and hourly, and correspond to the seven "planets" as known to the ancients: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. Each planet is given a day, and the 24 hours in each day are divided among the planets. The influence of each planet favors certain endeavors, and makes others more difficult. Some of the combinations of the planets governing each hour and day have attributions to the Major Arcana cards of the Tarot, and these attributions are more powerful than the hourly and daily influences. The idea is that if you schedule your activities to an appropriate day and hour, your chances for success are greatly improved.

Does it work? I honestly don't know yet. I'm still learning the attributions, but I have noticed some positive correlation. If you want to try it, there's a program that will help you calculate the hours. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the Tarot attributions, which, according to the book, are the most important factor. I'll post again about this topic when I have more data.

Learning Astrology

I've been studying hermeticism and related topics for the last three years, and it always bothered me that I didn't really understand astrology, so I decided to devote some time to its study. My background in astrology before this consisted of reading the daily horoscope in the newspaper as a teenager, and Sun Signs and Love Signs by Linda Goodman.

The first thing I noticed was that the descriptions of the planets corresponded nicely to the spheres of the tree of life to which they were assigned. In the course of re-reading The Mystical Qabalah I learned that the correspondence was by design. The aspects between the planets were easy to understand if I thought of them as the interactions between the spheres of the tree. The signs also had correspondences to some of the major arcana tarot cards. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the functions of the houses.

An interesting idea I found in my research (though I don't remember where I read it) is that you don't get the characteristics of your sun sign by default. This is because most of us are basically in automatic pilot mode, governed by our emotions (the moon). I remember the author saying something like "We all have free will, but most of us don't use it."

Another interesting concept from Astrology: A Cosmic Science by Isabel Hickey is that we do not have the characteristics we have because we were born at a certain date and time; it's exactly the other way around.

Anyway, I'll keep studying, and hopefully I'll be able to start doing readings some time soon. On a related note, I got a sign today that I'm probably ready to start doing tarot readings now. My wife and I were waiting in line at the espresso bar at a local Barnes & Noble. A young lady in front of us noticed that I had a copy of Learning the Tarot by Joan Bunning. She asked me what I thought of the book, then asked me about a tarot card she had found. It was the ten of wands, but the design was different from the normal Rider-Waite layout. At first, I just told her that the fact that she found the card meant that she should pay attention to it. After thinking about it for a while, I came to a realization. She had found the card, and knew what it meant, but the design wasn't what she expected. The meaning seemed obvious to me: she was already in that situation (being over-burdened), but saw something different on the card and was confused. I told her that she needed to look at the situation she was in differently. She was happy with the answer, and I was happy that I was able to figure it out.

Book Review: Alchemy & Mysticism

The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob is an art book published by Taschen that happens to be a good introduction to hermeticism. You won't be an expert after reading this book (or looking at the pictures), but you will have been exposed to all of the basic concepts. You'll also see many of the pictures as illustrations in other books. As you would expect from the title, much of the book is devoted to alchemy. However, astrology and qabalah are also covered. Each picture is accompanied by a blurb explaining the symbolism, and some quotes are also included.

Alchemy, simply put, is the art and science of transformation. It's not just about turning lead into gold; it's also about turning yourself into gold. As I mentioned in prior posts, symbols can be very helpful because they operate on many levels at once. With that in mind, I recommend this book to everyone on the hermetic path, even if you don't actually read any of it.

Book Review: The Great Book of Amber

Are you looking for a good science fiction/fantasy read? Do you have a lot of time on your hands? If so, The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny is a good selection. It's actually a collection of 10 novels, all about a family of superhuman beings who rule a kingdom called Amber. The book's worldview also includes a collection of parallel universes called Shadow. The beings who rule Amber can move through Shadow, changing it as they see fit. The family may be superhuman in abilities, but they are thoroughly human in motivation and behavior. Their interaction is like a soap opera, with plenty of intrigues and betrayals.

Sometimes I read a fantasy novel and come away convinced that the author "knows something." I suspected that about Mr. Zelazny after reading Lord of Light, but 70% of the way through this book, I'm thoroughly convinced of it. In addition to a family-owned set of tarot trumps and a customized labyrinth called "the Pattern," there are even correct references to qabalah.

As I said in an earlier post, a good science fiction/fantasy novel will stretch our beliefs about what is possible. The Great Book of Amber is no exception. Pick up a copy, but be prepared to spend months with it.

Book Review: The Sea Priestess

Dion Fortune is famous as the author of The Mystical Qabalah, the canonical guide to Qabalah as used in the Western Hermetic tradition. Ms. Fortune has also written some novels. The Sea Priestess is said to have the practice corresponding to the theory given in The Mystical Qabalah.

The novel is set in early 20th-century England. The main character is a real-estate broker who lives with his mother and sister. One of his customers is a mysterious lady who owns a country estate. In the course of the book, the lady teaches the protagonist about magic and prepares him for his subsequent marriage. There's also an interesting fireplace recipe involving sandalwood, cedar and juniper.

This book is important because it gives an example of the magical life. As recovering materialists, we do learn various concepts in our studies, but we also have to apply them. The result should be that our lives get better. We grow as people. Little coincidences happen that tell us we are on the right track. Seemingly insurmountable problems disappear with some elbow grease.

If you have chosen the hermetic path, read this book, before or after The Mystical Qabalah.

Book Review: A Garden of Pomegranates

A Garden of Pomegranates is a classic work about Qabalah and hermeticism. This edition by Chic and Sandra Cicero is an updated version with additional material about pathworking, which I'll get into in more detail later. Now what is Qabalah and why should you care? Qabalah is first and foremost a symbol system, and you should care because the symbols are symbols of different aspects of the universe. If you know about the principle of correspondence, you'll see that the symbols are also about different aspects of yourself.

The most important symbol in Qabalah is the Tree of Life, which is covered by chapters 3 and 4 of the book. The Tree of Life is a compound symbol composed of ten circles called "sephiroth" (covered in chapter 3) and twenty-two lines called "paths" connecting the circles (covered in chapter 4). Attributes of and correspondences to each of the sephiroth and paths are given in the book, along with an explanation of each.

Now let's talk about pathworking, the subject of the second half of the book. This is really about practical application of the information given in the first half of the book. The way this information is applied is by vignettes about each path containing relevant symbolism. To try a pathworking, you would either record the vignette and replay it while relaxing with your eyes closed, and visualizing the events given, or have a friend read it aloud to you. The pathworkings start at Malkuth at the bottom of the tree, and proceed up to Kether at the top. By the time you get to the top of the tree, the symbolism and related myths will become part of you, burned into your subconscious mind.

This book is ideal for those who have read Chicken Qabala but still find The Mystical Qabalah to be intimidating.

The Star of David

The star of David, as you can see from the picture, is composed of two equilateral triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down. Today I would like to talk about the four alchemical symbols that can be derived, and some implications for us.

The symbols of the four alchemical elements, fire (an upward-pointing triangle), water (a downward-pointing triangle), air (an upward-pointing triangle with a horizontal line through it) and earth (a downward-pointing triangle with a horizontal line), are contained within the star of David. The word "elements" in this context does not mean elements like hydrogen and oxygen. Instead, they are more like qualities or states of being. Or if you like, you can think of them as the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas and plasma (not as in blood, but matter so hot that the atoms can't hold their electrons anymore).

Now let us consider the obvious combination of the fire and water triangles. Fire is active and water passive. From the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the (Father's) domain]

This is talking about making a union of opposites. For us, one example would be integrating the conscious and subconscious minds.

Now for the combination of earth and air. If air is read as heaven, this calls to mind an old saying: "Bring earth to heaven and heaven to earth." This is really what we are about as recovering materialists. So how do we do this? Stay tuned.

Book Review: The Art and Practice of Caballa Magic

The Art and Practice of Caballa Magic by Ophiel is an informal introduction to some of the concepts you'll need if you've chosen the hermetic path. The author tends to ramble, but there is useful information here mixed in with complaints about blinds and the general impracticality of most of the published works in the field.

One thing in the book that I noticed and haven't seen anywhere else is an explanation of the Mason's square and compasses symbol. If you connect the points of the compass and the upper corners of the square with two straight lines, you get two intersecting triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down. The upward-pointing triangle represents the element of fire; the downward-pointing triangle, water.

There are two groundbreaking concepts further on in the book. The first is a new interpretation of the holy name of God: YHVH. The name, according to the book, is actually a formula for manifestation similar to that given in The Secret. The details are similar to the Four Worlds I mentioned in my last post. The other concept is a unique interpretation of the three pillars of the Tree of Life. The Pillar of Mercy is called the Pillar of the Past; the middle pillar is the Pillar of the Present and the Pillar of Severity is the Pillar of the Future. I haven't seen these interpretations anywhere else.

If you happen to see this book in a bookstore, you should pick up a copy.

The Tree of Life

I was going to write a review of Ophiel's The Art and Practice of Caballa Magic when I realized that the most groundbreaking idea from the book would be lost on those of you who are not familiar with Qabala and the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is a symbol from Kabbalah (the mystical branch of Judaism) that has been adapted for use with Qabala (the symbol system used by Hermeticism). To the left is an image of the tree, courtesy of Wikipedia. The ten circles are called sephiroth (sephira for one circle). Sephira and sephiroth are Hebrew words; since the Hebrew alphabet doesn't exactly correspond to the Roman alphabet, you will see these words (and the names of the sephiroth) transliterated differently depending on which book you're reading. The twenty-two lines connecting the circles are called paths.

As a preliminary warning, I will point out that much of the literature on Qabala was written by members of mystery schools who were under oaths of secrecy. As a result, whenever they touched upon something that might be covered by the oath, they resorted to what is called a "blind"; they would write what they wanted, but change an essential detail. This is on the theory that anyone truly worthy of the knowledge would somehow figure out what they had done. Joseph Lisiewski probably has the best method of addressing this problem: read at least 2 different sources about anything, and use your own judgement as to who is correct.

That said, let's get to it. What follows is a list of the sephiroth, with English translation of the names, and some of the things that I associate with each.

1. Kether. Translation: Crown. The First Mover. The place where Neo got his light in the fight scene at the end of the third Matrix movie.


2. Chockmah. Translation: Wisdom. The outpouring of energy in the big bang. The Heavenly Father. The Zodiac.


3. Binah. Translation: Understanding. The expansion of time and space in the big bang to give the energy from Chockmah somewhere to go. Mother Nature. Saturn.


4. Chesed. Translation: Mercy. Generosity. The building up of form. Jupiter.


5. Geburah. Translation: Severity. The breaking down of form. Mars.


6. Tiphareth. Translation: Beauty. Balance between mercy and severity. The Golden Mean. The Christ. The Sun.


7. Netzach. Translation: Victory. Emotions. Sensuality. The beauty of nature. Venus.


8. Hod. Translation: Splendor. Logic. Symbolism. Mercury.


9. Yesod. Translation: Foundation. The subconscious. The astral plane. The Moon.


10. Malkuth. Translation: Kingdom. The earth. The universe, including the parts we don't know about yet. The four elements.

What you need to know for my next post is that the tree can be divided up in a few ways. The two most common are the four worlds and the three pillars.

The four worlds division is a pattern for the creation of the universe and everything in it. One way of dividing the sephiroth into worlds is as follows. The Archetypal world contains Kether, Chockmah and Binah. In this world, a general idea appears for a new creation. The world of creation contains Chesed, Geburah and Tiphareth. In this world, the idea is made more specific. The world of formation contains Netzach, Hod and Yesod. In this world, all of the details are worked out. The world of manifestation contains only Malkuth. In the world, the idea is implemented.

The three pillars is another grouping of the sephiroth. The pillar of mercy contains Chockmah, Chesed and Netzach. The pillar of severity contains Binah, Geburah and Hod. The pillar of mildness contains Kether, Tiphareth, Yesod and Malkuth.

Now you may be thinking: "That's great, but all that plus two dollars will get me coffee at Starbucks." But here's the thing. The tree is a symbol which can be applied to God and the universe, but most importantly to us. All of the parts of the tree are inside us. How would we treat other people if we all knew that the Sun of Tiphareth was in us? If we knew that the four elements of Malkuth were inside us, we would cooperate with the environment instead of trying to exploit it. We wouldn't worry so much about the economy if we knew that we had the generosity of Chesed and the frugality of Geburah. The elegant symbolism and intellectuality of Hod, and the emotions and sensuality of Netzach make life worth living. Yesod is where our dreams come from.

Book Review: Chicken Qabalah

If you have chosen the hermetic path and are looking for an accessible introduction to Qabalah, Lon Milo DuQuette's The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed ben Clifford is a good choice. Not only does it give you the basics, but it's a very entertaining read. As an example, instead of the Ten Commandments, he lists the Ten Command-Rants. My favorite is the sixth, which is rather zen-like:

In order to overcome our defective powers of perception we must be willing to abuse them until they break.

The Hebrew alphabet, the four worlds, and the Tarot are all covered. There is even a derivation of the Tree of Life from a series of student papers. The treatment is very casual with "Don't worry about it!" being a catchphrase, but the information given is solid.

There is also a section about ceremonial magic, specifically summoning spirits, which tells you a lot more that it seems if you are willing to read between the lines. In answer to the question "Are the spirits part of me, or do they live an existence independent of me?" he replies: "The spirits are inside you, but most of us do not realize (1) how big our insides really are, or (2) how much out of control and seemingly independent the things inside us can be." This, dear friends, is exactly what this blog is aiming at: there's more to life (and to us) than meets the eye.

If you found The Mystical Qabalah to be difficult reading, The Chicken Qabalah will be a helpful introduction. Or read it if you just want a good laugh.

Book Review: Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation

Once you've decided that strict materialism doesn't work for you, or that dualism doesn't work either, there's an obvious question: what to do about it. As I mentioned in a prior posts, there are two main paths: mysticism and hermeticism. The two paths aren't really that different, they just have different areas of emphasis. The mystic path emphasizes experience of unity; the hermetic path emphasizes using symbolism to work on your subconscious to balance the different parts of your personality. Each path in practice contains the other.

If you are interested in the hermetic path, Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation by Lyam Thomas Christopher is a possible option (but also see this alternative). This book is designed to be used as a self-study course in hermetism, but it can also be used as preparation for joining a mystery school, as it explains the concepts you'll need starting from a basic level.

One of the good things about the book is that the program set forth forces you to take your time and let the concepts and practices of each stage sink in before proceeding to the next. There is also suggested reading given for each stage. By the end of the book (which would take years if you follow the program), you'll be qualified to do independent work and research. Think of it as a self-study bachelor's level course in hermetism.

I'm not following this program myself because my current program (link in the sidebar) has over 15 years of lessons and has the same general principles and goals. But secrecy oaths and the like are a problem for some, and those people should consider this book.

Book Review: The Mystical Qabalah

The book I want to talk about today, The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune, is not for beginners, but it is the definitive book about Qabalah. Just to clarify, Kabbalah (final "h" required) is the mystic (aiming at direct experience of union with God) subset of Judaism; Qabalah (final "h" optional) is a symbol system used by hermetism. Hermetism, like mysticism, aims at direct experience of union with God, but only after balancing the different parts of the personality and then transcending personality to connect with what is called the higher self.

The central symbol in Qabalah is a design of 10 interconnected circles referred to as the "Tree of Life." Ms. Fortune explains it like this:

[The Tree of Life] is a glyph, that is to say, a composite symbol, which is intended to represent the cosmos in its entirety and the soul of man as related thereto; and the more we study it, the more we see that it is an amazingly adequate representation; we use it as the engineer or the mathematician uses his sliding-rule, to scan and calculate the intricacies of existence, visible and invisible, in external nature or the hidden depth of the soul.

Those who have done some reading about hermetism or alchemy will no doubt recognize the explicit reference to the principle of correspondence: "As above, so below." For the newbies, consider the structure of the atom, with electrons revolving around a central nucleus, and the structure of the solar system, with planets revolving around the sun. This is one example of the principle that the structure of the universe is reflected down even into its smallest parts.

The spheres (also called "sephiroth") of the tree have other correspondences, many of which are covered in this book. One of the correspondences, that between the spheres and the astrological planets, will be recognized by those of you who have read Dante's Divine Comedy.

There's a lot of information here, really too much to absorb on first reading. I've read it three times and only now feel capable of writing this review. Definitely not the first book you should read, but if you only buy one book about Qabalah, this is it. It belongs on your bookshelf.