Paths Emanating From Keter:
The four paths emanating from Keter are illustrated on the left:
#1: The Mystical Intelligence: Letter: א Alef (fire) Tarot: The Fool, The Magician
#2: The Radiant Intelligence: Letter: מ Mem (water): Tarot: The High Priestess (This will be discussed in Chapter Two: Paths Emanating From Chokmah)
#3: The Sanctified Intelligence: Letter ש Shin (tooth, fire): Tarot: The Empress (This will be discussed in Chapter Three: Paths Emanating from Binah)
#11: The Scintillating/ Glaring Intelligence: Letter Beth Tarot: Strength. The Path from Keter to Tiferet.
#14: The Illuminating Intelligence: Letters: ש Shin א Alef מ Mem Tarot: The High Priestess
The Eleventh Path: The Scintillating/ Glaring Intelligence
The Eleventh Path is the Scintillating Intelligence because it is the essence of that curtain which is placed close to the order of the disposition, and this is a special dignity given to it that it may be able to stand before the Face of the Cause of Causes.
Alt. Trans. ” The eleventh path is called the scintillating consciousness because it is the essence of the veil which is placed before the ordered arrangement of the powers. Who walks this way acquires a special dignity – he can stand face to face before the cause of causes.”
Wescott trans. The Eleventh Path is the Scintillating Intelligence, because it is the essence of that curtain which is placed close to the order of the disposition, and this is a special dignity given to it that it may be able to stand before the Face of the Cause of Causes.
Case trans. The eleventh path (Aleph. Joining Keter to Chokmah) is called the Scintillating or Fiery Intelligence. It is the essence of the veil placed before the dispositions and order of the superior and inferior causes. He who possesses this path is in the enjoyment of great dignity; for he stands face to face with the Cause of Causes.
If the ten Sephirot comprise the first ten paths of the Tree of Life, then the designation of the 11th path would be the 4 of the first four paths of the Sephirot and the 7 remaining Sephirot i.e., 4 + 7 = 11. The original light of Keter would have passed through the whole of Creation and knowledge of this light would be present for the individual who attained it i.e., the individual would be able to stand face to face before the Cause of Causes (the Good). Such is the case with the female figure of Strength shown in the Tarot card on the left. The Strength is the “opposite” or “deprivation” of that power which is shown in The Magician #1. In some modern Tarot decks, the cards of Justice #8 and Strength #11 are interchanged. I will attempt to give compelling reasons why this exchange is not valid nor necessary through the philosophy provided by the text of “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”.
The Strength #11 card and The Magician #1 card represent two of the faces of Eros in human beings, the emotions and the will, the passions and human ‘spiritedness’, the intellect (logos) and the flesh. While the Strength figure has the light of the Sun both behind and within her, the male figure of The Magician draws his power from the bower of Nature above him and from the reflected light from the wall behind him (this is indicated by the bower’s shape as an inverted Bet). He uses his equipment/tools, the wand, to direct his energy and his will towards the cups, the pentacles, the swords and the table, the ready-to-hand upon which they rest, to make his images and to bring the things which are useful for him and to him into being. The Magician is the artisan or technician of the formative world of yetzirah.
Both figures are crowned by the ouroboros, The Magician’s representing the eternal recurrence of the Same and the Strength’s representing “time as the moving image of eternity”. Strength easily controls the lion of the passions that she has under her control, the lower nature of eros which affects the ‘spirited’ part of the soul. She is ‘grace under pressure’ because she is the recipient of Grace through the mediation of Tiferet. (The Da’at, the so-called 11th sephirot which is the Void or the Abyss, may be an indicator of what the saints refer to as the “dark night of the soul” which they report envelops them before they come face-to-face with Cause of causes. It is the ‘veil’ placed before the Cause of Causes. “But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Exodus 33:20)
The Scintillating or Fiery Intelligence is similar to The Mystical Intelligence Path #1 but on the level of Beriyah. One is reminded of the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) What Paul appears to be saying here is that our knowledge of the things that are is a mirrored knowledge (such as is seen in the figure of The Magician placed within an inverted Beth), a souvenir similar to a photograph; and like a photograph, it is merely an image of that which is loved, not the reality of that which is loved. This mirror, or curtain, or veil hides the truth that is concealed behind it.
In the illustration of the Tree of Life on the left, the Scintillating Consciousness is indicated by the blue line. The “veil before the dispositions” is the impact of Mem (water) emanating from Chakmah (Wisdom) upon the fire of Shin from Binah (Understanding) which brings about the creation of the physical universe. To see this truth ‘face to face’ would cause one to ‘die’ to oneself; the individual ego would be totally consumed in the fire of the Light of Keter. As it is said in Genesis: “But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” In order to “live” (remain in being), the Face of God must be hidden behind a veil. To pierce through this veil, a ‘conversion’, followed by a ‘baptism’ or re-birth (‘born again of the water and of the spirit’ or Mem and Alef) must be attained. This is illustrated in the Strength card #11 of the Tarot. The will to power of The Magician #1 is contrasted with that knowledge that is possessed by the female figure of the Strength #11. The actions and the dispositions of the Strength and The Magician are contrasted.
The journey up the Tree of Life is a decreation and there are three re-births experienced, one at each of the crossroads. Each re-birth corresponds to that part of the soul to which it is directed. The first re-birth is at the crossroad of Mem, the appetites, which joins Netzach (Victory) to Hod (Empathy, Care and Concern). This re-birth is experienced in the path of The Intelligence of Trials (#25) and is represented by the letter Resh and the Tarot card Judgement #20.
The second re-birth occurs at Tiferet and involves the crossroad of Alef between Chesed and Gevurah. It is of the emotions, the heart, the ‘spirited’ part of the soul . The Lovers #6 indicates the choice that has to be made at this stage. The ‘spirited’ eros may assist or obstruct the soul in its journeys upwards on the Tree of Life. It may cause the soul to succumb to the desires for material possessions or it may urge the soul towards its greatest desire, which is re-unification with the Good. When the second conversion and re-birth fails, the soul falls into a love for those things which satisfy the appetites and it ceases its hard journey upwards.
The third re-birth occurs at the crossroad of Shin from Chokmah to Binah, and it regards the head i.e., wisdom and understanding, the logos. The unity of wisdom and understanding is shown in the Strength card #11, and this allows the individual to receive Grace and to stand with special dignity before the Cause of Causes as indicated by path #11. It indicates that the way of being of the philosopher and the saint are one and the same thing. If someone tells you that they are a saint (such as Donald Trump has said), you can be assured that they are not. If someone claims to be a philosopher, you can be sure that they, too, are not.
The ”order of the superior and inferior causes” and the veil placed before them is the Law of Necessity, the Divine Will. The dispositions towards this Law of Necessity or Divine Will are what is contrasted in the Strength and The Magician cards. The Divine Will itself is not scrutable; it is not knowable. Those who claim to know it commit a grave sin, a blasphemy. The Magician’s disposition towards the realm of Necessity is will to power: to constrain, commandeer and overcome Chance in order to enhance human freedom. His desire is to change the world. The freedom that arises from this constraint has made science ‘the highest speech’: its prophecies are what we bow down to and what we look up to. This will to power finds its roots in the individual ego, the subject, and in the principle of reason which becomes a principle of being for The Magician: “nothing is without (a) reason”. The Strength’s disposition toward this realm is one of humility, acceptance and compliance. which shows itself in contemplation and prayer with regard to the ‘buffets and rewards’ of Fortune or Chance.
The Ten Sephirot are the first 10 paths. The direction from Keter to Chalkmah is diagonal, and there is no suggestion that the mother letters provide diagonal channels but as connectors, they must. The 11th path is also called the “Fiery Intelligence”, the “Scintillating Intelligence”. This element of fire belongs to Shin, one of the three mothers, and in the first crossover path it is the element of Shin which predominates. “The mirror placed close to the order of the disposition” is the “reflected light” that is the essence of Malkhut which reflects the light that is present in the other Sephirot. The “mirror” is translated here as “curtain” which separates the true light from the reflected light. In the Tarot of The High Priestess #2, it is the curtain behind her which hangs from the pillars of Jakim and Boaz. The reflected light is that of the Moon. Alef is the letter of the Sun. Alef connects to Tiferet, which is associated with the Sun. The connection of Fire to Water is Air and the three produce Earth which would connect with Chesed #4.
In the Tarot of The High Priestess #2, it is clear that she is connected with the sea, with water, with the subconscious, with the Unlimited. She is depicted with having a veil or curtain behind her, and sitting upon a partially revealed cube. We are limited in that we can only see three sides of the six-sided cube. We also find cubes present in The Emperor #4, The Chariot #7, and The Devil #16 cards of the Tarot. All these cards appear to indicate that there is something that is ‘hidden’ in their foundations. Whether or not The Hierophant is seated upon a cube is not shown as his robe hides his seat in the Tarot deck used here, and whether he does so or not is a matter of speculation.
The letter Alef (ALP) is the reversal of the word PLA which means “wonder”. The journey or quest begins from “wonder”, and it is “wonder” that is the foundation of philosophy and the foundation of questioning and the quest. Does the wonder provoke a question “why” and the response of “because”? Since the direction of the influence of Alef is downward, the reversal of Alef would suggest a movement upwards so that The Fool #0 should be placed at the bottom of the Tree of Life and not at the top. But within the sphere that encompasses the cube of creation, what do “up” and “down” mean? I have tried to clarify this question with the concepts of creation and decreation. The upward movement is a gyre that narrows and focuses itself on the singular point of the Divinity. The downward movement is an ever-widening gyre created by the withdrawal of God which results in His hiddenness. When the soul mistakenly chooses to align itself with the materiality of the world, it is dragged down and overcome by the watery element.
A philosophical life, ruled by the logos’ desire for truth (‘revealing’) brings one to the attainment of self-knowledge and the Good (the Cause of Causes). The satisfaction of the other parts of the soul is also achieved i.e. arete or “human excellence”. The embodied soul is afflicted with the evils that partake of the bodily. The logos is the “pure” state of the soul and is capable of “seeing” the “pure” state of the soul. The Strength card indicates that while the soul remains embodied, there is a constant strife to restrain the jaws of the lion with which she is engaged. The lion represents the ‘spirited’ part of the soul.
The soul’s first love is the love of the “One”, the whole, wisdom. In Republic (611 e 1 -612 a6), the soul must rise up out of the sea “in which it now is”. To do this, the soul engages in dialectics i.e. the love that is “friendship”, the “friendly conversation” that is the essence of the logos, the knowledge of how things are “related” to each other. This knowledge is justice (dike).
Philosophy begins through wonder and so, appropriately, The Fool card is assigned to this path (although in the Hebrew Tree it is the Strength card #11 that is assigned to this path and I concur with the Hebrew Tree here). The path from wonder leads to wisdom, the knowledge of the whole, which is knowledge of “no-thing” since it is knowledge of the All before things emerge in their particularity. It is the knowledge which allows one “to stand before the Face of the Cause of Causes”. This dismissal of the particularity of things is falsely mirrored in the dismissal that occurs in physical sciences of the Renaissance, the sciences of Galileo and Newton.
In the dialogue Sophist, Plato relates the story of the philosopher Thales who fell down a well because his eyes were so fixed on the heavens that he was not paying attention to what was all about him. This caused a nearby housemaid, who was quite attractive, to laugh and say that because he was so fixed on the heavens, he could not see what was right in front of his nose. This story of Thales is an analogy to The Fool card and to the whole of the journey on the Tree of Life. What is right in front of one’s nose is what must be paid attention to.
The fire of Keter when combined with the water of Chalkmah produces Air, from which speech is derived. From these initial three primordial elements earth is produced; and earth, or physical, material things are represented by the Sephirot Chesed and Malkhut. The first is a descending order from Keter through Chalkmah to Chesed. The second is an ascending order from Keter to Malkhut and from Malkhut to Yesod.
The first is “inner” and focuses on the quality of things, the essence of things; the second is “outer” and focuses on the quantity of things, how the things may be measured or weighed. The first path relates to The Fool card in Tarot #0. The second relates The Magician card. The number of the Fool is #0, but this is a placement numeral only, not a zero as we understand the concept i.e., it is the concept of “no-thing”, not “nothing”. The ancient Hebrews and Greeks had no concept of what we today understand by zero. (The numerical value of Alef is 111, or perhaps 1+1+1, which equals 3 but also equals 1 if 1 x 1 x 1 = 1, the Holy Trinity. Our numbers begin at 4, since numbers , the logos, require time and space). The proper placement of The Fool and The Magician cards is at the bottom of the Tree of Life as it is given to us.
What is sometimes called the “power of God” is represented through speech i.e., “And God said…” Through His speech, God creates the world. Notice that the verb “creates” is not in the past but in the present perfect tense i.e., this creation is still ongoing. What is and whatever will come to be are from the word of God, not through the “creation” of human beings. Human beings are ‘makers’, not ‘creators’. They are ‘procreators’. This word is what the modern philosopher Wittgenstein called “the miracle of language”. It should be noted that language and its use and misuse poses the gravest danger to the being of human beings in our present age.
As we have said previously, the essence of things is veiled in their outward appearance and that veil must be drawn aside, if this is possible. The Scintillating Intelligence or The Fiery Intelligence is the knowledge or awareness of things when they are seen as they are in their essence i.e., their truth. This appearance shows itself in a flash and can only be viewed at a glance. This “unconcealment” or aletheia in Greek, this drawing aside of the veil, is what we understand as truth or what we sometimes refer to as an epiphany or manifestation of the truth of a thing. On the eleventh path, it would be a manifestation of all the paths previous to it on the descent, or a manifestation of all the paths before one on the upward ascent i.e. the ten Sephirot. It reveals God as the Cause of Causes, the “uncaused cause” of the philosopher Aristotle. But, of course, God is much more than this for He is, ultimately, the Good.
The truth clothes itself in appearances in order to descend (the Beauty of the World) and unveils itself in order to allow an ascent (which is the covenant of the Good). No matter which view of the Tree of Life is taken, that from above or that from below, their central focus is in the Sephirot Tiferet. As Christ said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14: 6) Tiferet is presided over by the archangel Michael whose name means “Like unto God”, and this is shown in the Tarot card The Lovers #6. The friendship that is the Holy Trinity is mirrored in the friendship established between two human beings when it is blessed with the intervention and mediation of the Divine third, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Matthew 19:6 This is what is understood as dialectics. It is the knowledge of what the Greeks called metaxu or intermediaries, that which brings about relations or ‘friendships’.
The images of The Fool have him standing at the edge of a precipice looking skyward unaware of the depths below. Is the dog accompanying him/her issuing a warning? Or is its gestures those of “excitement” on being taken out for a journey/walk? The dog is The Fool’s companion. The “quest” has not yet begun because no “question” has been asked. The question is still before one. (This would coincide with Path 27 The Exciting or Palpable Intelligence.)
Alef is the path from Keter to Tiferet. It is Air, not Fire. Shin is the letter of the element of Fire and it is the Boaz column of the Tree of Life, the column of Severity, and it is in the lower domain horizontally. It relates to the will, the head, and to reason and more appropriately belongs to The Magician #1 card rather than The Fool #0.
The primary or “superior causes” of the Scintillating Intelligence or Consciousness are the Laws of Necessity. The secondary or “inferior causes” are seen in the conditions or effects which the superior causes bring about. The Laws of Necessity are the Divine Will i.e., space and time; and the agents or forces that bring about the effects and conditions are subject to this Divine Will. The Magician uses these forces to “create” or to “make” through human will power. The Magician’s ‘making’ is one aspect of eros’ “procreation”.
In the Tarot illustration here, The Fool has 10 wheels on his dress (7 trefoils, 7 modes of activity, 7 alchemical metals, 7 chakras in the human body, 7 planets, the 7 lower Sephirot). The letter Shin is on one of the wheels which seems to assure us that assigning Alef to The Fool is an error. Alef is breath, spirit, the Word (Aum/Om: “first the breath then the Word and all that is appeared”.) Alef is the logos or logistikon portion of the soul. Alef flows into Tiferet, not Chalkmah as some commentators have suggested. Beth flows into Tiferet once the Alef has crossed over the horizontal line of Mem/Shin. Alef is the Idea of the Good as well as the “Son”/”Sun” from which both the power and beauty is given to the rest of the Tree of Life. All of the sephirot except Malkhut pass through Tiferet; all emanations of the Divine must pass, or are contained in, Tiferet.
This path is sometimes called “the glaring intelligence”. Is this that which is obvious to the “eye”? On The Fool’s bag is an “eye” (Ayin) and an eagle (the symbol of the evangelist John).
I would associate different Hebrew letters with the Tarot cards than those given by the illustrator of the cards used here.
The Letter Beth
Beth “house”, “container”
Genesis 1.2 Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of Elohim hovered over the face of the waters.
The Fourth Path of the “Measuring, Arresting, and Receptacular Intelligence”, which is the Sephirot Chesed, must cross the horizontal path of Mem and Shin before it can come into being. It is from the first three elements that the Otherness of Earth is created. Within the created universe, the physical universe, Space, the Sephirot Chokmah, is the “container” of the Whole, and the letter Beth signifies both the “house” of the Creator (the form) and the “home” that is His creation (substance). The “open region” or the “receptacular” must first be present in order for the thing that is to come to be can come to presence. There must be a site for it, a place. The letter Beth indicates this ‘site’.
It is the Logos which “measures”, and through this measuring “arrests” and brings to a stand the thing so that we may have “under-standing” (Binah), and places into the world that which comes into being and all that which will come into being. The first three paths deal with the primordial triangle of the world of Atzilut, that which is beyond being and becoming. With Alef’s meeting of Beth in the vertical movement from Keter to Tiferet, the fourth path is created, and thus the Creation itself. The creation itself becomes manifest in the Sephirot of Chesed, Loving Kindness. The Creation is a gift of Love.
If the first path of Alef instructs or brings awareness to the intelligence of that which cannot be known, of that which is “hidden” and beyond the intelligence itself, the second path is the beginning of the possibility of knowledge of that which can be known, what is “illuminated” and “radiant”, that which “shines”.
Alef illuminates the gloom of Mem: : “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”(Gen: 1:2) Both Mem and Shin meet Alef in the first horizontal movement, crossroad, or path on the Tree of Life so that they share in “The Sanctifying Intelligence or Consciousness” of the third path as well as “The Radiant Intelligence” of the second path. With this illuminated, radiant, sanctified intelligence we come to the fourth path, the ‘measuring’, ‘arresting’, and ‘receptive’ path. There is an indication here that the naming of things is a ‘holy act’ and that language itself is ‘holy’; but before things can be named, they must first be ‘measured’ and ‘arrested’ or brought to a stand. From this bringing to a stand comes our ‘under-standing’ or what is termed Binah on the Tree of Life.
Beth is the 2nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet, signifying the number two. If Keter is the Father, number one, then Beth is the Son, number two, and Mem and Shin are the Holy Spirit or water and fire, number three (and four?). The first letter of the story of creation is Beth, starting the entire Torah/Bible – ברא בראשית. Some commentators suggest that the first letter of the Bible is Alef so that the initial phrase is “Elohim in the beginning created…” rather than Beth which is “God in the beginning created…” This is significant as Elohim is plural and indicative of the Trinity while God is singular and indicative of the One. Vastly different interpretations arise when one chooses either to see the Creator as a One or as a Trinity (Elohim).
Beth represents the beginning of the appearance of duality, with the One Creator bringing forth a created world, so that there can be both a giver (the Creator) and a receiver (the created world) for the Creator to bestow His Love and Grace upon. This creates the illusion that the creation is an “expansion” of God rather than a “withdrawal” of God, and it has prompted the dual version of the whole, one such interpretation being that of Plato where the world is divided into the worlds of Being and Becoming. Since God is All from the beginning, He would not need nor would it be possible to “expand”. Instead, He would “withdraw” to allow something to be other than Himself; and yet at the same time, that which is created is not other than Himself since He is All. With the act of withdrawal, deprivations are created, not opposites. Creation is the deprival of the Divine, of the sense and experience of the One. Man and woman are not opposites: man is deprived of the ability to give birth to another human being and can only be a secondary agent in the process. When one speaks of “deprivals”, one is speaking of a hierarchy of things and a distinction between primary and secondary agencies.
Beth’s literal meaning and form denote a house, and it represents the universal concept of a container or vessel. Thus, the created world is meant to house within it the spiritual. It is the container of the world of Beriyah. It is the bringing together of the ‘Sterile Mother’, or The High Priestess #2 of the Tarot with the ‘Fruitful Mother’ or The Empress #3. On the Tree of Life, Keter (the Light) first goes through Tiferet (the Sun) before begetting its offspring (The Moon) which is the reflected light that is mirrored in the waters.
It is important to see the connections between those letters that are designated as “containers”. The physical world is meant to be a place or site for the Creator’s glory or beauty to manifest. The body is meant to contain the soul, allowing it to act in this world; the spiritual must act through the physical. What is perceived as the dual world contains within it the Ultimate Oneness, but concealed, and it is the ‘unconcealing’ of this Oneness that is what is referred to as the revealing of Truth, though Truth itself is the process of the revealing itself. In this process, the revealing itself is not activated by the will of human beings i.e., it is not a part of human judgement as to its Truth. The Beth is the tool, the source of all building, containing and then bringing forth all the other letters, but Alef is the source of all the letters in their particularities. Thus, where Alef crosses the horizontal path of Mem-Shin, The Logos comes into being that is the world of words and numbering and Beth ‘builds’ this world into a ‘house’ which the Logos then makes a ‘home’.
The text of “The 32 Paths of Wisdom” uses the words “consciousness” and “intelligence” when describing or discussing the paths of the Tree of Life, but I think a better word to use would be the Greek Logos which signifies letter, number and word or the three “texts” of the Sefer Yetzirah: text (Sefer), number (Sephar) and communication (Sippur). So, if we look at the first two paths, we have the “concealed logos” and its contrary the “illuminating logos”. Sephirot #2, Chokmah, the “unlimited”, which is associated with darkness and gloom, can only be “illuminated” through logos, through the presence of word, number. The Word unites the unlimited with the limited and can do so only with the Light that is Keter. This light illuminates all that is below it on the Tree of Life. The light is Keter and it “crowns” the world of Beriyah or the creation from “no-thing”. It is the Light that is the “splendour” or the “shining” of the unity of created things, the Beauty of the world. In Greek this was called nous, the Mind, Consciousness or the Intelligence which is illuminated by Love.
1 + 2 + 3 = 6 or the Sephirot Tiferet. In Hebrew, Tiferet is “son” as well as its designation as Beauty by the Kabbalists. I see in these the unity of Christ and Eros, whose wife is Psyche or the Soul, the “most beautiful of mortals”. (Christ calls Himself the “bridegroom” which signifies that our soul (Psyche) is the “bride”; but all that is Other, the creation itself, is also the Bride. Israel, as understood by the Kabbalists, is the whole of creation, not simply the ‘state of Israel’ as it is known today, and Israel is the Bride.) When the created world is “illuminated” through light, our proper response to it is Love. God is perpetually offering His friendship to us in the form of the beauty of the world and the proper response to this offer of friendship is Love. The Beauty of the world is the covenant of God. This is the covenant of the Voice Spiritual. From this covenant, Faith is born. The rainbow of the story of Noah is but a particular example of the covenant that is the Beauty of the World.
When we view the Tree of Life, the right-hand side is considered Masculine while the left-hand side is considered Feminine. This is puzzling as The High Priestess is most certainly associated with water and “the seas” and she is feminine, while The Magician appears to be primarily associated with fire and the “primal energy” (the will, the ‘spirited’ part of the soul) and is masculine. This is why I would place The Fool and The Magician together as 0-1 and 1-0 respectively. The “illuminating logos” is the air as the medium that brings together fire and water in order to bring about the “work” that is the physical creation itself. The air is the medium for the Light and is the Judgement.
It is through the placing of limits upon the unlimited that things can “appear” for us. These limits are in the form of boundaries and what we mean by the “de-finition” of things, what the things are in their “whatness”. What things are comes about through their “measuring”, their “change” in their form of movement in time and space, and their naming. Both space and time are prerequisites for created things and they make possible our knowledge of number and language. Number and language itself are prior to the world of material things, and they make possible that world. God creates the world through speaking, through the Word. It is the Word that makes possible the placement, arresting, and measuring in space of the created things.
The Greek word techne relates both to the skills of the craftsperson and to the arts of the mind. (The god Hephaestus in Greek myth is married to the goddess of Beauty, Aphrodite in one version.) These skills and knowledge are related to the universe of Yetzirah, the world of formation. This “making” has a poietic nature as it brings something forth; it is a ‘procreation’ i.e., it is a modality of aletheuein, (unveiling), the “revealing” of truth. This is the most relevant aspect of techne rather than the manufacturing or making of something. The revealing of truth is the revelation of the beautiful, and the proper human response to it is love. This knowing and making involves a most difficult conundrum.
A great danger presents itself in the perception of the world as ‘imperfect’. Technology arose from out of the spirit of charity and the perception of the injustice of Necessity. The created world was perceived as ‘imperfect’, requiring human action in order to bring it to completion. The world needed to be changed. This is the will to power of The Magician card. This interpretation prevails in both the Hebrew and “Christian” interpretations of the Sefer Yetzirah. The good of something is its ‘usefulness’, its ‘fittingness’, its ‘aptness’. This has led to our perception of the world as ‘resource’, where everything is on standby for our use for some end that we through our wills have devised, since the created world would have no end in and for itself. Is the place of human beings in the world that of a ‘perfector’ of Nature or that of a shepherd or gardener whose primary mode of being is care and concern for that which is Other than ourselves?
Perhaps a better word for “intelligence” in these paths is “knowledge of” or “awareness of”. The Sephirot Tiferet is the focal point or the “height” of the emanations from all the other Sephirot with the exception of Malkhut. The Sephirot Malkhut is in the “depths” or the furthest distance from the light. A “path” is a way to reach a destination. With a path, the way has already been cleared beforehand. Here, the knowledge of the “mediating influence” is the knowledge of that which “yokes” things together and brings them into a relation; and what yokes or joins things together in the created world is Love. The Mediating Intelligence is required for the bonding together of the Radical Intelligence of Gevurah and the Receptacle Intelligence of Chesed.
The 14th Path: The Illuminating Intelligence (Consciousness)
14. Illuminating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Meir): It is called this because it is the essence of the speaking silence (Chashmal). It gives instructions regarding the mystery of the holy secrets and their structure.
The Fourteenth Path is the Illuminating Intelligence, and is so called because it is itself that CHASHMAL which is the founder of the concealed and fundamental ideas of holiness and of their stages of preparation.
Alt. Trans. “The fourteenth path is called the luminous consciousness because it is the essence of the Chashmal [“speaking silence”] which is the instructor in the secret foundations of holiness and their stages of preparation.”
Wescott trans. The Fourteenth Path is the Illuminating Intelligence and is so called because it is that Chashmal which is the founder of the concealed and fundamental ideas of holiness and of their stages of preparation.
Case trans. The fourteenth path (Dalet joining Chokmah to Binah) is called the Luminous Intelligence, because it is the essence of that Chashmal which is the instructor in the secret foundations of holiness and perfection.
Mem (Alef) Shin Path 14: The Illuminating Intellect: “Illuminating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Meir): It is called this because it is the essence of the speaking silence (Chashmal). It gives instructions regarding the mystery of the holy secrets and their structure.”
Mem (Alef) Shin — “and Elohim hovered over the face of the waters.” 1:2
Mem (Alef) Shin and the 14th Path
Path 14, The Illuminating Intelligence, is related to the Radiant Intelligence Path #2 and the Sanctifying Intelligence Path #3 that is the crossover path of Chakmah to Binah. The “illumination” or “that which brings to presence” is either the light from Keter through Alef in its descent to Tiferet, or the light of the fire of Shin as it crosses over from Binah to Chokmah. Shin relates to reason and the head, while Alef relates to love and the heart. Both possibilities are present and both offer two faces of both Logos and Eros. These differing ways of viewing the world determine how the physical beings of Chesed will come to be determined for us. Both forms of light are present for us to illuminate the various worlds in which we live, and this illumination is our understanding of that world. One is the light of the Sun which is associated with Tiferet, and another is the reflected light of the Moon which is represented by Chakmah.
Elohim’s ‘hovering over the face of the waters’ is the beauty of the outward appearance of things (‘the face’) and is an indication of the parousia (the being-alongside) of the Divine in His creation, and it is an indication of how we should be in the world i.e., contemplating the things of the world as presence-at-hand, ‘hovering over’ and before them. ‘The waters’ are those of the heavens and of the earth before they are both brought together and separated by air Alef. It is at this point that Beth is established and the alphabet begins. With the alphabet, the Word and the world become manifest.
The “illuminating intelligence” gives to its receiver the ability to ‘unveil’ the hidden holy secrets of the Divine essence of things i.e., to reveal Truth. It is a method or methodology, and this method or methodology maybe Love or it may be reason. The covenant of God shown in the Beauty of the World gives the instructions that the revelation of Truth is to be done through Love, through the imitation of God Himself, by a withdrawal and contemplation of the things that are. It appears that we have made a great error in considering ourselves as human beings to be co-creators with God for, historically, this has led us to believe that we can dispense with God and can rely on our own will to power for our own empowerment or expansion. We have historically referred to this period in our history as The Age of Humanism which occurs roughly at the same time as the writing of the text of “The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom”, so we can say that the text is a post-medieval text.
The Fourteenth Path, the Illuminating Intelligence, can also be understood as the intelligence derived from the borrowed light of Malkhut. It is the intelligence present in the cave of Plato’s allegory. In the Cave, there are two sources of light present: the light of the Sun from outside of the Cave which is dimly present (which we are calling here the Light of Keter); and the light of the fire made by the technites (the Magi) to show the shadows of the things that are upon the walls of the Cave to the prisoners within the Cave. In The Magician card shown here, the light is a reflected light from off of the wall behind him. This is indicated by his being partially encircled by an inverted Beth.
The knowledge that human beings take pride in is of their own ability to understand and make things. It is a knowledge that “conceals” the true essence of the sacred or the truth of things, and deters one from understanding the sacred or even acknowledging the sacred. It is a “false light” because it is primarily a human-made light (like the fire inside of the Cave of Plato, like the light inside The Hermit’s #9 lamp in the Tarot card). Human beings, through the power of their “formative” thinking, can close themselves off from the true essence of things (the significance of the closed Mem). This kind of thinking is representative of those who have chosen to remain satisfied with the “shadows” of the things that are rather than seek for the “holiness” of their true essence. It is here that sin primarily occurs for we are tempted or tested to follow the false light believing that the outcomes of the journey by the light of it will result in the “goods” that become our ultimate goal. As has been mentioned previously, the root of all sin is the sin against the Light. We could also rephrase the cliche that “Power is the root of all evil.”
This sin against the Light is the mistaking of what is the Law of Necessity for the Good. The borrowed light of Malkhut illuminates the world of Necessity, the world of Time and Space, of seasons, years and days, and the ‘firmament’ that is the realm of space or the heavens. Necessity is mathematically structured and subject to an inevitable order i.e. it is ruled by the Logos. The revolutions of the heavenly bodies are “whorls” (gyres) which produce the “music” of the cosmos, what we call ‘the music of the spheres’. The spindle of Necessity (see The Chariot #7 of the Tarot) moves with the Three Fates to determine the astral movements and the destinies of individuals (The Star #17 card). There are two primary luminaries in the heavens and they are the Sun and Moon. It appears that one may follow the illumination provided by the Sun (found in Tiferet) or one may follow the illumination provided by the Moon (found in Chakmah), and these are represented by The Strength #11 and The High Priestess #2 respectively in the Tarot.
“Holy” means “perfect, pure”, “set apart from defilement.” The Hebrew word means “separate”, and this designates the chasm separating the Divine from creation, the chasm separating the Necessary from the Good. The “speaking silence” is much like the word Aum or Om: it begins in “openness”, goes into “hiddenness”, begins with an “in-spiring of breath” and ends in silence. Music is analogous to it, but all forms of hearing are related to it. The translation of Chashmal is “brilliant flame” (fire) which, combined with air and water, produces earth. From this, or prior to this, the Law of Necessity determines the form of everything, be it “potential” (dynamis) or “actual” (energeia). All of what we call knowledge is rooted in and descends from our understanding of the Law of Necessity. The Kabbalistic speech (logos) employs the Law of Necessity; all our actions reflect the laws of Necessity. Only the infinite iota or Yod of the soul is that which is not touched by the Law of Necessity.
If the ten Sephirot are assigned the first ten paths and the one letter of Alef, the 11th path or the Scintillating Intelligence must be assigned the letter Beth indicating the beginning of the alefbeth and the beginning of the manifestation of the Word. The letter Beth means ‘house’ or ‘container’. The human body and the physical universe are both seen as ‘containers’ of the Divine Soul. In the Beth shown here, the outer shape encloses the Yod in the centre. In the Tarot deck illustrated here, The Magician is assigned the letter Beth, but as is shown in the card, the letter is reversed; Nature or the physical universe is seen in a mirror, reversed. Strength #11 is the proper placement of the letter Beth.
Keter and Alef must cross the horizontal path of Mem and Shin before the ‘container’ of the visible and physical can come into being. It is from the first three elements that the Otherness of Earth is created. Within the created universe, the physical universe, Space, the Sephirot Chokmah, is the “container” of the Whole, and the letter Beth signifies both the “house” of the Creator (the form) and the “home” that is His creation (substance). The “open region” or the “receptacular” must first be present in order for the thing that is to come to be can come to presence. There must be a site for it, a place. The letter Beth indicates this ‘site’. The site is established by the downward movement of Keter to Tiferet. In this crossing over, the Word is made flesh or corporeal.
If the first path of Alef instructs or brings awareness to the intelligence of that which cannot be known, the Mystical Consciousness, of that which is “hidden” and beyond the intelligence itself, the second path is the beginning of the possibility of knowledge of that which can be known, what is “illuminated” and “radiant”, that which “shines”. Alef illuminates the gloom of Mem: : “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”(Gen: 1:2) Human thought mirrors this activity of God when in contemplation, reflection or prayer: it is a ‘hovering over the face’ or the ‘outward appearance’ of the being of Otherness.
Both Mem and Shin meet Alef in the first horizontal movement, crossroad, or path on the Tree of Life so that they share in The Sanctifying Intelligence of the third path as well as The Radiant Intelligence of the second path. With this illuminated, radiant, sanctified intelligence, we come to the manifestation of the logos in the alefbeth and through it, the possibility of “understanding” and discoursing about the world around us. There is an indication here that the naming of things is a ‘holy act’ and that language itself is ‘holy’; but before things can be named, they must first be ‘measured’ and ‘arrested’ or brought to a stand. From this bringing to a stand comes our ‘under-standing’ or what is termed Binah on the Tree of Life.
Beth is the 2nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet, signifying the number two, or 1+1. The letter itself has two components. If Keter is the Father, number one, then Beth is the Son, number two, and Mem and Shin are the Holy Spirit or water and fire, number three (and four?). The first letter of the story of creation is Beth, starting the entire Torah/Bible – ברא בראשית “in the beginning”. Some commentators suggest that the first letter of the Bible is Alef so that the initial phrase is “Elohim in the beginning created…” rather than Beth which is “God in the beginning created…” This is significant as Elohim is plural and indicative of the Trinity while God is singular and indicative of the One. Vastly different interpretations arise when one chooses either to see the Creator as a One or as a Trinity (Elohim).
Beth represents the beginning of the appearance of duality, with the One Creator bringing forth a created world, so that there can be both a giver (the Creator) and a receiver (the created world) for the Creator to bestow His Love and Grace upon. This creates the illusion that the creation is an “expansion” of God rather than a “withdrawal” of God, and it has prompted the dual version of the whole, one such interpretation being that of Plato where the world is divided into the worlds of Being and Becoming. Since God is All from the beginning, He would not need nor would it be possible to “expand”. Instead, He would “withdraw” to allow something to be other than Himself; and yet at the same time, that which is created is not other than Himself since He is All.
With the act of withdrawal, deprivations are created, not opposites. Creation is the deprival of the Divine, of the sense and experience of the One. Man and woman are not opposites: man is deprived of the ability to give birth to another human being and can only be a secondary agent in the process of ‘procreation’. When one speaks of “deprivals”, one is speaking of a hierarchy of things and a distinction between primary and secondary agencies.
Beth’s literal meaning and form denote a house, and it represents the universal concept of a container or vessel. Thus, the created world is meant to house within it the spiritual. It is the container of the world of Beriyah. It is the bringing together of the ‘Sterile Mother’, or The High Priestess #2 of the Tarot with the ‘Fruitful Mother’ or The Empress #3. It is important to see the connections between those letters that are designated as “containers”. The physical world is meant to be a place for the Creator’s glory or beauty to manifest. The body is meant to contain the soul, allowing it to act in this world; the spiritual must act through the physical.
What is perceived as the dual world contains within it the Ultimate Oneness, but concealed, and it is the ‘unconcealing’ of this Oneness that is what is referred to as the revealing of Truth, though Truth itself is the process of the revealing itself. In this process, the revealing itself is not activated by the will of human beings i.e., it is not a part of human judgement as to its Truth. The Beth is the tool, the source of all building, containing and then the bringing forth of all the other letters, but Alef is the source of all the letters in their particularities. Thus, where Alef crosses the horizontal path of Mem-Shin, The Logos comes into being that is the world of words and numbering and Beth ‘builds’ this world into a ‘house’ which the Logos then makes a ‘home’.
The table below summarizes the contents of this post:
| Card | Path | Letter | Meaning | Symbol |
| 0: The Fool | Keter (Crown) 1. Mystical Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Mufla): This is the Light that was originally conceived, and it is the First Glory (“Let there be light”). No creature can attain its excellence. | Alef א | Ox (the yoking together; the uniting; the bringing into a relationship of harmony). The friendship that is the Trinity of the Triune God. The Mystical Intelligence: that which the intellect knows it cannot know. It is the Good, the true Perfection. | Air is the Breath of Life and allows Fire to be. The Fool begins his journey at the bottom of the Tree of Life. If at the top, then his journey is a ‘fall’ and he is further removed from the Divine. |
| 3: The Empress | Keter (Crown) / Binah (Understanding) 3.Sanctified Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel MeKudash): This is the foundation of the Original Wisdom and it is called “Faithful Faith”. Its roots are AMeN. It is the Father of Faith, and from its power faith emerges. | Alef/ Shin ש א | Fire is related to the head (logistikon), air to the heart (‘spiritedness’), water to the appetites. Fire rises upward and is to be found on the left side of the Tree of Life. 3. The Sanctifying Intelligence: the foundation of wisdom; that which separates the sacred and profane. Diaretic thought. “Amen”: “So be it” indicates either an act of will or a submission to the Divine Will. From Binah comes the understanding of the Law of Necessity. | The Fire or Primal Energy or Dynamis (possibility/ potentiality). The possibility of “world”. The Limit placed on the Unlimited. This is possible because of the Logos, word and number. The naming of things. Time. The giving of shape to water. The bower surrounding the Magician illustrated is a mirrored or reversed Beth. Shin is the element necessary for the world of Yetzirah or Formation, “the making of some thing from some thing”. |
| 2: The High Priestess | Keter/ Chokmah (Wisdom) 2. Radiant Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Maz’hir): This is the Crown of creation and the radiance of the homogeneous unity that “exalts itself above all as the Head”. The Masters of the Kabbalah call it the “Second Glory”. The Illuminating/ Radiant Intelligence: the epiphanic illumination of truth; the shining intellect. With The Fire or Primal Energy or Dynamis (possibility/ potentiality). The possibility of “world” and its ‘whorling’. | Alef/ Mem מ א | Water Is the movement downwards and denotes the appetites and desires which are based on the physical manifestation of the creation. The lower eros attaches itself to the physical. | Lifting up, the Unlimited (education or the “leading out”; the goal of the 7 Pillars of Wisdom) The Incarnation as the destiny for human beings or of human beings The ironic association with water? Space. |
| 11: Strength (I do not consider Strength to be #8 but rather Justice; the symbol of the snake is related to knowledge, the serpent) | Keter/Tiferet (Beauty) 11. The Scintillating Intelligence: the manifestation of the created worlds. Love/ Knowledge/ Understanding/ Wisdom. 10. Scintillating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel MitNotzetz): It is called this because it elevates itself and sits on the throne of Understanding. It shines with the radiance of all the luminaries and it bestows an influx of increase to the Prince of Face(s). | Alef/ Beth ב | House, Temple (Formation); the arrangement of things; the mathematical projection of things which makes the ready-to-hand possible. Camel The beast of burden that produces a work? The combination suggests the triad of Alef, Mem, Beth | Temple, Attention, Contemplation, Prayer The topos or place where world can occur for human beings. The place of grace. Whereas The Magician uses the power to produce a work, the Strength card is that power itself. Tiferet is prior to the Understanding of Binah and this is illustrated by the many connections between The Magician and the Strength card. |
| The High Priestess/The Empress | Alef/Mem/Shin The First Crossover Path 14. Illuminating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Meir): It is called this because it is the essence of the speaking silence (Chashmal). It gives instructions regarding the mystery of the holy secrets and their structure. | א מ ש | The Cross of Creation. The handle of the mirror of Venus, the glass of which is the light of Keter. ♀ The ‘speaking silence’ of God is His covenant through the Beauty of the World whose instructions are to be compassionate, merciful, and kind. Through Love, the mysteries of the holy secrets and their structure is revealed. | The Logos of Being through which all things are made. The ‘gloom of Chokmah’ is made radiant by the light of Tiferet, the light of the Sun. The light of Chokmah itself is the ‘reflected light’ of the Moon. The crossover path determines the final re-birth through Grace. |
Theory of Knowledge: An Alternative Approach 