Afterword to the Commentaries on the Sefer Yetzirah and “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”

Some Notes on Republic, Symposium and Phaedrus and Their Relation to the Texts

Bk VI 505e: “(The Good is) what every soul seeks, the motive of all its actions, whose importance is sensed, but the soul, being at a loss, is unable to completely grasp its essence. Thus, concerning the good, the soul cannot have a firm belief as it has about everything else. This is the reason why the soul lacks other things also, and the usefulness which they may have.”

The Sefer Yetzirah, or Book of Formation appears to rely on the ideas and concepts of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the geometry and numerology of the Pythagoreans which its writers most likely discovered in the discussions with the Neo-Platonists, Stoics, and the early Hebrew Kabbalists. The Hebrew Kabbalists used this knowledge to understand its own esoteric interpretation of the Torah. Both Plato and the Sefir Yetzirah compare the love of the good which is always in us, to the power of sight; and the revelation of good is compared to “light” or “sunlight”. From this concept of the good as light or sunlight, the metaphorical description of the manner in which the soul is urged to pursue a particular path (such as are described in “the paths of wisdom”) is rooted. We find these metaphorical expressions in the Sephirot Netzach (Splendour) and in the Tarot card The Chariot #7. They refer to what “human excellence” is, what the completion of the human being should be.

Bk VII 518b: “The instruction (education) (of the soul) is not what some declare it to be. For they affirm that knowledge, not being in the soul, they will put it there, as if one might put sight into blind eyes. Whereas the theory which I will expound teaches that the faculty of understanding, and the organs of the faculty, is innate in the soul of each one. But it is as if one were unable to turn one’s eye towards the light, away from the darkness, without turning the whole body. Likewise, it is with the whole soul that one must turn oneself from what is becoming (temporal) until the soul becomes strong enough to endure the contemplation of reality, and all that is most luminous in that reality; which we have already declared to be the good.

The art of the turning around of the soul consists in this, that it is the easiest and most efficient method of bringing someone to turn around. This is quite a different thing from a method for putting sight into the soul, which we know it already has. But that sight is not well-directed, and it does not look where it should. It is this that the soul must find a means to learn.“

Many commentaries on the Sefir Yetzirah equate the soul with the “personal self” or “ego”, the “personality”, the individual, but it is these aspects of human beings that are precisely those that indicate human beings’ “deprivation” or “absence” of the good and are at the root of the “urges” to discover the good or to fulfill those “needs” that human beings constantly feel. What is called “egoism” is a defect of perspective, a defect in the viewing or sight. How an individual views the world, how they perceive the arrangement of the world from the point where they are in time and space, determines for them what they will consider to be the good or evil of things. The murders of the six million that took place during the Shoah or Holocaust during WW2 hardly alters the order of the world as they perceive it, but if a colleague should get a slight raise in pay while they do not, or a fellow receives an “A” when they have been given a “B”, then the order of their world is turned upside down for them! This is not egoism or “love of self” but an indication that human beings as finite beings only apply the idea of a legitimate order to the immediate domains of their hearts.

As is indicated in 7^th Sephirot Netzach, (and in the Chariot card #7 in the Tarot, as well as in Bk VII of Plato’s Republic), the individual human being has the power of choice of transposing their heart to where their treasure is. (For as Christ said: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”. Matt: 6:21). We see human beings who are absolutely devoted to another human being, to a wife, a child, to a party, to a nation, to whatever collectivity, to no matter which cause. This is not “egoism” or “love of self”. This is part of the erroneous perspective to which both Plato and the Sefer Yetzirah refer. The “treasure” has been misplaced. This is not to say that the things mentioned above are not “good”; it is to say that they are not The Good. The reason why there are only a few saints and philosophers is that ordinary human beings find it impossible to give up a “love of one’s own” for a love of the Good.

The Great Beast of Bk VI of Republic (or the Devil card which I have numbered #16 of the Tarot) is human society and any collectivity contained within that society. The Beast’s likes and dislikes are studied and assembled into treatises on virtue (human excellence) and morality by the human beings who have charge in caring for him (The Hierophant card #5 in Tarot is the caretaker of the Beast in whatever form he manifests himself). What the Beast approves is good; what it disapproves of is evil. In the tradition, the Beast has been called the Anti-Christ, but we may gather a sense of the Beast’s possible greater impact if we refer to it as “the Anti-Eros”, for there is something definitely anti-erotic in our will to technological mastery of the world, a will that will ultimately lead to the loss of Eros and of something essential to our being as human beings. That which the Beast thinks is just and beautiful are those things that are necessary (the connection between power and force) being incapable of seeing or showing others to what degree the essence of the necessary differs from that of the good. For both Plato and the Sefer Yetzirah, to perceive the true morality requires the intervention of a god:

Bk VI 492e: “For a character (“person”, “individual”) receiving an education contrary to theirs does not, has not, and will not become differently disposed toward virtue, a human character that is, my friend, for the divine, according to the proverb, let’s make an exception to the argument. You should be well aware that, if anything should be saved and becomes such as it ought to be in regimes in this kind of condition, it won’t be bad if you say that a god’s dispensation saved it.”

We all choose for treasure those “values” that have their root in social prestige. The power that is rooted in social prestige is illusion; it is but “shadows”. This is why social prestige is the second temptation of Christ i.e., it is in the hands of the Devil, the Great Beast. (Luke 4:5-8)

“Then the devil took Him up and revealed to Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ‘I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,’ the devil said, ‘because they are mine to give to anyone I please. I will give it all to you if you will worship me.’ Jesus replied, ‘The Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the LORD your God and serve only Him.’” The root of the second temptation is the desire or “urge” for social prestige. The shadows on the wall of the Cave are provided by the technites who produce them. The technites are the leaders of the social institutions, the caretakers and tenders of the Great Beast.

There is a difference between illusion and convention. Conventions have a reality of a secondary and artificial order in both Plato and the Sefer Yetzirah. It is convention, for example, which provides the “good” of the office of the Presidency of the USA, but it is also convention which results in the error of Capitol being referred to as a “sacred chamber”. There is, of course, nothing “sacred” about it as the corruption, immorality and injustice of its members provide evidence regarding this every day. In all human institutions (indicated in the Sefer Yetzirah under the pillar of Boaz), there are images of the spiritual world of Atzilut and Beriyah but these “representations”, these various types of ‘clothing’ and models, derive their power from the prestige associated with them.

The desire for prestige, whether recognized or not, is at the bottom of most of our “urges”, including those we may have for other human beings. It is the desire for recognition and prestige which is at the heart of religious fundamentalism, political fanaticism such as “nationalist” movements, and the popularity of our social media. This urge in human beings for social prestige is why Plato compared statesmanship to “legislating for a madhouse”.

The beauty that shows forth as social prestige is a false beauty and it is associated with the “kingdom” that is Malkhut in the 10^th Sephirot. It is a beauty ruled over by the Devil #16. It is the “reflected light” of the Moon and not the true light of The Sun that is in Tiferet #6. Malkhut is the only Sephirot on the Tree of Life that is not in a relation to or touched by Tiferet. Plato knew that real and perfect Justice must be without social prestige. A person who is persecuted and criminally charged for their loyalty to a cause, to a collectivity, to an idea, or to a faith for national, political or religious reasons, does not undergo a total loss of prestige, and in some cases are transformed into martyrs and heroes for their causes or beliefs. All of these things and events are ruled over by Necessity and illusion.

When the Sefir Yetzirah speaks of the “assimilation” of the individual soul into the Divine Soul, or into the various Sephirot, this assimilation should be understood in a Pythagorean sense i.e., it is an assimilation understood as “resemblance”. We may compare it with two different maps with two different scales wherein the distances are different but the relationships are identical. “Assimilation” is a geometrical term which refers to the identity of relationships, to proportion. Assimilation into the Divine is one of proportion. No proportion is possible between human beings and the Divine except by mediation. The perfectly just man that is Tiferet #6 is the mediator between the “righteous” and the Divine.

The rupture that is present between appearance and reality is the experience of the “absence” or deprivation of the Good or the Divine. Because we are beings in bodies, assimilation to the Divine is prevented or hindered by our choosing of those “treasures” that are false. True vision is only possible through the intervention of the Divine through Grace. We ourselves are incapable of merely “gazing” and not “consuming” that which we gaze upon. It is most difficult for us to give up the common sense ‘love of our own’ for the higher perfection.

In the Sefer Yetzirah, the Sephirot Yesod #9 is the “foundation” for what we refer to as “carnal love”. The desire or urge for reproduction is what is most indestructible in animal life; we call it the “survival of the species”. The desire for eternity (immortality) in us goes first to this error of the material image of eternity. The urge for carnal procreation is aroused by beauty. Today, we have separated sexuality and procreation from the desire for children, the desire for immortality (or what we see as our best and only option for an image of immortality), and we view sexuality as the enjoyment of the pleasure of the moment. This separation of sexuality from procreation places us on an abyss poised above the very gates of hell itself. Correspondingly, spiritual beauty excites a desire or urge for spiritual generation. Thus, love is the source of virtues, understandings, and works of the spirit. (This is its association with the Sephirot Binah.) Love is the source of “world”. However, in the world today there is a great gap separating that thinking where the intelligence is illuminated by love. This gap is shown where reason is that thinking that is supposed to illuminate the world before us. This is the interchange of Logos and Eros.

Symposium 211b – 212b “He who undertakes the contemplation of this beauty has very nearly attained to perfection…he knows at last what beauty is. Do you believe that the life of a man who searches into such a matter, who uses the appropriate organ to contemplate and to unite himself with it, can be mediocre? Consider this, what we have here is the only being who sees the beautiful with that faculty capable of seeing it. To him it will be given to beget, not sham virtues, for he has not laid hold upon a phantom, but real virtues, because he has laid hold on the real. And in creating and nourishing true virtue, it is accorded to him to be the friend of the god; and if ever a man become immortal, that man will become so. In this work it would be difficult for human nature to find a better collaborator than Love.”

In the Sefer Yetzirah as in Plato’s Symposium and Bk VII of Republic (and with card #7 The Chariot in the Tarot), we are dealing with the spiritual marriage of the soul with the beautiful, by the grace of which the soul truly begets virtues, or that which is excellent in human beings. The Beautiful is not a predicate of any thing, nor a category or an attribute. It is subject itself. With Chakmah and Binah, the beautiful “is itself, by itself, with itself” and is thus the parousia which represents two relationships within a unity. The Beautiful is the arche (the first principle), the aitia (that which is responsible for) and telos (the place or site) for the being that is finite i.e., human being.

The Symposium is a dialogue composed of seven parts, each part representing an ascent to a higher level which, ultimately, collapses with the entrance of a drunken Alcibiades, that most passionate and imprudent of human beings. It is a dialogue which is being told for the third time and relies very heavily on Memory as none of those “present” in the dialogue were actually at the symposium or banquet itself. On the second telling, the person receiving the dialogue is Glaucon, Plato’s brother, who also receives from Socrates the dialogue that is present in Bk VII of Republic. Both dialogues are from the time of the 4^th century BCE, three centuries prior to what the scholars agree was the time of the writing of the Sefer Yetzirah.

In both Plato and the Sefer Yetzirah, he who contemplates Beauty itself has almost reached the goal. In the allegory of the Cave, the object of contemplation immediately before the Sun is the Moon. Prior to this, the light from the fire of the artisans and the technicians is that through which things are dimly seen. The Moon is the “reflected light” of the Sun; and in the Sefer Yetzirah, it is the “reflected light” of the kingdom of Malkhut. The Sun is the Good; the Moon is associated with the beautiful. Tiferet #6 is the supreme beauty; Netzach is where is found the lower forms of the beautiful. (The Moon: the myth of Osiris, a bull whose horns are the shape of a crescent moon [the High Priestess Tarot card #2, Isis, the bride of Osiris]. Osiris’ body is divided into 14 parts, the number of days separating the full moon from the new moon. Isis gathers and assembles 13 of these, the number of lunar months in the year. Isis = Demeter, Chakmah to Binah, the mother goddess of the Earth. The ascent must go via the Moon.)

Absolute beauty is seen with “supernatural” sight. After a long spiritual preparation (which is the journey through the Tree of Life), one has access to it by a revelation, a “rending of the veil” that is drawn over the beautiful things that come into being and pass away. It is in the Sephirot Netzach that one finds the veil drawn over things. The Love that is supernatural Love allows one to place one’s “treasure” and heart beyond the reach of all evil. No evil does harm to the Good. The order of the stages or paths enumerated by Plato: from sensible beauty to the beauty of souls i.e., moral beauty, the splendour of virtue (note the paths that speak of the “splendour” in “The 32 Paths of Wisdom”). We praise actions that touch us with “That is beautiful” which indicates the relation of the beautiful with the just. Virtue only touches us insofar as it is beautiful. How are these two analogous? i.e., social institutions and necessity; social relations and harmony? The Pythagorean idea of harmony as the union of contraries: the combination of that which limits (Binah) and that which is unlimited (Chakmah). Pythagorean geometry is a method of meditation and prayer.

For Plato, we are capable of seeing the Beautiful Itself here below. It is accessible to the human senses. The beautiful is made manifest to the human senses through the beauty of the world. The beauty of the world is the Divine’s own beauty just as the beauty of the body of a human being is the beauty that belongs to that being. Our “absence” that we experience as human beings is that we are incapable of distinguishing between “gazing upon” and “consuming”, and in our desire to possess through consumption, we commit sin.

*This long excerpt below from Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus shows the process of initiation in the individual soul. From it, one can see the teaching of the Sefer Yetzirah and “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom” and their relation to the Tarot.

Phaedrus 246e – 250d Now the great leader in heaven, Zeus, driving a winged chariot, goes first, arranging all things and caring for all things. He is followed by an army of gods and spirits, arrayed in eleven squadrons; Hestia alone remains in the house of the gods. Of the rest, those who are included among the twelve great gods and are accounted leaders, are assigned each to his place in the army.

There are many blessed sights and many ways hither and thither within the heaven, along which the blessed gods go to and fro attending each to his own duties; and whoever wishes, and is able, follows, for jealousy is excluded from the celestial band. But when they go to a feast and a banquet, [247b] they proceed steeply upward to the top of the vault of heaven, where the chariots of the gods, whose well matched horses obey the rein, advance easily, but the others with difficulty; for the horse of evil nature weighs the chariot down, making it heavy and pulling toward the earth the charioteer whose horse is not well trained. There the utmost toil and struggle await the soul.

For those that are called immortal, when they reach the top, [247c] pass outside and take their place on the outer surface of the heaven, and when they have taken their stand, the revolution carries them round and they behold the things outside of the heaven. But the region above the heaven was never worthily sung by any earthly poet, nor will it ever be. It is, however, as I shall tell; for I must dare to speak the truth, especially as truth is my theme. For the colorless, formless, and intangible truly existing essence, with which all true knowledge is concerned, holds this region [247d] and is visible only to the mind, the pilot of the soul.

Now the divine intelligence, since it is nurtured on mind and pure knowledge, and the intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving that which befits it, rejoices in seeing reality for a space of time and by gazing upon truth is nourished and made happy until the revolution brings it again to the same place. In the revolution it beholds absolute justice, temperance, and knowledge, not such knowledge as has a beginning and varies as it is associated with one [247e] or another of the things we call realities, but that which abides in the real eternal absolute; and in the same way it beholds and feeds upon the other eternal verities, after which, passing down again within the heaven, it goes home, and there the charioteer puts up the horses at the manger and feeds them with ambrosia and then gives them nectar to drink.

Such is the life of the gods; but of the other souls, [248a] that which best follows after the God and is most like him, raises the head of the charioteer up into the outer region and is carried round in the revolution, troubled by the horses and hardly beholding the realities; and another sometimes rises and sometimes sinks, and, because its horses are unruly, it sees some things and fails to see others. The other souls follow after, all yearning for the upper region but unable to reach it, and are carried round beneath, [248b] trampling upon and colliding with one another, each striving to pass its neighbor. So there is the greatest confusion and sweat of rivalry, wherein many are lamed, and many wings are broken through the incompetence of the drivers; and after much toil they all go away without gaining a view of reality, and when they have gone away they feed upon opinion.

But the reason of the great eagerness to see where the plain of truth is, lies in the fact that the fitting pasturage for the best part of the soul is in the meadow there, and the wing [248c] on which the soul is raised up is nourished by this. And this is a law of Destiny, that the soul which follows after God and obtains a view of any of the truths is free from harm until the next period, and if it can always attain this, is always unharmed; but when, through inability to follow, it fails to see, and through some mischance is filled with forgetfulness and evil and grows heavy, and when it has grown heavy, loses its wings and falls to the earth, then it is the law that this soul [248d] shall never pass into any beast at its first birth, but the soul that has seen the most shall enter into the birth of a man who is to be a philosopher or a lover of beauty, or one of a musical or loving nature, and the second soul into that of a lawful king or a warlike ruler, and the third into that of a politician or a man of business or a financier, the fourth into that of a hardworking gymnast or one who will be concerned with the cure of the body, and the fifth [248e] will lead the life of a prophet or some one who conducts mystic rites; to the sixth, a poet or some other imitative artist will be united, to the seventh, a craftsman or a husbandman, to the eighth, a sophist or a demagogue, to the ninth, a tyrant.

Now in all these states, whoever lives justly obtains a better lot, and whoever lives unjustly, a worse. For each soul returns to the place whence it came in ten thousand years; for it does not [249a] regain its wings before that time has elapsed, except the soul of him who has been a guileless philosopher or a philosophical lover; these, when for three successive periods of a thousand years they have chosen such a life, after the third period of a thousand years become winged in the three thousandth year and go their way; but the rest, when they have finished their first life, receive judgment, and after the judgment some go to the places of correction under the earth and pay their penalty, while the others, [249b] made light and raised up into a heavenly place by justice, live in a manner worthy of the life they led in human form. But in the thousandth year both come to draw lots and choose their second life, each choosing whatever it wishes. Then a human soul may pass into the life of a beast, and a soul which was once human, may pass again from a beast into a man. For the soul which has never seen the truth can never pass into human form. For a human being must understand a general conception formed by collecting into a unity [249c] by means of reason the many perceptions of the senses; and this is a recollection of those things which our soul once beheld, when it journeyed with the God and, lifting its vision above the things which we now say exist, rose up into real being. And therefore, it is just that the mind of the philosopher only has wings, for he is always, so far as he is able, in communion through memory with those things the communion with which causes the God to be divine.

Now a man who employs such memories rightly is always being initiated into perfect mysteries and he alone becomes truly perfect; [249d] but since he separates himself from human interests and turns his attention toward the divine, he is rebuked by the vulgar, who consider him mad and do not know that he is inspired.

All my discourse so far has been about the fourth kind of madness, which causes him to be regarded as mad, who, when he sees the beauty on earth, remembering the true beauty, feels his wings growing and longs to stretch them for an upward flight, but cannot do so, and, like a bird, gazes upward and neglects the things below. [249e] My discourse has shown that this is, of all inspirations, the best and of the highest origin to him who has it or who shares in it, and that he who loves the beautiful, partaking in this madness, is called a lover. For, as has been said, every soul of man has by the law of nature beheld the realities, otherwise it would not have entered [250a] into a human being, but it is not easy for all souls to gain from earthly things a recollection of those realities, either for those which had but a brief view of them at that earlier time, or for those which, after falling to earth, were so unfortunate as to be turned toward unrighteousness through some evil communications and to have forgotten the holy sights they once saw. Few then are left which retain an adequate recollection of them; but these when they see here any likeness of the things of that other world, are stricken with amazement and can no longer control themselves; but they do not understand their condition, because they do not clearly perceive.

[250b] Now in the earthly copies of justice and temperance and the other ideas which are precious to souls there is no light, but only a few, approaching the images through the darkling organs of sense, behold in them the nature of that which they imitate, and these few do this with difficulty. But at that former time, they saw beauty shining in brightness, when, with a blessed company—we following in the train of Zeus, and others in that of some other god—they saw the blessed sight and vision and were initiated into that which is rightly called [250c] the most blessed of mysteries, which we celebrated in a state of perfection, when we were without experience of the evils which awaited us in the time to come, being permitted as initiates to the sight of perfect and simple and calm and happy apparitions, which we saw in the pure light, being ourselves pure and not entombed in this which we carry about with us and call the body, in which we are imprisoned like an oyster in its shell.

So much, then, in honor of memory, on account of which I have now spoken at some length, through yearning for the joys of that other time. But beauty, [250d] as I said before, shone in brilliance among those visions; and since we came to earth we have found it shining most clearly through the clearest of our senses; for sight is the sharpest of the physical senses, though wisdom is not seen by it, for wisdom would arouse terrible love, if such a clear image of it were granted as would come through sight, and the same is true of the other lovely realities; but beauty alone has this privilege, and therefore it is most clearly seen [250e] and loveliest.

Now he who is not newly initiated, or has been corrupted, does not quickly rise from this world to that other world and to absolute beauty when he sees its namesake here, and so he does not revere it when he looks upon it, but gives himself up to pleasure and like a beast proceeds to lust and begetting…

I will try to delve deeper into an attempt to understand the two-faced nature of Eros and of the Logos in another writing. To do so will help to distinguish between thought and thinking, to distinguish between rhetoric and dialectic, and so give some further insight into these writings that have come to us through the ages.

A Commentary on “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom” Chapter Ten

The Emanations to and from Malkhut

Path 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).

The Tenth Path is the Resplendent Intelligence, because it is exalted above every head, and sits on the throne of BINAH (the Intelligence spoken of in the Third Path). It illuminates the splendor of all lights, and causes a supply of influence to emanate from the Prince of Countenances.

Alt. Trans. “The tenth path is called the resplendent consciousness because it is exalted above every head and sits on the throne of Binah. It is illuminated with the splendour of all the lights and it causes an influence to flow forth from the Prince of Countenances.”

Wescott trans. The Tenth Path is the Resplendent Intelligence, because it is exalted above every head, and sits on the throne of Binah (the Intelligence spoken of in the Third Path). It illuminates the splendour of all the lights, and causes an influence to emanate from the Prince of Countenances (Metatron, the Intelligence of the First Sephira, and the reputed guide of Moses.)

Case trans. The tenth path (the tenth Sephirah, Malkhut) is called the Resplendent intelligence and is so because it is exalted above every head. and sits on the throne of Binah. It illuminates the splendour of all the lights, and causes the flowing forth of influence from the Prince of Countenances.

Genesis 1.10 And Elohim called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and Elohim saw that it was good.

The Tenth and Eleventh paths must be held together and viewed simultaneously for they represent both the presence and absence of the Good that human beings experience in their being. As the Eight path of Hod deals with “artistic consciousness” and the making of things from something else and bringing those things to completion, the Ninth path, Yesod, deals with “scientific consciousness” or “theoretical consciousness”, the principle of reason, the foundation of the design or plan, the “knowing” that allows the things to be brought forth into their truth. The Tenth path deals with the whole of our knowledge and understanding of the created world and combines both the influences of Hod and Yesod with the Sephirot of Malkhut. Malkhut and the tenth path are both an end and a beginning. Malkhut is referred to as ‘Kingdom’.

The “Prince of Countenances”, the Ain Sof, the Sephirot Tiferet (Metatron, an archangel who was reputed to be the guide of Moses in some commentaries) is the “beauty of the world” given to us in its outward appearance, its “countenance”, its “look”, and it is this beauty, this light, “which illuminates all lights” that are present in the “truths” that we discover of our world when we understand the essence of the Sephirot. Truth is One. This brings about the “supply of influence” or Love that emanates from the “Prince of Countenances” which illuminates all things through their beauty. He is Eros. When we refer to the beauty of things, we are not speaking of ‘aesthetics’, for aesthetics refers to objects and the objectification of things and to their viewing as objects. This is a sterile viewing. The experience of the beauty of the world is an erotic experience, for from it we experience the need and the longing for that which we lack which is the perfection with our union with the One.

Malkhut is the root of the central pillar of the Tree of Life and receives the light of Keter through the logos or letter of the Alef as it passes through the Beauty (Tiferet) and Foundation (Yesod) of the created worlds of Beriyah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. Malkhut is the only Sephirot not directly connected to Tiferet in some way. Nevertheless, it is indirectly connected. This indirect connection is through the ‘reflected light’ of the Moon that derives from the Sun.

Malkhut may be said to stand at or rest upon the boundary or as the boundary between the enumerated worlds of time and space, the throne of Binah (Beriyah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah), and the world prior to, or more primordial than these three, called Atzilut which is composed of Keter, Chalkmah and Binah. Chesed is that world that can be understood through numbers, the sequential world of cause and effect, past, present and future when we are viewing the creation side of the Tree of Life. Chesed and Gevurah represent the two poles that separate the contraries i.e. unity (identity) and difference, absence and presence, deprivation and fulfillment, in fact all ten of the contraries that the Pythagoreans are said to uphold as the nature of the things that are.

The Unity that is present in and is the essence of all things can be understood as the ‘friendship’ between God and His creation. This ‘friendship’ is experienced in the Now of Time, in every waking moment of one’s life. The distance separating God from His creation can be understood as cases of deprivation. They are indicative of the concealment of Truth. There are no true opposites, only cases of deprivation (time) and distance (space). In God’s withdrawal from Creation allowing it to be, the process of creation appears as an “expansion” of ever-widening gyres, and ever-widening expansion of space allowing the place for physical things to come into being. This illusion of “expansion” is mirrored in the narrowing of the gyres in the decreation that brings one closer to the Divine and whose journey is upward on the Tree of Life. Both of these processes occur simultaneously in the NOW.

The decreation of the self, which is a journey of de-gyring down to essence of the Divine, is shown in the principle of self-effacement or humility. It is done through the purification of the fire of Shin. God gives being to us in order that we should give it back to Him. If we compare it to fairy tales, it is like those points in the stories where the characters are tested, initiated, and baptized (Path #25 The Intelligence of Trials) where the acceptance of the gift given is bad or fatal. The character must experience a “death” of some kind and be reborn into a new self. These are referred to as “conversion” and “baptism”. (“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ²This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3: 1-8)

The virtue of humility is present in our refusal to accept the gift offered (see the George Herbert poem “Love” spoken about in Chapter Nine). It is captured in the Spanish proverb or saying: “Take what you want (the gift) said God; take it and pay for it”. God allows us to exist outside of Himself and it is for us to make the decision not to do so. This is part of the reason why The Fool #0 is represented along with The Wheel of Fortune #10. The Fool is an indicator of the journey both upward and downward. Humility is the refusal to exist outside of God, and this is why it is among the highest of the virtues. Humility is represented in those letters which can be reshaped into something else; Love can only penetrate where it is ‘soft’ as our myths and fairy tales tell us (Apollodorus in Symposium is described as a ‘softy’). The Fool’s choice is to become The Magician #1 (Will) or the Strength #11 (Love). In choosing to become The Magician #1, the Fool #0 chooses will to power; in choosing to become Strength #11, The Fool chooses mercy and kindness. Both are possible responses to the world.

“The throne of Binah” is the root or foundation of the “sanctifying intelligence” which is the foundation of faith. From this we may understand Simone Weil’s remark: “Faith is the experience that the intelligence is illuminated by Love.” Since science is not able to “measure and weigh” beauty with any precision or exactitude, it removes any concept of beauty or love from its understanding of things and turns things into “objects”. The ‘measuring and weighing’ of things is at the heart of the principle of reason, and the principle of reason is at the heart of power and of will to power.

It is not possible to love an object. When we turn things into objects, Beauty then becomes “in the eye of the beholder”, something subjective; love becomes “blind”, not what it is in fact in its truth: a way of being and of seeing in the world. The removal of our response to the beauty of the outward countenance of things, or rather, the making of this response “subjective”, has resulted in the oblivion of eternity, the loss of the “holy” or sacred, the death of God, and the resulting loss of faith for many human beings. In the justice of our desire for mass learning, mass meaninglessness has been the result. What we have in its place is the sterility of the sciences, the nihilism of the will to will for its own sake (what we call “novelty”), and the devastation that is the wasteland that continues to grow and expand. But for all this, it remains a matter of choice in how one views the world as it is given to us. Beauty is not the enemy of rationality as that rationality is conceived to be in the modern, but is the foundation of that rationality that is our understanding and knowledge of the things that are. That foundation is the Law of Necessity from whence the principle of reason arises. This paradoxical relationship of Necessity and Beauty is the great mystery of Life.

Another name for Malkhut #10 is “The Bride”. This is to indicate that Malkhut includes the human body through the influence of Yesod. Christ says: “I am the Bridegroom and you are the Bride”, and the Bible speaks of “the bride of the Lamb”. Individual religious sects have interpreted this to refer to themselves exclusively i.e., that they are the “chosen ones”, they themselves and only themselves are “the bride of the Lamb” who will be united with the Redeemer and fulfil His covenant. In the Sefer Yetzirah, it is the whole of creation that is the Bride of Christ, including Jerusalem and Israel (although, of course, the Sefer Yetzirah does not refer to the Messiah or Christ directly since it was written before the birth of Christ). The original Sefer Yetzirah as well as the geometry of the Pythagoreans were intimations of Christianity prior to the birth of Christ historically. Christ’s historical birth is but one of many Incarnations of the Divine in history since the Divine is the parousia in the NOW. How these Incarnations have been ‘clothed’ is that which calls for understanding from all human beings.

The other face of Malkhut is Leviathan or the beast dwelling in the depths of the seas. As an “embodied soul”, human beings dwell within “the belly of the beast”, and it is through our understanding and knowledge (Binah) that we can extricate ourselves from the beast. But whether or not this extrication occurs is up to the grace of God. The Renaissance English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan is appropriately titled since it deals with the materiality of the Kingdom of Malkhut; and Hobbes, being an atheist, relies on “laws with teeth in them” (the offspring of Shin) to deal with what he perceives to be the reality of the human condition, that human life is “nasty, brutish and short”.

It is appropriate that the path from Hod to Malkhut, and Malkhut to Hod should have “teeth” as its symbol and The Fool #0 and The Magician #1 as its Tarot cards. The letter Shin means “teeth”, and it is the grinding of teeth that is symbolic of the decreation of the material world necessary to making progress on the upward path of the Tree of Life. Shin is also the goad or prod that urges human beings on their journey to seek their perfection which is their completion. The deprivation of this perfection is the letter Qof which indicates a submission to the bestiality of our human being and the need to choose that which is higher in us.

There are a number of similarities between the Wheel of Fortune card and The World card #21 in the Tarot. The World is signified by the letter Tav ת which means ‘good’; some commentaries have ‘torah’ as its meaning since they understand the Torah as the good. Tav is the last letter of the alphabet and is its completion. The whole is indicated as ‘good’. In The World card, The Wheel has been replaced by a wreath of laurel (?) leaves which signifies victory. The leaves are bound together by three ouroboros. There is a singular ouroboros at the top and two at the bottom. The single ouroboros is the boundary of the realm of Atzilut while the double represent the boundaries of Beriyah and Yetzirah.

The female figure in the centre holds two wands in her hands indicating that she holds both the directions of the life-force in balance, the creative and decreative aspects, the ‘buffets’ and ‘rewards’ of Fortune spoken of earlier, the movements upwards and downwards on the Tree of Life. She has a banner of purple, representing ‘majesty’ or ‘kingship’, moving in the TARO direction (from The Wheel of Fortune) indicating that she has mastery over the influences of the heart, body, mind and soul. The illustrator of the cards has chosen to include the four evangelists in this card as they are presented in The Wheel of Fortune. These are not necessary for the figure herself has achieved the position of being both in Time and out of Time simultaneously and she is capable of the gift of prophecy herself. It is interesting to note that the last letter of torah is Heh meaning ‘jubilation’, while the last letter of tarot is Tav meaning ‘good’. Both indicate a joy in the completion of the journey and both are possible ways of completing the journey.

The Letter Tav and the 30th Path: The General Universal Collective Intelligence

Path 30: Yesod to Malkhut/ Malkhut to Yesod

The Thirtieth Path is the Collecting Intelligence, and is so called because Astrologers deduce from it the judgment of the Stars, and of the celestial signs, and the perfections of their science, according to the rules of their revolutions.

(Alt. Trans.) “The thirtieth path is called the universal consciousness because through it, masters of the heavens derive their judgments of the stars and constellations, and perfect their knowledge of the celestial cycles.”

Path 30. General Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Kelali): It is called this because it is the means by which the astrologers collect their rules regarding the stars and the constellations, forming the theory that comprises their knowledge of the Ophan-wheels of the spheres.

The Law of Necessity rules the realms of Time and Space, and the principle of reason is a result of the Law of Necessity. The path of General Intelligence deals with Space and Time as pre-requisites for the possibility of the things that are. The things that are do not exist outside of these realms, and so Space and Time are the “foundation” (Yesod) for the things that are. Yesod represents Path #9, Pure Intelligence which we have equated with the theoretical viewing of the sciences based as it is on the principle of reason. The Sephirot of The Hermit deals with calculations and reckonings of the movement of the spheres; and from these, predictions can be made, ‘prophesies’ if you like. In the calculation and reckoning, the astrologers, “the masters of the heavens”, are capable of having foreknowledge of the outcomes of things, both in the world at large and within the individual. The Hermit dwells within a dark, sterile world and his knowledge places him “on top” of that world for he can commandeer and manipulate the contents of that world. It corresponds to the study of Physics.

The Law of Necessity is the harsh Justice of the left-hand side of the Tree of Life; it is a Justice without Mercy, and knowledge of it is knowledge without Love or Beauty. Thus, we have the darkness, solitude and coldness represented by The Hermit #9 card. It is apt that the “new human being” created from such knowledge is a golem or “zombie”, for this it the ultimate result of this knowledge when it is not accompanied by the spiritual elements that are love and beauty.

Malkhut deals with the physical, material universe, Asiyah. Here, the world is conceived of as a combination of elemental forces capable of being grasped through calculation. It is the world of objectness and of cause and effect. It is world as text prior to the word, a world of numerical calculations. As Case points out, it is ruled by both Mercury and the Moon, calculation and illusion.

The 30^th path deals with astrological knowledge or knowledge of space and time, cause and effect, what we today would call physics. The astrologers or Magi, through their calculations based on the geometry that supplies the division of the sphere into 12 “houses” and the movements of the seven visible planets through those houses, derive pre-dictive knowledge of human beings and beings. Their knowledge is inductive: moving from the particular to the universal. As predictive knowledge, it is the forerunner of what is now called science. Their knowledge is based on a ‘cosmic theology’ through their understanding of the divine circular motions of the luminaries of the heavens.

The mind is perceived as a “secondary organ”, not the ego cogito of Descartes, the supreme subjectum, but the combination of Fire, Water, Air to bring about Earth; the combination of mind and spirit embodied. Fire and Air embodied in Water produces Earth. The “dust” of the Earth was originally conceived as snow in the Sefer Yetzirah. Humas, the root of “humanity”, “human being”, relates to the creation of human beings. Historically, the search for the formula to invent a golem was founded in the various letters and incantations that were made by those who wished to do so. The golem is a being deprived of a soul and also deprived of language. Is the forgetfulness of language a foretelling of how human beings will become golems in a possible future?

Tav derives from “and Elohim saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” 1:31

ת Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. Meaning “mark”, “sign”, “omen”, or “seal”, it is the symbol of truth, perfection, and completion. It represents the restoration Tikkun תיקון of all of existence. It is a return to the essence and purpose of one’s life. It represents completion, before beginning again with the original Oneness of the Aleph. Few human beings achieve this goal.

The Tav shows us that the end was set from the beginning, as Tav is the final letter of בראשית Beresheet, “In the Beginning”, the first word of the Torah/Bible. It is the idea that the Creator set in motion all of existence in order to reach a final state of perfection, the fulfillment of all of creation. It is also the completion of Truth אמת Emet.

However, as soon as the Tav is reached, we begin again immediately by going back to the Aleph, the one source of everything. Or in the Tarot, we move from The World #21 to The Fool #0. The end is never really the end, but the beginning of something new.

Tav represents the restoration Tikkun תיקון of all of existence and that is why it is associated with the path of Continuous Intelligence #31 and signifies both an end and a beginning. In the journey up the Tree of Life, it is a return to the essence and purpose of one’s life which is the restoration of the soul to the Divine. The Tav represents completion of the Creation cycle, before beginning again with the original Oneness of the Aleph and beginning the process of Decreation which is primarily the work of Shin. The design of Tav contains both Dalet and Nun, both suggesting endings, beginnings, and transformations. Dalet means either ‘riches’ or ‘poverty’, while Nun relates to ‘deceit’, death, transformation.

The idea that the Creator set in motion all of existence in order that it reach a final state of perfection, the fulfillment of all of creation which will be its cessation brings about the great contradiction of the Sefer Yetzirah. The Tav as the completion of Truth אמת Emet, or the Truth revealed is something to be experienced in the NOW. The Creation is viewed as an evolutionary progress towards perfection rather than being the image of that perfection itself i.e., the ‘moving image of eternity’.

The 32^nd path, along with the 30th and 31st paths are the outline or nexus of the realm of Necessity. All created things must “serve” the law of Necessity whether it be seen as the force of gravity or those forces which operate within the realm of social interactions. The Law of Necessity is the Divine Will. The 32^nd path is also a warning to those who are unable to distinguish between the Necessary and the Good because those who are unable to do so usually worship power.

The Letter Qof and the 31st Path: The Continuous Perpetual Intelligence

Path 31: Netzach to Malkhut

The Thirty-first Path is the Perpetual Intelligence; and why is it so called? Because it regulates the motions of the Sun and Moon in their proper order, each in an orbit convenient for it.

Alt. Trans. “The thirty-first path is called the perpetual consciousness. Why is it called this? Because it directs the movements of the sun and moon according to their natural order, each in its proper orbit.”

31. Continuous Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Timidi): Why is it called this? Because it directs the path of the sun and moon according to their laws of nature, each one in its proper orbit.

The Thirty-first Path of Wisdom is represented by the letter Qof and connects Malkhut to Netzach, Kingdom to Victory, or Victory to Kingdom. It emphasizes the animality or the embodiment of the human spirit or soul. The Law of Necessity is that which is permanent or “perpetual” in the laws of Nature amidst the metabole or change that is apparent in the growth and movement of created beings. It is one of the key types of knowledge in the universe of Asiyah. Along with the “serving knowledge” of the 32^nd path and the calculative thought and knowledge of the numbers of the principle of reason in the 30^th path, it illustrates the manner in which the realm of Necessity is to be understood. In the Hebrew, it refers to “perpetual time”, and we are reminded of Plato’s statement that “Time is the moving image of eternity”. It also seems to indicate the sempiternal world of created things in the manner understood by Aristotle.

It is Time which directs the movements of sun and moon and gives to us our solar and lunar calendars. Time and Space are the ‘plan’ and components of Necessity and these determine the movements of the planets, the sun, and the moon. From this we may understand what Plato means when he says that “Time is the moving image of eternity”. As a ‘moving image’, Time is subject to change and this relates to its relationship with illusion and shadows. The Sun is the planet of Tiferet; the Moon is the heavenly body associated with Yesod. Here, the Justice of Necessity is seen through the Sun’s light i.e., the Beauty of the world. Qof translates as the ‘back of the head’, that which is hidden: in the Western tree, it connects Netzach to Malkhut. In the Hebrew tree, Qof is that world dominated by the reflected light of the moon and implies a will to power to transform the world in which human beings live. To see what is behind the back of the head requires a mirror.

ק The letter Khof (also spelled Kuf, or Qof) originally meant the back of the head, or the eye of a needle. Khof also means “monkey”. It is the symbol of both the sacred Kedushah קדושה, and the profane – the Klipah קליפה, the peel, cover, or husk which represents the negativities in the world. Khof has to do with the requirement of removing the husk of the superficial to reveal the holiness within. The human body is a “husk” that encircles the part of the divine that is the soul within.

In Hebrew, Khof means monkey, a creature which resembles a human but is purely animalistic, with none of the higher capacities of a human. This indicates the requirement for human beings to overcome their purely animalistic nature and to emulate the image of the Creator, to realize their true spiritual nature beyond just the physical. The Khof is the only letter which extends below the line of the other letters, indicating descent into the lower world, but also the ability to ascend from there. The human body is the ‘cross’ that we all must bear.

Kuf is also הקפה – “circle”, “go around”; and I believe it indicates the beginning of the gyring motion that is necessary for movement within the Tree of Life itself. Khof represents all the cycles of nature, changing seasons, monthly and yearly cycles. It is the constant movement, circulation, and change of life. It could also represent that through the cycles of life that we see – evolution, growth, change, suffering, happiness, life experience – we are constantly worked on in order to evolve and realize our true spiritual nature.

The letter Khof (also spelled Kaf, Kuf, or Qof) originally meant “the back of the head”, or “the eye of a needle”. (“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19: 24) Khof also means “monkey”. It is said to represent “unholiness”. It is the symbol of both the sacred Kedushah קדושה, and the profane – the Klipah קליפה, the peel, cover, or husk which represents the outward presence of the things that emerge from the khôra, the ‘countenances’ of the outward appearances of things. Khof has to do with the requirement of removing the husk which hides the truth of that which lies within. The outward appearance is this husk.

In Hebrew, Khof means “monkey”, a creature which resembles a human but is purely animalistic, with none of the higher capacities of a human which are related to the logos i.e., language and number. In the Kabballah, this indicates the requirement for a human being to overcome their purely animalistic nature and to emulate the image of the Creator (the Logos) that is their true nature, to realize the true spiritual nature of their being an ‘embodied soul’. It is the essential strife of life. The Khof is the only letter which extends below the line of the other letters, indicating descent into the lower world, but also the ability to ascend from there. As such, it is related to the Sephirot Yesod (Foundation) and to the material world of Malkhut (Kingdom). The revealing of the true essence of what human beings are is in their wresting of truth from the husks of the world that hide it. When human beings cease to reveal truth, they succumb to their bestial, animal natures.

The design of the Kuf is similar to that of the Hei, the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, but while the Hei is said to represent holiness and jubilation, the Kuf represents Klipah, or unholiness and despair. Both letters have three lines, two vertical and one horizontal. These three lines, depicting thought, speech, and action in the Hei, are also represented in the letter Kuf, but its three lines represent unholy thoughts, profane speech and evil actions. These negative qualities are illustrated within the actual form of the Kuf. Its long left leg plunges beneath the letter’s baseline. It represents one who ventures below the acceptable, an individual who violates the circumscribed boundaries of the laws of Necessity (primarily with regard to the social) and, thus, commits hubris for which an eventual nemesis must be paid.

It is also significant that the head of the Kuf is a Reish (in contrast with the Dalet that comprises the Hei). The difference between the Dalet and the Reish is the Yud in the right-hand corner of the Dalet, representing the individual while the Reish represents the collective . The Zohar, one of the principle sources for the medieval interpretations of the Sefer Yetzirah, calls the Kuf and the Reish the letters of falsehood and impurity. This associates the letter with The Moon #18 card of the Tarot. If the Reish represents the choice which has to be made regarding spiritual matters, then the Qof represents a false choice.

When Christ said that “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark: 10:25), He is referring to the difficulty that arises when one forgets to remember that “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”, and this is dependent on how one sees the world which, in turn, determines how one will be in the world. Christ follows his statement on the heart with “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6: 21-22). This would suggest a connection between Kuf and Ayin.

Kuf is also הקפה – circle, go around, cycle. Khof represents all the cycles of nature, changing seasons, monthly and yearly cycles. It is in the realm of Time. It is the constant movement, circulation, and change of life. Kuf represents the ‘buffets and rewards of Fortune’ which are to be received with equal thanks (as Hamlet says of Horatio in the play, and this represents Horatio’s ability to be ‘just’ and in so doing, his capability of being a ‘friend’). The Kuf could also represent that through the cycles of life that we see – evolution, growth, change, suffering, happiness, life experience – we are constantly worked on in order to evolve and realize our true spiritual nature, the grinding of the teeth that are represented by the letter Shin which decreates that which we are and the suffering that we undergo. The gematria of Kuf is 100 and this aligns it with The Fool, The Wheel of Fortune, and The Magician cards of the Tarot. Because Kuf is associated with beginnings and endings, it is also associated with the Death card. This death can be both spiritual and physical and is significant of the need for conversion, baptism and rebirth.

To see ‘the back of the head’ one requires a mirror, and with a mirror all things are seen in reverse. As discussed earlier, the symbol of Venus is a mirror and the danger of mirrors is that they can lead to narcissism. The point of the Shin is the destruction of this narcissism through the purification brought about by fire. Suffering and affliction are symbolized by fire, and the eschatological destruction of the world through fire is symbolic of this. The ‘world’ is the narcissistic ego of the Self that is the barrier to the unification with the Divine One. This may signify that viewing the material world only is a reversal of the true state of affairs i.e., there are realms beyond the material or the world of Asiyah.

The Letter Tzaddi and the 32nd Path: The Administrative, Worshipped, Serving Intelligence

Path 32: Malkhut to Hod

The Thirty-second Path is the Administrative Intelligence, and it is so called because it directs and associates, in all their operations, the seven planets, even all of them in their own due courses.

Alt. Trans. “The thirty-second path is called the serving consciousness because it directs the motion of the seven planets, each in its own proper course.”

The Thirty-Second Path is the Worshipped Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Ne’evad): It is called this because it is prepared so as to destroy all who engage in the worship of the seven planets.

The Thirty-Second path indicates the difficulties that are present in trying to determine what is the original text of “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”. The first two translations above seem to indicate an awareness of, or consciousness of, the Law of Necessity, but the next translations indicate that this is what is ‘worshipped’ by those who are unable to distinguish the Necessary from the Good.

This is the path proceeding from Malkhut to Hod, from Kingdom to Splendour. Here the Splendour referred to is that which is bestowed by social recognition and prestige, and we would like to consider this ‘justice’, that this prestige and recognition are somehow ‘apt’ or ‘fitting’ and that we are deserving of it. The Tower #15 card illustrated on the left shows the crown of the Kingdom blasted by the thunderbolt of Zeus, and with it the twelve Yods (perhaps representing the 12 houses of the Zodiac or the twelve houses of Israel) and the ten Sephirot of the Tree of Life. The illustrator has chosen the letter Peh to signify this card. In the interpretation offered here, the letter Peh refers to language as rhetoric, the language of assemblies. The lightning bolt is the nemesis which is the judgement of the Divine which is true Justice, and it proceeds from the Sun in the shape of a ladder that indicates the traditional interpretations of the movement along the Tree of Life.

The 32^nd path is the outline of the realm of Necessity. All created things must “serve” the law of Necessity whether it be seen as the force of gravity or those forces which operate within the realm of social interactions and institutions. The Law of Necessity is the Divine Will. The 32^nd path is also a warning to those who are unable to distinguish between the Necessary and the Good because those who do so usually worship power.

Tzaddi is the 18^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and corresponds to the 32^nd path of Wisdom or the Administrative Intelligence. It signifies both “righteousness” and the “hunt”. Its literal meaning is “fish hook” and it is with the hook that one hunts and catches the “fish”, signified by the letter Nun. In Greek mythology, the goddess of the hunt is Artemis. She is also the goddess of the moon. The shape of the Tzaddi is a Nun with a Yod riding on top it. The gematria of Tzaddi is 90 suggesting a connection with Yesod and The Hermit card #9: 9 X 2 is 18, the number of The Moon. The contrary to The Moon is Justice (‘righteousness’) which is card #8 in Tarot. This seems to suggest that the ‘righteous’, the just, can be deceived by the ‘false speech’ and become hooked as a fish is deceived by the bait on the fish hook. There seems to be an alignment between the ‘false knowledge’ that belongs to The Hermit card of the Tarot and the ‘reflected light’ that is The Moon’s as opposed to the direct light of the Sun. The deception, the deceit and fraud, is also related to the ‘hiddenness’ that is an element of Tzaddi and of The Moon.

Tzaddi as ‘fish hook’ indicates the way in which we can become ‘hooked on’ or entrapped by the materialism of created things. ‘Fish’ is a sign of nourishment and fertility. Is Corporeal Intelligence (materialism) the first temptation of Christ : the turning of stones into bread? Is this the reality of what has been understood as ‘materialism’ in the West? This is, metaphorically, the belief at the bottom of the technological worldview.

Path	Letter	Meaning	Symbol
Path 10. Scintillating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel MitNotzetz): It is called this because it elevates itself and sits on the throne of Understanding (Binah). It shines with the radiance of all the luminaries and it bestows an influx of increase to the Prince of Face(s).		Kingdom. The understanding determines the General Intelligence, the Corporeal Intelligence, the Palpable Intelligence, and the Continuous Intelligence. The world of materialism.	The wheel. Movement of time within space.
Yesod to Malkhut Path 30. General Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Kelali): It is called this because it is the means by which the astrologers collect their rules regarding the stars and the constellations, forming the theory that comprises their knowledge of the Ophan-wheels of the spheres.	Tav ת	The beginning in the end and the end in the beginning.	The figure holds two wands in the shape of coils indicating she is able to draw energy from both sides of the turning sphere. She is a ‘prophet’. She is the opposite of The Hanged Man who is suspended from Chet. It is the Good which directs the paths of the sun and moon in their orbits according to the Law of Necessity.
Path 31: Continuous Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Timidi): Why is it called this? Because it directs the path of the sun and moon according to their laws of nature, each one in its proper orbit.	Qof ק	“Monkey”, the back of the head, the eye of the needle.	18 Yods, the collective, society. The camel (Gimel) has an easier time passing through the eye of the needle than a rich person.
Path 32. Worshipped Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Ne’evad): It is called this because it is prepared so as to destroy all who engage in the worship of the seven planets.	Tzaddi צ		The magi or ‘wise men’ form their theories from the principle of reason which is based on, or finds its foundation in, the Law of Necessity. From the principle of reason, the ‘rules’ i.e., the laws, axioms, etc. of the universe are created according to human beings. From these rules, the “Apparative Intelligence” Path 24 can operate.

A Commentary on “The 32 Paths of Wisdom” Chapter Nine

The Paths Emanating From Yesod

9. Pure Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Tahor): It is called this because it purifies the Sephirot. It tests the degree of their structure and the inner essence of their unity, making it glow. They are then unified, without any cutoff or separation.

The Ninth Path is the Pure Intelligence so called because it purifies the Numerations, it proves and corrects the designing of their representation, and disposes their unity with which they are combined without diminution or division.

Alt. Trans. “The ninth path is called the pure consciousness because it purifies the essence of the Sephirot. It provides and adapts the design of their patterns and establishes their unity. They remain united, without diminution or division.”

Wescott trans. The Ninth Path is the Pure Intelligence, so called because it purifies the Numerations, it proves and corrects the designing of their representation, and disposes their unity with which they are combined without diminution or division.

Case trans. The ninth path (Yesod the ninth Sephirah) is called the Pure intelligence and is so called because it purifies the essence of the Sephiroth. It proves and preserves their images and prevents them from loss by their union with itself.

The Letter Yod and the 9th Path: The Pure Intelligence (Consciousness)

The Ninth Path of Yesod is called the “pure intelligence” and it is represented by the Hebrew letter Yod in some commentaries. It is also called “Foundation” because it deals primarily with the material world and the “mathematical” in the sense that, similar to the purification that occurs in the alchemical processes, the extraneous elements are separated from the essential element as the “waters” are separated from the “earth”. The activity of the intelligence in the mathematical “measures and weighs” the numbers to assure their “correctness”, and combines the rationality of their relations with the images or representations given in the eidetic forms or the appearance of things. It is Plato’s “correctness of the glance” and references the relation between the outward appearance of things, the Ideas of the things, and the essences of the things which, in the Sefer Yetzirah, are the Sephirot themselves. The text of “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom” is contemporaneous with Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and the ideas of the “pure intelligence” and Kant’s “pure reason” are very similar in nature.

To “purify” is to reduce something to its essence. The essence of the multivarious things which make their appearance in Creation is the unified One that is the manifestation of the Sephirot themselves. This purifying process is decreation. In this purification, the revealing of the truth that is the essence of the Sephirot is accomplished. It has characteristics in common with inductive reasoning, but it is more than this. The “correcting” and “proving” of the design of their representations is what we have called the “mathematical projection” of our world here. But this is only one way of viewing the world and its roots are in the world of Yetzirah. The mathematical projections are preserved from loss through Memory, and from having been written down. The memory element is derived from the path of the crossover of Mem from Netzach to Hod where it meets the fire of Shin emanating from Hod. This crossover is the mediating point of Alef which is received through Tiferet to Yesod. This mediating point is crucial to the understanding of the whole of the Sefer Yetzirah and “The 32 Paths of Wisdom”.

The “numerations” are the numbers assigned to the Sephirot, their representations in geometry, and the combination of their various individual representations into a unity when applied to the things of the world of the senses. It is the diaretic (separation) and dianoic (unification) types of thought which were spoken of earlier. It is the thinking conducted by the sciences and it is concerned with the universe of Asiyah, the physical universe, as well as the world of formation that is the realm of Yetzirah. The foundation of the thinking found in the mathematical projection of the world is itself grounded in the principle of reason which embraces the principles of contradiction and the principle of causality in itself. It is the thinking of the sciences and the predominant thinking of our world today. The principle of reason is a principle of Being. The algorithms that have emerged out of the principle of reason have given us our artificial intelligence which I have said is a ‘second Cave’ of Plato and a further remove from the truth of the things of the world and of the things that are.

In another translation of “The 32 Paths of Wisdom”, the translation states that the “pure consciousness” purifies the Sephirot by testing the structure and essence of their unity, “making it glow”. The “glowing” is the light that is the inner essence of the things, a metaphor for the physical materials that glow in the alchemist’s crucible as he attempts to ‘purify’ them. The thinking that purifies is the thinking that moves beyond the “mere shadows” or “apparitions” given of things by the reflected light of Malkhut that is the representational thinking of our sense organs and apprehends the things as they shine in the light of the sun. This thinking of our senses is called “representational thinking” for it relies on images or representations in order to make visible the abstract content of the thought being carried out. This is why the thought is expressed in metaphors and the like either through words or numbers. The “pure intelligence” of Yesod is a “know of” knowledge or a “knowledge by acquaintance” acquired through the experience of the senses. The Perfect Intelligence of Hod is a “know how” knowledge which is acquired through action or The Apparative Intelligence of Path 24 (which is sometimes referred to as The Imaginative Intelligence).

Yesod is related to the sexual organs of human beings and it is in this connection that we have the “two-faced” nature of the appearance of things. We in the modern world have become satisfied with the outward appearances of things, the beauty of their uses, including other human beings, and so we turn all beings into “objects” that can be controlled or manipulated either through our sciences and their results or through our machinations in our relations with others either politically or within our other social relationships.

The god Eros is said to be “two-faced” or “Janus-faced”. We have become satisfied with the “reflected light” of things rather than the true light of their essence. Within this satisfaction we “descend” to the physical world of Malkhut rather than “ascending” to the higher levels of spirituality that are our true nature. This is the relation of the Sephirot Yesod to the Sephirot Tiferet. They are connected by the letter Alef and the middle path of the Tree of Life from Keter; and these in turn are indicated in the path of “trials” or tests, represented by Reish. It is at this point that we make our choice of where we place our “treasure”, what we will come to “value”.

Besides the direct path from Tiferet, three other paths lead to the Sephirot Yesod. They are represented by the letters Yod, Nun, and Resh. The “pure intelligence”, through its “measuring and weighing”, discerns and distils the influences from these three paths and “purifies” them (relation of the emanations to water) and brings them into a relation so that they can become a “one” even though the number assigned to them is other than one. The “pure intelligence” of Yesod determines how the “eye” of Ayin will see the world (as “object”?) and how the individual personality will conduct itself in its day-to-day affairs. The “trials” of the path of Resh are the strife that life is made of, but it is the “pure intelligence” founded upon the principle of reason that determines other aspects of the individual and the community in which the individual dwells.

From Yesod to Malkhut is a single path only and this is related to the letter Tau/Tav. Yesod is the Foundation and Malkhut is Kingdom. The letter Tau is the seventh double as outlined in the Sefer Yetzirah. It can be represented by the two Tarot cards: The World #21 and the Fool #0 for it is both an end and a beginning, and it indicates the circular or spherical nature of the Tree of Life itself. It can be both the beginning of the journey (The Fool #0) or the end of the journey (The World #21). The letter Tav itself means “good”. When it is related to The Fool, it is the beginning of the journey of decreation up the Tree of Life. When it is related to The World, it signifies the knowledge and understanding that is related to “prophecy” and to the knowledge of the whole of things contained within the realms of Time and Space which is the Creation itself. This knowledge confers the gift of prophecy. This is what is meant by self-knowledge. The figure of The World has a banner of purple (the royal colour) in the shape of a Beth across her signifying her knowledge of the whole of things.

Yesod means “foundation”: it is the instinctual animality of human beings, but it is also the foundation of human being in Time, the principle of reason as a principle of Being as we now understand it. The interpretations of the images of the Sephirot are written down, literally “written in stone”, so that they are preserved and are unified with the “physical” itself (materialism). How the outer world appears is determined by these interpretations. This is why this realm is called “the sphere of the Moon”, the sphere of “reflected light”. This is the realm of what we call the “historical”, and the things come to be and pass away giving the illusion of “historical relativism”. Is this what we have come to understand as Hell? The focus on the Ego? When Sartre says that “Hell is other people”, his statement indicates this egoistic hell itself, the choice that separates Love from Intelligence.

The starkness of The Hermit #9 card aptly depicts this region. The letter Yod associated with The Hermit is the letter “I” in English and iota in Greek. In The Moon card, there are eighteen Yods surrounding the face of the Moon indicating the social, the collective. (Mathematically: 9 + 9 = 18 / 2 = 9; or 9 x 2 (the High Priestess) = 18 / 2 = 9.) Our bodies are the “cross of Christ” and He says: ““If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24. It is through our bodies that we experience existence and the body is our infallible judge through this experience.

The 10th Hebrew letter Yod is a dot or point. There are a number of contradictory interpretations for the letter Yod, and these contradictions rest in how different interpretations of the nature of the Divine and the nature of human beings have come about. For some, the Yod represents the Creator, the single point from which all of creation emerges, the Unity within the multiplicity of things. But is this not a duplication of the understanding of the letter Alef? The letter Alef is composed of two Yods and a Vav suggesting a Trinity. A singular Yod would place God at an infinite distance from His creation, or conversely, place God within His creation in such a way that He is mistaken for the Necessary and all that occurs within Necessity. The Yod itself is considered the foundation of all foundations, and this is why it is associated with the Sephirot Yesod. Is the key to understanding the significance of the Yod is that it is the 10^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and thus a new beginning of some kind?

Yod is a symbol of the Holy One, the Creator, since the holy name starts with Yod (YodHehVavHeh). Small in form, the meaning of the Yod is great. According to Kabbalistic tradition, all of creation came forth from a single point – a point which represents God’s infinite presence inside of the finite world. This interpretation seems to be fine if it is remembered that this single point is infinitely small in relation to the macrocosm about it.

Yod also represents the idea of Unity within Multiplicity, of one whole that is comprised of parts. Yod, as we see, is a single point, but its value is 10. It shows us that many grains of sand are used to make one pot, many pages make up one book, many drops of water make up the ocean. There are many parts that comprise the individual human being and all of these parts belong to Necessity, but at centre of the human being is an infinite point that does not belong to Necessity. It belongs to God because it is part of Him.

There are many occurrences and experiences in the world, but they all stem from One God, perfect and indivisible. But if this is the case, how can events and experiences which are clearly deprivals of the Good be attributed to God? One cannot so easily dismiss the Book of Job. The Yod also is said to represent the ten Sefirot (but if this is the case, what is the significance of the Alef and what is the relation between the two? The letter Alef is composed of two Yods and a Vav. It is a ‘trinity’. The Yod that contains the ten Sefirot is beyond comprehension). In Yod, the multiplicity returns to unity.

In the Sephirot Yesod, it can be said that Being is the foundation, the ground/reason. The principle of reason speaks to us as a principle of being from within the Yesod and the Yod itself can be mistakenly understood as this principle of reason only. The Fool stands before the abyss of Being, the world of Asiyah; he/she makes a leap into that abyss. The result becomes The Magician: the techne, the “showman” and the resultant theatre that is the world of Yetzirah. Shakespeare understood this when he said: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”.

The soul is that hidden dot beyond the imagination – formless, the source of all thought, beyond all thoughts, beyond time and space, beyond the representational thinking that is our modern understanding of what knowledge and sensibility are. It is the secret hidden principle of the universe that we cannot perceive, and because of this hiddenness is mistakenly taken for will to power through the principle of reason.

So why then is it related to the Palpable Intelligence here? It is related to the Palpable Intelligence “because the intelligence of things is created (is “made”) under the entire upper sphere, as well as their sensations, were created through it.” Here one can see the connection of the Yod to the Logos understood as Word, as well as the connection of the Yod to the principle of reason as a principle of Being and as will to power. The Palpable Intelligence is also translated as the “Exciting Intelligence” and this demonstrates a connection to eros and to the recognition of need and to the condition of deprival.

The Yod represents both the Creator and the individual soul, the single point from which all of creation emerges, and that Unity within multiplicity that makes up the Divine and humanity. It is the foundation of all foundations, the hidden Divine spark which causes everything to be whether it be from natural or human production. It can represent the power of the will to govern, commandeer and guide the matter whether that matter be physical or spiritual. It is associated with the “ego” or the human being when viewing themselves as individuals. As shown in the letter Alef, two Yods are separated by a Vav, and this Vav is Necessity itself.

Yod is a symbol of the Holy One, the Creator, since the holy name starts with Yod. The significance of the shape of yod is that it is small in form, but the meaning of the Yod is great. This is in conformity to a number of fairy tales, myths, and parables where the smallest item is the most important. According to Kabbalistic tradition, all of creation came forth from a single point – a point which represents God’s infinite presence inside of the finite world. Between this infinite presence and the individual human being’s presence is an abyss, the abyss of the whole of Creation itself.

The Yod is an infinite dot, the essence of all life. As the foundation of all foundations, we can say it is the image of the Good. As was discussed in the structure of the letter Alef, everything comes from it and returns to it. It is a hidden dot beyond imagination, the vanishing point – formless, the source of all thought, beyond all thoughts, beyond time and space. It is the secret hidden principle of the universe that we experience in our ‘perfect imperfection’, and are unable to perceive. It is the Light that the Darkness cannot comprehend. It is the Divine spark of life that is in every single being. It cannot be grasped, but is in every cell of our bodies, causing us to be. It has no mass or density, time or space. In it is the spirit to govern and guide the matter of the material world and yet it is beyond the world. It is, thus, the Law of Necessity. When we have a false view of it, we see it as Will to Power.

The appearance of the Yod is as a flame suggesting the fire of Shin and the purification process of alchemy. Shin itself is composed of three Yods, the three-personed God. Its movement is upward. This aligns it with Path #9 The Purifying Intelligence. This suggests that the movement on the Tree of Life is clockwise with the downward movement of Mem as water, meeting with Alef as air and Shin as fire producing the earth that is the Foundation and Kingdom, the bottom two Sephirot of Yesod and Malkhut. Most commentators see this movement of water in the shape of a lightning bolt zigzagging downwards, and as a ladder of fire moving upwards. I have presented it as ever-widening gyres in its movement downwards, and in narrowing gyres in its movements upwards. In the movement downwards, the movement that is upwards is seen in a mirror image, just as the movement upwards sees the movement downwards in a mirror image.

The human soul may be seen in the symbol of the eagle or falcon which, in its flight, widens its gyres to ascend upward and then narrows its gyres upon its return. It is in its upward movement that we may understand Plato’s statement that Love is “fire catching fire”. Also, as the smallest letter of the alphabet, the Yod indicates the principle of the various stories of fairy tales, parables, and myths where the least is most important. The princess and the pea; “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took, and sowed in his field, which indeed is smaller than all seeds. But when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches.” Matthew 13: 31-32; “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future” The Lord of the Rings.

The Letter Nun and the 28th Path: The Natural Intelligence

Genesis 1. 9 And Elohim said: ‘Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. (The Pure Intelligence) Nun – And Elohim “blessed them [male and female].” 1:28 (The Natural Intelligence)

Path 28. Natural Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Mutba): It is called this because the nature of all that exists under the sphere of the sun was completed through it.

The Twenty-eighth Path is the Natural Intelligence, and is so called because through it is consummated and perfected the nature of every existent being under the orb of the Sun, in perfection.

Alt. Trans. “The twenty-eighth path is called the natural consciousness. Through it is completed the nature of all that exists beneath the sphere of the sun.”

Case trans. The twenty-eighth path (Tzaddi, joining Netzach to Yesod) is called the Natural Intelligence, because by it is perfected the nature of all things under the orb of the sun.

The 28^th path appears to be related to technology, to human “knowing” and “making”, which completes the “purpose” or end, the telos of the “created things”, through a process of making them “pure”, or through what we believe is a dis-covery or uncovering of their essence, their truth. This is the principle of reason as a principle of Being. This is a difficult concept for it involves what has become known as the history of Western metaphysics. This history may be summed up by our inability to separate the Necessary from the Good because, paradoxically, by establishing the duality of subject/object and the ‘objectification’ of all beings, we have dispensed with the Good as ‘values’, something we create in our willing. We cannot love an object. My understanding here is that it is contained in Shakespeare’s idea that “The art itself is Nature” i.e. that the art is a principle of being as is the principle of reason.

Initially, the good as action was seen as that which enabled some one or some thing to be capable of carrying out an action to bring an end about. It is good for animals to breathe, for instance; it is not good if they do not do so.

The 28^th path has many similarities to how Aristotle understood dynamis. In the Sefer Yetzirah, the good may be seen as the light which enables both the being of created things and that which enables human beings to see what their ends or purposes are for. For both Plato and Aristotle, the proper direction for human beings is the directedness of their vision toward the divine, toward the whole. This directedness of vision was contemplation, reflective thought. On the other hand, the 28^th path may refer to how dynamis, potentiality, becomes energeia or the completed product or work. This would seem to suggest that the universe is ”rational” and its rationality is akin to our own rationality. This is the ground of the principle of reason, and the principle of reason is a principle of being.

There appears to be a connection between the Bible’s giving human beings a central role, as an acme, as the point or purpose of creation (as is shown in the Sephirot Yesod), and the giving of power to human beings over all created beings so that they may be “completed” in their nature through the power of human beings’ making. (1.28 And God blessed them; and God said unto them: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.‘) The power that is given to human beings is realized in their “knowing” and “making” that has become the stand and directedness of human beings’ being-in-the-world. The question is whether or not this dominion over the earth is one of the shepherd filled with care and concern or one of the tyrant filled with commandeering and domineering.

There is here present the view that the created things themselves are not complete in some way. This view of human beings and their role in creation later becomes the “humanism” of Western philosophy, and the consequences of humanism have become far-reaching. The question must be asked: is this view of human being, a product of the Renaissance, a correct understanding of what is said in the Sefer Yetzirah, and is it a correct understanding of what human beings are in their essence? The absence of God, experienced as the God’s silence through which human beings realize their “imperfection” in their affliction and need, devolves into the oblivion of eternity and into the view that the essence of human being is human existence itself and human will (freedom), that human beings will themselves to seek to realize human perfection and determine what Justice is and what Justice will be. Are we as human beings ‘our own’? In the completion of creation, there is no need for a God. The transformation that is spoken about by some commentators regarding Path #28 does not occur within the individual human personality only, but in the way in which human beings are in their worlds. It involves the whole human being, including their bodies. (That is why the conversion in Plato’s allegory of the Cave involves the turning of the whole body.)

But Path #28 suggests another kind of way of looking also. If one looks at this “ascent of man” in the history of Western thought through the lens of the Sefer Yetzirah and “The Paths”, one can see that it involves the yoking together of the worlds of Asiyah, or Sensation, and the world of Yetzirah or “Formation/ Creation”. This yoking may be done through the “reflected light” of Malkhut, the light from those objects that are present in the created world, or it may involve the light that descends from Keter, through the beauty that is Tiferet, to the foundation that is Yesod. This yoking requires the presence of Shin, one of the three Mother letters of the alphabet as outlined in the Sefer Yetzirah. The yoking is one of “unity”, not identity. There is a possibility of ascent as well as descent within it. The universe beneath the “sphere of the sun” involves the Sephirot Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malkhut, and the links between them may involve either Tiferet or Netzach, the Divine or the human.

Our being-in-the-world is the primordial “foundation” (Yesod) which, through the reflected light of Malkhut, is how we view or how the world will be disclosed or “opened up” to us. Our disclosure or opening up to this world can be either true or untrue, and this disclosure or opening up is exclusive to human beings as that which has been gifted to them from God. The truth or falsehood of the disclosure or opening up of the world is dependent upon this primordial viewing of the world in which human beings find themselves placed. Human beings disclose or open up themselves to themselves by the manner in which they disclose or open up their worlds. This “opening up” is what we understand as “freedom” in which we are able to view our possibilities and potentialities. The world in which we find ourselves is already opened up to us; how we view this opening and our own openedness determines what we will conceive ourselves to be in our essence. This determination arises from what we conceive the truth to be i.e. openedness itself.

In commentaries on the Sefer Yetzirah and “The 32 Paths of Wisdom”, the word “initiate” and “initiation” are often used to describe the journey through life through the Tree of Life and its paths. This word can be seen as a simile or metaphor for our word “education” which comes from the Latin educare, “to lead out”, and “that which is responsible for the leading out”. The “initiate” and his or her “initiation” is a “leading out”. The initiate is not capable of this action alone; a guide is necessary. The images of paths and guides are apt here. We are concerned with what is authentic thinking here and how it may be achieved. Every “leading out” begins with an “opening up”. In this open region, both truth and untruth are possibilities. Untruth is the deprivation of truth, not the opposite of truth; just as evil is the deprivation of good, not the opposite of good. How one views the world is a choice to be made. Because we are beings in bodies, we become preoccupied with the things that are and how those things may be able to fulfil our needs, whether those needs are hunger and thirst or empowerment.

Shakespeare himself says: “The Art itself is nature”, and one is very hesitant to disagree with the wisdom of the Bard. “Human nature” is completed through “natural intelligence”, through the ‘light of the Sun’, i.e., through Tiferet, not through the ‘reflected light’ of the Moon that dominates the world of Asiyah, (Malkhut/Yesod) and the world of Yetzirah or Formation (Hod/Yesod/ Malkhut/Netzach). This is a key point in the Tree of Life for at this juncture, human beings make the choice of becoming more fully human/humane or simply residing on the “bestial”, appetitive level of existence. It is here that one fully experiences the “severity” of Hod and how and what we think shapes our perceptions of the world about us.

When rationality or the principle of reason dominates our view of the world and becomes our principle of being-in-the-world, we are less than fully human; and this foreshadows the coming into being of the technological worldview which dominates the world of Yetzirah, the world dominated by the Gestell, the “system”, the “plan” which brings about one’s attempts to bring justice to the world through our commandeering of nature. This is why technology may be viewed as ‘black magic’.

The letter Nun has a number of contradictory meanings just as the Death card of the Tarot contains a number of contradictory meanings. It can mean “deceit”, “kingship”, “fish”, “miscarriage”, and “miracle”, and at the same time be the symbol of faithfulness (ne’eman נאמן), soul (Neshama נשמה), and emergence. The gematria of the nun is 50.

The “fish” is the being that makes its “home” in the “house” that is the water of Mem and in the waters of Chakmah. Mem is associated with the Moon, and the Moon is associated with deception. (Notice the moon on the crown of the High Priestess card). It can be thought of as the fish that swims in the dark waters of the created world, represented by Mem מ. The fish may be caught with the ‘fish hook’, (the letter Tzaddi צ) or ensnared in a net (the letter Chet ח.) The greatest error that we human beings can make is to mistake the Necessary for the Good for this is how we are hooked or ensnared, and this is the point of Path #25, The Intelligence of Trials. We, too, may feel at home in our world where we have plenty of our needs met by the good things of the world. Those who do not do not feel in this way. This situation is entirely due to circumstances and Chance. This may be said to be analogous to the beautiful woman who looks in the mirror and believes that that is all that she is for she has been chanced with physical beauty, while the ugly woman who looks in the same mirror knows that she is more than that image which she sees. We can become forgetful of where our true being lies; and when we do so, we become less humane. This is the temptation and trial of looking into the mirror and how one is to look into the mirror.

Nun’s related meaning to “miscarriage” can be understood as “injustice”, since all miscarriages are connected to processes that are not brought to their true completion. We all feel that our own death is an injustice. Nun is also connected to fertility, continuity, and the ability to increase and multiply. Its contradictory nature can be represented by its association with Binah (the Empress #3), for it shows that Life must have its completion in Death and yet this Death is a “miscarriage”. Nun is also said to stand for the 50 Gates of Wisdom of Binah, which would again show its connections to Mem and to Chakmah.

Nun indicates constant presence, the being of the world experienced as presence. The Nun shows that we are bound to the Creator’s will (the Law of Necessity), even though we may become bound in our own personal egoistic way. This is a difficult situation to overcome. Life requires us to focus on ourselves in order to survive, and yet its great teaching is the overcoming of ourselves. The philosophers, in general, agree that life is the preparation for death. Nun shows the relationship between the body, which is impermanent, and the soul, which is eternal. This is its association with “miracle”, for it is a matter of faith that the soul will be reborn in its unification with the One.

Nun can also teach us about the nature of time and space since it is associated with the Time that is Binah and the Space that is Chakmah. Time and Space are the containers of the Law of Necessity. Nun also represents flow, and is thus associated with water. Its movement is downward and suggests both creation and humility.

The Letter Reish and the 25th Path: The Intelligence of Trials/Strife

Yesod to Tiferet: Path 25. Testing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Nisyoni): It is called this because it is the original temptation by which God tests all of His saints.

The Twenty-fifth Path is the Intelligence of Probation, or is Tentative, and is so called because it is the primary temptation, by which the Creator (blessed be He) trieth all righteous persons.

Alt. Trans. ” The twenty-fifth path is called the consciousness of trial because it is the primary test by which the creator proves the compassionate (Khasidim).”

Reish “and Elohim saw that it was good” (the beasts of the earth) 1:25

The Reish, the 20^th Hebrew letter, means “head”, “leader”, and “beginning” and appears to have some loose connections to the letter Tzaddi. The leader or head is that of the collective, so in the paths of wisdom, Reish is the symbol of choosing between whether one is to complete one’s journey individually and achieve greatness of soul, or whether one will succumb to the second temptation and become degraded by the power of social prestige and the trappings of material things.

Reish is the word for “poor” רש Rash, but this poverty is the deprivation of spirit not the poverty of being without the goods of this world. When Christ says that the rich “have their reward”, He is referring to that point where the choice is made to be satisfied with the material comforts and pleasures that such a choice brings.

Reish is similar to the letter Dalet; but whereas Dalet contains a Yod, the Reish does not. This may signify the individual who loses themselves in the collective so that the “I” ceases to exist. Such a loss of the “I” is a false choice as one can choose (or may not have a choice) to lose their “I” through decreation or one may choose to lose their “I” in a collective. This choice is representative in Reish being one of the double letters and its meaning as being “the head”. The head can represent a leader or that place or site where the choice has to be made.

Reish is a container, just as Beth (2) and Khaf (20) are containers, but while Khaf represents forms such as a cup or house, Reish(200) represents the containment of the infinite, the life-force, the ‘embodied soul’ or spirit. Reish represents the strife of the constant transition, the flow and change of life and is, thus, related to Time. It is like a constant flow of energy, breaking through, breaking down into pieces, and building anew. This is its kinship with Shin. Reish is also associated with the will to power as that which is ever-present to stop the process of decreation.

The Reish also relates to the “head”. It contains the secrets of Beresheet בראשית, the beginning and is, thus, associated with The Fool #0 card where choice is strongly indicated. As the word ראש Rosh Head, it also refers to the secrets of the Crown Keter כתר, the highest of the Sephirot but also to the Kingdom Malkhut, the lowest of the Sephirot.

The Twenty-fifth path is related to the letter Resh, ר meaning “head”, and is the sixth ‘double’. The path intersects the path established by the letter Mem. The Sefer Yetzirah seems to indicate that the created world is already ‘a garden of Eden’ since in the eyes of God (Elohim) all created things are good. The “primary temptation” is to view the world as not good but incomplete and it is conceived as incomplete because it does not conform to our wishes or desires.

The Tree of Knowledge in the garden has always been viewed as “knowledge of good and evil”, and the great temptation for human beings is to view themselves as the ‘creators’ of good and of justice, to see good and evil as constructs of their own viewing and valuing, and thus tempts them to ‘turn stones into bread’. The ‘righteous’ or the ‘just’ are those who are able to obey the will of God and able to avoid the temptation of seeing themselves as the creators of good, and the only creators of good. Clearly those who are just, show compassion to all that is and are mindful of the affliction that is part of the root of existence.

The path of Resh is the test or trial i.e., the polemos or confrontation that the individual must face with regard to “egoism” and the recognition of Otherness, the choice between power or compassion, between severity or loving kindness. The choice results in these opposing forces being brought into equilibrium, where love and will, the ego and the Other meet in harmony and friendship and become a unity.

The path of Resh links Tiferet to Yesod, the Beauty of the world to the Foundation of the physical world. It intersects the path of Mem, the horizontal mother letter, and forms a “cross” (“Pick up your cross and follow Me” Matthew 16: 24-26; “What God has joined together let no man put asunder” Matthew 19:6). The “putting asunder” of what God has joined into a unity through his mediatory powers is “the sin against the light”, that sin which is the root of all sin, the sin against the Truth. All denial of what one knows to be true is a sin against the Light. As Socrates said, “No one knowingly does evil”. This is the darkness that is current in America at the moment, and it accounts for its rampant corruption, immorality and injustice in the public sphere.

The equilibrium between the self and others, the unity between the “inner” and “outer” worlds is given by the light of Tiferet. (This is the unity which Socrates prays for at the closing of the dialogue Phaedrus and it mirrors the passage of Matthew 16: 24-26). The balance conferred by Love illuminates both Netzach and Hod, ethical action and justice, with the command to be compassionate.

The ”severity” of institutionalized religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam in the West) arises from their desire for power, from their being in possession of the “revealed texts” understood as Law and from their belief that they are in possession of the truth. The Divine Revelation becomes ossified in stone, literally, and ceases to be a “living God”. Their God becomes a “jealous God” who seeks retribution for sin. However, “the god who sometimes does and sometimes does not wish to go by the name of Zeus” demands payment in blood for the worship of false gods as is seen in the histories of these religions. (This is the tarot card The Tower #15 or #16, the card of revolution, the lightning bolt of Zeus).

The point of equilibrium is Tiferet which brings into a relation the Sephirot Yesod, Netzach, and Hod simultaneously. This equilibrium is not something permanent but must be wrested from the darkness that attempts to hide it. The wresting of truth is the constant strife of life and is the trial for the ‘righteous’.

The Letter Tav and the 30th Path: The General Universal Collecting Intelligence

30. General Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Kelali): It is called this because it is the means by which the astrologers collect their rules regarding the stars and the constellations, forming the theory that comprises their knowledge of the Ophan-wheels of the spheres.

The Thirtieth Path is associated with the letter Resh in the Western Tree of Case, and the Sephirot Malkhut #10 in the Hebrew Tree. In the W.T., it joins the Sephirot Hod to Yesod, or that which links the Tarot of Justice #8 (historical study) to that of The Hermit #9. The Law of Necessity rules the realms of Time and Space. The path deals with Space and Time as pre-requisites for the possibility of the things that are. The things that are do not exist outside of these realms, and so Space and Time are the “foundation” (Yesod) for the things that are.

The Sephirot of The Hermit Yesod deals with calculations and reckonings of the movement of the spheres; and from these, predictions can be made. In the calculation and reckoning, the astrologers or magi, “the masters of the heavens”, are capable of having foreknowledge of the outcomes of things, both in the world at large and within the individual. The Hermit dwells within a dark, sterile world and his knowledge places him “on top” of that world for he can commandeer and manipulate the contents of that world. But that world is very dark, as is depicted in the Tarot card used in the illustrations here.

The Pure Intelligence of Yesod gathers together or “collects” the particular data of the movement of the stars and planets to arrive at the General or Universal Intelligence from which is derived the theoretical intelligence or knowledge and from which principles can then be determined. Knowledge of the movements of the stars and planets is knowledge of Time and Space. Knowledge of Time and Space is knowledge of Necessity. The Law of Necessity is the harsh Justice of the right-hand side of the Tree of Life; it is a Justice without Mercy, and knowledge of it is knowledge without Love or Beauty. Thus, we have the darkness, solitude and coldness represented by The Hermit card. It is apt that the “new human being” created from such knowledge is a golem or “zombie”, for this is the ultimate result of this knowledge when it is not accompanied by the spiritual elements that are love and beauty. The spiritual elements are represented by the Tav and The World #21 card.

The 30^th path deals with astrological knowledge or knowledge of space and time, cause and effect. As has been stated, this knowledge is what is determined through the principle of reason, and the principle of reason is a principle of being or way of being in the world. The astrologers or Magi, through their calculations based on the geometry that supplies the division of the sphere into 12 “houses” and the movements of the seven visible planets through those houses, derive pre-dictive knowledge of human beings and beings. Their knowledge is inductive: moving from the particular to the universal. As predictive knowledge, it is the forerunner of what is now called science.

The mind is perceived as a “secondary organ”, not the ego cogito of Descartes but the combination of Fire, Water, Air to bring about Earth; the combination of mind and spirit embodied. Fire and Air embodied in Water produces Earth. The “dust” of the Earth was originally conceived as snow in the Sefer Yetzirah. Humas, the root of “humanity”, “human being”, relates to the creation of human beings. Historically, the search for the formula to invent a golem was founded in the various letters and incantations that were made by those who wished to do so. Through the principle of reason as a principle of being, it will now be possible to do so.

Path	Letter	Meaning	Symbol
Path 9. Pure Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Tahor): It is called this because it purifies the Sephirot. It tests the degree of their structure and the inner essence of their unity, making it glow. They are then unified, without any cutoff or separation.		The “pure reason” of Kant? The alchemical processes of purifying through fire and the beginning of the decreation of the human ego so that it may be unified with the Divine.	In the illustration here, the lamp of the Hermit is a modest light given as a reflection of the Moon behind it. The world depicted is a sterile one.
Path 25. Testing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Nisyoni): It is called this because it is the original temptation by which God tests all of His saints.	Reish ר	An indication that the three temptations: turning stones into bread, the desire for the power of social prestige, and the temptation to suicide are really one original temptation.	The site where the choice has to be made. The possibility of conversion, baptism, and re-birth.
Path 28. Natural Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Mutba): It is called this because the nature of all that exists under the sphere of the sun was completed through it.	Nun נ	The completion of all that is created or made is its passing away.	The Hermit is the realm of completion by the light of the Moon, while Death is the completion of all that is made under the Sun. Is it a rising Sun or a setting Sun?
Yesod to Hod Path 27. Palpable Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Murgash): It is called this because the intelligence of things created under the entire upper sphere, as well as their sensations, were created through it.	Yod י	In The Palpable Intelligence we are looking at the Mind as that which determines the appearance and the sensation of things. This brings about the ‘completion’ of things for those who view the world materialistically.	The thinking that is derived from the light of the Moon.
Path 30. General Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Kelali): It is called this because it is the means by which the astrologers collect their rules regarding the stars and the constellations, forming the theory that comprises their knowledge of the Ophan-wheels of the spheres.	Tav ת	Tav as one of the double letters indicates either descent or ascent, an ending or a beginning. The letter itself means ‘good’, but it can also mean ‘torah’. The ways can be either TORA or TARO.	Prophecy (represented by the four evangelists). The ways represented by the wands which appear as coils or gyres. The royal purple Kaf representing dominance in the realms of Yetzirah and Asiyah.

A Commentary on “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”: Chapter Eight

The Emanations to and from Hod

Hod and the 8^th Path: The Perfect Intelligence

Path 8. Perfect Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Shalem): It is called this because it is the Original Arrangement. There is no root through which it can be pondered, except through the Chambers of Greatness, which emanate from the essence of its permanence.

The Eighth Path is called Absolute or Perfect, because it is the means of the primordial, which has no root by which it can cleave, nor rest, except in the hidden places Of GEDULAH. Magnificence, which emanate from its own proper essence.

Alt. Trans. ” The eighth path is called the perfect consciousness because it is the plan of the primordial. It has no root where it can abide except in the hidden chambers of majesty (Gedulah) from which its own secret essence emanates.”

Wescott trans. The Eighth Path is called the Absolute or Perfect Intelligence, because it is the means of the primordial, which has no root by which it can cleave, nor rest, except in the hidden places of Gedulah , Magnificence, from which emanates its own proper essence.

Case trans. The eighth path (Hod the eighth Sephirah) is called the Perfect intelligence and it is so called because it is the dwelling-place of the Primordial. It has no root in which it may abide. other than the recesses of Gedulah, whence its essence emanates.

Hod is the Sephirot representing “the perfect intelligence”. As we have previously discussed, “perfect” means “complete”, “finished”, not requiring anything else nor any further action. Hod is represented in the Tarot by the Justice #8 card. Justice is the Law of Necessity or Natural Law as it was understood by the ancients, and this understanding is demonstrated in Path #22 The Faithful Intelligence and its influence on the Hod. The Primordial resides in the Law of Necessity; it was established prior to the Creation itself and determines what Creation would/will become. It is the justice of God’s withdrawal, allowing something to be other than Himself. This is why that which is completed is the ‘dwelling place’ of the Primordial, and its roots are in the Law of Necessity whose essence emanates from Sephirot Chesed.

While Justice is the law of Necessity and is the dwelling-place of the “primordial”, it is also representative of the human making of those things which we find ready-to-hand to us, those things that are ‘apt’ or ‘fitting’ for our uses and needs. The cycle of life found in the things of nature represents its teleology or purpose. The rose in bloom and its casting off of its seed is its natural end, its purpose. For human beings, to seek for the Good and to live well in communities is our “natural end”; it is our essence as human beings. When we fulfil our natural ends, we are ‘just’ and this implies that we are moral and ethical because the whole of Creation itself is moral and ethical.

In crossing over from the Divine to the created world (Gedulah or Chesed), the Divine must cross that abyss that separates the Good from the Necessary. How the Divine does so is one of the mysteries of Faith. The Law of Necessity is itself complete. Its essence rests in the physical world itself and it manifests itself from within the physical world. We find its clearest expression in the law of gravity and in causation itself, what we have interpreted as the principle of reason here, the principle of reason as a principle of being.

What we call “knowledge” in the arts and the sciences is the result of Necessity and our perspectives and understanding of what we call Necessity. Some Kabbalists ascribe The Library of Hermes to the Sephirot Hod, and this is appropriate as it is the Necessary which gives to us all that we can know about the Divine. The Divine itself conceals itself from us. The Library of Hermes is the container of the seven pillars of wisdom. Hermes is the mediator who conveys the logoi or messages of the gods. These messages are contained within his library.

The eight path captures what Plato means when he says: “Time is the moving image of eternity”. In Genesis, this passage is the first mention of God “making”, and “making” belongs to the universe of Yetzirah, which is the universe of making something from some thing. Beriyah is the universe of making something from no thing. Here the making appears to be the formation of space.

The “absolute” or “perfect” intelligence is that intelligence directed towards making or the end or “purpose” of making, to “pro-duce” or “bring forth” that which is apt or fitting or suitable for the desired purpose or end (justice). This production refers to human production, not with natural production since the ends of natural production are pre-determined through the Laws of Necessity.

Human production comes from our understanding of the Laws of Necessity. This human production is one aspect of “justice” as the Greeks understood it. Its highest achievement would be the enacting of just laws, and laws are the actions of human communities or societies (Gevurah). The most perfect law is the Law of Necessity, Natural Law: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, for He causes the rain to fall in equal amounts upon the just and the unjust” Matthew 5:8. This passage describes what we mean by the ‘blindness of justice’. The Law of Necessity is the Divine Will. The Perfect Intelligence is our understanding of the Divine Will, but this is an impossible task and comprises the essence of our journey in Life.

The hidden places “of Gedulah” (Chesed) are those of the physical world. Nature does not ‘lie’; it ‘hides’. The makers take those things which are ready-to-hand, use their knowledge to determine their “hidden” potentialities or possible forms, see a use for which they may be put, and then, through the use of tools, work to bring the “perfect” product into being that they originally had in mind. The end product is “perfect” because it is complete and requires no further work or action. If the end product is complete and serves its purpose, it is “just”, suitable; it is apt for its purpose. The hidden potentialities within things is the dynamis within them, the dynamis of the philosopher Aristotle. The wood of the tree has the potentiality to become a table. In Aristotle’s four causes, all these possibilities must be present for the potential thing to be made. Should one be lacking, then some other end is brought about.

The eighth path is placed within the universe of Yetzirah or Formation among the four universes of the Sepher Yetzirah: Atzilut is the Spiritual universe which is focused on parousia or ‘presence alongside’ or ‘between’ and is the source of the emanations or influences/influx of the Divine through the Sephirot. It is the source of “the primordial plan” that is present in the Beriyah which is focused on the creation of something from no-thing (the created world of Time and Space contained within the boundaries and limits of the Laws of Necessity, what we might see as our ‘theoretical world’); Yetzirah is the formation of something from some thing, human making, what we call technology, the use of our ‘knowing’ that is theoretical (logos) and our ‘making’ of something from some thing through our use of tools; and Asiyah is the shadows of the physical, where things are seen in the reflected light of Malkhut. Our current viewing of the world is dominated by the reflected light of Keter that views the world through the ‘gloom’ of Chokmah which is symbolized by the Moon and represented by the letter Mem. Put another way, everything which is grasped by our natural faculties is hypothetical and is in the realm of opinion.

The eighth Path is the focus of four Sephirot: Gevurah, Tiferet, and Hod; but there is another path involved and that is Malkhut, the path of will to power through the Laws of Necessity. Human beings, through their will to power, try to gain dominance over the Laws of Necessity and the nature that is subjugated to it. This domination increases their freedom. Through the predictive powers of the sciences (which is our understanding of the Laws of Necessity), nature’s spontaneity is controlled and dominated by the technology that is human knowing and making so that human spontaneity or “freedom” may be increased. This power contains the potential for great good or great evil. The greatest danger or evil is the loss of our humanity as “human beings” when the presence of Tiferet is ignored or bypassed. Malkhut is the only Sephirot not touched directly by Tiferet. Does Tiferet’s contrary come to dominate and we become lost in the darkness that is The Devil #16, and we become lost in our simple desire to will to will when we forget the call to kindness and mercy that is part of the essence of Tiferet?

The philosopher Nietzsche says: “Power makes stupid”. Stupidity is not related to the intellect or intelligence. Stupidity relates to the social or the collective sphere where the responsibility of thinking and contemplation, the revealing of truth, is given over to others; and in doing so, no truth can be revealed. With this loss of the revealing of truth comes a subsequent loss in our humanity. We become more bestial, violent, mad. The individual mind is capable of making 1 + 1 into a 2, but the collective mind cannot. “One mind is enough for a thousand hands”, as the German philosopher/poet Goethe said.

The human intellect and its products are entirely moral. One could go further and say that human existence is entirely moral. Social media will produce greater stupidity for it is subject to the same laws of Necessity that rocks and stones are. With this increase in stupidity will come a subsequent loss of language, that language that allows us to become co-creators with God. The Devil or the Great Beast is the realm of the social, the realm of power. Power in the social realm can only come into effect with the existence of others. The collective is like a physical mass or weight, and like all mass is subject to the laws of gravity and Necessity.

Paul Foster Case sees the letter Mem as the link between Gevurah and Hod, but the letter Shin in combination with the double letter Kaf would appear to be more appropriate. It would also require its combining with one of the double letters which are the seven vertical paths of the Tree of Life and which represent both ascent and descent. Mem, one of the three mothers, links East to West, from Netzach to Hod, and may link South to North from Chesed to Netzach, as Mem is the mother letter of the right side of the Tree of Life. Mem signifies water’s movement downwards; Shin signifies fire’s movement upwards. This corresponds to the downward movement of creation and the upward movement of decreation. Decreation is to make something created pass into the uncreated, the purifying fire, unlike destruction which is to make something created pass into nothingness. Nihilists and nihilism are the symptoms of the substitution of destruction for decreation, the anti- Logos for the Logos.

The linking letter from Tiferet to Hod is Lamed meaning “study”. The “perfect intelligence” of the maker in the universe of Yetzirah or Formation is that knowledge which can bring things to completion, the “know how” of the techne, the technician or artisan. “The eye” of Ayin refers to the thinking that is “theoretical”. The techne or artist or craftsperson is knowledgeable of the materials, their potentialities and possibilities for formation, their giving and their resistance to formation. He has “know how”. He is knowledgeable of the eidos or the outward appearance of the thing which he intends to make and the use it will be put to. His dynamis is his knowledge of these things. The work is in another and for another. The architect, for example, must have knowledge of the materials that will be used to build the structure he intends, the form or outward appearance of the structure once it will be finished, and the use to which the structure is finally intended. He himself will not do the work; that will be done by another. The structure is intended for use by another (although the architect could make use of the structure himself.) This kind of knowing and making is the essence of what we call technology.

We need to remember that what is brought into being through technology is not “new”; and while it may be “novel”, it does not come to be out of nothing but comes to be from what was always already there in its essence through what we call the essence of our understanding and knowledge, language, and number, what is called the Ain Sof in the Sefer Yetzirah. The realm of the “perfect consciousness” is the realm of the artist and the craftsperson, the technites of the Greeks. The realm of “pure intelligence” is the realm of the scientist; but both knowing and making, the arts and the sciences, are held together in the unity that we call technology (techne + logos).

The Letter Lamed and the 22nd Path: The Faithful Intelligence

Lamed – and Elohim “created the sea-monsters, creatures that creep, and fowl.” 1:21

Alt. Trans. “The twenty-second path is called the faithful consciousness because, through it, the spiritual powers are increased. All dwellers on earth ‘abide in its shadow.'”

Path 22. Faithful Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Ne’eman): It is called this because spiritual powers are increased through it, so that they can be close to all those ‘who dwell in their shadow’.

Lamed, the 12th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, is the symbol of learning and teaching and, thus, expresses what the Greeks called the mathematical. It is translated literally as the word for “learning” or “study” and also for “staff” or “goad”. The shape of Lamed is the ‘uncoiled serpent’, and the serpent is associated with knowledge. Lamed is located at the centre of the Aleph-Beth and represents the heart Lev לב. This is why it is associated with Tiferet, the Heart. In Kabbalah, learning is mostly done with the heart and soul, not just the mind as the mind is a secondary organ. This learning and teaching is illustrated in the statement of Simone Weil: “Faith is the experience that the intelligence is illuminated by Love.” This is why I have associated Lamed with the path of the Faithful Intelligence, the path going from Tiferet to Hod.

Lamed indicates that all learning is the heart of human existence, both spiritual and physical, and that the revealing of truth is part of human nature. When human beings cease to reveal truth, they become more inhumane, bestial, violent, mad. Human being’s course in life is to learn and express i.e., to use those faculties which distinguish human beings from all other animals and beings. Those faculties are our participation in the Logos, the use of language and number. Through the use of language and number we reveal truth and complete our human nature. But this use of language and number is “two-faced”: it can both reveal and conceal at the same time. When the use of the logos becomes centred in the Yod or individual (the Palpable Intelligence of the 27^th path), it then becomes will to power or “self-centred”. Does a choice remain for human beings not to live out their being with this view of the logos i.e., is their past viewing of the logos now become their Fate? How does one extricate oneself from this?

Lamed reaches higher than any of the other Hebrew letters, like a lighthouse or tower high in the air. It may thus signify a warning of the hubris that comes to human beings when their pride in their learning causes them to place themselves at the centre of the universe at the expense of all other beings. It is the nemesis that results from such pride. The lightning bolt emanates from the Sun (a symbol of truth and associated with the Sephirot Tiferet) and blasts the crown or symbol of the “kingdom” (Malkhut) that human beings construct from their false use of language and number.

The shape of the Lamed is an undulating movement, (the serpent uncoiled, the Draconis spread across the sky) and the Lamed represents constant organic movement, constant change, the Draconis or Time. It may be said to be the learning that results in revolution, the hard learning of life. But this learning can also be the opportunity for conversion and change in the Self. Lamed is the lightning strike of energy or the lightning bolt of Zeus descending down the two sides of the Tree of Life. The Tower card (which I would suggest is #15 rather than #16) shows ten yods in the form of the Tree of Life on the female side of the tower and twelve yods indicating the twelve houses of the Zodiac, the twelve tribes of the Houses of Israel (again Israel being all creation and the twelve tribes being all the races of human beings) on the male side of the tower. The element of fire predominates in the card and this would suggest its association with the mother letter Shin. The illustrator of the card has chosen to associate the card with Peh, which signifies ‘mouth’, and Peh is one of the seven double letters. Does this signify the potential of speaking truly or falsely regarding things? We can gain some insight into this from Macbeth’s speech:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, / To the last syllable of recorded time; / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! / Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.“

Here we see the false speech of a man who views life from the perspective of having violated life’s principles: he has committed numerous murders in order to satisfy the desires of his own ego. For such a man, learning (especially from history and its ‘lighting’ of human experience in time) makes a human being ‘a walking shadow’ who cannot learn from his suffering and so becomes a nihilist, a destroyer. (Much, much more can be said of this particular speech.)

Lamed teaches us to learn from everything in life so that we may understand what can be learned and what can be taught. The significance of the Yods on The Tower #15 card indicate a learning and teaching that is focused on the ego, and this learning will lead to our downfall, as it does with Macbeth. While we cannot know the will of God in detail, we can learn that the purpose of suffering is the decreation or destruction of the ego. (Shakespeare’s King Lear is the best example of this in English literature). It is through this destruction or decreation that one becomes united with the Divine. After one has governed their bestial tendencies in Khaf and no longer has the blockages of the ego interfering with their vision of the world, they can begin to learn the truth of the true nature and purpose of human learning.

The Letter Mem and the 29th Path: The Corporeal Intelligence

Genesis 1.7 And Elohim made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And Elohim called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

The Twenty-ninth Path is the Corporeal Intelligence, so called because it forms every body which is formed beneath the whole set of worlds and the increment of them.

Alt. Trans. ” The twenty-ninth path is called the corporeal consciousness because it marks out the forms and reproduction of all bodies which are incorporated under every cycle of the heavens.”

Path 29. Physical Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Mugsham): It is called this because it depicts the growth of all that becomes physical under the system of all the spheres.

“To mark out” is to assign limits and boundaries to things, to give them a form (eidos) so that they may be understood within the web of Necessity. This is the mental process of the principle of reason and so has been assigned to the letter Shin. This influence of Shin is the realm of Yetzirah or Formation; and as we have stated, it is ruled by the principle of reason. The 29^th path seems to indicate Aristotle’s teleology: the telos or end in which things achieve their completion or perfection (Hod). In the Tarot, The Star #17 is another card of completion i.e., Fate, what one is destined to be. What one is destined to be is determined by the choices one makes. The 29^th path is the crossover from Netzach to Hod and it indicates a change from the realm of Asiyah, the material realm, to that of Yetzirah or the realm of Formation. The Judgement #20 of the test of Reish has already been determined and the Fate has already been decided.

The paths and the Sefer Yetzirah cannot be viewed from an individual perspective only. The individual is not the whole human being. The human being is an ‘embodied soul’ within a community of embodied souls. In the journey that is life, one can be ‘hooked’ into viewing the world as material only, as the fact-based reality we encounter and confront every day in our day-to-day lives. In the confrontation or strife that is Netzach, one makes the choice of becoming a full human being and going onward, or of being satisfied with materialism and power and of potentially becoming a golem, a ‘soulless’ animated thing. One chooses the darkness, or one chooses the light.

The letter Mem is water mayim מים, the waters of wisdom, knowledge, the Torah as it is referred to by some Hebrew commentators. Representing both waters and manifestation, it is the ability to dive deep into the wisdom, into the depths of Creation. It is said that in every person is the thirst for the words of the Creator which are the waters of life, and this corresponds to Aristotle’s words that “All human beings by nature desire to see”. The open Mem refers to the revealed aspects of God’s will that we understand as Necessity and that are given to us in our study and learning, while the closed Mem refers to the concealed part of the celestial rule that nonetheless guides us and all of existence i.e., the Divine Will. Mem also represents the time necessary for ripening and indicates to us the importance of balanced emotions and of humility, in particular, while we are waiting on God.

Mem corresponds to the number 40 and represents the time necessary for the ripening process that leads to fruition. (40 days for the development of the embryo, 40 years in the desert before reaching the holy land, 40 years development before Moses was prepared to be the leader of Israel, Jesus’ fasting for 40 days before he is tempted by Satan).

The Mem also teaches us about balanced emotions – balancing the watery motions of our feelings and this is how it influences Netzach. And it is about humility – water is the substance that always runs downhill to the lowest place. Fire, on the other hand, always rises.

The Twenty-ninth Path once again illustrates that which has been called the “mathematical” in this writing i.e., that which can be learned and that which can be taught. It is the knowledge or awareness of the physical material of the universe and the forms that are possible for this physical material to take its shape. In the path, this movement is associated with Time.

The “mathematical” would be indicated by the letter Lamed ל or “study”, “the serpent uncoiled” and how this emanates from the Sephirot Tiferet or The Sun. In order for some thing to be learned, it must first be brought to a “stand” or bounded within a horizon so that it may be “de-fined” and a name given to it so that it may be spoken about. The “numerations” weigh and measure things so that they are brought out of their natural state of metabole or change into something that can be known i.e., they are given a “permanence” of some kind, a “stability” of some kind. Numbers are only one example of the “mathematical”. The manner of seeing that results from the “consistency” or reliability of the use of numbers is but one manner of encountering and accounting for the laws of Necessity and the relation of created things to the domains of time and space.

The Twenty-ninth Path also indicates the limits of human reason and intelligence and so is influenced by The High Priestess #2. The ‘stability’ that arises from the collective or social manner of viewing the world comes about as a result of the consistency of the results of calculations or ‘numerations’ that are carried out. The ‘numerations’ are the logoi or speech that is shared among the members of the community. These logoi are grounded in the principle of reason. The Sefir Yetzirah states that Mem, as one of the three Mothers, moves in a horizontal, not a vertical direction. The movement on the paths is a later, Renaissance, addition. Because Alef is the source of all the letters, it is capable of both vertical and horizontal movement. The direction of Mem is back and forth not up and down, unless one considers the three Mothers as both horizontal and vertical and that the three Mothers are the three pillars of the Tree of Life (which is what is considered here). The three Mothers act as vowels in the formation of words and thus must be capable of both horizontal and vertical movements as well as diagonal movements.

There is no “human progress” that occurs on the spiritual level along with the progress achieved on the material level. Morally and ethically human beings, as a whole, have not made any significant progress from their ancestors. This is because the moral and ethical presence of what human beings truly are as human beings has always been present for them to reach out to and grasp. Because human beings lose sight of the chasm which separates the Necessary from the Good, they fail in making true progress. They come to worship power and all of its false idols. This ultimately results in the oblivion of eternity for human beings.

Hod is the terminus of the Pillar of Severity or Form (necessity); Netzach is the terminus of the Pillar of Mercy, the “splendour” of which is the recognition of the Beauty of the world and the beauty of human actions within that world. The middle pillar is the fulcrum providing the “balance”, the “harmony”, the “equilibrium”, the “friendship”, the “covenant” between the Divine and human beings. It is referred to as the Ain Sof by the Kabbalists

The Letter Kaf and the 24th Path: The Imaginative/Apparative Intelligence

The Twenty-fourth Path is the Imaginative Intelligence, and it is so called because it gives a likeness to all the similitudes, which are created in like manner similar to its harmonious
elegancies.

Path 24. Apparative (Tools) Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel
Dimyoni) (Sometimes called The Imaginative Intelligence): It is called this
because it provides an appearance for all created apparitions, in a form
fitting their stature.

Khaf, the 11th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, means literally the cupped palm of the hand. It is like a cupped, outstretched palm, ready to receive. The shape of all containers – a bowl, a cup, a jar, is based on that basic curved shape, and Khaf represents the idea of a container. It represents form, the outward appearance of a thing. A house is a form that contains the goings on of the people inside it; a body is a form which contains the life and energy of the person. The forms of the physical world are where the spiritual essence of life is contained and is able to manifest itself. The Khaf also teaches us to shape ourselves- to bend the ego and shape our character. This flexible character aligns it with Path #9, The Purifying Intelligence of Yesod. (The Kaf may also be said to refer to the Holy Grail, the container that holds life itself.)

The Khaf is what gives form to the matter, and because of this power is placed on the left side of the Tree of Life. It is also one of the seven double letters and implies movement both up and down on the Tree of Life. It contains all the possibilities of containing, building, and forming all existence, and this relates it to the eidos or the outward appearance of some thing. It is the letter of formation, bending the straight line into a curved shape. It also symbolizes the crown of the Torah – Keter כתר (I think this would be better understood as the Kingdom of Malkhut?) The Khaf could also be understood as an arc which composes the sphere that encompasses or contains the physical world and thus is part of the gyre that crosses the world of Asiyah to the world of Yetzirah. Since the Khaf gives form to some thing and completes that thing, it is appropriate that it is associated with the path from Hod to Gevurah and is related to the Justice card #8 of the Tarot which is related to the “know how” that brings about the completion of some thing made from some thing else.

The Imaginative or Apparative Intelligence that is path 24 relates to that “know how” that is the technological. Technology is the unique coming together of ‘knowing’ and ‘making’, techne and logos, that is founded upon the viewing of the world as ready-to-hand, something disposable. This viewing first requires a ‘system’ or ‘grid’ in which the things are placed as objects; and as we have previously discussed, this viewing is determined by the theoretical understanding established in the Beriyah world under the influence of Binah, the third sephirot. When the things are brought to a stand within the system, it is through the use of tools and equipment that change in the outward appearances of things is brought about, and their shapes are bent so that they will be made useful to meet human ends or purposes. This is why we commonly misconstrue technology as the equipment and tools of technology rather than the viewing which first determines those tools and equipment and the uses of those tools and equipment. This may be said to be the reason why Binah is associated with the pillar of Boaz and with the adjectives of ‘severity’ and ‘contraction’.

In examining the triangles of the paths, the Kaf of Path #24 (The Imaginative/Apparative Intelligence) combines with the Shin of Path #29 (The Corporeal Intelligence) as well as the Ayin of Path #20 (The Intelligence of the Will) and the Lamed of Path #22 (The Faithful Intelligence) to produce what is called the technological viewing of the world. This is also affected by the Vav of Path #17 (The Intelligence of the Senses) and the paths of Peh (The Unity Directing Intelligence) and Kaf (The Imaginative Intelligence) which results from the influence of the path of Lamed from Tiferet to Hod.

The Letter Yod and the 27th Path: The Exciting Palpable Intelligence

The Twenty-seventh Path is the Exciting Intelligence, and it is so called because by it is created the Intellect of all created beings under the highest heaven, and the excitement or motion of them.

Alt. Trans. “The twenty-seventh path is called the exciting consciousness because, through it, is created the life-breath of every created being under the supreme orb, as well as the motion of them all.”

Path 27. Palpable Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Murgash): It is called this because the intelligence of things created under the entire upper sphere, as well as their sensations, were created through it.

The Twenty-seventh path relates to the creation of human beings, their “ensoulment” and their motion. Here we can see that “soul” is related to “intellect” or “reason” in one translation; it is called the “life-breath” of human beings in another translation, and it is here that a great transformation takes place in the being of human beings. We can relate this “intellect” to the Greek logos or perhaps the Greek nous, but it more closely relates to the Latin understanding and translation of logos as rationale or “reason” rather than the broad Greek understanding of the term.

If we relate this to our understanding of eros, the “exciting consciousness” is the awareness of “need”, and it is this need which compels us to “motion” or action. This awareness of our needs requires us to apply reason to them in order to fulfil them. The use of the word “palpable” in some translations suggests that the sensations spoken of here go beyond the mere ‘seeing’ with the eye only but also include the other senses. We feel the needs of eros ‘palpably’. While sight is given priority in the senses, it is not the only sense of human beings. Equally important, perhaps, is the sensation of hearing.

Motion is related to Time, and here it is related to the concepts of Being and Time. From Netzach to Yesod is experienced the “life-force” of sexuality/propagation, and Time is the coming into being of all beings. With the “exciting intelligence” is experienced the erotic need of the recognition of our incompleteness. The words of this path suggest that the world as a whole is a ‘living being’ and that all created beings have the ‘life-breath’ within them. The purpose of the journey is to get in touch with this life-force. Again, whether this will be experienced as will to power or Love is the choice that the human beings must make, and this choice comes at path 25 The Intelligence of Trials.

(Our desire for children is the desire for the Incarnation which came into being through Tiferet. The “supreme orb” is the sphere encircling all created things, but there is also an indication that it is the Sun. The tarot card corresponding to this path is The Devil #16 and the letter Ayin ע meaning ‘eye’ is associated with the card. This card stands in contrast to The Lovers card #6. Is the beauty of individual human beings and our desire to possess and consume that beauty (the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge) the trap that is set for us? the “original sin” and its temptation is the desire to consume, to eat that which is beautiful? This cannot be so, but it is so difficult to think around this. Our sexuality is a mirroring of the creative act of the Divine, a widening of the gyres. Is this the reason behind the calling of sexuality ‘sinful’ in so many of the traditional religions? Or is it the very disruptive nature of eros to social order that is the ground of the various taboos against sexuality as it appears in its various forms?)

The 10th Hebrew letter Yod is a dot or point. There are a number of contradictory interpretations for the letter Yod, and these contradictions rest in how different interpretations of the nature of the Divine and the nature of human beings have come about. For some, the Yod represents the Creator, the single point from which all of creation emerges, the Unity within multiplicity, but is this not a duplication of the understanding of the letter Alef? The letter Alef is composed of two Yods and a Vav suggesting a Trinity. A singular Yod would place God at an infinite distance from His creation, or conversely, place God within His creation in such a way that He is mistaken for the Necessary and all that occurs within Necessity. The Yod itself is considered the foundation of all foundations, and this is why it is associated with the Sephirot Yesod. But is not this foundation what is being referred to as Necessity here? Is the key to understanding the significance of the Yod that it is the 10^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and thus a new beginning of some kind?

Yod is a symbol of the Holy One, the Creator, since the holy name starts with Yod (YodHehVavHeh). Small in form, the meaning of the Yod is great. According to kabbalistic tradition, all creation came forth from a single point– a point which represents God’s infinite presence inside of the finite world. This interpretation seems to be fine if it is remembered that this single point is infinitely small in relation to the macrocosm about it and that it mirrors the soul in the body in that the soul is an infinitely small point in the microcosm that is the human body.

Yod also represents the idea of Unity within Multiplicity, of one whole that is comprised of parts. Yod as we see is a single point, but its value is 10. It shows us that many grains of sand are used to make one pot, many pages make up one book, many drops of water make up the ocean. There are many parts that comprise the individual human being and all of these parts belong to Necessity, but at centre of the human being is an infinite point that does not belong to Necessity. It belongs to God because it is part of Him. There are many occurrences and experiences in the world, but they all stem from One God, perfect and indivisible.

But if this is the case, how can events and experiences which are clearly deprivals of the Good be attributed to God? One cannot so easily dismiss the Book of Job. The Yod also is said to represent the ten Sefirot (but if this is the case, what is the significance of the Alef and what is the relation between the two? The letter Alef is composed of two Yods and a Vav. It is a ‘trinity’.). In Yod, the multiplicity returns to unity. In the Sephirot Yesod, it can be said that Being is the foundation, the ground/reason. The principle of reason speaks to us as a principle of being from within the Yesod and the Yod itself can be mistakenly understood as this principle of reason only. The Fool #0 stands before the abyss of Being, the world of Asiyah; he/she makes a leap into that abyss. The result becomes The Magician #1: the techne, the “showman” and the resultant theatre that is the world of Yetzirah. Shakespeare understood this when he said: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”.

The Yod is an infinite dot, the essence of all life, when it is understood as the ‘soul’ of the individual. As such, it is the foundation of all foundations since it is related to, and brought into a relation to, the Logos, the Word. In it is the power of the spirit to govern and guide the matter of the material world and this is why it is mistaken for empowerment. Everything comes from it and returns to it. The soul is that hidden dot beyond the imagination – formless, the source of all thought, beyond all thoughts, beyond time and space, beyond the representational thinking that is our modern understanding of what knowledge and sensibility are. It is the secret hidden principle of the universe that we cannot perceive, and because of this hiddenness is mistakenly taken for will to power through the principle of reason.

So why then is it related to the Palpable Intelligence or Consciousness here? It is related to the Palpable Intelligence or Consciousness “because the intelligence (consciousness) of things is created (is “made”) under the entire upper sphere, as well as their sensations, were created through it.” Here one can see the connection of the Yod to the Logos understood as Word, as well as the connection of the Yod to the principle of reason as a principle of Being and as will to power. The Palpable Intelligence is also translated as the “Exciting Intelligence” and this demonstrates a connection to eros and to the recognition of need and to the condition of deprival.

If we understand the Logos as Love, we can see how widely variant ways of looking at the world are possible. In literature, psychoanalysts have a field day interpreting the poem “Love” by George Herbert, but their analyses indicate what has become of our understanding of eros and love under the technological. Freud gave to love a cup of poison to drink.

Love

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
    From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lack’d anything.

‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
            Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
            I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
            ‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
            ‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
            So I did sit and eat.

From what is being written here in this analysis of “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom” about the two-faced nature of Logos and Eros, one can get a vastly different understanding of this poem and the encounter with Love. This difference is the essence of the thinking that occurs within the realms of Beriyah and Yetzirah and how they diverge. A psychoanalytic reading of this poem will achieve the same effect as the viewing of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” with knowledge of the chemical composition of his yellow paint. It will be interesting but yet will tell you nothing of the reality of the truth that is present in the object before one.

The Letter Tzaddi and the 32nd Path: The Administrative Serving Intelligence

Alt. Trans. “The thirty-second path is called the serving consciousness because it directs the motion of the seven planets, each in its own proper course.”

The 32^nd path has a variety of translations each of which offers possible insights into its contents and meanings. That which directs the seven planets is the Law of Necessity, and through its direction, we are given Time. The students of the movements of the planets are the Magi or astrologers, and The Magician #1 derives his name from them. The danger, of course, is that through the predictions of the Magi, Necessity itself will become “worshipped” and the followers cease to distinguish the gulf that exists between the Necessary and the Good. There could also be an allusion here to the Roman religion which worshipped the planets as gods and because of this worship, the one God of the Hebrews would eventually ‘destroy’ them (which is what ultimately occurred).

What the 32^nd path indicates is that in the kingdom of Malkhut, it is the law of Necessity which rules; and when The Fool makes his/her leap into the abyss of being, he or she is immediately faced with a choice of being a follower of others or someone who sets out on their own path. It appears that this choice is represented by the choosing of the path of the Tzadik, the 32^nd path, or the path of the Tav to Yesod, the 30^th path.

As the element of water represented by Mem is present throughout the downward movement on the Tree of Life, the element of fire represented by Shin is present throughout the upward movement. The element of fire refines and purifies things and is called alchemy in the course of history. The purification is the search for the ‘philosopher’s stone’ which is a metaphor for the ‘soul’. The alchemical process is the baptism that follows the ‘conversion’ of the initiate, and this conversion occurs immediately when confronted by the paths of Tzaddi and of Tav. This is why there is the connection within the Sephirot Malkhut between The Fool #0, The Wheel of Fortune #10, and Judgement #20 cards of the Tarot. The choice facing The Fool is path 25 The Intelligence of Trials, and the result is either a conversion and baptism or being caught like a fish in the ‘fish hook’ that is the meaning of the letter Tzaddi.

Tzaddi is the 18^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It signifies both “righteousness” and the “hunt”. Its literal meaning is “fish hook” and it is with the hook that one catches the “fish”, signified by the letter Nun. Fishing is a hunting activity, and is here a metaphor for religious proselytizing.

In Greek mythology, the goddess of the hunt is Artemis. She is also the goddess of the moon. The shape of the Tzaddi is a Nun with a Yod riding on top of it, indicating the individual as a ‘fish’ or as a distinct person. The gematria of Tzaddi is 90 suggesting a connection with The Hermit card #9 of the Tarot: 9 X 2 is 18, The Moon. The contrary to the Moon is Justice (‘righteousness’) which is card #8 in Tarot. This seems to suggest that the righteous can be deceived by the ‘false speech’ and become ‘hooked’, as a fish is deceived by the fish hook. “Righteous” means “just”, but here it seems to indicate the justice that is the product of the society or culture that produces it. There seems to be an alignment between the ‘false knowledge’ that belongs to The Hermit card of the Tarot and the ‘reflected light’ that is The Moon’s as opposed to the direct light of the Sun. The deception, the deceit and fraud, is also related to the ‘hiddenness’ that is an element of Tzaddi.

The Tzaddi represents the Tsaddik, the person who is just; but this justice is bereft of mercy, it appears. They may be the leaders of their generation be they politicians, teachers, priests or other religious figures. They are the ‘hooks’ that hook the ‘fish’, their followers. Tzaddi belongs to the left side of the Tree of Life for it deals with societies and leaders. The true Tzaddik strives to reveal truth, loving justice and mercy, able to recognize their weaknesses and strengths, and thus have self-knowledge. This self-knowledge can only come in choosing the paths of the Tav and the Reish.

The shape of Tzaddi appears to be a combination of the letters Lamed, Yod and Zayin. One can understand the significance of this combination if one considers that Lamed is ‘study’, Yod is the individual, and Zayin is either the ‘sword’ or the ‘manacle’. The Zayin can be either a sword of liberation or a manacle of entrapment or enslavement. The individual is faced with a choice once they have made the leap into being.

Path	Letter	Meaning	Symbol
Path 8: Perfect Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Shalem): It is called this because it is the Original Arrangement. There is no root through which it can be pondered, except through the Chambers of Greatness, which emanate from the essence of its permanence.		The knowing and making that brings about the completion of some thing. “Know how…” This thing may be corporeal or it may be some ‘value’ that human beings ‘create’ at this stage. Original arrangement: Necessity. The Chambers of Greatness: Malkhut.	The scales
Hod to Gevurah Path 24. Apparative (Tools) Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Dimyoni) (Sometimes called The Imaginative Intelligence): It is called this because it provides an appearance for all created apparitions, in a form fitting their stature.	Khaf כ	Hand; taking possession of something. The viewing of the world as ready-to-hand turns the world into objects and those objects are ‘disposable’ according to the human will.	The form of the outward appearance of things is a ‘shadow’ or an ‘apparition’ of the thing. It is not the essence of the thing. The divine essence shows forth and hides simultaneously. We can become lost in the outward appearance of things.
Hod to Tiferet Path 22. Faithful Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Ne’eman): It is called this because spiritual powers are increased through it, so that they can be close to all those ‘who dwell in their shadow’.	Lamed ל “study”, “learning” The Library of Hermes	The Library of Hermes is composed of the texts of the world. The texts of the world are composed of that which is understood regarding the Laws of Necessity. It is what we call ‘education’; ‘historical knowledge’.	The Tower of Babel. The writings of all nations regarding their interpretations of the Laws of Necessity and the Divine Will. Lamed as the ‘uncoiled serpent’, what we call knowledge and ‘study’.
Hod to Yesod 27. Palpable Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Murgash): It is called this because the intelligence of things created under the entire upper sphere, as well as their sensations, were created through it.	Yod י	That ‘seeing’ that brings the things of the world into appearance in a manner in which they may be understood and spoken about. Crucial distinction between the principle of reason as being or Logos not understood as ratio, rationale.	Arm. The extension that grasps. The ego. The physical body as a vehicle by means of which the soul extends itself beyond the limitations of the body to the created world that is ready-to-hand.
Hod/Netzach Path 29. Physical Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Mugsham): It is called this because it depicts the growth of all that becomes physical under the system of all the spheres.	Shin/Mem/Alef מ/א/ש	The Physical intelligence dominated by Mem in the crossover from Hod to Netzach or Netzach to Hod. It is shaped by how the Palpable Intelligence has come to be interpreted.	Fate, destiny, how one’s being in the world is determined. “Matter is our infallible judge.” The fate of the end of being a full human being or something less than that.
Hod to Malkhut Path 32. Worshipped Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Ne’evad): It is called this because it is prepared so as to destroy all who engage in the worship of the seven planets.	Tzaddi צ	Fish hook. The Fool is the ‘fish’ and it is The Magician who is trying to ‘hook’ him. The Magician is a proselytizer of any collective looking for adherents or followers.	The Tzadik receives his view of justice from the society or world of which he/she is a part. Here it is a descent from Hod to Malkhut and is part of the world of Asiyah. The Magician is the possessor of the knowledge that is believed to be the truth and The Fool may become a follower of this ‘truth’.

Some Notes on Republic, Symposium and Phaedrus and Their Relation to the Texts

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The Emanations to and from Malkhut

The Letter Tav and the 30th Path: The General Universal Collective Intelligence

The Letter Qof and the 31st Path: The Continuous Perpetual Intelligence

The Letter Tzaddi and the 32nd Path: The Administrative, Worshipped, Serving Intelligence

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The Paths Emanating From Yesod

The Letter Yod and the 9th Path: The Pure Intelligence (Consciousness)

The Letter Nun and the 28th Path: The Natural Intelligence

The Letter Reish and the 25th Path: The Intelligence of Trials/Strife

The Letter Tav and the 30th Path: The General Universal Collecting Intelligence

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The Emanations to and from Hod

Hod and the 8th Path: The Perfect Intelligence

The Letter Lamed and the 22nd Path: The Faithful Intelligence

The Letter Mem and the 29th Path: The Corporeal Intelligence

The Letter Kaf and the 24th Path: The Imaginative/Apparative Intelligence

The Letter Yod and the 27th Path: The Exciting Palpable Intelligence

Love

The Letter Tzaddi and the 32nd Path: The Administrative Serving Intelligence

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Hod and the 8^th Path: The Perfect Intelligence