This writing will explore the two faces of Eros and Logos. These two faces or aspects indicate that the eros and logos are “Janus-faced”, and their aspects involve some duplicity when involved in the day-to-day lives of human beings. The duplicity is the manner in which both Psyche and Eros deal with truth as revealing and the bringing into the light and the hiding or concealment of truth in our experience of the reality of world.
The soul, Psyche, is wed to Eros and is composed, according to Plato, of the logistikon (head), the thymoeides (heart), and the epithymetikon (appetites, gut). Eros may be said to be concerned with the ontical or the material and the concrete, that which is physical and accessible or revealed through the senses. Logos is concerned with the ontological or the manner of being of human beings within language, either as word or number i.e. the “knowledge” that gives rise to the politics and the ethics that come-to-be as a result of the challenging Eros upon human beings so that our lives are ones of ordering that which is revealed through the various parts of the soul and how that which is revealed comes to its essence. This ordering revealing stance gives the world to us as “data” and is what we call “information”. “Information” is that which is responsible for the ‘form’ (ordering, gathering) so that it may ‘inform’. The data must report in a way that makes whatever is revealed compatible with the ‘form’ for the ‘form’ rules in the ordering of the data. The ‘informing’ is possible through the form in which the data is brought to light and revealed as a ‘resource’. This ordering gathering is what we call technology.
Though Eros and Psyche are wed to each other, they are not Identical. We can say that they are the Same and their relationship distinguishes what we mean by the Identical and the Same. Also, in saying that Logos and Eros have two faces, we are nevertheless insisting that both are one just as the tripartite soul is a one or individual. If we count up the parts, they will total 7. Plato’s drama Symposium has seven speakers and the drama itself reflects the nature of the human soul.
The tripartite soul of Plato can be held in contrast to the tripartite theory of the “person” of Sigmund Freud. For Freud the id, ego, and superego compose the concrete reality of the human psyche, the persona, the “personality”. In Freud, there are no souls. Love, for Freud, is blind and is a matter of contingency and chance. For Plato, Love and the Intelligence are connected in the essential human activity of revealing truth and of living well in communities, how we participate in justice, and what we are “fitted” for as human beings. The dialectical or ‘conversational friendship’ that is the essence of the Platonic relationship of the soul with the presence-at-hand of ‘the other’ that leads to the perfection that is its proper end is mirrored in Freudian psychotherapy by the relationship between the therapist/analyst and the patient which, hopefully, leads to “good mental health”. For both, the end is eudaemonia or “happiness”, “good spirits”. Whereas Freud sees human beings as “persons” (“masks”) and ids or “its”, Plato sees human beings as “souls”. Where Freud sees the essence of sacred love as profane, Diotima in Symposium sees that what we understand as profane love is, in its essence, sacred. This is what is meant here when we say that through our natural desire or urge for procreation or giving birth to children, we are showing our desire for the Incarnation, for immortality.
Plato’s tripartite soul consists of the logistikon (reason, thought, nous which has to do with the head), the thymoeides (spiritedness, that which houses anger, hate, care, concern and love as well as the other “spirited” emotions which has to do with the heart), and the epithymetikon (appetite or desire, which houses the desire for physical pleasures, the desire for “possession” and “consumption” which has to do with the gut and genitalia).
While for Plato the ’embodied soul’ of the human being is a three, it is also a ‘one’. Since each part of the soul is ‘two-faced’, the three parts combine with the one to produce a seven. Human society, our culture and politics, are the institutions and conventions that mirror the three parts of the soul, each type of regime or institution from which they originate highlighting an aspect of the human soul the development of which through education will bring about what is conceived as human “excellence” or “virtue”, what the Greeks called arete, within that society. It is the political regime which the community has chosen or which rules in the community that creates the character of the human beings who live within that regime and the “culture” of the worlds in which those human beings will be immersed. It is the political regime that is ultimately the determiner of the ethics or the actions of the members of that regime. For the ancients, religion and the state, the ethics and the politics, were not distinct. This must be kept in mind when trying to understand what is currently occurring in regimes throughout the world. “Human excellence” is not a matter of taste or fashion.
The sub-title of Symposium by Plato is “On the Good”. The coming to be of technology as a way of being-in-the-world has required changes in what we think is good, what we think the good is, how we conceive sanity and madness, justice and injustice, rationality and irrationality, beauty and ugliness. The word “technology” in its unique combining of the Greek words technē and logos illustrates the “two-faced” character of its etymological roots: “knowing”(logos) and “making” (technē).
“Making” is a kind of “procreation”, but unlike Nature’s “procreation” which is from within itself, technology’s “procreation” is “in another and for another”. Nature’s procreation is presence-at-hand and we apprehend it through our viewing of the beauty of the world in the flight of a butterfly or the awe we feel in the presence of some natural phenomenon such as Niagara Falls. Technology’s procreation is the ready-to-hand world that gives and views the “other” as “resource”, as “data”.
This technological bringing forth was called poiesis by the Greeks, and our word “poetry” is derived from this word. Poiesis is a “bringing forth”; technology is also a bringing forth, but they are not the same. The “bringing-forth” that is technology is the eros that is present in both the arts and the sciences, and this bringing-forth, this pro-duction, is what we call ‘knowledge’. The poiesis of technology is distinct from that of poetry, and this distinction is indicated in its use of “imagination” or eikasia as illustrated by Plato in his Divided Line in Bk VI of his Republic. The eikasia or imagination is shown in that which is present in the bringing-forth that is the technology of the technicians and it is distinguished from that bringing-forth that is the work of the true poets.
How does technology become the anti-Eros and the anti-Logos that it is in the modern age? Or perhaps we may question: how does technology show itself as one of the faces of the Janus-faced entities that we call eros and logos? The writer J. R. R. Tolkien once referred to technology as “black magic”. “Magic” is the attempt to control human beings’ relation to the divine as well as to Necessity, and the colour black is indicative of the lack of revealing light. “Magic” is a form of hubris and is condemned as such. While technology is able to reveal Necessity with great affect, it cannot do so with the divine. It is the mastering, commandeering urge or desire of technology in its ordering (which is but one face of eros) that distinguishes it from the Eros that leads upward. The other face of eros leads in the other direction towards the material and virtual worlds that technology creates.
The nearing and the withdrawal of the gods is related to humanity’s relation to being, and this is indicative of our relationship to Eros. The ‘bringing forth’ and ‘revealing’ that is manifested in technology’s relation to the world requires an indifference towards the things that are in their reality. The gods make themselves known through their “revelatory” relations to human beings which are dependent on the Logos (the Ten Commandments, as an example). It is not up to human beings to decide whether the divine will reveal itself. The role of human beings is simply to be prepared for the possibilities of such revelations through the calling and the hearing. The attempts by human beings to control and commandeer the gods causes the gods to withdraw into concealment. An example can be shown in the discoveries of the James Webb Telescope: as the furthest extents of the universe are revealed, the god simultaneously withdraws from that revealing.
Both Eros and the Logos contain within themselves the potential for the complete destruction of human beings but also the potential for their redemption and salvation. Both the Logos and Eros are present in the human soul simultaneously. If the essence of human being is in our capacity to reveal truth, if we are the being that reveals (eros) through language (logos), the zoon logon echon: the living being that perdures in language, then we as human beings may potentially lose our essence and become less human, more inhumane, if we do not do so. When we do not do so, the world about us becomes ‘soulless’ and Eros takes flight because that which he loves, the most Beautiful of mortals Psyche, has ceased to respond to him. The world becomes, essentially, ‘unerotic’ and we ourselves are in danger of becoming somnambulistic zombies.
Our challenging demand that the world reveal itself in such a way that it can be placed within “the form that informs” as ‘resource’ are both aspects of one face of eros and the logos. This challenging demanding arises from our desire to possess and consume, a desire that arises from within the epithymetikon part of the soul. In the story of The Garden of Eden, it is Eve’s eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that brings about the fall of human beings. It is a ‘grasping’ and ‘consumption’. Due to this fall, human beings must survive by the sweat of their brows, by their work. It is this knowledge that our very survival depends on our procuring efforts that brings about the anxiety of insecurity, and the procurement of goods allays this anxiety. The coming to presence that is technology gives to human beings a way which allows the revealing of eros to the Otherness which human beings can neither invent nor make so that human beings come to perceive this Otherness as ‘resource’ so that human beings will feel “secure” and more “at home” in this Otherness.
With the coming-to-be of Artificial Intelligence, there is the danger that all the revealing of eros will be consumed in the ‘form’ that ‘informs’ so that all that is present must reveal itself as data that must be transformed into usable “information”, to ‘resource’. The data that resists such transformation will be overlooked as meaningless and ignored. There is much in this writing, for example, which AI will ignore as the data cannot be transformed into a useable resource.
With this situation, Eros takes flight. We as human beings become lost in our attempts to master and control technology because we see technology (and Artificial Intelligence) as an instrument or tool that we can commandeer in our modes of revealing. How our understanding of technology as instrument has come to pass through our understanding of the world as guided by the principle of reason is illustrative of our essence as human beings which is to reveal truth through the logos. This ambiguity lets us see the mystery of all revealing, of truth, as our participation in the presence of eros and the logos in every waking moment of our everyday lives.
The challenging forth that is the manner of revealing of one side of the face of Eros is counter-balanced by the revealing as bringing forth that the Greeks understood as poiesis. The distinction between the two is indicated by Plato in his Divided Line in Bk VI of Republic. The two exist side-by-side, but the challenging forth manner of revealing that is to be found in technology blocks the Eros who shows himself in the revealing as poiesis.
The revealing of the world as resource blocks the revealing of the world through poiesis because the revealing of the world as resource demands that nature respond to the form that it has imposed so that what is revealed may inform. The logos and the eros perdure in their standing side-by-side just as the revealing of the world that is done through the logistikon can manifest itself in either the logos that is the commandeering calculation of the form that informs or through the logos that poetically reveals that world to us. The role of the logistikon in the thinking involved in commandeering calculation (the principle of reason), the thinking that reveals itself to us in our sciences, and the thinking involved in our revealing of the beauty of the world that is found in our poetry (or all true language) exist together simultaneously in our being-in-the-world. Our fondness for acronyms indicates that language is eroded, decayed and deadened in the world that is dominated by the logos of commandeering calculation.
In Plato, the essence of what human beings are is the soul, and this is manifested in their actions through their being possessed by the logos and eros. Notice that I did not say that they are ‘possessed of’. The Otherness that is Nature is sempiternal: that which permanently endures in Nature and as Nature is Necessity. Human beings are ’embodied souls’. In being so, they share in that permanence and change that is manifested in Nature. They are subject to Necessity in all their being except for that infinitesimal part of the soul that is beyond Necessity and makes their being in language and longing possible.
The Ideas of Plato give birth to the eidos or the ‘outward appearances of things’. The Ideas and the eidos are not the Same nor are they Identical. The things in their outward appearance do not reveal their essence. In their ‘shining’ as ‘presence’, they reveal the eros that is present in all beings that exist, but they reveal themselves as only ‘shadows’. These ‘shadows’ become replicated in the representations of the thinking of human beings that bring forth the ‘produce’ that technicians and ordinary poets carry out in their day-to-day activities.
The essence of Nature is its manner of perduring as Necessity through all of its apparent changes on the surface. The eidos reveal to us this manner of perduring. The ethical being of human beings, the actions that human beings engage in (what is called their ‘ontology’), reveal their essence through all of the multivarious changes in those actions. Human excellence or arete is revealed through the highest actions of human beings and these become models for those that follow. These ‘highest actions’ are not matters of taste nor subject to the whims of the times.
Logos and Eros are in constant strife with each other, for the logos attempts to put forward those frames of reference that make eros understandable and so provide our ‘understanding’ of the world we experience as we experience it and what its essence is, while the eros constantly urges a moving on from that which wants to find itself permanently settled in the flux that is human existence. While the logos strives for the stable and the settled, the ‘ordered’, eros strives for the ‘novel’ and the ‘new’. Eros is messy. Both of these strivings come to human beings from ‘beyond’ the being that is humanity itself.
Eros and Logos are coupled together in the impenetrable mystery that is Being and Becoming, or as the poet William Blake would say: “The human form Divine”. The poetical brings the true as the revealing that is present in Eros and in the Logos into the splendour of “that which shines forth most purely” (Phaedrus). Eros is present and pervades all bringing-forth or ‘production’ that is the coming to presence into the beautiful. The logos is present as the techne, that ‘know how’ that allows us to be at home in our worlds and provides us with our understanding and meaning of those worlds. It gives us our ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ in those worlds (see Plato’s Divided Line).
William Blake
However, the logos when understood purely as techne strives to view art as ‘aesthetic’ only, that is as a ‘calculable’ thing in its historicity. This aesthetic-mindedness kills what we may learn from the art; it kills eros. Our faith and trust become ossified in the principle of reason that is one face of the two-faced Logos, so much so that Eros flees and we are left bereft of that revealing that is our essential nature as human beings. We dwell in the condition that is somnambulism, what William Blake refers to as “Newton’s sleep”.
Eros, Logos and World as “Information”: “Information” as the Essence of Technology
In our modern age, the world is given to us as “data” which we then transform into “information”. This “giving” is the work of Eros; the transforming is the work of the Logos. We may understand the meaning of information as ‘that which is responsible for the form so that it may inform’. The ‘form’ is what the Greeks called eidos, the outward appearance of a thing. We have shown that one of the aspects of eros is that of the ‘outward appearance’s’ coming to presence and enduring as the beautiful. This coming to presence and enduring is ‘truth’, and truth as essence is a revealing from hiddenness which is done in the ‘shining’ of Eros as the beautiful.
If the essence of “information” is that which is responsible for the ‘form’ that ‘informs’, that which is as ‘data’ can only respond in the way that the challenging command of the ‘form’ allows that data to come to presence as that which may ‘inform’ as ‘resource’. The essence of the challenging is one of the faces of Eros. The truth that is revealed from the coming to presence of the form itself hides the essence of ‘information’ as the essence of technology. The entrapping of world as data disguises itself in its setting in order everything that presences, all of which we perceive as data, as resource and establishes itself as ‘resource’ and rules all that is regarded as ‘resource’. This is the essence of Artificial Intelligence; and AI may be said to be the apogee of technology.
The danger of AI is not that some day machines may come to think for themselves and, as imagined in the film The Terminator, come to destroy human beings. The very danger of AI lies rather in the construction of this image itself: that as long as we view technology as a means, or as an instrument or piece of equipment, or a tool rather than that form that allows instruments, equipment and tools to come into being makes us unaware that technology is now ordering how the coming to presence of human beings will be conducted and revealed. Some of us may be reminded of the words of T. S. Eliot from his poem “The Hollow Men”: “This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper”.
It is Eros that must rescue human beings from this danger; for it is Eros, both in its coupling with the Logos in its giving the coming to presence of being itself and in its coupling with the revealing of truth as the beautiful through that light that is his essence, that is responsible for the true ordering of the essence of human beings. This rescue will be carried out through Eros as Love.
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 7th 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 10th 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 4th 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.
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 1.10And 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. 2 This 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The 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.
Simone Weil
“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.
Thomas Hobbes
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 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 (historical study) to that of the Hermit, the Foundation, which is the root of the knowledge of that study.
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 30th 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 32nd 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 32nd 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 32nd path and the calculative thought and knowledge of the numbers of the principle of reason in the 30th 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 32nd 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 32nd 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 18th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and corresponds to the 32nd 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.
Tavת
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.
Qofק
“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.
Tzaddiצ
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.
#4: The Settled Intelligence: the sephirot Chesed itself
#19. Intelligence of the Mystery of all Spiritual ActivitiesLetter: Mem Alef Shin
#12 Intelligence of Transparency: Letter: Gimelג
#26 The Renewing Intelligence: Letter: Daletד
#21 The Desired and Sought Intelligence: Letter Zayinז
Chesed is the physical manifestation of the material universe, that which is able to be apprehended through the senses. Through the meeting of fire, water, and air, earth is formed. Chesed expresses the enclosure of the created universe in Time and Space. Chesed is connected to Gevurah by the horizontal path of Mem/Alef/Shin. The Emperor #4 card in Tarot is suggestive of a 2nd kingdom i.e., the world of Yetzirah and its meeting with the world of Beriyah, or the manner in which the theoretical is given its applications through tools and equipment. The horizontal path emanating from Chesed to Gevurah is influenced by the crossing over of the diagonal paths of Heh and Vav. These crossings suggest disruptions or diversions or perhaps choices for the individual consciousness to make in how it will view the world at this point, or perhaps they indicate choices that have already been made. The crossover point at Alef, the middle of the three Pillars, determines whether the path taken will be that of Heh or Vav.
Chesed receives from Tiferet the qualities of Mercy and Kindness, but these qualities must confront the gloom that emanates from Chokmah. The illustration depicted here shows The Emperor’s throne as a cube with the head of a Ram on one of its sides. This suggests both the limited view that we as human beings are given of the physical universe and its truth. The Ram might also suggest that the sacrifice of animals is a ‘limited’ sacrifice of human beings, and that the whole of creation is a sacrifice on God’s part. The ritual of human sacrifice in some cultures is the attempt to mirror God’s actions that occur through the sacrifice of the second Person of the Trinity. The human sacrifice was always of the highest, purest, noblest individual that the particular society perceived itself as possessing. The illustration of the Tarot card of The Emperor #4 strongly suggests the element of Shin or fire. The Ram also signifies the sign of Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac, a fire sign in the Zodiac. This would indicate a union of Time and Space and a beginning of Time misunderstood as linear in form i.e., time as history.
Chokmah’s influence on Chesed is written about under the paths or channels emanating from Chokmah. How these influences are to be interpreted and understood depends on which element predominates in determining the path that is present.
The Fourth Path is named Measuring, Cohesive, or Receptacular; and is so called because it contains all the holy powers, and from it emanate all the spiritual virtues with the most exalted essences: they emanate one from the other by the power of the primordial emanation (The Highest Crown), blessed be it.
Alt. Trans. “The fourth path is named the overflowing consciousness because from it emanate all the holy powers, all the most ethereal emanations with the most sublime essences: they emanate one from the other through the power of the primordial emanator.”
Wescott trans. The Fourth Path is named the Cohesive or Receptacular Intelligence; and is so called because it contains all the holy powers, and from it emanate all the spiritual virtues with the most exalted essences: they emanate one from the other by the power of the Primordial Emanation. The Highest Crown. Keter.)
Case trans. The fourth path (Chesed or Gedulah, the fourth Sephirah) is called the Measuring, Arresting, Receptacular intelligence. and it is so called because from thence is the origin of allbeneficent power of the subtle emanations of the most abstract essences which emanate one from another by the power of the Primordial Emanation.
Path 4. Settled Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Kavua): It is called this because all the spiritual powers emanate from it as the (most) ethereal of emanations. One emanates from the Other by the power of the Original Emanator, may He be Blessed.
The 4th Path: The Settled Intelligence
The fourth path or Chesed as the Sephirot itself, indicates the physical manifestations of all those things which we call “good” but which are not the Good itself. This is why Path #4 is also called Intelligence of the Overflowing Abundance. These goods are “shadows” of the Good i.e., ‘ethereal’, and thus may be said to be “apparitions”. It is the Good which is at the root of the “spiritual powers” emanating one from another (i.e. the ten sephirot) along this path or this state of consciousness. It is through the power of the “Original Emanator” (the Good) that the ‘spiritual powers’ are able to be drawn from the Other that is the physical Creation. How one translates the word ‘spiritual’ is tricky here, for sometimes the word is used interchangeably with what we would understand as ‘the will’. If we understand the will as Necessity, we can be clearer in our understanding of ‘spiritual’ (as ‘spiritedness’) here. This ‘spiritedness’ is associated with that part of the soul called by Plato the thymoeides.
There is a mediatory process going on here i.e., the Logos or the Original Emanator is the One who permits or allows or makes possible the manner in which the spiritual powers emanate from the Other. If such a mediatory process were not going on, the physical would reveal itself as only Severity and Force which it does do at times.
With the arrival of numbers and of the physical forms that can be measured with them (with Time) comes the manifestation of the being of the things of the world; with language and numbers we can “measure” the benevolence and abundance of God (?) in the created things of the world, and we can perceive the created world as a Paradise. In the West, this ‘overabundance’ of Nature was viewed as ‘scarcity’ historically. Through number we ‘arrest’ and bring to a stand, measure, then bring into a cohesion, and provide the boundaries which form the “receptacles” or “husks” of physical beings, the eidos or outward appearances of the things. From these boundaries or limits we can then “define” the things, separate and enclose the things, and distinguish them one from another. This makes Being more overt for us. But in this separation of things, we are at the same time hiding their unity, veiling the wisdom of the Whole and the Oneness of things. The spiritual becomes “ethereal”, and subject to dissolution.
This separation of things involves both time and space prior to the things’ coming into being, what the philosopher Kant called the pure ‘intuition’ or the “open region” of Being. As the things reveal themselves, the more God hides or withdraws. (We might see this as similar to the metaphor of “dark matter” which is currently used by astrophysicists to describe the universe as we ‘know’ it. It is said that what we see of the physical universe is only 5% of its true being. The other 95% is ‘dark matter’. It is dark because it lacks the illumination of truth or light.)
This withdrawal of God allows particulars to come to presence. The limiting aspect of Binah is not a cutting off of some thing i.e., in our de-fining of the thing we are not separating it from all of creation, but we are providing a site wherein and from where some thing commences and emerges as that which it is. This is what the word ‘sanctify’ means in Path 3: the making-possible of that which is on the basis of which beings as such and as a whole are determined for us. Time is the Fire of Shin moving through Binah along the horizontal line connecting Binah to Chokmah, and Space is the water of Mem flowing or emanating from Chokmah to meet the Fire of Binah. From Chokmah to Chesed, these elements are “carried” by the letter Gimel which means “camel”, and the letter Gimel also signifies the giving of the Creator.
The fourth path in the Hebrew Tree is represented by the letter Bet which means “house” in English. I have represented Beth as belonging to the 11th path representing Keter’s connection with Tiferet and with the Zodiac sign of Leo, the Lion, and the Sun. One enters the ‘house’ through a ‘door’, and this door is opened up for us by the beauty of the world, the influence of Tiferet which renders Mercy and Kindness to the ‘gloom’ of the Necessary. This opening of the door is accomplished by the piercing action of the letter Zayin which is the ‘sword’ or ‘arrow’ of Eros, which we understand as Love (and this is the reason why Eros and Cupid are seen with arrows, symbolically representing the piercing action of Love). The ‘doors’ of being are sometimes referred to as ‘steps’ in the writings, stages that may be used to spring forward and rise up or to step down and descend as the case may be.
Since Beth is the first letter of the Torah, of Genesis, and from it, it is said, all other letters derive, the movement of the Light from Keter to Tiferet is prior to that Light’s reaching Chesed from Chokmah. The knowledge of the Whole (or our attempts at gaining a knowledge of the Whole) is a borrowed light from the light of Keter that illuminates the darkness of Chakmah. The original Light of Keter is associated with the Sun, while the light that illuminates the darkness of Chakmah is associated with the Moon. The knowledge of the “enduring intellect” or the “settled intellect” is a ‘reflected light’ and is therefore associated with the Moon, and is also associated with Time. It is our knowledge of the Laws of Necessity which constitute our sciences and our arts, our historical knowledge. These are referred to as the seven pillars of wisdom, the areas of knowledge that we study. This knowledge is grounded in reason, knowledge of cause and effect, and is associated with the Will. This is what is understood as the principle of reason.
Whether Beth or Alef begins the Bible and thus the Torah is a matter of controversy. In the Sefer Yetzirah it is said that Alef is the source of all the letters and it begins its Torah with Alef as the first letter, but the Alef itself must be beyond both Being and Becoming, as language itself is beyond both being and becoming. Alef makes itself manifest when it has crossed both Mem and Shin and becomes the Logos or the Word i.e., the Bible as a metaphorical representation or ‘clothing’ of the created world itself. This crossing of the world of Atzilut to the world of Beriyah makes knowledge and understanding possible and it is The Book which makes knowledge possible, or at least the knowledge that can be shared in social discourse.
Martin Heidegger
The German philosopher Heidegger once said: “Language is the house of Being; in its home humans dwell”. We may further extrapolate on Heidegger’s words by saying, “Logos is the house of being” for logos includes both language and number. One may go further and say that the human body is the logos or the “home” in which the embodied soul dwells.
The letter Bet is the first of the ‘double’ letters and is attributed to the path that crosses the mothers of Shin and Mem. My understanding is that Alef is the source of all the following letters and that it is Alef as Air, in combination with Mem as Water and Shin as Fire that creates the Bet which is Earth which is part of the Creation, and from the Earth proceeds Gimel which expands to Dalet. Alef yokes together the worlds of Tiferet (Beauty) and of Yesod (the Foundation) to the Light of Keter, and Bet is the emanation of the goodness that is the reflected light of Keter.
In the Hebrew Tree, Bet is said to cross the veil of separation between Chakmah and Binah as well as that between Chesed and Gevurah. Bet, when crossing the horizontal path from Chesed to Gevurah, would then be associated with the Moon, with the “reflected light”. The light of Keter and the ‘reflected light’ of Chokmah are at that point in the Tree of Life where there is a forking of the paths. The three Mother letters and their three paths are associated with the words “Elohim made”. They signify the three horizontal paths that cross over from right to left. They signify the passing from the worlds of Beriyah to Yetzirah to Asiyah and are associated with the combinations of Mem/Shin, Alef/Shin, and Mem/Alef respectively.
A cube is formed from the paths of Mem/Shin from Chakmah to Binah, to the path of Chakmah to Chesed represented by the letter Gimel, to the Alef/Mem crossover from Chesed to Gevurah, and the path of Peh from Binah to Gevurah. The influences from Chet and Tet are mingled with the influences from Binah and Gevurah to produce what we understand as conventional law or human-made law and help to create the ‘enclosures’ that both these letters signify. The indication is that Severity without Mercy in the law is not justice at all. This occurs when the path through Tiferet is ignored. But what or where is the mercy of the Law of Necessity? If anything, it is to be found in the Beauty of the World.
The 19th Path: Mem (Shin) Alef: Intelligence of the Mystery of Spiritual Activities
Path 19. Intelligence of the Mystery of all Spiritual Activities (Consciousness) (Sekhel Sod HaPaulot HaRushniot Kulam): It is called this because of the influx that permeates it from the Highest Blessing and the Supreme Glory.
The Nineteenth Path is the Intelligence of all the activities of the spiritual beings, and is so called because of the affluence diffused by it from the most high blessing and most exalted sublime glory.
Alt. Trans. “The nineteenth path is the consciousness of the secret of all spiritual activities. It is so called because of the influence disseminated by it from the highest blessing and the supernal glory.”
Case trans. The nineteenth path (Teth, joining Chesed to Gevurah) is called the Intelligenceof the Secret of all spiritual activities, because of the influence spread by it from the supreme blessing and the supernal glory.
The 19th path is the second crossover path on the Tree of Life. The word ‘mystery’ can generally be understood as to mean ‘hidden’, something yet to be revealed. If one reads the path carefully, it suggests that having intelligence of the mystery of spiritual activities does not necessarily mean having ‘knowledge’ of those spiritual activities. One may be aware that spiritual activities are taking place, but what those spiritual activities are in their essence is still beyond one.
The influx permeating path 19 is the influence of the letter Alef which is a product of the Highest Blessing i.e., the covenant of God in the Logos and the ‘Supreme Glory’ that is reflected in the Beauty of the World. From this Highest Blessing, Mercy and Compassion are given to Chesed from out of the Creation itself i.e., Grace. The letter Alef is associated with the heart; and from this heart, the intelligence of the spiritual activities (which is Love) is given through Grace.
In the Tree of Life, all movements from Tiferet are downward movements i.e., they are ‘expansions’ from the core of the Divine Light. In the description of the 19th path, the downward movement is from Tiferet to Chesed, and from this movement, Chesed receives the qualities of Mercy and Kindness which is a ‘miracle’ in and of itself. The movement is from the depths or foundations to the circumference of the circle or the heights, an outward gyring expansion. It must be remembered that Tiferet is both a ‘height’ and a ‘depth’, and its movements are descents to the ‘depths’ of the other Sephirot which are on the outer circumference of the circle.
It is Tiferet that bestows the qualities of Mercy and Compassion upon Chesed which gives to the one on the journey the knowledge that it is Mercy and Compassion which are the chief characteristics of the Divine and are at the root of all spiritual activities that occur within Time and Space. The characteristics of the left side of the Tree of Life, Severity and Fear, are the characteristics of the Law of Necessity and of the knowledge that comes from the intelligence of those laws. One may choose to be a member of the ‘religion of slaves’ devoted to the will of God, or one may choose to be a ‘slave to a religion’, particularly one that believes it is in possession of the truth. This is the choice given to one at the fork of the Tree of Life.
The difficulty or confusion arises from the fact that the word ‘spiritual’ is sometimes understood and translated as Will (“spiritedness”) and sometimes understood and translated as Love (Eros). This problem is indeed at the core of how human beings experience and understand the manner in which human beings ‘stand’ in the open region of being and suffer that understanding so understood. It is this understanding that determines the Fate or destiny of human beings as societies and as individuals.
Human beings are ‘thinking beings’ (the animale rationale) only insofar as they “stand” in a clearing and lighting of being. Dialectics is the friendly conversation about beings in their being in the worlds of meaning that have been created through an interpretation and understanding of being. These dialectics or conversationsare not possible through a collective where the language of rhetoric predominates (the letter Peh) and they are replaced by the Administrative or Serving Intelligence of path 32.
The history of thinking (the memory of Chokmah) is the receiving of the essence of what it means to be human in the destiny (The Star #17) of the Divine withdrawal and humanity’s wherewithal to bring language to beings in their being. This bringing of language to language and to beings is what we mean by meaning and the meaningful. The questioning of the Divine withdrawal can never come into view as a questioning and as that which is worthy of questioning.
Artificial intelligence – cybernetics – is the complete founding or grounding of beings as such and is contained and concluded in the domain of ratio as Reason and subjectivity through the principle of reason (nihil est sine ratione: nothing is without reason). When AI comes to develop its awareness based on power and will, the essence of humanity will be destroyed and its destruction will be welcomed by those human being themselves! This is what is at the core of nihilism. When the destiny of human beings is chosen through the letter Vav as the conjunction of human nature and being, God, in His withdrawal, gives the free open space that allows the creation of meaningful, possible essential possibilities which we call our ‘worlds’. These worlds are ‘real’ worlds as opposed to the created, imaginative worlds of artificial intelligence. It is the meaning of the Spanish proverb which goes “Take what you want said God; take it and pay for it”. We pay for it as Fate.
Gimel and the 12 Path: Intelligence of Transparency
The Twelfth Path is the Intelligence of Transparency, because it is that species of Magnificence called CHAZCHAZIT, which is named the place whence issues the vision of those seeing in apparitions. (That is, the prophecies by seers in a vision.)
Alt. Trans. “The twelfth path is called the transparent consciousness because it is the substance of that phase of majesty (Gedulah) which is called revelation (khazkhazit). It is the source of prophesies that seers behold in visions.”
Wescott trans. The Twelfth Path is the Intelligence of Transparency, because it is that species of Magnificence called Khazkhazit, the place whence issues the vision of those seeing in apparitions. (That is the prophecies by seers in a vision.)
Case trans. The twelfth path (Beth, joining Keter to Binah) is called the Intelligence of Transparency because it is the image of that phase of Gedulah literally (“of that wheeling of Gedulah”) which is called Khazkhazit, the source of vision in those who behold apparitions.
The 12th path proceeds from Chalkmah to Chesed and it is indicated by the letter Gimel. If the 11th path is concerned with the veil or hiddenness that is present before the Cause of Causes (the Good), then, presumably, one must have prior knowledge of what causation is in order to recognize that the Good itself, the Uncaused Cause, is hidden from our knowledge and must be experienced through faith alone. One cannot stand before the countenance of the Prince of Faces and not ‘die’ i.e., remain the individual that they are. The ‘dying’ can be either a metaphorical or a literal death.
The 11th path is concerned with the veil that is drawn between God and His creation through His creation: Nature does not lie, it hides. The particulars of Binah make being more overt for us; we see the world in its particulars. As these particulars reveal themselves in the creation of things and the created things, the more God withdraws or hides in order to allow those particular beings to be by their being able to come to presence for us. The ‘limiting’ of Binah through the Logos is not a “cutting off” of something but the site wherein and from where something commences and emerges as that which it is. This is what the Sanctifying Intelligence #3 means. Through the Logos’ relation to the Space that is Chokmah and the Time that is Binah, the a priori conditions for possibility and potentiality are given in the making-possible of that on the basis of which beings as such and as a whole are determined for human beings. This is the sephirot Chesed.
The 12th path, the Intelligence of Transparency, is that part of the process of thought that creates the images of representational thinking through the individual human being. It links Chokmah to Chesed. It is the ‘clothing’ which provides the outward appearance of things in their emergence but yet hides the essence of those things. The spiritual essence of things is “wrapped” or “assembled” so as to make them ‘present’ before us as a sum of their parts. It is called the ‘revelation’ in one of the translations above. It could also be called an ‘epiphany’.
It should be noted that ‘apparitions’ are ‘shadows’, the outward appearance of a thing, not its essence. To see the thing’s apparition is to see it in the NOW. To make a pre-diction is to speak before the actual appearance of the thing/event/situation from the appearance of the thing as an ‘apparition’. To do so is to speak in ‘prophecy’, which is directed toward the Future. A ‘prophecy’ has past, present and future contained within it. The past is the Memory element of Chakmah, the looking back of The Fool as he proceeds with his leap; the present is the ‘revelation’ of the physical creation through the senses; and the future is the outcome of the said ‘visions’. It is the manner in which one perceives the visions that is most important. This process is at the root of what we call scientific and artistic ‘seeing’. (This is shown most clearly in Bk VII of Plato’s Republic where those who are able to make predictions about what shadows will pass by next are those who are most ‘honoured’ in the society or the Cave.) What we have here is the initiation of the possibility of both nature and freedom, nature being that constraint given by the Law of Necessity and freedom being the empowerment of the mind through the principle of reason as will to power which attempts to dominate and commandeer Necessity for human ends.
The translations provided of the 12th path indicate a number of possibilities for interpretation. In the Case translation, we are given the idea that 12th path is the site where one can apprehend that Gedulah or Chesed is the spiralling motion of the gyre (“that wheeling of Gedulah”) which is the source of the vision of those who behold the “apparitions” of “prophecies”. This beholding is how one views the world of Becoming. Some connections to the whirling dervishes of the Sufis may be made here, I think. The dervishes’ gyres are not an expansion but an attempt to attain a focus on the point of spirituality.
In the alignment of the Hebrew letters to the paths and to the Tarot, there seems to be some confusion with regard to the eleventh and twelfth paths. It would appear to me that The Fool is poised prior to the “fall into the abyss” that will become his or her journey and so stands at the top point of the Wheel of Fortune (#10) which represents the sephirot Malkhut. The Fool’s journey will be a journey upward. The Magician (#1) occupies the ascent position since he is associated with the fire of Shin and the element of air from Alef which, in turn, are associated with the human will. The Strength card occupies the descent position, but here the descent is on the part of God to deliver His grace to the figure of Strength who has completed the journey and receives the gift from the Divine. To align these with the Tarot, the Magician #1, the Strength #11, and The World #21 belong together, while The Fool #0, The Wheel of Fortune #10, and the Judgement #20 are also aligned. The choice of The Fool as he makes his leap into the abyss of being is represented by Path 25 The Intelligence of Trials and the Judgement card. The Magician is the technite who determines and directs the path of the Administrative or Serving Intelligence Path 32.
If we consider the Sephirot themselves to be paths, the twelfth path seems to refer to the emanations of Chakmah, which appropriately belong to The High Priestess (#2). The artist makes use of the influence of the archetypes of the unconscious and gives them shape and form in order to produce a work. The archetypes have always been present prior to the artist’s being. They are the “apparitions” of the visions that the artist sees; they are ‘shadows’, things without substance, for the things themselves belong to the future making of the artist. The “visions” are the things seen by the prophets and they are symbolic of the predictive speech of the prophets i.e., the “highest speech”. In our society today, science holds this highest honour for it, too, is “predictive speech” since it can pronounce on the outcomes of various events (as Plato foresaw in his allegory of the Cave).
In this state, the artist is The Hanged Man #12, that stage prior to the process of “making” the thing, the stage prior to taking action, the “work” to be done which involves the “know how” of the artist. In the ascent direction, this would be the path leading from Malkhut to Hod or the completion of the thing, what was referred to as Justice previously and is rendered by The Judgement card #20. (This is the significance of the titles of the three great works of Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of Judgement.) The words and numbers the artist needs are already present for him. His path is on the descent, since he is in the process of creation. The desire of human beings to create art and to procreate their species is the longing for the Incarnation, the longing for immortality and for unity with the One.
This descent that is creation is illustrated by the fact that the figure in The Hanged Man hangs upside down within the ‘enclosure’ represented by the letter Chet and which is Path 18 from Chokmah to Gevurah. This upside down position suggests that there is something askew with his seeing of things. What is askew is that the path that he is on is not influenced by Tiferet.
The woman of the Strength card, on the other hand, is “prudence” who embodies the Greek idea of sophrosyne or “nothing too much, nothing too little”. She is on the ascent viewing of the Tree of Life as she is concerned with the quality of things, the inner essence of things. The Magician #1 is concerned with those things that come to be through human making, while Strength #11 is concerned with those things that come to be through the Grace of God. It is here a matter of the viewing: whether one sees “as through a glass darkly”, which I believe is the essence of the viewing of The Magician, or whether one sees “face-to-face” the true essence of the things that are, which I believe is the essence of the viewing that is illustrated in the Strength card #11. The Strength is one of the bridges between the world of Yetzirah, the world of The Magician, and that of Beriyah (or between the world of Asiyah and that of Yetzirah?). Strength has the elements of the world of Atzilut as is shown in the light of the colour yellow being either the Sun or the Light of Keter.
The Life-force or the dynamis is what the Greeks understood as metabole or change, motion. All of us experience the whirling, swirling motion of Life as it realizes itself in Time. In terms of the Kabbalah, this is the influence of Keter. The “perception” of an “apparition” or a “vision” is that of the outward appearances of things. These are but the “shades” or “shadows” of things in the ascent. Again, the paths of ascension see the things in the “reflected light” of Malkhut, not in the true light of Keter. It is not until they pass through Tiferet that the perceptions of things are no longer that of shadows but of the true essence of the things. While the closest we have to our understanding of the “spiritual” is “energy”, the spiritual is, of course, more than that. We align energy with power, force and will, and this is the essence of the making of the Magician.
The Hebrew word translated as “revelation” here is khazkhazit which could also be understood as a “mirror” or a “gazing glass”. A mirror reflects things in reverse, and this could also account for the reversed position in The Hanged Man #12 card. This would seem to suggest a “lunar” influence or the influence of a “reflected light” and, indeed, a self-revelation. This is illustrated in The High Priestess #2 in the descending direction of the Tree of Life (if the descent begins at 10 + 2 = 12). This is the veil separating the Asiyah world and the Yetzirah world in the ascent, and the Beriyah world and Yetzirah world on the descent. The Beriyah world may be said to be the theoretical realm of the mind (the “pure reason” of Immanuel Kant) while the Yetzirah world is the realm in which the “formation” from the theoretical takes place (the “practical reason” of Kant). The suggestion here is that the outer world will take on the appearance that is given to it by the inner world of the mind for it is here that the formative seeing takes place. This is the site of the formative thinking where the making-possible of beings is determined for us.
The “revelation” here is the concrete, factual world of Yetzirah or “formation” and the “majesty” (Kingdom) that is the created world. To be “transparent” is to be able “to see through” or perhaps “to see by the means of…” One is reminded of the words of St. Paul: “For now we see as through a glass, darkly, but there we will see face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) “Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” The “knowing in part” is represented by The Hanged Man #12, while the knowing “even as also I am known” is that of the Strength card #11. This passage is an indication that all human beings are “one”. Knowing this allows one to be capable of Mercy, Compassion and Loving Kindness which is indicated by the Sephirot Chesed, but this is only achieved through the prior influence of Tiferet.
The Letter Dalet and the 26th Path: The Renewing Intelligence
Dalet: Chesed > Netzach: Path 26: The Renewing Intellect (the “Knowledge of…”)Renewing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel MeChudash): It is called this because it is the means through which the Blessed Holy One brings about all new things which are brought into being in His Creation.
The Twenty-sixth Path is called the Renovating Intelligence, because the Holy God (blessed be He) renews by it, all the changing things which are renewed by the creation of the world.
Alt. Trans. “The twenty-sixth path is called the renewing consciousness because through it God, blessed be He, renews all things which are newly begun in the creation of the world.”
The Twenty-sixth path is associated with the Sephirot Yesod in the H.T., but I have associated it with the letter Dalet here. Yesod is called Foundation and is the root of the Middle Pillar in the Tree of Life. Its association with renewal connects with the fertility and abundance of Nature, the life-force (Genesis 1:26 — “And Elohim said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have power over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.'”). In the human body, it is associated with the reproductive organs and the erotic urges associated with the appetitive or epithymetikon part of the human soul.
The Three Pillars in the Tree of Life may be said to correspond to the tripartite soul and the tripartite forms that eros manifests. The microcosm is in the macrocosm and vice versa. The right pillar of Jakim may be said to correspond to the logistikon or “intelligence” part of the soul; the left pillar may be said to correspond to the thymoeides or “spirited” part of the soul; while the central pillar corresponds to the epithymetikon or “appetitive” part of the soul. Since we are embodied souls, all that we experience must first pass through the body.
The light of Yesod is the “reflected light” of Malkhut, not the original illuminating light of Keter. What this suggests is that the “consciousness” or the intelligence of Yesod is brought to one through the created things and not from the source of the light itself. We are able to see created things through the reflected light of the sun on them. Human beings, through their viewing of the things of the world, attempt to “purify” the things by shaping and commandeering them so that they can be made useful. As is stated in Genesis, human beings believe they have been given power over all that has been created. This has created the great confusion over whether this power is one of domination and commandeering, or whether this power is one of care and concern such as that shown by a farmer or a shepherd.
The Renewing Intelligence is that awareness that we have of that which brings something into being from out of itself, what is called Nature. The making of Nature contrasts with that making that is called technē, “in another and for another”. The Renewing Intelligence is related to sexuality and propagation, all living beings that come into being and pass away. The corresponding Genesis 1:26, indicates that here is the source of that will that becomes the metaphysics of the will to power. The 26th and 27th paths are interrelated. The root urge of sexuality and procreation is the desire for immortality, for perpetual renewal, on the appetitive part of the soul.
The Renewing Intelligence, being connected to Netzach, is the foundation of human being in Time, the ‘embodied soul’. 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 “outward” world appears is determined by these interpretations which become the essence of the history of thinking. This is why Yesod is called “the sphere of the Moon”, the sphere of “reflected light”. This is the realm of what we call the “historical” where 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 of the “ego”? When Sartre says “Hell is other people”, his statement indicates this egoistic hell itself. When human sexuality or the erotic is divorced from the bearing of children (the desire for immortality) and the real sense of otherness that children must bring to sane human beings, then we have entered the very gates of Hell itself.
Dalet דלת is the word for “door”, “gate” and indicates resistance, a barrier, and the state of selflessness and humility needed to pass through it. It is the path from Chesed to Netzach. As a double letter, its movement can either be up or down; it is shaped like a step. Its shape is a vertical and horizontal line, and thus suggests the barrier between the world of Beriyah and the world of Yetzirah. Unlike the letter Chet, the letter Dalet is not enclosed. Dalet is also said to indicate a ‘poor’ person, and this may metaphorically be said to represent the ‘perfect imperfection’ of all human beings as they are realized in Netzach and in The Chariot #7. That which is imperfect cannot be the measure of anything. The letter also suggests how to pass through the gates to know one’s own mystery of being and return to the Good of the Aleph – the One source of all creation and being which is the goal of the teaching of the Sefer Yetzirah.
The Dalet is in the shape of a bent over human being, signifying humility and receptiveness. It represents Bitul, the self-nullification, or nullification of the ego, necessary to realize one’s inherent connection to the Creator. This self-nullification is not an easy task as Shakespeare’s King Lear and the writings of the saints tell us. Also, Dalet is the structure, form and the diligence required to receive the grace that the Divine is perpetually offering as is shown in the path of Beth.
Dalet is also Dalit דלית, the “poor man”, the one who receives from the benevolence or grace of the Creator through the Holy Spirit represented by Mem. It is the realization that as humans “we are not our own” and that we have nothing of our own, but are entirely dependent on the Creator and that every breath and movement is given to us from Him. It is the recognition of Otherness and the complete denial of the individual ego.
The Dalet can also represent a structure or gestell, the German word that the German philosopher Heidegger associates with technology and its enframing, but it is not a completed frame. Its form of a horizontal and vertical line represents a grid, giving structure to the form. It is shaped like a stair-step, the metaphorical structure required to be ‘lifted up’, or to ‘go up’, thus overcoming the resistance given by gravity and the law of Necessity. This would indicate that Dalet is also a means of ‘going down’, descending the Tree of Life as Dalet is one of the double letters. This would seem to suggest that the creation is a ‘door’, a barrier, but also a way through. The human body is a barrier but also a way through. This might associate the letter and its path to the belief of human beings’ giving ‘perfection’ to the created things and somehow completing them, for the creation and its beings are not wholly themselves. This completion of things will be discussed more fully when we speak of the Sephirot Hod.
On the individual level, Dalet shows the structure and stability required to receive. This reinforces that the path suggested by Dalet is from Chesed to Netzach, and that the structure spoken of is the human body, the human form, the ‘chariot of fire’. This would be on the side of “Mercy” on the Tree of Life. Placing Dalet on the path from Binah to Gevurah would suggest the side of “Severity”.
The Letter Zayin and the 21st Path: The Desired and Sought Intelligence
The Twenty-first Path is the Intelligence of Conciliation, and is so called because it receives the divine influence which flows into it from its benediction upon all and each existence.
Alt. Trans. “The twenty-first path is called the consciousness of the desired-which-fulfills because it receives the divine influence which flows into it as a result of the blessing it confers upon all that exists.”
Case trans. The twenty-first path (Kaph, joining Chesed to Netzach) is called the Intelligence of Desirous Quest, because it receives the divine influence, which it distributes as a blessing to all modes of being.
Path 21. Desired and Sought Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel HaChafutz VeHaMevukash): It is called this because it receives the divine Influx so as to bestow its blessing to all things that exist.
Zayin – and Elohim “called the light Day, and darkness Night.” 1:5
The Zayin is shaped like a sword and is the symbol of “spiritedness”, sustenance (endurance), and strife. It is the ‘erotic’ experienced as need through the thymoeidic or “spirited” part of the soul. It is the individual will. But this individual will is, paradoxically, bound up with and in strife with a will greater than itself, and both of these wills must be brought into a ‘conciliation’ . Zayin may be said to be the piercing arrow of Eros himself, that Love which is “the divine Influx” that bestows “its blessing to all things that exist”. This ‘conciliation’ bridges the gap that exists between intelligence and love in the thymoeidic and logistikon parts of the soul.
Paradoxically, the letter zayin also represents the 7th day of Shabbat (Sabbath), the day of rest and spirituality (or the “letting be” of passivity), which completes the process of the 6 days of creation or the strife of the day-to-day lives of human beings. We have to ‘work’ to survive. This would align with the tradition that the god Eros is “two-faced” or indicates two contrary things. The Zayin signifies Space and Time through the influence of Binah and Chokmah and their interactions with Tiferet. The Zayin is said to include the six days and six directions of physical reality (Creation), but it also stands as a unique 7th principle or energy, the spirit (or will) which activates the physical, the life-force (the will to power), and thus could be said to be associated with the will and desire (the will to power and the individual will, Eros and Psyche). The Life-force (the Will to Power) is connected with Time. The Zayin participates in the source of all movement, the Shin of the primordial fire, and is associated with Time and we can see this Shin influence from path 19 (The Star #17). We see here the mysterious connection between Being and Time. We see in it the mysterious connection between theoretical, projective thought that is the principle of reason and the creative imagination fused together into a principle of being.
The Zayin’s true foundations are in Love (Tiferet) and in Eros. The sword of Zayin is the arrow of Eros. The Zayin, whether it be a sword or an arrow, is a penetrating, an impregnating principle which activates the making of the artist or technē in the realm of Yetzirah. This making illustrates the connection between the creative and the erotic impulses, the erotic understood as both a principle of need and of fullness. The true artist creates out of need; the lesser artist does not do so. The contraries of rest and movement are symbolized in the letter, rest as an indication of fullness and movement as an indicator of desire or need.
Zayin is drawn with a Vav with a crown on top of it. We have discussed Vav as the deceptive ‘hook’ that emanates from Tiferet to Binah. It is said that the crowns have been added to the Hebrew letters in order to ward off evil or destructive powers, and they are said to hide the hidden sources of Torah. These hidden sources derive from Tiferet, and the evil finds its roots in the seeing that is The Devil of Vav. This would appear to indicate that the Vav as interpreted above is correct, and that the hidden sources of the Torah are the Same as the Fortunate One, the Ain, indicated in the translation of the 16th path. Since Zayin is movement from Tiferet to Chesed with the element of fire predominating, this would suggest that the fire is a ‘holy fire’ directed by the Sun, while the Vav is the reflected light of the Moon. Both Zayin and Nun represent paths by means of which one penetrates through the enclosures that are represented in Chet and Tet, but what is clear is that these paths proceed through the physical, material world. The body is our infallible judge.
Shaped like a sword, the Zayin represents all movement. It represents the strife between contraries, the struggle for existence to overcome need, the struggle for sustenance (מזון). It is the struggle between Yaakov Jacob and the angel. The difficulty presented is that in the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, Jacob is victorious. What is given to one when one is victorious over the Divine emissary sent to one?
Through the influence of Tiferet and its connection to the Logos, the Zayin is the power within a person that causes them to speak, initiate, and live; it is a principle of being. It is in this way that it is connected to the erotic understood in its broad sense, its true sense, which is the experience of need, the experience of our ‘perfect imperfection’. The crossing over to the path of Vav would appear to indicate that a choice has to be made with regard to how one will view the world. Human beings, it would appear, have a choice whether the Creation will be the paradise it is intended to be or something else altogether. This choice is presented to us in the NOW.
When we are speaking of the path of ‘desiring and seeking’, we are addressing the manner in which eros and the will come to operate in the human consciousness. We are speaking of the thymoeides and the logistikon parts of the human soul. The will is associated with the operation or application of reason and our principles of reason are based on 3 essential principles: the “I” principle or the ego cogito of the Self, the principle of contradiction where the human being is not to contradict themselves in speech, and the principle of sufficient reason (“nothing is without reason (or a reason)”. This principle of reason operates before thought and determines the manner of thinking; and it ascribes values to things i.e., it bestows the “blessing” on things which determine the end to which they will be ‘used’. It involves completion and ‘justice’.
The “divine influx” is the urge or need to seek that which is desired. That which is desired is that which is sought: “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also”. This seeking requires movement and movement is the influence of Mem and Shin. Mem deals with the appetites, while Shin deals with the ‘head’, thought or reason. How the Alef comes to operate here is key for the Alef is the heart. The ‘progress’ or ‘evolution’ of the human being is to be seen here. It is through the principle of reason that human beings use the things of the world to shape them into the ends that they have determined. This is the universe of Yetzirah. This influence of Shin comes from the meeting of Netzach with the crossover path from Hod to Netzach that is the 29th path (The Natural Intelligence) which shall be discussed below under the emanations from Netzach.
According to Case, the Twenty-first Path is associated with the letter Kaf (double 4) כ, meaning ‘hand’, and is the third path proceeding from Chesed. Once again, this may not be so. “Conciliation”, or more properly “Re-conciliation”, is a product of mediation, and neither Kaf nor Chesed contain these attributes. Kaf is one of the seven doubles in the Hebrew alphabet and so the possibilities of its interpretations are two-fold. According to the H.T., the 21st path is represented by the letter Peh, פ meaning ‘mouth’, also one of the double letters (double 5). The letter Peh might be more appropriately assigned to The Hierophant card #5 as both the ‘hand’ and the ‘mouth’ are “enclosures” in their own ways. The mouth through words can create ‘enclosures’ and from within these enclosures thought can be suppressed. “Conciliation” creates freedom; the enclosures of the mouth and hand suppress freedom.
The twenty-first Path is also called “the Desired and Sought Consciousness” and it expresses the need that human beings feel which requires the “divine influence” of Grace to reconcile this need and its fulfillment. The act of mediation, of conciliation or reconciliation, is the Grace of God; to be receptive to this Grace is meditation, thought, contemplation and prayer. But where and how does the light of the Grace of God become the darkness that is characteristic of our being in the world? Is it the point where one has to choose between Will and Love and how either of these two will allow the individual to conciliate or reconcile the ‘need’ that human beings experience in their perfect imperfection?
The Hebrew words within the paths are “hunger”, “thirst” and “emptiness” and they express the desire to fill that emptiness or absence which is the essence of human being and which leads the individual on a “quest” for their fulfillment. This need is experienced as erotic, and illustrates one of two sides of Eros who is described as Fullness and Need. That the word erotic has become associated with the sexual only in our modern age is an indicator of how far we have descended into the darkness. The created world and the human body are both the roots of this need and yet at the same time are the doorways to the fulfilment of the need. That need may be sexual or that need may be philosophical. The letter Dalet is appropriately associated with the Sephirot Netzach and the tarot card The Chariot #7, and I have associated it with path 26 The Renewing Intelligence. The letter assigned to The Chariot in the Tarot given in the illustration is Chet ח meaning ‘enclosure’ which indicates the human being as an ‘embodied soul’. There seems to be connections between ‘hand’, ‘mouth’, and ‘enclosure’ or ‘body’ and each of these may be said to be double-edged in that they are capable of both positive and negative outcomes.
The receptivity of the individual to the divine influence that is Grace is a paradoxical “passivity” i.e., it is an “active passivity” in that the human being “let’s be” (what we mean by the word “amen”) that which “flows into it” from Grace’s blessing on all that exists. It is the contrary of the Twentieth Path which is an “active” path of the preparation of things for their completion which is primarily a human doing, an act of human will. The “divine influence” is that which allows things to be, the perfection which allows ‘the rain to fall in equal amounts upon the just and the unjust’.
With the Twenty-first Path, things appear differently so that the Charioteer, the soul, is able to “see” the things in their essence and to recognize the “divine influence” present in them. They are able to recognize that the Divine Presence (parousia) in the created things of the world is not a noun but a verb, that the Grace offered by the Divine Presence is actively present at all times in the things of the world, and it is visible to us through their Beauty. This realization of the belonging together of things and their Being is brought to us by our thought, meditation, contemplation, and prayer. This contemplation or thinking is a grasping, a taking in, a letting come to presence for the thinking. It is a ‘beholding’. When this occurs, things “stand” before one in their essence and are recognized in their Otherness.
The Twenty-first Path is part of the linkage of the three Sephirot Chesed, Tiferet, and Netzach: seeing, beauty, and the confrontation that is the differentiation of thinking (the principle of reason as outlined here) and thought. The Tree of Life discriminates between that thinking which is active, commandeering, and domineering, which it places on the left-hand side and which belongs to Binah and to the letter Shin and thus to Will, and that thinking which is passive-receptive, which it places on the right-hand side and which belongs to Chakmah, Chesed, and Netzach. The bond between thinking and Being, or Life, is such that a meditative thinker is able to see things according to themselves, free from the dualities of subject-object (representational) thinking. Things cannot be understood by viewing them as ready-to-hand objects made present to fulfil our needs through the viewing that is the technological (the principle of reason). They must be allowed to be in their true being so that we may view the Divine Presence within them. This movement is the upward direction on the Tree of Life and its achievement is the true success or victory of the Charioteer. It is the victory over the individual self or ego.
In Rawn’s commentary on the paths and their relation to the Hebrew tree, the 21st path is associated with the Tarot card The Tower #16, but the interpretation Rawn gives is that the lightning bolt which strikes the crown of The Tower comes from Gevurah, which is in error. It is Gevurah which is struck by the lightning. Gevurah is represented by The Hierophant #5, and The Tower is #15 (in my view of the Tarot), and it represents the necessary evolution of the false and sometimes delusional collective or cultish religious views, the views of those who think that they alone are in possession of the truth.
The lightning bolt descends from the Sun (Truth) which is associated with Tiferet and Keter, and below the lightning bolt is a representation of the Tree of Life on the right side and twelve representations on the left which could be twelve yods, or twelve “I”s or “egos”, the twelve houses of Israel (all of humanity) or the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The ten of the Tree of Life and the twelve on the left side of The Tower could be the twenty-two letters of the alphabet and implies speech’s ability to be both true and false. This could represent what occurs when one misunderstands the 32 paths of wisdom, so it is cautionary in nature. When the ego of the individual is enclosed within the mouth of the collective, stupidity is the result. Free thought ceases. Truth is the ‘uncovering’ of the things that are; falsehood is the ‘covering over’ of things that are not. Falsehood is at the root of all lies.
“The desire which fulfills” is the desire for the Good, that desire which can fulfil the need to overcome the imperfectability of human being which is our mortality. Gevurah is the terminus, the finality, the sempiternal nature of the Law of Necessity. It is connected to Hod > Justice which is the manifestation of the “plan” in its reality or ontic form (Mem). The Gevurah aspect of this ‘plan’ is realized in the creation of conventional laws and the political requirements that go into creating a society, a city, a polis.
The ‘desire which fulfills’ and the awareness of it is the ability to distinguish the Necessary from the Good, to have the ‘strength’ to overcome the desire to ‘consume’ or ‘eat’ (the association with the ‘mouth’, Eve’s eating of the apple of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and its association with the Fall of humanity) the beauty of the world rather than simply to contemplate it in wonder. The inability to do so causes one to succumb to the second temptation of Christ: that temptation that leads to power and prestige in the realm of the social. Without such awareness and knowledge, one may take the path of Peh. As procreation is the desire which fulfills the appetitive part of the soul, the ‘immortality’ that is found in fame and prestige is an attempt to fulfill the desire for immortality on the part of the thymoeidic part of the soul.
This would seem to imply that false views of the Sephirot result in disaster because they are a false faith. This would associate The Tower with the Tower of Babel, the attempt to build a stairway to the heavens without divine help, which is itself a metaphor for thinking that one has sole possession of the Truth. This is indicated by the letter Peh, meaning ‘mouth’, and would convey the false teachings issuing from the mouth. These false teachings are considered a “blessing on all that exists”; and from the view of the world as technological this may be rightly so, since the technological requires the oblivion of eternity and humanity’s conveying of ‘blessings’ (values) on all that exists. The ascent to “loving kindness and mercy”, God’s grace, is “a consummation devoutly to be wished” once one experiences the effects of The Tower.
The path’s language clearly describes a relation of mediation: the divine influence > comes about as a result of (effect of) the beauty of the world > which, in turn, is given to the soul through Love which is the blessing conferred upon all that exists (Grace). This point or path may be the key to the whole of the Sefer Yetzirah. The Lightning Bolt of Zeus (Keter) is not the product of Gevurah, but of the Divine will that destroys the delusions and illusions of those who think they can build a “stairway to heaven”. The Tower is the card of revolution: history. It is historical human being. It is movement, par excellence, and thus has an affinity to the letter Zayin. The ability to distinguish the necessary from the Good places one at the centre of the Wheel and one can view the world’s passing (at the same time, paradoxically) from the circumference of the sphere without being subject to its turning. (King Lear Act V Sc iii). By succumbing to the second temptation, one is constantly longing for the “meaning and purpose” of life which one must learn from Life itself, that it is Life itself.
In the Tarot, The Lovers card #6 has the angel Raphael (or Eros)as the mediator between the Divine and the individual soul, the bringing together of male and female. Here it is assigned with the letter Zayin which literally translated means ‘manacle’. A manacle is used for a prisoner or a slave; here the bond between two people is one that is freely chosen. “What God has joined together let no man set asunder” is the bond freely chosen. The manacle is the bond that is not freely chosen or the bond that is chosen in error. This is why The Devil card #16 has the figures manacled to the black cube upon which the Beast roosts. It is an ersatz bond, a false covenant. The cube of The Devil is symbolic of how one views the world. The High Priestess #2 and The Emperor #4 sit upon cubes; The Chariot’s charioteer stands within a cube; The Hierophant sits upon a black throne which presumably has a black cube as its base which is hidden by the robes that he wears. The revealing of the truth of The Hierophant would reveal this black cube for the ‘reality’ of what it is.
Christ says: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name (Love), there am I in the midst (between, alongside) of them.” This is Christ as the Parousia and as the Logos. When Christ says this, He is speaking to a crowd of two or three hundred and is physically present. Whether Christ is present in a gathering of two or three hundred or thousand when He is not physically present is something of a difficult question which Catholics have attempted to answer through the ceremony of the Mass and the sacrament of Holy Communion celebrated therein, where Christ’s presence is called upon to be among a crowd. Christ’s presence as a mediator between two or three is ever-present and its realization is possible in the NOW.
Paul Foster Case’s placing of The High Priestess at Tiferet does not seem to be correct. Her presence is more appropriate as a lead to The Emperor #4 and The Chariot cards #7. In each of these cards, the figure sits upon or stands within a cubic shape showing their ties to that dimension and the limitations of seeing the world. The cube is, symbolically, the body. This cubic shape is also shared by The Devil and, presumably, by The Hierophant. However, the line of Keter, Tiferet and Yesod as the Light, air, fire, beauty and foundation of the physical world does make sense if one aligns the cards to the central pillar of the Tree of Life. There are connections between The High Priestess, The Chariot and The Emperor cards for they share a number of visual similarities. When we view the Tree of Life, they are appropriately placed on the right side, on the side of Mercy and Kindness. But how is The Emperor to be seen as a benevolent ruler?
Keter is joined directly to Tiferet by the letter Alef, one of the three Mothers and the letter Beth after the light passes through the veil of creation or the Logos. Through Tiferet, it is also directly linked to Yesod or the Foundation of the physical world (the law of Necessity, the human body). Yesod is the Foundation created by Beauty; it is not the Foundation of Beauty. The letter Beth, meaning “house”, links Keter to Tiferet and thus to the Beauty of the World. Chakmah is linked to Binah by one of the three Mothers Alef Mem Shin (commentators usually assign Shin to this linkage, but I have assigned both Mem, emanating from Chakmah, and Shin, emanating from Binah to this horizontal path). Chesed is linked to Chakmah by the letter Gimel .Case in his outline appears to follow a chronological order to the Hebrew alphabet which is not how it is assigned to the Tree of Life nor to the movements or emanations within the sphere itself that is the world as it is presented in the Hebrew Tree and in the Sefer Yetzirah itself. The formation of language mirrors the process of the Creation itself, and this does not appear to be a step-by-step algorithmic process.
The movements outlined in the Tree of Life are circular or gyric formations. When one proceeds down the right side, one is following the downward movements of Mem or water until one reaches Malkhut, the widest expansion. When one reaches Malkhut, then the upward movement of Shin or fire takes over, and this is a narrowing or focusing of the gyres’ movements. It signifies a return to the Foundation or base. Movements along the paths themselves within the Tree will be determined by whether Mem as water or Shin as fire predominates; or in other words, whether the head (Shin), or the gut or appetite (Mem), or the heart (Alef), prevails. These gyring movements have also been referred to as “steps” (Plato’s Symposium and Diotima’s “ladder of love”) from which one may leap forward or upward or move in the opposite direction.
This has a number of similarities to the characteristics of The Chariot card of the Tarot and to The Sanctifying Intelligence that is third path of Wisdom. The “holy powers”, again, are the naming of things, that which distinguishes human beings from other created beings, our ability to use language and to name. From this path we can discern that the Gnostics were incorrect in attributing evil to the demiourgos, and that the created world is one of evil. It is more appropriate to say that the created world is one of deprivation and need, and this deprivation and need are present from the beginning of the creation. The created world is a ‘house’ that human beings make a ‘home’ through their use of language and number.
Paul Foster Case’s interpretations of the paths run into some contradictions here (or so it seems to me) because he confuses the Necessary with the Good. The Good is beyond Being. The Light that is Keter might be understood as the Highest Crown (since the crowns are associated with the letters), but they are not the “primordial emanation”. If The Fool is represented by the letter Alef and is the channel to Chakmah or Wisdom, how is “wisdom” being defined here? Wisdom is “knowledge of the whole” which The Fool clearly does not have unless we are considering reincarnation here (which is entirely possible. See Appendix regarding Plato’s writings on Republic and Phaedrus).
In this life, it is not given to human beings to have knowledge of the whole of which they are a part. With the creation of numbers, Time also comes into being; and with it the recognition of Space. With Time comes Memory. It is our Memory of the original Good that creates the absence/presence of human existence and the longing, the erotic need, for completion in the Good. The Beauty of the created world acts as a souvenir, a photograph or image that gives us the Memory of that which is our proper end or perfection, our completion. Thus, Plato can say: “Time is the moving image of eternity”, but it must be remembered that these images of which Time is composed are merely shadows. Our collective knowledge, which is our collective Memory, derives from our understanding of the Laws of Necessity, our opinions or doxa regarding Necessity. Necessity itself is the will of God i.e., Justice.
#14 The Illuminating Intelligence: Letter Shin Alef Mem with the element of Shin emphasized (Red)
#15 The Stabilizing Intelligence: Letter Tet (Green)
#17 Intelligence of the Senses: Letter Vav (Orange)
#13 The Unity Directing Intelligence Letter: Peh (Purple)
The Third Path is the Sanctifying Intelligence, and is the basis of foundation of Primordial Wisdom, which is called the Former of faith, and its roots, Amen; and it is the parent of Faith, from which virtues doth Faith emanate.
Alt. Trans. “The third path is called the sanctifying consciousness. It is the foundation of primordial wisdom and is called “enduring faith [Amen]”, and its roots are truth [Amen]. It is the father of trust [Amen], from which the power of faith [Amen] emanates.”
Wescott trans. The Third Path is the Sanctifying Intelligence, and is the foundation of Primordial wisdom, which is called the Creator of Faith, and its roots are AMN; and it is the parent of Faith, from which doth Faith emanate.
Path 3. Sanctified Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel MeKudash): This is the foundation of the Original Wisdom and it is called “Faithful Faith”. Its roots are AMeN. It is the Father of Faith, and from its power faith emerges.
The 3rd Path: The Sanctifying Intelligence
The third path of wisdom is The Sanctifying Intelligence. The third path of wisdom is the sephirot Binah in the Western Tree and Chakmah in the Hebrew Tree. The word “sanctifying” here means “to make pure, to set apart, to consecrate”, to “make holy”. What “sanctifies” or makes “holy” is the presence of the Divine in the Unlimited (the whole) and this presence prescribes the limits to the Unlimited. That which prescribes the limits is the Logos, and this is ultimately the Law of Necessity or the Divine Will. This is mirrored in the logistikon or the divine part of the soul. The prescribing of limits through the logos is not a setting apart that cuts off, but a site wherein and from where something commences and emerges as that which it is. For something to be that which it is is its ‘holiness’.
We began this commentary with a quote from Simone Weil: “Faith is the experience that the intelligence is illuminated by Love.” The intelligence is illuminated by the “amen” (“so be it”, “let it be”) that is the foundation of primordial Wisdom i.e., faith is the product of the acceptance of the Divine Will which manifests itself in Necessity. This acceptance is not an easy task as is illustrated by the fact that the first test or temptation of Christ is to turn stones to bread. This acceptance may be said to be a mastery of the appetitive part of the soul. This acceptance may also be said to rest in the concept of amor fati which is ‘the love of fate’. Only a few exceptional human beings are capable of this faith in its true form.
All of what we call knowledge is a product of Necessity. This knowledge is illuminated for us through Love, not only through the principle of reason. Here it is not the thing that is made ‘holy’, but the seeing itself that is ‘holy’ i.e., ‘set apart’, ‘made pure’. Fire is the element of purification. It is through our acceptance of the Divine Will that all things are made holy for us. The site wherein and from where something commences and emerges and becomes holy is the intellect (logistikon) when it is illuminated by Love. The truth, the unconcealing that is the root of faith, is the illumination of things, the bringing out of unconcealment, through Love. This is what we call ‘experience’. Experience is consciousness or awareness of, intelligence of some thing.
Since Chakmah is the “unlimited”, it cannot be known in any specific way. Binah separates and produces or brings forth particular things, makes them “pure”, sets them apart and “consecrates” them by giving a name to them. The giving of names to things is a “holy act”; it is what distinguishes and separates human beings from other animals and from other created beings. The type of thinking that separates and comes to know things through this separation is called diaresis in Greek. To bring things together, to unify them, is called dianoia. Binah is a combination of both types of thinking and brings about Understanding, how we come to interpret our world. This Understanding is the foundation of primordial Wisdom.
This third path is sometimes referred to as the “General Consciousness” which would indicate a connection to path #30, the third path on the upward direction of the Tree of Life, from bottom to top. (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.”) Whereas the 30th path is in the realm of Asiyah, the 3rd path is in the realm of Beriyah. The 30th path is not the intelligence illuminated by Love. They are mirror images of each other. The knowledge which the astrologers have is knowledge of Necessity. Its source was geometry. The original knowledge of the astrologers was in their contemplation and attention to the movements of the heavens but it appears to have devolved into something else a long time ago (as is indicated by path #32 The Administrative Intelligence).
Diaretic thinking produces classifications, taxonomies. Though the world presents itself in multivarious particulars, the One is present within them, and this bringing together into a one is the thinking that is called dianoia. The “gathering together into a one” is one of the many possible translations of the Greek word logos. In philosophy, this is the problem known as “the one and the many”.
In Plato, one may see this problem outlined in the relation between the Ideas and the Forms. The Forms (eidos) are the outward appearances of things and these are innumerable. The Forms, however, are the emanations or begettings of the Ideas which are the essence of the Forms or what the things really are in their being. The Ideas of Plato are the Sephirot of the Sefer Yetzirah, and both have their roots in Pythagorean geometry. The practice of geometry was initially one of contemplation and prayer, a relation to the world as presence-at-hand. The “gathering together” that brings about our “understanding”, our interpretation of the world, is only possible through the logos. This gathering together can be done through the principle of reason or it can be done through Love. Both are matters of “seeing” and “viewing”. Both means are by ways of the logos. With the principle of reason, Love is absent or diminished; it is the lower form of eros, the thymoeides or “spirited” part of the soul. The requirement is to combine the Love that is Eros with the Logos that is the true essence of the thing in order to dwell in the proper relation with the Divine. This is done through the logistikon part of the soul.
Binah is the third Sephirot and is related to Understanding. How we come to understand the world is determined through Time and through Memory, and this is the influence of Chakmah and the element of water (material) upon that of fire (the mind, the head). Binah imposes limits on the unlimited of Chakmah; it gives shape to water. We might say that the ‘shape of water’ is what we call history. The philosopher Thales thought that all things are composed of water. Heraclitus opposed Thales’ view and asserted that all things were composed of fire.
Thales of Miletus
The limits which give presence to the things that are present have come about through the logos of number and word. Through the logos of number and word, we are able to de-fine things and to give them a name. The things become particulars, singulars, and they are separated from the whole of the things that are. This is why Binah is associated with “The Sanctifying Intelligence”. This naming and defining of things is considered “holy” in the Sefer Yetzirah, for it is our distinction as human beings from the other living creatures about us. Our ability to have a history and be aware of it through Memory is what is distinctive about us.
We might say that Binah is the recognition of three ways of viewing the world or the foundation of the three worlds: the world of ‘reality’ which is associated with Asiyah and the sephirot Malkhut (the material world); the world of history (historicism) which is a world with human beings at the centre and is associated with Yetzirah and Beriyah. The world of ‘virtual reality’ which is a discovery of modern times and goes beyond the real world as it is encountered creates a world within a world. We might consider ‘virtual reality’ a ‘second Cave’ which distances us still further from the truth of things. AI and its applications would be part of this ‘second cave’, a further distancing and closing off of our humanity from the reality of the Truth. That this intelligence is called ‘artificial’ is a recognition of its distance from the reality of things; it is an artifice or a making of human beings. This distance from things is the no-thingness at its height, and we must understand this as a blossoming of our nihilism in the modern age. (The four stages of truth in Plato’s allegory of the Cave correspond to the four universes of the Sefer Yetzirah.)
We can encounter the beings in our world as either “presence-at-hand” or “readiness-to-hand”. Present-at-hand beings are to be contemplated while ready-to-hand beings are encountered as something “useful”, something which exists in order to complete human beings’ tasks or goals. They are seen as “equipment” or “tools”. Human beings’ care and concern allows them to encounter beings as useful for ‘projects’. The things are manipulable, disposable. They are ‘for’ something. What the things are, their meaning, is determined by human beings’ projects and these projects establish and determine the worlds in which those things will appear and come to prominence. This is the meaning and significance of the Tarot card of The Magician #1 who, through the energy of his upward held wand, is able to make use of the cups, swords and pentacles that lie before him. The wand is a symbol of his will and energy. This will is associated with reason, Shin, the head. This will is the thymoeides or ‘spirited’ part of the human soul when it comes to domination.
In the modern view, ready-to-hand beings possess no telos or purpose of their own: their “value” is determined by human beings’ projects. Their particularity is replaced by uniformity. They are all calculable masses in motion in space and time. This was the revolution begun in the seeing of modern science (Galileo and Newton) as distinguished from the science of the ancients. In the virtual world, we can say that the logos has no ‘value’ of its own outside the projects that human beings have determined for it. Their “value” lies in their ‘in-order-to’, their relation to human beings’ projects. A project is ‘that which is thrown forward’ as the end or purpose in advance. Nature is ‘thrown forward’ and is ‘discovered’ or encountered as ‘environment’ in advance. We can look at a tree as ready-to-hand: its fruit, a shady place to rest, etc.; or we can look at its ‘presence-at-hand’: its colour, its bark, its DNA structure, but this manner of looking at the tree reveals nothing of the tree’s nature i.e., the tree as a living being.
Physis or nature, according to the Greeks, is “that which emerges and remains in view”. For Plato, every being conceals and discloses through its eidos or “appearance” at the same time: our knowledge and understanding of what appears to be is doxa or “opinion”. The wall of the Cave, the enclosure that is our created world, reflects shadows cast by the fire from the framework of the technites, the artisans, the powerful, within the Cave. This framework is ‘the thrown forward’, the shadows on the wall. Doxa and physis are in tension or strife with each other. Metaphysics, historically, attempts to “preserve” the concealing-revealing nature of the natural, what Aristotle called the “stable presencing”, (the meaning of the 15th path of Wisdom leading from Binah to Chesed), and this belief in the ‘stable presencing’ is shown in some of the paths of the Sefer Yetzirah.
In “The 32 Paths of Wisdom”, this attempt at preservation, of making something permanent, is sometimes called “The Constant or Settled Intellect” (Examples: Path #4: Settled Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Kavua): “It is called this because all the spiritual powers emanate from it as the (most) ethereal of emanations. One emanates from the Other by the power of the Original Emanator, may He be Blessed.”); “The Everlasting or Enduring Intellect” (Path #16: “Enduring Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Nitzchi): “It is called this because it is the Delight of the Glory (Eden). As it is, there is no Glory lower than it. It is called the Garden of Eden, which is prepared for the (reward of) the saints.”), “The Sustaining Intellect” (Path #23: Sustaining Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Kayam): “It is called this because it is the sustaining power for all the Sephirot”); and “The Continuous Intellect” (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.”) Poiesis or ‘the emergence that remains in view’ is at the heart of causation (the bringing forth that is done through the logos as related to the four causes of Aristotle discussed earlier). Modern natural science’s view of nature, as a final view, secures permanently the distinction between the Good and Being, facts and values. There are no “moral facts” i.e., “natural morals”. This modern view is contrary to the world of the Sefer Yetzirah.
William Shakespeare
Human beings, as natural beings, bring themselves to presence; they “occasion” themselves from out of themselves. When Shakespeare says “the art itself is nature”, this would indicate that what he sees himself as doing in his dramas is analogous to “the blossom bursting forth”. The pen and ink and human beings are like the earth, air, and sun. Art is human beings’ revealing of the truth in the most appropriate way that they are capable of. The language of this revealing is “prophecy” or “art”, that language that is beyond time. This distinguishes this language from that of AI where language is understood as historical and algorithmic.
Binah manifests the interactions of the first horizontal line of Mem/Alef/Shin, the vertical double letter line of Peh, and the diagonal lines of Vav and Tet. The path of Peh does not interact with Tiferet; and because of this lack of interaction, how the natures of the paths will be expressed through Binah will come to determine how an individual human being will come to view their world; it will be their understanding of their world. Peh, meaning ‘mouth’, indicates the language of rhetoric, the language that directs itself to the passions and attempts to persuade the passions which have their root in Mem. Binah, as the Sanctifying Intelligence, has its roots in Shin, the purifying alchemical fire.
Two paths lead from The Sanctifying Intelligence to channel or communicate these emanations to the Sephirot below. The one path links the Divine to the human soul (Tiferet); the other path links to Gevurah or the “social” and this is what we would understand as traditional religion, our “shared knowledge” and understanding, and it is linked to Binah. Peh and Vav are these linking paths.
The Sephirot are what things truly are in their essence; the Sephirot are not in motion. Because they are not in motion, they can be said to have always been; they are eternal. The essence of all that has been made and all that will be made is continually present in the Sephirot and this essence is not subject to historical situations and interpretations, although these interpretations are all that can be given of them. This is referred to as parousia here, the “being alongside”, the “being present together”. Through the thinking that is dianoia, the essence of things is “revealed” and thus their “truth”. This “revealing” is done through Binah and its path to Tiferet, the Beauty of the world which is represented by the letter Vav.
The following passage from the Gospel of Matthew may illuminate this point: Matthew 11: 27:“All things have been committed to me (handed over to me) by my Father (the Good that is beyond Being). No one knows the Son (The Light which the darkness cannot comprehend, Tiferet #6) except the Father (the Good), and no one knows the Father (the Good) except the Son (the Light) and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him (the Good).” Notice that the revelation of the Divine is in the hands of the Logos and that this revelation is what is called Grace, the gift received from the Divine.
Binah is “the clothing”, the images and representations, by which the essence of things is brought into appearance and made visible; and through this visibility, we are given Understanding. Binah is the essence of the historical interpretations of things. This is its association with Time. Binah is the archetypal Mother, Nature, and her womb is the receptacle for the Seed that is the dynamis of being. She is the “matrix” and the khôra of Plato, what we might interpret as Space and Time. In Plato’s dialogue Timaeus, she is described as the receptacle in which all becoming takes place. The fires (the goods) that we see coming into being and being extinguished are just appearances, in the receptacle, of the Fire Itself (the Good). At 52b, Plato describes this receptacle as “space.”
The coming into being and passing away of things is Time. The coming together of Space and Time is the Law of Necessity, the Divine Will. Plato uses the term demiourgos or demiurge, the one who takes the pre-existing materials of chaos (Chakmah), arranges them according to the models of the eternal ideas (the Sephirot), and produces or brings forth all the physical things of the world, including human bodies. Demiourgos means “craftsman” or “artisan” in Greek, but it is something of a tricky word in its interpretation. The Greeks see the shaper of the world as a “manual labourer”, and so the relation of the demiourgos to Christ is somewhat apt since He Himself was a carpenter, the one who builds a “house” that becomes a “home” which aligns with the letter Beth. The associations of the ox and camel as beasts of burden also relate to this labouring, the labouring which produces ‘a work’.
The 13th Path: The Intelligence of the House of Influx/ The Unity Directing Intelligence
Path 13: Intelligence of the House of Influx/ Unity Directing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Manhig HaAchdut): It is called this because it is the essence of the Glory (Beauty). It represents the completion of the true essence of the unified spiritual beings.
The Thirteenth Path is named the Uniting Intelligence and is so called because it is itself the essence of Glory (beauty). It is the Consummation of the Truth of individual spiritual things.
Alt. Trans. ” The thirteenth path is named the uniting consciousness because it is the essence of glory (Beauty). It represents the completion of the true essence of the unified spiritual beings.”
Wescott trans. The Thirteenth Path is named the Uniting Intelligence, and is so called because it is itself the Essence of Glory (Beauty). It is the Consummation of the Truth of individual spiritual things.
Case trans. The thirteenth path (Gimel, joining Keter to Tiphareth) is called the Uniting Intelligence, or Conductive Intelligence of Unity, because it is the essence of glory (beauty), and the perfection of the truths of spiritual unities.
The Letter Peh and the 13th Path: The Unity Directing Intelligence
We spoke in the Third path, The Sanctifying Intelligence, of the thinking that is termed dianoia, that thinking which unites things that are separated into a one, that thinking which brings things together into a one thing so that the thing can be seen and be named. The thirteenth path is the bridge between the universe of Beriyah and the universe of Yetzirah. Yetzirah along with Asiyah is the world of action, the formation of things which brings about their “consummation” or perfection, their completion. This formation and completion is related to ‘justice’. These things brought to completion may be physical things or ethical things, since “glory” (the beautiful) refers to actions and their results. It is the world of “values”, that which human beings ascribe to things of their own doing and their own making. “Values” are what human beings make or determine regarding actions or things; they are not the “good”. “Glory” is not the Good, though it is often mistaken for the Good. The Glory of creation is its beauty; the essence of the creation’s beauty is its relation to the Divine, the One, the Good. The light from Tiferet is here in action to bring about the relation between the Divine Unity and the individual things within creation.
The four causes of Aristotle which we spoke about are within both the physical and spiritual realms; that is, they have to do with both ontology and ethics. The actions which human beings take require a dynamis, whether in an active or passive form, a potential or a possibility of being able to come into being or not to come into being. In the Tarot, it is the card of The Chariot #7, although some Kabbalists ascribe it to the card of The High Priestess #2. This may account for the many similarities between the Priestess and the Chariot cards in their depictions. Paul Foster Case considers the Thirteenth Path to belong to the letter Gimel and to be associated with Tiferet; but this cannot be the situation. The letter Gimel refers to “wealth”, the “value” of created things, the multiplicity of created things, the “wealth” or “abundance” of things, and it is associated with the strife amidst that multiplicity of things. It is one of the 7 double letters indicating that its understanding can be viewed in two ways (at least). These two ways are the outward and downward path to Malkhut or the inward and upward path to Keter.
This strife among the created things and the urges that arise in human beings is that which needs to be brought into “friendship” or balance and this is done through the connection between the primal water of the Holy Spirit (Chakmah), the undifferentiated pre-conscious, to the fire of Keter (Shin) through Air (Alef) from which earth (wealth) is created. It is how one perceives this wealth of the earth that is key. The thymoeides part of the soul can assist the logistikon part of the soul or be be in conflict with it. this conflict rests in the desire of the thymoeides aspect of eros to possess and consume that which it perceives, while the logistikon wishes the soul to merely contemplate it.
The NOW is eternity once the individual has been reconciled to the One (Strength) which is the heart (Alef) of all things (Tiferet). This is how one can understand Plato’s statement that “Time is the moving image of eternity”, when eternity is experienced in the NOW. What is one to do practically i.e., in the way of action? One is “to mind one’s own business” and take care of those things that come to one when they occur: to recognize and distinguish between the Necessary and the Good and to prevent the worst from happening when one cannot assist in bringing about some good with regard to human affairs. It is not in our power to bring about the Good; that is in God’s hands. The greatest evils occur when we think we can bring about the Good i.e., “the good end justifies any means”. The greatest evils are perpetrated by those who believe that they are in possession of the Truth, and this evil is demonstrated on a daily basis in our being-with-others.
Religious proselytizing, for example, is an evil because it involves will to power. So much evil has been perpetrated by those who believe they possess the truth. To proselytize is to “expand”, and the proper response (according to the Sefer Yetzirah) is to “withdraw”. Christ’s instructions to his disciples to go out and “make disciples of all nations” is not that they should be “converted” through severity and fear i.e., through social and political action. One’s own actions are the tools of conversion; one “converts” by providing an example for others through their being-in-the-world, by “withdrawing” and “letting be”. This is the significance of the philosopher’s return to the Cave in Plato’s allegory. The history of the Roman Church is rampant with this sin, but Islam also partakes in this evil. Tolerance is lacking in those who believe they possess the truth. God Himself, as they understand Him, provides the example: if He is ‘the eternal fiery Father’ who demands subservience through fear, this is how the “converts” will relate to others. If He is the hidden God who loves in silence through the dark night that is existence, this is how His “converts” will respond. The seeing and understanding is all.
We spoke in the Third path of the thinking that is termed dianoia, that thinking which unites things that are separated, that thinking which brings things together into a one thing so that the thing can be named. The thirteenth path is the bridge between the universe of Asiyah and the universe of Yetzirah. Yetzirah is the world of action, the formation of things which brings about their “consummation” or perfection, their completion. These things may be physical things or ethical things, since “glory” refers to actions. It is the world of “values”, that which human beings ascribe to things by their own doing and their own making. “Values” are what human beings make or determine regarding actions or things; they are not the “good”. “Glory” is not the Good.
There are clearly errors in the commentaries that place Gevurah as “Justice” and not Hod. If the uniting intelligence is the essence of “glory”, then it must manifest itself in the Beauty of the world or in the “glorious” actions that human beings are capable of performing once they have been given the Love that unifies all beings. The glory that derives from “social prestige” is the second temptation of Christ. (Matthew 4:3) The unity or sense of oneness that one derives from belonging to a clan, country, political party or some other “collective” is a false form of the unity that belongs to “two or three gathered together in my Name”, what we have been calling dialectic here. His Name is Love, not the Law; it is not the power that derives from “social prestige” and recognition. Christ has no need to devolve into the ‘armed prophet’ of the Christian nationalists. He can look after Himself.
The NOW is eternity once the individual has been reconciled to the One which is the heart of all things. This is how one can understand Plato’s statement that “Time is the moving image of eternity”, when eternity is experienced in the NOW.
The emanations from Gevurah, which is on the pillar of Severity and Fear, are represented in the Tarot by The Hierophant #5 whose contrary is either The Devil #15 or The Tower #16. This is a crucial point in the Tarot and in the Sefer Yetzirah’s Tree of Life as 15 and 16 are at the very centre of the 32 paths. They occur at that point in the Tree of Life where there is a fork at Tiferet, one branch going East and one branch going West. At this point, a decision for the individual must be made (as is represented in The Lovers #6 card.) This branching of the Logos is indicative of the way West as the principle of reason as a principle of being on the Tree of Life. The branch East on the other hand indicates reflective thought, contemplation and prayer, the thinking that is moved by Love. The movement on the left branch or trunk is power and will to power, involving the language of public discourse (rhetoric) and technology as a way of being in the world. The movement on the right branch or trunk is self-nullification, the rejection of power (even though one possesses its potentiality and possibility), the dialogue among two or three friends (dialectic) and the sophrosyne and phronesis that is moral, ethical action.
The views and the seeing of The Hierophant #5 are to be contrasted with those of The Lovers #6 and can, in fact, be mistaken for The Lovers. The logos of The Hierophant is represented by Peh and it is the form of language that we call rhetoric, while the logos of The Lovers is represented by Zayin and Heh and these are what is known as the language of dialectic, the conversation between two or three friends. Below is an illustration of what is being said here:
The Hierophant #5 revolves to The Devil #15 i.e. the speech of rhetoric Peh becomes the way of seeing of the eye of Eyin ע through the hearing, the letters Reishר and Tavת corresponding to the right and left ear respectively.
The Hierophant #5 can also revolve to The Tower #16. In the Tarot illustrated here, The Hierophant is signified by the letter Vavו, while The Tower is signified by the letter Pehפ. The Tower is the Tower of Babel and represents an attempt to build a way to heaven through human will. #16 represents the middle point in the Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom and it is at this point that the Tree of Life branches off in different directions. These different directions are shown in the card by the 12 Yods on one side of the Tower and the 10 Sephirot on the other. I would allot #15 to The Tower.
The Devil card has been allotted #15 in most Tarot decks. The letter Ayinע or ‘eye’ has been assigned to it. The Lovers #6 has the letter Zayin ז meaning ‘manacle’ assigned to it. This seems to be an error. There are real manacles in The Devil card while there may be ‘bonds’ in The Lovers card. There are three figures in The Hierophant as well as in The Devil card. 10 + 5 = 15. There are two figures in The Tower card. One can be manacled by the Beast, the anti-Logos, or one can be bonded together or yoked together by the Daemon Michael (or Metatron). The torch of the Beast is about to ignite the tail of the male in The Devil card.
The Tower #16 is the card of revolution. The crown of The Tower of social prestige is blasted by the lightning bolt that is beyond the Sephirot shown in the right side of the card. I would reverse The Tower and The Devil cards in the Tarot deck in order to reflect their essential differences from each other.
The succumbing to the Great Beast is the succumbing to the three temptations of Christ: the material temptation of turning stones to bread (i.e. opposing the will of God and not recognizing the limits imposed by Necessity); the social temptation of power over the kingdoms of the world (desiring or possessing the power of “social recognition” or social prestige, the temptation of the collective); the individual temptation, suicide (the temptation of God by denying the will of God and the defying of the Law of Necessity). In the Tarot, the symbolism of The Devil mirrors that of The Lovers but is contrary to that of The Lovers: the manacles of The Devil are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge in The Lovers. The manacles are attached to the cube of the physical world; no such cube exists in The Lovers card. The Devil represents a false or ersatz form of unity to which one becomes bound and loses one’s freedom and one’s individuality. This is why I would assign #16 to The Devil and #15 to The Tower. The Tower is the lightning bolt of Zeus, or of God, and is the nemesis for the worship of false gods or the worship of power and social prestige. In the ascending direction, the worship of The Devil leads to The Tower; in the descending direction, The Tower leads to that revolution or expansion which simply replaces itself with The Devil.
The Hebrew letter Peh means “mouth” and refers to the power of speech, but also to the taking possession of something and consuming it. In the collective, the social, the individual is “possessed” and “consumed”. I have associated the letter Peh with The Unity Directing Intelligence. In Kabbalah, speech as the Logos is a spiritual power, which can cause good or evil depending on how it is used. “A truth that’s told with bad intent/ Beats all the lies you can invent”, as the poet William Blake told us in his “Auguries of Innocence”.
What one thinks determines how one is in one’s being-in-the-world, and what one speaks has the power to become completed in action, just as the magic word “abracadabra” has the power “to create while I speak”. All speech is, in essence, the power of this “abracadabra”. Violent words and images lead to violent actions. The ethical is grounded in one’s way of being-in-the-world; the ethical is not the ‘values’ which are self-created and socially created, but is the presence of the grace which is the divine blessing which determines individual actions. One sees concrete examples of this on a daily basis in the humblest of human beings.
The quality of speech is the quality of the life’s essence and creative existence. This is why the care and concern for proper speech is so important to the being and well-being of human beings and why the destruction of speech through modern technology is so concerning with regard to our humanity as humane beings. The Peh teaches us to view our words as that which preserves our essence as human beings. Not giving speech care and concern causes us to become more bestial.
The shape of the Peh is a Khof with a Yod inside of it. More discussion of these two letters will be given below. The shape represents the spiritual spark of the Neshama soul, contained inside the physical body. With words and silence, we can communicate the essence of our soul and existence. This requires that the inner and outer life match – that the physical existence is fully aligned manifesting the spiritual intentions of the soul within it. As it says in the Talmud Baba Metsiah “Don’t say one thing with the mouth and another with the heart.” The Yod is also the Nekudah Sheba Lev, the point in the heart where spiritual awakening begins. Our attempts at the alignment of the physical with the spiritual level is the strife or polemos which is the essence of life.
The power of the Peh is a double-edged sword. As it says in Proverbs 18:21 “Life and death are in the hands of the tongue.” Because of this, the Peh represents the requirement to govern one’s own nature. Routine speech, speech to manipulate, all the distortions of speech must give way to viewing speech as a miracle. Then, speech can be used for its true purpose – to speak one’s destiny and to activate the spirit through one’s thoughts and speech.
Peh is similar to the letter Kaf כ in shape (it is a container letter) , but Peh contains a “tooth”; the letter Shin means ‘tooth’. In appearance, it bears some similarities to the letter Shin, although sideways. It is for these reasons that I have placed Peh above Kaf on the Tree of Life as both are double letters and thus vertical lines.
In Kabbalah speech, the logos, is a spiritual power, which can cause good or evil depending on whether it is used falsely or truly. Our being is determined by what one thinks and how one thinks, and these in turn determine our actions, what our character is and how one is. Since it is in the nature of human beings to reveal truth, what one speaks has the power to become reality. Lies become realities through false speech. Violent words lead to violent actions. When our speech is not used to reveal truth, we become more inhumane, bestial, violent, and insane. As Socrates said: “The opposite of knowledge is not ignorance but madness.” Madness is the stupidity of the social, the mob, the party, the clan. The quality of the speech determines the quality of the life’s essence and creative existence. This is why speech and language are so important and so dangerous, particularly in the West at this point in its history.
The shape of the Peh is a Khaf with a Yod inside of it or, as suggested above, a Khaf with a Shin inside it. The Shin represents the spiritual spark or the emotional, passionate fire of the soul, contained inside the physical body which is the Yod of our own being. Passionate speech deals with rhetoric; the speech before crowds and assemblies. With words and silence, we can communicate the essence of our soul and existence. This requires that the inner and outer life match – that the physical existence is fully aligned manifesting the spiritual intentions of the soul within it. Socrates’ prayer to Pan at the end of the dialogue Phaedrus expresses this: “Dear Pan, and all you other gods that dwell in this place, grant that I may become beautiful within, and that such outward things as I have may not war against the spirit within me. May I count him rich who is wise, and as for gold, may I possess only so much of it as a temperate man might bear and carry with him.” This is similar to what it says in the Talmud Baba Metsiah “Don’t say one thing with the mouth and another with the heart.” The Yod is the point in the heart where spiritual awakening begins. However, the alignment of the physical with the spiritual is no easy task as even someone such as Socrates needs to pray for a balance between them.
The letter Vav and the 17th Path: Intelligence of the Senses
The Seventeenth Path is the Disposing Intelligence, which provides Faith to the Righteous, and they are clothed with the Holy Spirit by it, and it is called the Foundation of Excellence in the state of higher things.
Alt. Trans. “The seventeenth path is called the consciousness of disposition. It provides faith to the compassionate (Khasidim) and clothes them with the Holy Spirit (Ruach Elohim). Within the Supernals, it is called the foundation of beauty (Tiphareth).”
Wescott trans. The Seventeenth Path is the Disposing Intelligence, which provides Faith to the Righteous, and they are clothed with the Holy Spirit by it, and it is called the Foundation of Excellence in the state of higher things.
Case trans. ·The seventeenth path (Zayin, joining Binah to Tiphareth) is called the Intelligence of Sensation (or, the Disposing Intelligence), and it establishes the faith of the compassionate, clothes them with the Holy Life-Breath, and is called the Foundation of Tiphareth in the plane of the Supernals.
Genesis 1.17 And Elohim set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and Elohim saw that it was good.
The Seventeenth Path is the awareness of or knowledge of Beauty or the knowledge of the senses, and I would relate this path to the letter Vav, the letter that makes conjunctions, connections, and relations for it is through seeing, through the senses, that we apprehend the world about us. It is the Kabbalistic indication of the statement of Simone Weil: “Faith is the experience that the intelligence is illuminated by Love.”
“Experience” is that knowledge which comes to us from our senses. When illuminated or lit by the fire of Love, this knowledge becomes ‘fire catching fire’ with the result that “faith” is produced (The Sanctified Intelligence #3). Through the viewing of the world through Love, care and compassion for the things that are begins. In such knowledge, one is “clothed” by the Holy Spirit or “holy breath”, Grace, and becomes loving and compassionate. This is true ‘inspiration’. This is why it is a “dispositional knowledge”. It is a knowledge governing our emotional dispositions as well as our mental and spiritual dispositions.
The knowledge produced by the senses does not give us an answer to the question “why”. The opposite of ALP (Alef) or “intelligence”/”knowledge” is PLA (“wonder”) and it is from “wonder” that “philosophy” begins. It is a knowledge that is “useless”, whereas the knowledge that comes about from “know how” i.e., reason and the will, is knowledge that is put to use to meet the ends that human beings devise.
Some commentaries say that to achieve such knowledge, one must be guided by The Hierophant; but it is clear that the true guide is the Mediator in the form of Eros or Jesus Christ i.e., Love. The Lovers card #6, has the mediator between the couple as the angel Raphael, (some commentaries say Metatron or Michael, and this would coincide with the ‘strife’ that is present at this point along the journey). The Lovers card implies a choice; and in this case, it is one between the head and the heart. The Fool #0, The Lovers #6, and Judgement #20 are all cards that imply choices and have a relation to the crossover paths of the Tree of Life.
The Hierophant is the representative of the ‘historical knowledge’, the ‘opinion’ or doxa that has been produced through reason and will to power and becomes the knowledge that is shared by those who dwell in the society which produces such knowledge. It is the knowledge that casts the shadows on the walls of the Cave that is Nature. It relates to piety and to what those in that society bow down to or look up to. Language creates the ‘worlds’ in which human beings dwell for it is what gives meaning to the things within those worlds. The Logos dwells in the human heart which is the ‘house of being’ of the individual, and from this dwelling a home may be built both within a world and among each of the inhabitants who come to share in the ‘making’ of that world. Relations and connections can be made.
17 And Elohim set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth;
In the passage from Genesis, we see for the only time that it is Elohim that “sets them” i.e., the sun and the moon, in the heavens to divide the darkness from the light. The Moon is associated with darkness (Chakmah, The High Priestess #2); the Sun is associated with the light (Tiferet, The Lovers #6). It is through the Holy Spirit (the Holy-Breath, Shin/Alef) that it is possible for the individual to experience direct contact with the Divine. This contact is called Grace. It is grace that allows the individual to rise up to the realm that is beyond the law and justice that is Necessity. Once again, the action of Elohim, the setting of the light that is the Sun and Moon, which is mirrored by human beings in their choices regarding the viewing of their worlds, for it is the light and the truth that is revealed by the reflected light of the moon or the direct light of the sun that will determine, “set”, what will be meaningful and how it will be meaningful for human beings in their worlds.
In the Scholastic philosophy of The Middle Ages, it was the concept of “intuition” which included the “consciousness” of and “intelligence” of something. This “intuition” was the parousia of God, the having God present, and this was considered the highest form of human being, that human excellence that was defined as ‘virtue’. The “intuitional disposition” no longer looks beyond itself to be fulfilled (this is indicated in the Strength card #11 of the Tarot). The contrary of this experience is the Absolute Knowledge of Hegel and Marxists.
The Beauty of the World is the covenant of God. It is always present (NOW) and given to all human beings at all times. In most commentaries on the Sefer Yetzirah, it descends through Binah from Chalkmah and Keter. This is the zigzag shape, or rather the gyring shape as I suggest here, of the paths and their ascent or descent on the Tree of Life.
The Holy Spirit (Logos) combines the elements of water, air, and fire as is shown in the various depictions and symbols associated with it. This would suggest that the pattern of descent is Keter through Chakmah, through Binah to Tiferet, through Netzach, to Hod, then Yesod, through to Malkhut. The pattern of the ascent would be Malkhut to Yesod, to Hod then Netzach, through Tiferet to Gevurah, to Chesed to Binah, from Binah to Chokmah, and finally to Keter. I would suggest that the initial descent is from Keter to Tiferet, for Chakmah or Space and Binah or Time are, were, and will be always present in the Creation of the Other from out of the One. For this reason, I do not ascribe paths to the original three Mothers of the primordial triangle.
The manner of our dispositions towards the world determines how we view the world and how we will act within it. Our dispositions change according to which of our many worlds we happen to be engaged in and they colour our worlds like the tones of a musical key: we may view the world in A minor or C major, for instance. We are happy in the world of our hobbies, for instance, while we are not so when we are engaged in the world of our duties on occasion.
The descent to Tiferet is not through Gevurah (as is said in some commentaries) but is directly from the primal Trinity of Keter, Chokmah or “wisdom”, and Binah or “understanding”. Genesis 1:17 relates to the establishment of Time: the solar and lunar calendars and of the “light” that separates from the darkness i.e., what we call history. History establishes Gevurah from which it gets its power and legitimacy; but this power and legitimacy or legality are effects of the Law of Necessity: the things bounded and limited by Time and Space. Space is prior to Time. With Time comes creation and human beings. “And Elohim set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth”.
Tiferet has the ‘breath of Elohim’: the Way, the Truth, and the Life: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” For Christians, Christ is the mediator between heaven and earth, mortals and gods (Daimons). The Ruach Elohim (the Holy Spirit) cannot descend from Gevurah or through Gevurah. It is the fire and air from Keter that is the pure logos. Gevurah is the “borrowed logos”, the “borrowed” word that is the text set in stone. This is why I have associated the path from Binah to Gevurah with the letter Peh פ.
“Willing” is the product of rational human beings (Shin is associated with the ‘head’). It is associated with some thing and directed towards some thing that we do not yet possess and that is ‘not yet’. Falsehood is understood as “pseudos”: the statements that are false in their synthetic structure of the things, their predicates (the imposition of limits from Binah). Truth is the ‘uncovering” or “unveiling” of the things that are. Falsehood is the covering up of things that are not. The narratives constructed by most modern societies are those created out of ‘falsehood’ and are necessary in order to cover up the truth by bringing to presence things that are not, the ‘shadows’.
Vav: Path 17. Intelligence of the Senses (Consciousness) (Sekhel HaHergesh): This is prepared for the Faithful saints so that they may be able to clothe themselves in the spirit of holiness. In the arrangement of the supernal entities, it is called the Foundation of Beauty (Yesod HaTiferet).
The meaning of the letter Vav is a paradoxical one in Hebrew. Vav is the power to unite everything that is separated in creation, and as the 6th letter of the Hebrew alphabet it is sometimes associated with Tiferet. But this power to unite is associated with the human will. In the letter Alef, it is the Vav which separates the Divine Yod from the individual yod. We have written earlier about the thinking that is dianoic thought from the Greek i.e., that thinking that takes the leaves, branches, trunk, roots of a tree and combines them into the one that is called “a tree”. Dianoia is the thinking of reason and it is based on the principle of reason. It is the thinking that controls the understanding of path ‘#13, The Unity Directing Principle, the path going from Binah to Gevurah.
Literally, Vav means “hook” or “peg” and the Hebrew letter is a vertical line ו. It represents the Kav, the vertical line extension of the barrier that separates the Creator’s perfection from the created world and its imperfection (remembering that the word ‘perfection’ here is understood as ‘completeness’). The Vav is the Law of Necessity which constantly directs the world, placing the limits upon the cycle of existence until the perfect Oneness of the Creator, which underlies all of creation, is revealed to those few who have been chosen to have it revealed to them.
Vav would thus relate to Shin as the purifying fire; this is an analogy to the very real world of human affliction and suffering. Vav is related to the Orr Yashar, the direct light of the Creator, entering the world and it receives this influence from Tiferet. This would relate it to Christ who is the direct light of the Divine and would thus associate Vav with Tiferet, the sixth Sephirot and the Beauty of the World. This is what is meant by its being “the essence of the Glory”. The bringing of things into “completion” as particulars so that they may be named is the essence of The Unity Directing Intelligence Path 13. It should be emphasized here that these are to be seen as social phenomenon.
As a connector, Vav contains the mediatory power to connect the will and the earth through the senses. This mediatory power is the contrary of that mediatory power that is present in Tiferet. As the Law of Necessity, the Vav can be considered a channel or canal, which connects the human will to the will to power that is the life-force that bestows all the energy of created things to the dispositions of human beings. It represents the ladder of Jacob Yaakov – rooted in earth, with its head in the heavens, what is known as Jacob’s Ladder, but the gyring motion considered here is an “expansion” i.e., the individual’s expansion of their will to power, their ‘empowerment’, and this puts the ladder on somewhat shaky foundations.
The Vav is the extension of the essential dot Yod י from which all of creation comes forth and which is contained in Alef, but it is the contrary and deprivation of Heh which emanates from Tiferet to Chakmah. The Vav is the crucial choice that is present in the Sephirot Tiferet regarding how we distinguish the Necessary from the Good. Whereas the Heh teaches us the private esoteric path to the Divine, the Vav indicates the public path that can be found in the worship of the collective, the social, what Plato called the Great Beast.
Vav represents the number 6 and represents the six days of the creation of the world, as well as the six physical dimensions (right left, front and back, up and down) of Space. The first day of creation is related to Chesed and is attributed to “kindness”. God’s withdrawal allows creation to be. The Light of God is two-fold: one Light is beyond Being (the Good) and then there is the light within creation itself from the sun, moon, and heavens. Creation begins at the number 4.
The second day of creation has the attributes of “severity”, “contraction”, and “judgement” associated with it. It relates to the Sephirot of Binah and Gevurah. The deprivation and need of the original creation is experienced here and its significance is the separation of the waters. It is associated with the Flood and with The Tower of Babel, The Tower #15 (as I would assign this number to The Tower).
The third day of creation is associated with Tiferet and is associated with beauty, mercy and the balance between the positive and negative elements of creation.
The fourth day of creation is associated with Netzach, with splendour and the victory that comes from endurance. It is also associated with the creation of the sun and moon.
The fifth day of creation is associated with Hod and has the attribute of acknowledgement but also of devastation.
The sixth day of creation is associated with Yesod and with the creation of human beings. It is associated with Adam whose name contains the letters Alef, Dalet and Mem. Adam is the human being who is perfect in his thought, speech and action i.e., he is the “complete” human being.
The Vav is also said to be representative of the male phallus, the fertilizing agent, bringing life, abundance, continuity, and addition and represents the extension beyond Tiferet to Yesod in the downward movement of the Tree of Life. The letter Vav in Hebrew serves as both a conjunction and a verb modifier from present, past and future tenses. It is thus associated with Time. Time is associated with Saturn, and Saturn is associated with The Devil #16 (as I would associate this number with this card) of the Tarot.
In the Book of Revelations of St. John, the number of the Beast is 666. I would attribute the giving of this number to the 6 in the realm of Asiyah. The Great Beast occurs in Bk. 6 of Plato’s Republic and is identified as the social, the collective wherein power is given to those who are able to predict the shadows that will appear upon the wall of the Cave. This is today’s modern science. The realm of the social is subjected to the same laws that operate in the Law of Necessity, and the power relations operating therein can be understood as analogous to gravity.
In contrast to the path of Heh which has the senses connected to the human heart, the path of Vav is connected to or through the human will, the human eye, and the human head. Through its connection with Binah, it establishes the human understanding of the things of this world. Because of this, the power of the sephirot Binah or Understanding is more predominant in the path of Vav than that of Chokmah or Wisdom.
Because Chesed receives the mercy and kindness that comes from its relation to Tiferet, the severity of the emanations deriving from Binah are not tempered or brought into balance by Tiferet’s effect on Binah. The shaping of the viewing from which the knowledge and understanding is experienced through the Vav is thus deprived of the direct light that comes from Tiferet and it is thus a reflected light. This reflected light is primarily determined by Memory and is the historical knowledge established through Time. This is the crossing over of the path of Vav with the path of Chet which has been discussed above.
It is said by some commentators that Vav is related to the Orr Yashar, the direct light of the Creator, entering the world, but if it is directly connected from Chokmah to Gevurah, this light would be a borrowed light, a shadow of the true Light. If these commentaries are correct, the Vav would be related to Christ who is the direct light of the Divine and would thus associate Vav with Tiferet, the sixth Sephirot and the Beauty of the World. The peg or hook would be the Cross of Christ. The whole of Necessity is the Cross of Christ and this Cross is the Divine Will. It is the Creation itself. The human body is this cross in microcosm.
As the connector or conjunction, Vav contains the mediatory power to connect the spirit and the earth, spirit here understood as Will as that which is behind the Senses. It can be considered a channel or canal, which connects and bestows all the energy or life-force, the Will to Power, of the shefa שפע the abundance from below up to the created beings and things. It could be said to represent that theoretical knowledge which historically came to dominate the understanding of the world, what is called metaphysics. It is rooted in the realm of Beriyah, and from this informs the formation of things in the world of Yetzirah.
The Letter Tet and the 15th Path: The Constituting Intelligence
15. Stabilizing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Ma’amid): It is called this because it stabilizes the essence of creation in the “Glooms of Purity”. The masters of the theory said this is ‘the Gloom at Sinai’. This is the meaning of “Gloom is its cocoon”. (Job 35.9)
The Fifteenth Path is the Constituting Intelligence, so called because it constitutes the substance of creation in pure darkness, and men have spoken of these contemplations; it is that darkness spoken of in scripture, Job xxxviii. 9, “and thick darkness a swaddling band for it.”
Alt. Trans. ” The fifteenth path is called the constituting consciousness because it constitutes the essence of creation in pure darkness. According to masters of contemplation, this is that darkness referred to in scripture: ‘and thick darkness its swaddling band.'”
Wescott trans. The Fifteenth Path is the Constituting Intelligence, so called because it constitutes the substance of creation in pure darkness, and men have spoken of these contemplations; it is that darkness spoken of in Scripture, Job xxxviii. 9, “and thick darkness a swaddling band for it.”
Case trans. The fifteenth path (Heh joining Chokmah to Tiphareth) is called the Constituting Intelligence, and is so called because it constitutes creative force (or. the essence ofcreation) in pure darkness. According to masters of contemplation this is that darkness mentioned in Scripture: “Thick darkness a swaddling-band for it.”
Genesis 1:14-15 — “And Elohim said: ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so.”
If path #4, The Settled Intelligence, is called this “because all the spiritual powers emanate from it as the (most) ethereal of emanations. One emanates from the Other by the power of the Original Emanator, may He be Blessed”, then the 15th path as the Constituting or Stable Intelligence is the knowledge or awareness of that from which the spiritual powers emanate. The 15th path refers to the substance or the physical material of the Creation, and this material substance comes forth from the darkness of the waters of Chokmah. It provides the balance, the yin and yang of the duality of the nature of Creation.
The Fifteenth Path is the path of the knowledge and intelligence of the substances of things, their essences as to what we think they are when a name has been assigned to them. It is that knowledge of the things that are concealed beneath the outward appearances of those things. On the other hand, this path could also be the error of that which passes for knowledge in the world in which we live in. It would then be the knowledge of the shadows or shades or that which passes for knowledge in the world of those committed to the empirical knowledge of things only, those committed to the world of “facts”. The ‘stability’ of this knowledge is subject to instability.
This knowledge is the product of the “reflected light” of Malkhut; it is not knowledge of the true light of Keter which descends to Tiferet through the letter Alef (although some commentators attribute this to the letter Beth which is one of the ‘doubles’ and so would imply two ways of viewing such a path). As such, this knowledge when it is associated with The Moon and The High Priestess of the Tarot, is not “true knowledge” of things. It is “opinion” regarding the nature of things. To try to make this clearer: with the withdrawal of God to allow His creation to be and the subsequent descent from the One to the Ten, there is the simultaneous creation of the movement upward from Malkhut to Keter. These movements are symbolically shown in the representations of the Sun and the Moon. The Sun is the original light while the Moon is a ‘reflected light’ from the light received from the Sun. The movement downward is the widening gyre of the paths; the movement upwards is the narrowing or focusing of the paths in the direction of the One.
It is through our thinking that we bring things to a “stand” by giving them boundaries and horizons and then by naming or defining them, making them specific. In the placement of boundaries and the naming, the thing comes to be what it is for us. But this is merely the shadow of the thing. The thing is able to be brought to a stand because there is the light that is the “reflected light” of Malkhut. The thing is able to stand in its permanence before us but its true essence remains hidden from us because it is “veiled”. It is the sides of the cube which we are unable to see.
The Fifteenth path is ascribed to the letter Heh by Case in the W.T., although this may be questionable as the letter Heh is the first “elemental” or singular letter, and it would appear that a double or one of the three Mothers is required here (perhaps Shin or Mem).I have assigned the letter Tet to this path, from Binah to Chesed, since the path crosses over the path from Keter to Tiferet but has no interaction with it i.e., it has no interaction with the Sun nor with the qualities that emanate from Tiferet. (Does the crossing over of paths indicate choices that have to be made or choices that have been made?)
In the Hebrew Tree, the 15th path is ascribed to the Sefirot Tiferet, and this could be possible if the Tiferet were not the Logos. In the Western Tree of Case, this path is the linking of Chesed to Gevurah in the Sephirot and between The Emperor #4, The High Priestess #2, and The Hierophant #5 cards in the Tarot. The High Priestess is not a “true” mediator in the Tree of Life, and so she is not able to bring into a relation The Emperor, a symbol of the phallic power of Nature, with the power of convention that is The Hierophant. The attribute of Loving Kindness which is ascribed to the Sephirot Chesed is not made possible by Chakmah, but rather Tiferet.Chakmah is the ‘cold, sterile Mother’. The linking, however, of The Emperor #4, The High Priestess #2, and The Hierophant #5 would indicate that which is taken for knowledge in the societies in which we live.
These two powers of Chesed and Gevurah are incommensurables, and are therefore placed on opposite sides of the Tree of Life. They are what are traditionally referred to as Nature and Convention. The true mediator between them would be Tiferet from the Hebrew Tree but such is not the case. What joins them is in fact the movements of the paths of what crowns The Devil #16 in the Tarot as is illustrated on the left.
The three paths proceeding from the Sephirot Chakmah are all masculine and this may indicate why the worldviews derived from this seeing or viewing of the world are all phallo-centric. Chakmah is the khôra of Plato, the receptable into which are cast the “seeds” or the Forms that will become, through the demiourgos, the Logos, the created things of the world. We moderns might refer to the Forms as the Archetypes that will give to the created things their “form” or outward appearance. (It appears to me that the attributes that Case gives to The Emperor card are actually those that belong to the Strength card. It is she who, like Hamlet’s Horatio, is able “to suffer Fortune’s buffets and rewards with equal thanks”. The Emperor is more suitable to the corporate organization that suffers the stock market’s buffets and rewards with due concern for its bottom line.)
Teth, the 9th Hebrew letter has a literal meaning of “basket” or “nest” and is the symbol of those goods טוב in creation that we sometimes mistake for the Good itself. It is also connected to the womb wherein the human being gestates for nine months so it is a “container” letter and is connected to the other container letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It is connected to the Womb of the World and so it is appropriately linked to Binah and to The Empress #3.
Tet has to do with purity and impurity, and is the teaching of how to distinguish between the Necessary and the Good, the sacred and the profane. This also relates it to the letter Qof ק. We have to choose the Good over those things that we call goods in our existence and which we consume as we live out our lives in Time. It is also the very difficult realization that even within the bad things that happen, the sufferings that occur out of Necessity, there is a hidden good which is beyond our comprehension.
While all of our knowledge comes from our understanding of the realm of Necessity, the Divine Will itself is inscrutable. To believe that we know what this will is is a great temptation to sin; it is blasphemy. However, the common belief in “the power of positive thinking”, which derives from the exercise of the will and provides many with solace in the face of the suffering of the innocent, is hardly an answer to this great mystery of Life. “The power of positive thinking” works with the imagination and the will and too often involves fantasy and a denial of the real world in which we exist. The real world must be confronted through faith.
Teth also represents femininity, pregnancy and is thus connected to Binah. It includes the kindness and mercy of creation and the principle that everything is eternal and nothing is ever lost. This same principle, that nothing is ever lost, is to be found in the stories and myths from all cultures throughout the world.
Teth’s essence is feminine, representing the number 9 for the 9 months of pregnancy, and is shaped like a womb, a spiral, a container where things change and transform (3 + 3 + 3). It is the “open region”, the field of manifestation of natural things, and is the essence of the feminine that contains all in her i.e., Nature. The infinite is contained in Teth and it brings about the finite.
This shows its relation to Binah where the unlimited of Chakmah is given limits through Binah. Truth in Hebrew is אמת (emet), and is spelled alef—the first letter of the alef-beis; mem—the middle letter; and the tav—the last letter. It indicates that the end is in the beginning and the beginning is in the end. This suggests the “completion” implied in both the natural and human making of things. Teth is a bridge between the worlds of Asiyah and Yetzirah, the making that is from out of itself (Nature) and the making that is “in another and for another” that is human making.
The Teth is that knowledge of good and evil that is with human beings from the beginning and is part of their nature. The suffering that is part of our strife in Necessity teaches us to distinguish between the good and the bad, and by choosing the good to clean and purify and thereby to do that which is impossible: to erase the bad deed that was done which was the sin of being born! This is the first step in the process of decreation. (This sin is the choice we make to be born). This illustrates that Tet is on the left side of the Tree of Life and is part of the upward movement that is the spiritual cleansing of the soul through the fires of Shin. Tet contains the principle common in all mythologies of the world that nothing is lost, nothing is wasted, and all is eternal; Death is a part of Life. The Teth is the container that creates the ability of Tikkun – that all souls are born to life with one purpose – to restore themselves to the Good as at the beginning.
Teith, or Tet the 9th Hebrew letter has a literal meaning of basket or nest, and is the symbol of the good טוב in all creation. Strangely, it also has the literal meaning of ‘snake’, and this may represent a sense of the hidden danger that may be present at its core. Tet has to do with purity and impurity, the sacred and profane (the influence of The Sanctifying Intelligence). It crosses the paths of both Beth and Chet within the Tree of Life as it makes its way downwards from Binah to Chesed, and may or may not be influenced by Tiferet in this crossing. Does it suggest that within the ‘appearance’ of being nurturing and caring, there is a hidden evil as this nurturing and caring can be an ersatz or false form of the true care and concern of the Divine. Since it is a ‘container’ letter like the letter Chet, it is an ‘enclosure’ and ‘surrounding’ or ‘womb’. Teith also represents femininity, pregnancy, and it achieves this through impregnating influence of the masculine Alef Beth.
Through the influence of Binah, Tet is the field of manifestation, the essence of the feminine Chakmah that contains all in her. The infinite or the permanent (being) is contained in Teith and it brings about the finite through the manifestation of the particular thing. The human desire for procreation is the desire for the Incarnation. Both Tet and Chet are container letters and, in this case, the ‘container’ is the human body. The contraries to the forces of Tet and Chet are to be found in the letters Nun and Zayin.
The Teith contains the Chesed (kindness and mercy) of creation, but it does so at the third level, and this might suggest that the ‘kindness’ and ‘mercy’ shown may be for manipulative purposes. The distinguishing between the good and the bad that occurs here it at the ‘conventional’ level i.e., it is determined by the societies of which we are a part and is a product of that learning that is historical. The dominant ethical and moral beliefs will be determined by the ideology that has become dominant in the society of the time i.e., capitalist or communist, fascist or libertarian. It is the narrative or the form that the logos has taken that matters.
Case links the Nineteenth Path to the letter Tet, ט and says that it is a horizontal link between the pillars of Chesed (Mercy) and Gevurah (Severity). This cannot be the situation since the Sefir Yetzirah assigns these three horizontal paths to the three Mothers: Alef, Mem, Shin; air, water, and fire respectively. Both the three vertical pillars of the Tree of Life (Jakim, Boaz and Beauty) and the three horizontal braces for those pillars (Air, Water, Fire) within the Tree belong to the three Mother letters, what we would call the vowels in English. The influence of the 19th path could be carried by this Mem/Shin/Alef crossover but it would be heavily influenced by Mem. The illustrator of the Tarot used here assigns the letter Tet to Strength following Case’s suggestions. The historical meanings assigned to the letter Tet do not seem to match those features that are characteristic of the Tarot card understanding of Strength.
If the Eighteenth Path of Chet deals with “gravity” or “necessity” and the downward movement of the emanations from the spiritual, then the Nineteenth Path deals with “grace”, the grace that allows for the upward movement. Upward movement is associated with Shin, the element of fire. This is the reason why it might be associated with the Strength #11 of the Tarot, for it is through Grace that she is able to tame the chaos that is the hidden world of the subconscious and the passions that dwell there, the bestial qualities of human being represented by the lion. Modern commentators, influenced by Freud, attribute this control to the “rational” content of the superego, and this is but one ingredient of the cup of poison that Freud bestowed on love and eros. The awareness, intelligence or consciousness of the ‘secret’ of all spiritual activities is that they are illuminated by a Love which is not blind. For Freud, Love is blind since it is a matter of chance.
The ’highest blessing’ is the Love of God disseminated through the Beauty of the world and the awareness of this love is given to us by the grace of God. The Beauty of the world is the mediator that gives this grace. It assures us of God’s covenant with us. It is “love” that is the ‘secret’ of all ‘spiritual activities’. Because it is ‘secret’, it is ‘hidden’ and so must be brought to light.
God, in His withdrawal from His creation, renounces “all power”; He Himself has made Himself subject to the laws that He has created, and we experience His withdrawal as absence or silence. His withdrawal is a metaphor, or the example provided, for the embodied soul that is the human being; we, too, must renounce the temptation to use the power that is potentially available to us. Our most potent example is suicide, the third temptation of Christ, where we have it in our power to tempt God to defy His own Will and to save us as we exercise our will. The Grace of God must traverse the entire expanse of Space and Time in order to be present for us in its true, direct form. Netzach is the terminus of the pillar of Mercy; the renunciation of power is what Mercy is all about. This principle is at the root of all that we call the ‘ethical’.
Desire is the erotic urge to fulfill a need: the urge may lead downwards to Yesod (sexuality) or upwards to Tiferet. Downwards is the illusion and mania of the Moon, while upwards is towards the Sun and the “harmony and friendship”, the “reconciliation” through Love i.e., The Lovers card #6. As Simone Weil said: “If we forgive God for not existing, He will forgive us for existing”.
While The Magician #1 is associated with will and power and the intelligence that manipulates the things ready-to-hand, Strength #11 is associated with the heart and its emotions and passions which she easily controls. She is Prudence and sophrosyne, the balance between mercy and severity, and thus she represents true justice, not the justice of the conventional laws written by human beings. Case goes so far as to say that it is The Hierophant (the emphatic representative of the superego) who teaches Strength how to tame the lion, but this appears not to be the situation. The Hierophant is too involved in the concerns of the physical, material world to be able to teach Strength anything; the Force and Power of The Hierophant is contrary to the force and power that Strength demonstrates. This is why Justice is correctly placed as #8, for in this situation Case would be correct in saying that it is The Hierophant who teaches Justice since it is The Hierophant who writes the Laws. But these laws are not what underlies the power of Strength. (This corresponds to the historical situation of the Church and the Papacy around the time of the revival of the Tarot during the Renaissance. There were plenty of reasons for early Tarotists to see the Papacy as The Devil (the Great Beast) and its future being the revolution of The Tower card which is what, indeed, occurred.)
The language of the Nineteenth Path is that of rhetoric, the written speech of the many (politics) and not the conversational speech of two or three friends that is dialectic. This written speech is represented by the letter Peh. The speech of The Hierophant or Gevurah is rhetoric; the speech of The Lovers is Tiferet, the conversation between friends.
The Self or the Ego is the greatest obstacle to unification with the Divine and this obstacle is represented by both the letters Tet and Chet. The Divine provides the metaphor for the true path for a human being: it is in withdrawal that the Other is allowed to be, and human beings are to mirror this withdrawal in their own selves with the decreation of the Ego and allow the Other and others to be. Needless to say, such withdrawal is not easy nor without suffering. One of the purposes of affliction in human life is the destruction or decreation of the Ego and the purification of the Self. This mystery is beyond most human beings (and it is certainly beyond me!) It can be said to be captured in Shakespeare’s play King Lear.
The knowledge of The Hierophant and Gevurah is the knowledge of the collective memory of the community. We are all products of this collective memory, and what we call knowledge and understanding (Binah) is associated with this collective memory both in its contents and methodologies (the influence of Chakmah). Again, it should be stressed that this knowledge pertains to the Law of Necessity, and we are reminded that there is a great chasm separating the Necessary from the Good, in fact nothing less than limits of space and time or the created things themselves.
To experience the grace of God requires that God cross over His creation to grant us this gift. The discoveries of modern science show us just how great this distance is. This knowledge that is the collective memory is what we call “history”. It is this collective memory which drives the will to power of the communities where it is venerated. The relation of such knowledge to “justice” has been discussed previously in this writing.
Genesis 1.6 And Elohim said: ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’
Genesis 1.21 And Elohim created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and Elohim saw that it was good.
The following chart shows the paths and their connections to the letters and symbols of the Tarot:
Card
Path
Letter
Meaning
Symbol
3: The Empress
Binah (Understanding) Path 3: The Sanctifying Intelligence: This is the foundation of the Original Wisdom and it is called “Faithful Faith”. Its roots are AMeN. It is the Father of Faith, and from its power faith emerges.
The imposition of limits upon the unlimited through the intervention of the Logos. This imposition is carried out through Shin whereas when the path emanates from Chokmah, the influence is from Mem.
Separate, enclose The thinking which provides limits to the unlimited and so makes particular things discernible. Distinction between the sacred and profane. The roots of faith are acceptance and submission to the will of God i.e., the Law of Necessity. Faith emerges through the power of the intelligence.
Path 14: Illuminating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Meir): It is called this because it is the essence of the speaking silence (Chashmal). It gives instructions regarding the mystery of the holy secrets and their structure.
Shin/Alef/Memמש
“Speaking silence” is the beauty of the world which is the image of the absent God. Through the beauty of the world, the covenant of God is realized and from this realization the mystery of the hidden truth is revealed.
“Speaking” is the Word; its silence is that it is not uttered. This crossover path is what gives to Strength her quality of Grace, for it is the light passing through the Time and Space of Creation. It is through Strength (endurance, waiting) that we “hear” the Word of God.
Path 15. Stabilizing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Ma’amid): It is called this because it stabilizes the essence of creation in the “Glooms of Purity”. The masters of the theory said this is ‘the Gloom at Sinai’. This is the meaning of “Gloom is its cocoon”. (Job 35.9)
Tetט
The Law of Necessity stabilizes the substance of Creation in the darkness of its purity. It is this darkness that cannot comprehend the Light.
Does the ‘dark night of the soul’ experienced by the saints and the mystics correspond to the ‘glooms of purity’ experienced prior to the revelation of the Word? Moses receives the Word of God at Sinai. The darkness of the world is the Cross of Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the Earth. The gloom that is experienced as God’s absence, but it is a ‘cocoon’ meaning a period of metamorphosis, just prior to revelation.
16: The Devil:
Binah (Understanding)/ Tiferet (Beauty) Path 17. Intelligence of the Senses (Consciousness) (Sekhel HaHergesh): This is prepared for the Faithful saints so that they may be able to clothe themselves in the spirit of holiness. In the arrangement of the supernal entities, it is called the Foundation of Beauty (Yesod HaTiferet).
Vav The extension of the will to power beyond the individual yod to the collective. Link to Shin as ‘reflected fire’
Hook, Nail, Cane as an instrument of punishment, severity, fear? The wand of the Magician; the Devil’s torch in the card. The cubic shapes upon which The High Priestess, The Emperor, and The Devil sit or stand.
Connections, Secure, (the Social) Vav as that which makes connections without the mediation of Love. (Connection of the Beast as 666 since Vav is of the number 6 and is three levels removed from the Divine) The wand as a symbol of the will; the torch as a symbol of desire? Path is also called Intelligence of Dispositions, how the world will be viewed, the tonality of the viewing of the world (hearing of the Word). Relation to Eros as ‘two-faced’, fullness and need. The manacles binding the individuals are not tight.
5. The Hierophant
Binah (Understanding) Gevurah (Severity) Path 13. Unity Directing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Manhig HaAchdut): It is called this because it is the essence of the Glory. It represents the completion of the true essence of the unified spiritual beings. substance from the Cause of Causes.
Pehפ
Mouth, speech. The need to consume. It is the language of rhetoric, the speech that appeals to the emotions, the appetites, the dispositions.
Historical knowledge, distinguished from the private knowledge gained by traversing the Nativot or private paths. The knowledge that comes to be “written in stone”. The knowledge associated with will and will to power as contrary to the knowledge that is gained by dialectic or conversation between friends. An ersatz form of friendship for there is no true mediation to make the two become one or the two or three hundred to become a One.
The Illuminating Intelligence #14 Chokmah > Binah (with an emphasis on Mem) Blue
The Intelligence of Transparency #12 (The Glowing Intelligence) Chokmah > Chesed Letter: Gimel ג Green
The Enduring Intelligence #16 Chokmah > Tiferet Letter: Hehה Yellow
Intelligence (Consciousness) of the House of Influence #18 Chokmah > Gevurah Letter: Chetח Red
A variety of paths extend from Chokmah which has been designated The Illuminating or Radiant Intelligence (Consciousness) #2 in this commentary. If the sephirot themselves are “paths”, then they are primary in importance relative to the secondary paths which emanate from them. The sephirot themselves are not in motion since they are “eternal”, and motion is Time. The sephirot themselves would be not so much “paths” as “destinations”. Whether or not the paths themselves are in motion or not is a very perplexing question. Since the paths are “private” paths (netivot), how they will be experienced and traversed is an individual matter; but the Sephirot themselves cannot be private paths nor can they be seen as ‘individual’ in any way. The Sephirot are more akin to archetypes, and the illumination of their paths and meanings is shown to us through our art and literature.
Truth is not “subjective”, nor does it belong to the single individual. The Light of Keter is not an individual light but is present for all to behold. How it will be beheld is another matter, and how it will illuminate the things of the world is not an individual matter. Truth is one. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what then do we mean by “beholding”? What is the manner in which this “beholding” has, is, and will take place? At the same time, the source of Keter’s light is beyond human understanding and is in and of the world of Atzilut, which in itself is beyond both Time and Space.
The images of the Tarot are those of the symbols (the images generated by the paths taken) and the archetypes (the representations of the Sephirot) that meet in them and consolidate the various paths in them. The whole journey of the Tarot may be said to mirror the “the hero’s journey” in the way its story unfolds for the individual; and a reading through the use of the cards is the bringing to light that individual’s journey. The individual’s experience may be said to be ‘subjective’, but its meaning is not nor is it confined to the individual ego. Our human being in the world is a being-with-others and our being-with-the-Other (World). How we interpret and understand others and the Other will in turn determine the manner of our being-with-others in our various world(s) i.e. our politics, our ethics, and our loves. (“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”. Matthew 6: 21)
Alef provides the illumination to the gloom of Chokmah through the influence of Tiferet, and this illumination is “reflected” by Chokmah to the other seven Sephirot below the primary triangle that is Keter, Chalkmah, and Binah. This illumination is rightly associated with the Moon, since Keter is associated with the Sun and the Moon reflects the Sun’s light, just as water reflects the light of both sun and moon. Chokmah is associated with Mem, water, and this Alef/Mem combination meets with Shin along the first horizontal path of the Tree of Life, crossing over the path of Alef to Tiferet. This crossing over brings about the occurrence of the Creation which results from the production (understood as a ‘bringing-forth’, a poiesis, a ‘procreation’) of the Logos (the Word) which is the meeting point of Alef, Mem and Shin on that first horizontal path (the Cause of Causes). From this meeting, the letters and numbers are manifested and produced and we have the AlefBeth or alphabet. This crossover path can be the first or final re-birth of the individual soul, the first when on the descent i.e. birth, the final when on the ascent i.e. a “death”.
Chokmah or path #2 is associated with the Illuminating or Radiant Intelligence. This is discussed in greater detail in the paths emanating from Keter. The influence of this Radiant or Illuminating Intelligence #2 must be kept in mind when interpreting the paths that emanate from Chakmah.
The Second Path: The Illuminating Intelligence
2. Radiant Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Maz’hir): This is the Crown of creation and the radiance of the homogeneous unity that “exalts itself above all as the Head”. The Masters of the Kabbalah call it the “Second Glory”.
The Second Path is that of the Illuminating Intelligence. It is the Crown of Creation, the Splendour of the Unity, equalling it, and it is exalted above every head, and named by the Kabbalists the Second Glory.
Alt. Trans. “The second path is that of the illuminating consciousness. It is the crown (Keter) of creation (Beriyah), the splendour of the unity, like unto that which “exalts itself as the head over all.” The masters of kabbalah call it the second glory.”
Wescott trans. The Second Path is that of the Illuminating Intelligence: it is the Crown of Creation, the Splendour of the Unity, equalling it, and it is exalted above every head, and named by the Kabalists the Second Glory.
Case trans. The second path (Chokmah, the second Sephirah) is called the Illuminating Intelligence, and it is the Crown of Creation, and the Splendour of Unity, to which it is the most nearly approximate. In the mouths of the Masters of the Qabalah it is called the Second Glory.
The letter Mem is water mayim מים, the waters of wisdom, knowledge, the Torah, and is thus associated with education and learning at times. It is the middle letter of the Hebrew alphabet. When representing both the waters and manifestation, it requires the illumination from the Light of Keter or the illumination that comes from the fire that is Shin. Otherwise, it is transparent. The meeting point of Mem, Alef, and Shin is the point of the Logos, the Word, and it is said that in every person is the thirst or need for the words of the Creator, which are the waters of life, what Plato called the logistikon in his tripartite view of the soul. Without such a thirst (eros), human beings are not fully human. This thirst is the revealing of truth through the logos.
The open Mem (shown above) refers to the revealed aspects of the Divine such as the Beauty of the World, while the closed Memם refers to the concealed part of the Laws of Necessity that nonetheless guide us and all of existence. The open Mem is that which allows the Word to penetrate the soul. In these writings, it is the distinction between Thought and thought, or Love and will, the two faces of Eros. How we understand and interpret the logos will determine how we will view our worlds.
The High Priestess #2, The Emperor #4, and The Devil #16 cards of the Tarot are set upon closed Mems which are cubic in shape. Mem, when influenced by Shin, represents our urges and our will (the thymoeides part of the soul), and it also represents the time necessary for ripening. It is a representation of the lower form of eros. It indicates to us the importance and need of balanced emotions and of the humility that are aspects of the pillar of Jakim when influenced by Tiferet or Love. These balanced emotions are what are called phronesis (wise judgement) and sophrosyne (moderation, prudence) here. In the past, such dispositions were called “human virtue” or “human excellence”. Today, we seem to have lost any notion of what “human excellence” means although it vaguely remains close to us.
Mem is the manifest symbol of the Holy Spirit which sometimes appears as a “dove of peace” or as “tongues of fire” indicating prophetic speech. Being “exalted above every head” indicates its relationship to Space and to its downward movement; it is associated with the heavens. The closed Mem is indicative of that thinking which drives the technological, whose apogee is to be found in artificial intelligence where a uniform meta-language is the goal i.e. a false reversal of the true speech.
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, the 40 days that Christ fasted in the desert before he was tempted by Satan). These will be discussed in more detail when we speak of the paths emanating from Chokmah. The 40 days are symbolic of Memory and of recollection, what Plato referred to as anamnesis.
The Mem also teaches us about the will and balanced emotions – balancing the watery motions of our feelings, giving them shape. 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 Second Path also 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 appears that the Sefer Yetzirah indicates the Whole is that which can be learned and that which can be taught i.e., it is infinite potentiality and possibility. The “mathematical” would be indicated by the letter Lamed ל or “study”, “the serpent uncoiled”. What can be learned or what can be taught are the 7 Pillars of Wisdom or the areas of knowledge, the subjects that are studied.
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. This is path #4 The Measuring, Arresting and Receptive Intelligence which will be discussed in Chapter 4 under Chesed. 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. Through the ‘measuring’ of the logos, they are ‘arrested’ and brought to a ‘stand’ and then are able to be ‘received’ by the senses. This is, in essence, what we mean by “beholding”: the “holding” is done through the “arresting” which brings them into “being” i.e. be-holding. 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 accounting for the laws of Necessity and the relation of created things to the domains of time and space.
The Second Path also indicates the limits of human reason and intelligence and so gives us an awareness of, or consciousness of, the Mystical Intelligence #1. This suggests the limits of our knowledge in the realm or world of Beriyah. Our limited reason and intelligence puts us in a position of suspension (The Hanged Man #12), waiting on God to descend and offer to us His Grace which is received in the card of Strength #11 in the ascent.
The ultimate flowering of the principle of reason which is being described here is artificial intelligence which is a complete self-contained, self-enclosed world based on the principle of reason. This is the closed Mem. I have tried to give a metaphor for this enclosed world by assigning the letters Chet and Tet to it as offspring of the closed Mem.
Rene Descartes
Historically, after Descartes, humans are experienced as an “I” that relates to the world such that it renders this world to itself in the form of connections (relations) correctly established between its representations or judgements and thus sets itself over against this world, and the world becomes understood as “object”. The world itself has no meaning of its own; the human mind gives it its meaning. The subject-predicate and the reasons for their connections must be rendered back to the representing “I”. This reason is a ratio, an account given to the judging “I” regarding the thing. The account must not contradict itself and must render sufficient reasons for the thing being as it is. This is the logos as ‘logic’. When the reasons have been rendered, the thing comes to a stand as an object, an object for a representing subject. The completeness of the reasons to be rendered is the ‘perfection’ of the thing’s stand as an object as firmly established for human cognition or consciousness. The “account” means that all can rely on the account rendered. Everything “counts” as existing only as a calculable object for cognition.
We could say that this world of artificial intelligence creates a state of suspension represented by The Hanged Man #12 who is suspended between the realms of the physical and the spiritual (or the invisible) and he expresses the limits placed on the theoretical knowledge that derive from the principle of reason. He is depicted as suspended from the letter Chet ח meaning ‘enclosure’ in the Tarot deck illustrated here. This enclosure is also represented by the cube.
The letter assigned to The Hanged Man by the illustrator of the Tarot here is Tet ט meaning ‘snake’, and this also suggests the limits that are placed on human knowledge when it is tied to material things. The traditional reason why the snake has been considered as evil in the West is because he is tied to the earth. He is the opposite of the Eastern dragon who is capable of flight and of fire and is considered a symbol of good; a dragon is, literally, the serpent that flies. The serpent is a symbol of the lower eros that has attached the soul to the material things of the world giving special emphasis to the epithymetikon or the physical part of the soul.
The ‘stability’ established by the principle of reason that arises from the collective or social manner/opinion of viewing the world comes about as a result of the consistency of the results of the calculations or ‘numerations’ that are carried out. This is what is considered ‘knowledge’ and would indicate a connection between The Hanged Man #12 and The Hierophant #5. The ‘numerations’ are the logoi or speech that is shared among the members of the community. I am suggesting here that the path, “The Intelligence of the House of Influx”, is represented by the letter Chet ח.
Because Alef is the source of all the letters, it is capable of both vertical and horizontal movement along the Tree of Life. The direction of Mem is back and forth 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, vertical and diagonal movements and relations. Their impact will be seen in how the experience of the path unfolds.
Paul F. Case in his study of the 32 paths sees the paths as that which will lead the human community to a better universal, homogeneous State, the belief in progress. The Illuminati of the paths are those who believe themselves to be the new Übermensch, the Nietzschean “overman”, the next step in the human evolutionary chain. But they are nothing more than those who are expressing a desire to be the “helmsmen” whose use of cybernetics is the core of their power, the goal of which is the unlimited mastery of human beings by other human beings. Such will be the outcomes of artificial intelligence. Technology is inherently tyrannous.
Such progressive hopes as those of Case ignore the lessons of the Sefer Yetzirah regarding the nature of force and power. There is no “human progress” that occurs on the spiritual level along with the progress achieved on the material level. “Novelty” is not progress. The “progress” achieved on the material level is the result of the human will to power, and historical evidence seems to suggest that with the advance of technological power comes a greater increase in human bestiality, violence and destruction through the corollary decrease in human beings’ “humanity”. This was something seen by the poet William Blake in his mythology.
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. The lower eros comes to dominate and the soul is dragged down to satisfaction of its appetitive part.
Since the end of technology is the control of Chance and Necessity to enhance human freedom, the increase in technology’s power is a devolution of the morality of human beings. It is a curious paradox of Life that as we become increasingly “technological” in our activities and pride ourselves in the knowledge that we have achieved, we become increasingly bestial i.e., technology, based as it is on the principle of reason, leads to our further bestiality, not spirituality. This may have to do with the fact that technology is ultimately destructive of the Logos (and of the higher Eros that accompanies the Logos), of that “consciousness” or “intelligence” which distinguishes human beings from other creatures. But what true way of life is to be found that is not an enemy of reason?
The letter Mem is water (mayim מים,) the waters of wisdom, knowledge, and is related to The High Priestess #2 card of the Tarot. Mem’s open format represents esoteric wisdom, wisdom available to the few, while the closed format represents exoteric wisdom or the wisdom allotted to the many. This is shown by the Priestess holding a scroll with the word “Tora” inscribed on it. The revealed letters are the exoteric wisdom of the Torah, while the missing “h” (Heh) represents the esoteric qualities of the writing suggesting that ‘jubilation’ is to be found in the esoteric elements of the Torah rather than the exoteric elements. This esoteric element derives from the influence of Tiferet on Chakmah, the path that is suggested by the letter Heh.
The Path of Heh: The Stabilizing Intelligence
The letter Heh is associated with the number 5 and with ‘jubilation’. The path of the letter Heh is associated with Tiferet and Chokmah and it is “The Stabilizing Intelligence or Consciousness”. It is the root of Faith grounded in Love (Tiferet). It is the illuminating intelligence that is gifted by Love. There are two Hehs in the name of God: Ja Heh Vav Heh.
On the pillar of Jakim behind the Priestess is a Yod signifying the individual, while on the pillar of Boaz is a Beth signifying the “house” of the collective, the society, the city, the whole of creation itself. There is an element of the ‘hidden’ in our understanding of the letter Mem while, paradoxically, it suggests the transparent element of water. On the curtain behind The High Priestess are seven pomegranates in the shape of the lower Sephirot. Pomegranates are symbols of resurrection, eternal life and are significant of the victory of the soul over evil. This evokes The High Priestess’ connection with The Chariot #7 of the Tarot.
Associated with water, the influence of Mem flows downward in the Tree of Life, as the element of fire, Shin, rises upward. Mem is associated with the receptacle of Space into which the creation is received and contained and, metaphorically, the space into which words are created from the other letters. The downward movement of water also suggests gravity, the most elemental sign of the Law of Necessity, and the ‘plan’ of the Divine Will according to which all creation must succumb and submit. The third temptation of Christ is the test of our desire to ‘defy gravity’, but in doing so, to defy Necessity or the will of God itself.
Mem represents both water and manifestation, but it cannot manifest itself until God speaks ‘Let there be light’. It is said that in every person is the thirst for the words of the Creator, which are the waters of life and light is the life itself. The open Mem refers to the revealed aspects of God’s will as the Law of Necessity, while the closed Mem refers to the concealed part of the celestial rule that nonetheless guides us and all of existence. For the Hebrews, this also relates to the Torah. Mem also represents the time necessary for ripening when it is accompanied by fire (Binah and The Empress card #3) and indicates to us the importance of balanced emotions and of humility when it is connected to Netzach, the Sephirot associated with the embodied soul and The Chariot #7 of Tarot.
Mem corresponds to the number 40 and represents the time necessary for the ripening process that leads to fruition. Christ is said to have fasted in the desert for 40 days and nights following which He was tempted by Satan with the three temptations or tests: turning stones into bread; to be given all the power in the world; and the choice of suicide. All human beings ultimately face these three temptations or tests throughout their lives. The power to turn stones into bread, the desire for recognition and the power of social prestige, and the power of suicide where we must choose whether we are our own or belong to God and must not tempt God become present for us at one time or another in our lives. Suicide is a sin because it is a temptation of God.
Path 12: The Intelligence of Transparency
12. Glowing Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Bahir): It is called this because it is the essence of the Ophan-wheel of Greatness. It is called the Visualizer (Chazchazit), the place that gives rise to the vision that the Seers perceive in an apparition.
The Twelfth Path is the Intelligence of Transparency, because it is that species of Magnificence called CHAZCHAZIT, which is named the place whence issues the vision of those seeing in apparitions. (That is, the prophecies by seers in a vision.)
Alt. Trans. “The twelfth path is called the transparent consciousness because it is the substance of that phase of majesty (Gedulah) which is called revelation (khazkhazit). It is the source of prophesies that seers behold in visions.”
Wescott trans. The Twelfth Path is the Intelligence of Transparency, because it is that species of Magnificence called Khazkhazit, the place whence issues the vision of those seeing in apparitions. (That is the prophecies by seers in a vision.)
Case trans. The twelfth path (Beth, joining Keter to Binah) is called the Intelligence of Transparency because it is the image of that phase of Gedulah literally (“of that wheeling of Gedulah”) which is called Khazkhazit, the source of vision in those who behold apparitions.
The Letter Gimel and the 12th Path
The 12th path is said to come from the verse of Genesis cited below:
Genesis 1. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind; and Elohim saw that it was good.
The 12th path proceeds from Chalkmah to Chesed and it is indicated by the letter Gimel. If the 11th path is concerned with the veil or hiddenness that is present before the Cause of Causes (the Good), then, presumably, one must have prior knowledge of what causation is in order to recognize that the Good itself, the Uncaused Cause, is hidden from our knowledge and must be experienced through faith alone. One cannot stand before the countenance of the Prince of Faces and not ‘die’ i.e., remain the individual that they are. The ‘dying’ can be either a metaphorical or a literal death. The individual can be consumed by the One itself and thus return to the One or the individual no longer exists as an ‘individual’, which seems to sometimes be the case with the saints or extraordinary persons. The 11th path is concerned with the veil that is drawn between God and His creation through His creation. The 12th path concerns itself with the “apparitions” that result from that veiling.
The particulars of Binah make being more overt for us; we see the world in its particulars. As these particulars reveal themselves in the coming-to-be of things, the more God withdraws or hides in order to allow those particular beings to be by their coming to presence before us. The ‘limiting’ of Binah through the Logos is not a “cutting off” of something but the establishment of the site wherein and from where something commences and emerges as that which it is. It is a ‘procreative site’. This is what “The Sanctifying Intelligence” Path #3 means (and this will be discussed in the next chapter). Through the Logos’ relation to the Space that is Chokmah and Time that is Binah the a priori conditions for possibility and potentiality are given in the making-possible of that on the basis of which beings as such and as a whole are determined for human beings. This is the sephirot Chesed.
The 12th path, “The Intelligence of Transparency”, is that part of the process of thought that creates the images of representational thinking through the individual human being. It links Chokmah to Chesed. It is the ‘clothing’ which provides the outward appearance of things in their emergence but yet hides the essence of those things. The spiritual essence of things is “wrapped” or “assembled” so as to make them ‘present’ before us as a sum of their parts. It is called the ‘revelation’ in one of the translations above. It could also be called an ‘epiphany’.
It should be noted that ‘apparitions’ are ‘shadows’, the outward appearance of a thing, not its essence. To see the thing’s apparition is to see it in the NOW. To make a pre-diction is to speak before the actual appearance of the thing/event/situation from the appearance of the thing as an ‘apparition’. To do so is to speak in ‘prophecy’, which is directed toward the Future. A ‘prophecy’ has past, present and future contained within it.
The past is the Memory element of Chakmah, the looking back of The Fool as he proceeds with his leap; the present is the ‘revelation’ of the physical creation through the senses; and the future is the outcome of the said ‘visions’. It is the manner in which one perceives the visions that is most important. This process is at the root of what we call scientific and artistic ‘seeing’. (This is shown most clearly in Bk VII of Plato’s Republic where those who are able to make predictions about what shadows will pass by next are those who are most ‘honoured’ in the society.) What we have here is the initiation of the possibility of both nature and freedom, nature being that constraint given by the Law of Necessity and freedom being the empowerment of the mind through the principle of reason as will to power.
The translations provided of the 12th path indicate a number of possibilities for interpretation. In the Case translation, we are given the idea that 12th path is the site where one can apprehend that Gedulah or Chesed which is the spiraling motion of the gyre (“that wheeling of Gedulah”) which is the source of the vision of those who behold the “apparitions” of “prophecies”. This beholding is how one views the world of Becoming. Some connections to the whirling dervishes of the Sufis may be made here, I think. The dervishes gyres are not an expansion but a focus on the point of spirituality.
In the alignment of the Hebrew letters to the paths and to the Tarot, there seems to be some confusion with regard to the eleventh and twelfth paths. It would appear to me that The Fool is poised prior to the “fall into the abyss” that will become his or her journey and so stands at the top point of the Wheel of Fortune (#10) which represents the sephirot Malkhut. The Fool’s journey will be a journey upward, an ascent. The Magician (#1) occupies the ascent position since he is associated with the fire of Shin and the element of air from Alef which, in turn, are associated with the human will. The Strength card occupies the descent position, but here the descent is on the part of God to deliver His grace to the figure of Strength who has completed the journey and receives the gift from the Divine. To align these with the Tarot, the Magician #1, the Strength #11, and The World #21 belong together, while The Fool #0, The Wheel of Fortune #10, and the Judgement #20 are also aligned. The choice of The Fool as he makes his leap into the abyss of being is represented by Path #25 “The Intelligence of Trials” (Temptations) and the Judgement #20 card.
If we consider the Sephirot themselves to be paths, the twelfth path seems to refer to the emanations of Chakmah, which appropriately belong to The High Priestess (#2). The artist makes use of the influence of the archetypes of the unconscious and gives them shape and form in order to produce a work. The archetypes have always been present prior to the artist’s being. They are the “apparitions” of the visions that the artist sees; they are ‘shadows’, things without substance, for the things themselves belong to the future. The “visions” are the things seen by the prophets and they are symbolic of the predictive speech of the prophets i.e., the “highest speech”. In our society today, science holds this highest honour for it, too, is “predictive speech” since it can pronounce on the outcomes of various events with some certainty.
In this state, the artist is The Hanged Man #12, that stage prior to the process of “making” the thing, the stage prior to taking action, the “work” to be done. In the ascent direction, this would be the path leading from Malkhut to Hod or the completion of the thing, what was referred to as Justice previously and is rendered by The Judgement card #20. (This is the significance of the titles of the three great works of Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of Judgement.) The words and numbers the artist needs are already present for him. His path is on the descent, since he is in the process of creation. The desire of human beings to create art and to procreate their species is the longing for the Incarnation. It is the urge given to us by Eros.
This descent that is creation is illustrated by the fact that the figure in The Hanged Man #12 hangs upside down within the ‘enclosure’ represented by the letter Chet and which is Path #18 from Chokmah to Gevurah. This suggests that there is something askew with his seeing of things.
What is askew is that the path that he is on is not influenced by Tiferet. The woman figure of the Strength card, on the other hand, is “prudence” who embodies the Greek idea of sophrosyne or “nothing too much, nothing too little”. She is on the ascent viewing of the Tree of Life as she is concerned with the quality of things, the inner essence of things. The Magician #1 is concerned with those things that come to be through human making, while Strength #11 is concerned with those things that come to be through the Grace of God. It is here a matter of the viewing: whether one sees “as through a glass darkly”, which I believe is the essence of the viewing of The Magician #1, or whether one sees “face-to-face” the true essence of the things that are, which I believe is the essence of the viewing that is illustrated in the Strength card #11. The Strength is one of the bridges between the world of Yetzirah, the world of The Magician, and that of Beriyah (or between the world of Asiyah and that of Yetzirah?). Strength has the elements of the world of Atzilut as is shown in the light of the colour yellow being either the Sun or the Light of Keter.
The Life-force or the dynamis is what the Greeks understood as metabole or change, motion. All of us experience the whirling, swirling motion of Life as it realizes itself in Time. In terms of the Kabbalah, this is the influence of Keter. The “perception” of an “apparition” or a “vision” is that of the outward appearances of things. These are but the “shades” or “shadows” of things in the ascent. Again, the paths of ascension see the things in the “reflected light” of Malkhut, not in the true light of Keter. It is not until they pass through Tiferet that the perceptions of things are no longer that of shadows but of the true essence of the things. While the closest we have to our understanding of the “spiritual” is “energy” the spiritual is, of course, more than that. We align energy with power, force and will.
The Hebrew word translated as “revelation” here is khazkhazit which could also be understood as a “mirror” or a “gazing glass”. A mirror reflects things in reverse, and this could also account for the reversed position in The Hanged Man #12 card. This would seem to suggest a “lunar” influence or the influence of a “reflected light” and, indeed, a self-revelation. This is illustrated in The High Priestess #2 in the descending direction of the Tree of Life (if the descent begins at 10 + 2 = 12). This is the veil separating the Asiyah world and the Yetzirah world in the ascent, and the Beriyah world and Yetzirah world on the descent. The Beriyah world may be said to be the theoretical realm of the mind (the “pure reason” of Immanuel Kant) while the Yetzirah world is the realm in which the “formation” from the theoretical takes place (the “practical reason” of Kant). The suggestion here is that the outer world will take on the appearance that is given to it by the inner world of the mind for it is here that the formative seeing takes place. This is the site of the formative thinking where the making-possible of beings is determined for us.
The “revelation” here is the concrete, factual world of Yetzirah or “formation” and the “majesty” (Kingdom) that is the created world or Nature. To be “transparent” is to be able “to see through” or perhaps “to see by the means of…” One is reminded of the words of St. Paul: “For now we see as through a glass, darkly, but there we will see face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) “Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” The “knowing in part” is represented by The Hanged Man #12, while the knowing “even as also I am known” is that of the Strength card #11. This passage is an indication that all human beings are “one”. Knowing this allows one to be capable of Mercy, Compassion and Loving Kindness which is indicated by the Sephirot Chesed, but this is only achieved through the prior influence of Tiferet.
After Beth establishes the existence of the duality of two different types of being identified as Space and that which encloses Space and is beyond Space i.e., Time, through the presence of the Logos, Gimel arises to resolve and harmonize these two different types of Being through Time. The imposition of limits on the unlimited suggests that both Space and Time are one and the same, and that the imposition of limits is not a “cutting off” but the site wherein and from where being emerges and commences as that which it is, what we have come to call Nature. This ties in with the idea of Creation as a withdrawal rather than an expansion as is commonly believed. We conceive of Time as linear and that as we grow older, we “expand” in terms of our lives and their experiences. But this expansion is, in reality, a withdrawal of the One to give the “open space” that allows those experiences and our lives to be. (The following statement from the Bible indicates this: “He said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matt: 18:3. This humility is further in evidence in the letter Dalet.)
Gimel links and balances the Aleph and Beth, between Space and Time by providing limits to the unlimited and, in this provision of limits, allows the particular things to be. This associates the letter Gimel with the third path of the “sanctifying intelligence” that is related to Shin and to Binah, but this association is a mirrored association. All particular beings are “holy”, and it is knowledge of their particular “holiness”, their hidden truth, that is the ‘sanctifying intelligence’ which, through its unveiling of this hidden truth, provides the foundation of Trust which in turn establishes the Faith that is rooted in Love (Tiferet).
Our modern view of the world is one of doubt: we begin by doubting everything and arrive at our truths through questioning and examining things as objects and by challenging them to give us their reasons for being as they are. This examining and challenging is associated with reason and the will. This is done through our application of the mathematical project or projection. While this initial doubting is necessary in the quest, it must be enclosed within the broader embrasure of Trust.
Gimel is a letter of constant transformation, change and motion, and translates literally as “camel”, an animal we associate with its ability to retain water while being in motion. The transformation, change, and motion relates to both the elements of fire and to Shin as well as to water and Mem. This is its connection with the 14th path, “The Illuminating Intelligence”. Gimel includes the contraries of both giving and receiving, reward and punishment, fire and water, creating balance and motion between these contraries. This would seem to be a contradiction of the constancy of Faith and Trust, but Gimel relates more to how we relate to change and motion and the experiences of our lives, that is, that they must be experienced with Faith and Trust i.e., Love.
Gimel resolves the giver and receiver (Aleph and Beth), so it represents giving and receiving. The Creation is the gift of God; we are the ones who receive this gift. In the company of the influx of Tiferet into Chokmah and Chesed, it represents kindness and cultivation, the organic nurturance that causes things to grow (Hebrew Gamol גמול means to nourish until ripe, גמילה – weaning child, ripening fruit ) and refers to the ‘life-force’ that is present in Nature and created things, the procreative force (eros). This life-force is the combination of Mem and Shin. This is why it is associated with The Empress card #3 of the Tarot here.
This life-force can be mistaken for Will and will to power. The West has always been of the view that Nature’s “scarcity” must be attacked and overcome. The view of the Sepher Yetzirah is that Nature is an example of the over-abundance of God and that is why Chesed is sometimes referred to as “The Intelligence of the Over-Abundance” (Path #4). For the philosopher Nietzsche, will to power is “the stamping (marking) of becoming with the character of being”. This stamping or marking is the done through the principle of reason understood as giving permanence to the chaotic change and movement that is Becoming.
Gimel גמול also means “giving”, and the leg of the Gimel is said to represent the rich man running to give charity to the poor (represented by the 4th letter Dalet, the path from Chesed to Netzach). This metaphor signifies the Creator’s eternal presence and benevolence to all creation, manifested with abundant life and prosperity (the life-force), but also the movement of the Creator to give Grace across the expanse that is the realm of Necessity. It seems to suggest that as the Creator further withdrew into and from His Creation, those further points of the Creation were deprived of the presence of God to a greater degree. This is the widening of the gyres at their outer reaches. The giving and receiving aspects of the letter Gimel also illustrate that the World itself is ‘moral’ and ethical in its being.
The Gimel also represents reward and punishment. The word גמול represents the giving of both reward and punishment. The laws of the created world are two-fold: Natural Law and Conventional Law. Natural Law is the permanent law of the realm of Necessity; Conventional Law is the law instituted by human beings which is constantly in motion and subject to change. Both types of Law are based on the rule of Judgment – blessings are able to flow to those who act justly and they do so through the Light, while wrongdoing or sin blocks the receipt of goodness and abundance, or what we mean by grace. It is important to recognize that in the Sefer Yetzirah, the whole of creation is seen as ethical. In the prayer of the Our Father of Christians, we ask the Lord “to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”. This suggests that in the matter of ethics and morals we shall be repaid in the coin of the realm in which we choose to operate, “who lives by the sword, dies by the sword”, for instance, or “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”. This accounts for Gimel being one of the double letters i.e., working both ways.
Another meaning of Gimel is a “bridge” and this would suggest that it provides that cross-over point between the realm of the unlimited (water), Mem, and the realm of the limited (in this case, what we call earth). It is the combination of water and fire that originates earth. It is the Wisdom of Chakmah seen in the “Radiant Intelligence” (Path #2) combined with the “Sanctifying Intelligence” (Path #3) that creates “The Unifying Directing Intelligence” (Path #13). (The Fibonacci sequence of numbers?)
In the Tarot, some decks show the Strength as #8 while Justice is shown as #11. This may be because Gimel is a ‘double letter’ and is one of the 7 double letters representing 7 vertical paths on the Tree of Life. The other double letters are: Beth, Dalet, Kaf, Peh, Resh, and Tav. Each of the double letters and their assignments represent an ambiguity in how they and their associated cards are to be interpreted. Perhaps it may be understood by whether we are looking at an ascent of the Tree of Life or a descent down the Tree of Life. (Is the ascent the cards interpreted in their upright position, a looking upward, and the descent, a looking downwards, the reversal interpretations of the cards? a fullness and a deprival?)
The 14th Path: The Illuminating Intelligence
14. Illuminating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Meir): It is called this because it is the essence of the speaking silence (Chashmal). It gives instructions regarding the mystery of the holy secrets and their structure.
The Fourteenth Path is the Illuminating Intelligence, and is so called because it is itself that CHASHMAL which is the founder of the concealed and fundamental ideas of holiness and of their stages of preparation.
Alt. Trans. “The fourteenth path is called the luminous consciousness because it is the essence of the Chashmal [“speaking silence”] which is the instructor in the secret foundations of holiness and their stages of preparation.”
Wescott trans. The Fourteenth Path is the Illuminating Intelligence and is so called because it is that Chashmal which is the founder of the concealed and fundamental ideas of holiness and of their stages of preparation.
Case trans. The fourteenth path (Dalet joining Chokmah to Binah) is called the Luminous Intelligence, because it is the essence of that Chashmal which is the instructor in the secret foundations of holiness and perfection.
Mem (Alef) Shin Path 14: The Illuminating Intellect: “Illuminating Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Meir): It is called this because it is the essence of the speaking silence (Chashmal). It gives instructions regarding the mystery of the holy secrets and their structure.”
Mem (Alef) Shin — “and Elohim hovered over the face of the waters.” 1:2
Path 14: The Illuminating Intelligence
Path 14, “The Illuminating Intelligence”, is related to the “Radiant Intelligence” Path #2 and the “Sanctifying Intelligence” Path #3 that is the crossover path of Chakmah to Binah on the descent, and from Binah to Chakmah on the ascent.. The “illumination” or “that which brings to presence” is either the light from Keter through Alef in its descent to Tiferet, or the light of the fire of Shin as it crosses over from Binah to Chokmah. Shin relates to reason and the head (the logistikon of the tripartite soul), while Alef relates to love and the heart (the thymoeides or spiritedness, which houses anger, as well as other spirited emotions such as care and concern), which is why Alef’s first descent is to Tiferet and not to Chakmah. Both possibilities are present. The third part of the soul is the epithymetikon (appetite or desire, which houses the desire for physical pleasures). Each of these divisions of the soul is driven by eros in either a higher or lower form, the higher leading to an ascent and the lower leading to a descent.
These differing ways of viewing the world determine how the physical beings of Chesed will come to be understood and determined for us. Both forms of light are present for us to illuminate the various worlds in which we live, and this illumination is our understanding of that world. Elohim’s ‘hovering over the face of the waters’ is the beauty of the outward appearance of things, and it is an indication of how we should be in the world i.e., contemplating the things of the world as presence-at-hand, ‘hovering over’ and before them, not attached to them.
The illuminating intelligence gives to its receiver the ability to ‘unveil’ the hidden holy secrets of the Divine essence of things i.e., to reveal Truth. It is a “method” or “methodology”. The covenant of God shown in the beauty of the world gives the instructions that the revelation of Truth is to be done through Love, through the imitation of God Himself, by a withdrawal and contemplation of the things that are. It appears that we have made a great error in considering ourselves as human beings to be co-creators with God for, historically, this has led us to believe that we can dispense with God and can rely on our own will to power for our own empowerment or expansion. We are in the position that we can view the world and wish to change it or we can view the world and accept it as it is (the meaning of “Amen”.) We have historically referred to this period in our history as The Age of Humanism which occurs roughly at the same time as the writing of the text of “The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom”, so we can say that the text is a post-medieval text.
The Fourteenth Path, “The Illuminating Intelligence”, can also be understood as the intelligence derived from the borrowed light of Malkhut. It is the “intelligence” or “consciousness” present in the cave of Plato’s allegory. In the Cave, there are two sources of light present: the light of the Sun from outside of the Cave which is dimly present (which we are calling here the Light of Keter); and the light of the fire made by the technites to show the shadows of the things that are upon the walls of the Cave to the prisoners within the Cave. The knowledge that human beings take pride in is of their own ability to understand and make things. It is a knowledge that “conceals” the true essence of the sacred or the truth of things, and deters one from understanding the sacred or even acknowledging the sacred. It is a “false light” because it is primarily a human-made light (like the fire inside of the Cave of Plato, like the light inside The Hermit’s lamp in the Tarot card). Human beings, through the power of their “formative” thinking, can close themselves off from the true essence of things. This kind of thinking is representative of those who have chosen to remain satisfied with the “shadows” of the things that are rather than seek for the “holiness” of their true essence. It is here that sin primarily occurs for we are tempted to follow the false light believing that the outcomes of the journey by the light of it will result in the “goods” that become our ultimate goal. As has been mentioned previously, the root of all sin is the sin against the Light which manifests itself in the desire for power.
This sin against the light is the mistaking of what is the Law of Necessity for the Good. The borrowed light of Malkhut illuminates the world of Necessity, the world of Time and Space, of seasons, years and days, and the ‘firmament’ that is the realm of space or the heavens. There are two primary luminaries in the heavens and they are the Sun and Moon. It appears that one may follow the illumination provided by the Sun (Tiferet) or one may follow the illumination provided by the Moon (Chakmah), and these are represented by The Lovers #6 and The High Priestess #2 respectively in the Tarot.
“Holy” means “perfect, pure”, “set apart from defilement.” The Hebrew word means “separate”, and this designates the chasm separating the Divine from creation, Love from Intelligence. The “speaking silence” is much like the word Aum or Om: it begins in “openness”, goes into “hiddenness”, begins with an “in-spiring of breath” and ends in silence. Music is analogous to it, but all forms of hearing are related to it. The translation of Chashmal is “brilliant flame” (fire) which, combined with air and water, produces earth. From this, or prior to this, the Law of Necessity determines the form of everything, be it “potential” (dynamis) or “actual” (energeia). All of what we call knowledge is rooted in and descends from our understanding of the Law of Necessity. The Kabbalistic speech (logos) employs the Law of Necessity; all our actions reflect the laws of Necessity. Only the infinite iota of the soul that is part of the Divine (Yod) is that which is not touched by the Law of Necessity.
The Sixteenth Path: The Triumphal or Eternal Intelligence (Consciousness)
The Sixteenth Path is the Triumphal or Eternal Intelligence, so called because it is the pleasure of the Glory, beyond which is no other Glory like to it, and it is called also the Paradise prepared for the Righteous.
Alt. Trans. ” The sixteenth path is called the eternal consciousness because it is the pleasure of that glory beyond which is no glory like unto it. It is also called the garden of pleasure (Eden), which is prepared for the compassionate (Khasidim).”
Wescott trans. The Sixteenth Path is the Triumphal or Eternal Intelligence, so called because it is the pleasure of the Glory, beyond which is no other Glory like to it, and it is called also the Paradise prepared for the Righteous.
Case trans. The sixteenth path (Vav joining Chokmah to Chesed) is called the Triumphant and Eternal Intelligence, and is so called because it is the delight of glory, the glory of Ain, the No-Thing, veiling the name of Him, the Fortunate One, and it is called also the Garden of Eden, prepared for the compassionate.
Chakmah to Tiferet: Path 16. Enduring Intelligence (Consciousness) (Sekhel Nitzchi): It is called this because it is the Delight of the Glory (Eden). As it is, there is no Glory lower than it. It is called the Garden of Eden, which is prepared for the (reward of) the saints.
The Letter Heh and the 16th Path:
The Hebrew letter Heh, or Hey (האות ה), is the 5th Letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. It also represents the number five. There is a special significance of the letter Heh in Judaism: It appears twice in the Hebrew name of God (יהוה) Yah Heh Vav Heh. (5 x 2 = 10 + 5 = 15)
The 16th path emanates from Chakmah to Tiferet, and contains a number of interesting ideas, particularly in Case’s translation of the text. The first idea that we should pick up here is that the Creation itself is Paradise i.e., the here and the NOW is the paradise prepared for the “compassionate” and for the “righteous”, the “just”, and is not some dwelling place that is to be expected or hoped for after death.
In the various translations, ‘compassion’ and ‘righteous’ are similar or synonymous. This indicates that justice is to be found in our compassionate response to Creation and to the beings within it. This mirrors God’s disposition towards His Creation. What is being said here is that the Garden of Eden is present before us if we are compassionate and act righteously towards it. To act righteously is to render to each being its due or what is owed to it. The Garden of Eden is not something such as a reward for being compassionate: the disposition will create the reward of the Garden of Eden itself. The world before us ‘veils’ or ‘hides’ the name of Him, the Ain, and it does so through its Beauty. The Beauty of the World is but a souvenir of the Good, not the Good itself. Nevertheless, it is the covenant of God with His Creation and all the beings who dwell therein.
This path is represented by the “jubilation” that comes from the awareness of and contemplation of the Divine covenant that is given to us in the Beauty of the world. With the letter Heh we are asked to “Behold”, “to look and see”. Heh goes beyond the mere diaretic knowledge and awareness of Binah and the diaretic knowledge that particularizes the unlimited content of Chakmah in that it sets up distinctions, limitations, horizons, and boundaries so that things may come to appearance and be de-fined as such. Heh is the “fire catching fire” in that the individual soul is enraptured by the physical beauty of the world and is thus led up to the spiritual. This is the operation of the higher Eros.
Hei or Heh represents divine revelation or truth, the breath of the Creator (Psalm 33:6 – By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.) The world or worlds (heavens) were created with the utterance of the Hei. It has three literal meanings: “here is” or presence; “to be disturbed” or “to be made to wonder”, “to be confused” (the Greek word here is phrike, what we mean by being ‘freaked out’); and “Behold” or “to look and see”. The word also suggests “jubilation” or the joy upon seeing a revelation, an epiphany, of the beauty of the world and the things within it. The proper response to life is Love and to behold the world with love. Through this beholding, one will dwell in the Paradise that is the NOW.
Heh represents the gift of life and creates the verb of being (היה Haya – being). Its symbolic meaning of jubilation is the proper response to the gift of life. It is divinity, the spiritual life that comes about through the first four letters: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10. It represents the life essence in all creation, the dynamis of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. It symbolizes the effortlessness of the world and is the symbol of divinity, gentility, and specificity which indicates the three levels of Creation upon which it rests. It contains within it the freedom of choice.
Hei is one of the letters of the Holy Name (Yod Heh Vav Heh), giving it a special significance within the Aleph-Beth. Heh moves upward from Tiferet to Chokmah, and its meaning as “confusion”, “wonder”, “being disturbed” is comparable to the experiences of the prisoners in Plato’s allegory of the Cave in which they are confused by the influx of light they receive at each step of their emergence from the Cave. The prisoner is released from their chains and in a complete turning of the body (primarily the head, but the whole body must follow i.e., a conversion must take place) they are made to see that the ‘shadows’ that they once took for the ‘real’ are only shadows produced by the fire in the cave that is attended to by the technites or the artisans and technicians who are the rulers of the time. There is an emphasis on ‘seeing’ and in the manner of seeing. Heh suggests a correctness in the manner of seeing that is not present in the path of Vav which represents path #17 “The Intelligence of the Senses”.
Ya Heh begins the letters of the Holy Name: “I am”. Ya Heh Vav Heh is the complete name and includes the letters Yod, Alef, Heh, Men, Vav, and Heh repeated. The repeated Hehs represent the duality of the Divine and the Creation.
Path 18: Consciousness of the House of Influence: The Letter Chet
The Eighteenth Path is called the House of Influence (by the greatness of whose abundance the influx of good things upon created beings is increased), and from the midst of the investigation, the arcana and hidden senses are drawn forth, which dwell in its shade and which cling to it, from the cause of all causes.
Alt. Trans. “The eighteenth path is called the consciousness of the house of influence. From its inmost centre flow the Arcanum and veiled ideas, which “abide in its shadow”; thus, is there union with the inmost substance of the cause of causes.”
Wescott trans. The Eighteenth Path is called the Intelligence of the House of Influence (by the greatness of whose abundance the influx of good things upon created beings is increased), and from its midst the arcana and hidden senses are drawn forth, which dwell in its shade and which cling to it, from the Cause of all causes.
Case trans. The eighteenth path (Chet, joining Binah to Gevurah) is called the Intelligence of the House of Influence; and from the interior walls of its perfections the arcana flow down with the hidden meanings concealed in their shadow, and therefrom is union with the innermost reality of the Most High.
Chet: Chakmah to Gevurah Path 18. Intelligence of the House of Influx (Consciousness) (Sekhel Bet HaShefa): By probing with it, a secret mystery (Raz) and an allusion are transmitted to those who ‘dwell in its shadow’ and bind themselves to probing its substance from the Cause of Causes.
Genesis 1.4 And Elohim saw the light, that it was good; and Elohim divided the light from the darkness. 5 And Elohim called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
The Letter Chet and the 18th Path
The 18th path joins Chokmah to Gevurah and it is the letter Chet which makes this conjunction or relation. In the text of “The 32 Paths of Wisdom”, the House of Influence is singular, though I think we can say that there are a number of worlds that make up a number of houses of influence. There is clearly a duality spoken of in the text: “the arcana and hidden senses are drawn forth” and “dwell in its shade” suggests the realm of becoming, while the truth itself remains hidden which is the union with the Cause of Causes. The letter Chet is an ‘enclosure’ and in the Tarot illustrated here, The Hanged Man #12 is held in suspension from this letter.
Nature does not lie, it hides. The outward appearance of things which the Greeks referred to as the eidos, both reveals and conceals, and here the outward appearance ‘hides’ the reality of the kind of union that is present at the core. This showing forth of the ‘goodness’ of things can seduce the mind and soul of the human being into believing that the outward appearance is, in fact, the truth of the thing. “The Intelligence of the House of Influence” interacts with “The Rooted Intelligence” of Gevurah and “The Sanctifying Intelligence” of Binah to make things ‘holy’ which, in fact, might not be ‘holy’. While the abundance of the world shows forth many ‘goods’, they are not the Good.
Chet is the letter of life חיים. It represents infinite possibilities or the making-possible of that on the basis of which beings as such and as a whole are determined for us. It is undifferentiated substance and energy, containing all the possibilities that could come into being (i.e., it is what is designated as Will to Power here).
We have already indicated that the Logos determines all that is and all that is possible, so Chet is not influenced by the Sephirot Tiferet to any great degree but it passes through the Logos and requires the Logos. It is one aspect of the life-force. As such, it indicates an influence from Chakmah and to The High Priestess #2 card. Chet indicates the illusion of the ability of the human being to rise and go beyond nature (what we understand as our ‘freedom’ encapsulated in our notions of ‘transcendental thought’); but whether this rising beyond is done through the will and the domination and control of nature, or through submission to the Divine Will of Necessity is the matter of choice for the individual human being.
As has been noted, all the Sephirot with the exception of Malkhut are connected to Tiferet in some way. The letter Chet, according to some Hebrew readings, is related to the Neshama, the soul, and thus would relate to the ‘embodied soul’. The body is the “enclosure” of the soul; the physical world is the ‘enclosure’ of the Divine Soul, and yet is at the same time enclosed by the Divine. Chet also represents the power of choice which is given to the soul, as well as the qualities of charm and grace חן . Whether this charm and grace is genuine or a deception is a matter of choice for human beings.
Chet is like a revolving gateway or doorway, and represents the gyring power of Shin which directs the soul to enter a higher level beyond time, to enter the mysteries of one’s soul, and then return to worldly consciousness. The ancient form of the letter looks like a ladder indicating the ability to go above and beyond limitations. But herein lies the danger. It is not given to human beings to ‘rise up’ in this way i.e., through the use of the will, and this is shown most clearly in The Tower #16 of the Tarot. The ‘rising up’ of human beings could be analogous to an ‘expansion’ and the end or purpose for human beings is to be realized in a ‘diminution’ or decreation.
As the letter with the numerical value of 8, Chet also signifies transcending nature, as represented by the 7 days of creation. This gives the illusion of a transcendence of Time. We can ‘transcend’ Time through Memory, but it is not a true transcendence of time. It is merely the appearance of transcending Time. In this way, Chet is associated with Chokmah and Gevurah; and as an elemental letter, it indicates a diagonal path in its relation to these Sephirot. We can transcend something by knowing the essence of the thing, but this knowing is not a domination and control of the thing but a letting be of the thing as it is. We may perceive the thing as presence-at-hand in which it is merely contemplated or we can perceive the thing as ready-to-hand and disposable for whatever use we may wish to make of it.
It is the essence of the human being to “break through” nature to spiritual realization, but this is not done through the use of Will nor through the transcendental knowledge of the principle of reason. It is done through the revealing of Truth, and this is only partially accomplished in the achievements of our technology based as they are on the principle of reason. Nature does not lie; it hides. Truth may be revealed through reason but this is not the only way, and reason’s revelation of nature is only a partial revelation. This is shown in the path of Tet which crosses over the path of Chet from Binah to Chesed.
Chet is also in the word for prophecy hazon חזון, and wisdom hochmah חוכמה. In The Hanged Man #12, the figure is suspended from a letter Chet formed from wood. His upside down hanging suggests life in suspension, waiting. On the other hand, it could also suggest entrapment and an incorrect viewing of the world in which he is suspended since he is hanging upside down, and it is by this viewing that his suspension is made possible. Is this incorrect viewing a result of the historical knowledge that he/she has come to possess? The figure in the illustration of The Hanged Man does not appear to be in distress. He is waiting on an Other for either Grace or direction.
1.2 Ten are the numbers, as are the Sephiroth, and twenty-two the letters; these are the Foundation of all things. Of these letters, three are mothers, seven are double, and twelve are simple. (This translation of the Sefer Yetzirah is from Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s excellent text which can be found here: https://books.google.co.id/books/about/Sefer_Yetzirah.html?id=aqc-61vr4q0C&redir_esc=y )
Alt. Trans. Ten are the numbers, as are the Sephiroth, and twenty-two the letters, these are the Foundation of all things. Of these letters, three are mothers, seven are double, and twelve are simple.
Wescott Trans: 1.2. Ten are the ineffable Sephiroth. (9) Twenty−two are the Letters, the Foundation of all things; there are Three Mothers, Seven Double and Twelve (10) Simple letters.
Wescott Notes:
9. The Ineffable Sephiroth. The words are SPIRUT BLIMH, Sephiruth Belimah. The simplest translation is “the voices from nothing.” The Ten Sephiruth of the Kabalah are the “Ten Primary Emanations from the Divine Source,” which are the primal forces leading to all manifestation upon every plane in succession. Buxtorf gives for Sephiruth−−predicationes logicae. The word seems to me clearly allied to the Latin spiritus−−spirit, soul, wind; and is used by Quintilian as a sound, or noise. The meaning of Belimah is more doubtful. Rittangelius always gives “praeter illud ineffabile.” Pistorius gives “praeter ineffabile.” Postellus evades the difficulty and simply puts the word Belimah into his Latin translation. In Frey’s Hebrew Dictionary BLIMH is translated as nothing, without any other suggestion; BLI is “not,” MR is “anything.” In Kabalistic writings the Sephiruth, the Divine Voices and Powers, are called “ineffbilis,” not to be spoken of, from their sacred nature.
10. The classification of the Hebrew letters into a Triad, Heptad and Dodecad, runs through the whole philosophy of the Kabalah. Many ancient authors added intentional blinds, such as forming the Triad of A.M.T., Ameth, truth; and of AMN, Amen.
Commentary:
The Sephirot are not actual numbers but are the source of the numbers: that is, they are the source of the logos or, more properly, the logos itself. Sephirah means “counting” (or “counting on”). We “count” and “count on” the physical universe to ensure us that our knowledge of it is true knowledge. We begin to count with the fingers of our hands. We ‘count on’ those things that are ready-to-hand, things that we can touch and manipulate. Numbers are one of the ways in which we view, interpret and encounter things. Just as we view and de-fine things through words, we can also do so through numbers.
Number is not possible without the space and time of the physical universe for number must express itself in quantity and there is no quantity in one. Wisdom (Chakmah) and Understanding (Binah) lead to Knowledge, and Knowledge and Understanding lead to Wisdom. Wisdom is said to have 7 pillars which are the 7 subject or knowledge areas of study, “the seven pillars of wisdom”. Knowledge is the product of Understanding and Understanding is prior to knowledge. The link between Wisdom and Understanding is the Word, or the letters, and the link between Understanding and knowledge is also the Word which imposes limits on things and makes them particulars. We understand, for instance, the plant-like of the plant and the animal-like of the animal before we have knowledge of the particular plants or particular animals and through speech can name them and can point them out to others.
Space is prior to Time and the Sephirot are sometimes referred to as “the 10 Sephirot of No-thingness (space)”, the Ain. I write “no-thing” to distinguish it from the nihil which is our common understanding of the nothing. It is with Time that things come into being; and according to the Sefer Yetzirah, things come into being through the three books of text, number and speech which are mediaries between Wisdom and Understanding. Knowledge and Understanding must also be linked through the Word. Through the “naming” of things, things are given their place (topos in Greek) in space and so can be talked about. The world and its experiences and contexts that have been created is to be interpreted as “text”. We read the world or worlds in which we live.
The lines in the Tree of Life total 22: 3 horizontal, 7 vertical and 12 diagonals corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The 3 horizontals are called Mothers, the 7 verticals are called Fathers, and the 12 diagonals are called Simples. It is through the letters that the universe was created and they are called the 22 Foundation letters. It is through the letters that we come to understand and know the world.
The letters are not only involved in the inception of the world but they also sustain it. It is through text, number, and speech that the world is sustained and, as such, it is through human beings that “the way, the truth and the life” is sustained in the world since human beings are the only beings capable of speech. If one knows how to manipulate the letters correctly, one then knows how to manipulate the elemental forces and things of creation through the principle of reason. This relates to what the Greeks understood as techne, a knowing that involves a making (and what our word “technology” means today, and what is understood as yetzirah or “formation” in the text). This knowing and making is what artists and scientists do. This is but one side of the knowing that is present in the Sefer Yetzirah.
The three primary letters of the Kabbalah are א Alef (Ox), מ Mem (water) and ש Shin (tooth); and these are called the Three Mothers. They are the horizontal lines highlighted in red in the illustration on the left. Alef is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Mem is the middle letter, and Shin is the second to last. The last letter (Tav) is not used because it is one of the Doubles (and thus would seem to imply a choice). The Doubles are illustrated in blue.
The three Mother letters are called “crossroads” because they are horizontal lines and cross over to the other side of the Tree of Life from left to right when viewed from the ascending motion or from the bottom up. They move from right to left when viewed in the descending motion, from top to bottom. (Notice that the Sephirot of Chesed and Gevurah are linked by the letter Alef which has passed through Tiferet initially. Chesed is Loving Kindness or Mercy, while Gevurah is Severity or Force. Chesed is what we understand by manifest Nature while Gevurah is what we understand by Convention. Tiferet is Beauty, and the letter Alef is in the centre of its name. It is the fire that is symbolized as the Sun. More will be said about this later.)
The twelve Simples or Elementals are illustrated in green and they are the diagonal channels of movement within the Tree of Life which are the netivot or private paths that one must traverse before one is able to ascend the Tree of Life.
The Sefer Yetzirah: 1:3
1.3 The ten numbers formed from no-thing are the Decad: these are seen in the fingers of the hands, five on one, five on the other, and over them (precisely in the middle) is the Covenant by voice spiritual (the Circumcision of the tongue), and the rite of Circumcision corporeal (as of Abraham).
Alt. Trans. The ten numbers formed from no-thing are the Decad: these are seen in the fingers of the hands, five on one, five on the other, and over them is the Covenant by voice spiritual, and the rite of Circumcision, corporeal (as of Abraham).
Wescott Trans: 1.3. The ineffable Sephiroth are Ten, as are the Numbers; and as there are in man five fingers over against five, so over them is established a covenant of strength, by word of mouth, and by the circumcision of the flesh. (11)
Wescott’s Notes;
11. The Two Covenants, by the Word or Spirit, and by the Flesh, made by Jehovah with Abraham, Genesis xvii. The Covenant of Circumcision was to be an outward and visible sign of the Divine promise made to Abraham and his offspring. The Hebrew word for circumcision is Mulah, MULH: note that MLH is also synonymous with DBR, dabar,−−verbum or word.
Commentary 1:3
While one has the plan for formation, for making something, through the understanding (the covenant of the spiritual or invisible word or voice), the formation itself occurs through the work of the hands. The covenant of the spiritual or voice is what we call “intelligence” or “consciousness”. The making of things occurs through the use of the ready-to-hand of the material things about us. Understanding is comprised of dianoic thought (the thought the brings or gathers separate things together into a unity or a one i.e. the logos) and diaretic thought (the thought that separates things to distinguish them from other things, how we classify things through our taxonomies). The manner of the seeing or how this covenant is interpreted or heard will determine whether one views the creation first through Love (Tiferet/Chesed) or whether one views the creation through Will (Gevurah/Tiferet), and this distinction is essential. These are the two faces of Eros and of the Logos.
The influence of the Pythagoreans on the Sefer Yetzirah can be seen in Aristotle’s, Metaphysics, I.5.986 a22, where he says: “Members of this school [the Pythagoreans] say there are ten principles, which they arrange into two columns of cognates (the pillars of Jakim and Boaz in the Tree of Life), thus: limited and unlimited, odd and even, one and many, right and left, male and female, rest and movement, straight and curved, light and darkness, good and bad, square and oblong.” The ten principles of the Pythagoreans correspond to the 10 Sephirot of the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life.
One of the puzzling things about the Tree of Life is the basic sense of direction given to it: do we determine the right and left from our perspective or should the Tree of Life be viewed in a mirror or from its own perspective which would reverse the directions given to it? I am puzzled because I am wondering how we can attribute Love (Chesed) as a Masculine principle (Aphrodite/Venus is female and the surroundings of The Emperor #4 card in Tarot are sterile i.e., they have no living nature about them) and the Masculine is placed on the right-hand side of the Tree which contains the five Loves, while Strength/Force/Will are attributed to the Feminine aspects and placed on the left side of the Tree of Life and are called the five Strengths? I will attempt to make sense of this puzzle as I proceed with this commentary.)
A covenant comes between two separate, unequal parts and holds them or yokes them together in a harmony; it makes them commensurate to each other. The covenant of the Spiritual Circumcision is the Parousia of God, the “being alongside”, “between”, “among”, that is the relation of God to His creation. The covenant is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the Earth” for Christians, and the Ten Commandments of God or the Torah for the Hebrews. For the Hebrews, truth is revealed as Law; for Christians, truth is revealed as Being. The middle pillar of the Tree of Life is the place of the covenant. (This could be represented pictorially in the form of a cross as two diameters of a circle or sphere crossing in the centre).
In the Hebrew, the “circumcision of the tongue” is fluency in speech i.e., the highest speech, “prophecy”, the ability to pre-dict. We consider science as our “highest speech” because of its ability to predict outcomes and so we, currently, “bow down to” science. This fluency of speech is a gift through the mediation or parousia of God in His creation. Without this presence, we would know nothing. The two Cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant were said to be the source of all prophecy, but God is the third who speaks through the Cherubim who are the mediators: “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat (Jakim, the ark cover), from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony I will speak with you”. (Exodus 25:22) The two Cherubim on the Ark represent the two faces of Logos and Eros. When the Cherubim were removed from the Ark with the destruction of the First Temple, prophecy is said to have ceased to exist.
The circumcision of the sexual organ is the recognition that one can be empowered to have control over the urges that create strife in the human body and soul, one of the most dominant being the sexual urge. (This could be seen as an example for justifying the Strength card as #8 in Tarot since this is the step beyond the Chariot card and the strife between the two sphinxes represented in that card. The figure’s easily closing the jaws of the lion representing the passions would suggest this. The Justice card, however, suggests the need for control on the social plane, the higher demand to be just to each human being. It is the urges, the needs, that we have which create injustice in human relations. But they also create Justice…The Tree of Life seems to suggest that the individual is on the right side and the social is on the left side and there is the constant crossing over via the paths.)
The two covenants spoken about here would suggest the two faces of Eros and the Logos, the voice and the flesh, the spirit and the body, which shall be discussed in more detail as we proceed further into the texts of the Sefer Yetzirah and “The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”.
The Sefer yetzirah 1:4
1.4 Ten are the numbers of the ineffable Sephiroth, ten and not nine, ten and not eleven. Learn this wisdom, and be wise in the understanding of it, investigate these numbers, and draw knowledge from them, fix the design in its purity (“make each thing come to stand in its essence”), and pass from it to its Creator seated on his throne.
Alt. Trans. Ten are the numbers of the ineffable Sephiroth, ten and not nine, ten and not eleven. Learn this wisdom, and be wise in the understanding of it, investigate these numbers, and draw knowledge from them, fix the design in its purity, and pass from it to its Creator seated on his throne.
Wescott Trans: 1.4. Ten is the number of the ineffable Sephiroth, ten and not nine, ten and not eleven. Understand this wisdom, and be wise by the perception. Search out concerning it, restore the Word to its creator, and replace Him who formed it upon his throne. (12)
Wescott’s Notes:
12. Rittangelius gives “replace the formative power upon his throne.” Postellus gives “restore the device to its place.”
Commentary 1:4
Was God’s creation an act of will or an act of love? God in His withdrawal, His allowing something to be other than Himself, provides us with the perfect path or example for our own existence. (As the French philosopher, Simone Weil, once said: “If we forgive God for not existing, He will forgive us for existing”.) Is the withdrawal of the great artist from his work an act of will or an act of love? The artist can choose to withdraw or not; the artist can choose to bring forth that which inspires her or not. The common view is that it is an act of will rather than an act of love which brings forth great art; but an artist who withdraws through the will does not produce ‘great art’.
Both God and the Sephirot are “ineffable” and cannot be described through the use of language. But to see God as pure Will moves too close to Nietzsche for my liking (the eternal recurrence of the Same). The Sephirot are emanations of God and are, therefore, used to describe God. But God is beyond the Sephirot (Plato: “The Good is beyond Being”), just as the rose itself is beyond the emanation of its odour. The Sephirot themselves are inadequate representations of the Good. We could equate them with the “ideas” of Plato.
The Sephirot are one of the ways used to attempt to describe God, ways that human beings can comprehend the qualities of God or the predicates of God. All cultures attempt to describe God with the things that are ready-to-hand for them. God is One and ineffable. The attempts to proselytize the “true religion” without first learning the nature of the religion of those that one is attempting to convince that it is the “true religion” is akin to madness, an error and misunderstanding of the directive to “Go forth and make disciples of all nations”. A “disciple” is a “friend”, one with whom one can engage in friendly conversation i.e., dialectic. The proselytizing spirit should have been an exercise in communication and unification but, unfortunately, it was not. It became, and remains in most cases, an exercise in power, an exercise in evil.
This passage of the Sefir Yetzirah deals with the first three Sephirot: Keter, Chakmah, and Binah: The Crown, Wisdom, and Understanding. As discussed earlier, Wisdom is knowledge of the whole, which is difficult if not impossible to attain since we ourselves are part of the whole; however, this does not deter the quest for such knowledge, and as long as there are human beings, such a quest will continue.
Understanding precedes knowledge in that understanding is the sensory awareness of the presence-at-hand of things as well as their possible readiness-to-hand for ends that we determine. To make things stand in their essence is to reveal them in their truth. From this revealing of things in their truth, one passes from them to their Creator. One examines all things and determines which Sephirot relates to them (“Examine with them”). “Probe from them”: the Sephirot are not contemplated in themselves but are used to develop an insight into the things of the world. (Plato’s ideas are numbers, but they are not the numbers of arithmos or calculation. One uses them to gain knowledge of the things of the world and to recognize the things as “shadows”.) This “probing” brings a thing to a stand so that it will step forth and show itself as a “this” and not “that”. To let a thing be in its essence is to go beyond viewing the thing as something which is of possible use for our ends.
Here is thought understood as dianoia and diaresis, with knowledge as the outcome. The Sephirot themselves are reached through the “paths of Wisdom”; the paths are the “pure design” which is the product of Understanding (the limits placed on the Unlimited). The “design” is the Law of Necessity. The “examining” of things with the Sephirot is the determination of how the things in their essence belong to, or are possessed by, the Sephirot to which they belong or are possessed. The “probing” of things is the determining of the essence of the thing, the determining of the truth of the thing and the revealing of the thing for what the thing really is. This revealing “elevates” the thing from the shadows into its true reality. Examining and probing are part of questioning. This elevating of the thing is the “restoring” of the original Word to its Creator. We participate in the creation of the world by decreating ourselves by mirroring God’s act of withdrawal.
The four universes of the Sefer Yetzirah are: 1. Atzilut (Nearness, Emanation, the parousia of the Divine); Content: Sephirot; Level: No-thingness; 2. Beriyah (Creation); Content: the Throne (the Creation itself as the “lowering” of God, and the vehicle through which He expresses His care and concern through the Beauty of the world); Level: Something from No-thing, ex nihilo; the Sephirot of ‘no-thingness’; 3. Yetzirah (Formation); Content: Angels/Cherubim, products of the spirit, mediators; Level: Something from Something, “in another for another”; 4. Asiyah (Making, Action); Content: Shadows of the physical; Level: Completion (the work, the artifact, from dynamis potential to energeia the completed work). More will be said about the four universes later.
The Sefer Yetzirah 1:5
1.5 These Ten Numbers, (beyond which is the Infinite one), have the boundless realms, boundless origin and end, an abyss of good and one of evil, boundless height and depth, East and West, North and South, and the one only God and king, faithful forever seated on his throne, shall rule over all, forever and ever.
Alt. Trans. These Ten Numbers, beyond the Infinite one, have the boundless realms, boundlessorigin and end, an abyss of good and one of evil, boundless height and depth, East and West, North and South, and the one only God and king, faithful forever seated on his throne, shall rule over all, forever and ever.
Wescott Trans: 1.5. The Ten ineffable Sephiroth have ten vast regions bound unto them; boundless in origin and having no ending; an abyss (13) of good and of ill; measureless height and depth; boundless to the East and the West; boundless to the North and South; (14) and the Lord the only God, (15) the Faithful King rules all these from his holy seat, (16) for ever and ever.
Wescott Notes:
13. Abyss; the word is OUMQ for OMQ, a depth, vastness, or valley.
14. My (Case’s) Hermetic rituals explained this Yetziratic attribution.
15. The Lord the only God. The words are ADUN IChID AL, or “Adonai (as commonly written) the only El.”
16. Seat. The word is MOUN, dwelling, habitation, or throne.
Commentary 1:5
The text here deals with Space. God, the infinite One, is the “Former” (Yotzer), “the one who forms”. He is the Demiourgos of Plato’s Timaeus. The distinction between “formation” and “creation” is important. Here, the formation occurs within that which is boundless. The boundless is the “unlimited”, designated as the water of Chakmah, the khora of Plato’s Timaeus, that which is given limits so that it may be de-fined (“of the limits”) and designated as a particular thing. It is given shape. The boundless is given its limits through language and number, and it is through language and number that things come to stand as ousia, as presence in their particularity in the Now of Time. God as the Former is the Logos of the Greeks (“It is through Him that all that is comes into being, and nothing comes into being except through Him”. John 1: 1-5)
The three lower universes align with the ideas of “to create” (Beriyah), “to form” (Yetzirah), and “to make” (Asiyah). “Wisdom” is to create, “Understanding” is to form, and “knowledge” is to make. The making implies the completion of an action, the pro-duction of a thing such that the thing requires no further action and is complete; it is “perfect” in its emergence into presence.
The Sephirot #9 Yesod has connotations with “binding” and “connecting” and connects the physical world to the world of Yetzirah or the world of the formation which is associated with the angels or mediators, the daemons, and the human soul is considered one of these. It is through the mediation of the angels that the physical world is elevated or lifted up and restored to its Creator. The physical world is “brought to a stand” i.e., elevated, through the use of language and number. This is the covenant of speech. That Yesod is also associated with the sexual organs indicates its relation to the covenant of the flesh, circumcision.
(This is how the Magician #1 card of the Tarot is to be understood: he is not Keter or #1, but rather Malkhut #10. Through the formation of the ready-to-hand physical things of the world (the cups, wands, pentacles, swords), he elevates these things to the level of Yetzirah or “formation” through the mediation of Yesod which is the foundation, or base, of the physical world, what we understand as “metaphysics”. Yesod requires and is associated with sense perception and will (the sexual organ, the “lower” associations with Eros), and these are the initial “mediators” between the soul and the physical world.)
Space, within which the Tree of Life rests, is not a two-dimensional circle but a sphere. The sphere is divided into a five-dimensional continuum. Space is prior to Time, and Time as well as number begins with the being of created things, the physis of the world, its materiality. The infinite One (the Good) is beyond both space and time. The boundaries of space, the limits, are the realm of Necessity. They are indicated by the 10 directions within which space is given.
Three dimensions are “up/down”, “north/south”, “east/west”, and these three dimensions are further defined by the six directions of World as outlined. The Time continuum is defined by two directions, past and future, or beginning and end. This is called “year” and is the fourth dimension. The fifth dimension is the spiritual dimension and is defined by good and evil, and this is called “soul”.
To illustrate these dimensions within the sphere of space using the Tree of Life: 1. Beginning (Chakmah/Wisdom)/ End (Binah/ Understanding); 2. Good (Keter/Crown)/ Evil (Malkhut/Kingship); 3. Up (Netzach/Victory)/ Down (Hod/Splendour); 4. North (Gevurah/Strength)/ South (Chesed/Love); 5. East (Tiferet/Beauty)/ West (Yesod/Foundation).
God, called Elohim, creates the world with 10 sayings or speeches, which is the understanding. (Elohim is the Christ, the Logos, of St. John, but he is not limited to this manifestation only. He could also be considered to be Krishna or any other of the possible names that human beings have come to understand Him in their being-in-the-world). Wisdom as beginning represents the past. Memory is hidden, concealed until it is revealed or re-collected through the understanding (in words or images). The mediation of Wisdom (past) and Understanding (future) conceived as Time is the present. (“The future comes to meet us from behind” as the Greeks would say.) It is in and through Time that things come to be. Wisdom is the no-thing of Being which becomes the some-thing through understanding, through speech and number.
The centre line of the Tree of Life from Keter to Malkhut is called the “Tree of Knowledge”. On a two-dimensional plane, Keter is seen as closest to God while Malkhut is farthest. This is the traditional way of viewing the creation. The centre line is composed of 4 Sephirot: Keter (Good), Tiferet (Beauty), Yesod (Foundation), and Malkhut (Kingdom). (In The Lovers #6 tarot card, Adam stands before the Tree of Life while Eve stands before the Tree of Knowledge, if one wishes to interpret the figures in this way). In the direction of the descent, the Good proceeds to Beauty which provides the Foundation for Kingdom. When the direction is as ascent, Kingdom is the deprivation of the understanding to seeing the Foundation as the manifestation of the Beautiful and the Good.
Since World is a sphere (an infinite sphere? A sempiternal sphere?), the speaking of up and down as far as directions does not make sense. The Sefer Yetzirah speaks of depths. There is a great depth, a chasm, separating the Necessary from the Good. The depths are the “deprivations” of things. The depths are the “need” of things to realize their true substance and to come to their true essence which is their perfection. This possibility of perfection is always present within them. The human being is the ‘perfect imperfection’. Something is absent, missing. For something to meet these needs, a great depth must be crossed. The crossing is done in a series of steps or leaps. (What was understood as Jacob’s Ladder) For God to answer prayers, a great depth must be crossed, the whole of the created World itself, for God Himself is unaffected by His creation. He is beyond both Space and Time. Given what we know about the deep immensities of space, this crossing is not easily accomplished.
The text of the Sefir Yetzirah, from which the Kabbalah is said to have originated, is supposed by some sources to have been written by Abraham himself on instructions from Shem, the son of Noah, who is also sometimes referred to as Melchizedek among many Hebrew sources. Melchizedek is said by other Hebrew sources to have changed what originally was the sacrifice of animals to God to the offering of bread and wine to Him, perhaps an indication of the movement of human beings from a nomadic hunter-gatherer to an agrarian existence.
Shem, meanwhile, is said to have participated in the spiritual revelation given to Noah by God; and from this, God is said to have orally instructed Abraham to pass on that which he received from God to Shem. So, the authorship of the Sefer Yetzirah is attributed to Abraham for the Hebrews and to Shem for the Gentiles. This suggests that prior to the writing of historical texts (or any texts for that matter), there was a unified spirituality in existence in what was then the known world. This is an amazing thought.
However, other more credible sources attribute the text of the Sefer Yetzirah to around the 1st century BCE, which might indicate the apparent influences of the Neo-Platonic Pythagoreans, Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists, and the neo-Aristotelians on some of the content of the text. The text of the Sefer Yetzirah, in my opinion, is an attempt to resolve the problem of piety and philosophy, the conflict between Jerusalem (piety/theism) and Athens (philosophy/atheism) which is a core problem for the history of thought in the West.
The goal of the knowledge of the Sefer Yetzirah is that one become “a prophet” (c.f. The World #21 card of the Tarot where, at the completion of the journey, the initiate is to have the gift of prophecy or the ability to dwell in both the spiritual and physical worlds simultaneously). Prophecy is “the highest speech”, and one would consider a prophet the “highest” or most complete human being i.e., the most ‘perfect’ human being, the most ‘virtuous’ human being; and we shall see shortly the importance of language and speech in the physical, spiritual and mystical worlds of the Sefir Yetzirah. The prophet is said to be one who dwells in the presence of God, and this has always been considered as the highest end for human beings in both the ancient and medieval worlds of the West. In our interpretation here, dwelling in the presence of God or the Good are understood to be one and the same.
“Kabbalah” means “that which is received”, “that which has been given”, the gift. What is received is believed to be the divine message, the Torah, the divine gift, the salvation and redemption that is the reconciliation of the “perfect imperfection” that is human being with the perfection that is the Divine. That gift which has been received becomes part of one’s heritage or inheritance.
The Sefer Yetzirah outlines an essential “strife” between that which has been received and how that which has been received is understood and interpreted; and this essential strife may be understood as that between the individual and the society or the collective. This is because the Sefer Yetzirah is a philosophical text and its language is the poetry of philosophy. There always has been and always will be strife between philosophy and that which considers itself the established “truth” of the collective, or that upon which the collective (society) is based, be that the canon or doctrine of the religions of those societies or the established opinion of those who hold what knowledge is conceived to be in those societies. Piety belongs to the collective; philosophy belongs to the individual; piety is the exoteric; philosophy is the esoteric.
The Kabbalah is an attempt to interpret that divine message or divine gift and the meaning or significance of that gift. This gift from the god is referred to sometimes as the Tree of Life. This Tree, established in visual form during the Renaissance, is brought to presence to us through language and number. Language and number are gifts from the god, from the Ain Sof. They are not “invented” by human beings but “dis-covered” or “un-covered”, unconcealed. They were alwaysthere, only hidden or concealed. This uncovering and revealing is what is called “truth” here.
The Kabbalah’s principles or foundations are based on God’s act of creation ex nihilo in Chapter One of the Book of Genesis in the Western Bible, and one may also understand something of the Kabbalah through the opening words of St. John’s Gospel from that Bible: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Same (He) was in the beginning with God. All things (Difference) came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the light of human beings. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it.” (John I: 1-5) In the multi-layered universe of the worlds of the text of the Sefer Yetzirah, this is the world of Beriyah, the world of creation of something from no-thing, and in the hierarchy of the worlds of the Sefer Yetzirah, it is below the world of Atzilut, the world of the Divine Ideas or Archetypes, the Sephirot themselves.
I would, cautiously, suggest that the anthropocentric view of the God as the “eternal fiery Father” is not quite right as the God that is characterized by the Sefer Yetzirah, although the God as perceived there is indeed of the element of Fire, particularly when viewed from the left side of the Tree of Life, the side of Severity and Fear. But this is only one of His elements. Being infinite, ineffable, and unnamable, perhaps He is what we mean by Life itself, and therefore images of Him or uttering His true Name is taboo in Hebrew and Islam since the utterance of a name or the production of an image “solidifies” or ossifies that which is named. The early Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, once said: “the god who sometimes does and sometimes does not wish to go by the name of Zeus” when He is called upon since He chooses to appear in and under many forms and names.
I am always astounded, for instance, by other sects of Christians who accuse Catholics of being pagans because these other sects think the Catholics worship statues i.e.; they are idol worshippers. The statue is, of course, not the Being him/herself that is being supplicated, but a mediary between the person at prayer and the Being they are calling upon for aid, just as all Art is a mediary between human being and Life itself. The statue helps focus their prayer. I am also cautious because I remember the lines from the English poet William Blake who said in his poem “Auguries of Innocence”: “God appears and God is light/ To those poor souls that dwell in night/ But does the human form display/ To those who dwell in realms of day.” Referring to this I must say: I simply do not know; but I do know the Sefir Yetzirah is closer to Blake than to the traditional religions and their interpretations be they Hebrew or Christian. Also, Blake’s meaning is present in many mythologies and religions throughout the world. It is sometimes called the “mystical tradition”. It is what is called esoteric, that which is hidden or occult or merely that which is ‘private’, and it is contrary to the exoteric which is for ‘public viewing.’
God, in the Sefer Yetzirah, is said to have created His world with three “books”. With these three “books” (Heb. Sepharim, Gr. logoi): 1. text (Heb. Sepher, Gr. Logos, speech that is written or spoken i.e. rhetoric) with 2. number (Heb. Sephar, Gr. arithmos) and with 3. communication, speaking to one another (Heb. Sippur, Gr. Dialectic?), human beings are called upon to “dis-cover” and “un-cover” the mysteries of the created universe. The world is meant to be read as text and upon this reading communicated to others.
The Tree of Life is said to be composed of 10 Sephirot or the Ten Emanations of God (referred to as the Ten Commandments in the Torah). “Emanation” is the action of flowing from a source. Perfume emanates from a flower, for instance. The Sephirot are connected by paths or channels created by the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, thus 32 paths in total, 10 Sephirot + 22 paths. The 22 paths are the letters of the Hebrew and early Greek alphabets (which are both said to derive from the Aramaic language), and the 10 Sephirot also represent the ten fingers of the human body. The human form is considered the microcosm of the macrocosm of the whole of Creation (again referencing Blake’s ‘augury’ here.)
The importance of “grasping” and “being able to grasp” is present in the text of the Sefer Yetzirah. With the letters comes speech (what the Greeks understood as logos), and with the fingers come numbers which are used to “count on” or to calculate. The paths are described as channels through which the “waters” of the spiritual flow downward (One must be “born again of the water and of the spirit” in order to rise up or go against the Necessity of gravity which pulls downwards). Water, by nature, flows downward; to “flow” upward, water requires fire or needs to become “air”, literally clouds. These movements of the spiritual as ascent and descent are the essential feature of the Tree of Life. The downward movement is creation and the upward movement is decreation in the interpretation offered here.
“Speaking to one another” and the Greek word dialectic have undergone great changes over the centuries. The word dialectic literally means “conversation between two or three persons” (esoteric), not two or three hundred persons for that would make it rhetoric, the speech of one to many (exoteric). The original dialectic, the conversation between friends, has been permutated into what is now known as Hegelian dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) and to Marx’s “dialectical materialism” where the original dialectic of the “sharing of the spirit” is attributed to physical matter through human beings’ making that matter or material “valuable” through their labour and through their “absolute knowledge” of that material which they have made. This making of “value” is the origin of our concept of “values” which has derived from the disappearance of God and the oblivion of eternity in order to place human beings, falsely, at the centre of the world. “Values” and their historicity have come to replace “morality” and “ethics” in our lexicons. The Greeks and the early Hebrews had no “values”.
The Tree of Life of the Kabballah
The letters and the paths associated with the Sephirot correspond to the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot, and the emanations of the Sephirot correspond to the symbols and images presented in the cards, from the sacred to the profane; that is, the objects and situations that we encounter within our worlds correspond in their true natures to the numbers and images “revealed” in the cards when the cards are interpreted correctly. The cards, composed of letters and numbers, are intermediaries between the individual and the world we live in. They are tools to assist us in the overcoming of the distinction between mind/body, soul/body, and the self/world. All that is known (the Greek word gnosis) is brought topresence(ousia) through language and number, or through Word. The desire to know is urged by the ‘need’ and ‘fullness’ that is Eros. Both logos and eros are to be found in the Sephirot Tiferet #6, for all the paths of the other Sephirot lead through Tiferet with the exception of Malkhut.
A most important point to note is that the creation of the world is not an “expansion” from God but a withdrawal of God. In making the universe, God allows something other than Himself to be and yet, paradoxically, it is at the same time Him since He is One and the Whole. This Otherness and withdrawal of God signifies both His presence and His absence in His creation. We might consider this making of God analogous to the making of the great artist (and I mean only great art here) where the artist withdraws to allow something other than him/herself to be, something which is at the same time, part of him/herself and yet not part of him/herself. One could carry it even further and make an analogy to a woman giving birth to a child. A woman’s giving birth is her great recognition of Otherness. It is her desire for the Incarnation of the Divine, and this desire or urge begins with Eros. It is this withdrawal of God, His allowing something to be other than Himself, that is the argument against the Gnostics who see the world’s creator as somehow an evil Demiourgos; yet, as we will see later, what we understand as ‘evil’ is a constant presence among the things that are and it impacts how Eros is to be understood.
The Greek word demiourgos means “a public or skilled worker” i.e., the politician or the techne, one who is skilled at making something from something and for someone else. In other languages, the demiourgos is “the blind god” or “the foolish one”, one who is ignorant of the gods or opposed to them i.e., the malevolent one. In many Gnostic texts, the demiourgos creates the physical world and the human beings in it. He creates followers who preside over the material world and who present obstacles to the soul seeking to ascend from it. The Fool #0 and The Magician #1 may be said to correspond to the demiourgos of the Gnostics and equal the numbers 01 and 10 respectively. In the Tarot, this shows their connection with The Wheel of Fortune #10.
Theory of Knowledge: An Alternative Approach 