The Sword & the Serpent: The Two-fold Qabalistic Universe

by Denning, Melita

• ISBN13: 9780738708102
• ISBN10: 0738708100
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-01
• Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd

Summary

ESOTERIC QABALAH The Melding of Human with Divine The ultimate goal for every human being is to realize and fulfill his/her Divinity. No matter what religion or esoteric system, the primary message is the same - that every human person is created in the image of God, and that the "Son of God" is one who has completed the journey. The "Great Plan" is that each person is to evolve and become a "co-creator" to consciously and effectively participate in the evolutionary drama. Each of us has the gift and obligation of responsible action. As with any journey, a map makes it easier: it provides an overview allowing the user to choose the best path from his starting point to the next rest stop, and then onward towards the ultimate goal of union with the Divine. That's the "Great Work" we each must undertake. There are many books on and about Kabbalah but very few about the esoteric Qabalah that specifically guides the esoteric student to the Great Work, employing terms and psychological understanding applicable to the modern student not requiring adherence to any one religious or magical group. You are alone in this work, but you have the support of all who have gone before. The responsibility and the opportunity for real spiritual development is personal. It is your responsibility. You have the gifts of Mind and Spirit, and this particular book was written to be an effective guide to your personal program. It's your practical guide. Here you will find the nature of the universe, and the nature of your own being; you will find the foundations of magical art and the channels of inner power; here the power of symbols is made clear and made practical for your application; here Qabalah and Gnosis are brought together with detailed tables and examples, along with real-life stories illustrating the challenges and triumphs of the magical journey. Now, you must write your own story.

Table of Contents

Author's Note to the Second Edition	xxv
Introduction: Step into Magick!	xxvii
Book III The Sword and The Serpent
The Emanations
The intelligible sources of ``being'':
The Three Veils	3	(1)
The Four Worlds:
Atziluth	4	(1)
The archetypes	5	(1)
Briah	5	(1)
The archetypal images	6	(1)
Origins of religions	7	(1)
Yetzirah	7	(1)
Nature of the astral plane	8	(1)
Assiah	8	(1)
Concepts of world and universe	8	(1)
The Tree of Life	9	(3)
A school of relationships	10	(2)
Metaphysics of Emanation	12	(9)
The Sephiroth	13	(2)
Energies transformed by inter-relationship	15	(1)
The Qliphoth	15	(1)
Energies untransformed in isolation	15	(1)
A parallel in psychology	16	(5)
The Emanations
The chief sephiroth symbols in Assiah	21	(1)
A Qabalistic Genesis in modern terms	22	(6)
Involuntary sequence:
Space as symbol of the Veils	22	(1)
The Kether of the material universe	22	(1)
Chokmah
Unbounded electronic dynamism	23	(1)
Binah
Dark Mother, Bright Mother	24	(1)
The Chesed-Geburah tension
Gravitational centers, centrifugal force	25	(1)
The Tiphareth phase
Birth of Suns	25	(1)
Netzach and Hod
Force and structure	26	(1)
The Yesod phase
Focus of influences	27	(1)
Malkuth
A mineral world	27	(1)
The evolutionary sequence begins:
Life and Lightning Flash	28	(1)
Contemplating the living kosmos	29	(4)
The Emanations
Hebrew names of the Sephiroth	33	(1)
The Sword upon the Tree	34	(1)
Involutionary order of Sephiroth	35	(1)
Types of sephiroth force	35	(4)
Special relationships of forces	35	(1)
The Three Columns	36	(1)
The Three Triads	37	(2)
The Composite Tree	39	(1)
The Way of Return	40	(2)
Related to life experience	41	(1)
Compared with ``Rising on the Planes''	41	(1)
Evolutionary order of Paths	41	(1)
The Serpent upon the Tree	42	(1)
The Gate Sephiroth	43	(1)
Proclus' Hymn to All the Gods	44	(1)
Concept of the Fourfold Tree	45	(1)
Traditional diagram described	45	(1)
Difficulties indicated	46	(1)
Meditative use of sephiroth diagrams generally	46	(1)
Knowing the Sephiroth as realities	46	(2)
Identifying a Sephirah from World to World	47	(1)
Relationship of Qliphoth to their Sephiroth	47	(1)
An urgent plea for the biosphere	48	(3)
The Emanations
The Tree in magical practice	51	(11)
Character of Saturn	52	(1)
Works suited to the Manifest Powers	52	(1)
Chesed	52	(1)
Geburah	52	(1)
Tiphareth	53	(1)
The nature of beauty	54	(1)
Netzach	55	(1)
Hod	56	(1)
Yesod	57	(1)
``Treasure house of Images''	58	(2)
Malkuth	60	(1)
The Elementals	60	(2)
Deific forces upon the Tree:
Spheres of predominantly male forces	62	(1)
Spheres of predominantly female forces	63	(1)
The Great Goddess	63	(6)
The Sophia	64	(1)
Some echoes in Christian theology	65	(4)
The Emanations
Powers of Light and of Darkness
Key to Table of Powers	69	(1)
Key to Hebrew Alphabet	70	(1)
The Hebrew hierarchical Powers
Theurgia (Of the Light)	71	(1)
God-names and Archangels	72	(1)
Choras	73	(1)
Angels	74	(1)
Lesser Angels	75	(1)
The Heavenly Arch:
Ascendent	76	(1)
Succedent	77	(1)
Cadent	78	(1)
Planetary Intelligences and Spirits	79	(1)
The Palaces	80	(2)
Goetia (Of the Darkness)
The Zodiacal Goetia:
Cadent	82	(1)
Succedent	83	(1)
Ascendent	84	(1)
Infernal Habitations, Cohorts, Princes	85	(1)
The tables interpreted:
The Hebrew Divine Names	86	(3)
Their magical use explained	89	(1)
The Sephiroth Archangels and their Sigils	90	(1)
The Choras	91	(3)
Sigils of Planetary Angels	94	(2)
Intelligences and Spirits	96	(1)
On evocation of elemental and zodiacal forces	97	(1)
Decans and Quinances	98	(1)
Planets ruling zodiacal forces	99	(1)
The Qliphoth	99	(1)
Relation to archetypes	100	(1)
Derivation of names	101	(1)
Spirits of the Grimoires	102	(1)
The Cohorts	103	(2)
The Magical Images	105	(2)
Working with varied cosmogonies	107	(1)
The question of presidency	107	(1)
Magical Formulae	107	(3)
The Olympic Planetary Spirits	110	(2)
Their Sigils	111	(1)
Shem ha-Mephoresh
Formulation of names	112	(3)
Some Discursive Reflections on the Paths
Influences upon the Paths:
The initial and final Sephiroth	115	(1)
Influences of planetary Spheres	115	(1)
Zodiacal influences on Paths	116	(1)
Paths influenced by Elements	117	(1)
The Hebrew Alphabet on the Paths	117	(1)
Its primal significances	117	(1)
Mystical ascriptions	118	(1)
The Tarot Trumps as an influence	118	(1)
The Song of Praises	118	(21)
Symbolic and gematric interpretation	123	(16)
Major Correspondences of the Paths	139	(6)
Channels of Force
The beginnings of Gods	145	(10)
Human needs and creations	145	(1)
When egregore meets with archetype	146	(1)
The living force in Briah	146	(1)
Power of established cult-centers	146	(1)
Astral vestiges of earlier cults	147	(1)
Sinai, Lourdes	147	(1)
Influence of remote common origins	148	(3)
Haitian Voudoun and Egyptian religion	151	(4)
The Celtic God-forces	155	(3)
The High Greetings	155	(3)
Celtic and classical deities compared	158	(2)
Major Celtic deities upon the Tree	160	(11)
Deities of the planetary Sephiroth	160	(4)
The Horned God of the Moon:
Cernunnos	164	(1)
Herne the Hunter	164	(1)
God and Goddess in old London	165	(1)
Jack in the Green	165	(1)
Cernowain, ``Horned Owain''	165	(1)
Owain and ``St. Patrick's Purgatory''	165	(1)
Lord of the Forest	166	(1)
Brigid, Goddess of Imbolc and the waters	167	(1)
The Celtic Triple-Goddess	167	(1)
The Earth Mothers	168	(1)
Gates to the Otherworld	169	(2)
The Mystery of Ishtar and Tammuz	171	(2)
The greatness of Ishtar	173	(1)
Personal contact with a Deity	173	(6)
Preliminary essentials of knowledge	173	(1)
The material requirements	174	(1)
The spiritual requirements	174	(1)
Magical discipline and the invocation	175	(4)
The Magical Art
The faculty of astral creation	179	(7)
Control of astral images	180	(3)
Beauty, delight, allurement of the astral	183	(1)
``Glamour'' in medieval magick	183	(1)
The Astral Temple in group workings	184	(1)
Employment of the correspondences in ritual work	184	(1)
Examples	185	(1)
The Qabalistic color scales	186	(10)
Necessity and uses	186	(1)
The work of obtaining the scales	187	(1)
The Color-scales themselves:
Atziluth (Radical Scale)	188	(1)
Briah (Prismatic Scale)	189	(1)
Yetzirah (Contingent Scale)	190	(1)
Assiah (Iconic Scale)	191	(1)
General observations on the Scales	192	(2)
Leading indications for their use	194	(2)
Movement within the Astral Light	196	(5)
The essence of ``Odic Force''	196	(1)
Astral lines of formation and destruction	197	(1)
``The most important single secret of Art Magick''	198	(2)
The aura, a potential reserve of personal power	200	(1)
Circulating energy, a unifying agent in ritual	201	(1)
The Tides	201	(12)
The magical art of working with them	203	(1)
The Seasonal Tides (Tempora)	203	(1)
The Lunar Tides (Aestus)	204	(1)
The Velocia	205	(2)
The Planetary Hours	207	(1)
Choosing and combining the Tides	208	(2)
Zodiacal signs of exaltation of the planets	210	(3)
The Western Mystery Tradition and magical progress	213	(6)
The vision of adepthood	217	(2)
Appendix A -- Concerning Certain Women	219	(8)
Appendix B -- The Dark Night of the Soul	227	(4)
Appendix C -- Path-Working	231	(12)
Appendix D -- Suffumigations	243	(14)
Appendix E -- The Sword in the Eighteenth Psalm	257	(8)
Book IV The Triumph of Light
(Part One)
Preface	265	(8)
The Lower Self
Reading in psychology recommended	273	(4)
Two frequent objections answered:
Traditional skepticism of psychiatrists	274	(1)
Loss of magical power feared	275	(1)
Modern acceptance of psychism	276	(1)
A robust dialog urged	277	(1)
The psyche defined, not limited	277	(7)
The subconscious or unconscious	277	(1)
``Higher'' and ``lower'' levels	278	(1)
The body-soul link: inherited memories?	278	(1)
Negative evidence	279	(1)
History of Paul, negative conclusion	279	(2)
History of Janice, positive conclusion	281	(3)
Instinct in inherited memory	284	(1)
The Nephesh, lower part of ``soul''	284	(4)
Its boundaries below and above	284	(1)
Its fluidity of response	285	(3)
The rational and logical Ruach	288	(13)
Some participation in action of Nephesh
In dreaming	289	(1)
In animals	289	(1)
Boundaries of the Ruach	290	(1)
Interaction of Ruach, Nephesh, and brain	291	(1)
History of Laura	291	(4)
The history analyzed	295	(2)
Ruach-Nephesh interplay evaluated	297	(4)
The Astral and Mental Bodies
Our four Worlds of life and action	301	(2)
The physical body
Effects in material world and in psyche	301	(1)
The Nephesh
The astrosome	301	(1)
The ``gross astral,'' ``etheric'' body	301	(1)
The Centers of Activity	302	(1)
The aura	302	(1)
Alpha and Beta force-fields	303	(1)
The protective argyraigis	303	(1)
The ``cord'' in projection	303	(1)
The Ruach
The noemasome or ``mental sheath''	303	(1)
Indistinct boundaries of functions of psyche	304	(1)
Responsibility belongs to the total person	304	(1)
Confused levels in undirected psychic experience
Prophecy mixed with interpretable dream-stuff	305	(1)
Henry W's background and his dream	305	(1)
Jungian interpretation of the dream	306	(1)
The dream's prophecy fulfilled	307	(2)
Prophecy and interpretation harmonized	309	(1)
Clairvoyance with intense physical sensation
Mrs. D's background and psychism	310	(2)
Impact upon her of attack on querent	312	(1)
Others' pain transmitted by querents	312	(1)
Transmitted experience of an explosion	313	(2)
Comparable experience of some healers	315	(1)
When low-level contact is deliberate	315	(5)
Curses and love-charms: mechanism	316	(2)
Avicenna's interpretation	318	(1)
The victim's freedom for defence	319	(1)
Medieval ban on belief in psychic power	320	(1)
Vasiliev's practical work on telepathy	320	(1)
Avicenna's findings and Vasiliev's combined	321	(2)
A thought from ``Hamlet''	322	(1)
Options involving the gross astral at death	323	(1)
(apart from full assimilation to higher faculties)
Various contingencies surveyed	324	(1)
Effects of desire to contact the living	324	(1)
Two experiences of innocent people:
The scholarly man's promise	325	(1)
The uneasy grave	326	(1)
Value of cremation	326	(1)
Cremation no bar to past life recall	327	(1)
Assured continuance on the Way of Return	328	(3)
The Higher Self
The Higher Self as a unity	331	(10)
Glorious destiny of the Ruach	331	(1)
Intellect inwardly illuminated	332	(1)
Some words of Michelangelo	332	(1)
Some further words of Keats	333	(1)
Plotinus on universe and psyche	333	(1)
``Higher soul'' (Ruach) alone self-determining	334	(1)
Romantic love, the cult of the ``Other''	335	(1)
The mirror of the Neshamah	335	(1)
``Courtly love'' a veritable religion	336	(1)
``The Other'' never truly won . . .	337	(1)
. . . and no love really lost	338	(3)
The divine archetype in Plato's ``Phaedrus''	341	(1)
Rejected ``veils of truth'' seen as destructive:
Euripides' Pentheus, Catullus' Attis	341	(1)
Nietzsche and the Briatic concept of deity	342	(1)
Through personal love to illumination	343	(8)
The commitment of Tiphareth	344	(1)
Omar Khayyam and the adept's quest	345	(1)
The angel and the wine of Atziluth	346	(5)
The Trine of Spirit
Development downward of high levels of psyche	351	(8)
The Yechida, changeless divine ``idea'' of person	351	(1)
The Chiah, the Animus	352	(1)
The Neshamah, the Anima	352	(1)
Triune light of the Neshamah	352	(1)
Images of the images in human love	353	(1)
Lower affinities of Animus and Anima in psyche	354	(1)
Nature and effect of ``complexes''	355	(1)
Typical character, the Prophet Jonah	356	(1)
Past life recall banishes super-ego	357	(1)
Broad ambits of normality	358	(1)
Psychic androgny, goal of occult training	359	(1)
The same as reward of general life experience	359	(1)
The Holy Guardian Angel:	360	(4)
A beam from the Yechidah	361	(2)
Represented as ``divine grace''	363	(1)
Avicenna's ``active and passive intellects''	364	(1)
Descent of the Angel into the Ruach	365	(6)
Ecstatic ``realization of selfhood''	365	(6)
Epilogue to Part I
The Composite Tree reviewed	371	(1)
A valuable selective formulation	371	(1)
The Neshamah of the Sword:
All ten Sephiroth in the human spirit	371	(1)
Completeness of each microcosmic ``World''	372	(1)
Areas of the psyche related to the Sephiroth	372	(3)
Functions linking Nephesh and Ruach	373	(1)
The Gate Sephiroth and the microcosmic Worlds	374	(1)
The six principal Centers of Activity	375	(3)
The Flemish ``Annunciation'' (frontispiece):
History of the symbolism	378	(1)
The pillar and the arch	378	(1)
The ``white work''	379	(1)
The lamp of the Quintessence	379	(1)
The Girdle of Isis	379	(1)
Mysteries of the Monogram	380	(1)
The Saturnian Virgin and Durer's ``Melancholia''	381	(1)
The three floor-patterns and the Star	381	(8)
(Part Two)
The Subrational Foundation
Development of modern psychology	389	(2)
Value of clinical studies	390	(1)
The magician's approach	391	(1)
Co-ordination of findings recommended	391	(1)
The aspirant's task, reclaiming the unconscious	392	(8)
The great power of attention
In work for others and for oneself	393	(1)
In the personal program	394	(1)
Maintained by the magical diary	395	(1)
Stirred by freshness of material and method	396	(1)
Confirmatory evidence from psychic testing	396	(4)
Bodily tiredness a separate factor	400	(1)
Evidence for separate functioning of mind and brain	400	(2)
Projection of consciousness under anesthesia	401	(1)
Mind's independence of malfunctioning brain	402	(2)
Observations of Dr. J.	402	(2)
Integration of personality in magical training	404	(1)
The instincts and their relationship to emotion	404	(6)
The instinct of flight	404	(1)
Jealousy: an emotion, not an instinct	405	(1)
Pugnacity and its relationship to anger	405	(1)
The sex instinct	405	(1)
sex and not-sex in men and women	406	(2)
The parental instinct	408	(1)
The creative instinct	409	(1)
First three human types imaged	410	(1)
Magick: a profound human impulse	410	(1)
Directing the program for spiritual progress	411	(4)
The Ego and Self Awareness
The often discredited ego	415	(1)
False spirituality of ``selflessness''	415	(1)
True spirituality and the ego's enlightenment	415	(1)
Medieval fable of Valentine and Orson	416	(3)
Allegorical interpretation	418	(1)
Alignment with psychosophical reality	418	(1)
Flexibility of the magical program	419	(1)
Inward integration and outward expansiveness	420	(3)
The large magical view of life	421	(2)
The Adept's universe	423	(6)
What philosophy dreams and magick accomplishes	426	(3)
Lower and Higher Unconscious and the True Will
Every person is unique	429	(1)
No temperament is essentially superior	429	(1)
A positive role for idiosyncrasies	430	(1)
Living in touch with the higher faculties	430	(2)
Ongoing development, vanishing crises	430	(1)
Maturity of attitude the key	430	(1)
The legal psychiatrist's own case	431	(1)
Interior scene: the God, the Vault, or the Pit	432	(4)
The Abyss in Western consciousness	434	(2)
Discarnate entities, a problem in therapy	436	(6)
Autonomous complex and a complication	437	(1)
Experience of Carl Jung	438	(1)
Safeguards for the magical student	438	(1)
Avoidance of bias essential	438	(1)
Adherence to pre-arranged program advised	438	(1)
The magical diary again valuable	438	(1)
True Will not endangered by maintaining balance	439	(1)
Higher distinguished from Lower Unconscious	439	(1)
Over prudence not however commended	440	(2)
Adept and Angel	442	(1)
The Ruach's need of intuition	443	(1)
Gift of the Intuitive Mind, to be one's true self	443	(1)
The Philosopher's Stone	443	(1)
The Adept, channel for divine force	444	(1)
The Key and the Lock	444	(3)
Full correspondence of Cosmos and Microcosmos	444	(3)
The True Will fulfilled	447	(1)
Postscript	448	(5)
Appendix A -- The Lament of Attis	453	(4)
Appendix B -- Histories
An Experiment in Sorcery	457	(15)
Crambo the Dwarf	472	(16)
The Finnish Knife	488	(7)
Fee Fi Fo Fum	495