Magical States of Consciousness: Pathworking on the Tree of Life - Melita Denning 1985

Glossary

ADEPT: One who “has attained”: who has passed the Gate of Tiphareth and has entered upon, or achieved, the quest of the Holy Guardian Angel. See Intuitive Mind later, also see “The Magical Philosophy” Book IV, Part 1, Chapters 3, 4, 5 in particular.

AMBIVALENT: Having two sharply contrasted values, simultaneously or in alternation. Especially used of a person’s emotional attitude to another person, a situation etc., as love-hate, desire-fear, attraction-repulsion.

ANDROGYNE: Having the characteristics of both male and female. The symbolic figure of the androgyne has no reference to physical hermaphroditism. In ancient times such figures were sometimes used to represent the shared experience, ranging from sensory to spiritual, of sexual partners: the Bearded Aphrodite of Amathus is an example. In later times the Androgyne has represented the bipolarity of the individual psyche, chiefly of the psyche in the adept state, integrated and regenerated. To emphasize the non-physical meaning, such figures are usually sharply divided in their characteristics, either up and down from the waist, or left and right from the vertical midline.

ANIMA: The supreme female principle as present to the unconscious levels of the psyche: not directly accessible to the conscious mind, and not part of the personality. The archetype of the Supernal Mother, relating to the Neshamah in the Qabalistic plan of the psyche and corresponding to the Sephirah Binah.

ANIMUS: The supreme male principle as present to the unconscious levels of the psyche: not directly accessible to the conscious mind, and not part of the personality. The archetype of the Supernal Father, relating to the Chiah in the Qabalistic plan of the psyche and corresponding to the Sephirah Chokmah.

ARCANUM (plural, ARCANA): Literally, “mystery.” Each card of the Tarot is customarily referred to as an arcanum, a symbolic image needing interpretation. See Tarot later.

ARCHETYPAL IMAGE: The form in which an archetype is clothed by a particular culture, mythology, religion or individual.

ARCHETYPE: A universal and, in itself, imageless concept: in the philosophies of Philo of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo, these are discerned as subsisting within the Divine Mind: in the psychology of C.G. Jung they are discerned as present to the Collective Unconscious of humanity. These philosophic and psychological insights do not exclude each other, but can be taken as mutually comple-mentary.

ASCETIC: Pertaining to the “Way of Purgation,” the first stage of willed spiritual evolution: austere, abstemious, self-disciplined. In the Ogdoadic system, this stage of development is represented by the House of Sacrifice.

ASSIAH: The World of material existence, which comprises, objectively, the whole of the physical universe. In the Composite Tree, the World of Assiah is represented solely by the Sephirah Malkuth, that is, by the planet Earth in its material manifestation.

ASSIMILATION: Absorption of an idea or entity, with its transformation to the mode of being of that which absorbs it. The unconscious mind can assimilate a new experience or concept by playing with it until it is familiar enough to be accepted: after acceptance it can be adapted, analyzed, transformed as the case may be. Another mode of assimilation is that performed in an advanced technique of “exorcism” which is also called Sublimation: the priest-magician voluntarily absorbs a noxious entity wholly into his/her own being, for the purpose of holding its components in the Light of the Higher Self so as to restore them to balance and harmony.

ASTRAL: Relating or belonging to the level of being which is “beyond,” and causal to, the material world but is denser than the mental level: the “Astral Plane” is equivalent to the Qabalistic World of Yetzirah.

ATTENTION: The concentration of the conscious mind upon a single internal or external phenomenon. (So-called “divided attention” is an alternation or rotation of attention, no matter how rapidly, over two or more objects.) Attention narrows the focus of the faculties of body and psyche upon its object, magnifying and exploring the characteristics of that object to the apparent exclusion of all else. This can easily lead into an altered state of consciousness.

ATZILUTH: The highest of the Four Worlds of the Qabalah: the World of Divinity and, in the Composite Tree of Life, of the Supernal Sephiroth. In the human psyche, this is the world of the Yechidah, Chiah and Neshamah.

BATTERY: In magical practice, a series of percussive sounds (produced for instance with knuckles, gavel, bell or gong) whose number, rhythm and perhaps mode of production may be varied to accord with the significance of a rite. Batteries may renew the attention of participants, divide a ritual into its component sections, or emphasize salient moments in the working.

BRIAH: The Qabalistic World next below Atziluth: Briah is the World of Mind, the world of the Ruach, and essentially the world of the adept. It is also the world of the archetypal images, including those which are special vehicles of divine power and which we call “the Gods.” In the composite Tree, Briah is represented by the Sephiroth Tiphareth, Geburah and Chesed.

CENTERS OF ACTIVITY: The Wheels (Chakras), Knots, or Lotuses of Eastern systems. These Centers are points in the astral body which correspond to neural or glandular centers in the physical body, but which may be said to take their origin from the non-material counterpart of the spinal column. Important practices for the benefit of the whole person depend upon the correct activation of these Centers, usually involving only a small number—up to seven—of the principal ones.

CHIAH: That function of the Higher Self which relates to the Animus of Jungian psychology and which, on the Tree of Life, corresponds to Chokmah, the Sphere of the Supernal Father.

COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS: The repository of the totality of human experience, including the archetypes: evidence suggests that beyond the levels of human experience the collective unconscious extends into the experience of all life, and perhaps into the total being of the universe. In any case, however, the experience of the Collective Unconscious lies at greater depth than any part of the individual personality, even than the personal unconscious.

COMPOSITE TREE: A special formulation of the Tree of Life which is employed solely to indicate the Way of Return, but which can be traced back by inference through the writings of many centuries. In this formulation, Malkuth is experienced in the world of Assiah; Yesod, Hod and Netzach in the World of Yetzirah; Tiphareth, Geburah and Chesed in the World of Briah; and the Supernal Sephiroth in the World of Atziluth. See Chapter 2 of this book with its diagram of the Composite Tree.

COSMIC: The adjective formed from COSMOS, “Universe.” In this book, the term “cosmic” is sometimes used where older works would have used “macrocosmic”: that is to say, relating to the outer universe in all its material and non-material levels of being, in contrast to “microcosmic,” the adjective formed from microcosm (which see.) Cosmic and microcosmic seems a sufficient distinction.

DESTINATION, Sphere of: The Sephirah to which a specified Path leads.

ELEMENTAL: A non-corporeal, living, and sentient being, native to the World of Yetzirah. Of the various Yetziratic entities, it is generally accepted that those which are termed “angels” and “intelligences” belong to the higher reaches of the astral world, nearer to the mental level, while those which are termed “spirits” and “elementals” belong to the lower reaches, nearer to materiality.

FANTASY: A “waking dream” which may be involuntary or which may be planned and guided, and which can also be aided with suitable accessories.

HIGHER SELF: That part of the psyche which comprises the “Trine of Spirit”: the Yechidah, Chiah and Neshamah together, abiding (according to Qabalistic doctrine) incorruptible in the World of Atziluth.

HOUSE OF SACRIFICE: A formulation of the Fivefold Pattern found in Byzantine and subsequent Western art and literature, as well as elsewhere in the Near and Middle East. The Qabalistic “pattern of the psyche” is employed in different contexts to represent the human condition, the life of the ascetic, and the pattern of various sacrificial or sacramental acts. It is found in the Ogdoadic tradition—including some most effective uses in the Aurum Solis—as a very potent formula for magical ceremonial, and above all, since it is an elaboration of the pattern of the psyche itself, as a formula for initiation.

INITIATION: In some contexts, the beginning of anything: but especially the introduction of a person into a new phase of spiritual evolution, by means of a carefully controlled experience given in the form of a ritual or a guided meditation.

INTUITION: The direct apprehension of reality without need to “abstract” the knowledge from words, sense-perceptions or rational or imaginative processes. Properly, this direct knowing can only be performed by the Ruach of the adept when it works in conjunction with the Intuitive Mind. However, in some situations the Neshamah can operate through the Nephesh, which at once clothes the supernal communication with its own imagery: hence “intuitive” knowledge (in the popular sense of the word) can be sound in essentials but yet embroidered with dream-like detail.

INTUITIVE MIND: A “ray” from the Higher Self, the supernal region of the psyche, which descends by way of the Neshamah into the Ruach. The adept, who is progressing in realization of the World of Briah, can thus proportionately enjoy the supernal perceptions of the Intuitive Mind in combination with the Ruach consciousness, to lead him/her to ever greater heights of spiritual insight and growth.

LABYRINTH: Literally “the House of the Axe”: a temple or other structure sacred to the axe-wielding Goddess of Crete, and having an intricate arrangement of passages. Perhaps a sophisticated form of the ancient dancing-maze, in which the dancers must perforce proceed to the center and out again: the related ideas, of dedication to the Mother and of rebirth, for the most part remain with these widely-distributed structures whether independently established or derived from the Cretan Labyrinth.

LAMEN: A “lamina”: a thin plate of metal, wood or other suitable material. The word “lamen” is specifically used for a small tablet of any shape, inscribed with significant words and/or symbols, to be worn upon the breast, usually suspended about the neck: a breastplate, pentacle, or talisman of this type.

LOWER SELF: That part of a person which comprises the physical body and all the instinctual and emotional functions of the psyche, producing even the most elevated emotions; it includes also the rational mind. The term “lower” is not at all derogatory, and the Lower Self takes its natural and harmonious place in a personality which is governed by the Higher Self.

MAGICK: The control of non-material forces to produce specific and intended effects. To align this definition with present-day understanding of the matter, it is probably necessary to add that the non-material force is to be external to the psyche of the magician: for example, to cause an object to be moved by an elemental whom one has summoned for the purpose would be a magical act, but to move the same object by psycho-kinesis would by many people not be considered magical.

MANDALA: A concentric design of metaphysical significance: in its primary sense always circular (hence the name, meaning “circle” in Sanskrit), a mandala does not have that limitation in Jungian psychology, in which it can represent any state of consciousness. On basic magical principles, a mandala which is designed with understanding to represent a given state of consciousness can also be employed to produce that same state.

MEGALITH: A massive stone: particularly a massive stone of the kind used in the construction of ancient monuments. Adjective, MEGALITHIC.

METAPHYSICAL: Beyond the physical. This word was coined by Aristotle, and its usefulness has been increasingly appreciated since his day: it gives us an adjective, and the name of a subject of study (METAPHYSICS) relating to the non-material, without implying any specific cause or nature—divine, demonic, human or other—for the phenomena under consideration.

MICROCOSM: The individual person considered as a “miniature universe.” This reflection accords particularly well with Qabalistic thought, for in the individual human being we recognize the Ten Sephiroth and the Four Worlds: and the Tree of Life can equally be understood to show the pattern of balancing forces at the exterior, cosmic level, or at the interior, microcosmic level.

MYSTICISM: Strictly, Mysticism is the understanding that another faculty above reason (see Intuitive Mind) is needed to guide human nature into union with the Divine; and Mysticism also includes the teachings which follow from that understanding.

The recognition that union with the Divine is the rightful comple-tion of human nature ceases to present a paradox in this context, when the existence and divine nature of the individual’s own Higher Self is recognized.

The adjective MYSTICAL is frequently used in a general sense to denote anything which transcends reason.

NEPHESH: That part of the psyche which comprises the whole emotional and instinctual nature, all that is sub-rational, both conscious and unconscious. The Nephesh is “native” to the World of Yetzirah: together with the physical body and the Ruach, it comprises the Lower Self.

NESHAMAH: One of the supernal functions of the psyche: that function of the Higher Self which relates to the Anima of Jungian psychology and which, on the Tree of Life, corresponds to Binah, the sphere of the Supernal Mother.

OGDOADIC: That school of the Western Mystery Tradition to which the Order Aurum Solis belongs, the Order upon whose teachings the contents of the present work are based. For further notes on the Ogdoadic school, see the introduction to this book.

PATH of the Tree of Life: On a diagram of the Tree, the 22 Paths are usually shown by parallel lines leading from one Sephirah to another. Progress upon any Path is marked by continuous changes in experience or in inner response: the Paths of the Tree of Life are no exception.

PATHWORKING: is a traditional form of guided meditation, planned to convey the hearer through the essential experiences of each of the Paths, and through the succession of Paths in their correct order.

PENTAGRAM: A five-pointed star. This symbol has various interpretations, the chief of which are: (1) The forces of the “five elements,” Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit; (2) Human nature in equilibrium, as typified by the five senses; (3) the power of the Sphere of Mars (Geburah, the Fifth Sephirah).

PERSONALITY: In psychology, all that belongs to the individuality or identity of a specific person: the physical body, the Nephesh, the Ruach, with much of the influence imparted by the Higher Self when contact has been made with this: but not the Intuitive Mind itself, nor the Collective Unconscious, nor the Archetypes. The personal unconscious, (see Unconscious) even though the individual to whom it pertains may be oblivious to it, is, strictly, a part of the personality, and its contents belong thereto.

PICTOGRAPHIC: Pertaining to the “picture-writing.” The drawing of various objects to convey an idea or a message is an ancient and primitive form of “writing.” In the first stage of development of this art, the potential meaning of the writing was limited to what could be directly depicted; subsequently pictography could take different lines of development. Abstract meanings could be conveyed by associated images, as for instance in Chinese where the combination “bird-eye-hand” represented a word for “fear”: or alternatively a sign could begin to be used to represent, wholly or in part, a word of related sound although probably unrelated meaning. This latter tendency, exemplified in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, is the beginning of alphabetic sign-making proper.

In some alphabets, the letters function also as numerals. Thus in the Hebrew alphabet, the fourth letter (Daleth) represents both the sound D and the numeral 4; but pictographically, it represents a door. The twenty-first letter (Shin) represents the sound Sh (or in some circumstances S) and the numerical value 300: pictographically, it represents a tooth.

PLANETARY SPHERE: A Sphere, or Sephirah, whose character is typified by one of the “seven planets” of traditional astrology: that is, Binah (Saturn), Chesed (Jupiter), Geburah (Mars), Tiphareth (Sun), Netzach (Venus), Hod (Mercury), and Yesod (Moon). This does not imply that the character of the Sephirah coincides at every point with that of the planetary influence as the latter would be described in a book on astrology: the attributes of the Sephiroth are seen in cosmic terms, the astrological interpretations necessarily in microcosmic terms.

PSYCHE: The non-material part of a psycho-physical being. It is recognized that the powers and perceptions of the psyche extend considerably beyond the domain of the personality: but how far, it is impossible to say.

QABALAH: A venerable Wisdom Tradition which was formulated chiefly in Mediterranean regions: Hebrew and Greek are its principal languages. It is generally considered under two main heads: the traditional, or “theoretical” Qabalah, and the modern, or “Practical”: but there is much common ground, and much exchange, between these two focal points of Qabalistic study.

RESOLUTION: (1) a firm and decisive act of the will, or habit of the mind; (2) the bringing of something to a satisfactory conclusion which accords wholly with its own nature. The present book contains two distinct examples of the latter meaning: (a) in the conclusions of the 26th and 24th Paths after the working of the 25th; and (b) in the “resolution working” to confirm the sephirothic powers of the sphere of destination after a selected Pathworking has been performed with magical intent.

RUACH: That part of the psyche which comprises the rational mind and the intellectual faculties, and which is “native” to the World of Briah. It is only after initiation into the Sphere of Tiphareth (whether ritually, by meditation, or by experience of life) that the rational mind progressively grows, or awakens, to its full Ruach consciousness. See “The Magical Philosophy” Book IV, Part I, Chapters 3, 4, 5.

SAURIAN: A crocodile, or an animal or entity of the general nature of the crocodile. In Egypt and other lands where saurians are found, ancient traditions have regarded them alternately as divine or demonic beings. Not only the objective qualities of crocodiles elicit awe or at least propitiation: their habit of arising from obscure waters to seize and devour their prey makes an image of the human fear that the rational consciousness may be swallowed up by the Unconscious. They are thus aptly associated with the dark side of the Saturnian powers.

SEPHIRAH: (plural, SEPHIROTH) One of the ten “Voices from Nothing”: aspects of being, experienced by the human explorer as states of consciousness. The Sephiroth are represented as ten spheres or circles upon the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Their names, with literal meanings, follow: Kether (Crown), Chokmah (Wisdom), Binah (Understanding), Chesed (Mercy), Geburah (Strength), Tiphareth (Beauty), Netzach (Victory), Hod (Splendor), Yesod (Foundation), Malkuth (Kingdom).

SHADOW: In Jungian psychology, a figure, usually human, of the same sex as the dreamer, seen in dream as another person: in reality representing some quality, good or bad, which the dreamer does not acknowledge himself/herself to possess, but which is truly part of the personality. A “shadow” is thus an “other self” of the dreamer, and its function in the dream may be helpful or the reverse.

SOUL SCULPTURE: Work done on one’s own psyche, by whatever means, to strengthen traits of character which one desires, or to diminish those one finds undesirable. In some cases, advice as to the direction of development is advantageous: both astrology and graphology can be of great value here. For the “sculpture” itself, meditation, autosuggestion, autohypnosis can be used: a very potent and effective method is by the “Formula of the Simulacrum” which gives the operator an assured method of direct communication with his/her emotional and instinctual nature. (See The Llewellyn Practical Guide to Astral Projection, Chapter 5.)

SUPERNAL: Literally, “higher” or “from above.” With reference to the Tree of Life, the three Supemals are the Sephiroth Kether, Chokmah and Binah. In the present work, which treats of spiritual evolution in terms of the Composite Tree, the Supernals comprise that part of the Tree which is to be attained in the World of Atziluth: but it must be borne in mind that this formulation applies only to the plan of human progress. From a cosmic viewpoint, the Tree of Life exists, whole and entire, in each of the Four Worlds according to the manner and mode of each World: thus the Supernal Sephiroth, with the rest of the Tree, are present in the material, the astral and mental levels of being as well as in the divine or spiritual.

TAROT: The traditional divinatory and magical deck of 78 cards, made up of 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. Its evolution appears to have been not only contemporary with the medieval and modern development of the Tree of Life, but to have taken place in the same regions. The 22 Major Arcana are very closely related to the 22 Paths, and can fruitfully be used in interpreting the Paths although the cards have manifestly developed independently of the Tree in some respects.

TESSERA, The Mystica:l “The primal magical implement of Aurum Solis working.” For a description of the Tessera, see Chapter 5 of the present book, Section I, item 4. The Rite for its consecration is given as Paper XXII in Book V of The Magical Philosophy.

TRANSMUTATION: The change of one material to another, as in alchemy, so as to manifest all the essential qualities of the new material. Albert the Great (1206?—1280) states that iron produced by transmutation is incapable of magnetism: the implication is that in other respects (specific gravity, color, malleability, degree of hardness, tendency to rust, etc.) the alchemical iron would pass scrutiny.

TREE OF LIFE: A glyph which is basic to the Qabalah. It comprises ten circles arranged in a traditional diagrammatic pattern, representing ten aspects of being, the Sephiroth, which are discerned as existing both in the human psyche and in the universe at large. These ten circles are united by twenty-two Paths whose placement, with the priorities shown by their crossings, are likewise traditionally fixed. See diagram, Chapter 1 of this book.

UNCONSCIOUS: Those great areas of the psyche which are not within the knowledge, and so not within the direct control, of the conscious and rational mind. This term is used to comprise (a) the Higher Unconscious, the Higher Self; the “Supermind”; (b) the Lower Unconscious, the Deep Mind, the unconscious region of the emotional and instinctual nature; (c) the Personal Unconscious, an individual’s deposit of forgotten and, often, repressed material, therefore to that extent an abnormal development in the psyche; (d) the Collective Unconscious (see above.)

UNIVERSE Essentially synonymous with Cosmos which means “the All.” It may be noted however that both these words are generally used to mean the totality of only the material level of being. In the present book we use these words to mean literally the totality of all that is, at all levels of being: to put it in Qabalistic terms, in the Four Worlds.

VISUALIZATION The act, or the art, of forming a mental image at will. Apart from Creative Visualization, which is a special method for planning one’s future and obtaining the fulfillment of one’s wishes, simple visualization is much used in magical and meditative practice. The seeming “externalization” of a visualized image is natural to some people, and can be acquired by others through practice: but, for those to whom, as a consequence of their innate temperament, the image remains wholly “in the mind’s eye,” visualization is no less valid and valuable in giving a focal point for the attention, and thus for magical purposes generally.

WAY OF RETURN: The course of the individual’s spiritual evolution, perceived as a “return to Source” after the long road of involution into matter. In modern Qabalistic thought there are two regular courses for the ascent, which is conceived of as upon the Composite Tree: the Way of the Arrow, which is the way of the mystic, straight up the central column of the Tree of Life by the 32nd, 25th, and 14th Paths; and the Way of the Serpent, which takes in every Path of the Tree up to the 1st in due order. (It is interesting that St. John of the Cross, writing in Spain in the 16th century, describes a spiritual ascent of ten steps, corresponding directly to the Sephiroth.) This present book follows the Way of the Serpent from the 32nd Path, through the Paths which enter Tiphareth.

WESTERN MYSTERY TRADITION: The esoteric understanding of life, and the practices deriving therefrom, which has accumulated and, in various formulations, has developed, in and with Western culture. The appellation does not represent any denial of the considerable exchange of concepts, in-spirations and techniques which has taken place between East and West in all ages.

WORLDS, the Four: See Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah, Atziluth. A correspondence is perceived in Qabalistic thought between these four levels of being (and of consciousness) and the four Elements: material existence corresponding to Earth; the ambient, receptive astral world to Air; the world of mind, penetrating and fluidic, to Water; and the world—of divine spirit to Fire.

YECHIDAH: The supreme supernal function of the psyche, the Divine Flame within. Itself remaining a part of the Divine Mind, the Yechidah is the “nucleus” or “bud” from which our individual being develops. On the Tree of Life, the Yechidah corresponds to the Sephirah Kether.

YETZIRAH: That one of the four Qabalistic Worlds which represents the level of existence between Assiah and, Briah: the “astral plane.” In the Composite Tree it comprises the Sephiroth Yesod, Hod, and Netzach.