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

The Paths and Initiatory Progress

In the foregoing chapter an observation is made which, while it can pre-eminently be demonstrated and applied through the Qabalah, also forms the basis of other systems of initiation, spiritual development and magical practice in both East and West. This observation is that the inner plan of the human individual—body and psyche—and the pattern of the universe as humanly conceived (or of some essential spiritual pattern in the universe) are in nature and essence the same. From this perception it is but a natural magical step to conceive a procedure to reunite the cosmic and microcosmic patterns so as to perfect, renew or activate the one by means of the other.

In some instances this operation may be visualized as performed within the person: but this inward operation is intended, step by step or at the last, to reverberate with a cosmic spiritual counterpart with whose force the energies of the operator are thus united. This is the method of some forms of yoga, for example, including Kundalini Yoga.

In other instances the practitioner dramatizes, narrates, visualizes—or any combination of these—a progressive series of happenings. These events, which may involve deific or heroic characters, are considered initially as taking place in some remote era, locality or level of being. The practitioner, with any other participants, is carried along by the narrative and, when the outcome is reached, will receive its archetypal force for whatever purpose the operation is performed. This force can be transferred to another person (as in a rite of healing) or even to a material object (as in charging a talisman). It is also one of the great methods of effecting an initiation.

Coming to Qabalistic usage specifically, the Tree of Life, which is a compendium of plans of the major and minor workings of the psyche, offers a range of initiatory patterns both major and minor. The major patterns have been utilized at different times by different Orders—mystical, philosophic, occult, of some specific religious affiliation or of none—and changes have undoubtedly occured in the practical application of these patterns, for both the human requirements and the interpretations of the Tree have varied.

It is to the Tree as it exists within each individual—that is, to the “microcosmic Tree”—that the initiatory patterns are particularly related, since it is upwards through the levels of the candidate’s own nature that initiation must lead. For initiation is always the revelation, the making accessible, of something which is already an integral part of the candidate’s spiritual heritage: it is never the creation of anything new.

This initiatory process moves “upwards” in two senses. It is not only a progress “upwards” through the Sephiroth from Malkuth towards Kether, as could be indicated upon any diagram of the Tree. It is at the same time a progess of consciousness up through the Four Worlds: and it is here that the concept of the “Composite Tree” has to be introduced. The Composite Tree has been known and recognized in Qabalistic thought and writing for many centuries, and progress through it is organized upon a definite plan.

At the lowest level of this plan, the Sphere of Earth is considered as this planet upon which we live, in its material aspect only, with the various animal, plant and mineral bodies which are portions of it: our own physical bodies included. In Qabalistic terminology, this is the Sephirah Malkuth in the World of Assiah.

The Composite Tree

Our consciousness ascends from this level (to which in practice it is never naturally confined) to the Sephirah Yesod: and at the same time it passes through the gate of that Sephirah into the World of Yetzirah, which comprises the whole wide range of the astral, including its lower level which is sometimes termed the “etheric” world. In terms of our own nature, the World of Yetzirah includes everything from those sensory perceptions which enmesh with their physical causes and effects, through the instincts and emotions up to and including our highest emotional feelings no matter what their spiritual or esthetic causation.

Having entered the World of Yetzirah through the Gate of Yesod, you can move (and this book gives you the means to move by the tried and traditional “Paths”) into the two other “States of Consciousness” which are comprised in the astral world. There is no need to remain in a state of dream-consciousness, of illusion and fantasy, or to be governed entirely by your sensations, instincts and impulses: you can “travel” to the Sephirah Hod, which is the sphere, or mode of consciousness, represented by the planet Mercury: that is to say, the Sphere of knowledge, and pre-eminently the Sphere of scientific, mathematical and magical knowledge, of the acquisition and employment of such knowledge. And you can “travel” to the Sephirah Netzach, which is the “sphere” or mode of consciousness of the life forces, the powers of nature.

In the plan of Pathworking, when you have overcome the fears, frustrations and nostalgias of the 32nd Path so as to give your emotional-instinctual nature the freedom of the Sephirah Yesod, you are qualified next to achieve Hod, the Sphere of science and magick: first from Malkuth, the Earth Sphere, by the 31st Path which confronts us with the hard concept that if life is regarded as the materium of an objectively-realized “trial by fire”, then we ourselves are in the crucible along with the rest. Then, reaching the same destination from the dream-region of Yesod, you attain it by methods (still familiar to the present-day scientist) of analogy, symbol and hypothesis in soaring flights of the mind which often avail more than a thousand earthling collations of data.

Similarly, when you travel to the Nature Sphere of Netzach: even though all your journeying is still in the astral world, you will go first from the Sphere of Earth by the 29th Path, through miry ways and as it were under the light of the waning moon. You will thus gain the vision and the gladness of the unity of all life, but this has been a fact from the beginning and it may not, in itself, suggest a motive for further action: the “materialist” approach from the Earth Sphere does not prompt creativity. Then, however, you will take the 28th Path, again to Netzach but from Yesod, and to the experience you have will be added the airy breath of romance and of inspiration to give wings of initiative to your vision.

Another “initiation”—another revelation to you of the powers within you—is to be made at this purely astral level of your being, and that is the journey from Hod to Netzach by the 27th Path. Why is this Path so explosive? There are various considerations involved, all valid at different levels of being; but the one which seems most appropriate to indicate here is the radically different attitude of mind encountered betweeen these two Sephiroth. Even when a person does not deliberately take refuge in knowledge as a defense against reality, it is a fact that knowledge can deaden the psyche to the impact of truth. Any false refuges in mere knowledge have to be broken down completely if we are to experience the forces of life in their fullness.

This, it should be noted, is a simple statement of fact. Nowhere in these Paths below Tiphareth—not even in the Paths which lead directly into that Sephirah—is there, strictly, any question of “moral obligation.” The Paths, and the philosophies concerned with them, below Tiphareth are entirely occupied with the observation and experience of natural cause and effect. Nor is there a question of any one of the modes of consciousness which are associated with the Sephiroth being “better” than another. The astral awareness into which we enter in Yesod is developed into a mode of knowing and doing in Hod, and into a mode of feeling and being in Netzach (to state the matter in very general terms). The undifferentiated astral perception, the “dream mind” of Yesod, is adaptable to some purposes which are particular to that Sephirah, purposes for which the modes of consciousness of Hod or of Netzach would not take its place: but the modes of consciousness of all three of these Sephiroth, which in the composite Tree belong to the World of Yetzirah, are essential to our functioning in the fullness of our nature. Their assimilation is thus necessary before we can progress further.

It is not proposed here to comment on the 26th, 25th, and 24th Paths: what needs to be said beforehand of them will be given in the next chapter. Here remains to be stated that with entrance to Tiphareth a complete change takes place, not merely in the mode of consciousness as with any Sephirah, but also in the level of consciousness. For Tiphareth is the Gate of the World of Briah. From the astral world, the World of Yetzirah—the world of imagination, of the use of sensory data and of deductive reasoning—the initiate now crosses the threshold of the great World of Briah: the world of “Mind” in its truest sense.

The rational mind, the Ruach, properly belongs to the World of Briah. However, in its “uninitiated” state—that is, before the consciousness has passed through the Gate of Tiphareth—the rational mind can function only as the organizer of Yetziratic materials since these alone are accessible to it. These materials include personal experience, which comprises sense data and an awareness of our impulses and emotions: also what we learn from others whether we classify that learning as scientific, historical, magical, metaphysical or any other. Upon all these materials—personal experience and acquired knowledge—the rational mind can work with great elaboration and subtlety: but it cannot, without the true Briatic consciousness, go beyond those limits.

In Briah the Ruach becomes accustomed to another kind of activity: not only reasoning about a matter, but having direct intuitive contact with that matter in its reality. This is through the working of the Intuitive Mind, of which the rational mind is the destined vehicle. It is this contact which brings the Ruach to its rightful development and which also brings the whole personality into the proportions of its true nature: human nature in its plenitude, no matter how far above the norms of human nature as generally conceived of.

Naturally, this immense development is not realized in its entirety as soon as the initiate enters the Gate of Tiphareth. While none can say that it could not, in ideal conditions, become manifest in a flash, there are other Sephiroth—Geburah and Chesed—to be entered in completing the experience of the Briatic World, and—as in all spiritual matters—the tasks to be accomplished grow immensely with the powers received for their achievement. But, it remains true that with the first simple experience of Tiphareth, that change is effected without which the rest would remain impossible: that entire certainty in looking within for Light which is a prime distinguishing characteristic of the adept. Even this change itself may take time to work through to the surface of consciousness and of daily life: but work through it will, like a growing seed or like the action of yeast in rising dough.

Here the psyche receives its first intimations of “divine intoxication”: of the ability, and the need, to let go of the sense-data and acquired knowledge which have hitherto been its nourishment, so as to receive intimations from the Intuitive Mind whose source, as yet hidden, is higher still in the world of Atziluth.

The term “intoxication” should not mislead. Inadequate though it is, it has been used repeatedly in a number of languages through the centuries of the Western tradition, to express something which cannot otherwise be so succinctly named. As in earthly intoxication the outward appearance of things loses reality and importance, so in this intoxication the fascinations and fantasies of the imagination lose their hold over the will. Just as in earthly intoxication a person’s words may fail through the non-functioning of the physical organs of speech, so here too a person may be from time to time inarticulate because of the failure of language, since only symbol and metaphor are available to express perceived truth. Indeed, these difficulties will be overcome and will pass until the initiate meets with them anew at a higher level: yet still in Briah there are perceptions, increasingly, of a reality which is more alluring than fantasy, of an inner illumination which is clearer and lovelier than any outward light, and of an unutterable sweetness at the center of being itself.

On the plan of the composite Tree there are two Spheres to be entered at the Briatic level: Geburah, which may be characterized as the Sephirah of Justice, and Chesed, which may be characterized as the Sephirah of Mercy. At the Yetziratic level some antithesis or opposition between justice and mercy is almost implicit in the very words, but in Briah the perfect balance and harmony between Geburah and Chesed is manifest. Each represents a State of Consciousness entirely distinct in nature from the other, yet the existence of each is complementary to the other. Justice in its perfection presupposes the existence of mercy: mercy in its perfection requires the existence of justice.

The Paths which, in this plan of the Composite Tree, are worked within the World of Briah, are the 23rd, 22nd, 21st, 20th, and 19th. They are governed by images of great brightness, beauty and evocative force: reflections of divine attributes humanly perceived.

Atziluth, the World of the divine, is represented on the Composite Tree by the three Supernal Sephiroth Binah, Chokmah, and Kether and the related Paths. Human ability to enter that World is sometimes contested, but is recognized in mystical theology and in Qabalistic thought, for the highest and inmost part of our nature is native to that World. The attainment of it is, however, supremely guarded by peril and obstacle. To enter the World of Yetzirah, the inertia of materiality must be overcome; to enter the World of Briah, the Gate of Tiphareth must be passed. To enter Atziluth, one must “cross the Abyss,” a venture not easily to be undertaken even when the Paths and Sephiroth of Briah have been achieved.

Beyond the Abyss, attainment for its own sake is meaningless. The supernal Paths are traversed because the psyche yearns to realize the purpose of its being: if it is delayed therein, it is only because of the works, both outer and inner, which remain to be done for a more complete fulfillment of the Divine Plan.

This account of the composite Tree has gone far, although only in briefest outline, beyond the scope of the present book. It has in equal measure gone beyond the power of any human being to initiate another, properly speaking: for beyond Tiphareth the growing awareness of the Intuitive Mind can alone bring the adept into the realization of each stage of his or her further progress. Nevertheless an Order can, by conferring one of the higher grades, make acknowledgment of progress inwardly attained.

The purpose of this sketch is to show that the Paths of the Tree of Life, when understood in their relationship to the Four Worlds, or levels of consciousness, upon the Composite Tree, do indeed provide an effective system of inward initiation. Progress upwards in this manner likewise provides at each stage for the integration of those components in the psyche which have been brought into consciousness, so that all is kept in balance and develops in its rightful proportions. Thus (to bring in another Qabalistic concept) do we tread the coils of the Serpent Way of Return.

In the life of a magical Order, the Pathworkings are arranged so as to align with the course of ceremonial initiations and to assist their effectiveness. The manner of this alignment of programs can be easily perceived with regard to the ten-grade system used by various Orders of Rosicrucian and Golden Dawn origin. It applies equally to the three-grade system of Aurum Solis, for in this system each grade corresponds specifically to one of the Gate Sephiroth. The first grade, “the sowing of the seed,” relates to the awakening of the candidate’s inner faculties as an individual, in the World of Assiah; the second grade relates to the aspiring magician’s entrance into the corporate life of the Order, in the World of Yetzirah, and the third grade is the Gate of Briah and of adepthood.

The Paths themselves, however, belong to everyone including the independent beginner in Qabalah and the adept. They have not been invented, but discovered. The symbolism of the Paths up to Tiphareth is indicted in this book, but you will discover in your own Pathworking experience the realities underlying that symbolism. The texts in this book, and the Pathworking texts of any other Order, have been compiled, not to give meaning to the Paths but to bring their meanings into intelligible form.

That, as we have indicated, is why and how the Paths are initiatory. They do not have to be grafted into your soul or graven upon a blank-washed brain. Their beauty, life, and wonder is part of the beauty, life, and wonder of your own existence. Pathworking helps you awaken to your own self, explore the mystery of your own self.

That awakening, that exploration, is Initiation.