The Mystical Qabalah - Dion Fortune 2000

Geburah, The Fifth Sephirah

TITLE: Geburah, Strength, Severity. (Hebrew—Gimel, Beth, Vau, Resh, Heh.)

MAGICAL IMAGE: A mighty warrior in his chariot.

SITUATION ON THE TREE: In the centre of the Pillar of Severity.

Yetziratic Text: The Fifth Path is called the Radical Intelligence because it resembles Unity, uniting itself to Binah, Understanding, which emanates from the primordial depths of Chokmah, Wisdom.

Titles Given To Geburah: Din: Justice. Pachad: Fear.

GOD-NAME: Elohim Gibor.

Archangel: Khamael.

HOST Of Angels: Seraphim, Fiery Serpents.

Mundane CHAKRA: Madim, Mars.

Spiritual Experience: Vision of Power.

VIRTUE: Energy. Courage.

VICE: Cruelty. Destruction.

CORRESPONDENCE IN MICROCOSM: The right arm.

SYMBOLS: The Pentagon. The Five-petalled Tudor Rose. The Sword. The Spur. The Scourge. The Chain.

TAROT CARDS: The four Fives.

Five Of Wands: Strife.

FIVE Of CUPS: Loss in pleasure.

Five Of SWORDS: Defeat.

Five Of Pentacles: Earthly trouble.

Colour In Atziluth: orange.

BRIAH: Scarlet red.

YETZIRAH: Bright scarlet.

ASSIAH: Red, flecked with black.

1. One of the least understood things in Christian philosophy is the problem of evil; and one of the things least adequately dealt with in the Christian ethic is the problem of force, or severity, as contrasted with mercy and mildness. Consequently Geburah, the Fifth Sephirah, which has for additional titles Din (Justice) and Pachad (Fear), is one of the least understood of all the Sephiroth, and is therefore one of the most important. Were it not that the Qabalistic doctrine explicitly lays it down that all the Ten Sephiroth are holy, there are many who would be inclined to look upon Geburah as the evil aspect of the Tree of Life. Indeed, the planet Mars, whose sphere is the Mundane Chakra of Geburah, is called in astrology an infortune.

2. Those, however, who are instructed beyond the crude pretty-pretty of a wish-fulfilling philosophy know that Geburah is by no means the Enemy or Adversary described in Scripture, but the king in his chariot going forth to war whose strong right arm protects his people with the sword of righteousness and ensures that justice shall be done. Chesed, the king on his throne, the father of his people in times of peace, may win our love; but it is Geburah, the king in his chariot

going forth to war, who commands our respect. Sufficient justice has not been done to the part played by the sentiment of respect in the emotion of love. We have a kind of love for the person who can put the fear of God into us, should occasion arise, which is of quite a different quality, is far more steadfast and permanent, and, curiously enough, far more emotionally satisfying, than the love with which no tinge of awe is mingled. It is Geburah that supplies the element of awe, of the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, and of a general wholesome respect which helps us to keep to the straight and narrow way and calls forth our better nature, because we know our sins will find us out.

3. This is a factor to which the Christian ethic, as popularly understood, does not give sufficient weight; and because the general tone of Christian society is biassed against the holy Fifth Sephirah, it will be necessary to consider its place in relation to the Tree and the part it plays in both spiritual and social life in considerable detail; for it is ill understood, and this absence of understanding of the Geburah-factor is the cause of many of our difficulties in modern life.

4. Geburah holds the central position on the Pillar of Severity; it therefore represents the catabolic, or down-breaking aspect of force. Catabolism, be it remembered, is that aspect of metabolism, or the life-process, which is combined with the release of force in activity. It has been said that good is that which is constructive, which builds up, and evil is that which is destructive, which breaks down. How false this philosophy is we see when we try to classify, according to this principle, a cancer and a disinfectant. In the deeper, more philosophical teaching of the Mysteries we recognise that good and evil are not things in themselves, but conditions. Evil is simply misplaced force; misplaced in time, if it is out of date, or so far ahead of its day as to be impracticable. Misplaced in space, if it turns up in the wrong place, like the burning coal on the hearth-rug or the bath water through the drawing-room ceiling. Misplaced in proportion, if an excess of love makes us silly and sentimental, or a lack of love makes us cruel and destructive. It is in such things as these that evil lies, not in a personal Devil who acts as Adversary.

5. Geburah the Destroyer, the Lord of Fear and Severity, is therefore as necessary to the equilibrium of the Tree as Chesed, the Lord of Love, and Netzach, the Lady of Beauty. Geburah is the Celestial Surgeon; he is the knight in shining armour, the dragon-slayer; beautiful as a bridegroom in his strength to the maiden in distress, though, no doubt, the dragon might have preferred a little more love.

6. The initiations of the infortunes, Saturn, Mars, and the deceptive lunar Yesod, are just as necessary to the evolution and balanced development of the soul as are the Mysteries of the Crucifixion assigned to Tiphareth. It is the one-sidedness of Christianity which is its bane, and is responsible for so much that is unsound and pathological in both our national and our private lives. But, equally, we must not forget that Christianity as a corrective to a pagan world that was sick unto death with its own toxins. We need what Christianity has to give but also, unfortunately, we cannot do without that which it lacks. Let us now consider the astringent, corrective influence of Geburah.

7. Dynamic energy is as necessary to the welfare of society as meekness, charity, and patience. We must never forget that the eliminatory diet, which will restore health in disease, will produce disease in health. We must never exalt the qualities which are necessary to compensate an overplus of force into ends in themselves and the means of salvation. Too much charity is the handiwork of a fool; too much patience is the hallmark of a coward. What we need is a just and wise balance which makes for health, happiness, and sanity all round, and the frank realisation that sacrifices are necessary to obtain it. You cannot eat your cake and have it in the spiritual sphere any better than anywhere else.

8. Geburah is the sacrificial priest of the Mysteries. Now sacrifice does not mean giving up something that is dear to you because a jealous God will brook no rival interests in His devotees and is flattered by your pain. It means the deliberate and open-eyed choice of a greater good in preference to a lesser good, and the athlete prefers the fatigue of exercise to the ease of the sloth that puts him out of condition. Coal burned in a furnace is sacrificed to the god of steam-power. Sacrifice is really the transmutation of force; the latent energy in the coal offered up on the sacrificial altar of the furnace is transmuted into the dynamic energy of steam by means of the appropriate machinery.

9. There is both psychological and cosmic machinery available in connection with every act of sacrifice which converts it into spiritual energy; and this spiritual energy can be applied to other mechanisms and re-appear on the planes of form as an entirely different type of force to that as which it started.

10. For instance, a man may sacrifice his emotions to his career; or a woman may sacrifice her career to her emotions. If the cut is clean, and there is no repining, an immense amount of psychic energy is released for use in the chosen channel. But if the lesser desire is merely inhibited and denied expression and not really laid upon the altar of sacrifice as a deliberate free-will offering, the unfortunate victim has made the worst of both worlds. It is here that we need Geburah to come like the priest that takes the sacrifice from our hands, even if it be our first-born, and offers it up to God with the quick, clean, merciful stroke. For Geburah in the microcosm, which is the soul of man, is the courage and resolution that frees us from the taint of self-pity.

11. How badly do we need the Spartan virtues of Geburah in this age of sentimentality and the neuroses. How many break-downs would be saved if this Celestial Surgeon were permitted to make the clean cut that has a chance to heal, and so avoid the deadly compromise and irresolution that is like an open wound and so often goes septic.

12. And again, if there were no strong hand at the service of good in the world, evil would multiply. Though it is not well to quench smoking flax when the flax is making an effort, it is equally evil to put up with the smouldering when what it really wants is the use of the poker. There is a place where patience becomes weakness and wastes the time of better men, and when mercy becomes folly and exposes the innocent to danger. The policy of non-resistance to evil can only be pursued satisfactorily in a well-policed society; it has never been tried with success under frontier conditions. For Nature, red in tooth and claw, wears the colour of Geburah; whereas the compensatory civilisation is of Chesed, Mercy, which modifies the unrestricted force and mutual destructiveness of all that is in the Geburah phase of its development. But, equally, we must remember that civilisation rests upon Nature as a building rests upon its foundations, wherein is concealed the sanitation so necessary to health.

13. Whenever there is anything that has outlived its usefulness, Geburah must wield the pruning-knife; wherever there is selfishness, it must find itself impaled on the spear-point of

Geburah; wherever there is violence against the weak, or the merciless use of strength, it is the sword of Geburah, not the orb of Chesed, that is the most effectual counteractant; wherever there is sloth and dishonesty, Geburah’s sacred scourge is needed; and where there is a removal of the landmarks set for our neighbour’s protection, it is the chain of Geburah that must restrain.

14. These things are as necessary to the health of society and of the individual as brotherly love, and a good deal rarer, used medicinally and not vengefully, in our sentimental age. Someone has got to cry “Halt” to the aggressor, and “Move on” to those who are blocking the way, and that someone is functioning as a priest in the sphere of the holy Fifth Sephirah.

15. If we watch life we shall see that rhythm, not stability, is its vital principle. Such stability as manifesting existence achieves is the stability of a man on a bicycle, balanced between two opposing pulls; he can fall over to the right, or he can fall over to the left, and he keeps his balance by means of his momentum.

16. In the life of individuals, in the development of any transaction, in the tone of any disciplined or highly organised group-mind, we see the constant alternation of the Geburah and Gedulah influences in a rhythmic swing from one side to the other. Anyone who is responsible for the disciplining of an organised group knows the constant need for tightening and slackening the reins; for stimulating and steadying. There is a sense of the need to pay out line as the group surges forward with an impulse of interest and keenness, followed by the need to take up the slack as the impulse spends itself. If the slack is not taken up with a firm hand, the group tangles itself in the loops and waxes insubordinate. The wise handler of humans knows when the reaction has spent itself, and the moment has come to crack the whip of Geburah over the team and make it jump into the collar again as the new dynamic impulse surges up; but he also knows that he must not crack it too soon, while the team is having a breather, or one of the less stable units will get a leg over the traces.

17. Especially do we see the alternating rhythms of Geburah and Gedulah in national life. I venture to prophesy that the nation is passing out of a Gedulah phase and entering a Geburah one. Everywhere we see a mercy that has been overstrained by the imperfections of human nature, being abrogated in favour of a severity which shall restore the balance of even-handed justice and prevent evil from multiplying. Police work is being reorganised; judges are giving stiffer sentences; penal reform has had a set-back; the humanitarian no longer has the last word. The group-soul of the race is entering upon a Geburah phase, and has lost patience with its sub-standard units.

18. For the next cycle the tendency will be to push the unfit into the discard and concentrate on bringing the fit to their finest development. Geburah will be the senior partner, and any mitigations of severity that Gedulah proposes will have to pass the scrutiny of even-handed justice. This is a very necessary reform, for towards the end of a phase extremes tend to develop, and the humanitarianism of Gedulah has been abused and made ridiculous, and its refinement has become finicking and lost touch with actualities.

19. When a new phase comes in on a group-mind scale, it is upon the least enlightened, the most crowd-minded that its influence is strongest; the cultured always tend to stand aside from extremes. We see this clearly indicated in the line taken by the various types of journalism. Popular journalism is crying out for the free use of the cat as a punishment for crime; for the repudiation of debts and international agreements; for, in fact, a general slashing around with the sword of Geburah. There is on every hand a growing tendency to stand no non-sense from anybody; a tendency which makes negotiations exceedingly difficult to carry on, for Geburah is at his worst as a negotiator, his one contribution to the discussion being that of the Greek soldier who took his sword and cut the knot.

20. Now the initiate, knowing that phase succeeds phase in rhythmic alternation, does not take any phase too seriously, nor think that it is either the end of the world or the millennium. He knows that it will run its course being at first a valuable and necessary corrective, and in the end running to extremes; but provided there is sufficient vision among the illuminati of a race, the people will not perish, for the very fact of extremes being arrived at indicates the end of the swing, and the pendulum will normally reverse its motion and start coming back towards the centre of stability. It is only when vision is completely lost to a people that the pendulum is allowed to fly off its hook into self-destruction. Rome did it; Carthage did it; more recently Russia has done it. But even when social organisation breaks down and the pendulum has gone off into space, the principle of rhythm is inherent in all manifesting existence, and re-establishes itself as soon as any sort of organisation begins to arise out of the wreckage.

21. The great weakness of Christianity lies in the fact that it ignores rhythm. It balances God with Devil instead of Vishnu with Siva. Its dualisms are antagonistic instead of equilibrating, and therefore can never issue in the functional third in which power is in equilibrium. Its God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and does not evolve with an evolving creation, but indulges in one special creative act and rests on His laurels. The whole of human experience, the whole of human knowledge, is against the likelihood of such a concept being true.

22. The Christian concept being static, not dynamic, it does not see that because a thing is good, its opposite is not necessarily evil. It has no sense of proportion because it has no realisation of the principle of equilibrium in space and rhythm in time. Consequently, for the Christian ideal the part is all too often greater than the whole. Meekness, mercy, purity and love are made the ideal of Christian character, and as Nietzsche truly points out, these are slave virtues. There should be room in our ideal for the virtues of the ruler and leader—courage, energy, justice and integrity. Christianity has nothing to tell us about the dynamic virtues; consequently those who get the world’s work done cannot follow the Christian ideal because of its limitations and inapplicability to their problems. They can measure right and wrong against no standard save their own selfrespect. The result is the ridiculous spectacle of a civilisation, committed to a one-sided ideal, being forced to keep its ideals and its honour in separate compartments.

23. We need Geburah’s realism to balance Gedulah’s idealism quite as much as we need to temper justice with mercy. Experience in the handling of children soon teaches us that the child that is never checked is a spoilt child; that the youth who lacks the spur of competition is apt to be a slack youth, for it is only the few who will work for work’s sake. And so it is with nations; the monopoly, lacking the spur of competition, has always proved itself to be ineffectual; the noncompetitive professions always suffer from intellectual obesity.

24. Geburah is the dynamic element in life that drives through and over obstacles. The character which is lacking in Martian aspects never gets to grips with life. Those who have had to depend on a non-Geburah bread-winner know that love is not a complete solution of life’s problems. We must learn to love and trust the mailed warrior with the sword as well as Divine Love which gives us the cup of cold water and says, “Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden.”

25. When we have learnt to kiss the rod and realise the value of astringent experiences we have taken the first of the Geburah initiations; and when we have learnt to lose our lives in order to find them, we have taken the second. There is a certain type of courage which does not fear dissolution, for it knows that all spiritual principles are indestructible, and so long as the archetypes persist, anything can be rebuilt. Geburah is only destructive to that which is temporal; it is the servant of that which is eternal; for when by the acid activity of Geburah all that is impermanent has been eaten away, the eternal and incorporeal realities shine forth in all their glory, every line revealed.

26. Geburah is the best friend we can have if we are honest. Sincerity has no need to fear his activities; indeed, it is the greatest we can have against the insincerity of others for there is nothing to equal the Geburah-influence for debunking both persons and viewpoints.

27. Geburah and Gedulah must work together; never the one without the other. We must adore the God of Battles as well as the God of Love in order that the combative element in the universe may not break from its allegiance to the One God, I Am That I Am. The sword must not be cursed as an instrument of the Devil, but blessed and dedicated in order that it may never be unsheathed in an unrighteous cause. It must not be cast aside in an impracticable pacifism, but placed at God’s service; so that when the command goes forth that the evil thing shall not be suffered any longer, the mighty Khamael, Archangel of Geburah, may lead the Seraphim into battle, not in destructive rage, but temperately and impersonally in God’s service in order that evil may be cleared up and good prevail.

28. So much has already been said concerning the nature of Geburah that a great deal does not remain to say in the analysis of the attribution.

29. The Yetziratic Text tells us that the Fifth Path is called the Radical Intelligence because it resembles Unity. Now Unity is one of the titles applied to Kether; therefore we may say that Geburah is akin to Kether on a lower arc. There are several Sephiroth which are thus referred to in the Sepher Yetzirah, and these references are very important when arriving at an understanding of their nature. Chokmah is spoken of as the Splendour of Unity, equalling it. Of Binah it is said that its roots are in Amen, which is also a title of Kether.

30. Geburah is a highly dynamic Sephirah, and its energy overflowing into the world of form and energising it bears a close analogy to the overflowing force of Kether, which is the basis of all manifestation.

31. It is also said of Geburah in the Yetziratic Text that it unites itself to Binah, Understanding. When we recall that in astrology Saturn, the Mundane Chakra of Binah, and Mars, the Mundane Chakra of Geburah, are called the Greater and Lesser Infortunes, we see that there must be more than a superficial connection between the two.

32. Binah is called the bringer-in of death because it is the giver of form to primordial force, thus rendering it static; Geburah is called the Destroyer because the fiery Mars force breaks down forms and destroys them. Thus we see that Binah is perpetually binding force into form, and Geburah perpetually breaking up and destroying all forms with its disruptive energy.

33. But equally we must see that it is only when the protecting, preserving influence of Chesed is in abeyance that the destructive influences of Geburah are able to work upon the forms built up by Binah, for the path of the Emanations between Binah and Geburah is via Chesed. Geburah is the essential corrective of Binah, without which Binah would bind all creation into rigidity. Binah, in its turn, as is pointed out in the Yetziratic Text, emanates from the primordial depths of Chokmah, Wisdom. Thus we see that there is a dynamic aspect even to Binah. No Sephirah is wholly of one kind of force, for each emanates from a Sephirah of the opposite type of polarity to itself, and in its turn emanates a Sephirah of opposite polarity. What we really have in the Lightning Flash is successive phases in the development of a single force; and because these emanate, but do not supersede each other, they remain as planes of manifestation and types of organisation.

34. These successive phases and planes of manifestation might be likened to the successive reaches of a river. It starts as a mountain stream; in the next reach is a series of rapids and waterfalls; then come water-meadows and placidity; and finally the great waterway between docks bearing shipping. The different reaches of the river remain constant; the type of water in each is constant; clear and sparkling in the upper reaches, loaded with alluvia among the water-meadows, and fouled with grime below the docks. But at the same time the water itself is not constant, for it does not stagnate on any reach, for they are all in unbroken communication the one with the other; they “emanate” each other, to use the language of the Qabalah. But the water changes its nature as it progresses because something is added to it by the experiences it undergoes in each reach; alluvial soil from the water-meadows; city grime from the docks.

35. So the primordial emanation of Kether becomes modified in each Sephirotic “reach” of the cosmic river; the “reaches,” or Sephirotic Spheres, remain constant; the emanations flow on, undergoing modification in each Sphere.

36. The titles assigned to Geburah of Strength, Justice, Severity, and Fear speak for themselves and indicate the dual aspects of this Sephirah. Now that we are coming down the Tree into the planes of form we see more and more clearly that every Sephirah is two-sided, and that its overplus tends to unbalanced force.

37. The Magical Image of a mighty warrior in his chariot, crowned and armed, indicates the dynamic nature of the Geburah-force. The Mundane Chakra of the fiery Mars expresses even more fully the same idea.

38. The Spiritual Experience that is conveyed by initiation into the Sphere of Geburah is the Vision of Power. It is only when a man has received this that he becomes an Adeptus Major. The right handling of power is one of the greatest tests that can be imposed on any human being. Up to this point in his progress up the grades an initiate learns the lessons of discipline, control, and stability; he acquires, in fact, what Nietzsche calls slave morality—a very necessary discipline for unregenerate human nature, so proud in its own conceit. With the grade of Adeptus Major, however, he must acquire the virtues of the superman, and learn to wield power instead of to submit to it. But even so, he is not a law unto himself, for he is the servant of the power he wields and must carry out its purposes, not serve his own. Though no longer responsible to his fellow-men he is still responsible to the Creator of heaven and earth, and will be required to give an account of his stewardship.

39. Great freedom is his; but also great strain. He can speak the word of power that unlooses the wind, but he must be prepared to ride the ensuing whirlwind. This is a thing that the amateur magician does not always realise.

40. The energy and courage which are the virtues of Mars, and the cruelty and destruction which are his vices when these qualities run to excess, call for no comment, for they are self-explanatory.

41. The symbols assigned to Mars-Geburah need some elucidation, however, as their significance is not in all cases apparent at first sight.

42. Figures with a varying number of sides are assigned to the different planets, and in ceremonial or talismanic magic are used as the outline of any form associated with a planetary force. To Saturn, the oldest planet, the first to develop in evolutionary time, is assigned the simplest two-dimensional figure—the triangle. The balanced stability of Chesed gets the foursided figure, the square; and to the third planetary Sephirah, Mars, is assigned the five-sided figure, and five is looked upon in the Qabalistic system as the number of Mars. Consequently the Pentagon, the five-sided figure, is the symbol of Mars, and any altar to Mars should be pentagonal or five-sided, likewise any talisman. The five-petalled Tudor rose, which is another symbol of Mars, requires more explanation; but when we remember the intimate association between Mars and Venus in mythology, and that the rose is the flower of Venus, we get a clue to the significance of the symbolism. The lines of force, crossing over on the Tree, go from Geburah-Mars to Netzach-Venus through Tiphareth, the Place of the Redeemer, the centre of equilibrium, in the same way that Chesed and Hod connect up, as is clearly indicated in the Yetziratic Text, which says of Hod that it has its root in the hidden places of Gedulah, the Fourth Sephirah.

43. Realising, then, the intimate relationship between the diagonal pairs that form the four corners of the central square of the Tree, we understand the linked relationship indicated by the form of the rose with its five petals.

44. The sword, the spear, the scourge, and the chain are all such characteristic weapons of Mars that no comment is called for.

45. The four Fives of the Tarot pack are all evil cards, each according to its type. In fact, the five suit of Swords, which is under the presidency of Mars, represents contentiousness for its best aspects are “Rest from strife” and “Success after struggle,” and where a Sword card is associated with a Sephirah whose Mundane Chakra is one of the astrological infortunes, the result is disastrous, and we find the Lords of Defeat and Ruin in this suit.

46. Our ability to take the Geburah initiation depends upon our ability to handle the Martian forces, and this is determined by the degree of self-discipline and stability we have attained in our own natures.

47. Geburah is the most dynamic and forceful of all the Sephiroth, but it is also the most highly disciplined. Indeed, the military discipline, presided over by the god of War, is a synonym for the sternest kind of control that can be imposed upon human beings. The discipline of Geburah must exactly equate with its energy; in other words, the brakes of a car must bear a relationship to its horse-power if it is to be safe on the road. It is this tremendous Geburah discipline which is one of the testing-points of the Mysteries. We speak of an iron discipline, and iron is the metal of Mars.

48. The initiate of Geburah is a very dynamic and forceful person, but he is also a very controlled person. His characteristic virtues are an even temper and patience under provocation. It is well known on the sports field, which is the playful aspect of the god of War, that a loss of temper gives the game away. Every boxer knows that if he gets angry and starts fighting instead of boxing, the odds are against him. The initiate of Mars is essentially the Happy Warrior, the initiate who has passed through the grade of Tiphareth and gained equilibrium.

49. He fights without malice; he spares the weak and wounded; he does not set out to destroy the law but to see to it that it is properly fulfilled. He is the corrector of the balance, and as such is always the defender of the weak and oppressed. He is never a god that is found on the side of the large armies, although he says, “With the froward I will show myself froward.” He takes that twoheaded giant of the Qliphoth, Thaumiel, the Dual Contending Forces, knocks his heads together and says, “A plague on both your houses! Keep God’s peace or it will be the worse for you.”

50. When a soul is at that stage of development when the only way it can learn is by experience, Geburah sees that it shall not be disappointed when it goes about looking for trouble. Geburah is the Great Initiator of the swollen-headed.