The Mystical Qabalah - Dion Fortune 2000

The Four Lower Sephiroth

1. The Ten Holy Sephiroth, when arranged upon the Tree of Life in their traditional pattern, fall into three main horizontal divisions, as well as the three vertical divisions of the Pillars. The highest of these horizontal divisions consists of the Three Supernals, which for all practical purposes are beyond the sphere of our comprehension. We posit them as fundamental principles which must exist if subsequent manifestations are to be explained. They represent Pure Being and the opposing principles of Activity and Passivity, and they are well described by calling them the Supernal Triangle.

2. The next functional triangle upon the Tree consists of Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth. These represent the active principles of Anabolism, Catabolism, and Equilibrium, and might best be described by calling them the Abstract Triangle.

3. All these six higher Sephiroth we have considered in detail, and we have seen how the three Supernal principles form the basis of manifestation, and the three Abstract principles give expression to manifestation. The three higher are latent, and the three lower are potent. If we understand these things, we find we have a system for explaining the infinite diversity of manifestation of the planes of form by reducing them to their primary principles, which renders the relations between them and the mode of their interaction and development clearly comprehensible; which it never has been, and never can be, when the attempt is made to reduce all things to terms of form, instead of resolving them into terms of force.

4. The lowest functional unit on the Tree of Life consists, not of a triangle, but of a quaternary, and this quaternary is said by the Qabalists to have been affected by the Fall, the head of Leviathan rising out of the Abyss to a point between Yesod and Tiphareth. Beyond this it was not permitted to go, and the six higher Sephiroth retained their innocency. In other words, the four lower Sephiroth belong to the planes of form, wherein force is no longer free-moving, but “cabined, cribbed, confined”; only to be freed by works of destruction.

5. Tiphareth, as has already been seen, is the centre of equilibrium of the Tree. Equilibrium gives rise to stability, and stability to cohesion. From now onwards in the descent of life upon the Path of Involution we find the principle of cohesion playing an increasingly predominant part, until in Malkuth it reaches its apogee.

6. We may well conceive that the active principles of the Abstract Triangle underwent subdivision and specialisation in the course of the descent of life through Netzach, and in Yesod attained to a considerable degree of stereotyping by means of which the forms of Malkuth were determined. Once Malkuth, which is the plane of pure form, attained development, the evolutionary stream began to turn back towards spirit, freeing itself from the bondage of form while retaining the capacities acquired by experience of the discipline of form.

7. We may conceive, then, of numerous abstract principles of life-function becoming clothed upon with form owing to the influence of the experience of their outward manifestations in the

Kingdom of Form. Or, in the language of the Qabalists, the influence of the Fall is felt by them, and they have lost their innocency.

8. These considerations give us an insight into the nature of the Quaternary of the Planes of Form, and enable us to tread the Middle Way between credulity and scepticism in this Sphere of Illusion, as it has somewhat unkindly been called.

9. The great tide of evolving life, which issued as an emanation from Tiphareth, is broken up in the Sephirah Netzach as by a prism into many-rayed manifestation; whence comes the Yetziratic description of this Sephirah as “the refulgent splendour.” In Hod these multifarious forces are clothed upon with form; and in Yesod they act as etheric moulds for the final emanations in Malkuth.

10. Manifestation in Malkuth completes the outgoing arc of involution, and life turns back upon itself to pursue a parallel course on the returning arc of evolution. Human intelligence develops, and begins to meditate upon causation and discerns the gods. Be it noted that primitive man has never achieved monotheism in a single stride; he has always conceived of causation as multiform and it has required many generations of culture to reduce the many to the One.

11. This brings us to the great question, which might almost be called the Dweller on the Threshold of occult science, the horror which confronts every adventurer into the Unseen which unites in itself the functions of the Sphinx, and asks a question of the soul upon the answer to which hangs his fate. Shall he be condemned to wander in the realms of illusion? Shall he be turned back on to the planes of form, or shall he be permitted to pass on into the Light? This question is, Do you believe in the gods? If he answers Yes, he will be a wanderer in the planes of illusion, for the gods are not real persons as we understand personality. If he answers No, he will be turned back at the gate, for the gods are not illusions. What then shall he answer?

12. The intuition of a poet has given us the answer.

“For no thought of man made Gods to love and honour Ere the song within the silent soul began,

Nor might earth in dream or deed take heaven upon her Till the word was clothed with speech by lips of man.”

13. Therein we have the clue to the riddle. The gods are the creations of the created. They are made by the adoration of their worshippers. It is not the gods that do the work of creation. This is done by the great natural forces working each according to its nature; the gods come in their procession after the Swan of the Empyrean has laid the egg of manifestation in the darkness of the cosmic night.

14. The gods are emanations of the group-minds of races; they are not emanations of Eheieh, the One and Eternal. Nevertheless, they are immensely powerful, because by means of their influence over the imaginations of their worshippers they link the microcosm with the macrocosm; for by meditation on the ideal beauty of Apollo the soul of man is opened to beauty in general.

15. As man has analysed life and discerned factor by factor its prime motives, he has apotheosised them. Because man in all parts of the globe has found that the same needs and motives actuate him, he has evolved comparable pantheons. Because temperaments differ, he has evolved as different pantheons as the blood-thirsty fiends of Mexico and the radiant beings of Hellas.

16. We may ask ourselves, then, whether the gods are wholly subjective; whether they live solely in the imaginations of their worshippers, or whether they have an independent life of their own? The answer to this question is to be found in a fact of occult experience which cannot be explained by what we know of natural science, but which has to be taken for granted by every practical occultist before he can obtain results. In fact, one might say that the results he obtains are in proportion to his faith, for it becomes true for him as soon as he believes in it. This fact is, that only a very small proportion of the existing mind-stuff of the universe whatever that may be, is organised into the brains and nervous systems of sentient creatures. The vast mass of what, for want of a better name, we call mind-stuff, because that is its nearest analogy among known things, is free moving upon what occultists call the astral plane, organised into forms within itself, but not necessarily attached to matter. Different occultists refer to this free mind-stuff by different names. Mme. Blavatsky calls it Akasha; Eliphas Levi calls it the reflecting ether. Netzach represents the force aspect, and Hod the form aspect of this Akasha.

17. Out of this mind-stuff are formed the moulds of all forms; and within these moulds are built up the framework of etheric stresses that function in the sphere of Yesod, and within which are held the molecules of matter which form the body of manifestation on the physical plane.

18. Normally these forms are built by the cosmic consciousness expressed as natural forces, functioning each according to its nature; but as consciousness began to develop in the creatures of the Creator, it exercised its function in varying degrees upon the astral mind-stuff which, by its nature, was amenable to the influences of consciousness; consequently, “the thought of man made gods to love and honour.” These forms, once built, became channels of the specialised forces they were designed to represent, concentrating them upon their worshippers. In this enlightened sense initiates not only believe in, but adore the gods.