The Mystical Qabalah - Dion Fortune 2000

Negative Existence

1. The esotericist, when endeavouring to formulate his philosophy for communication to others, is confronted by the fact that his knowledge of the higher forms of existence is obtained by a process other than thought; and this process only commences when thought is left behind. Consequently it is only in that region of consciousness which transcends thought that the highest form of transcendental ideas is known and understood; and it is only to those who are able to use this aspect of consciousness that he can communicate his ideas in their original form. When he wants to communicate these ideas to those who have had no experience of this mode of consciousness, he must either crystallise them into form or fail to convey any adequate impression. Mystics have used every imaginable simile in the endeavour to convey their impressions; philosophers have lost themselves in a maze of words; and all to no purpose so far as the unilluminated soul is concerned. The Qabalists, however, use another method. They do not try to explain to the mind that which the mind is not equipped to deal with; they give it a series of symbols to meditate upon, and these enable it to build the stairway of realisation step by step and to climb where it cannot fly. The mind can no more grasp transcendent philosophy than the eye can see music.

2. The Tree of Life, as cannot too often be emphasised, is not so much a system as a method; those who formulated it realised the important truth that in order to obtain clarity of vision one must circumscribe the field of vision. Most philosophers founded their systems upon the Absolute; but this is a shifting foundation, for the human mind can neither define nor grasp the Absolute. Some others try to use a negation for their foundation, declaring that the Absolute is, and must ever be, unknowable. The Qabalists do neither of these things. They content themselves with saying that the Absolute is unknown to the state of consciousness which is normal to human beings.

3. For the purposes of their system, therefore, they draw a veil at a certain point in manifestation, not because there is nothing there, but because the mind, as such, must stop there, When the human mind has been brought to its highest stage of development, and consciousness can detach itself and, as it were, stand upon its own shoulders, we may be able to penetrate the Veils of Negative Existence, as they are called. But for all practical purposes we can understand the nature of the cosmos if we are content to accept the Veils as philosophical conventions, and realise that they correspond to human limitations, not to cosmic conditions. The origin of things is inexplicable in terms of our philosophy. However far we push our inquiries back into origins in the world of manifestation, we find a preceding existence. It is only when we are content to draw the Veil of Negative Existence across the path which leads back to beginnings that we get a background against which a First Cause becomes visible. And this First Cause is not a rootless origin, but a First Appearance on the Plane of Manifestation. Thus far and no farther can the mind go back; but we must always remember that different minds go back different distances, and that for some the Veil is drawn in one place, and for others in another. The ignorant man goes no further than the concept of God as an old man with a long white beard who sat on a golden throne and gave orders for creation. The scientist will go back a little further before he is compelled to draw a veil called the ether; and the philosopher will go back yet further before he draws a veil called the Absolute; but the initiate will go back furthest of all because he has learnt to do his thinking in symbols, and symbols are to the mind what tools are to the hand—an extended application of its powers.

4. The Qabalist takes for his starting-point Kether, the Crown, the first Sephirah which he symbolises by the figure One, Unity, and by the Point within the Circle. From this he traces backward the three Veils of Negative Existence. This is quite a different matter from starting at the Absolute and trying to work forwards into evolution. It may not yield immediately accurate and complete knowledge of the origin of all things, but it enables the mind to make a start; and unless we can make a start we have no hope of a finish.

5. The Qabalist, then, starts where he can—at the first point that is within the reach of finite consciousness. Kether is equated with the most transcendent form of God that we can conceive, Whose name is Ehieh, translated in the Authorised Version of the Bible as “I am,” or, more explicitly, the Self-Existing One, Pure Being.

6. But these words are words and nothing more unless they convey an impression to the mind, and in themselves they cannot do that. They must be related to other ideas before they have any significance. We only begin to understand Kether when we study Chokmah, the Second Sephirah, its emanation; it is only when we see the full unfoldment of the Ten Sephiroth that we are ready to approach Kether, and then we approach it with the data that gives us the key to its nature. In working with the Tree it is wisest to keep on going over it, rather than to concentrate upon a single point until it is mastered, for one thing explains another, and it is out of the perception of the relationships between the different symbols that enlightenment arises. Again we say, the Tree is a method of using the mind, not a system of knowledge.

7. But at the moment we are not engaged in the study of the Emanations, but of origins, so far as the human mind may hope to penetrate them; and paradoxical as it may appear, we shall penetrate further when we draw the Veils across them than when we try to pierce the darkness. We will, then, sum up the position of Kether in one sentence, a sentence that can have but little significance for the student approaching the subject for the first time, but which must be borne in mind, for its significance will begin to dawn presently. In so doing, we are adhering to the ancient esoteric tradition of giving the student a symbol to incubate till it hatches in his mind, rather than explicit instruction which would convey nothing to him. The seed-sentence then, which we cast into the subconscious mind of the reader, is this: “Kether is the Malkuth of the Unmanifest.” Mathers says (op. cit.): “The limitless ocean of negative light does not proceed from a centre, for it is centreless, but it concentrates a centre, which is the number One of the manifested Sephiroth, Kether, the Crown, the First Sephirah.”

8. These words in themselves contain contradictions and unthinkable; negative light is simply a way of saying that the thing described, though having certain qualities in common with light, is nevertheless not light as we know it. This tells us very little about that which it is intended to describe. We are told not to make the mistake of thinking of it as light, but we are not told how to think of it as it really is, and for the very good reason that the mind is not equipped with any images under which to represent it, and must therefore let it alone till growth takes place. Nevertheless, although these words do not tell us all that we would like to know, they convey certain images to imagination; these sink into the subconscious mind and thence are evoked when ideas enter the conscious mind which are related to them. Thus knowledge grows from more to more when the Qabalistic method is given its practical application as the Yoga of the West.

9. The Qabalists recognise four planes of manifestation, and three planes of unmanifestation, or Negative Existence. The first of these is called Ain, Negativity; the second, Ain Soph, the Limitless; the third, Ain Soph Aur, the Limitless Light. It is out of this last that Kether is concentrated. These three terms are called the three Veils of Negative Existence—depending back from Kether; in other words, they are the algebraic symbols that enable us to think of that which transcends thought, and which at the same time hide that which they represent; they are the masks of transcendent realities. If we think of the states of negative existence in terms of anything that we know, we shall err, for whatever else they may be, they cannot be that, being unmanifest. The expression “Veils,” therefore, teaches us to use these ideas as counters, of no value in themselves, but useful to us in our calculations. This is the true use of all symbols; they veil that which they represent until we can reduce them to terms we can comprehend; nevertheless they enable us to use in our calculations ideas which would otherwise be unthinkable. And as the essence of the Tree lies in the fact that it causes its symbols to elucidate one another by means of their relative positions, these Veils serve as the scaffolding of thought, enabling us to take our bearings in regions as yet uncharted. Such Veils, or non-concrete symbols, are, however, of no value to us unless one side of the Veil abuts upon known country. The Veils, in fact, while they conceal that which they represent, enable us to see clearly that to which they form a background. This is their function, and the only reason they are referred to. It is only by reason of our infirmities that we need to have these unresolvable symbols presented to us, and the mind disciplined in esoteric philosophy soon learns to work within these limitations and accept as a painted veil the symbol of that which lies beyond its ken. This way lies the unfoldment of wisdom, for the mind grows with what it feeds upon, and one of these days, when we have climbed to Kether, we may hope to stretch out our hands and rend the Veil and look through into the Limitless Light. The esotericist does not limit himself by declaring the Unknown to be the Unknowable, for he is above all things an evolutionist, and knows that that which we cannot compass today we may achieve tomorrow of cosmic time. He knows, too, that evolutionary time is an individual matter upon the inner planes, and is measured, not regulated, by the revolution of the earth upon its axis.

10. These three Veils—Ain, Negativity; Ain Soph, the Limitless; and Ain Soph Aur, the Limitless Light—though we cannot hope to understand them, nevertheless suggest to our minds certain ideas. Negativity implies Being or existence of a nature which we cannot comprehend. We cannot conceive of a thing which is, and yet is not; therefore we must conceive of a form of being of which we have never had any conscious experience; a form of being which, according to our concepts of existence, does not exist, and yet, if one may express it so, exists according to its own idea of existence. In the words of a very wise man: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

11. But although we say that Negative Existence is outside the range of our realisation, it does not mean that we are outside the range of its influence. If this were so, we could dismiss it as nonexistent so far as we are concerned, and our interest in it would be at an end. On the contrary, although we have not direct access to its being, all that we know as existing has its roots in this Negative Existence, so that, although we cannot know it directly, we have experience of it at once remove. That is to say, although we cannot know its nature, we know its effects, in the same way as we are ignorant of the nature of electricity yet are able to turn it to good account in our lives, and from our experience of its effects we are able to come to certain conclusions concerning some at least of the qualities it must possess. Those who have penetrated furthest into the Unseen have given us symbolic descriptions by means of which we may turn our minds in the direction of the Absolute, even if we cannot reach it. They have spoken of Negative Existence as Light: “Ain Soph Aur, the Limitless Light.” They have spoken of the First Manifest as Sound: “In the beginning was the Word.” I remember once hearing a man, who was an adept if ever there was one, say, “If you want to know what God is, I can tell you in one word: God is pressure.” And immediately an image leapt to my mind and a realization followed. I could conceive the outflowing of life through every channel of existence. I felt that a genuine realisation of the nature of God had been conveyed to me. And yet, if one came to analyse the words, there was nothing in them; nevertheless they had the power to convey an image, a symbol, to the mind, and the mind, working upon it in the realm of intuition beyond the sphere of reason, achieved a realisation, even if that realisation could only be reduced to the sphere of concrete thought as an image.

12. We must clearly realise that in these highly abstract regions the mind can use nothing but symbols; but these symbols have the power to convey realisations to minds that know how to use them; these symbols are the seeds of thought whence understanding arises, even if we are not able to expand the symbol itself into a concrete realisation.

13. Little by little, like a rising tide, realisation is concreting the Abstract, assimilating and expressing in terms of its own nature things which belong to another sphere; and we shall make a great mistake if we try to prove with Herbert Spencer that because a thing is unknown by any capacity of the mind we at present possess, that it must for ever be Unknowable. Time is not only increasing our knowledge, but evolution is increasing our capacity and initiation, which is the forcing-house of evolution, bringing faculties to birth out of due season, brings the consciousness of the adept within reach of vast apprehensions which are as yet below the horizon of the human mind. These ideas, though clearly apprehended by himself after another mode of consciousness, cannot be conveyed by him to anyone who does not share this mode of consciousness. He can only put them forth in symbolic form; but any mind that has in any way had experience of this wider mode of functioning will be able to lay hold on these ideas on their own plane, although it may be unable to translate them into the sphere of conscious thought. In this way, therefore, in the literature of esoteric science there are scattered seed-ideas such as “God is pressure” and “Kether is the Malkuth of Negative Existence.” These images, whose content does not belong to our sphere at all, are as the male germs of thought which fecundate the ova of concrete realisation. In themselves they are incapable of maintaining more than the fugitive existence in consciousness as a flash of realisation, but without them the ova of philosophical thought will be infertile. Impregnated by them, however, though their substance is absorbed and lost in the very act of impregnation growth takes place within the formless germ of thought, and ultimately, after due gestation beyond the threshold of consciousness, the mind gives birth to an idea.

14. If we want to get the best out of our minds, we must learn to allow for this period of latency, this impregnation of our minds by something outside our plane of existence, and its gestation beyond the threshold of consciousness. The invocations of an initiation ceremony are designed to call down this impregnating influence upon the consciousness of the candidate. Hence it is that the Paths of the Tree, which are the stages of illumination of the soul, are intimately associated with the symbolism of initiation ceremonies.