Yael R. DragwylaFirst North American rightsemail: polaris93@aol.com72,400 wordshttp://polaris93.livejournal.com/
Qaballah and Tarot: A Basic Course in NineLessons
Lesson III: The 22 Paths of the Tree of Life and theGreater Arcana of the Tarot
B. The Individual Paths
13.Key 23
Mem
m
“Water.” Trump XII,
The Hanged Man
. The Element Water
; the Planet Neptune
Þ
.Cardinal value, 40; ordinal value, 13. At the end of a word,
Kaph
takes the form
\
and has the value 600.Connects
Sephirah
5,
Geburah
with
Sephirah
8,
Hod
. Roman/English equivalent: M.
a.Qaballistic Meanings and Theory
Mem
is the Path linking
Geburah
and
Hod
.Like
Binah
and
Chesed
, the
Sephirah Hod
is a ‘Water’ Sephirah.* A major principle of Water isreflection, and it is in
Hod
that the reflections of the principles of the higher worlds may be discerned.
Hod
is a
Sephirah
of the mind, and the reflections of this
Sephirah
concern pure reason rather than the images of ungoverned impulses and emotions which are reflected in the Magick Mirror of
Yesod
. When images occur in
Hod
they are more in the nature of abstractions, e.g., mathematical models, than the boiling confusion of unconscious elements, basically emotional in content, of Yesod.*Mercury, the Planet associated with
Hod
, rules the Airy Sign Gemini and the Earthy Sign Virgo, so it mayseem strange to associate
Hod
with Water. However, in Chinese cosmology as well as in both Westernand Far Eastern Alchemy, Mercury is associated with Water because His metal, mercury, flows likewater at room-temperature and under one atmosphere of pressure, rather than being hard and solid, likemost metals. So His
Sephirah
,
Hod
, likewise has Watery characteristics.
On the other hand,
Geburah
, like
Chokmah
and
Netzach
, is a “Fire”
Sephirah
. Yet it has certaincharacteristics very like those of the action of water.* Much of
Geburah
’s influence is overtly violent andintensely active, but it also does its work by the slow erosion of accretions over long periods of time. Thusthis Path provides on the one hand the stability necessary to reflect the higher worlds without distortion[
Sephirah
8,
Hod
}, and on the other, unending action over countless eons of time [
Sephirah
5,
Geburah
].*Mars, the Planet associated with
Geburah
, is a Lord of Scorpio, the Cherubic Sign of Water. Mars isassociated with Fire, but one aspect of His Fire is the phenomenon of
rust
, the oxidation of iron or other metal by dissolved oxygen in water, and His Fire is thus commingled with Water. This isreflected in the fact that He is a Lord of both Scorpio and Aries, the Cardinal Fire Sign.Generally speaking,
Chesed
concerns what the Individuality
is
, its essence, while
Geburah
concernswhat it
does
, its behavior and impact on its environment.
Geburah
also has a corrective or assessingelement, the ability to perceive what
is
, to perceive what
ought to
be, and the ability to act so that after thataction everything is as it
should be
. These principles of action are also aspects of the Personality. Themental link which enables this is the 23
rd
Path of the Tree of Life.Esoterically, the symbol of the man hanged upside down on Trump XII,
The Hanged Man
, which isassociated with the 23
rd
Path, is one of sacrifice, both the utterly unselfish cooperative effort made for thegood of the whole and every individual within that whole, the exchange of one thing for somethingsignificantly better. The Hanged Man hangs upside down, indicating that the values of the higher worldsare the reverse of those of the lower.However much appearances seem to indicate the contrary, the most basic Spiritual Law of theUniverse is that you get out of life exactly what you put into it.
24
One must first make one’s mindcompletely clear and receptive, capable of processing and recognizing pure reason without being hampered by inaccurate opinions or inappropriate fears.Once the light of pure reason is achieved, one’s destiny becomes clear, as the symbolic links of thisPath will show. The symbolism of Water refers us to
Binah
, the Great Sea, whose influence passes to
Geburah
,* and from there to this Path and
Hod
by the 18
th
Path. Binah is the most concretized form of theSpirit
qua
Spirit, in which the true image of the Self and one’s Destiny rests. Also, the title of Tarot TrumpXII, Spirit of the Mighty Waters, gives understanding of the nature of this Path: the Mighty Waters arethose of the
Anima Mundi
, the Universal Soul, in which is reflected the True Luminous Image of theCreator. On a deeper level, the Mighty Waters are those of
Ain Soph
, “No Limit,” in the Realm of theUnmanifest, in which each Spirit’s Cosmic Atom lies, projecting the Divine Spark itself intomanifestation.
25
*
Geburah’
s Planet is Jupiter, the traditional ruler of Pisces. Pisces is the Sign of the Ocean Sea.Each of the four Elements is associated with one of the four Outer Planets, which include Saturn,Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Earth is represented by Saturn; Air, by Uranus; Water, by Neptune; andFire, by Pluto.* Path 23, which is associated with Water, also clearly has symbolic ties with Neptune, themodern ruler of Pisces and of altruistic self-sacrifice, as the above quotations from Knight suggest.(Neptune and Pisces are, however, also associated with such goodies as stealth, sabotage, murder, poison,adultery, and all other things Dark and Dreadful that do their dirty work from behind and out of theshadows. Let’s not get
too
carried away with the sweet-and-light side of Neptune, gang . . .)
*In turn, Saturn is associated with
Da’ath
, the Abyss between
Chesed
and
Binah
; Uranus, with
Binah
; Neptune, with
Chokmah
; and Pluto, with
Kether
. The influences of these
Sephiroth
should be born inmind when considering the meaning of any Path associated with them.Like His brothers Zeus and Hades, Neptune’s Greek analog was one of the sons of Kronos and Rhea.When Kronos had been deposed by the revolt of the Olympians, the three brothers shook lots in a helmet todetermine which of Them would receive the rulership of the Heavens, the Sea, and the Underworld, decid-ing that the Earth was to be held in common by all. As a result of this lottery, Zeus became King of theHeavens, like His grandfather, Ouranos, before Him; Hades became Lord of the Underworld and all itstreasures; and Poseidon became Lord of the Sea.Poseidon was every bit as dignified as Zeus, but unlike His extroverted brother He had a sullen, belligerent nature. Like His enormous domain, the Sea, when angry He often displayed a terrifyinglyviolent rage. During his rages, he often caused catastrophic sea- and earthquakes with His Trident, analmost inconceivably powerful Weapon very similar in form and function to the Weapon of Shiva, theHindu Lunar God of Power and Destruction.**A hint of just
how
powerful comes from the fact that the
average
earthquake or seaquake unleashesanywhere from 40 to 200
megatons
of energy – from about one to four times more powerful than themost powerful thermonuclear test on record, the thermonuclear device tested on the Kamchatka pen-insula on October 29, 1961, and 4,000-20,000 times more powerful than the A-bomb dropped onHiroshima on August 6, 1945.But He could be gentle, too, taking great delight in the world and its pleasures. Sharing Zeus’senthusiasm for amorous dalliance, He often gave His wife Amphitrite almost as much vexation over Hiswayward behavior as Zeus did Hera over His own randy adventurousness. Appropriately enough,therefore, according to one cycle of stories He was the father of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Lust,Who rose naked in all Her glorious beauty from the foam of the Sea.When it came time for Poseidon to take a wife, He first courted Thetis the Nereid, for He wanted awife Who would be at home in the depths of the Sea. But when Themis the Nymph prophesied that anyson born to Thetis would be greater than His father, Poseidon desisted, and gave His blessing to Her marriage to a mortal, Peleus. He then approached Amphitrite, another Nereid, Who at first found Hisadvances repugnant, and fled to the Atlas Mountains to escape Him. But He sent messengers after Her, andone of them, Delphinus, pleaded Poseidon’s case to Her so well that She finally agreed to marry Him. Outof gratitude, he placed Delphinus among the Stars as a Constellation, the Dolphin.Amphitrite bore Him three children: Triton, Rhode, and Benthesikyme. She was a good wife to Him, but even so, as previously mentioned, He drove Her to distraction with His pursuits of other females.Above all, She hated His infatuation with Skylla, daughter of Phorkys, Lord of Death, Whom She changedinto a barking monster with six heads and twelve feet by throwing a Magickal potion in Skylla’s bathing- pool.**Skylla = Scylla, a dangerous rock on the Italian side of the Straits of Messina, opposite the whirlpoolCharybdis, likewise personified mythologically as a ravenous monster. Navigating these straits is anextremely dangerous business even for powered boats, because the margin of error between avoiding being wrecked on Scylla and falling into Charybdis and being sucked down to a watery doom isextremely small. The saying “between Scylla and Charybdis” means being between two perils, neither of which can be evaded without risking running afoul of the other. This myth of Skylla’stransformation into a terrible monster by Amphitrite is obviously an origin story that came into exist-ence as a way of explaining how the terrible strait came into existence, and why and how the goodGods had created and maintained it in existence.
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
Qaballah and Tarot: A Basic Course in Nine Lessons. Lesson III-bc
Qaballah and Tarot: A Basic Course in Nine Lessons. Lesson III: The 22 Paths of the Tree of Life and the Greater Arcana of the Tarot. B. The Individual Paths, continued. Keys 23-27. Keywords: Qaballah, Tarot, astrology, alchemy, Magick, science, history, anthropology
982
Reads
11
Readcasts
4
Embed Views
Get Scribd Mobile
To get Scribd mobile enter your number and we'll send you a link to the Scribd app for iPhone & Android.We've sent a link to the Scribd app. If you didn't receive it, try again.
We'll never share your phone number.
More From This User
Notes
Load more
