☉ in 6° Tauri :
☽ in 20°
Leonis : dies Lunae : Anno VI
æræ legis, Monday April 27, 2015
The Middle Pillar = 888 in English Gematria. 8 is
symbolic of the Hourglass figure representing Space-Time, as well as a
cross-section view of the Torus which is of great importance in the visualizations
of the Middle Pillar. 8 is also the
number of directional rays emanating from the central zone of the Chaos Magick
star or Buddhist Dharmachakra. Eight is important to the Gnostics as the
Ogdoadic Sphere above the manifest seven, particularly relating to Space-Time
and the region of Daath which is the eighth zone on the Tree of Life counting
up from Malkuth. There are also 8 points in Perfect Ashlar of the Masons, and Christian Mystics
have known for a long time that the name Jesus in Greek, Ιησους,
has a precise value of 888. 888 is a number of movement,
change, flux, energy, and rightfully it is symbolic of the nature of the Middle
Pillar ritual which is aimed at generating this magickal energy at will. Atu
VIII is Strength (Lust in the Thoth deck), which shows a
woman opening the mouth or riding on a lion, which connects to the ancient
depictions of Ishtar (whose symbol is also the 8-pointed star). The Middle
Pillar serves to strengthen and
balance the Light-Body as well as re-connect as a bridge Yechidah with the
Nephesch, i.e. Higher Self with Animal Self.
Formulas of the Five Zones of the Middle
Pillar
אהיה – Eheieh – “I Am” = 21
אלהימ יהוה – YHVH Elohim – “Lord God”,
“Lord of Gods”, or “Lord of Hosts” = 112
ודעת אלוה יהוה – YHVH Eloah Va-Daath – “God
Made Manifest in the Sphere of Mind” or “Lord God of all Knowledge” = 548
חי לא שדי – Shaddai El Chai – “The
Almighty Living Creature of God.” Of the Four Holy Creatures, the Man. The
sexual strength of Yesod. = 363
הארצ אדני – Adonai Ha-Aretz – “Lord of the
Earth” = 361
21 +
112 + 548 + 363 + 361 = 1405 = השתן, Ha-Satan; Satan, The Prince of
Darkness. This is a mystical allusion to the fact of the fall of the Lucifer,
Bearer of Light into the lower (manifest/magickal) form of Satan, the Prince of
Darkness.
1405 is also the number of THE MIDDLE PILLAR854 + קבלה של החוכמה551, ‘The
Wisdom of the Qabalah’, as well as:
MIDDLE PILLAR = 444, half of 888 and related specifically to the
4 ELEMENTS444, which
make up the material manifestation (Σαρξ
και Αιμα444, ‘Flesh and Blood’) of the higher Ενεργειακο Σωμα444,
or ‘Energy Body’ – the two being conceived as the phenomenal and noumenal
composites of the Mystical and Magickal, Inner and Outer, or Above and Below.
444 is also the full Hebrew value of Chi (הה יוד חות, Cheth-Yod-Hé), meaning ‘Life’, the life of the ENERGY BODY VITALITY444 which
is generated in the emanations of the SEPHIROTH444
power-zones. The 4th Sephira is Chesed, ‘Mercy’, whose Archangelic
Choir is Chasmalim, ‘The Bright Ones’, a Hebrew word with its root Chasmal meaning ‘Electricity’. (Note
that the English word Chasmal means
“resembling a chasm”, i.e. the Abyss, which separates Chesed from the Supernal
Triad.) Chesed is the first sephira of the Microprosopus/Zeir Anpin (“The Lesser Countenance”/“Small Face”/Microcosm)
and is sometimes called the Cohesive or Receptive Intelligence being as it
contains “all the Holy Powers, and from it emanate all the spiritual virtues
with the most exalted essences.”
An important personal experience I
had on January 2nd, 2012 should be related in more full explanation
in regards to a manifestation of an electric blue orb which manifested itself
to me while in bed that night by glidingly floating through the window. During
this period I had been just beginning to make the Initiatory connections and
Ordeals through reading much occult and magickal material. Oddly, right when I
was in a very comfortable state right before falling asleep something told me
to open my eyes and to my surprise I saw an electric blue orb come through the
glass window as if it were completely immaterial. This caused me to panic and I
could hardly breathe or speak and felt a great sense of panic having never
experienced something so out-rightly alien to my senses. My friend Nick
happened to also be in the room because he had been over for the night and I
attempted to yell for him to wake up and look as he was already asleep, though
I could hardly find words. He looked just in time to see a blue light move
quickly out or away from the window, but was unable to get as full a view of it
as I did. I told him the details of how it looked to me, like a sort of
brighter, bluer and more dense sort of novelty plasma globe lamp which
strangely seemed to cast no reflecting glow on the surrounding walls or the
window-pane itself.
Nick and I discussed whether it could have been
someone with a flashlight outside, or a headlight reflection, but the problem
with both of those is the fact that if anyone were outside the window we would
have heard them walk up and definitely run away because I can hear when someone
is walking by five feet away, much less right up close. Also, the parking spot
in front of my window was filled by my friend’s car, also noise would have been
made if it were a vehicle which there wasn’t, being as it was about midnight or
shortly after. However, the memory of what I saw and the effect it had on me,
leaving a case of goose bumps to last about an hour, was too strong to
write-off as anything other than what it was as I experienced it, which was me
looking up to see a GLOWING ORB444 enter
my bedroom and then quickly fly out as I panicked. The reason I am noting this
personal experience is because in A
Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, Gareth Knight mentions clearly that
“The Archangel of the Sephira [of Chesed], Tzadkiel, as well as the Order of
Angels, Chasmalim, or Brilliant Ones, can be built up in imagination, the
Archangel having an especial link with the symbol of the Orb”.
444 as
the triple or three-dimensional extension of Chesed is rightly allocated to the
power of electricity and materialization being as it is the first zone of the
emanation of Light through the refractory prism of Daath (also related to the
4/Door symbolism) in space-time.
The figure of
4 is specifically related to the symbol of Jupiter, it’s planetary
representative, but is also reminiscent of the crossed-legs of the Hanged Man
who symbolizes the Adept crossing the Abyss, or the crossing of Spirit and
Matter divided by the Waters (Mem/Mu) of Space(-time). This ‘crossing’ is
symbolized in the cross of the elements or Matter, ⊗. This is the main ‘wheel’ of the ‘wheels
within wheels’, and as such it is given the God-Name of El, or AL, אל31 which also
reduces to 4. The main symbol of Chesed is however the Square, a symbol
of the Masons which together with the compass can be seen illustrated in the
letters A as the compass and L as the measuring square. A, or Aleph in the
Tarot is 0, the circle or zero-point of origination which the compass traces
(The Fool in his dance of maya) and L is Lamed attributed to Justice, or
Adjustment which shows Maat the balancer/measurer in the Diamond. Both Atus in
the Thoth deck show a form of the Diamond, also related to Chesed and the 4.
Another form of 444 is ADI VAJRADHARA, (Primordial Diamond-Holder) or simplified as THE VAJRAHARA, Sanskrit for ‘The Diamond Holder’, or Bearer of
the Thunderbolt, a title of the Ultimate Primordial Buddha, or Adi Buddha
(‘Dorje Chang’ in Tibetan).
Vajradhara (Sanskrit) Diamond-holder; the First Logos,
supreme buddha, or adi-buddha, equivalent to the Tibetan dorjechang. “As the
Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of
manifestation his heart -- the ‘diamond heart,’ Vajrasattva (Dorjesempa)”
(The Secret Doctrine 1:571). Vajra
here expresses the indestructibility and spiritually adamantine quality of this
“One unknown, without beginning or end” - unknown to the average worldly
person, but recognized by full initiates as the source of their divine
inspiration and intuitions. –Babylon Dictionary
The Thunder-bolt is particularly related to
Chasmalim and the descending energy of the Middle Pillar, and even though
Chesed is not on the Middle Pillar itself, it is nonetheless of great
importance in this analysis. In Chapter 1, verse 6 of Sepher Yetzirah, it is said
“The Ten ineffable Sephiroth have the appearance of
the Lightning flash,(17) their origin is unseen and no end is
perceived. The Word is in them as they rush forth and as they return, they
speak as from the whirl-wind, and returning fall prostrate in adoration before
the Throne.”
17 Lightning flash. In the early edition the words "like scintillating
flame" are used: the Hebrew word is BRQ. Many Kabalists have shown how the
Ten Sephiroth are symbolised by the zig-zag lightning flash.
This ‘Zig-zag lightning flash’ has been found to be
formulated on the paths of the Tree of Life itself enumerating to 777 אדגטלןףרת, (if the path from Binah to Chesed be taken as 3,
for Gimel connects Arikh Anpin with Zeir Anpin). 777 is also הקליפות עולם, OVLM H’QLIPhVTh, The World of the Shells, or Qliphoth which refers
to the broken lights or shells which were destroyed in the primordial ‘fall’ of
the Lightning-Bolt/Soul-Spark into a lesser, mundane form. 888, 444, 777, etc.
each illustrate the transmission and reception of Qabalistic Knowledge as
gradual emanations from 111 to 999, which is known as the Qabalah of Nine
Chambers also called AIQ BKR333,
בכר איק formed from the Hebrew alphabet of 22 letters
(along with its 5 final letter forms) folded into a grid according to their
gematric value of 1-9, 10-90, and 100-900. All of these various expressions are
examples of what is called the Literal Qabalah, and though much of this is all
rather concise and literally
connected many orthodox Qabalists and Magicians still have yet to admit even
the possibility of a practical application of the Hebrew Qabalah to English
(much less Sanskrit) terminology as if doing so would in some way diminish the
tradition, when in fact it strengthens, expands and updates it.
Much of this knowledge is actually somewhat new
while the fundamental Qabalistic system is itself very ancient. English was
non-existent in the times the Qabalah was first being transmitted, and even
though the language still fits with the legends, tenets and axioms when analyzed
in database form – such as I have created and published in Liber Mayan.
The
string of correspondences unveiled in the Qabalah of Nine Chambers
(specifically the numbers 111-222-333-444-555-666-777-888-999) illustrates a
sort of literal qabalistic expression of the Middle Pillar itself, being as it
is a pillar or spectrum of the nine numbers in trine form (a trine of trines). They
are called Chambers because they are
like cells or shells, the World of
Shells being those primordial lights which broke in the Fall, giving way to
Malkuth, or the Nephesch (Fallen-Animal Soul) in Assiah (Material World),
symbolized by the number 10. The Nine Chambers are referenced in the Masonic
legend of the Ninth Arch, ‘The Royal Arch of Enoch’, under which was kept the
secret name of God inscribed on a triangular gold plate. The Nine ‘homeworlds’
are also mentioned in Norse mythology, and the Egyptians as well as the Greeks
also had their Enneads and appending Creation myths. It is almost as if the
Pillar were more like a ladder, or staircase even, and simple referenced to the
number 999 in Liber 999 (the number
of Liber Mayan) will show that this
is a precise allocation for THE STAIRCASE, which according to Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (Ch. VI, sect. E) is said to be
a symbol of copulation, and thus the act of emanation, manifestation and
reception (i.e. the Qabalah itself.)
The symbolism of the Ladder,
Staircase and winding stairs is also featured in Masonry as symbolic of order,
initiation, and the human spine or
‘winding stairs of the temple’ mentioned in I Kings 6:8 “And they went up the winding stairs into the
middle chamber.” The Body is the Temple, and the ‘middle chamber’ of Solomon’s
Temple refers to the Heart or Tiphareth/ Anahatta chakra. If one looks at the
center of the Qabalistic Grid, 555 which is a number used also in Masonic
symbolism, is seen to be a form of HNK, or Enoch, the ‘Master of the Ninth Arch’ whose
name in Hebrew means ‘Initiate’, ‘Initiator’, ‘Founder’ or ‘Dedicated’, (i.e.
the Initiated Initiator and Founder of Masonry). In Hebrew 555 is also חנוך ויתהלך, ‘And Enoch Walked’, from Genesis 5:24 “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God
took him.” The number 555 is further related to mystical resurrection and
initiation in how its sum is 15, the number of parts including the lost phallus
that Osiris was dismembered into by Set according to Egyptian legends. There
are masonic depictions of THE COFFIN555 with
the numbers 5-5-5 inscribed, and Osiris is particularly symbolic of the
resurrection, afterlife and underworld (Amenta). Atu XV15 is The Devil, another mask of the Initiator
and ruler of the Underworld. The 15th letter is ‘O’, the Hebrew
letter Ayin, meaning ‘Eye’ which the
English letter is symbolic. E. A. Wallis Budge, in Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection (pg. 9) says “The name Osiris
means “many-eyed” (πολυνοφθαλμον),
and is rightly applied to the sun, which darts his rays everywhere, seeing as
it were with many eyes what is on land and sea.” Again, the Middle Chamber
(5/555) is associated with the Sun, Tiphareth/The Heart/Anahatta.
In Matthew 6:22 the words of Jesus are record as saying “The lamp
of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall
be full of light.” This is an alchemico-mystical expression referring to the
unification of the inward and outward vision and the disparate rays or base
metals into a balanced composite known as the Chrysos or Gold of which the
title Christ receives its origin. Thus, the ‘many eyes’ become THE ONE EYE in 555 which from the central chamber forms the
central or middle pillar. While MIDDLE PILLAR is 444, THE BALANCE is 111, therefore THE MIDDLE PILLAR
BALANCE or BALANCE THE MIDDLE
PILLAR is also 555, also illustrating this idea (the balance
being especially related to Maat the balancer/measurer as presider over Truth
and Justice, the ♎︎/⚖.) The Risen Osiris is symbolized by the raising of the Djed
pillar, the upright and stable pillar synonymous with the Tree of Life itself
as well as the spine, the upholder of the sky and cosmic stability. In The Ninth Arch, Kenneth Grant refers
numerous times to the ‘Tet’, or Amen-Tet, the Hidden Pillar “established in the
void” of Amenta, the Desert of Set. The name Set means ‘a standing stone’,
relating of course to the Djed which is also a standing stone. Both TET
and DJED have a value of 23, the number of the ‘Hidden’ or ‘Secret’ Atu
which is equated to the Lost Word or Omnific Letter which is symbolic of that
which is yet to Be and the power of infinite potential, the power of the DJEDI
(33), the root of which is the Djed. It has long been known there are 33 disks
in the spinal column, and the djed disks are said to intentionally exhibit
this. 33 is of course the amplification of the 22 and Paths with the Ten
sephiroth along with the Hidden Pillar or Standing Stone of Set (Daath), the
Knowledge of the WITCH33 and the formula of WICCA33,
which is essentially a western form of yoga,
since it is essentially a ‘bringing together’ and ‘weaving’ of forces, paths ,
knowledge, MagicS:33 etc.
The
Egyptian green faced ram god Khnum, who is the union between Osiris (the
Underworld) and Ra (The Sun) is the Potter god of Creation and Fertility and
ruler of the annual Nile inundation, a type of Demiurge who fashions man on a
potter’s wheel out of clay. The ram or horned one is also totemic of many
nature deities, Amun-Ra, Pan, Cernunnos, the Goat of Mendes or Baphomet, and
even Moses was depicted with horns as symbolic of Aries ♈. Khnum
is said to have reconstructed the limbs of the dismembered Osiris, as well as
himself the personification of the “Ra in Osiris and Osiris in Ra”, i.e. the
fusing of the Light and the Dark, the Day and the Night, Life and Death, Kether
and Malkuth. The Horned One is of central importance to the Wiccan and Sabbatic
Craft traditions, and the symbol of the horns is of course obviously related to
the ‘Double One’, 11, the number of Daath as the Knowledge of Life and Death. The spiral horn is reminiscent of the
winding spiral staircase which is related to THE CONE555 of Power mentioned
throughout The Ninth Arch as a key to
“the true formula of transition to other dimensions.” (see pg. 341) Grant
mentions how this idea was sigilized in a painting by Austin Spare called ‘Man
is a Bundle of Ids’, and in his deeper explanation in Appendix I, its true significance particularly in regard to further
expansion and integration of the Middle Pillar is shown. A full quote of the
Appendix thus follows:
“The signs and symbols printed in books are
stylized mnemonics communicated by specific Intelligences and/or Spirits. The
Sign of Protection however is not formed as one would form a regular figure
such as the pentagram, hexagram, etc., but according to requirement. A very
special form of defence is necessary against hostile forces from Outside. A
particular angle of the figure has to be projected into another dimension. Such
a figure cannot accurately be committed to paper, not may it be traced in the
Air. Such a Sign has plenary magical potential only when projected mentally by
one who has established two-way traffic with his daemone, whose Word he has received. Those who have passed the
Pylon of Samekh1 will be
familiar with the curious ‘sloping’ sensation that precedes a shift of
consciousness beyond everyday awareness, as occurs in dreams, trances,
ecstasies, profound anguish, or in vertigo. The Sign of Protection is the most
ancient form of the pentagram. It was known originally by the Kamite
designation, S’baau, meaning ‘abode
of stars’. It is represented by the Star of Set figured in the heavens as the
Eye of the Southern Pole, itself symbolic of the Amenta or Hidden Land. As our
model we shall take the stylized pentangle, bearing in mind that it may only be
suggested on a plane surface:
When the Word of the daemone is
vibrated correctly, it extends the required angle of vision. This extension
vibrates and creates a whirling cone, vortex, or funnel, which sucks in and
destroys hostile forces. In the process, the star is distorted by elongating
and twisting the appropriate angle
out of proportion to the figure’s remaining nodal points. The latter are then
to be extended in turn according to the divers directions there occurs also a
distortion of sound, of vibration. This phenomenon is paralleled by the Hindu pranava which, in ideographic form,
exemplifies lineally, twisted sound.2
But there is an
almost insurmountable obstacle to the projection of this vibration beyond the
realms of the known universe. The Sign of Protection must needs reach beyond
the ‘ring-pass-not’ sentinels of astral, etheric and mental rings – which are
merely conceptual – if it is to penetrate the Outside. Matter must be
dematerialized and reintegrated as something quite other, in order to strike at the roots of invading alien influence.
This basic fact was understood by the ancient Adepts, and some of their
teachings on the subject of the Ain Soph
(Outer Void), though without specific reference to the Sign of Protection, were
incorporated in a paper prepared by more recent Adepts of the Golden Dawn, entitled ‘The Law of the
Convoluted Revolution of the Forces Symbolized by Four Aces [Tarot] Around the
Northern Pole’. Concerning the translation of matter from one dimension to
another, the formula is described in qabalistic terminology, and its meaning
will be seen to resonate with our remarks above:
Any forces in Malkuth may act through the upper cone of the hour-glass
symbol, and by means of the lower one translate its operation into the Kether
below, but its mode of transmission will be through the cones by the thread of
the Ain Soph or of the unformulated. So that in the transmission between the
two worlds [manifest/unmanifest] the formulate must first become unformulate
ere it can reformulate in new conditions.
Other aspects of the
cone were noted by Aleister Crowley in connection with the fourth dimension,
which he worked into the fourth chapter of Moonchild.
Austin O. Spare envisaged the cones as extending to infinity.3
Whilst en route, the points of the
cones pierce the aethyrs like a needle, paralyzing any hostile force inhabiting
them. In Spare’s diagrammatic drawing (see Frontispiece), note that the
descending cone depends from a pentagon, the extreme distortion of which is
caused by space-time dilation. A similar distortion links the
Zos-Ilyarun-Aossic complex in the ‘Formula of Zos vel Thanatos’ stylized or –
more appropriately – stélé-ized in the plaque reproduced in Zos Speaks!.4 Frater Achad
had envisaged, independently, and perhaps deployed, his ‘Star of Manifestation’
(see diagram 3, page 403) in a similar context. He hinted also at a mode of
invocation involving a special order of shaktis
(letters) in the thirteen angles of the Star to bring into manifestation the
defensive influences of the Maatian Gnosis. Achad’s Star was thus also a Sign
of Protection.
Major Typhonian
implicits of the Hour-Glass Formula may be recognized in the following
representations of key factors of the Aeon of Zain:
The Double Cone comprises the 7 (Set-Typhon) and the 8 (Isis) in her
dynamic phase (i.e., with Phallus, I) as ‘New’ Isis. This is the key to the Stélé 718 (AL.III.19) fused with the stélé of Zos vel Thanatos as the basic
formula of the Aeon of Z(ain), thus manifesting the “thread of Ain Soph”.
In summary: the
potency of the Sign of Protection is dependent upon the Magician’s ability to
release and to direct the vibration of the Word communicated to him by his daemone, and to sever with the Sword (Zain) the intrusive tentacles from
Outside.
1 Samekh means ‘prop; standing-stone;
pylon or pillar’. IT is the ideogram of Set, the ‘Passing of the Pylon’ should
be achieved in the Fifth Degree of O.T.O.
2 See Nitya Tripta, Spiritual
Discourses, page 441.
3 The
hour-glass, by shape, is a figure of eight (Isis), and a vertical form of the
mathematical sign for infinity.
4 See Zos Speaks!, page 154. The
stélé designed by Spare incorporated the encoded formulae activated to form the
basis of the Zos Kia Cultus founded
in conjunction with New Isis Lodge.
Spare fleshed the formula of the Double Cone, or Hour-Glass, in feminine form
with sigils and ‘sentient symbols’ located at the zones relevant to their
function in the subtle body.
The
Hour-glass/Double Cone created from the thread of Ain Soph is also mentioned in
‘The Astronomical Tarot’ section of The
Golden Dawn text which relates the Tarot with basic astronomical and
astrological principles and mentions some interesting details about the
“Hourglass Connection of Malkuth and Kether”:
“Now there will be,
not one, but four formulae of the application of the Four Forces of Malkuth,
unto the revolution of the Aces in Kether, and these acting not singly but
simultaneously and with a different degree of force. Were Malkuth or Kether in
the same plane or world the transmission of these forces would proceed more or less in direct lines. In this
case, seeing that Malkuth and Kether be
in different planes or worlds, the lines of transmission of these forces
are caught up and whirled about by the upper
cone of the hour glass symbol into the vortex
where through passeth the thread of the unformulated,
i.e. the Ain Soph. Thence they are projected in a whirling convolution (yet
according unto their nature) through the lower cone of the hourglass symbol
unto Kether. Whence it resulteth that these formulae are of the nature of the
Dragon, that is to say, moving in convolutions, and hence they are called the Dragon or Serpent Formulae.” –S.L. Mathers
This is all a rather confusing mystical expression of the conceptualization of the formulations of emanation according to the Tarotic and astro-symbolic terminologies. Donald Tyson, in his book New Millennium Magic explains in detail close to the beginning of the book the nature of the Manifest toroidal coil and the Unmanifest zero-point (created if the top and bottom cones fold in on themselves and connect), which is the same shape-formula of the Macrocosmic Galaxy as well as the Microcosmic atom.
The Cone of Power and the Middle Pillar are essentially one and the same with the dual ability to bring down or ‘manifest’ creative power or to raise up, exalt a power, or sow a seed into the Unmanifest. The flow of energy marked by the arrows in the diagram show the inward/upward and downward/outward channel which itself resembles the growth of a Tree – growing up, out, dropping its seeds and its dead material back down and cycled again. This would of course then be the mystical and magical Tree of the Knowledge of Life and Death centered in the middle of the Garden. The Tree in its spiral growth through space-time is yet again also related to the imagery of the Staircase, which as Freud said is symbolic of copulation (Generation/Genesis). The Staircase (999) emanates from THE SEED (333) which in its most basic form is the symbol of Sol, ⊙, also known as the Anupadaka. THE SUPREME KNOWLEDGE999 of Daath is contained in the DOT (Daath is literally Daleth-Ayin-Tau, D-O-T) at the center of the Circle.
According to Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, “In the metaphysical world, the Circle with its one central Point in it has no number, and is called Anupådaka – parentless and numberless, for it can fall under no calculation. It is a center of energy, which I shall for the present call the Logos. It is called the Verbum by the Christians, and it is the divine Christos who is eternal in the bosom of his Father.” –I., 118-155.
It is from this center which is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere that the unfoldment of the Supernal Triad gains energetic potential to manifest the lightning-bolt flash of creation. The mathematical precision of the Qabalistic conceptualizations show the framework to be both accurate and workable and therefore even deeper and more intuitively reliable creative visualization can be undertaken when working the Middle Pillar ritual and the channeling THE POWERS OF AZOTH999, the hidden animating spirit associated with Akasha and the Ain Soph. In the beginning of my own Initiations I had conceived of my own gradual awakening as like that of an invisible thread which slowly becomes unwoven like the coming un-done of the hinges of the fundamental zones of reality having deeply meditated on the nature of the Numerical Spheres. This weaving ‘Thread’ is the Gold Thread of the Ain Soph which extends infinitely into the two extremes; Ain (Nothing) and Ain Soph Aur (Limitless Light). This mystical thread is the source and medium of magickal power itself as cosmic manifestations of the one substance which is aimed at being purified, consecrated, channeled or discharged through the Middle Pillar.
The Middle
Pillar Ritual Procedure
Establishing the
Pillar
Kether: After a few
minutes of relaxation, imagine a sphere of white light just above your head.
Vibrate the name Eheieh (pronounced Eh-hey-yay, meaning “I am”). Keep vibrating
this word until it is the only thought in your conscious mind. Then imagine a
shaft of light descending from your Kether center to your Daath center at the
nape of the neck.
Daath: Form a sphere of
light at the Daath center. Vibrate the name YHVH Elohim (pronounced
Yode-heh-vav-heh El-oh-heem, meaning Lord of Hosts).
Tiphareth: Bring a shaft of
light down from the Daath center to the Tiphareth center around your heart.
Form a sphere of light there. Vibrate the name YHVH Eloah ve-Daath (pronounced
Yode-heh-vav-heh El-oh-ah v’-Dah-ath, meaning Lord of Knowledge).
Yesod: See the shaft of
light descending from Tiphareth into the Yesod center in the genital region.
Imagine a sphere of light formed there. Intone the name Shaddai El Chai
(pronounced Shah-dye El-Chai meaning Almighty Living God.
Malkuth: Visualize the
shaft of light descending from Yesod into your Malkuth center at the feet and
ankles. Vibrate the name Adonai ha-Aretz (pronounced Ah-doe-nye ha-Ah-retz,
meaning Lord of Earth).
Visualize the Middle Pillar complete.
Circulating the light
Then circulate the light you have
brought down through the Middle Pillar around the outside of your body to
strengthen your aura (Perform each circulation a number of times.):
Circulation One: Side to Side
Using the cycles of rhythmic breathing,
bring the light down one side of the body and up the other, from Kether to
Malkuth and back to Kether. Exhale and visualize the light descending the left
side of the body. Inhale and imagine the light ascending the right side of the
body back to Kether.
Circulation Two: Front to Back
After performing this for a short space
of time, imagine the ribbon of light descending from Kether down the front of
your body to Malkuth and rising up your back, returning again to Kether.
Circulation Three: The Shower of Light
Still employing rhythmic breathing,
visualize the sphere of Malkuth, then see the shaft of light rising up the
Middle Pillar in the center of your body. When it reaches Kether, imagine a
shower of light cascading down the outside of your body as it descends to
Malkuth again. Circulate the light in this manner for some time.
Circulation Four: The Ascending Spiral
Then see the light rise again in a
ribbon that spirals around the outside of your body from Malkuth to Kether.
Closing
Finally focus some of the energy back
into your Tiphareth center, the seat of equilibrium and balance.
Often, the Middle Pillar is combined
with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
To do this:
- Perform the opening Qabalistic Cross
- Formulate the Pentagrams
- Call the Archangels
- Perform the Middle Pillar exercise
- Perform the closing Qabalistic Cross
__________________________
A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism - Gareth Knight
The Golden Dawn - Israel Regardie
The Middle Pillar - Israel Regardie
The Essential Golden Dawn: An Introduction to High Magic - Chic & Tabatha Cicero
New Millennium Magic - Donald Tyson