Daath/the Abyss
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A recent post by a member at Lashtal claims that Daath is an old (pre-Zohar) term for Kether, Chokmah and Binah combined and that when Daath was rediscovered around the 16th century it was wrongly thought to be an 11th sephira. He further claimed that instead of a void or abyss one is likely to find two columns of energy.
The full posting can be found on this link:
www.lashtal.com/nuke/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-2028-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-30.phtml
Now I am aware of the difference between Kabbalah and Qabala. My questions are:
Has anyone else read that Daath does not exist?
How much of AC’s descriptions of the Dweller in the Abyss, Crossing of the Abyss etc is based on prior sources and traditions and how much is AC mapping his own experiences onto his understanding of the Tree of Life?
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@HRH said
"A recent post by a member at Lastly claims that Daath is an old (pre-Zohar) term for Kether, Chokmah and Binah combined and that when Daath was rediscovered around the 16th century it was wrongly thought to be an Th sephira."
One of my earliest realizations concerning Da'ath - way back at a beginning stage - has served me for the intervening decades: Da'ath is a representation of the Supernals as seen from below the Abyss. That is (among other things), the normal human mind can't even conceive of the Supernals in any functional way. (I'm not convinced the normal human mind can really conceive of Tiphereth, except up to Yetzirah and with the psychological patterns of, say, Greek ideals of beauty, etc.; but I admit this is at least possible. I deny, however, that any idea the intellect produces about any of the Supernals is correct, though we continue talking about such things and using symbols to try to get us closer.)
One can form words around these things once one knows them, but I doubt anyone can know them from words.
Do - in the sense just described - I would say agree that Da'ath, to most people, is a manageable handle for trying to grasp some idea of the Supernals.
Qabalistically, it's the other way around: KThR (Kether) = 620. So does the phrase ChKMH BYNH VDOTh, "Chokmah, Binah, and Da'ath."
It helps also to consider the Sufi Tree of Life. They hold quite carefully to the Sepher Yetzirah's admonishment that the Sephirah are "10 and not 9; 10 and not 11." When they add Da'ath to the Tree, they remove Kether. There is a useful piece of doctrine associated with this: You can either have God, or knowledge about God - one precludes the other.
This principle is dramatized in the earliest Temple of Thelema initiation: There is a critical stage where one is standing symbolically in a place from which one might expect to gaze directly upon the Divine. However, the intellect is standing in the way. In fact, that intellect is critically involved in the ripening of what happens to one in that place. Only when the intellect moves out of the way is the symbol of the Divine fully disclosed.
"He further claimed that instead of a void or abyss one is likely to find two columns of energy."
There is a further confusion here: Da'ath is not the Abyss. Too many people ignorantly use them interchangeably. Da'ath is in the Abyss, but (at least sometimes) I find myself relating to it as an island of stability. (I don't recommend running too far with those words, but I give them for what they may be worth.) I repeat: Do not confuse Da'ath with the Abyss.
If the writer stated this as you have indicated, then I respect the honesty: The word "likely" seems to suggest that this was a speculation, and not based on experience. In that case, it's a worthy conjecture.
I would agree with it in a way, though I would use different language. Da'ath is the coital union of Chokmah and Binah. (Tiphereth is their child, but Da'ath is their simultaneous orgasm, their actual union. This resolves many doctrinal arguments about which is the proper child of the Supernals.) "Da'ath," which translates "knowledge," means "sexual union" in the same sense as the somewhat archaic English phrase, "carnal knowledge." When Genesis says that Adam knew Eve, the word used is YDO, yadah, and is a variant of DOTh, da'ath.
In this sense (among others), Da'ath represents all things vanishing because of the perfect union of equal opposites. If you want to represent this by two pillars, cool. I represent it by an image of Shiva and Shakti copulating eternally.
But I assure you that the Abyss is a void.
"Has anyone else read that Daath does not exist?"
Yes. Da'ath does not exist. That's the whole point! "Da'ath" means "knowledge" and the whole point is that there is no such thing as knowledge. Da'ath is an extraordinarily useful concept for dealing with this.
Everything we think of as knowledge is really a relationship between facts. It's all circular definition. We can't define anything without using other terms which need definition, probably based on the term we are trying to use them to define!
Only experience busts us out of this loop.We must experience a thing directly, not learn about it. You can have the experience of the reality of God, or you can have knowledge (facts) about God. Not both. Each precludes the other.
BTW this shouldn't be taken as a disparagement of knowledge. It's our primary tool for dealing with things on the intellectual plane.
"How much of AC’s descriptions of the Dweller in the Abyss, Crossing of the Abyss etc is based on prior sources and traditions and how much is AC mapping his own experiences onto his understanding of the Tree of Life?"
Anybody's experiences will be influenced by their beliefs. This occurs least when one is at the ripest point for stepping outside of one's own framework, for thinking outside one's own box. With this caveat, I'd say that Crowley's writings on this particular subject were all the fruits of his direct experiences. The inner explorations documented in The Vision & the Voice is the most important record of this direct experience.
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From "The Lesser Holy Assembly", Chapter VII:
"293. And when all things are comprehended ..., they are called by that name of Father, Mother, and Son.
"294. And these are ChKMH, Wisdom, Father; BINH, Understanding, Mother; and DOTh, Daath, Knowledge.
"295. Since that Son assumeth the symbols of His Father and of His Mother, and is called DOTh, Daath, Knowledge, since He is the testimony of Them both.
"296. And that Son is called the first-born ...
"297. And since He is called first-born, therefore it implieth dual offspring *."And again, Chapter XXII:
"734. The Male * is extended in right and left, through the inheritance which he receiveth (i.e., from Chokmah and Binah).
"735. But whensoever the colours are mingled together then He is called Tiphereth, and the whole body is formed into a tree (the Autz Ha-Chaiim, or Tree of Life) ..."
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"737. His arms are right and left. In the right arm is Chesed and Life; in the left is Geburah and Death.
"738. Through Daath are His inner parts formed, and they fill the Assemblies and Conclaves, as we have said." -
Yes, but that doesn't mean I agree.
It's a wrong doctrine. -
The synthesis of each of these ideas is expressed beautifully in L. III:24 with "the fresh blood of a child". As you both know, the phrase "fresh blood of a child" has a very specific meaning for most Thelemites.
Jim says "Da'ath is their simultaneous orgasm, their actual union" while the Zohar says "the Son[...]is called DOTh, Daath, Knowledge"...
Thelemically, the child can be a 'child' without having been born - or even conceived for that matter. Thus it appears perfectly plausible to suggest that Da'ath & Tiphareth might both occupy the position as 'Child' - they may just be different stages of Its development, so to speak. For instance, one might say that Da'ath is that Son created in the image of Elohim in chapter 1 of Genesis - being both "male & female" - while Tiphareth is that Son created by Yahweh in chapter 2 & seperated from his femanine counter-part, Malkuth.Concerning Da'ath & the Two Columns earlier discussed: I have heard the doctrine that states Kether as absent when Da'ath is present & vice verse - but I have also heard of another doctrine that states Kether as being an illusion seen only by those below the Abyss...
As a true state of One is in actuality a state of None, then there is no 'Head' on the Tree of Life - but rather we are left with something resembling "two columns".
Most Thelemites are familiar with the formula 0=2 - I think this is just another way of stating that same Truth."None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two. - L. I:28"
616
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@KRVB MMShCh said
"the phrase "fresh blood of a child" has a very specific meaning for most Thelemites.
Jim says "Da'ath is their simultaneous orgasm, their actual union" while the Zohar says "the Son[...]is called DOTh, Daath, Knowledge"...
"...not to mention the fact that Da'ath is on the same plane as Cheth...
L.Lazuli
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Thanks everyone for the replies and clarification.
@Jim Eshelman said
"But I assure you that the Abyss is a void."
The following may sound strange, but I’ve heard certain students of Kabbalah intimate that the Fall (the abyss between the ideal and phenomenal) is an illusion, that this concept is a Gnostic-Christian notion, and that Judaism is fundamentally a non-transcendental system of immanence. That is, it’s all here and now.
Is this what the phrase “Kether is in Malkuth, but in a different way…” means?
Last question: if “Kether is in Malkuth,” this suggests Daath corresponds in some way with Yesod wherein the Tree of Life is “folded” so that the Lower Triad mirrors the Supernals. Has anyone heard this before?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Everything we think of as knowledge is really a relationship between facts. It's all circular definition. We can't define anything without using other terms which need definition, probably based on the term we are trying to use them to define!
Only experience busts us out of this loop."Along those lines, does Derrida’s concept of differance remind you of anything in the Vision and the Voice?
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@h2h said
"if “Kether is in Malkuth,” this suggests Daath corresponds in some way with Yesod wherein the Tree of Life is “folded” so that the Lower Triad mirrors the Supernals. Has anyone heard this before?"
There is a doctrine of 'The Great Tree' or 'Jacob's Ladder' in which the four Olamoth or 'Worlds' over-lap eachother so that the Kether of one Olam aligns with the Malkuth of the Olam above it - but there is also another interpretation of the same doctrine that states that the Kether of one Olam is the Tiphareth of the Olam above it - thus Da'ath of Beriah aligns with Yesod of Atziluth & Kether of Beriah aligns with Tiphareth of Atziluth, & so on with the rest of the Sephiroth/Olamoth...
616
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@KRVB MMShCh said
"There is a doctrine of 'The Great Tree' or 'Jacob's Ladder' in which the four Olamoth or 'Worlds' over-lap eachother so that the Kether of one Olam aligns with the Malkuth of the Olam above it - but there is also another interpretation of the same doctrine that states that the Kether of one Olam is the Tiphareth of the Olam above it - thus Da'ath of Beriah aligns with Yesod of Atziluth & Kether of Beriah aligns with Tiphareth of Atziluth, & so on with the rest of the Sephiroth/Olamoth..."
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LOL.
There's a good graphic showing the overlap, like circles that intersect.
The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, there is a Tree of Life diagram made up of the geometry of creating the Tree. It looks like a whole bunch of circles are intersecting. Lines connect the points of intersection to form the tree.
If you can place the circles over the Tree, or the Tree over the circles, you can follow the references.
Any of the spheres in the Middle Pillar (Kether, Tiphareth, Malkuth), create a triangle with the spheres beneath them, and are thus duplicating the same relationship above them.
Well, maybe this is not clear, either.
chrys333 -
93,
I found the following statement from Jim to be one of the most accurate statements whether taken from a Kabbalistic or Qabbalistic standpoint I've ever read:
"Da'ath is a representation of the Supernals as seen from below the Abyss."
However, I also agree with the statements from the Zohar, but they mean something entirely different than most people would interpret them.
The highest teachings in the Kabbalah surround the Sexual Act which concerns Da'ath. Da'ath and the Supernals are beyond verbal description. They represent, for lack of a better explanation; the "Roots" of things that can "eventually" be put into words. They beget the Children through the Son, so to speak.
Words are limiting and the cause of Restriction thus the Lower Seven Sephiroth are Kabbalistically referred to as "Middot", which means "Measurements" or "Attributes".
They are inherently "Blasphemous", as they place "Restrictions" on something that is "Infinite" and therefore beyond description. However, it is the only way to "attempt" to "extend" the "Infinite" unto "Limited" and "Finite" beings (whom may not really be limited or finite at all... they just don't "know" it yet).
The Supernals are traditionally or Kabbalistically (as opposed to Qabbalistically) described as "Mochin" or "Brains". This excludes Kether. Thus we have the terms Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge... Kether is the "Crown" because it "Encircles" (Kithre) the Brains. The only thing that can be grasped of Kether is the Knowledge or Union of Hokmah and Binah. Da'ath is the Inner Light and animating force of the Lower Sephiroth. On one level it is the Son or result of the Union of the Father and Mother. On another level it is beyond them both. It is the "Source" of Vav as the extension of the Line of Light and therefore also the Son.
Ratzohn means Will, its permutation is Tzinor which means Channel. They both have a gematria of 346, as does Mequr or Fount.
If we use water as an analogy... The higher Will is a Fountain(Da'ath) that has its source in a hidden Reservoir that is Concealed (Kether, the Koach H'Maskil or Force that Inspires and can not be seen or grasped below), it feeds a hidden Aquifer that bubbles up through the crevices as this Wellspring or Fount (Da'ath). The only thing that can be grasped is its "Apparent" Source, which is the Wellspring or Fount that flows into the Channels. Kether is the true source, Da'ath is the Fountain. Therefore "In Da'ath the Depths are broken up".
Wisdom is the Lightning Flash, it can not be explained or comprehended but motivates the preformation of thought, that on a yet lower level can be formulated into words... this is Understanding (The preformation of Thought; a species of Higher Aspiration and not the "Verbal" thought itself... these are the "Children" of the Mother... the Seven Lowers). Wisdom is the emergence of the Water from the Spring. Understanding is the Current of the Water as it flows, it is the Current, but not the actual Length itself. This Current eventually forms the Great Sea, whose waters are bitter because they are the source of the "restricting" words that are attempt to "enclothe" it.
Only below can thought be measured/restricted by Words. Thus the Vav above becomes the "Line of Measure" or "Kav H'Middot" below, as it pours into the Channels.
None of these can be contained in a Vessel until they are "Restricted". Therefore it is said that Tiphareth (as representing Microprosopus and the surrounding Five Sephiroth) is capable of providing a "Vessel" for Da'ath. When the Vessel is provided one has "Inner Light" or "Brains" but these are not the True Supernal Lights. They can not be contained in a Vessel.
The Letters are Empty Vessels. When they fill with Light... they are Sephiroth but can only receive, so they are capable of Shattering... when they are able to Give as well as Receive they are Personages or Countenances, because they are capable of interacting and "Knowing" (Oh Yeah!) each other.
The Middle Pillar is the Generative member. It is the Line and capable of "Knowing" the Female at several different levels. Yes, Microprosopus is quite well endowed! He transmits the Influence but only when the Female "Desires" cause the appropriate response!
The Feminine waters are the desires of the Female to the Male (Causing growth from the Foundation... Gedulah of Yesod). The Masculine Waters are the Desires of the Male to the Female. Thus the Light flows through the Channels, it ascends and descends.
The Sexual positioning... Face to Face, Face to Back cause variations of the flow through the Channels. When the positioning is Back to Back... no influence can flow and all is Restriction.
Something is produced in Union that is "Not" of the "Two" or the "One", but simply "Not".
In other words, its all about the Sex; even the analogy of the Waters.
Hard to explain, hopefully I didn't confuse things further. It probably would have been more efficient to say I agree with what Jim said, and leave it at that. However, I also agree with the Zohar which is actually explaining cryptically the Sexual component in a highly concealed manner. A Nun might say, "There will be none of that filling up conclaves and carrying on like that, here in Catholic School!"
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Dennis -
I'm not certain if my conception of Da'ath will be of any use here but for what it's worth here's my $.02.
I have done a lot of meditational work including a lot of work with the Tarot on the paths in the form of the Advanced TCR. One of my experiments was to begin at Malkuth using the 4 10 of the Minor Arcana and using the Major Arcana for connecting the Sephira. Of course this put me in a position to work through the Abyss and Da'ath. My understanding of it was that the Abyss was the place that you would go mentally if you weren't able to look in the mirror of the self and see yourself for who you truelly are. It is the reflection of your lower and base self. It is the exact thing we cannot look at objectively that keeps the average person from K&C with their HGA. What carries us across the Abyss is our strength of character gained through our dedication to our evolution. "Enflame thyself in prayer..."
As you can see from the statement above I see knowledge as self-knowledge and I also perceive that the Abyss is the ego. If the ego gets in the way of the aspirant there is no hope that they will cross the Abyss and all the knowledge of man will not reflect the Divine nature of our inner-star. The veils of ego will not unfold and no possibility of comprehension in the Supernals.
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I've been puzzling over the following description by AC. After explaining Jechidah, Chiah and Neschamah, he writes:
This triune principle being wholly spiritual, all that can be said about it is really negative. And it is complete in itself. Beyond it stretches what is called The Abyss. This doctrine is extremely difficult to explain; but it corresponds more or less to the gap between the Real, which is ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual. In the Abyss all things exist, indeed, at least in posse, but are without any possible meanings; for they lack the substratum of spiritual Reality. They are appearances without Law. They are thus Insane Delusions.
(Little Essays, p. 13; bolded underline mine).
AC appears to be describing consciousness perceiving material phenomena as delusions within The Abyss. That is, the Supernals looks outward and sees the Abyss stretching out infinitely.
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How is this description reconciled with the grade system of the A.A. where a person commences from Malkuth and works up the Tree to Tiphareth before reaching The Abyss that, if ever crossed, one might hope to reach the Supernals?
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Is it correct to identify the Abyss with Nuit and consciousness as a star suspended in infinite space?
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In the Little Essays excerpt, given the Supernals are surrounded on all sides by the Abyss, is it correct to say that there is nothing "beyond" the Abyss?
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@he atlas itch said
"AC appears to be describing consciousness perceiving material phenomena as delusions within The Abyss. That is, the Supernals looks outward and sees the Abyss stretching out infinitely."
Where does he say "material." The "contents" of this may be material impressions but, especially, are contents of Ruach, including thoughts, impressions, determinations, labels, etc.
"1. How is this description reconciled with the grade system of the A.A. where a person commences from Malkuth and works up the Tree to Tiphareth before reaching The Abyss that, if ever crossed, one might hope to reach the Supernals? "
What is there to reconcile? I'm not seeing a discrepancy. Please clarify.
"2. Is it correct to identify the Abyss with Nuit and consciousness as a star suspended in infinite space?"
I think that metaphor would be very misleading.
For one, if Nuit is a particular place on the Tree, it is at 0 (beyond Kether). Though her lower octave Babalon is attributable to Binah, and there are a lot of Binah impressions native to the experience of the Abyss, this wouldn't be an accurate description either. (Babalon is the reward beyond the Abyss.)
"3. In the Little Essays excerpt, given the Supernals are surrounded on all sides by the Abyss, is it correct to say that there is nothing "beyond" the Abyss?"
No.
Hawaii is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. Is it correct to say that there is nothing beyond the Pacific Ocean?
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"Material" is not in that quote but AC then writes:
"Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions."
So, strictly speaking, Phenomena is the impressions or *perceptions *of the material plane rather than actual matter itself. This excerpt from Little Essays seems like an accurate description of reality, but I am not sure how to map it onto the Tree.
Some background: several years ago, through regular practise of Liber O, the material plane became transparent and I suddenly perceived infinite space in all directions . It was disturbing and unsettling to say the least and I don't dwell on it too much. Nonetheless my understanding from that experience remains unchanged. I perceive all phenomenal impressions to be "suspended", almost dreamlike, within that space. I know that if someone swung a bat at me, the nerves of my body would feel pain. Yet this perception of the material plane remains unchanged. At the most extreme points I do not even identify with my body - I feel like a bodiless consciousness or that I am dreaming my body.
So is this Space the equivalent of the Abyss? I would not describe it as Nothing, which would be the absence of all qualities. What I perceive is definitely Space because it has depth and appears to be like a vast consciousness that I am "inside". What do you say Jim?
The possible discrepancy lies in how one understands that Little Essays excerpt. AC seems to identify consciousness with the Supernals, which is surrounded on all sides by the Abyss. If consciousness is identical with the Supernals, how can we work "toward" the Supernals - that is, if we are already there? And what happened to the lower realms of the Tree in this description - have they now been consigned to the great storehouse of impressions within the Abyss? Or, when writing that description of the Supernals, was AC speaking from "above the Abyss"?
I understand your Hawaii analogy to mean there is a vast ocean (i.e. the emotional ordeal of crossing the Abyss) and beyond that ocean lies infinite space (Nuit). My memory is hazy, but I seem to recall the 8=3 grade has lots of allusions to the alchemical process of calcination (liquified matter being turned to a dry white ash under a slow steady heat). I understand calcination to be the process occurring in the crossing of the Abyss, where everything works toward severing all emotional attachments (the terror lies in attachments to identity), toward total surrender, and consciousness becoming dry and lucid.
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@he atlas itch said
""Material" is not in that quote but AC then writes:
"Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions."
So, strictly speaking, Phenomena is the impressions or *perceptions *of the material plane rather than actual matter itself. This excerpt from Little Essays seems like an accurate description of reality, but I am not sure how to map it onto the Tree."
Fair enough. The important thing to realize, though, is that these impressions are psychological. In other words, Ruach phenomena. They aren't the physical world (presuming, for sake of discussion, that such exists); they're the psychological projections be put in the physical world, and which substantially create not the world itself, but our experience of it. (The two need have no particular relationship to each other.) - Your experiences, cited, make this same point, I see.
"So is this Space the equivalent of the Abyss?"
No. Or: Not necessarily. (It could be one symptom of the Abyss, but that's not the only layer at which to produce this. It could also be the Path of Tav.)
Think of the Abyss (for example) as the simultaneous coexistence of all separate units of knowledge or fact or definition - none filtered by selective perception or the ability of the brain to create sanity by excluding them. Infinite chatter (to well beyond "white noise") with no integrating principle.
"I would not describe it as Nothing, which would be the absence of all qualities. What I perceive is definitely Space because it has depth and appears to be like a vast consciousness that I am "inside". What do you say Jim?"
I recognize this state in fair detail. My first experience of it was as a Neophyte 1=10, in Malkuth, as my access to the actually immediately behind physical reality increased. It took other forms years later.
"AC seems to identify consciousness with the Supernals, which is surrounded on all sides by the Abyss."
A particular kind of consciousness. Not all consciousness at all levels.
"f consciousness is identical with the Supernals,"
It's not. (At least, not without modifiers to make this clearer.)
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Thanks Jim. That's a very helpful answer.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Hawaii is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. Is it correct to say that there is nothing beyond the Pacific Ocean?"
I've been pondering the ocean/space reference. How do you reconcile the allusions to calcination (drying to white ash) with the fact Binah is associated with water?
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Then shall thy brain be dumb, and thy heart beat no more, and all thy life shall go from thee; and thou shalt be cast out upon the midden, and the birds of the air shall feast upon thy flesh, and thy bones shall whiten in the sun.
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Then shall the winds gather themselves together, and bear thee up as it were *a little heap of dust *in a sheet that hath four corners, and they shall give it unto the guardians of the abyss.
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And because there is no life therein, the guardians of the abyss shall bid the angels of the winds pass by. And the angels shall lay *thy dust *in the City of the Pyramids, and the name thereof shall be no more.
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Yet shalt thou not be therein, for thou shalt be forgotten, dust lost in dust.
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Nor shall the aeon itself avail thee in this; for from the dust shall a white ash be prepared by Hermes the Invisible.
Liber Cheth
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