Three aspects of Da'ath
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@Jim Eshelman said
"And now back to our regularly scheduled thread
Thanks."And things were just getting interesting!
I'd just like to hazard a few words on the topic of Da'ath and the "psychedelic experience," as this topic was one of my major reasons on bringing up Da'ath in the first place.
"If that's all there was to the appreciation of Da'ath then anyone who's dropped LSD can get the silly idea that they've 'done the abyss'. "
And this is often the case. As a former acid-fancier I feel qualified to break this down a little further. First: LSD, among other things, replicates a "beatific" experience. The results of this are a) a destruction of ego and b) an increase in awareness. Second: an untrained mind, confronted with the presence of the divine, may actualyl consider this experience real. The results of this are a) egomania and b) delusion, among other things.
Now, witness the cases of Charles Manson, Jim Morrison, Timothy Leary, and countless others: men who were nobody before their "experience," and suddenly rose to prominence, full of power and authority. How is this so? Well, they had access, even if momentarily, to the "place beyond definition," the realm of genius. They brought this inspiration into manifestation for either good or ill, depending on their dis-position.
To bring this into relation with Da'ath.
Now, what is important is the primary choice involved in these experiences. And this is where Da'ath comes in. Da'ath, being the Sephira that is not a Sephira, and occupying no place, seems to me the realm between choices, that critical juncture in all religious experience where the aspirant either becomes one with the divine, or reverts their power to personal ends, becoming a Black Brother.
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JPF, 93,
"Da'ath, being the Sephira that is not a Sephira, and occupying no place, seems to me the realm between choices, that critical juncture in all religious experience where the aspirant either becomes one with the divine, or reverts their power to personal ends, becoming a Black Brother."
I think Da'ath is getting too much attention here. Each Sephirah exists in four worlds, remember. We're most familiar with those of Yetzirah and Assiah (very crudely: thought, and action on the physical plane) but we're way less in touch (consciously) with Briah, let alone Atziluth. A lot of things we figure might be Briatic or Atziluthic are, in truth, simply very clear or intense experiences occurring within Yetzirah. Yetzirah can be experienced as crude, or refined. It's like coffee: good Java and throat-searing sludge are still (technically, anyway!) coffee.
Each of the sephiroth, then, offers opportunities to "become one with the divine," or let our power revert to personal ends. No-one is fully a Black Brother who has not approached the Abyss and rejected the crossing, but there are lots of "brethren in the shadow-places" on the way there.93 93/93,
Edward
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@Alrah said
"How did 'black brothers' work their way into this thread? Knowledge of good and evil?
"Black Brothers are pretty native to any discussion of Da'ath or the Abyss. Good vs. evil isn't an issue - it isn't the same as "black magician."
"Black Brother" is a technical term for an Adeptus Exemptus who resists / refuses the Abyss at the time it would be developmentally appropriate.
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@Edward Mason said
"I think Da'ath is getting too much attention here. "
I wouldn't have brought it up at all, but there arose inconsistencies in the prescribed literature of Thelema (I refer here to 777,) and I had hoped to clear these up through simple, sincere questioning.
On one side, an Adept says that Da'ath is the goal of the Magnum Opus (no small statement), and on the other, I'm told that Da'ath is a minor and thoroughly ambiguous blip on an otherwise important map .
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@Alrah said
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Alrah said
"How did 'black brothers' work their way into this thread? Knowledge of good and evil?"Black Brothers are pretty native to any discussion of Da'ath or the Abyss. Good vs. evil isn't an issue - it isn't the same as "black magician."
"Black Brother" is a technical term for an Adeptus Exemptus who resists / refuses the Abyss at the time it would be developmentally appropriate."
You don't think the refusal is often made for 'seemingly' moral reasons?"
Actually, no. I think it's primarily for (1) egoic reasons or (2) over-valuation of intellect (which is mostly, but not entirely the same thing). A variation on (1), which is at the root of most of it, is fear.
But (what is usually meant by) moral reasons? No, I'm not sure I've ever seen that or heard of it.
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@JPF said
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@Edward Mason said
"I think Da'ath is getting too much attention here. "I wouldn't have brought it up at all, but there arose inconsistencies in the prescribed literature of Thelema (I refer here to 777,) and I had hoped to clear these up through simple, sincere questioning."
I'm not sure what you mean. What inconsistencies in prescribed literature? (What is "prescribed literature"?)
"On one side, an Adept says that Da'ath is the goal of the Magnum Opus (no small statement), and on the other, I'm told that Da'ath is a minor and thoroughly ambiguous blip on an otherwise important map ."
What adept says that Da'ath is the goal of the Magnum Opus?
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@JPF said
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@Edward Mason said
"I think Da'ath is getting too much attention here. "I wouldn't have brought it up at all, but there arose inconsistencies in the prescribed literature of Thelema (I refer here to 777,) and I had hoped to clear these up through simple, sincere questioning."
I'm not sure what you mean. What inconsistencies in prescribed literature? (What is "prescribed literature"?)
"On one side, an Adept says that Da'ath is the goal of the Magnum Opus (no small statement), and on the other, I'm told that Da'ath is a minor and thoroughly ambiguous blip on an otherwise important map ."
What adept says that Da'ath is the goal of the Magnum Opus?"
By prescribed literature I mean literature mentioned in the AA curriculum.
And again I quote:
"Now the Tree, or Minutum Mundum, is a Figure in a Plane of a solid Universe. Daath, being above the Plane is therefore a Figure of a Force in four Dimensions, and thus it is the Object of the Magnum Opus. --Alan Bennett, "Qabalistic Dogma""
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@JPF said
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"Now the Tree, or Minutum Mundum, is a Figure in a Plane of a solid Universe. Daath, being above the Plane is therefore a Figure of a Force in four Dimensions, and thus it is the Object of the Magnum Opus. --Alan Bennett, "Qabalistic Dogma""
"Bennett was from the generation of seekers who thought Knowledge the highest goal.
He was an Adept in the G.D. sense. FWIW I'm sure that (at the time he wrote the above) he wasn't anything like an adept in the A.'.A.'. sense. (I doubt he got past about A.'.A.'. 2=9 while still in the G.D. I suspect he got WAY past it later, as part of his Buddhist work.)
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@Alrah said
"Hmmm. I agree, but for some reason I've associated the Garden of Eden tale with Da'ath, and I can't remember why right now..."
Eden itself is symbolically related to the Supernals. This has many precedents, but a series of G.D. diagrams in 2=9 through 4=7 document it as well as anything (and it appears in 13th C. works or earlier).
The "A Boy, A Girl, & A Snake" story has various overlaps with Zayin, which of course crosses through the Abyss (and, with Cheth, is a key path in the Adeptus Exemptus' progress toward M.T.). In some ways I think of Zayin as the sword placed before Eden after the expulsion.
The other main reference to Eden in a key Kabbalistic work would be to Vav: In The 32 Paths of Wisdom, the Path of Vav is described as follows:
"The Sixteenth Path is called the Eternal (or, Triumphant) Consciousness, because it is the pleasure of that Glory beyond which is No-Glory like unto it. It is also called the Garden of Pleasure gan eden, "Garden of Eden"], which is prepared for the Compassionate."
It's interesting to me that the numerical value, in Hebrew, if Eden (124) is the same as that, in Latin, of Magnum Opus, "the Great Work."
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I’ve been following this thread and I have been fascinated by the responses. Please pardon me if this is O.T. but, I got an intuitive hit that there is a point that has been missed about Da’ath. Doesn’t Da'ath also serve as a gateway to the world of Atzilith?
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@Ankh said
"I’ve been following this thread and I have been fascinated by the responses. Please pardon me if this is O.T. but, I got an intuitive hit that there is a point that has been missed about Da’ath. Doesn’t Da'ath also serve as a gateway to the world of Atzilith?"
Not necessarily.
Remember, the entire Tree of Life exists in all four Worlds. Therefore, there is a Da'ath (just as there is a Malkuth or Kether or Hod etc.) in each of the four Worlds.
You might be thinking of what is sometimes termed the "composite Tree," where different ranges of Sephiroth are assigned to different Worlds for specific reasons. (This is done in several different ways.) In one of these approaches, the Supernal triad is regarded as being shown in Atziluth. In that particular use of the Tree, you would be correct.
OTOH I just did a ceremony in New York on Tuesday night that intentionally manifest Binah down to the level of Yetzirah and relied on the Erelim (Angelic Choir of Binah) for most of the work we were doing.
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"Quote JAE:
Not necessarily.Remember, the entire Tree of Life exists in all four Worlds. Therefore, there is a Da'ath (just as there is a Malkuth or Kether or Hod etc.) in each of the four Worlds.
You might be thinking of what is sometimes termed the "composite Tree," where different ranges of Sephiroth are assigned to different Worlds for specific reasons. (This is done in several different ways.) In one of these approaches, the Supernal triad is regarded as being shown in Atziluth. In that particular use of the Tree, you would be correct.
OTOH I just did a ceremony in New York on Tuesday night that intentionally manifest Binah down to the level of Yetzirah and relied on the Erelim (Angelic Choir of Binah) for most of the work we were doing."
Thank you for taking the time to respond Jim; it’s always a real pleasure to read your post!
And yes, I was thinking along the lines of the A.A. system of a “composite Tree of life”. -
@Alrah said
"Do you have feminine assignations for the sephiroth of all worlds?"
Nothing separate. Each Sephirah (in each World) is male or female according to circumstance, need and convenience. There is also the basic sense in which each Sephirah is feminine to the one prior, and masculine toward the one following (as you observed later in your post).
"For instance - the feminine name for Chokmah would be...?"
Chokmah already has plenty of feminine attributes as needed! There is certainly no need to change the name - which is a feminine Hebrew noun already. "Wisdom" is variously masculine or feminine across traditions, and ChKMH itself = 73 = GML, Gimel. The equation of Gimel, The Priestess, as Sophia, the commonality of the 73 with other wisdom-words, already gives quite a package.
"I'm grooving at this romantically and in the sense that Chokmah is masculine from the point of Binah and yet feminine from the point of Kether (non gendered) and the Shekinah descending. As all supernals above the abyss are united with thier opposite innately and divided below the abyss, then would you integrate the Briatic masculine and feminine names of the supernals?"
Not sure if you know... there are four places in the Hebrew old testament where the plural of chokmah is used as a singular with feminine attributes. There is already a rabbinical history of this in some small ways.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the last question. Binah is broadly usable for the whole of the Supernals' attributes, especially as seen from below the Abyss (e.g., Neshamah is separately used as the mode of consciousness only of Binah, or of all of the Supernals). Not sure what "integration" you mean in practice.
"Zohar: 'And that spirit (Shekinah) issued forth from the concealed brain (Kether). She is called the Spirit of Life and through Her do all men understand Chokmah, Wisdom."
Note that this doesn't equate Her with Wisdom. It equates Her with Understanding of Wisdom. The doctrine on Shekinah, her manifestation as the two Hehs (Binah and Malkuth), the equation of the higher Shekinah to Elohim, etc. is quite solid and well developed.
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@Alrah said
"Yes - but I wasn't talking about taking one gender aspect of the tree or another but of working the supernals as they are. If you say the names of god you say them by the half. If you say the names of the Goddess then you give her half her due. If you encapsulate them both then you are divided by both, but at least you acknowledge your true position below - and above. Is there any quality not more essential to the work?"
I'm probably being dense this morning. I don't have a clue what you're saying.
I'm trying to reduce it to "what does this look like in practice - in particular ceremony for a particular purpose," and that's where I remain clueless.
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If a theory point isn't translatable into practical application, then I have no interest in it. (At that point, it's just an ungrounded mystical perspective, which may be important to the person who has it but not to anyone else.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Bennett was from the generation of seekers who thought Knowledge the highest goal. "
Well, it is, in a sense. For instance: K & C....
"He was an Adept in the G.D. sense. FWIW I'm sure that (at the time he wrote the above) he wasn't anything like an adept in the A.'.A.'. sense. (I doubt he got past about A.'.A.'. 2=9 while still in the G.D. I suspect he got WAY past it later, as part of his Buddhist work.)"
What of the rest of the text, which goes on to say that the head of the Great Serpent, "Leviathan," is in Da'ath, and that this corresponds to "Redemeer," or "Messiah?"
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@JPF said
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"He was an Adept in the G.D. sense. FWIW I'm sure that (at the time he wrote the above) he wasn't anything like an adept in the A.'.A.'. sense. (I doubt he got past about A.'.A.'. 2=9 while still in the G.D. I suspect he got WAY past it later, as part of his Buddhist work.)"What of the rest of the text, which goes on to say that the head of the Great Serpent, "Leviathan," is in Da'ath, and that this corresponds to "Redemeer," or "Messiah?""
That's just quoting from a standard G.D. 4=7 lecture.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"That's just quoting from a standard G.D. 4=7 lecture."
Ah. Duly noted.
