God(dess) Fables as Sephirothic functions
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i'm reading a book which describes the pagan and Biblical fables/god myths as occult symbology for the Sephirothic functions. Ok yes this is basic stuff but he describes each Sephiroth as acting like an electrical Transformer receiving energy, processing it and then passing it on. This involves a dual hermaphrodite function i.e. a Female receptor for the energy of the Sephiroth above and an active Male provider of energy to the Sephiroth below. Furthermore this is the reason that the mythmakers gave male Gods their wives and/or Sister Goddesses.
Does this shed light on the bizzarre fables of our ancestors? Hermes Hod lover of Aphrodite Netzach giving birth to Hermaphroditos Yesod? Too pedantic? Can you think of any other links or is this a flawed theory?
here's a little example ;
HERA (CHESED female receptor)
The queen of the Olympian deities. She is a daughter of Cronus (BINAH) and Rhea, and wife and sister of Zeus (CHESED male) . Hera was mainly worshipped as a goddess of marriage and birth. It is said that each year Hera's virginity returns by bathing in the well Canathus. The children of Hera and Zeus are the smith-god Hephaestus, the goddess of youth Hebe, and the god of war Ares (GEBURAH) ;.
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@gerry456 said
"i'm reading a book which describes the pagan and Biblical fables/god myths as occult symbology for the Sephirothic functions. Ok yes this is basic stuff but he describes each Sephiroth as acting like an electrical Transformer receiving energy, processing it and then passing it on. This involves a dual hermaphrodite function i.e. a Female receptor for the energy of the Sephiroth above and an active Male provider of energy to the Sephiroth below. "
Common Qabalistic knowledge
"Furthermore this is the reason that the mythmakers gave male Gods their wives and/or Sister Goddesses."
Wrong. Qabalah is a map to describe things, it wasnt the pre-existing blueprint that people created gods from.
"Does this shed light on the bizzarre fables of our ancestors? Hermes Hod lover of Aphrodite Netzach giving birth to Hermaphroditos Yesod? Too pedantic? Can you think of any other links or is this a flawed theory?"
Perhaps every Qabalah book written after Crowley has mentioned how mythology lines up Qabalistically. You can patterns of Qabalah in anything. Crowley does so with old limericks in Book 4. The fact that some old stories line up qabalistically may be interesting and insightful, but its nothing new (nor is it the source of the myths, I think)
"Here's a little example ;
HERA (CHESED female receptor)
The queen of the Olympian deities. She is a daughter of Cronus (BINAH) and Rhea,"
See, you just ignore Rhea because she doesnt fit in perfectly.
" and wife and sister of Zeus (CHESED male) . Hera was mainly worshipped as a goddess of marriage and birth. It is said that each year Hera's virginity returns by bathing in the well Canathus. The children of Hera and Zeus are the smith-god Hephaestus, the goddess of youth Hebe, and the god of war Ares (GEBURAH) ;."
Yes, the Greek gods fit the Qabalistic tree. I believe no one responded because, yes, this is common knowledge.
IAO131
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gerry456
"Can you think of any other links or is this a flawed theory? "
It fits with the goddess Sophia=Wisdom=Chokmah giving a feminine aspect to the otherwise masculine sephiroth. Maybe the supernal triad is a triple goddess like the pagans believed before the Christian father, son, and holy ghost
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@aum418 said
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@gerry456 said
"i'm reading a book which describes the pagan and Biblical fables/god myths as occult symbology for the Sephirothic functions. Ok yes this is basic stuff but he describes each Sephiroth as acting like an electrical Transformer receiving energy, processing it and then passing it on. This involves a dual hermaphrodite function i.e. a Female receptor for the energy of the Sephiroth above and an active Male provider of energy to the Sephiroth below. "Common Qabalistic knowledge
"Furthermore this is the reason that the mythmakers gave male Gods their wives and/or Sister Goddesses."
Wrong. Qabalah is a map to describe things, it wasnt the pre-existing blueprint that people created gods from.
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really? how old do you think this map is? The said author believes it to used by Cro magnon man ?
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@gerry456 said
"i'm reading a book which describes the pagan and Biblical fables/god myths as occult symbology for the Sephirothic functions."
Can you tell us the title and author of the book?
My favorite book on the symbology of the sephiroth is this one, which is a free PDF. (I've probably advertised it too many times here...)
Steve
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@gerry456 said
"...he describes each Sephiroth as acting like an electrical Transformer receiving energy, processing it and then passing it on. This involves a dual hermaphrodite function i.e. a Female receptor for the energy of the Sephiroth above and an active Male provider of energy to the Sephiroth below."
This is basic Tree of Life theory. Each Sephirah is receptive (feminine) to that which is above it, and projective (masculine) to that which is beneath it. For example, Geburah receives what flows forth from Chesed, but Geburah pours forth to fill Tiphereth.
" Furthermore this is the reason that the mythmakers gave male Gods their wives and/or Sister Goddesses."
Well, that's not why. The Tree of Life is less than a millennium and a half in age. (Some of the root concepts are older, but the Tree itself isn't). It's also misleading to speak of "myth-makers" - these were people formulating their religions, and it's much easier to believe that they defined both gods and goddesses because there are both male and female humans. - BTW, you also have the origin wrong in most cases. It isn't that the Gods were given wives and sisters that were Goddesses - In most cases, particularly the Greek that you went on to cite, the Goddesses were the primary original entities who had Gods as husbands and brothers and companions.
"Does this shed light on the bizzarre fables of our ancestors?"
Personally, I don't think so. (And I guess I've been too familiar with those fables too long - they don't actually seem all that bizarre to me.)
"HERA (CHESED female receptor) "
This treats Hera simply as "the female expression of Zeus." That's not only pretty dismissive of what makes Hera unique, it's also not very accurate.
"Hera was mainly worshipped as a goddess of marriage and birth."
Which gives Her no particular relationship to Chesed attributes.
"The children of Hera and Zeus are the smith-god Hephaestus, the goddess of youth Hebe, and the god of war Ares (GEBURAH)."
These descriptions of her BTW sound mostly like they were taken from Graves' The Greek Myths. If so, then the author of the book you're reading should be sufficiently equipped to know better than to assert goddesses as add-ons to an initially male pantheon.
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@gerry456 said
"Edward Peach aka OPHIEL ... has anyone heard of this author?"
Ah, yes ... Ophiel is another author whose books I regret no longer owning; I understand they go for a bit of money these days
As I recall, his books were interesting if only for being idiosyncratic, and were full of fun tips for divination and "practical" magic.
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@gerry456 said
"my reference book is by an occultist (died in late 1980s) known as Edward Peach aka OPHIEL
the book is called "The art and practice of cabballa magic" Weiser books
has anyone heard of this author?"
Ophiel didn't listen to his own watchword often enough: pragmatism. His theory was relatively weak, but having read most of his books I can say that it seems more like he read a bunch of occult books on his own and formulated his own unique brand of Qabalah (as everyone really should do). The only problem with this is in communication with other Magicians who use different symbol sets - it makes most sense to refer to an established order like those set forth in 777 although ultimately our own personal inclinations may lead us to varying attributions of various things.
My point is that Ophiel gives great practices, especially in his book on astral projection. If you want sound theory, look to Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune and 777 by Crowley - also Chicken Qabalah by DuQuette is fun and a good thing to read after the tomes previously mentioned to refresh your memory and remember what is important (names and functions of sephiroth etc, not necessarily the exact hebrew names of every Yetziratic Choir)
When studying Qabalah its always good to step back and ask: Yes, but how does this relate to me and my world that I perceive? If it just an intelectual system of sophistry and manipulation, you won't get far - if you make it a map for all facets of your life, it can be extremely powerful... but, again, the map is not the territory. There are infinite possible maps, some which are more effective at certain points in space & time than others.
IAO131
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@gmugmble said
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@gerry456 said
"Edward Peach aka OPHIEL ... has anyone heard of this author?"Ah, yes ... Ophiel is another author whose books I regret no longer owning; I understand they go for a bit of money these days
As I recall, his books were interesting if only for being idiosyncratic, and were full of fun tips for divination and "practical" magic."
are you joking? i just ordered this book from Amazon (took several days to get here) where i presume all of his books are available
check it out or go here <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/art-practice-Caballa-magic/dp/B0006WYB6G">www.amazon.com/art-practice-Caballa-magic/dp/B0006WYB6G</a><!-- w -->
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The Tree of Life is less than a millennium and a half in age."
I'm curious about how you arrive at this age for the Tree of Life. As far as I know, it can be traced to Athanasius Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus, published in 1653.
@Jim Eshelman said
"In most cases, particularly the Greek that you went on to cite, the Goddesses were the primary original entities who had Gods as husbands and brothers and companions."
It's funny (to me) that this has come up now, as I am currently reading Merlin Stone's When God was a Woman, which discusses this. (The style is a bit dry, and her scholarship and conclusions need to be taken with a grain of salt, but it's a good read nonetheless.) She describes how tribes of invaders of obscure provenance gradually overcame the earliest Goddess-worshipping, matrilineal, and sometimes matriarchal societies, and imposed male deities and patriarchal society on them.
I'm can't help but note that these invaders lived by the morals that seem to be advocated by a literal reading of Chapter III of Liber Legis: war, killing and torture, delight in slaying, conquest, strength over weakness, etc.
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@gmugmble said
"I'm curious about how you arrive at this age for the Tree of Life. As far as I know, it can be traced to Athanasius Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus, published in 1653."
Kircher's drawings are the basis of the predominant modern glyph of the Tree of Life, but it is not the origin of the Tree of Life of the Qabala.
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@kuniggety said
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@gmugmble said
"I'm curious about how you arrive at this age for the Tree of Life. As far as I know, it can be traced to Athanasius Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus, published in 1653."Kircher's drawings are the basis of the predominant modern glyph of the Tree of Life, but it is not the origin of the Tree of Life of the Qabala."
Indeed - the Tree of Life is part of the Old Testament which can be traced to 500 BCE, so Im not sure exactly what Jim or anyone is going off of. The physical glyph would indeed by the Jesuit Kircher's 'creation.' The Qabalistic idea of the Tree might go 'a millenium and a half' or so, but the idea of the Tree of Life is at least as old as the Old Testament and Im guessing they got the idea from a bit earlier anyhow.
IAO131
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@aum418 said
"Indeed - the Tree of Life is part of the Old Testament which can be traced to 500 BCE, so Im not sure exactly what Jim or anyone is going off of."
The phrase "tree of life" is in the O.T. There are also highly inferential references to the sequence of the Sephiroth or something akin. But I'm unaware of any drawing of the Tree of Life before the 2nd Millennium C.E.
Tree of Life Kaballah is broadly recognized as being the successor to Merkabah Kaballah which pretty much owned the First Millennium.
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@kuniggety said
"Kircher's drawings are the basis of the predominant modern glyph of the Tree of Life, but it is not the origin of the Tree of Life of the Qabala."
Well, of course. The Tree of Life is Eternal, a glyph of Reality itself. And we all know that knowledge of the Tree of Life and of the Qabalah was given directly to Adam by God at the beginning of time and passed down orally without error by sages throughout the 6000 years since then. But the point of my question was that Jim said specifically "The Tree of Life is less than a millennium and a half in age," and that suggests that he had some particular eventuality in mind that obtained about 1500 years ago that, in some sense can be seen as the origin of the Tree of Life, and I was curious to know what he had in mind.
Robert Westmoreland
We do not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. -- Carl Jung