Detailed questions on the Klippot
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@TOHPA said
"But one question that raises is, why do you consider the previous achievement of the K&C of such importance?
Is it because it is an anchor for the practitioner not to get drifted away with such forces?"Yes, that's a significant part of it. Anchor to the heights before surrendering yourself to the depths.
An individual could have a useful result without reasonable precautions, the same way that a person who was essentially sane could, sometimes, get a breakthrough from a sufficiently large dose of psychedelics. However, that doesn't mean that it's an approach one would recommend to everybody.
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I was thinking, in kabalistic tradition it usually is quite easy to indentify qliphotic entities (especially because they classified them as such) but how could I identify then in other mythologies and systems?
For example, in Greek mythology there is a group of beings distinctively qliphotic? Maybe the titans?
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@Faus said
"I was thinking, in kabalistic tradition it usually is quite easy to indentify qliphotic entities (especially because they classified them as such) but how could I identify then in other mythologies and systems?
For example, in Greek mythology there is a group of beings distinctively qliphotic? Maybe the titans?"
One could argue that they don't exist in other mythologies and are purely a Qabalistic concept. That would be the purist answer.
The more relaxed answer involves looking at what the term really means: Q'lippoth are things (which include thoughts, reactions, and other psychological phenomena) that have been outgrown and should have been left behind - things (generally once of value) that are no longer of any real value but are persisting. (For example, still being preoccupied with the events iof 9/11/2001 is a very active Q'lippah right now. So are old irrational fears, rigidified decisions no longer connected to active facts or circumstances, etc.) Anything fitting that broad characterization could reasonably be called a "husk" or Q'lippah.
The Titans would fit that idea only if they truly held no currently active value. That would, of course, be the Zeus-friendly view
But it wouldn't include those that still had an active, present-time value (possibly practical, at least mythic) such as Prometheus and Atlas. Also, there are those (atavists? or alternate-futurists?) invested in the return of the Golden Age of Kronos. - But all of this is a bit of a stretch anyway, since the Titans are gods, and especially Elder Gods, that particular category uniquely related to the Supernals (as the place where they are all locked away out of protection of the human personality, i.e., the new sub-Supernal order of things established by Zeus and the other Olympians). At least they would have to be regarded as a category of seniors reigning over the hordes of Q'lippoth.A better example from the Greeks, therefore, might be the Hekatonkheires, which never seem to have risen to the level of gods and seemed trial-and-error cast-offs from the beginning.
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Well, everybody loves Zeus
If I remember correctly, the Hekatonkheires ended up being used as weapons in the war with the titans. That sounds similar to Solomon using demons to build his temple.
Would it be right to say that the 3 major characteristics of a Q'lippah are:- Not having a purpose, our one that is no longer necessary.
- Would cause trouble but not the kind of “trouble” that leads to development.
- Would act purposefully only when commanded by a superior hierarchy
In Egyptian mythology, for example, Set would not be a Q'lippah because not only he is a God but has a very active function as Osiris slayer (even gods can have family issues).
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I have a small theory establishing a relation between the Titans and the ToL.
I would definitely attribute the Titans to Binah, or at least the first . Since they all come from Gaia, I could easily identify her with the "mother of abominations". For instance, Selene, as the Lunar role of Binah in the Heavenly Hexagram; Oceanus, the ocean, which is quite clear related to the great waters of Binah - and his sister/consort Tethys, also a Titan, holdiing similar attributes; Cronus/Saturn as the planet; Eos/Helios/Hyperion as the Saturn-Sun (I really can't recall from which mythology or age that was, but I'm pretty sure Saturn was considered as the first sun or father sun, or something like that).
As for their children, the Olympian Gods.. I think I would relate the Titanomachy to the breaking of the Logos at the abyss. Since the expansion of the Sephira is taking place downwards (f.i. the sword), I would consider the part of the mythology after the Titans have been defeated as a reference to the world from its current perspective, below the abyss.
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"I was thinking, in kabalistic tradition it usually is quite easy to indentify qliphotic entities (especially because they classified them as such) but how could I identify then in other mythologies and systems?
"Is this really useful though? It doesn't lead anywhere...you're surrounded and embedded in their domain anyway
Atzilut
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"“Is this really useful though? It doesn't lead anywhere...you're surrounded and embedded in their domain anyway”"
Precisely because I am in their domain that I need to be able to identify and understand them in my own mythological world view. Without that, I cannot establish a right (at least intellectual) relationship with them (specially my own Qlipoth).
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"Precisely because I am in their domain that I need to be able to identify and understand them in my own mythological world view. Without that, I cannot establish a right (at least intellectual) relationship with them (specially my own Quipploth)"
What bearing do you think that your 'mythological' world view has on them? What do you believe the function
of the Klippot is? Intellectual relationship is one very small part of the whole I think. The real relationship is
when you are confronted with any situation, feeling or thought that separates you from the unity and adhesion
with the Creator, be it anger, confusion, the belief in the Sitra Achra to name a few.Atzilut
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Well, it is quite important to have some knowledge of bacteria when you are choosing your antibiotics.
As far as I know, the very definition of Qlipotic is that they have no function.
Well, since all the problem is that my intuition is not exactly perfect, intellectual apprehension is quite useful to identify a “feeling or thought that separates you from the unity and adhesion with the Creator”.
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Faust,
I think you already know the answers to your questions, and I thought your final post was an astute one.
As with any subject, the knowledge and experience of things evolves, and it is such with the Qliphoth. Just as we know that the "classical" domineering "Solomonic" attitudes towards chthonic spirits isn't necessary (and arguably an hindrance) to truly successful work with them, we know also that Qliphothic work is not without value and can even be of considerable value in some cases, as Jim has suggested. But he is most certainly correct when he says:
"" However, that doesn't mean that it's an approach one would recommend to everybody. ""
If you do feel drawn to this work though, I would suggest the work of Thomas Karlsson, whom I think has been mentioned earlier in the thread, and that of Jake Stratton-Kent.
I will also leave this post with a final thought--its just an idea and I don't preten to assure it has any value--- but it makes sense to me that the greater the solve, the greater the potential for the coagula. And if the qliphoth have one trait or purpose most would agree on, it is a powerful tendency towards the solve.
There are of course these and other words of Liber Tzaddi and other of the beasts works to consider:
"38.
I who am beyond Wisdom and Folly, arise and say unto you: achieve both weddings! Unite yourselves with both!Beware, beware, I say, lest ye seek after the one and lose the other!
40.
My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.
41.
But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel, another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link, the last attach more firmly to the higher."--Cody
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Thanks for your reply. Interesting. Im still not quite sure how the issue of mythology (Titian or otherwise)
relates to the idea of the Klippot, but would agree with the analogy of the anti-biotic."As far as I know, the very definition of Qlipotic is that they have no function."
The Kabbalistic texts make it very clear that the Klippot do serve a function, but that function exists only as long as Man engages with them without 'correcting' their influence, which is namely, to push Man into the realization of his place and purpose within the scheme. This is not to be interpreted in some vaguely religious ideal, but rather the primary 'magical' means whereby one may move into deeper degrees of realisation, although this may appear very mundane and unglamorous. Once this is achieved, they do, at an individual level, cease to serve any further function.
Atzilut
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I might suggest Rabbi Ashlag's 'Hakadamah l'Panim Meirot uMasbirot' paragraphs 19 and 20 known in English as 'The Introduction to Welcoming and Illuminating Revelations'.
This gives a very short and concise summary of the Sitra Achra and Klipot, without all the unnecessary 'glamour' that surrounds this often
misunderstood topic.Atzilut
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Atzilut
I use the word mythology to speak about a set of symbols and cosmologies used to understand mystical/magical experience. In this sense, Qlipoth are part of the kabalistic mythology.
"but that function exists only as long as Man engages with them without 'correcting' their influence"
What I understand is that they have no function of their own. In this case their function only exist in relationship to us, as a reaction not as an action.
There is a Platonic concept where the universe is built over a hierarchy. Evil only exist as long as a being decides not to take his rightful place is this hierarchy. I believe this understanding is very similar to the kabalistic understanding of the Qliopht.
I will try to get a copy of Sitra Achra and Klipot. Thanks.
poor+blind+misfit
"I think you already know the answers to your questions, and I thought your final post was an astute one."
Thanks
I have serious doubt that a direct work with the Qlipoth would do any good to me in my present level. The operation with the universal Qlipoth would only strengths my unsolved personal Qlipoth, making me more likely to be enslaved by them.
Something like trying to put a end to poverty in Africa without ending with my own poverty first.
I will take a look on those books.
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Faust
Thank you for explaining...it's a little clearer now. What I would say is that we tend to view the Klippot as
something mythological, imagining all sorts of things like the fantastical creatures of the Goetia, when the
reality of the presence in our lives is often far more mundane. However, I do feel, that initially, we need to
use our imaginative faculties to develop a sensory awareness of those deeper more occluded sensations within
us until such time as the distinction between the inner and outer worlds disappears.Atzilut
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I had a thought recently that my habitual ways of thinking and doing things are Qliphoth. That the Qliphoth are (some of) our thoughts.
--C
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The forthcoming book by ixaxaar may shed additional light on the qlipphoth: The Book of Sitra Achra.