Descent from Kether?
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@HermeticProtagonis said
I was told by someone in my local group that once an individual reaches Kether, whatever they've become stays there only long enough to be sufficiently changed by it, then descends to "find a home" in one of the lower sephira. Is this true? If it is, I think it has wide-reaching effects on how I view both initiation and the Tree itself.
First, I think there is a confusion here. This sounds an awful lot like a usual description of what happens on crossing the Abyss and entering Binah.
In that situation, the self (as previously understood: an entangled psychic ball of yarn) is "destroyed" (to use the technical term). The Adept that became the Master then settles into its own nature, which is expressed as "being cast back" into the sephirah that marks the "natural grade" of the person. (I think "grade" is a misnomer. It just means that, if one is inherently martial, one will get "cast back" into Geburah, etc.)
That's probably what your contact was talking about.
OTOH, there is considerable Buddhist teaching concerning what Qabalists would call the attainment of Kether. A series of meditations beginning with the Eight High Trances culminates in a place where (per their doctrine) one either pauses and then "returns" (much like in Rising on the Planes in broad terms), or passes beyond and, to the outer, seems to die. The choice is made at the apex.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"First, I think there is a confusion here. This sounds an awful lot like a usual description of what happens on crossing the Abyss and entering Binah."
Does the Sephira they are "cast into" become the anchor through which they continue the Work?
As opposed, to say the personality or sense of self which is "destroyed.@Patthana Gati said
"When we so derive the supernals into the position required then Binah and Kether are absorbed into Chokmah via the 2=0 formula."
"I have been seeing it as 0 opens up to 2 & 3 - with 1 or Unity being inexpressible (where 0 is the unexpressed )
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@Patthana Gati said
""Aleph is never less than two", so the saying goes."
Technically speaking, is not Alephs pronunciation silent?
Practically, when alone it is "Aleph" -
@Patthana Gati said
"It's a glottal stop."
No, it's an unvoiced breath. A'ayin is a glottal stop.
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@Patthana Gati said
"In Modern Israeli Hebrew..."
OK, that's the difference. In speaking of Hebrew I almost never mean Modern Israeli Hebrew.
"or indicates a hiatus (the separation of two adjacent vowels into distinct syllables with no intervening consonant), as well as sometimes being silent (as word-final always, as word-medial sometimes, e.g. הוּא [hu] "he", רָאשִׁי [ʁaˈʃi] "main", רֹאשׁ [ʁoʃ] "head", רִאשׁוֹן [ʁiˈʃon] "first"). The pronunciation varies among Jewish ethnic groups."
Yes, the unvoiced breath can be a brief hiatus, often taking a schwa for its vowel.
The silence is not at the end only. I would say that Aleph is nearly always silent. Like all Hebrew letters, it's a consonant, and we usually hear only the vowel attached to it, not the Aleph itself.
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Every grammar or lexicon of ancient Hebrew that I've seen refers to Aleph as an unsounded breath. (Exhale without making any noise.) I prefer to transliterate it as a single opening quote (using the single closing quote for a schwa). It sounds from your quotation that, in Modern Hebrew. It has become obscure.
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@Patthana Gati said
"This may be because of an increased knowledge of the root languages of the ancient near east. Language reconstruction is very popular these days and it's better understood how languages drift over time in their pronunciation, especially when there exposure to people with other languages and dialects.
"As far as Magick is concerned, knowing about ancient or biblical Hebrew is more practical than modern (I presume).
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@HermeticProtagonis said
"I don't think I understand what you mean, but I would like to. Do you mean that the person that used to exist, the self that was destroyed, gets cast back, while the Master it became continues on and lives in the supernals?"
Exactly.
"The self that was destroyed" is a misleading phrase. The personality is more of a mass of intertwined yarn that it is a solid core. That is, the structure / patterning of the mind "juggles" all of the content we associate with a particular personality. The mechanism is more or less self-sustaining, more or less self-juggling, by virtue of thje way it stays in motion. But it's composed entirely of relationships of psychic contents (e.g., ideas), not a solid center.
Part of what this means is that it's constantly shifting. It "dies," in one sense, moment to moment, in that is doesn't have a fixed shape or nature. It just has recurring patterns and relationships.
In crossing the Abyss, this motion is halted - the balls all drop, as if the power were suddenly cut for the perpetual motion machine of the mind. That "dropping of the balls" passes for the personality being "destroyed." What exists when the balls drop... that's the Master.
But the personality and mental structure are great tools that this Master has crafted over many decades of life. No use getting rid of it - let it serve the purpose for which it was being built all that time.
After the balls drop, they can be picked back up. Or, actually, it's that the power gets turned back on and they resume their motion. But their pattern has been changed - simplified - by what has just happened, and they now have a different song to dance to (so to speak) - the silent song of the Master.
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The resumed juggling act called the personality is that "star that is cast forth in the Heavens to enlighten the Earth, so that he may possess a vehicle wherein he may communicate with mankind." Or, as Crowley phrased it in Equinox 10, "The Master of the Temple has given birth to a child, which child appears as an Adept among men. But that which was the Adept is but a little pile of dust". -
"OTOH, there is considerable Buddhist teaching concerning what Qabalists would call the attainment of Kether. A series of meditations beginning with the Eight High Trances culminates in a place where (per their doctrine) one either pauses and then "returns" (much like in Rising on the Planes in broad terms), or passes beyond and, to the outer, seems to die. The choice is made at the apex."
This seems to remind me of the Path of the magus and the Path of the fool (Breath). I always felt that both paths become a choice and that
is why Aleph has been disputed as being attributed to 0 or 1, while Bet is generally 1. Just an instinct, am I off here?
Or are you implying one transcends Kether to proceed to the negative veils? (Which I honestly have no knowledge of) -
@milkBoxx said
"This seems to remind me of the Path of the magus and the Path of the fool (Breath). I always felt that both paths become a choice and that is why Aleph has been disputed as being attributed to 0 or 1, while Bet is generally 1. Just an instinct, am I off here?"
Well, of course, any Path is optional except to the extent that momentum carries one onward. But both of these are part of the process of ceasing to be a Magus. The Path of Gimel, in theory, is the rightful entry, but it only goes so far.
"Or are you implying one transcends Kether to proceed to the negative veils? (Which I honestly have no knowledge of)"
That, too - if one chooses. And yes, it's really hard to even wrap your mind around thinking about these since most people can't begin to actually think about Kether.