What is the Great Work?

“Do not pray for your own needs, for your prayer will not then be accepted. But when you want to pray, do so for the heaviness of the Head. For whatever you lack, the Divine Presence also lacks.”

“Thisis because man is a “portion of God from on high.” Whatever any part lacks, also exists in the Whole, and the Whole feels the lack of the part, You should therefore pray for the needs of the Whole.”

The term “the Great Work” has many definitions, and is not a term from traditional Kabbalah, but it has a modern usage among some Kabbalists. The quotation above, from a disciple of the Kabbalist R. Israel Baal Shem Tov, is a traditional Kabbalistic view: that the creation is in a damaged and imperfect state, and the Kabbalist, by virtue of his or her state of consciousness, can bring about a real healing. A name for this is “tikkun” (restoration). There are many traditional forms of tikkun, most of them prescriptions for essentially magical acts designed to bring about a healing in the creation.

This view of the Great Work also exists outside of Judaic Kabbalah and survives today, namely that the creation is in a “fallen” state, and each person has an individual role to play in bringing about a general restoration.

“When someone stands in the light but does not give it out, then a shadow is created.”

This is a modern restatement of an old Kabbalistic idea. In this view, God gives life to the Creation: from second to second the Creation is sustained by this giving, and if it were to cease even for an instant, the Creation would be no more. If someone wants to know God then they have to resemble God, and this means they must give to others. Kabbalah is not a self-centred pursuit; it pivots around the Kabbalist’s relationship with all living beings.

)O(

What is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and where does it come from?

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is a protective formula which can be used to banish unwanted influences, to “clear the air” as a preliminary to ritual or meditative work. It can be carriedout physically, but it can also be used as a concentration exercise which is performed in the imagination prior to going to sleep (for example).

The ritual exists in a number of variant forms, the best known being the Golden Dawn variant given below. The Golden Dawn version is is based on (or is at least strongly influenced by) Jewish sources.

The version of the ritual below was posted by Rodrigo de Ferres([email protected]) and is included here with his permission. [I have altered a couple of Hebrew transliterations to make them consistent with normal Hebrew vowel pointing.]

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

This ritual can be done to purify a room for further ritual work or meditation and can be used for protection. Its effects are primarily on the Astral (IMHO) though it uses the Earth pentagram. It also promotes a still mind, free of outside influenes which is a useful aid in meditation. It is therefore recommended that the ritual be used as part of a daily meditation work.

  1. Stand facing East.
  2. Perform the Qabalistic Cross
    1. Touch forehead with first two (or index) fingers of right hand and visualizing a sphere of white light at that point, vibrate: Atah (translates roughly – Thou Art)
    2. Lower hand to solar plexus and visualize a line extending down to your feet, vibrate: Malkuth (the Kingdom)
    3. Raise hand and touch right shoulder visualizing a sphere of light there. Vibrate: Ve Geburah (and the power)
    4. Extend the hand across the chest tracing a line of light and touch the left shoulder where another sphere of light forms. Vibrate: Ve Gedulah (and the glory).
    5. Clasp hands in center of chest at crossing point of horizontal and vertical lines of light. Bow head and vibrate: Le Olam, Amen. (for ever – amen.)
  3. Facing east, using either the extended fingers or a dagger, trace a large pentagram with the point up, starting at your left hip, up to just above your forehead, centered on your body, then down to your right hip, up and to your left shoulder, across to the right shoulder and down to the starting point in front of your left hip. Visualize the pentagram in blue flaming light. Stab you fingers or dagger into the center and vibrate: YHVH (Yod-heh-vahv-heh – which is the tetragrammaton translated into latin as Jehovah)
  4. Turn to the south. Visualize that the blue flame follows you fingers or dagger, tracing a blue line from the east pentagram to the south. Repeat step three while facing South, except vibrate: Adonai (another name for god translated as Lord)
  5. Turn to the West, tracing the blue flame from south to west. Repeat step 3, but vibrate: Eheieh (Eh-hay-yeah more or less – another name of God translated as I AM or I AM THAT I AM.) (Or “I will be” – Ed.)
  6. Turn to the North, again tracing the blue flame from west to north. Repeat step 3, but vibrate: AGLA (Ah-gah-lah – a composite of Atah Gibor le olam Amen – see step 2)
  7. Return again to the east, tracing the blue flame from North to East. Stab the fingers or dagger back again into the same spot as in step 3. You should now visualize that you are surrounded by four flaming pentagrams connected by a line of blue fire.
  8. Extend your arms out to your sides, forming a cross. Vibrate (visualizing each Archangel standing guard at each station):
  9. Before me RAPHAEL (rah-fah-yell)
  10. Behind me GABRIEL (gah-bree-ell)
  11. On my right hand, MICHAEL (mee-khah-ell)
  12. On my left hand, AURIEL (sometimes URIEL aw-ree-ell or ooh-ree-ell) for about me flames the Pentagrams, and in the column stands the six-rayed star. (Alternatively the last two lines can be: before me flames the pentagram, behind me shines the six-rayed star)
  13. Repeat the Qabalistic Cross (step 2). As can be seen, Raphael is in the East, Gabriel in the West, Michael in the South and Auriel/Uriel in the North.

)O(

Why is Gevurah feminine?

There is a common belief that certain sephiroth are “masculine” and other sephiroth are “feminine”. This belief causes many problems in comprehending the Tree of Life, and is a source of questions.For example, why is Gevurah, a martial and aggressive sephira, depicted as feminine, and why is Netzach, the nurturing, caring, emotional and aesthetic sephira, depicted as “masculine”.

No convoluted explanations are required. The difficulties occur because of a carelessness in choosing words, and a misunderstanding about planetary correspondences. In other words, the above depictions are inaccurate.

Masculine and feminine are acquired behaviours which have changed over time, and many people are learning their Kabbalah from books written several decades ago. These stereotype views of masculine and feminine were not shared by Jewish authors, who not only did not use these terms, but placed an entirely different meaning on the terms they did use. If you take “feminine” to imply emotional, caring, and passive, and “masculine” to imply active, aggressive, and intellectual, then not only do you risk offending a large number of people who find this stereotype insulting, but you wmay also have great difficulty in reconciling various correspondences for the sephiroth.

A more appropriate characterisation of the difference between sephira is that of “giving” and “receiving”. Kether is a sephira that only gives, and Malkuth is a sephira which only receives, and all other sephiroth are both giving and receiving, so that Binah receives from Chokhmah but gives to Chesed. [Things are not so simple; there is a tradition that when a current reaches Malkuth, it reflects and travels back up the Tree again, so that even Malkuth and Kether play a part in giving and receiving. When human beings carry out simple acts in their daily life with full consciousness, then this results in a small “tikkun” or restoration in the upper worlds – in other words, it is our own actions which cause the reflection within Malkuth, and by doing so cause the “spiritualisation of matter”]

Kabbalists have used a sexual metaphor for this giving and receiving; they have observed that from a biological point of view, the male “gives”, and the female “receives”, and have given the sephira Chokhmah the title “Father” and the sephira Binah the title “Mother”. In time, this distinction between male and female has been lost, and carelessness has lead to the substitution of masculine and feminine, which entirely changes the original meaning.

A second difficulty is caused by a common tendency in people to use the astrological correspondence of a planet as the primary means for understanding a sephira, so that for many people, Gevurah and Mars are synonymous. This is equivalent to saying that because a sunflower reminds me of the sun, the sun *is* a sunflower. The fact that one is a luminous ball of gas and the other is a plant with yellow petals should give a clue as to the magnitude of this kind of error. The metaphorical relationship between the sephira Tipheret and the sun is no closer than that between the sun and a sunflower. Likewise the relationship between Gevurah and Mars, and between Netzach and Venus – this is an example of the finger pointing at the moon: look at the finger and you don’t see the moon.

What follows is a very brief characterisation of each sephiroth, with a brief rational for the corresponding planetary association.

Kether Unity
Chokhmah Unconditioned Creativity
Binah Possibility of Boundaries
Chesed Conditioned Creativity
Gevurah Response to Boundaries
Tipheret Self-Consciousness
Netzach Response to Creativity
Hod Appreciation of Boundaries
Yesod Ego
Malkuth Diversity

This is an abstract approach which concentrates on the polarity of force/creativity and form. In Kabbalah this is expressed as the polarity of Chokhmah and Binah. Chokhmah is the unconditioned creativity that explodes out of unity of Kether. Binah is concealed in this duality, in the separation between Kether and Chokhmah, and expresses the possibility of duality, of separation between one thing and another. Binah is the Mother of Form, the root of separation which forms the basis for all distinctions and finiteness. The Mother receives the creative outpouring of Chokhmah and gives birth to it in Chesed. Chesed reflects the creativity of Chokhmah, but is conditioned by the boundaries and distinctions of Binah. Chesed creates within the realm of the possible; Binah defines what is possible.

Gevurah is the response to boundaries. Chesed wants to move existing boundaries around, and Gevurah is the response to that. This response is typically reactionary, a defense of the status quo, an attempt to keep the boundaries where they were. Chesed is active – it changes the status quo. Gevurah is receptive – it takes the existing status quo and defends it.

Netzach is the response to creativity. It is the place of aesthetic judgements, of likes and dislikes, of passions for this and that. It is the adulation of a fan for a band, or an artist, or a politician. Hod is the appreciation of boundaries, a passion for classification, rules, detail, hair-splitting definitions. Netzach is active; feelings tell us what we should like. Feelings direct our behaviour. Hod is receptive, in that it elaborates what it is given.

The more confusing planetary associations should now (I hope) be clearer. Saturn is the sphere of limitation, old age, death, and corresponds to Binah, the Mother of Form, from whose womb all finiteness comes. Jupiter, the leader, corresponds to Chesed. Mars (as the warrior defending the law and the State) corresponds to Gevurah (but not Mars as the bloodthirsty berserker – this is an aspect of Chesed). Venus, the romantic aesthete, goddess of love and sensual beauty, corresponds to Netzach. Mercury, the god of trade, science, communication, medicine, discourse, trickery, corresponds to Hod.

Do not expect to find a detailed consistency between a sephira and its planetary correspondence: the sun is not a sunflower. There is a subtlety and generality, not to mentioned coherency, in the idea of sephirotic emanation which is not to be found in the planetary correspondences.

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