Gebofal, Day 15

Sunrise: Call to Aethyr of LEA (lee-ay). Call to King BOBOGEL, as with previous entries.

I see some darkness, and I see black square which is rotated about into a black sphere. It’s like the angels are showing a candle within the black sphere, and are saying that there’s a tendency within previous conditioning from life to turn into a dark attitude and identifying with the ego. The importance here is to remember that force (Ain) which allows such to be contextualized into a black sphere, such that the white cube can be placed about it.

The tendency of these seven Aethyrs are to try to do everything in its power to undo the black sphere, which, again, is the metaphor for a contextualization of suffering in the mind back into egotistical thinking, back into egotistical thinking. My mind alights back to the three sephiroth in the World of Creation on the Tree of Life: Tiphareth, Geburah, and Chesed. The problem is that these Aethyrs are like unto the planets without the sephiroth, the angels advise. Imagine someone with strong, willful energy of the ego: Jupiter, Mars, and the sun, but without any contextualization within the sephiroth of mercy, power (which is aligned with the universe), and beauty (the beauty by which the ego can properly expand and be aligned with the universe).

I vibrate the names of Governors Sochial, Cucarpt, and Lavacon, and of King Bobogel. I see the top of a white cube, and the angels are saying that I have to work hard during this week to maintain those habits which allow the proper contextualization of the ego. For example, they point out the Noble Eightfold Path.

I feel some energy about my head. It seems to me like unto a psychic surgery to the minor chakras as well as to my sahasrara chakra.

The vision ends.

Noon: The angels are showing the black sphere, which is cut vertically and rotated around to show a white sphere about it. They’re trying to show it, partly like a coin, but also like the white sphere of compassion within it. The angels are quite particular here: there is compassion to be had, which can unfold from suffering–the reaction to suffering, when done intelligently and with great Wisdom, such as that provided by the Most High (indeed, whence all wisdom comes) leads one to the path of this transparent sphere of compassion.

The angels show this up/down and front-back twisting and whipping around of halves of a sphere, connected by a central point. The angels say that this is what is going on right now. The black sphere is trying very hard, and it’s like this compassion which I’m bringing back is very foreign to it. It’s not happy about it, but I’m also trying to not get caught up in it’s game. I call on the governors and king again. I ask for any assistance to gather a higher lesson from this.

The angels show me the black cube with a white cube set about it. The white cube overlays the black cube, they show me: instead of being caught in a structure which guarantees our suffering, we instead overlay a structure of wisdom and understanding–all of which is driven and reflected by the light of Ain, which is overlaid on top of the suffering wherein we find ourselves. This structure (i.e., a method) allows us to contextualize it and to grow, such as I’m experiencing now. So this is overlaid atop the suffering.

The suffering which can happen to a heart, when acted upon foolishly or out of ignorance, can cause a warping of the heart, and takes it first out of the transparent state (which is to say, the ability to meet a being from a place which can meet them as they are). Then it can take them out of the spherical state as the heart becomes defined by suffering, coming to believe that suffering has a rigid structure which it cannot break out of, such as learned helplessness.

This view is false.

These are extraordinary lessons. The angels show me the taijitu. The Western approach (generally speaking) of squaring is partly correct, and the taijitu is also partly correct. “Now,” they say, “you’re seeing a means for right moral living.”

I see the twisting once more, which they contextualize with the twisting of the snake about me from earlier visions, which was work on my energetic subtle body. Now they ask me to speak at a deeper level to that which I’ve learned so far. Here I do a standard thing, which is to speak directly with the rules which have caused this state of affairs. A lot of voices begin speaking to me at once, at which point I organize them and say, “There’s got to be some underlying rule here,” at which point I hear, “This is the nature of dimensionality.”

Here my bodily awareness cannot be ignored. I’ve felt a slight pinprick pressure on the back of my neck which cannot be explained by my clothes. It’s just to the right, so I speak directly to this part of my subtle body. “What’s going on? What do you have to say? What is going on here? I feel like you’ve had something to say for a while.” I ask my holy guardian angel (HGA) in particular to help mediate this discussion for me.

My HGA says that this is kind of difficult: it’s going to be a huge download all at once. I assent and ask for a three-count before it happens: at “three,” I see before me the golden Borg cube again (if the Borg are the shadow, then this is the light version of them). There’s a big unfolding; the angels say that the Borg is a massive fractal concept; we’re all kind of linked in with each other. The thing that made it a nightmare was the loss of identity, but in this version there’s merely hyperintimacy (note that humanity has been making this decision collectively via technological advancement and surveillance).

Within the cube, I see a checkerboard: “Think of this both in a binary sense, as well as a board game. If you think of a chessboard or a Go board, there’s all of these ones and zeroes: occupied vs. not occupied, white or black, etc.” There are also all of these transitional states determining whether a given piece is (or ever can be occupied) in this manner.

There’s something really deep here that someone (I’m not speaking the angels here, including my HGA) does not want me to see. It’s like I’m seeing a big wave come at me within this cube, a swirling wave like one sees a surfer ride. It reminds of approaching the fixed stars, and the motion thereof, except now the fixed stars themselves are coming at me and trying to reach. I see three to five of them. This water comes in: it’s very pure. Part of me wants to bump out of me when the water hits me, but I’m holding fast within the cube, and merely having that force give me an expansive and inclusive view of whatever’s most helpful of the advancing of all beings towards understanding and ending collective suffering.

Recall that all of this is from the vision of me trying to understand this pressure at a point on my neck. Now this poking, itching energy moves down to between my right shoulder blade and my spine. I see this light coming in, like unto the Borg’s scanning or tractor beam light; it’s like there’s an incision at this point on my body, and there’s this faucet handle coming up out of it, giving me a level of control as to how much of the vision of the water to see. I let a drop out into a glass, and it’s intelligent and moving along to say, “I am but one portion of the ocean. There is much more to show to you. This much must wait until you are past the Abyss, and then the flood will come at you again, and it will be grander than this preview.”

That’s it, the vision wraps up really quickly. King Bobogel says that a week from now, it will be much clearer. I express my gratitude to the governors and king as the vision ends.

Sunset: Similar procedure: Reading the titles of Leaf 35, then the call to King Bobogel, then the call to the Aethyr of LEA.

I’m getting more energy than usual off of the leaf. I think about the drop of water from the previous vision and the faucet, and I turn the faucet up to give myself half a glass. It comes up energetically, trying to scare me; I get the sense that this is the general sense of the veil being unhappy with being pierced. But now it’s wrapping around me in a spiral, stretching me out, like the snake did in a previous vision.

I’m seeing myself like the character of Rick from Rick and Morty, which suggests I’m perhaps a little too bold and impatient, and this is probably true. Now I’m seeing myself like a character in a TV show who is going through an ordeal while standing: they throw their chest forward in agony, and I get the sense that this is the level of what’s going on with my subtle body as I’m working with the water. I have faith that I’ll be okay, and the angels do, also, and it’s as if the angels are suggesting this is the proper way to proceed, now that I’ve chosen this path.

I put my body in this posture. It’s like there’s this energy entering through my ajna chakra (third eye), which is circulating through me. When what is in me is to be cleansed is rinsed out in this process, it becomes part of this water. Now this water is filling up the golden cube, which is now about an eighth full. I get the sense that the amount of water it takes to fill up the cube is on a logarithmic scale.

Nonetheless, I decide to crank up the amount of water (9th house, malefic-out-of-sect-and-above-the-horizon Mars in Aries for the win). Now it’s like all of my subtle bodies are suffused with this water. Having done this, now I see Babalon sort of peeking from behind a seam in the sky. She’s waving and now I see why I wasn’t really to have taken on all of this water. It’s a little premature and the water was to have been taken on in ZAX and ZIP, but nonetheless I’m in LEA and so closing in on that Aethyr.

As my subtle body walks around, it’s like there’s this heaviness; I’m burdened with the weight of this preview of Her, and it won’t dissipate until I see Her in Her fullness in ZIP. I see a wall pulled down from the side of a room which I’m on the other side of, and there’s a torrent of water. There’s a lot of weight and force to it. The metaphor, the angels say, is for the reason for the stepwise nature of these Aethyrs. The angels say I’m okay to do it because I’ve already scried all of the Aethyrs (I note that I need to check any ego-delusion) and on account of that experience and the development of my subtle bodies to go through this. The metaphor is like drinking too much before sleep and then having to pee at night. The angels say I’ll have to carry this burden until I cross the Abyss again.

The angels take me into the heavens once more, the seam in the sky and Victorival’s work. The beings are coming through the seam very quickly and taking refuge in the water of my subtle body. Whatever it is, this has a lot of implications. The angels say that as I develop, my subtle body vessel will be able to accommodate many more beings. It will behave both as a magnet and a holding station.

I see something like unto a multicolored plant; it seems to have some kind of intelligence. It’s kind of confused and trying to understand what’s going on with me. The angels say to hold off on interacting with this being, so I ask it to wait, and it agrees. I get the sense that the entity is like unto a Chokmah entity, and the angels hint that such is likely the case. The angels have nothing further, and the vision ends.

Enochian and Gnosticism

It’s hard to describe in fullness “Enochian theology,” but a cursory look at both the language of Enochian as well as my experience of scrying the Aethyrs has had me pondering this matter in the back of my mind for some time. What I’ve come to realize, after a good dose of listening to the Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast, is that the Enochian magico-mystical system seems to continue the deep initiation into John Dee’s mind. Dee, a highly educated man, was familiar with Greek, fluent in Latin, and nothing if not well-read. His religious education needed to take the vows for a Catholic priest (while under arrest in would’ve also taken him into reading much of what was Catholic orthodoxy and–important for Dee if he wished to save his skin–what were the no-no’s of heterodoxy, heresy, apostacy. In other words, Dee probably came to know as much, if not more, about the Classics as any other man in England.

SHWEP has provided for me some obsessively interesting listening material. Earl Fontainelle’s laser focus on esotericism, combined with his profound background in the classics as well as his varied interest in the history of Western philosophy, has really opened up a world of understanding of the development of religious doctrine. Support the podcast, won’t you? Among the episodes I dove into was episode 79, Numenius’ Metaphysics, which laid out a concept of highest god, Nous; a son (emanation?) of that god, the Demiurge; and a grandson (second emanation?) of Nous, the Noetic Creator of our world. Note that these concepts roughly match the Kabbalistic Tree of Life model: an The Nous roughly corresponds to Ain/Ain Soph/Ain Soph Aur, the Demiurge roughly corresponds to the world of Atziluth, and the Noetic Creator roughly corresponds to the world of Briah. The idea of a demiurge is roughly linked to Gnosticism (in addition to previous philosophies), which, as SHWEP points out in an earlier episode with Michael Williams, is a somewhat problematic term in itself.

Numenius of Apamea parallels earlier philosophers like Eudorus of Alexandria, but what does this have to do with Enochian? One Enochian word that came to mind when considering this philosophy is “JAIDA” (which can also be transliterated to “IAIDA”; n.b. the letters “I” & “J” are collapsed in the Enochian alphabet), meaning “highest God” or, perhaps from its structure (“IA of IAD” or “IAD of IAD”): “God of Gods.” This is a bit strange from a monotheist point of view, and suggests that we should instead consider the Enochian system to be a monolatrous one, which is to say that the God of Enochian is the highest God, or the God worthy of worship, but that other gods may exist. This is surely one way to interpret other godlike beings who appear, such as Babalon or Kaos (the latter of whom I appear to not have encountered, but other Enochian practitioners have).

The other footing this puts Enochian on is the idea of a one-world religion, or rather a religion designed to be compatible with other religions. Jason Louv suggests in John Dee and the Empire of Angels that a one-world religion is indeed what the angels themselves were pushing. I have to admit, I have found that my exploration of Enochian hasn’t really pushed me away from any religion, but rather I’ve taken an approach which allows for the congruence of multiple religions at once. One difficulty with Enochian is the colonialist view of the world that Dee took, such that it’s tempting to view Enochian as a superstructure or superimposition upon other religions–perhaps as yet another imposition of religion, similar to the forced conversions to Christianity.

Looking into the structure of Enochian and its somewhat heretical views, it seems instead that it’s a system allowing for religious tolerance and pluralism, which is something we could use a little more of nowadays. During these holidays, I hope I have made a case to dig a little deeper and unfold what lies beneath the first impressions of this world, and bear witness to and become partakers in its wonders.

My Rainbow Body Process, Part 2: Hod initiation

In my last update, I mentioned that I was going to upgrade my Hod initiation. I essentially went with Scott Stenwick’s method; hilariously, I had some trouble with the sephirothic invocation, which is very unlike me. Slippery Mercury & Hod!

After settling in, I went through the process of the vision. Archangel Michael took me through the portal and the nature of the vision was straightforward: orange colors along with a blue belt. I saw my natal Aries Mercury in the form of rams, headbutted along by Mars and Venus, which conjoin it natally. This was shown to me differently in the form of a thermometer (representing heat; my chart is very fire heavy lol), with the mercury inside being alternately bifurcated by Mars but rejoined by Venus (this is these planets’ respective natures). This is a sort of special vibration, but Mars tends to predominate. Interestingly, I had forgotten that these two planets, the nocturnal malefic and benefic, were united by the locked-in Mercury. “Locked in” isn’t the best position for Mercury, unable to express itself as it normally does, with freedom and agility. No wonder this seemed to be an issue to be resolved!

Hod, splendor, is brilliance and majesty–and has been described by Clark as form of rational intellect. Yet we all have different perspectives of this rationality, and this can be seen as the thoughts (Mercury) flowing through the rational structure of the intellect. Key to me in my vision was the necessity of having a flexibility of belief structure (a recommendation by Robert Anton Wilson in Prometheus Rising). Within a rigid belief system, thoughts can only go in so many directions, so many speeds, or so many times, without things getting bored and stilted. With a flexible belief system, however, thoughts have more places to go, and more of the splendor can be born witness to and integrated into the self. Kind of sounds important if a variety of aspects need to be added?

What is the prognosis? The I Ching noted a short-term prognosis of “Inner Truth” and a longer-term prognosis of “The Family.” So, receptivity to truth as it is, and then functioning according to truth in all its variety. “Variety”: that word, in Enochian (DAMPLOZ) shows up in the rainbow body call! Broadening truth and living it: sounds like a plan!

My Rainbow Body Process, Part 1

So this is all kind of new to me, but I have just had a strong intuitive sense that working on the rainbow body is the next step in my journey. There really aren’t as many rules along a spiritual journey here as you might think, so cultivating discernment and presence of mind are key.

I have generally been trying to take an integrative approach to this process, and I have dialed back my brute-force meditation in order to focus on parts of myself that have been neglected. Still, along the way I’ve been focusing on a daily prayer. I also have been charging sigils to create, perfect, and inhabit the rainbow body as I go along.

Nonetheless, I sort of know when progress is being made and when it isn’t, and right now two weeks is a little too long to get a sense that I’m moving. The usual option for a lack of progress is divination, such as the I Ching, Tarot, or horary astrology. In my case, because it was so personal, I added an energetic self-scan to the I Ching reading; the latter had a short-term “Nourishing/Waiting” hexagram (5), with changing lines to Grace (22). The self-scan indeed revealed a need to upgrade my initiation into the lower sephiroth of Hod, which will happen tomorrow (Mercury rules Hod and so it is ideal on Wednesday) and, given the I Ching‘s reply, should be successful. So I’ll do that tomorrow and will see whether another initiation into a lower sephira is needed.

Why would a lower sephira need further initiatory work? Well, I’m coming to think that the Rainbow Body, which seems to include Ain, Ain Sof, & Ain Sof Aur, needs to include a very well integrated Tree of Life on the part of the practitioner. After all, the sephiroth are the same light in different parts of the spectrum.

Once again, note that I am trying to be flexible, like the Wu Wei, and am willing to add a variety of additive or, ideally, multiplicative approaches to the task at hand. Yet I’m not spreading myself too thin. I have noted before that I have bipolar disorder and so I have worked on managing it of late with extra runs, which delays progress, but that’s what the I Ching noted anyway.

Just today I noticed that my Holy Guardian Angel has been stirred towards unfolding (which it was for the first rainbow body call) and I believe that this is coinciding with the likely results from tomorrow.

I’ll update you as I can.

Progressing in Magick

So this is a question I’ve given some thought to: how quickly should one progress in magick? How far, how fast? What should you get into?

Having tried several things in magick, I can recommend the following:

1. Meditation (at the beginning and throughout your journey, perhaps to be foregone towards the end). Vipassana & Raja (one or the other), once or twice a day. I also recommend using simple pranayama techniques to relax one’s mind and emotional state, and then mentally confronting emotional triggers (i.e., “Why do I get angry about this? Is this really me, or am I just attached to [XYZ]? Does my emotional intensity match the situation?”) at least once a week for at least a year. Don’t be afraid to go deep. This will start clearing your mind of identifications that do not match who you are, and the best part is, you’re doing the clearing, so you are in control. It’s also good to talk through your insights with good friends.

Allllsoooo…therapy, especially as you get to the weirder stuff: find a therapist who doesn’t judge the woo.

Congratulations, your mind is now on a path towards healing.

2. Groundedness practice. (added) I recommend also doing some groundedness meditation (such as imagining roots growing from your feet into the earth and drawing in from the infinite amount of energy available that which you need). To complement this, spend time walking outside, gardening, etc., to stay in touch with the real world.

Congratulations, you’re able to live in reality.

3. Hatha yoga. The mind and body are intimately connected. In general, you will want to be in excellent physical shape, so if you can, Hatha yoga regularly, do cardio at least twice a week, and add in strength training (always talk to your doctor about exercise). Give yourself a couple of months to get in good (or better) physical shape. Obviously this depends on whether you are disabled, but think about how you can get in touch with your body.

Congratulations, you’re working on integrating your body and mind.

4. Sigils (as needed). After about a month of meditation, teach yourself to make a sigil (the Austin Osman Spare method is easy to learn, but others exist). They are easy, they are cheap, they will work with beginner’s luck. Start with something simple at the “5% probability” level and charge it the easy way (look at it during the “big O“).

Congratulations, you’re empowering yourself.

5. Learn (and DO) banishing (regularly, but eventually to be largely eschewed). A few weeks after your sigil, note the degree to which it was successful (you can do more, but for serious things). Then learn the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP). After you have started a daily meditation practice, for at least a month, start learning the LBRP. It’s not that complicated. Use flash cards to memorize directions, angel names, and the like.

Then do it for the first time. Don’t be surprised if you experience some clairaudience: I definitely did my first time and I had a huge WTF moment! Once you have it memorized and can perform it fluidly, it should not take more than five minutes. Start off doing that on a weekend, then add it to your “stack” and do it once a day (ideally before a meditation), then twice a day (morning and night). If you’re not in your own place, do it silently. If space is an issue, you can do it imaginally. Later, learn the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram (LBRH).

Congratulations, you’re starting to determine your circumstances.

6. Study the elements and astrology. The classical elements are fundamental to the LBRP, and now is the time to understand what they are about. It’s good to learn about them in conjunction with astrology, because there is some overlap. For that, The Astrology Podcast is excellent. Take their significations of the signs (parts 1 & 2), the planets, the houses (parts 1 & 2), then the ones on sect, essential dignities, and then look into the aspects. This will help you understand the LBRH. It will also help you understand the astrological forces, whether they are “good” for a working and invoked, or whether they are bad and should be banished. This will take some time, definitely no less than three months, probably no less than six.

Congratulations, now you understand how circumstances can arise.

7. Raising & balancing consciousness. (added) At this point, I also would recommend slowly adding in the Middle Pillar Ritual at this point. Once a week, then twice, then daily. The idea is to start raising your awareness. It’s very important to balance this with the groundedness meditation I previously mentioned.

Congratulations, you’re developing perspective on circumstances.

8. Start thinking about your True Will. Your understanding of astrology will come in handy now. Jason Louv offers a course on this, which is excellent.

Congratulations, now you know how you want to change circumstances.

9. Holy Guardian Angel ordeal. By now you should at least have a couple of years into your studies. I really can’t recommend this enough, but I probably wouldn’t recommend this for someone who hasn’t yet had their Saturn return. Knowledge and Conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel is the first great feat of the Western magickian, according to Crowley. I recommend the Abramelin operation (I was told by my HGA to forego the demon-binding portion of the operation, as was James Eshelman). It is an ordeal, and should only be undertaken when you can. Modify it as you can for your circumstances: the original presumed so much wealth but a sincere effort to have the key aspects of the ritual (isolation, prayer, etc.) is vital. Congratulations, now you have an ally in reaching towards your true nature.

10. Enochian. Having done all of this work, you might decide to take up Enochian. It’s complicated. It’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it, soooo worth it. I’ve written before that I consider it the key to plugging in to the great Western and Eastern accomplishments (such as a Chokmah initiation and the rainbow body–a Tibetan Buddhism arising–respectively). Congratulations, you are now on the path to reaching your true nature.

You may be surprised that I have left off this list other things such as talismans (I do them, but these are not necessary), alien contact, past-life regression, and so many others. I just don’t think that they are necessary, and may even side-track from paths to some core insights. I’m willing to change my mind on this, and I’ll let you know if I do.

Enjoy!

Simple Shortcut When Ascending the Tree of Life

There are shortcuts to things in life, though shortcuts are not always the best or cleanest way to get things done. Yet when you’re starting from a low point and want to get to a higher point, rather than practicing the same old techniques in drudgery until the slow accretion of effort pays off years later with achievement, or its opposite of a shortcut to the trophy that is devoid of mastery, it’s probably better to use both practice and the occasional shortcut to make your empowerment work faster.

The ascension of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life is the purpose of many magickal orders. While I have no grand techniques for preparation for initiation, and initiation itself (the LBRP or the Abramelin Operation still work as they should!), I have an “all-of-the-above” approach to magick, and believe that cross-pollination has interaction effects. Hence, the shortcut: sigils.

Sure, you may already know about sigils, but why not create a sigil to enable old-fashioned initiation? Sometimes we don’t think to put “new wine into old wineskins,” but we do it all the time, we just don’t think of it that way. Meditation is used in concert with being a good person, magick is used in concert with meditation, and sigil magick can be used in concert with Tree-of-Life magick.

The technique itself is rather simple: create a sigil with the intent along the lines of “I initiate into [name of sephirah, e.g., Yesod].” Charge it, don’t obsess about it, then continue going about your normal efforts to initiate into that same sephirah. What you should find (as I did) is that new techniques to initiate into a sephirah appear, or that your current efforts accelerate. I myself used sigils to assist with initiation into Binah, Chokmah, & Kether.

Get creative and clear with your intent, and don’t be afraid to iterate: “I deepen my initiation into [name of sephirah]” and “I complete my initiation into [name of sephirah]” are wise additional sigils to fire off after you surmise that you have succeeded in your initiation into a given sephirah. You must still do the hard work, but the hard work should pay off more quickly.

Enjoy!

Planets ruling Sephiroth on the Tree of Life

Perhaps it’s Uranus transiting over my natal sun right now that’s inspiring me to write a bit about the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. For beginners, I’ll just mention that the Tree of Life is an interesting model of consciousness. Based on the mythical tree in the book of Genesis (from which one could eat and live forever), the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (often abbreviated as ToL) metaphorically explains how divine energy can move from the heavenly to the earthly.

Most sephiroth on the ToL are considered to be ruled by celestial aspects or by the elements; the tenĀ sephiroth, or spheres (i.e., of consciousness/spiritual states) on the ToL and their respective rulers are:

  1. Kether, “The Crown”
  2. Chokmah, “Wisdom,” ruled by the Zodiac
  3. Binah, “Understanding,” ruled by Saturn
    (Da’ath, “Knowledge,” is considered to be a false sephirah; in some traditions it’s also thought to be all sephiroth at once, though I find this unhelpful and somewhat incorrect)
  4. Chesed, “Mercy,” ruled by Jupiter
  5. Geburah, “Strength,” ruled by Mars
  6. Tiphareth, “Beauty,” ruled by the Sun
  7. Netzach, “Victory,” ruled by Venus
  8. Hod, “Splendo(u)r,” ruled by Mercury
  9. Yesod, “Foundation,” ruled by the Moon
  10. Malkuth, “Kingdom,” ruled by the four elements

The rulership of these sephiroth differ from the astrological essential dignity of domicile, which holds that planets have greatest effectiveness in zodiacal sign (e.g., Aries, Taurus, etc.): the Sun is strongest in the royal sign of Leo, the Moon in the nurturing sign of Cancer, etc. There are further essential dignities including

Sephirothic rulership, however, is less about what brings the planet strength, but rather what brings the sephiroth completeness. The Splendor of all the possibilities of form to be made in the physical world is brought to completion by Mercury, which can flow from idea to idea, configuration to configuration. The Triumph of any given form, moreover, is brought to completeness when it is in fact a pleasurable one (for what is the point in Victory without the thrill?).

One consideration is whether to re-assign the planets Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto to the final two sephiroth. From personal experience of the higher sephiroth, my judgment is not to do so. Uranus, the planet some folks consider to rule Chokmah, is commonly considered among astrologers as a “wild card” planet and a rebellious planet. My experience of Chokmah (“Wisdom”) is that it provides an individual insight into an optimal approach to reality. Wisdom is an optimal means to govern one’s life because it is an incorporation of an undeniable aspect of nature, which can be succinctly declared in a Law. Rebellious Uranus doesn’t seem to fit this idea, though one could argue that the newly declared Law is a necessary reflection of a previously unseen aspect of reality.

Nonetheless, more fundamental to my judgment is the contrast between Binah (“Understanding”), ruled by Saturn, the greater malefic and Lord of Time, and Chokmah. Binah occupies the top of the pillar of Severity on the ToL, while Chokmah occupies the top of the pillar of Mercy (ascending the Middle Pillar of Mildness is often considered a standard goal of the Kabbalah). Saturn reflects the need for discipline and patience, and brings Binah (often described as all possibilities and thus bringing the initiate the Vision of Sorrow) to completeness by imposing its cold order and a logical connectivity of these possible states into a coherent flow (eliminating–bringing death!–to nearly all of them!). If feminine Binah is ruled by the Lord of Time, then masculine and protruding Chokmah, it follows, should be ruled by Space itself. Space and time being essential aspects of the universe, the Zodiac seems like the superior choice of ruler.

What rules Kether, the Crown? As you might guess, I don’t believe it is ruled by either Neptune or Pluto. My argument is that it lacks formal rulership, except that it is existence itself, which does have limits. Therefore, I would argue that perception rules Kether–reality perceives itself, no matter what, and therefore perhaps the best way to put it is that the Divine rules it, for the Divine is the Complete Perceiver, and initiates into Kether may partake of the perception of the Divine.

Some scholars suggest that the Biblical Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are the same tree. Eating of the Crown this Tree, I can tell you that the answer is yes: as I put it when first scrying the Enochian Aethyr of LIL: “This is the End of Death.”