I love the Qabalah, I really do, but it’s a frakking mess. Between different sources, different interpretations, blinds, mistranslations, and everything else it’s jumbled up.
There are the Four Worlds, everyone seems to agree there, but where are they divided on the Tree? Is there a unique Tree for each world? Are the first three Sephiroth the top three Worlds, and the next seven the lowest world? Are the cross-paths the divisions between the Worlds? Is it a Jacob’s Ladder where the Worlds overlap a little as the Trees climb up?
What Angels rule what Sephiroth? Do the Angels of the Planetary Sephiroth rule the corresponding planet? Who rules Malkuth? Do the same Angels rule the elements, or another set? Why are some of the Angels and Demons gods?
Now these are just the first of my issues with the Qabalah that sprang to mind immediately on considering this discussion. I love the philosophy, the cosmology, and the system, but there is a lot of it that seems unclear and jumbled to be polite.
What surprises some people who know my practice is that I haven’t dealt with Raphael, Michael, Tzaphkiel, and the like in years. For the reasons mentioned above, and a great many more, I felt I had to return to “The Source” not in a textual sense, but in a transcendent sense. This inspired what became my longest, and perhaps most volatile magickal experiment. While I completed this several years back, I’ve never really discussed it here and only minorly or privately elsewhere. Issues on credibility and silly notions like that got in the way. I spent two years, two months, and two days (not on purpose, just the way it worked) skrying the Tree of Life, talking with the Forces of the Tree. Not the Angels we know, but the Force.
Reality is a multifaceted diamond of infinite complexity, but the trouble is whenever we look at one facet we distort and obscure others. Tipareth, Michael, and the like are all just one facet of a diamond of the Sun-Sphere, the most familiar one, but not the only one. In my experiment I climbed the Tree, skying and communing as I went to meet other Names of those diamonds, other beings, that are of the same quality, type, and level, but don’t have the cultural-historical baggage or the confusion of the blinds/traditions/mistranslations and the host of problems that popped up with the traditional sources. These Angels (for while they aren’t the traditional Angels in my experience they are of the same level/type of entity) would speak to me, free of the confusion of the myriad of Qabalistic confusions, and gave me Names to use that were free from the Judeo-Christian sources (which was always a minor issue with me), and forms and relationships that suited my life.
I was foolish. I thought it was something I could do quickly. Pop in, get the Names and contacts I need and move on, be done in a few weeks. The Angels had a different notion, I had to be initiated into each Sphere, live each quality in order to gain access. I couldn’t just bang on the Gates of Mercury and be allowed in, I had to live a Mercurial life and only when I had lived it sufficiently then would I be permitted in.
It took me over two years of work, on and off, of having my life switch around repeatedly, in order to complete this mission, but since then it has only deepened. I work with these Angels daily, my Path has been opened by them, and they walk with me, work with me, and reside with me.
I had told a few people about this experiment at the time, and had their help with it at times, confirming identities as well as experimenting with the Angels, but I’ve never really talked about it too much. One of the things about returning to the Starry Path is discussing this, and sharing. So over the next while I will talk about the process I used, the Angels I met, and the life it led me to as I climbed the Tree.
Hail Sh’miral, the Opener of Ways, and Guide of Contact.
Climbing the Tree – The Call to Adventure
