2,000 Greater & Lesser Mysteries/2,000 Greater and Lesser Mysteries.iso/cabala/mys00218.txt

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                       Notes on Kabbalah

The author grants the right to copy and distribute these Notes provided
they remain unmodified and original authorship and copyright is retained.
The author retains both the right and intention to modify and extend
these Notes.

Release 2.0
Copy date: 12th. January 1992

Copyright Colin Low 1992 ([e-mail])

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Chapter 4: The Sephiroth (continued)
========================
     This  chapter  provides a detailed look at each of  the  ten
sephiroth  and  draws together material scattered  over  previous
chapters.

Hod & Netzach
-------------

         "Objects contain the possibility of all situations.
          The possibility of occurring in states of affairs
          is the form of an object.
          Form is the possibility of structure."
                                     Wittgenstein

         "Since feeling is first
          who pays any attention
          to the syntax of things
          will never wholly kiss you."
                                     E.E. Cummings

     The  title  of the sephira Hod is  sometimes  translated  as
Splendour  and  sometimes  as Glory.  The title  of  the  sephira
Netzach is usually translated as Victory, sometimes as Endurance,
and  occasionally  as Eternity.  Although there  have  been  many
attempts  to explain the titles of this pair of sephiroth,  I  am
not  aware  of  a  convincing  explanation.
     The  two sephiroth correspond to the legs and like the  legs
are  normally  taken  as  a  pair  and  not  individually.   They
complement another but are not opposites any more than force  and
form  are  opposites.  This pair of sephiroth provide  the  first
example  of  the  polarity of form  and  force  encountered  when
ascending  back up the lightning flash from the sephira  Malkuth.
Neither quality manifests in a pure state,  as form and force are
thoroughly  mixed together at the level of Hod and  Netzach:  the
force aspect represented by Netzach is differentiated (an example
of  form)  into  a  multitude of  forces,  and  the  form  aspect
represented  by  Hod acts dynamically (an example  of  force)  by
synthesising new forms and structures.  Both sephiroth  represent
the plurality of consciousness at this level,  and in older texts
they  are referred to as the "armies" or "hosts".  To  understand
why  they are referred to in this way it is necessary to look  at
an  archaic aspect of Kabbalistic symbolism whereby the  Tree  of
Life is a representation of kingship.
     One of the titles of Tiphereth is Melekh, or king. This king
is the child of Chokhmah (Abba,  the father) and Binah (Aima, the
Mother) and hence a son of God who wears the crown of Kether. The
kingdom is the sephira Malkuth,  at the same time queen  (Malkah)
and bride (Kallah).  In his right hand the king wields the  sword
of  justice  (corresponding  to Gevurah),  and in  his  left  the
sceptre of authority (corresponding to Chesed), and he rules over
the armies or hosts (Tzaba),  which are Hod and Netzach.  The use
of  kingship  as  a metaphor to convey what  the  sephiroth  mean
obscures as much as it reveals, but it is an unavoidable piece of
Kabbalistic symbolism,  and the attribution of Hod and Netzach to
the  "armies" does capture something useful about the  nature  of
consciousness  at this level:  consciousness is  fragmented  into
innumerable  warring factions,  and if there is no rightful  king
ruling over the kingdom of the soul (a common state of  affairs),
then the armies elect a succession of leaders from the ranks, who
wear  a lopsided crown and occupy the throne only for as long  as
it takes to find another claimant - more on this later.
     The   psychological  interpretation  of  Hod  is   that   it
corresponds  to the ability to  abstract,  to  conceptualise,  to
reason,  to communicate,  and this level of consciousness  arises
from the fact that in order to survive we have evolved a  nervous
system capable of building internal representations of the world.
I can drive around London in a car because I possess an  internal
representation of the London street system. I can diagnose faults
in the same car because I have an internal representation of  its
mechanical and electrical systems and how they might fail.  I can
type this document without looking at the keyboard because I know
where  the keys are positioned,  and your ability to read what  I
have  written  pre-supposes  a  shared  understanding  about  the
meaning  of words and what they represent.  Our  nervous  systems
possess   an   absolutely  basic  ability  to   create   internal
representations  out  of  the  information  we  are  capable   of
perceiving through our senses.
     It  is also an absolutely basic characteristic of the  world
that  it  is bigger than my nervous  system.  I  cannot  possibly
create *accurate*, internal representations of the world, and one
of the meanings of the verb "to abstract" is "to remove quietly".
This is what the nervous system does:  it quietly removes most of
what  is  going on in the world in order to  create  an  abridged
representation  of reality with all the important  (important  to
me)  bits underlined in highlighter pen.  This is the  world  "I"
live  in:  not  in  the "real" world,  but  an  internal  reality
synthesised  by  my  nervous system.  There has  been  a  lot  of
philosophising about this, and it is difficult to think about how
our nervous systems *might* be distorting  or even  manufacturing
reality  without  a  feeling  of  unease,  but  I  am  personally
reassured by the everyday observation that most adults can  drive
a  car  on  a busy road at eighty miles per  hour  in  reasonable
safety.   This   suggests  that  while  our  synthetic   internal
representation of the world isn't accurate, it isn't at all bad.
     Abstraction  does  not  end  at the  point  of  building  an
internal representation of the external world.  My nervous system
is quite content to treat my internal representation of the world
as  yet  another  domain  over which it  can  carry  out  further
abstraction,  and  the  subsequent new world of  abstractions  as
another  domain,  and  so on indefinitely,  giving  rise  to  the
principal  definition  of  "abstraction":  "to  separate  by  the
operation  of  the mind,  as in forming a  general  concept  from
consideration of particular instances".  As an  example,  suppose
someone asks me to watch the screen of a computer and to describe
what I see. I have no idea what to expect.

     "Hmmm...lots  of  dots  moving  around  randomly...different
     colour dots...red,  blue,  green.  Ah,  the dots seem to  be
     clustering...they're forming circles...all the dots of  each
     particular  colour  are  forming  circles,  lots  of  little
     circles.  Now  the  circles are coming together  to  form  a
     number...it's  3.  Now  they're  moving  apart  and  forming
     another    number...its    15...now    12..9..14.    They've
     gone..........that was it..3, 15, 12, 9, 14. Is it some sort
     of test?  Do I have to guess the next number in the  series?
     What are the numbers supposed to mean? What was the point of
     it?  Hmmm..the  numbers  might  stand  for  letters  of  the
     alphabet...let's see. C..O..L..I...N. It's my name!"

The  dots  on the screen are real -  there  are  real,  discrete,
measurable  spots  of light on the screen.  I  could  verify  the
presence of dots of light using an appropriate light  meter.  The
colours are synthesised by my retinas;  different elements in  my
eye  respond to different frequencies in the light and give  rise
to an internal experience we label "red",  "blue",  "green".  The
circles  simply do not exist:  given the nature of  the  computer
output on the screen, there are only individual pixels, and it is
my  nervous system which constructs circles.  The numbers do  not
exist  either;  it  is only because of my  particular  upbringing
(which  I share with the person who wrote the  computer  program)
that  I  am able to distinguish patterns  standing  for  abstract
numbers in patterns of circles e.g.

    oo
   o  o
      o
      o
     o
    o
   o
  ooooo

And  once I begin to reason about the *meaning* of a sequence  of
numbers I have left the real world a long way behind: not only is
"number" a complex abstraction,  but when I ask a question  about
the  "meaning"  of "a sequence of numbers" I am working  with  an
even  more "abstract abstraction".  My ability to happily  juggle
numbers and letters and decide that there is an identity  between
the abstract number sequence "3, 15, 12, 9, 14" and the character
string  "COLIN"  is  one of those commonplace  things  which  any
person  might do and yet it illustrates how easy it is to  become
completely  detached from the external world and function  within
an  internal world of abstractions which have been detached  from
anything  in  the world for so long that they are taken  as  real
without a second thought.
     In parallel with our ability to structure perception into an
internal  world  of  abstractions  we  possess  the  ability   to
communicate facts about  this internal world. When I say "The cup
is on the table",  another person is able to identify in the real
world,  out  of all the information reaching  their  senses,  the
abstraction  "chair",  the  abstraction "cup",  and  confirm  the
relationship   of   "on-ness".   Why  are  the  cup   and   table
abstractions? Because  the word "cup" does not  uniquely  specify
any  particular cup in the world,  and when I use the word  I  am
assuming   that  the  listener  already  possesses  an   internal
representation  of  an abstract object "cup",  and can  use  that
abstract  specification of a cup to identify a particular  object
in the context within which my statement was made.
     We  are not normally conscious of this  process,  and  don't
need to be when dealing with simple propositions about objects in
the real world.  I think I know what a cup is, and I think you do
too.  If you don't know, ask someone to show you a few. Life gets
a  lot  more  complicated  when  dealing  with  complex  internal
abstractions:  what  is  a  "contract",  a  "treaty",  a  "loan",
"limited liability", a "set", a "function", "marriage", a "tort",
"natural justice",  a "sephira",  a  "religion",  "sin",  "good",
"evil",  and  so  on  (and on).  We  reach  agreement  about  the
definitions of these things using language.   In some cases,  for
example,  a  mathematical  object,  the thing is  completely  and
unambiguously defined using language,  while in other cases (e.g.
"good",  "sin") there is no universally accepted definition. Life
is  further  complicated by a widespread lack of  awareness  that
these internal abstractions *are* internal,  and it is common  to
find people projecting internal abstractions onto the world as if
they  were an intrinsic part of the fabric of existence,  and  as
objectively real as the particular cup and the particular table I
referred to earlier.  Marriage is no longer a contract between  a
man and a woman;  it is an estate made in heaven. What is heaven?
God knows.  And what is God?  Trot out your definitions and let's
have  an argument - that is the way such questions are  answered.
Much  of  the content of electronic bulletin boards  consists  of
endless  arguments and discussions on the definition  of  complex
internal  abstractions (what is ritual,  what is magic,  what  is
karma, what is ki, what is...).
     A  third  element which goes together with  abstraction  and
language  to complete the essense of the sephira Hod  is  reason,
and reason's formal offspring,  logic.  Reason is the ability  to
articulate  and justify our beliefs about the world using a  base
of  generally agreed facts and a generally agreed  technique  for
combining  facts  to  infer  valid  conclusions.   If  reason  is
considered  as  one  out of a number of  possible  processes  for
establishing  what  is  true about the  world  we  live  in,  for
establishing which models of reality are valid and which are not,
then  it has been phenomenally successful:  in its  heyday  there
were those who saw reason as the most divine faculty, the faculty
in humankind most akin to God, and that legacy is still with us -
the  words  "unreasonable"  and "irrational" are  often  used  to
attack and denigrate someone who does not (or cannot)  articulate
what  they do or why they do it.  There is of course no  "reason"
why  we should have to articulate or justify  anything,  even  to
ourselves,  but  the  reasoning  machine  within  us  demands  an
"explanation"  for  every phenomenon,  and a "reason"  for  every
action.  This is a characteristic of reason - it is an  obsessive
mode of consciousness.  A second characteristic of reason is that
it operates on the "garbage-in,  garbage-out" principle:  if  the
base of given facts a person uses to reason about are garbage, so
are  the  conclusions  -  witness  what  two  thousand  years  of
Christian   theology   has  achieved  using   sound   dialectical
principles taken from Aristotle.
     If  the  sephira Hod on the Pillar of  Form  represents  the
active   synthesis  of  abstract  forms  in  consciousness   (and
abstraction,  language  and reason are prime examples)  then  the
sephira  Netzach  on  the Pillar of  Force  represents  affective
states  of  consciousness which influence how we act  and  react:
needs,  wants,  drives,  feelings, moods and emotions.      It is
difficult  to write about affective states,  to be clear  on  the
distinction between a need and a want on one hand,  or a  feeling
or  a  mood on the other,  and I find it  particularly  difficult
because  the essence of sadness is *being* sad,  the  essence  of
excitement is the *feeling* of excitement,  the essence of desire
is the aching,  lusting,  overwhelming *feeling* of  desire,  and
being  too precise about defining feelings is in the  essence  of
Hod,  *not* Netzach. These things are incommunicable. They can be
produced in another person,  but they cannot be communicated.  It
is  possible  to be clinical and abstract and precise  about  the
sephira Hod because an abstract clinical precision captures  that
aspect  of  consciousness  perfectly,   but  when  attempting  to
communicate  something about Netzach one feels tempted to try  to
communicate feelings themselves,  a task more suited to a poet or
a musician,  an actor or a dancer. Please accept this unfortunate
limitation in what follows,  a limitation not necessarily present
when Kaballah is learned at first hand from someone.
     Netzach is on the Pillar of Force,  but in reaching  Netzach
the Lightning Flash has already passed through Binah and  Gevurah
on  the Pillar of Form and so it represents a  force  conditioned
and  constrained  by  form;  when we talk about  Netzach  we  are
talking  about  the  different  ways  force  can  be  shaped  and
directed,  like toothpaste squeezed out of a tube. The toothpaste
we  are  talking about is something I will call "life  force"  or
"life energy", and as a rule, when I have a lot of it I feel well
and full of vitality,  and when I don't have much I feel  unwell,
tired,   and  vulnerable.   To  continue  the  somewhat   phallic
toothpaste  metaphor,  the  magnitude  of pressure  on  the  tube
corresponds  to vitality,  the direction in which the  toothpaste
comes out corresponds to a need or a want,  and the shape of  the
nozzle  corresponds to a feeling:  all three  factors,  pressure,
direction and nozzle determine how the toothpaste comes out; that
is,  we could say that there are three factors giving a *form* to
the  toothpaste  (or  life-energy).   It  may  seem  sloppy   and
unnecessarily  metaphysical to imply that all  needs,  wants  and
feelings are merely conditions of manifestation of something more
basic,  some "unconditioned force",  but Kaballah is primarily  a
tool for exploring internal states, and there are internal states
(certainly  in  my experience) where this  force  is  experienced
directly  with  much  less  differentiation,   hence  the  clumsy
metaphor.
     Textbooks  on psychology define a need as an internal  state
which  results in directed behaviour,  and discuss needs such  as
thirst,  hunger,  sex, stimulation, proximity seeking, curiousity
and  so  on.  These things are  interesting,  but  for  virtually
everyone  such  basic  and inherent needs are in  the  nature  of
"givens"  and  don't  provide much individual  insight  into  the
questions  "why do I behave differently from other  people?",  or
"should  I change my behaviour?",  or more interesting still  "to
what extent do I (or can I) influence my behaviour?". In addition
to  inherent needs it is useful also to look at needs which  have
been  acquired (i.e.  learned),  and for convenience I will  call
them  "wants" because people are usually conscious  of  "wanting"
something specific. To give some examples, a person might want:

      - to buy a bar of chocolate.
      - to go to the toilet.
      - to own a better car.
      - to have a sexual relationship with someone.
      - to live forever.
      - to  be  thinner  (more   musculer,   taller,   whiter,
        browner...).
      - to read a book.
      - to gain social recognition within a particular group.
      - to win in sport.
      - to go shopping.
      - to go to bed.

Not  only  are these "wants" the sort of thing many  people  want
these days,  but these "wants" can all occur concurrently in  the
same  person,  and while some may have been simmering away  on  a
back  burner for years,  there can be an astonishing  variety  of
pots  and pans waiting for an immediate turn on  the  stove.  The
average  person's  consciousness zips around the kitchen  like  a
demented short-order cook stirring this dish,  serving that  one,
slapping a pot on the stove for a few minutes only to take it off
and put something else on,  throwing whole meals in the bin  only
to empty them back into pots a few minutes later.  The choice  of
which  pot ends up on the hot plate depends largely on  mood  and
accident:   some  people  may  plan  their  lives  like  military
campaigns  but most don't.  Most people have far more wants  than
there are hours in the day to achieve them,  and those which  are
actually satisfied on a given day is more a function of  accident
than  design.  Careers  are thrown away (along  with  status  and
security)  in a moment of sexual infatuation;  the desire to  eat
wars  with  the  desire to be slim;  the writer  retires  to  the
country  to write the great novel and does everything but  write;
the  manager  desperately tries to finish an  urgent  report  but
finds  himself dreaming about a car he saw in the car  park;  the
student  abandons  an important essay on impulse to go  out  with
friends.  One  activity  is quickly replaced by  another  as  the
person  attempts  to  reconcile all his  wants  and  drives,  but
unfortunately  there  is  no requirement  that  wants  should  be
internally  consistent  or complementary;  like  a  multi-process
operating  system,  a single thread of energy is randomly  cycled
around an arbitrary list of needs and wants to produce the mixed-
up complexity of the average person.  Each want can be treated as
a  distinct mode of consciousness - I can eat a slap-up meal  one
day and thoroughly enjoy it, while the next day I can look in the
mirror and swear never to touch another pizza again.  It is as if
two separate beings inhabited my body,  one who loves pizzas  and
one who wants to be thin,  and each makes plans independently  of
the  other,  and only the magic dust of unbroken memory  sustains
the illusion that I am a single person.  When I view my own wants
and  actions dispassionately I can conclude that there is a  host
or  army  of independent beings jostling inside me,  a  crowd  of
artificial  elementals  individually ensouled with enough  of  my
energy  to bring one particular desire to fruition.  I cope  with
the  semi-chaotic  result of mob rule by  using  the  traditional
remedy:  public relations. I put together internal press releases
(various rationalisations and justifications) to convince myself,
and others if need be,  that the mess was either due to  external
circumstances beyond my control (I didn't have time last  night),
the fault of other people (you made me angry),  or inevitable  (I
had no choice,  there was no alternative). In cases where even my
public relations don't work I erect a shrine to the gods of Guilt
and  make little offerings of sorrow and regret over  the  years.
     This is normal consciousness for most people.  It is a  kind
of insanity.  Wants rush to and fro on the stage of consciousness
like actors in the closing scenes of Julius Caeser - alarums  and
excursions,  bodies litter the stage,  trumpets and battle shouts
in the wings, Brutus falls on his sword, Anthony claims the field
-  perhaps this is why the sephira is called Victory!  Every  day
new  wants  are  kicked off in response to  advertising  or  peer
pressure,  old wants compete with each other in a zero-sum  game.
Having  said this,  I should point out that it is not  desire  or
wants  or  drives which create the insanity - Kaballah  does  not
place  the  value judgement on desire that  Buddhism  does  (that
desire is the cause of suffering,  and by inference, something to
be overcome). The insanity arises from mob-rule, from the bizarre
internal processes of justification,  rationalisation and  guilt,
and  from  the identification of Self with the result -   I  will
return to this when discussing the sephira Tiphereth, as the mis-
identification  of  Self is a key element in  the  discussion  on
Tiphereth.
     Netzach  also  corresponds to  our  feelings,  emotions  and
moods,   because  this  background  of  "psychological   weather"
strongly  conditions  the  way  in which  we  think  and  behave:
regardless  of  what  I  am  doing,   my  energy  will   manifest
differently when I am happy than when I am not.  Sometimes  moods
and  emotions are triggered by a specific  event,  and  sometimes
they  are not:  free-floating anxiety and depression  are  common
enough, and perhaps free-floating happiness is too (I can't speak
from  experience  there  ;-).  There are hundreds  of  words  for
different moods, emotions and feelings, but most seem to refer to
different  degrees of intensity of the same thing,  or  the  same
feeling  in  different  contexts,  and the  number  of  genuinely
distinct  internal  dimensions of feeling appears  to  be  small.
Depression, misery, sadness, happiness, delight, joy, rapture and
ecstacy seem to lie along the same axis,  as do  loathing,  hate,
dislike,  affection,  and love.  It is an interesting exercise to
identify  the genuinely,  qualitatively different  feelings   you
can  experience  by actually conjuring up each  feeling.  I  have
tried  the  experiment  with a number of  people,  and  you  will
probably find there are less than 10 distinct feelings.

     The most immediate and personal correspondences for Hod  and
Netzach  are  the psychological  correspondences:  the  rational,
abstract,  intellectual and  communicative on one hand  and  the
emotional,  motivational,  intuitive, aesthetic, and non-rational
on the other.  The planetary and elemental correspondences mirror
this:  Hod  corresponds to Kokab or Mercury,  and the element  of
Air, while Netzach corresponds to Nogah or Venus, and the element
Water.
     The Virtue of Hod is honesty or truthfulness,  and its  Vice
is  dishonesty or untruthfulness.  One of the features  of  being
able   to   create  abstract  representations  of   reality   and
communicate  some  aspect of it to another person is that  it  is
possible  to *misrepresent* reality,  or to put it  bluntly,  lie
through your teeth.
     The Illusion of Hod is order,  in the sense of attempting to
impose  one's  sense  of  order upon  the  world.  This  is  very
noticeable in some people;  whenever something happens they  will
immediately pigeonhole it and declare with great authority "it is
just another example of XYZ".  A surprising number of people  who
claim  to  be  rational  will claim "there's  no  such  thing  as
(ghosts, telepathy, free lunches, UFO's)" without having examined
the evidence one way or the other. They are probably right, and I
have no personal interest either way,  but it is not difficult to
distinguish  between  someone who carefully weighs the  pros  and
cons  in  an  argument and readily  admits  to  uncertainty,  and
someone with a firm and orderly conviction that "this is the  way
the  world  is".  The  illusion of order  occurs  because  people
confuse their internal representation of the world with the world
itself,  and  whenever  they are confronted with  something  they
attempt  to  fit it into their representation.
     The  illusion of order (that everything in the world can  be
neatly classified) relates closely to the klippoth of Hod,  which
is  rigidity,  or rigid order.  As children we start out with  an
open view of what the world is like, and by the time we reach our
late teens or early twenties this view has set fairly solid, like
cold porridge - there are few minds more full of certainties than
that of an eighteen year old. A good critical education sometimes
has the effect of stirring the porridge into a lumpy  gruel,  but
it  gradually starts to set again (unless the heavy hand of  fate
stirs it up), and it is generally recognised, particularly in the
sciences,  that  a deeply ingrained sense of "how things are"  is
the  greatest  obstacle  to  progress.  If  you  hear  some  kids
listening to music and find yourself thinking "I don't know  what
they find in that noise!" then it's happening to you too. If find
yourself  looking  back  to a time when everything  was  so  much
better  than it is today and find yourself  declaring  "nostalgia
isn't  what it used to be" then you will know that  the  porridge
has gone very cold and very stiff.
     The  Vision  of Hod is the Vision  of  Splendour.  There  is
regularity  and order in the world - it's not all an  illusion  -
and  when  someone  is able to appreciate natural  order  in  its
abstract  sense,  via mathematics for example,  it can lead to  a
genuinely  religious,  even ecstatic experience.  The  thirteenth
century Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia developed a rigorous system of
Hebrew  letter  mysticism  based on the  letters  of  the  Hebrew
alphabet,   their   symbolic   meanings,   and   their   abstract
relationships when permuted into different "names of  God";  many
hours of intense concentration spent combining letters  according
to complex rules generated highly abstract symbolic meanings  and
insights which led to ecstatic experiences. The same sense of awe
can  come  from mathematics and science -  the  realisation  that
gravitational  dynamics in three dimensions is geometry  in  four
dimensions,  that plants are living fractals, that primes are the
seeds of all other numbers, are just as likely to lead towards an
intense vision of the splendour of the world made visible through
the eye of the rational intellect.

     The  Virtue  of Netzach is unselfishness,  and its  Vice  is
selfishness. Both the Virtue and the Vice are an attitude towards
things-which-are-not-me,  specifically,  other people and  living
creatures. If I was surrounded by a hundred square miles of empty
desert  then my attitude to other living things wouldn't  matter,
but  I don't,  and nothing I do is without some  consequence;  my
needs,  wants  and feelings invariably have an effect on  people,
animals and plants,  who all want to live and have some level  of
needs  and  wants and feelings too.  Unselfishness  is  simply  a
recognition of others' needs.  Selfishness taken to an extreme is
a denial of life,  because it denies freedom and life to anything
which gets in the way;  my needs must come first. Netzach lies on
the  Pillar of Force and is an expression of life-energy,  so  to
deny  life  is a perversion of the force symbolised  by  Netzach,
hence the attribution of selfishness to the Vice.
     The  Vision of Netzach is the Vision of  Beauty  Triumphant.
Whereas the Vision of Splendour corresponding to Hod is a  vision
of  complex abstract relationships,  symmetry,  and  mathematical
elegance, the Vision of Beauty Triumphant is purely aesthetic and
firmly based in the real world of textures,  smells,  sounds, and
colours,  an appropriate correspondence for Venus, the goddess of
sensual  beauty.
     Suppose two housebuyers go to look at a house.  The first is
interested in the number of rooms,  the size of the  garage,  the
house's  position relative to local  amenities,  the  price,  the
number of square metres in the plot,  and whether the windows are
double-glazed.  The  second  person likes the decoration  in  the
lounge,  the  colour of the bathroom,  the wisteria plant in  the
garden, the cherry tree, the curving shape of the stairs, and the
sloping roof in one of the bedrooms.  Both people like the house,
but  the first likes various abstract properties associated  with
the house, whereas the second likes the house itself. Suppose the
same two people buy the house and decide to do ritual magic.  The
first person wants white robes because white is the colour of the
powers  of light and life.  The second wants a green velvet  robe
because it feels and looks nice. The first reads lots of books on
how to carry out a ritual, while the second sits under the cherry
tree  in  the garden with a flute and a  blissful  expression  of
cosmic love. The first person has continued to make choices based
on an abstract notion of what is correct,  while the second makes
choices  based  on  what *feels right*.  Both are  driven  by  an
internal sense of "rightness",  but in the first case it is based
on abstract criteria, while in the second it is based on personal
aesthetic notion of beauty.
     The Vision of Beauty Triumphant has a compelling power.   It
is pre-articulate and inherently uncritical, and at the same time
it  is  immensely biased.  A person in its  grip  will  pronounce
judgement on another person's taste in art,  literature, clothes,
music,  decor  or whatever,  and will do it with such a  profound
lack  of self-consciousness that it is possible to  believe  good
taste  is  ordained in heaven.  This person will mock  those  who
surround  themselves with  rules,  regulations,  principles,  and
analysis,  the "syntax of things" as E.  E. Cummings puts it, and
instead exhibit a whimsical spontaneity,  a penetrating (so  they
believe) intuition,  and a free spirit in tune with ebb and  flow
of  life.   There  are  those  who  might  complain  about  their
astounding arrogance,  fickleness,  unreliability, and the never-
ending flow of unshakable and prejudiced opinions delivered  with
papal  authority,   but  those who complain are  (clearly)  anal-
retentive nit-pickers and don't count.  For a total immersion  in
the  aesthetic vision read Oscar Wilde's "The Picture  of  Dorian
Grey".
     The  Illusion  of  Netzach is projection.  We  all  tend  to
identify  feelings and characteristics in other people  which  we
find in ourselves and when we get it right it is called "empathy"
or "intuition";  when we get it wrong it is called  "projection",
because  we  are  incorrectly  projecting  our  feelings,  needs,
motives,  or  desires onto another person and interpreting  their
behaviour accordingly.  Some level of projection is  unavoidable,
and at best it can be balanced with a critical awareness that  it
can  occur,  but  projection is insidious,  and the  strength  of
feeling  associated  with a projection can easily  overwhelm  any
intellectual awareness. Projection usually "feels right".
     One of the most overwhelming forms of projection accompanies
sexual desire.  Why do I find one person sexually attractive  and
not  another?  Why  do I find some characteristics  in  a  person
sexually attractive but not others?  In my own case I  discovered
that  when I put together all the characteristics  I  found  most
attractive in a person a consistent picture emerged of an  "ideal
person",  and  every person I had ever considered as  a  possible
sexual partner was instantly compared against this  template.  In
fact there was more than one template,  more than one ideal,  but
the  number  was  limited  and each  template  was  very  clearly
defined,  and most importantly,  each template was  internal.  My
sexual (and often many other feelings) about a person were  based
on an internal and apparently arbitrary internal  template.  This
was crazy; I found my sexual feelings about a person would change
depending  on  how  they dressed or behaved,  on  how  well  they
"matched  the ideal".  It became obvious that what I was in  love
with  did not exist outside of myself,  and I was trying to  find
this ideal in everyone else.  Each one of these "templates" was a
living aspect of myself which I had chosen not to regard as "me",
and in compensation I spent much of my time trying to find people
to bring these parts to life,  like a director auditioning actors
and  actresses for a part in a new play.  If a person  previously
identified  as ideal failed to live up to my notion of  how  they
should be ideally behaving then I would project a fault on  them:
there was something wrong with *them*! Madness indeed.
     The  Swiss  psychologist C.  G.  Jung  [1]  recognised  this
phenomenon  and gave these idealised and projected components  of
our  psyche  the  title  "archetype".   Jung  identified  several
archetypes,  and  it  is  worth mentioning  the  major  and  most
influential.
     The  Anima  is  the ideal  female  archetype.  She  is  part
genetic,   part  cultural,   a  figure  molded  by  fashion   and
advertising,  an unconscious composite of woman in the  abstract.
The  Anima is common in men,  where she can appear with  riveting
power in dreams and fantasy,  a projection brought to life by the
not inconsiderable power of the male sexual drive.  She might  be
meek  and  submissive,   seductive  and  alluring,   vampish  and
dangerous,  a cheap slut or an unattainable goddess - there is no
"standard anima",  but there are many recognisable patterns which
can have a powerful hold on particular men.  Male sexual  fantasy
material  is amazingly predictable,  cliched,  unimaginitive  and
crude,  and  contains  a limited number of steroetyped  views  of
women  which are as close to a "lowest common denominator  anima"
as  one  is likely to find.
     The Animus is the ideal male archetype,  and much of what is
true  about  the  Anima  is  true  of  the  Animus.   There   are
differences;   the  predominant  quality  in  the  Anima  is  her
appearance  and behaviour,  while the predominant quality in  the
Animus is social power and competence. In the interests of sexual
equality  it  is worth mentioning that  female  romantic  fantasy
material  is amazingly predictable,  cliched,  unimaginitive  and
crude,  and contains a limited number of stereotype views of  men
which are as close to a "lowest common denominator animus" as one
is likely to find.
     The  Shadow  is  the projection  of  "not-me"  and  contains
forbidden  or  repressed desires and impulses.  In most  men  the
Anima is repressed and in most women the Animus is repressed, and
so  both form a component of the Shadow.  The major part  of  the
Shadow however is composed of forbidden impulses,  and the Shadow
forms a personification of evil.  Much of what is considered evil
is  defined socially and the communal personification of evil  as
an  external force working against humankind (such as  Satan)  is
widespread.
     The  Persona  is the mask a person wears as a  member  of  a
community  when  a large proportion of his or  her  behaviour  is
defined by a role such as doctor,  teacher, manager, accountant,
lawyer  or  whatever.  Projection occurs in  two  ways:  firstly,
someone  may be expected to conform to a role in  a  particularly
rigid or stereotyped way,  and so suffer a loss of  individuality
and probably a degree of misplaced trust or prejudice.  Secondly,
many  people identify with a role to the extent that  they  carry
that  role  into  all  aspects  of  their  private  lives.   This
"projection  onto  self"  is  a  form  of  identification  -  see
the section on Tiphereth.
     The  archetype  of Self at the level of Hod and  Netzach  is
usually projected as an ideal form of person;  that  is,  someone
will  believe that he or she is highly imperfect creature and  it
is  possible to attain an ideal state of being in which the  same
person  is  kind,  loving,  wise,  forgiving,  compassionate,  in
harmony  with the Absolute,  or whatever.  This  projection  will
either  fasten  on a living or dead person,  who then  becomes  a
hero,  heroine,  guru, or master with grossly inflated abilities,
or it fastens on a vision of "myself made perfect". The projected
vision  of  "myself made perfect" is  common  (almost  universal)
among those seeking "spiritual development", "esoteric training",
and other forms of self-improvement,  and in almost every case it
is  based on an abstract ideal.  The person will probably  insist
that  the ideal has existed in certain rare individuals  (usually
long dead saints and gurus,  or someone who lives a long way  off
whom they haven't met),  and that is the sort of person they want
to be.  It should be comical,  but it isn't. There is more to say
about this and it will keep till the section on Tiphereth.

     The klippoth or shell of Netzach is habit and routine.  When
behaviour,  with all its potential for new experiences,  new ways
of doing things,  new relationships, becomes locked into patterns
which repeat over and over again, then the life energy, the force
aspect of Netzach is withdrawn and all that remains is the  dead,
empty  shell of behaviour.  Just as the klippoth of Hod is  rigid
order,  the  petrification  of one's internal  representation  of
reality,  so  the  klippoth of Netzach is  the  petrification  of
behaviour.

     The  God  Names of Hod and Netzach are Elohim  Tzabaoth  and
Jehovah Tzabaoth respectively, which mean "God of Armies", but in
each case a different word is used for "God".  The name  "Elohim"
is associated with all three sephiroth on the Pillar of Form  and
represents a feminine (metaphorically speaking) tendency in  that
aspect  of  God.   The  elucidation  of  God  Names  can   become
phenomenally  complex  and obscure,  with  long  excursions  into
gematria  and  textual  analysis of the Pentateuch and  it  is  a
quagmire I intend to avoid.
     The Archangels are Raphael and Haniel.  The Archangel of Hod
is sometimes given as Michael,  but I prefer Raphael (Medicine of
God)  for  no other reason than the association of  Mercury  with
medicine and healing; besides, Michael has perfectly good reasons
for residing in Tiphereth. This sort of thing can give rise to an
amazing  amount of hot air when Kabbalists meet;  for  those  who
wonder how far back the confusion goes,  Robert Fludd (1574-1607)
plumped for  Raphael,  whereas two hundred  years  later  Francis
Barrett prefered Michael.  The co-founder of the Golden Dawn, S.L.
Mathers, went for both depending on which text you read. Kabbalah
isn't  an orderly subject and those who want to impose  too  much
order on it are falling into the illusion of...I leave this as an
exercise to the reader.
     The  Angel Orders are the Beni Elohim and the Elohim.

The triad of sephiroth Yesod,  Hod and Netzach comprise the triad
of  "normal  consciousness"  as  we  normally  experience  it  in
ourselves  and  most  people most of  the  time.  This  level  of
consciousness is intensely magical;  try to move away from it for
any  length  of time and you will discover the  strength  of  the
force  and form sustaining it.  It is not an exaggeration to  say
that most people are completely unable to leave this state,  even
when they want to, even when they desperately try to. The sephira
Tiphereth represents a state of being which unlocks the energy of
"normal consciousness" and is the subject of the next section.

[1]  Jung,  C.G,  "Aion:  Researches into the Phenomenology of the
                   Self", Routledge & Kegan Paul 1974


Copyright Colin Low 1991