2,000 Greater & Lesser Mysteries/2,000 Greater and Lesser Mysteries.iso/cabala/mys00220.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: 15th. 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.

Gevurah and Chesed
------------------

     "The chief foundations of all states,  new as well as old or
     mixed, are good laws and good arms; and because there cannot
     be good laws where there are not good arms,  and where there
     are  good arms there must needs be good laws,  I  will  omit
     speaking  of the laws and speak of the arms."
                                             Machiavelli

     "God  is  the great urge that has not yet found a  body
      but urges towards incarnation with the great creative urge."
                                             D.H. Lawrence

     The   title  of  the  sephira  Gevurah  is   translated   as
"strength",  and  sometimes  as  "power".  The  sephira  is  also
referred  to by its alternative titles  of  Din,  "justice",  and
Pachad,  "fear". The title of the sephira Chesed is translated as
"mercy" or "love",  and it is often called Gedulah,  "majesty" or
"magnificence". Gevurah and Chesed lie on the Pillars of Form and
Force  respectively,  and possess a more definite  and  generally
agreed  symbolism  than any other sephiroth:  Chesed  stands  for
expansiveness and the creation and building-up of form,  what can
very  appropriately  be referred to  as  anabolism,  and  Gevurah
stands for restraint and both the preservation of form,  and  the
breaking-down (or catabolism) of form.
     Within  the symbolism of the Kabbalah the most explicit  and
concrete  expression  of form occurs  in  Malkuth,  the  physical
world,  and as it takes a conscious being (e.g.  thee and me)  to
comprehend  the  world in terms of forms which are  built-up  and
broken down,  so Chesed and Gevurah express something vital about
our  conscious relationship with the  external,  material  world.
When  I  see something beautiful being created I may  well  think
this  is  "good",  but when I see the same thing  being  wantonly
destroyed, I would probably think this is "bad", and this type of
thinking pervades early Kabbalistic writing. In his commentary on
"The Bahir", Aryeh Kaplan writes [1]:

     "The concept of Chesed-Love is that of freely giving,  while
     that  of Gevurah-Strength is that of restraint.  When it  is
     said that Strength is restraint,  it is in the sense of  the
     teaching "Who is strong,  he who restrains his urge".  It is
     obvious that man can restrain his nature,  but if man can do
     so,  then God certainly can. God's nature, however, is to do
     good and therefore, when He restrains His nature, the result
     is evil.  The sephira of Gevurah-Strength is therefore  seen
     as the source of evil."

The  Zohar  also  contains  many  references  to  the   "rigorous
severity" of God (another synonym for Gevurah) and its being  the
source of evil in the creation.  However, when one considers that
the creation and uncontrolled growth of a cancer would correspond
to Chesed,  and the attempts of the immune system to contain  and
destroy it would correspond to Gevurah,  it should be clear  that
it is not useful to consider creation and destruction in terms of
good and evil. It *is* useful to look at a living, organic system
as  a  *balance* between these two opposed  tendencies,  and  the
manifest  Creation in Kabbalah is very definitely pictured  as  a
living, organic system (i.e. a Tree of Life).
     The most vivid metaphors for Chesed and Gevurah come from  a
time when European societies were ruled by kings and queens, when
(in  principle  at  least) the ultimate authority  and  power  in
society rested in a single individual.  Chesed corresponds to the
creative aspects of leadership,  and early texts are one-sided in
characterising  this  by  love,   mercy  and   majesty.   Gevurah
corresponds  to the conservative aspects of  leadership,  to  the
power  to  preserve  the status-quo,  and the  power  to  destroy
anything opposed to it.  These two aspects go hand-in-hand -  try
to  change anything of consequence in society,  and someone  will
invariably oppose that change.  To bring about change it is often
necessary to have the power to over-rule opposition. Consensus is
an impossibility in society - there will always be someone  whose
opinions are at best ignored and at worst suppressed - and Chesed
and Gevurah represent respectively the kingly obligation to  seek
what  is good for the many (enlightened leadership  of  course!),
and  the power to judge and punish those opposed to the  will  of
the  king.  The following description of Margaret Thatcher  comes
from Nicholas Ridley, a minister in her cabinet [2]:

     "She governed with superb style, carrying every war into the
     enemy's  camp,  seeking to destroy rather than  contain  the
     opposition, and determined to blaze a radical trail. But she
     never  let power corrupt her;  nor did she ever fail  to  be
     compassionate and kind as a human being."

Whether  this  description is accurate or not  is  irrelevant  to
this  discussion;  what  it does do is capture in  two  sentences
something  essential about a leader,  the balance between  power,
strength  and  militancy  on  one  hand,   and   humanitarianism,
compassion and caring on the other.  This is very much a model of
divine kingship (or queenship!):  a king who loves and cares  for
his people and seeks to bring about "heaven on earth", but at the
same  time punishes transgression,  and fights for and  preserves
what is good and worth preserving.  Kabbalists thought of God  in
this way:  God loves us (so the argument goes), and the mercy and
benignity of God is represented by the sephira Chesed, but at the
same time God has made his laws known to humankind and will judge
and  punish  anyone  who opposes these laws.  Read  the  book  of
Proverbs  in  the Bible if you want to enter into  this  view  of
reality.
     Many  modern  Kabbalists  have  a  more  jaundiced  view  of
leadership  than medieval Kabbalists,  and certainly do  not  see
Chesed  as  purely the love or mercy of  God.  In  the  twentieth
century  we  have  seen a succession  of  leaders  harness  their
vision,  creativity  and leadership to the four Vices of  Chesed,
which are tyranny,  bigotry,  hypocrisy and gluttony. It takes an
uncommon   skill   and  vision  not  only  to   contemplate   the
annihilation of entire races,  but to create a structure in which
it happens. And how many people would dream of a socialist utopia
where traditional communities are forcibly bulldozed and replaced
by dilapidated concrete slums,  and have the power to bring  this
about?  You may not like this kind of leadership, but it is still
leadership,  and in its own way it is inspired.  A leader may  be
inspired by a vision, and may have the power to bring that vision
into  reality,  but  it is unfortunately also the case  that  the
result can become a new definition of evil. Good and evil are not
static qualities with fixed meanings;  in every generation  there
are exemplars who define for the whole of society the meaning  of
the words in new contexts. Tamerlane may have built pyramids from
skulls, but what did he know about asset stripping?
     Tyranny,  bigotry,  hypocricy  and gluttony,  the  vices  of
Chesed,  are the meat and drink of daily newspapers.  Tyranny  is
leadership without authority, an illegitimate or unconstitutional
leadership usually oiled with large helpings of cruelty, the Vice
of  Gevurah.  Bigotry is a quick and easy way to drum up a  power
base:  find a minority group in society, emphasise and magnify to
grotesque  proportions the differences between them and the  rest
of society, and use the natural fear of the strange or unfamiliar
to do the rest.  Hypocrisy can be found in religious leaders  who
denounce normal human behaviour as a sin,  sin comprehensively in
private,  and  use genuine religious aspirations as in excuse  to
line their pockets.  It can be found in those who talk about  the
dictatorship  of the proletariat in public and buy  their  luxury
goods  from  exclusive  party  shops  -  the  collapse  of  state
socialism in Europe has revealed to those who didn't already know
it  the  full  extent  to which  pious  utterances  about  social
equality  were  a cover for almost limitless privileges  for  the
few.  Gluttony is over-consumption, an appetite well in excess of
need,  and  one has only to remember Imelda Marcos's wardrobe  to
get the idea.  It is virtually a fashion among modern tyrants  to
siphon  billions of dollars into Swiss bank accounts - the  scale
on  which  men like Idi Amin Dada,  Ferdinand  Marcos,  Baby  Doc
Duvalier,  Mengistu,  and Saddam Hussein (to name but a few) were
able  to beggar nations for their own personal advantage goes  so
far  beyond  any  rational measure of human need it  is  hard  to
comprehend.
     When one looks at the worst twentieth century  tyrants,  men
who  were  directly responsible for the deaths  of  thousands  or
millions  of people,  it is hard to find any Einsteins of evil  -
one  is struck by the sheer ordinariness of  these  men.  Clever,
manipulative,  politically  adept,  lucky,  exceptional in  their
ability to climb to the top of the heap,  successful in  grasping
and  holding  power,  but not conscious,  plotting  allies  of  a
terrible  dark power.  Behind  the  brutality,  murder,  torture,
imprisonment,  and the apparatus of oppression one can see a very
human vulnerability,  self-importance, vanity, folly, insecurity,
and  greed.  The vices of Chesed are the vices of all  the  other
sephiroth writ large - power magnifies a vice until it becomes  a
ravening monster.  A man with rigid and unbending views on  human
morality  will  do no harm if he has no audience,  but  give  him
enough power and he will put society in chains which might last a
thousand  years.  A  greedy man with enough power might  loot  an
entire  country.  A petty and irrational bigot with enough  power
might enslave or annihilate whole races. They say power corrupts,
but this is not so;  corruption is already within all of us,  and
we lack only the necessary authority and power to unleash our own
personal evil on the world.
     The  moral is that power needs to be tempered by  mercy  and
love,  and  the  correspondences  for Chesed  emphasise  this  so
strongly   it   is   easy  to  for  a  novice   to   ignore   the
appalling negative qualities of Chesed - power without restraint,
indiscriminate destruction,  everything in excess.  The Virtue of
Chesed  is  humility,  the  ideal  of  leadership  without  self-
importance and all its accompanying vices.  The Spiritual  Vision
of Chesed is the Vision of Love,  love and caring for all  living
things,  and  the  desire to find a way (be it ever  so  small  -
remember humility) to make the world a better place.  There is  a
strong  message  in  the  positive  correspondences  for  Chesed:
without  humility  and  love,  leadership and  power  become  the
instruments  of  self-importance,  and the petty vices  of  human
nature are transformed into the monsters of evil which  terrorise
the human race.
     The  illusion  of Chesed is Right,  in the sense  of  "being
right". It is difficult to lead without conviction, when one sits
on every fence and wavers on every question,  but no-one is  ever
right with a capital "R", and anyone who seeks the reassurance of
Being Right is evading the essence of responsibility.
     The qlippoth of Chesed is ideology, not in the philosophical
sense,  but in the common-use sense of "political ideology".  The
rationale behind this is that it is very easy to take a creed, or
a doctrine, or a dogma, or whatever, and use it as a platform for
leadership.  If you see a politian (or a religious leader)  being
interviewed on television,  and the response to every question is
just the same old empty jargon,  the same old formulae,  the same
old evasions,  the same old arguments and irrefutable assertions,
and  you feel you have heard the same thing a dozen times  before
out  of a dozen different mouths,  then this is the  dead,  empty
shell of leadership.


     The sephira Gevurah is as often misunderstood as the sephira
Chesed.  The  planet  associated with Chesed  is  (appropriately)
Tzedek,  Jupiter,  leader of the gods; the planet associated with
Gevurah  is Madim,  Mars,  the god of war  and  destruction.  The
magical image of Gevurah is a king in a chariot,  or conversely a
mighty warrior.  Most novices take this imagery at face value and
envision  Gevurah  as a very forceful,  violent  and  destructive
sephira, and cannot understand why it is positioned on the pillar
of form.  Almost all novices will (wrongly) attribute the emotion
of anger to Gevurah.  It is worth recalling from Chapter  3.  the
traditional Kabbalistic view [3]:

     "It must be remembered that to the Kabbalist, judgement [Din
     -  judgement,  a title of Gevurah] means the  imposition  of
     limits and the correct determination of things. According to
     Cordovero the quality of judgement is inherent in everything
     insofar as everything wishes to remain what it is,  to  stay
     within its bounderies."

This  is  a  statement  about  *form*.   The  form  of  something
determines what it *is*, in distinction from everything else, and
when it no longer has that form,  it no longer *is*. Take a table
tennis  ball  and  squash  it;  it stops  being  a  table  tennis
ball...it  stops  being a ball.  Something still  exists  in  the
world,  but its form *as a ball* has been destroyed.  Take  these
notes and randomly jumble the letters;  the letters still  exist,
but the notes are gone.  These notes are contained in the  *form*
of the letters; destroy the form of the letters and the notes are
also destroyed.
     Everything  in the world *is* its form.  We cannot  see  the
natural substance of the world;  we cannot see atoms, and even if
we could,  we would see protons,  neutrons and electrons arranged
in  different  *forms* to create the chemical  elements.  It  has
taken physicists most of this century to deduce that the protons,
neutrons and electrons are not the "true" stuff of the world, and
underneath  there  might  be  "quarks",  "leptons"  and  "gluons"
arranged   in  different  *forms*  to  create   the   fundamental
particles.  Is  that  the end?  Are quarks and gluons  the  "true
stuff",  the  raw,  primal gloop which carries all  form?  No-one
knows. Sometimes I think, in common with the earliest Kabbalists,
that Malkuth sits upon the throne of Binah,  and at no point will
we  find  the raw gloop of Malkuth.  Someone will write  down  an
equation  and  show  the properties of quarks and  gluons  are  a
natural consequence of the *form* of the equation,  and the  form
of the equation is one of those things beyond any possibility  of
explanation.  "Look"  we will say,  "The form of all things is  a
potential outcome of this one equation.  The mother of everything
that exists can be written down on a piece of paper.  Look,  here
it is!"
     There  is a deep mystery in form.  The world is made not  of
things,  but of patterns.  In our minds we accept the reality  of
these patterns,  and forget that the sweet, white stuff we put in
our tea and coffee is just one of an infinite number of  patterns
of  carbon,  hydrogen and oxygen.  Carbon is just one of a  large
number of combinations of protons, neutrons and electrons, and so
on.  We  forget that "War and Peace" is just one of  an  infinite
number of combinations of letters of the alphabet.  The  patterns
are our reality,  and I suspect that *only* the patterns are real
-  there  is  nothing  more real  than  patterns  waiting  to  be
discovered.  I have read graduate texts on quantum electrodynamics
and  quantum chromodynamics,  and I find no grey gloop  mentioned
anywhere.  These texts do not explain the world, but they predict
it,  often with astonishing accuracy,  and something one does not
find  is  a prediction that the world is founded  on  a  formless
gloop.  As  a  programmer  I have built  realities  out  of  pure
mathematical forms - sets,  functions,  containers - and  nowhere
did  I  need any grey gloop;  my worlds were the  way  they  were
because  the objects within them behaved the way  they  did,  and
that  behaviour was simply the structure or form I  created.  The
view  of reality in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" [4] has  a  deeply
Kabbalistic  (if one-sided) flavour,  the Vision of Splendour  of
Hod in a distilled form:

     "If I know an object I also know all its possible occurences
     in states of affairs.
     (Every one of these possibilities must be part of the nature
     of the object).
     A new possibility cannot be discovered later.
     If  I  am  to know an object,  though I need  not  know  its
     external   properties,   I  must  know  all   its   internal
     properties.
     If  all  objects  are  given,  then at  the  same  time  all
     *possible* states of affairs are also given.
     Each thing is,  as it were, in a space of possible states of
     affairs.
     ........
     Objects contain the possibility of all situations.
     The possibility of its occuring in states of affairs is  the
     *form* of an object." (my italics)

     I have digressed this far into the nature of form because  I
do  not  believe it is possible to understand  either  Chesed  or
Gevurah in depth without understanding the importance of form  in
Kabbalah,   and  when  talking  about  form  I  am  not  "talking
mystical". Programmers work with form; they shape programs out of
forms with the same inquisitive delight as a glassblower handling
a blob of molten glass.  They talk about objects, and behaviours,
and classify objects in hierarchies according to behaviour.  They
*create* new objects with a given abstract behaviour;  they leave
unwanted  objects  to be tidied up by  the  "garbage  collector".
There  is  much more which can be said about this,  but  as  many
people  are not programmers and most programmers do not admit  to
being  Kabbalists,  I must leave this as a trail to be  followed.
The important point is that when I talk about form I find similar
thinking in chemistry,  physics,  computer science, and Kabbalah;
the world of human beings is perceived in terms of form, and form
is  created  and  destroyed.  That is  what  Chesed  and  Gevurah
represent.
     The  sephira Binah is the mother of  form.  That  is,  Binah
contains within her womb the potential of all form, just as woman
in  the  abstract contains within her womb the potential  of  all
babies.  The birth of form takes place in Chesed, and that is why
Chesed  corresponds  to  the  visionary;   the  preservation  and
destruction  of  form takes place in Gevurah,  and  that  is  why
Gevurah corresponds to the warrior.
     In  most societies even a warrior takes second place to  the
Law.  The Law comes first,  and the warrior swears to defend both
the Law and the country.  This may sound a little idealistic, but
if  one takes the trouble to listen to a few oaths of  allegiance
(e.g.  British Police, British Army, Soviet Army) one should find
that  the essence is to obey,  uphold and defend.  Nothing  about
violence,  destruction, mayem or anger. The essence of Gevurah is
to  uphold  and  defend - as  Cordovero  says,  "the  quality  of
judgement is inherent in everything insofar as everything  wishes
to  remain  what  it  is,  to  stay  within  its  bounderies". If
Cordovero  had the jargon he might have talked about "the  immune
system of God".
     The  Virtues of Gevurah are courage and energy.  There is  a
saying  among managers that "any fool can manage when things  are
going well".  The acid test of management is to have the  courage
to tackle,  and essentially destroy,  organisations (forms) which
no longer work,  and to have the energy to keep going against the
inevitable opposition.  The Vice of Gevurah is cruelty - power is
seductive, and destruction can be pleasurable.
     The spiritual experience of Gevurah is the Vision of  Power,
and the Illusion is invincibility.  I don't think these need  any
explanation.
     The  qlippoth of Gevurah is bureaucracy,  in the  common-use
sense of a system of rules and procedures which has become an end
in itself.  My most memorable experience was the time I went into
a social security office to ask whether they could issue me  with
a social security number.
     "You'll  have to take a ticket and wait," the  woman  behind
the counter said.
     "But you only have to tell me yes or no," I protested.
     "You'll have to take a ticket and wait!" she snapped.
So  I took a ticket and waited for twenty minutes.  When my  turn
came I asked the question again.
     "Can you issue me with a social security number here?"
     "No! Next please!"
This  is  probably  not  the best example of  the  dead  hand  of
bureaucracy  at  work,   as  it  contains  a  certain  amount  of
deliberate  cruelty,  but we have all encountered  endless  forms
which *have* to be filled in,  pointless procedures which  *have*
to  be observed,  interminable delays and so on.  The essence  of
bureaucracy is that there is real power behind it,  otherwise  we
wouldn't suffer the indignities,  but the power is locked up  and
everyone is rendered impotent by the *forms* of bureaucracy.
     Gevurah  is  a hard sephirah to work  with,  as  Kabbalistic
magicians  often discover to their cost.  There is absolutely  no
place for emotion,  no place for excess,  no place for  ego.  The
warrior works within the Law,  and ignorance of the Law is not an
excuse.  If  you  don't know what the Law  is,  don't  work  with
Gevurah.  Most people are sloppy in thinking about problems,  and
take  what  appears  to be the simplest  and  superficially  most
convenient  solution.  Gevurah is clinically exact,  and  if  you
invoke Gevurah you are invoking well above the level of  emotion,
particularly *your* emotions,  and as you judge,  so will you  be
judged.  Invoke on the Pillar of Form,  and cause and effect will
follow without the slightest regard for your feelings.  All  good
programmers  who  have  sweated  throughout  the  night  with   a
programming error of their own making know this in their bones.

     Associated with Chesed and Gevurah are two tendencies  which
are  so pronounced,  readily observed,  and deeply rooted that  I
have called them the Power myth and the Annihilation myth,  where
I  use  the word myth in the sense that  there  is  pre-existent,
archtypal   script  in  which  anyone  can  play  the   role   of
protagonist.
     The  Power  myth  features a  protagonist  who  seeks  power
because  power  means  control.   Everything  is  specified   and
controlled   down  to  the  finest  detail  to  eliminate   every
possibility  of discomfort,  surprise or  insecurity.  The  world
becomes  an  impersonal mechanism designed to provide  for  every
demand.   The   natural   world  is  destroyed  to   reduce   its
unpredictability  and untidyness.  All knowledge is subverted  to
control.  Personal relationships are restricted and formalised to
minimise intrusion or any possibility of personal hurt,  and  are
modelled to increase self-importance.  Anyone who won't play  can
be  removed or suitably punished.  The protagonist lives  at  the
centre of the world.
     In  the  Annihilation  myth the protagonist  lives  for  the
Cause.  The  Cause  is  the most important  thing  in  life.  The
protagonist prays to be released from the thrall of ego and self-
importance that he may better serve the Cause with every atom  of
his  soul.  "Yea,  I am nothing",  he whispers,  "Less  than  the
smallest worm in the ground compared with the glory of the Cause.
I  humble  myself  before the Cause.  I live only  to  serve  the
Cause."  Pain,  suffering and death are mere adornments  for  the
ever-lasting glory of the Cause.  The Cause might be the Beloved,
the Revolution,  the Great Work,  the Mistress or Master,  or God
(to name only a few).
     Examples  of both these myths in practice  are  legion;  two
examples  are  the package-holiday tourist as an example  of  the
Power  myth,  and  many Christian mystics as an  example  of  the
Annihilation  myth.  Both  myths  can be  observed  in  glorious,
infinitely repetitive, and predictable detail in S&M fantasies.

     The  God name associated with Chesed is  "El",  or  Almighty
God.  The archangel is Tzadkiel,  the "Righteousness of God". The
angel  order  is the Chashmalim,  or Shining  Ones.  In  Ezekiel,
Chashmal  is  a  substance which forms  the  splendour  of  God's
countenance,  and  as  chashmal  is the modern  Hebrew  word  for
electricity, I find it useful to think of the Chashmalim in terms
of  crackling  thunderbolts  -  it goes  well  with  the  Jupiter
correspondence.
     The  God name associated with Gevurah is Elohim  Gevor.  All
the  sephiroth  on  the Pillar of Form use Elohim  in  their  God
names,  and in this case it is qualified by "gevor", a word which
expresses  the  qualities  of a great  hero  -  strength,  might,
and  courage.  The  name  is  sometimes  translated  as  "God  of
Battles".  The  archangel is is sometimes given  as  Kamiel,  and
sometimes as Samael. Samael, the "Poison of God" is an angel with
a  *long*  history - see [5],  and is essentially  the  Angel  of
Death.  Samael  is not the first choice of angel to  invoke  when
working Gevurah - work on Gevurah is tricky at the best of times,
and the Angel of Death does not mess around.  Neither does Kamiel
(which  I have been told means "sword of God" - I cannot  confirm
this), but there is marginally more scope for interpretation! The
angel order is the Seraphim, or Fiery Serpents.

     Chesed  and  Gevurah are the sceptre and sword  of  a  king;
there  are many statues of medieval kings in  British  cathedrals
which show a king seated with the sceptre of legitimate authority
in  one  hand and the sword of temporal might in  the  other.  In
Kabbalah the King corresponds to the sephira Tiphereth, the union
of  Chesed  and Gevurah.  This is a symbol of a  human  being  in
relationship  to the world - at the bottom of all initiations  is
the  full  consciousness that we are kings and  queens  with  the
freedom   and  power  to  do  anything  we  please,   and   total
responsibility   for  the  consequences  of  everything  we   do.
Somewhere  between the extremes of power and love each one of  us
has to find our own balance,  and somewhere in a garden a Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil still grows, and still bears fruit.

[1]  Kaplan, Aryeh, "The Bahir", Samuel Weiser 1979

[2]  Ridley,  Nicholas,  "My  Style of Government:  The  Thatcher
                          Years" Hutchinson 1991

[3]  Scholem,  Gershom  G.,  "Major Trends in Jewish  Mysticism",
                              Schocken 1974

[4]  Wittgenstein,   Ludwig,   "Tractatus  Logico-Philosophicus",
                                Routledge 1974

[5]  Graves,  R.,  and  Patai,  R.,  "Hebrew Myths:  The Book  of
                                      Genesis", Arena, 1989

Copyright Colin Low 1991