The Voice of Tahuti, 3rd Installment

The Ritual
Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram
1st Enochian Key
Ritual Israfel
(reception)
Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram
Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram


The Voice
The Word is a house for the formless, the infinite silence, the eternal truth. It is a container for the Holy Breath, a limitation of that perfection which cannot be known.

Knowledge destroys truth and Wisdom ends all knowledge. The wise one speaks, but remains unknowing in the silence, lest there be division in the Word.

The true prophet abides in the holy sleep of bliss, never grasping to know or understand, never lacking for Wisdom.

Wisdom goes forth and destroys. Understanding contains and limits and is still like a stagnant pond. So ever must Truth be wrapped in falsehood in order that it may be revealed outwardly. The Word is concealed, the light perceived is a shadow, every number veils the first which itself veils the perfection that is none. The temple obscures the God just as the God conceals the Truth.

Never be contented with any level of attainment, reach ever beyond until there is nothing to attain and then attain to nothing. Let the temple be erected only to fall away, let the vehicle decay in its time, grasp at nothing, let the mind be desolate. Only that which is empty may be filled. Shun all titles and be content to wander in the wild wastes. When you have left all wanting behind, when you have reduced all things to one and one to none, then you will not behold the Light of Perfection, for there is no beholder, there is only Light without diminution, without limit, without end.

 
The Commentary
How's that for a self-invalidating message!

On the one hand, the message seems to refer to very high levels of attainment and to the interplay of Aleph and Beth and of Chokmah and Binah. On the other hand, I think it applies at all levels - the whole tree exists in four Qabalistic worlds, and each level has its own Chokmah, Binah, Aleph and Beth, each of which reflect their sources in the higher worlds and play out according to the nature of that particular level of reality.

Knowledge, of course, is Da'ath, which doesn't really exists (the best way to explain this is to point out that every word in a dictionary is defined using other words, each of which is also defined using other words - knowledge is simply endless self-reference, devoid of any higher meaning), understanding is Binah, which goes far deeper than knowledge but is also called sorrow, and wisdom is Chokmah, the Word.

Let the temple be erected only to fall away
I'm reminded of an essay that I've been meaning to write, called 'Temporary Autonomous Temple'. It's easy to become so attached to one particular form or vehicle for Truth that the lamp is clung to long after the light has gone out. Of course, a certain amount of longevity is needed in order to ensure that a vehicle has truly served its purpose. Knowing when to sustain and when to let go can be tricky as hell. The rational mind doesn't help in the least. Intuition is the only useful thing.

The other thing this brings to mind is the Kabbalistic idea of Ain Soph. A bunch of Rabbis in the 13th Century (or a bunch of Rabbis who's teachings were never published until the 13th Century) decided that monism was really a deceptive form of dualism, arguing that pure being implied non-being, and thus that the number one was kind of a misnomer. The solution was the postulation of the Ain Soph, the endless nothing, completely beyond any conception of being or non-being. Some Kabbalists did away with the idea of the one altogether, others just declared that the idea of 'one' was a sort of code word for the idea of 'none'.