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 Vision
There is a great mass of fire upon the earth. A voice cries out:
The Voice
Let the Light descend into the center of the earth, for there is my hidden chuch.
Let the altar there be decorated with coral and ivory.
A bird flies to the north, there to find wisdom in the cold and the damp.
Let fires be lit upon the earth, let havoc and chaos reign until the lost and hidden Word is found. Let that Wisdom be revealed and brought into the light.
Let the darkness be made light thereby. Let it become as a beacon of light and heat. Let the Word be spoken, let it transform the face of the earth. The night of madness, chaos and darkness will then become the Night of Peace.
Let Wisdom rest in the silence of that Night like the seed within the womb. With the passage of seasons, a child will be born. The child is the reconciliation of the earth and heavens, the redeemer of the darkness and the chaos of night, the eternal within the temporal. The immortal Star shines upon his breast and his breath carries its radiance. He may appear as a fiery sword, or as a lion, or a lamb or a goat or a serpent. Behind all this is one, for the formless appears as a multitude in the world of forms. Thus is the Word delivered unto the earth in many guises.
Thus far the Voice of Wisdom.
After a short while. there's more:
A falling star, descending upon the earth from the empty abyss of space.
The darkness embraces and receives the light. Speech cannot be discerned without a background of silence. But there is light and there is Light, just as there is night and there is Night.
Understanding arises from the confusion of night, Wisdom from the Peace of Night. True Light appears as darkness, though it can be seen by the eyes of the pure soul.
Increase in Understanding, and enter into that Night. There can you behold the Light.
Follow the path of the eagle and the goat, but keep your eye on the star.
The Commentary:
Interpreting this kind of thing in any sort of literal way just leads to all kinds of trouble. Jung was a model prophet, in a way, in that he knew not to stumble into the error of confusing the planes.
There is a point on the spiritual path (not the first stage!) in which the light of higher consciousness must descend into the lower depths of the earth, the physical, the chthonic, in order to release and transform the raw materials therein which have been tied up in all kinds of (mostly unconscious) drama. This is the origin of the myth of Inanna, the descent of Orpheus, the Christian harrowing of hell (here's a very interesting comparison, from the book of Matthew, between Jonah being swallowed by the whale and Christ descending into hell: "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.")
Let the Light descend into the center of the earth, for there is my hidden chuch.
The symbol of the hidden church in the center of the earth is appropriate. The voice speaking here represents the Yechidah (or the Chiah, which is the voice of the Yechidah). There is nothing in the individual which is not of the Yechidah, but the lower parts of the Nephesch are not only seemingly disconnected from the Yechidah, they're hidden even from the consciousness of the Ruach. Every part of the psyche arises from True Will, and can act in no way which is not a direct expression of that Will, though many parts of the psyche do so unknowingly and with no sense of coordination of purpose.
Let the altar there be decorated with coral and ivory.
Coral and ivory are both white, suggesting Kether. Coral, moreover, is associated with the sea. To me, this suggests the incorruptible in the midst of the sea of the formless, the immortal part of the soul (the part that doesn't dissolve in higher consciousness). The idea is that of erecting an altar to the highest in the place of the lowest, forming a connection between the two. See the article (way) below on the 3 stages of union. This is symbol of the 2nd stage, the Unio Corporalis.
A bird flies to the north, there to find wisdom in the cold and the damp.
The bird is the attention, the conscious mind. North is the direction (microcosmically) attributed to earth, though it is the element of water which is cold and damp (earth is cold and dry). The implication is the waters of the lower unconscious, associated with the physical, the body (in other words, the Nephesch). There is wisdom there, but it's obscured. The lower light is released through many encounters with the higher unconscious.
The night of madness, chaos and darkness will then become the Night of Peace.
The goods are released from their entanglement in the chaos of the lower unconscious (consisting mostly of associations made at a very early age, then re-enforced at various stages throughout life). The Night of Peace refers to the act of resting in the harmony of the higher and the lower (after a lifetime of conflict), and the calm that is found in that bright silence.
Let Wisdom rest in the silence of that Night like the seed within the womb.
Here again, we have Chokmah and Binah. There is an analog between the interaction of Chokmah and Binah, and the interaction of Kether and Malkuth.
With the passage of seasons, a child will be born.
The child is the result of a willful marriage of the eternal and the temporal. The perfect seeks expression in the imperfect, and a vehicle is needed in order to provide that expression. The vehicle itself partakes of both natures.
He may appear as a fiery sword, or as a lion, or a lamb or a goat or a serpent.
There's a lot going on here on a few different levels. The fiery sword, besides the simple and obvious symbol of aggression and destruction, represents the downward path of manifestation on the Sephirothic Tree. The serpent is the upward path, also the kundalini. These symbols can represent the temperament of the "child", or its mode of manifestation, or level of action.
Behind all this is one, for the formless appears as a multitude in the world of forms.
Again, the child partakes of both natures.
OK, so much for the first part. Onward to the second!
Understanding is Binah, and refers to the higher intuition (that which allows us to perceive spiritual truth in a way that far surpasses the rational). Wisdom is Chokmah, and refers to the True Will, or the Voice of the Yechidah (that oh so exalted being often signified with an epithet that bears the same initials as Happy Grail of Amrita).
Most of this section is self-explanatory, a general instruction made clearer by the following:
Follow the path of the eagle and the goat, but keep your eye on the star.
In short, go towards the unfamiliar, embrace what appears to be not-self, explore even the baser urges, but never for it's own sake! Do so with the specific intent of attaining to greater knowledge of the true Self, freeing the small self from the bondage of rigid definition. The goal is to serve, and true service can only be accomplished by one who is free.
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