The Supernal/Divine Triangle (Keter, Chokmah, Binah) & Atzilut

[TheLoracular]

In another thread, WildWoman78 said
 

"Let's talk the Triangle of Divinity...Kether Binah Chokma - we can all agree this is the top of the tree.  I have come to understand that this trinity will change based on our beliefs....the divine (personal God/Goddess), the divine self (me), the divine consciousness (collective).  ie.father, son, holy ghost; brahma, vishnu, shiva, maiden, mother crone.

 

Interestingly enough the human mind can be broken down into 3 areas too - Conscious (Binah), Sub Conscious (Chokma), Collective (Kether).

 

As I understand it Qabalah believes that there is only a direct link to Kether (Collective) through Chokma (subconscious) - and that everything starts with the mind in Kether - and our WILL and INTENTION once we have the thought/action moves into Binah for action - and manifestation - creating the idea."
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As I understand it Qabalah believes that there is only a direct link to Kether (Collective) through Chokma (subconscious)

In the context of Kether representing the Collective Unconsciousness?  I'd be inclined to agree that we tap into the collective unconsciousness through the subconscious in post-Jungian psychology as I understand it?   

But for Keter in other contexts? 

There's a lot of people who might believe there's only one direct link to Keter, but I don't see it that way; it hasn't entered my personal truths based on my own experiences and insights. 

One of the most critical things to appreciate about esoteric tarot and QBL?  Its just like everything else.  People create personal truths and then assume they are true for everyone.  Its really blatant in older books in any topic, lol.   I think modern authors in most topics are taught to be more open to saying "this is what I THINK based on my research" rather than "this is how it IS." 
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I definitely think these three sefirot will resonate different spiritual/divine/metaphysical trinities to everyone, based on what our personal sacred is.  

There at least two ways to apply the Kabbalistic Four Worlds (Atzilut, Yetzirah, Briah, Assiah) to the Tree of Life.  One way is to look at the tree existing in all of the four worlds; another way is to look at a Tree of Life divided into the four worlds with the supernal triangle being the realm of Atzilut.  

Atzilut is the world of Emanation.  In my 2020+ vocabulary, Atziluth is the world of myththeme and archetype.  Imo, Everything about Keter, Binah, and Hokmah can be broken down to very core concepts, to mystical truths that might be shaped like clay by individual minds and hearts, but the substance is still there.

Be it the Prima Materia of alchemy, the astrological modalities,  Yin-Yang-Tao, the Triple Goddess of Wicca, the Christian Holy Trinity, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, the Tamas-Sattwa-Rajas, the wui tai (Shen-spirit, C'hi-vitality, Ching-Essence), the Mother letters and on and on, the messages passed down are the same.

There are two kinds of trinities.  Theres one composed of three primes like the colors Red, Yellow, Blue.  All the other colors in nature are a "mix" of at least two of the primes.  And this is one way to look at the supernals.  Its the Prima Materia.  

The other kind of Trinity is Black, White, Gray.  where there are two polar opposites that create a union and everything exists along a spectrum. 

This post is getting long and I haven't dug into Wang & Qabalistic Tarot itself 


So.. in the Minor Arcana, Keter-Hokmah-Binah cover the 1s, 2s, and 3s.  I don't remember off the top of my head which Major Arcana are laid on the four paths that show up in the Divine triangle (the three that create the triangle and the middle pillar path that pieces it) in the Wang-based system.  But unless someone else adds all that first?  I will toss it up tomorrow.  🙂

[WildWoman71]

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One of the most critical things to appreciate about esoteric tarot and QBL?  Its just like everything else.  People create personal truths and then assume they are true for everyone.  Its really blatant in older books in any topic, lol.   I think modern authors in most topics are taught to be more open to saying "this is what I THINK based on my research" rather than "this is how it IS." 

 

Point taken - one of my bad habits - I totally know there is more than thought process and belief - I just don't communicate as such all the time - but you are right - please know - WHATEVER I say - is what I think - by no way intended to come out as this is how it IS...sorry - and I'm working on that way of communicating in every facet of my life lol

[TheLoracular]

On 2/9/2021 at 10:54 AM, WildWoman71 said:

Point taken - one of my bad habits - I totally know there is more than thought process and belief - I just don't communicate as such all the time - but you are right - please know - WHATEVER I say - is what I think - by no way intended to come out as this is how it IS...sorry - and I'm working on that way of communicating in every facet of my life lol

Oh gosh, I think you are fine and I love reading your posts and thoughts.  Its some of these authors and who they quote that I caution anybody wanting to tackle Qabalistic Tarot to be taken as expressing opinions and personal insights and not The Way. 🙂

For Wang himself, what he has to say in The Qabalistic Tarot preface is helpful for me.  Bottom of pp. xvi and top of xvii  

"Today's climate is one of sweeping organization of symbol systems.  A number of books have recently appeared in which the traditional placement of Tarot cards on the Tree of Life has been radically altered.  And, frankly, there are several keys which I might assign differently were I starting with no prior conceptions about where the cards should be placed."

He continues further down the page with "Certainly, I have no quarrel with those who have virtually turned the Tree of Life upside town with their combinations and permutations of ideas.  But to do so mitigates the powerful group effort called "tradition" and potentially creates a new Path....to this end I have given only those attributions which are now commonly accepted.  This is not to imply that such attributions are immutely correct, rather to suggest that their accepted interlock is of greater immediate utility in the student than some of the many divergencies."

For my part?  From now on, I'm going to do my best to (for the rest of 2021 at least) just present the traditional Qabalistic Tarot tradition as I see it went from Levi to Mathers/Waite/Crowley/Case and then Wang tried to unify again?  

I will try to stick with Wang's framework and everything he brings up even if that means going backwards through the timeline to help cite sources and such.  That feels like the most sane way to do this.

[WildWoman71]

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Oh gosh, I think you are fine and I love reading your posts and thoughts.  Its some of these authors and who they quote that I caution anybody wanting to tackle Qabalistic Tarot to be taken as expressing opinions and personal insights and not The Way. 

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Oh good - lol - thanks

[TheLoracular]

One of my very favorite quotes from Wang's Qabalistic Tarot is at the beginning of the Introduction:

"This is a book of philosophy, of metaphysics, describing a profound system of self-exploration imbedded in seventy-eight pictures known as the Tarot."   

After going through the history and evolution of QBL as a whole he brings up the Tree of Life on p.  29 as "The Tree of Life is intended to symbolize the entire universe... it is a deceptively simple diagram composed of ten spheres called Sephiroth and twenty-two connecting lines called Paths.  Collectively, the Sephiroth and Paths are called the Thirty Two Paths of Wisdom." 

I will switch to Wang's spellings of things.  That will probably help too.   He cites the conventional Tree of Life diagram originated with Kircher's Oedipus Aegypticus in 1652 but since Wang published, QBL scholars have actually moved that backwards historically to German-born Catholic humanist Johann Reuchlin for the Latin translation of the Sha’are Orah (The Gates of Light) in 1516 but that is only the kind of thing historians care about.  Or serious diehard occult geeks.  XD

He first mentions the Supernal Triangle on pg. 32 and a very old concept that "The QBL teaches that our universe evolved organically and sequentially, following the Path of the Flaming Sword... from a mysterious Unmanifest emerged Kether than Chokmah then Binah.  These three formed the Supernal Triangle, a spiritual height bridged by the invisible Sefira, Da'ath." 

It drives me crazy when authors talk about Da'ath as a sephira.  I get stuck on what the Sepher Yetzirah and all the Jewish commentators like Saadia, The Gra and The Ari all had to say where there are 10 sephira, not 9 and not 11.  XD.  This is totally a silly personal twitch of mine. 

He goes on to talk on p. 34 to talk about the Tree of Life as a glyph: a compound symbol which "may be considered at two levels, the individual, the Microcosm (God in miniature) and the Macrocosm, the Greater Universe in which the image of the individual is created." and goes into different body parts, the law of correspondence, Adam Kadmon and the bunch of stuff that feels painfully confusing when tossed in paragraphs on top of each other.  Thankfully, this thread is just about that Supernal Triangle.

But more useful to this thread on that same page Yang says "Practical work on the Tree also involves traveling the Paths connecting the Sephiroth, the objective centers of energy.  The Paths are the subjective experience of passing from one Sephiroth to the next....  the universe is like a gigantic circuit where power flows into Kether from the Unmanifest, down through the Tree and up again.  There is a continual renewal of energy."

 

[Flegetanis]

On 2/9/2021 at 11:07 AM, TheLoracular said:

There at least two ways to apply the Kabbalistic Four Worlds (Atzilut, Yetzirah, Briah, Assiah) to the Tree of Life.  One way is to look at the tree existing in all of the four worlds; another way is to look at a Tree of Life divided into the four worlds with the supernal triangle being the realm of Atzilut.  
three that create the triangle and the middle pillar path that pieces it) in the Wang-based system.  But unless someone else adds all that first?  I will toss it up tomorrow.  🙂

 

"at least" - indeed!

Actually, the most traditional attribution of the Four Worlds to the Tree of Life splits up the Supernal Triad, so that Keter-Chokhmah are Atzilut, and Binah is Bria. It may be oversimplification, but this corresponds to pertinent concepts in Taoism and Wicca. 

[Nemia]

This is my personal way of working with the kabbalah and tarot together, NOT a historical or philosophical proof. Just my personal preference. 

 

I prefer to work with four Trees where Kether and Malkuth connect. Otherwise, each sefirah is over-determined. Yes, there is closeness between the concepts of Atziluth and Kether, Briah and Binah, Yetsirah and Tif'eret, and Assiyah and Malkuth, and I can understand the character of each World better when I keep that in mind. But for me, it works best when I see the Seven of Swords as Netzach in the World of Yetsirah. I see it like a planet in a sign, like the Moon in Aquarius. 

 

I can even see an endless chain of Trees, each determined by a World, linked like a DNA chain, running through eternity. 

 

So there are four "versions" of Netzach, each of them coloured by the World to which that Tree belongs. 

 

For tarot work, and I use the kabbalah mostly for tarot work, this is an intuitive way of holding it all together. All Swords minors are associated with the Tree in the World of Yetsirah. 

 

I see the Tree of Life like a fountain where the Divine Light flows from one sefirah to the next, each sephirah adding colour to the light, until it reaches Malkuth. This process dims the light until it comes out again in Kether again. 

 

This simply what feels right to me, a model of thought that has enriched my tarot work. This is also how I meditate when I climb the Tree in my mind, slowly bathing in the coloured light until it becomes so strong I can hardly keep my inner eye open.