Tree of Life - Kether

Qabalah - Tree of Life - Kether

Ket(h)er is the first emanation, or 'Sephirah' (plural = 'Sephiroth') on the glyph of the Tree of Life. In Hebrew, it is spelled with three letters: Kaph, Tav and Resh (the number of letters will be important for much later considerations).

'Keter' means 'Crown', and its colour is usually given as pure brilliance (hence its representation, often, as white).

I hope this provides an uncontroversial enough introduction as a basis for further discussion!

Ket[h]er, manifests out of nothing according to qabalah, from 3 steps....AIN[nothing]....AIN SOPH[infinity] and AIN SOPH AOUR[absolute limitless light]. The absolute limitless light is said to have concentrated itself upon a central dimensionless point........that point is known as ket[h]er. Ket[h]er contains in essence and potential the other 9 spheres [9=1]

Ket[h]er's described as ' the ultimate unit of consciousness, as metaphysical point,a centre of spiritual energy,unextended and indivisible, full of ceaseless life,activity and force. It is the prototype of everything spiritual and ,indeed, of all else in the cosmos' [regardie, a garden of pomegranates pg.43]

Ket[h]er tarot attribtions are the 4 aces. It is called 'the admirable or hidden intelligence' in sepher yetsirah.

Glad to see you joining, AmounrA, and to have a response to this thread!

On a note about the Sefer Yetzirah, it doesn't actually name any of the Sefirot, and the text on The Thirty-Two Paths of Hochmah (Wisdom), which is at times appended to the text, doesn't form part of it.

What the Sefer Yetzirah does, in relation to Ket(h)er, is only imply an aspect of the Sefirot by indirectly possibly referring to Exodus 31:3, in which the first emanation is said by some to be indicated there, and referred to as the Ruach Elohim (breath of God).

I also think that the Golden Dawn was mistaken in its usage and attributions of The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, for each refers to a particular stage of consciousness in Wisdom. The first, according to this same text, is Mystical consciousness or intelligence - the seventh is the Hidden consciousness.

In terms of the Tarot, those who work either with the Golden Dawn or myriad descendant do, as you pointed out, place the four Aces. Some continentalists, following Wirth, place I the Magician.

I personally place the Fool and XXI the World therein.
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In order for the discussion to be more accessible, shall we begin discussing the implications of 'placing' either the four Aces, the Magician or the pair Fool-XXI (and other correlations others may have) in this Sefirot?

Interesting, you say hidden conciousness is the seventh stage......does this mean its aligned with hod? [hidden-conciousness/amoun-ra]

I think we may have discussed this before, but I think the fool more as a tipharet aspect. I do place the world/universe card in ket[h]er, and think of its companion as the magi card....I did this connection through my own experiment, so am pleaed we both have the universe/world in '1'........'following wirth'....I have never heard of wirth...is it a writer or system?.....I link the magi to tipharet because of the aspects of will to act....create contained within the card. I think of the fool as 'simplicity''innocence', and this is a stage I think is reached at tipharet.....the midway point on the path. In the sense that the seeker 'has' to strip back there self and be re-born again when attempting to go further 'up' the tree/map.

[does sefer yetzirah mean 'book of splendor(hod)?]

crown

seems like we're back again--

i see kether as the pointless origin of the big bang. a white hole, just as da'ath is a black hole. (maybe they are connected, i'm not sure of that one) the crown, shooting forth undifferentiated (hence unusable) energy.

kether is translated crown. if we picture the crown, it sits upon, but is not a part. likewise i picture kether as an interface-- neither part of negative existence, nor a 'spacially definable' part of the tree of life. you are here, you are there; but you never are at the crown.

another picture-- the lightning sword of creation and serpent of redemption. here we have the 'method' of traversing the tree, both upwards and down. sword = words (the method of creation). serpent = repents (the method of redemption)
**you gotta love gemetria**

LVX
steve

When I think of Kether I think enlightenment and spiritual achievement. Buddha is one example. In relation to da'ath I believe you have to cross that darkness before becoming englightned. I find the discussion of putting the world card in Kether very interesting. My experience with the Qabalah is quite limited, and what I have learned is primarly Golden Dawn which as you all know place the Majors on the pathways only. But following AmounrA's thinking here I can also see the putting the fool in Tiphareth ... then what you have is a direct pathway connecting the Fool to the World. This correlates real well with a discussion Kaz and I were having in the 78 DW study group when we were looking at the diamond pattern which included the Fool, Magician, World and HP. It was about the transformation of the fool from being the Fool to the becoming the World in his journey.

Question ... so if we are now looking at Majors as Sephira, then do the minor's get allocated to the pathways? ... help me understand.

[AmounrA great to see you again!]

AmounrA, with regards to the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, each, in the text, is not associated with any of the Sephiroth. It would make sense, however, to consider, as you suggest, the seventh type of consciousness or intelligence with the seventh Sefirah.

With regards to Wirth, he was one of the people involved in the Continental order which arose around the same time as the Golden Dawn did in England: the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose Cross. Unlike the GD, they followed the Hebrew lettering suggested by Levi (Alef, meaning 1, with the Magician, etc). Wirth also designed two Tarot decks, the second one of which is still in print and generally simply called the Oswald Wirth deck. The deck was originally used, from memory, to illustrate Papus's (G. Encausse) book on the Tarot.

stevepolsz, I like your style of carefully considering the gematriac correlation between various words in English, and your 'sword = words' and 'serpent = repents', with regards to considerations of movement on the Tree certainly add a qualitative value to other meditations one may make.

You also make a wonderful point about the nature of a crown, in that it sits upon, and yet is not part of the person. When thinking of the whole Tree as Adam Kadmon (sometimes translated as 'Archetypal Man'), the Crown certainly leads to considering that the source is beyond any emanation, irrespective as to how supernal these may already be. I find that even reflecting on the role the Crown plays in transforming the king or queen from 'mere' secular power of a person to spiritual power manifesting through the wearer also sheds light on the various connotations of the word used to name this Sefirah.

This aspect is also succinctly expressed, in a different way, by Jewel. On our path of return, this stage is wonderfully illustrated with the illumination and gnosis to Buddhahood. The converse can also happen, however, and the descent of grace can crown one.

With regards to the question posted by Jewel in the placement of the minors, the traditions which place the Majors within the Sefirot do not necessarily place the minors upon the 'paths' - it is also worth remembering that not all representations of the Tree of Life have 22 connecting 'paths'.

There is no reason why the minors may not be placed in descending order, representing the four worlds, whilst the Majors may be placed in ascending order, representing our path of return. This is, of course, only one suggestion.

elastisity...

this is the wonderful thing about the tree-- one can hang many different views of 'reality' and find a consistancy. i think that there is no real inherent qualities to it; it is an incredable template waiting to be filled.

a few notes from my english gematria:

it is said that malkuth is in a sense another kether. in the english gematria 'crown' = 'kingdom'

the total value of 'tree of life' is 101. visually, the number can represent left pillar, right pillar with tiphireth between. other words with the value 101 are:

ultimate archetype immortal system ellipsiod

quite a set to contemplate upon.

( i'm going to post the method/basis of my english gematria elsewhere sometime in the near future. i'll let everyone know when/where it is)

LVX
steve

See JMD this is where I get all confused, when we start talking about the various systems when I do not thoroughly understand even one *LOL*. So if the Majors go on the Sephira (in this model we are talking about), and there are 22 Majors and 10 Sephiroth then how does that work? ... I don't mean to be a pain, or slow down y'alls discussion, I am just really interested and want to understand. Thanks for y'alls patience with me and my questions ... but alas that is the only way to learn

uh, jewel, to my understanding majors go on the paths between sefira and the minors go in them.
like aces in kether
anyway that's my way of doing it.

kaz