Correcting Kris Hadar's Kabbalah

venicebard

Kris Hadar has some Kabbalah wrong, unfortunately. I sought out his website in response to a post by Mythos from the thread Tarot: W x D x H = Earth. The Kabbalah bit at http://www.krishadar.com/A/Index1A.asp is very straightforward and correct till it comes to the four worlds, where it breaks down completely.

First of all, the worlds can be shown to correspond to fire-air-water-earth (he has water-air-fire-earth, which would make an alchemist laugh), that is, elements in their natural order (as Atzilut-B’riah-Yetzirah-Asiah), though occultists reverse air and water, based evidently on misunderstanding the correlation with the letters of the Name. By the way, the method of assigning worlds to the Tree by triads is a bit simplistic, as there is also the method of the Name, in Lurianic Kabbalah (Atzilut 1-2, Briah 3, Yetzirah 4-9, Asiah 10), and ultimately there is a distinct Tree for each world (why does he think there are four suits?).

Then as to the four ‘living creatures’, his assignment of them does not agree with anything I know. Taken in the order he gives, angel-eagle-lion-bull makes some sense symbolically (do lions swim?) when applied to the worlds. But is he not aware that they represent aquarius-scorpio-leo-taurus, which exist in all four worlds? (Does not each wheel or world have all four likenesses, in Ezekiel’s vision?) In astrology, this would make them air-water-fire-earth, which reverses the first two from how Hadar has them. Primordially, they would be water-earth-fire-air, indicating the proper order is perhaps lion-bull-angel-eagle (since it is the eagle that bears us to heaven). The eagle, after all, is not air, rather it is earth’s sublimation, ‘its’ desire-to-uplift-or-upraise-itself-from-the-low-or-base... but this is a subject on a more profound level than that on which Hadar is speaking, obviously. The eagle is one aspect of scorpio, its other two aspects being serpent and scorpion. (Relations between eagle and serpent are depicted on the Mexican flag, by the way.)

Now if he had said the worlds represented (in order) water-fire-air-earth, I would have suggested he might be privy to something, since this taken with Sefer Yetzirah would correctly place the three mothers in their respective worlds at least. The solution to the problem of ‘only three elements’, by the way, is mem’s final form: to some, I am sure the latter appears to be earth, yet this would be mistaken, as mem-sofit is the closed ark and represents the Monad or archetypal world (Atzilut) and thus fire. But the reason shin is ‘fire’ and mem ‘water’ (in SY) has to do with their placement: shin is the center of the 2nd wheel (see note below) and thus the head or aries (S's bardic-calendar [ogham] position) of the 3rd wheel (torso's zodiac) therefore fire (flame rises), mem is the sound remaining at libra (M's bardic-calendar [ogham] position) when R deserts this station (guttural R) to become rolled on the tongue (a long story), hence ‘belly’ (loins) and thus water (water, like Torah, descends), alef being the center between them (center of 3rd wheel). But it is intermediate mem that remains at libra (M being omnipresent, being ‘silence’) to represent the 4th wheel or earth, while mem-sofit is at M’s original and eternal station, the center of the 1st wheel or fire (it is the sound power lines make), shin the center of the 2nd wheel or air (adding its 'tinge' to the above sound), and alef ("ah") the center of the 3rd or water (us standing open-mouthed listening to the above). Then, to ‘complicate’ (dynamicize) things further, alef stands for the fire triad (the one pointing up) and shin obliquely for that of water, when seen in the context of the Logos... but that’s another story.

By the way, the intimate relationship between the three and the four is immortalized in the oldest quote in alchemy, attributed to one Maria the Jewess or Prophetess, who was practically alchemy's 'founder'... but I leave it to the reader to track down (a little effort adds to its value).

Note: the four wheels are 1st, the one centered atop Adam Qadmon's head when standing erect, 2nd, that centered atop Adam's head when seated ('Throne world'), 3rd, that centered at the heart of the torso (its zodiac), and 4th, the round of the womb. Each is half the height of the preceding one, all four sharing the same libra.
 

Grigori

venicebard said:
Then as to the four ‘living creatures’, his assignment of them does not agree with anything I know. Taken in the order he gives, angel-eagle-lion-bull makes some sense symbolically (do lions swim?) when applied to the worlds. But is he not aware that they represent aquarius-scorpio-leo-taurus, which exist in all four worlds? (Does not each wheel or world have all four likenesses, in Ezekiel’s vision?) In astrology, this would make them air-water-fire-earth, which reverses the first two from how Hadar has them.

A little ironic that he is agreeing with Crowley's elemental relationships of the Kerubic beasts (without the assertion that the Eagle is now the symbol for air (Aquarius), and that the Angel becomes water (Scorpio) because we are in the new aeon of course).
 

Grigori

venicebard said:
First of all, the worlds can be shown to correspond to fire-air-water-earth (he has water-air-fire-earth, which would make an alchemist laugh), that is, elements in their natural order (as Atzilut-B’riah-Yetzirah-Asiah), though occultists reverse air and water, based evidently on misunderstanding the correlation with the letters of the Name. By the way, the method of assigning worlds to the Tree by triads is a bit simplistic, as there is also the method of the Name, in Lurianic Kabbalah (Atzilut 1-2, Briah 3, Yetzirah 4-9, Asiah 10), and ultimately there is a distinct Tree for each world (why does he think there are four suits?).

I've been re-reading Crowley this week, and after reading this post by Venicebard, I noticed (payed attention to :D ) a paragraph I'd never noticed (payed attention to :D ) before in the Book of Thoth.

Book of Thoth page 20 said:
The tree of life can be divided into four planes: the number 1 corresponds to Fire; numbers 2 and 3, to Water; numbers 4 to 9, to Air; and the number 10 to Earth. This division corresponds to the analysis of Man. The number one is his spiritual essence, without quality or quantity; the numbers 2 and 3 represent his creative and transmissive powers, his virility and his intelligence; the numbers 4 to 9 describe his mental and moral qualities as concentrated in his human personality; the number 6, so to speak, is a concrete elaboration of the number 1; and the number 10 corresponds to Earth, which is the physical vehicle of the previous 9 numbers. The names of these parts of the soul are: 1, Jechidah; 2 and 3, Chiah and Nuschamah; 4 to 9, Rauch; and lastly 10, Nephesch.

While this is again different to the attributions given by Hadar, it has opened my eyes to this alternate way of looking at the tree, which I had overlooked before (more than once it seems :|).

I am wondering if there are any people who apply the concept of dividing a single tree into the 4 worlds to their use of tarot, in a practical way that I could consider and emulate? I presume this would be done primarily with the majors, rather than the minors that are more strictly assigned to one of the four elements (in the GD tradition at least)

Thanks :)
 

venicebard

similia said:
I am wondering if there are any people who apply the concept of dividing a single tree into the 4 worlds to their use of tarot, in a practical way that I could consider and emulate? I presume this would be done primarily with the majors, rather than the minors that are more strictly assigned to one of the four elements (in the GD tradition at least)

Thanks :)
Each Tree has traces of the fourfold division (not coming from GD tradition here, but reason). It is most pronounced in Coins, whose division into elementary layers (1, 2-4, 5-9, and 10) provides the key to alchemy’s planetary metals. But the forms in Cups array themselves like a tetraktys, a 1st ‘earth’ with 1 (sexless) form in it, a 2nd containing forms 2 and 3 (male and female), a 3rd containing 4-5-6 (male-female-offspring), and a 4th containing 7-8-9-10 (male-female-each-with-distinct-object). It is in the context of these forms in Cups that the Lurianic division into 1-2, 3, 4-9, and 10 occurs, yet this is set forth as the way of restoration (tikkun), the tetraktys model being the route of the Fall, or what necessitates said restoration.

In the dualistic 2nd Tree, 5-10 (since 5 is one hand and 10 the other?) are the six directions in space or materiality (up-down-east-west-south-north) and considered a ramification of 4, the ‘depth of evil’, making 1-4 correspond to worlds 1-4, as reason would indeed require, the 2nd Tree being that of the thinker (active aspect reason, passive aspect conscience or rightness). The fourfold division is mere potential (distinction without division) in the 1st Tree, yet this is the original on which the other three depend for any meaning whatsoever: stations on the round (to which the batons as spokes point) in progressing from Unity above (1st sign) to self behind (10th sign).

If the trumps set up the mechanics of the Trees' interactions (through speech), then this must involve the entire story of their number symbolism, all aspects of it. The ruling paradigm of each world is its number, 1st through 4th. The trumps embody the 2-fold and 3-fold simultaneously, by being paired beginning-to-end (first with last, 2nd with 2nd-to-last, etc.) as well as being paired thus through trump XI (the force by which they are ‘coupled’, to a physicist). The dynamics of these two Trees plus the 1st plus the 4th with its planetary metals-and-cycles must all be ‘read into’ the trumps to complete their meanings, to denote their power in its entirety. But that’s a lotta homework...

There is a very striking pattern to work from in all this. Lurianic teaching (origin of division into 1-2, 3, 4-9, and 10) has the first three emanations remain unbroken at the ‘shattering of the vessels’, the seven manifested Sefirot, 4-10, being the ones shattered... and just so, amongst the trumps: 1-11-21 are all one thing respectively (in itself, to one ten-fingered, and to two ten-fingereds); 2-11-20 are all +2 numerically; and 3-11-19 are all +1 valence (good conductors). So 1 is the unit, 2 duality, and 3 material form, shattered 4-9 and half-shattered 10 representing the 4th world in this context, perhaps, mimicking the pattern apparent in Swords above (from Sefer Yetzirah).

Don’t know how “practical” any of this is...