Unlocking The
Mystical Qabalah
The Tree of Life is central to understanding the work of Dion Fortune. It is the master mandala around which all her work is organised, and her book The Mystical Qabalah is one of the three keys to the temple. However, when most people encounter this book, they are confronted by a seemingly dense text with long lists of apparently unrelated facts: the idea that this text is linked with the vivid imagery and dynamism of the novels can be difficult to understand. We need therefore to find a way of unlocking The Mystical Qabalah to understand its value and potential.
The Qabalah is one of the underground mystical traditions of the West. It arose out of Jewish mysticism, appearing in Provence in the eleventh century when a book called the Sefer Bahir, or Book of Light, was studied by small groups of mystical scholars. This book is an inner commentary on the book of Genesis, focusing in particular on the myth of the Garden of Eden, which represents a state of communion between human beings and the Divine. In this myth Adam and Eve eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and are cast out into the world of separation. The Tree of Life is the other Tree, planted in the midst of the Garden; if we eat of its fruit, we return to the Garden, finding our true home and restoring communion between human beings and divinity.
The Tree of Life was originally depicted in naturalistic form but later was developed into a geometric form of ten circles connected by twenty-two lines, and it became the focus of an entire spiritual tradition studied by both Jews and Christians. Dion Fortune was one of the first teachers to make it available in a form that modern people could use. She approached it through the dual lenses of Jungian psychology and the ancient mystery tradition, taking ancient mythology and applying it to the Tree to the mutual enrichment of both.
In writing about this approach, Ernest Butler, Dion Fortune’s pupil, described the Tree of Life as “the mighty, all-embracing glyph of the universe and the soul of man.” 4 He likened it to the Rosetta Stone, and by considering what that means, we will gain some understanding of how to approach the Tree. The Rosetta Stone is a stone tablet that contains a decree from the Pharaoh in three languages: hieroglyphs, the ancient script of Egypt; the Demotic, or everyday, script; and Greek. At the time of its discovery the understanding of hieroglyphs had been lost, but through working with the tablet and the other two languages the key was found and thus all the wisdom and beauty of ancient Egyptian culture was revealed to us. The actual text is not very important, being a purely administrative decree, but the act of bridging that it enables is essential. Ernest Butler went on to say, “It is essential to realise, however, that the Tree is not a map of the undiscovered country of either the soul of man or the universe in which he lives, but is rather a diagram of the mutual relationship of the underlying forces of both.” 5
The key point being made here is that the Tree of Life is a method and model that enables us to create relationship between the deep places of our soul and the depths of the universe. The diagram of the Tree gives us a skeleton to work with, to bring it to life within us, so that ultimately it becomes a living presence in our hearts. The practice of working with the Tree is referred to in the book of Ezekiel in the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, when the prophet is asked to prophesy over the dry bones; as he does, breath enters the bones and they come to life. In effect, we sit with the diagram of the Tree and place our breath and vision upon it so that it comes to life.
What comes to life is the image of the Tree of Life: of a tree growing from the earth, embracing the moon, planets, sun, and stars. It holds within it an intention to bring all the elements of our inner and outer universes together so that there is an experience of a unity that is greater than the sum of its parts. The ten elements of the Tree are called sephiroth (singular: sephirah), or spheres, and represent aspects of life and consciousness.
The creation of our tree begins in the place before the Tree grows, the Qliphoth—the world without meaning and centre. The word means “shells,” and we experience it when we find ourselves in the wasteland of ancient tradition, the dry land without water, feeling hollow and holding only a heap of broken images. To consciously experience this is very difficult, but knowing it as a felt experience, of aridity and the worthlessness of material achievements, is a starting point, the beginning of connection to the living Tree. This is the place at which the heroes of the four books begin, and it is our own starting position.
The longing for a deeper or more fulfilling life brings us into a condition the Qabalists called Malkuth, the kingdom. Malkuth is the first sephirah, or sphere, of the Tree linked to the earth and the body, a place of rooting and grounding and the anchor for all that follows. As we connect to our body and senses, we create a vessel of containment within which the rest of the work can arise. This moment-by-moment awareness of our body and its relationship with the outer world creates the beginnings of a sense of inner sovereignty and capacity to take possession of both our inner kingdom and our place in the world.
As we start to create this sense of being anchored, grounded, and rooted, we discover things about the internal and external worlds and the relationship between them. We begin to relate to interiority, to dream and memory, to image, and to the flow of our life force and sexuality. We start to connect to the sphere of the moon called in Hebrew Yesod, the foundation of life. This sephirah represents our unconscious and preconscious self; it is also called the “treasure house of images” and is the storehouse of all our memories. Yesod contains the image of our self and the image of the world we live in and is often imagined as a pool that can be still or turbulent, clear or filled with imagery.
The journey into this place is described as the descent into the underworld (figure 1).
As we become more proficient in relating to these aspects of life and being, we start to become aware of their interplay in the world. We gradually notice when there is a feeling of being grounded or anchored in the world around us, and the flow of life energy, sexuality, and the power of images. We notice the power of ideas and emotions. As we do this inwardly and outwardly, we create paths of connection between these aspects of our nature and start to grow our tree.
Until we do that, however, these energies of Mercury, Venus, and the Moon—or thought, emotion, and unconscious memory—form a spinning wheel that keeps our attention trapped in the past: in a place of need, resentment, and future fear (Figure 2). These entangled energies develop considerable momentum over the course of a life. They are a major barrier to the process of transformation and constitute the matter that needs to be transformed. In each of the heroes of the books, we see these energies built deeply into the structure of their personalities.
As we work later with the exercises of section three, the sense of anchoring into the body and of becoming aware of the spinning wheel will act to reduce and stop its spin. As this slows, we will find that mind, emotion, memory, and body can find new ways of relating together.
As we become more proficient in feeling the interplay of these archetypes and their patterns, we discover a subjective sense of depth and connection between our different states and our perception of the world.
At times we will touch a sense of stillness or presence behind the flow of feeling, thought, image, and body sensation. We touch on the archetype of the Sun, Tiphareth, the beauty of presence whose quality of stillness starts to interact with the whirl of energy we are becoming used to. Tiphareth is positioned in the central line above Hod and Netzach (Figure 3). Experiencing this sphere is sometimes called “the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.” This is a deepening sense of immersion in stillness and a dialogue with a presence both intimate with us and yet standing behind our everyday self.
The path that leads to this place is called the alchemical path. It calls upon us to transform the tangled matter of our life, to cooperate with the sense of presence and guidance emanating from the part of us that is the angel of Tiphareth.
As we become more centred in Tiphareth, we start to become aware of greater depth and capacity in both thought and feeling. This is the inclusion of the deeper archetypes of Geburah (Mars) and Chesed (Jupiter), representing, respectively, the energies of discipline, clarity, and will and the energies of love, compassion, and expansive growth. Our mind becomes more focused and our emotional nature more loving and compassionate. This creates a new wheel of stillness, acceptance, and clarity that deepens our connection to our interior life. These spheres are positioned on either side of the central line above Tiphareth, so that Geburah is above Hod and Chesed above Netzach (Figure 4).
As this new triumvirate of archetypes comes into play, there is a much greater sense of depth and possibility. Through this we sense the mysterious aspect of ourselves and the greater universe called the sphere of Daath, mystical knowledge, or the knowing of not knowing. It is the gateway to the deepest parts of our being.
Daath is also called the bridge across the Abyss, as it asks us to relinquish our old ways of thinking, feeling, and doing in favour of a surrender to the unknown. It is placed on the central line above Geburah and Chesed and is depicted as a dotted circle to indicate the sense of mystery it conveys (Figure 5). As we deepen, we become increasingly responsive to the deeper aspects of our being and more focused on this oddly tangible but unknown ground. This path is called the desert path and represents the leaving or stripping away of all we have previously known as we cross or bridge the Abyss. It is the main transition point of the inner process, though it is prefigured in the movement from the Qliphoth to Malkuth and the journey between Yesod and Tiphareth.
As we pass the gate of Daath, we enter the deepest places of the Tree: a pair of spheres called Binah (understanding) and Chokmah (wisdom), or Saturn and the stars, respectively (Figure 6).
At the time when the Tree was developed, Saturn was the outermost planet, the container of all the inner planets; and here it represents the archetypal mother and the womb of space, while the sphere of the stars, as the great fertilising principle, is the archetypal father. These spheres arise from Kether, the crown of the Tree, called the primum mobile—the first movement. These three sephiroth are depicted in a triangle at the top of the Tree and represent our deepest connection to Spirit and the energies of creation. Kether is our own deepest self, Chokmah the deep will that arises from it, and Binah the deep imagination that births the image of that will through the rest of the sephiroth of the Tree of Life.
In Figure 7 we see the complete Tree of Life that we have built through the process of inner work. It is not, nor was ever intended to be, a cognitive diagram on a page.
Each one of these spheres (each sephirah) is a focus point or cluster of meaning that enables us to investigate the relationship between the inner aspect of our souls and the inner aspect of the universe. We have given some basic meanings of the sephiroth here, but many more can be found in Dion Fortune’s The Mystical Qabalah.
Until we begin our explorations, the deeper aspects of the Tree and the paths that connect them are latent or asleep, or they awake only occasionally and the relationship between the lower sephiroth is often unbalanced and confused. Our personal tree will have grown in accordance with our life circumstances, unconsciously, unless we have worked on ourselves to deepen our awareness. The side sephiroth need to be balanced in order for the central sephiroth, the balance and transition points, to operate correctly.
summarising the process of exploring the tree
In approaching Malkuth, we move from the kingdom of the shells into the living kingdom of the body and the ensouled earth.
As we step from Malkuth to Yesod, we walk the path that leads from the body and senses into the underworld of the unconscious, with its potent life energy and store of images and instincts.
As we take the further step from Yesod to Tiphareth, we walk the path of the deep unconscious. In passing through, we balance the spheres of the mind and feelings, connecting them to the body and the subconscious mind. We find a way to pass through the veil maintained by the tangle of our habitual thought processes in order to make contact with the intuitive presence of the watcher within us.
As we do this, there is a profound reorientation that opens our mind, heart, and body to a much deeper sense of ourselves. Having established ourselves in this still presence, there is an even deeper path that leads us to the root place of our own being, moving beyond the opposites and to a direct experience of the Divine. Here we follow the desert path of surrender, stripping away of all we know and think so as to become most truly ourselves.
It is this process that we find Dion Fortune exploring in her fiction, and if we engage with it in the way she suggests, we will find that we have indeed been given the keys to the mysteries.