Lesson Twelve Kether
We are now at the top of the Tree of Life, at Kether, the crown. From our vantage point here on Malkuth, it does appear to be the highest branch, reaching into the Three Veils of Negative Existence. But once we reach Kether, or the aspect of Kether that we can reach at this point, we realize that it is not necessarily a branch, but the root. This Tree is rooted in the heavens, issuing forth into the world of manifestation, and Malkuth is its fruit. Malkuth contains Kether’s essence. All that was, all that is, all that ever shall be is found in Kether, and its potential is in Malkuth, as Malkuth will be the Kether of another Tree. From the seeds of Malkuth will grow another Tree.
Kether is the “highest” point, the purest manifestation of the divine in our concept of creation, issuing forth from the Three Veils. We realize that the terms high and low no longer apply, but Kether is the most indistinct of the sephiroth, for it encompasses all potentials. There are few distinct characteristics and symbols. It sits on the top of the middle pillar, but issues forth the Pillars of Mercy and Severity. It is the source of the entire Tree, the emanation that is at the root of creation, from which all other sephiroth are formed.
Kether is said to be beyond all astrological associations. If Chokmah is the fixed and formed stars, then Kether is the forming stars, the wellspring of light that has not yet taken fixed shape. It is the Great Central Sun of the universe that everything else revolves around. Modern astrological Qabalists have associated the outer planets with it, particularly Uranus. I favor Pluto for Kether, for it is the planet embodying the highest will. Kether is the sphere of divine will, and if you are going to assign any corresponding planet to this sphere, I think Pluto suits it well. Pluto is commonly seen as the planet of death, named for the Underworld lord Pluto, the lord of riches.
In Kether, Pluto shows us how the individual self really dies and is reborn not only as the higher self but as the merged higher self, uniting personal will and the HGA’s will with the total divine will of Kether. You receive all the riches of creation, literal and figurative. It is said that a true initiate owns nothing, yet has use of everything. These are the riches of Kether, for in the end, everything is a manifestation of the divine, and you can’t truly own the divine. It’s like the indigenous people of America not comprehending how the Europeans could say they “owned” the land, for the land was the skin of the Mother, who belongs to herself. We are here by her good graces.
Yet those who are aligned with divine will have everything they need. Every resource is at their disposal, as long as they don’t become attached and desire ownership of it. Kether, as the “Crown,” can have associations with Pluto as well, for as the lord of the dead, Pluto wears the crown of the Underworld. As Pluto (or Hades, in ancient myth) shares creation with his brothers Zeus/Jupiter, who rules both the heavens and all gods, and Poseidon/Neptune, who rules the seas, he ultimately has eventual rulership over the brothers. Everything that lives must die. In the cosmology of the Greeks, even a god can die. From our view, they eventually return to Kether, reunited with the divine source, but that puts the true “crown” in the hands of the lord of the dead.
Kether
Meaning: Crown
Level of Reality: Highest Manifestation of Consciousness That Can Be Contemplated by Humanity, Great Spirit, Creator, Beyond All Shape and Polarity, Unity
Parts of the Self: Indivisible Self, Highest Self, Bornless One, Crown
Experience: Reunion with the Source
Obligation: None
Illusion: Attainment
Virtue: Completion of the Great Work
Vice: None
Name of God: Eheieh (I Am)
King Scale Color: Pure Brilliance
Queen Scale Color: Brilliant White
Prince Scale Color: Brilliant White
Princess Scale Color: White flecked with Gold
Elements: Air, Spirit
Planets: Traditionally No Planet but the Primum Mobile; some now say Pluto
Image: Bearded Man in Profile
Archetypes: Great Spirit, Gods of Creation, Life and Death
Greek/Roman Deities: Zeus, Jupiter, Chaos, Eros, Hades, Pluto
Egyptian Deities: Ptah, Ra, Khephra, Osiris
Middle Eastern Deity: Tiamat
Celtic Deities: Dryghten, Danu, Don, Modron, Pywll, Annwn
Norse Deities: Buri, Bor
Hindu Deities: Parabraham, Brahman
Archangel: Metatron (Angel of Spiritual Evolution)
Angelic Order: Chaioth ha-Qadesh (Holy Living Creatures)
Choir: Seraphim
Grade of Initiation: 10 = 1 Ipsissimus
Animals: Hawk, Swan, Eagle
Musical Note: B
Tools: Lotus, Skull, Single Candle, Crown
Incense: Ambergris, Bay Leaves
Tarot: All Aces
Priestess—to Tiphereth
Magician—to Binah
Fool—to Chokmah
Metals: White Gold, Manganese, Chromium, Carbon Steel
Stone: Diamond
Plant: Almond
White is the strongest correspondence of Kether, so use white imagery for your altar for this lesson. A sparse altar actually is appropriate for Kether. Having a single white candle would embody the energy of this sphere quite well. The aces of the four tarot suits represent Kether’s power in each of the four elemental worlds, while the three cards leading out from this sphere—the Magician, Priestess, and Fool—all can be displayed.
Entities of Kether
The well-accepted image of Kether is the “bearded man in profile,” alluding to our most common Qabalistic and biblical images of God, as a patriarchal father god. A modern pagan/magician interpretation is that this god is in profile, for he is really a hermaphrodite, a rebis, half male and half female, both God and Goddess, and you would see this if he turned the other cheek. Kether embodies both aspects of the two other supernals, Binah and Chokmah, Mother and Father, so it seems only fitting that Kether would not be solely male.
I see the force of Kether as beyond male and female. Early on in my witchcraft experiences, I learned the Great Goddess as Danu, while the Great God was the Dagda, her mate. Though the most common stories depict Danu not as an actual mythical character but simply as the mother of the gods, and the Dagda’s most famous mating was with the Morrighan at Samhain, this partnership as primal female and male made sense to me. We had a third spirit, the Dryghten, an indivisible “lord” who is neither male nor female. The three d sounds together worked well in ritual, and I loved the concept of two deities and an overarching androgynous spirit. When my own practice and public teachings became more multicultural, I simply began saying “Goddess, God, and Great Spirit,” using three g sounds together, and it worked quite well for everybody involved. I think of Kether as the Great Spirit of Dryghten. I think of it as the Divine Mind. I think of it as the Tao of Asian mysticism, manifesting Goddess and God as yin and yang. I think of it as the collective consciousness of creation, manifesting a cosmic anima and animus. Kether is the Great Architect of the Masons, who designs and engineers the rest of the Tree of Life. These are all ways to describe the light that is Kether.
The divine name of Kether is simply Eheieh, where all the lords and titles are dispensed with in favor of the simple “I am” or “I am that I am.” My teachers tried to explain this name as not only “I am” but “I was that I was, I am that I am, I shall be that I shall be.” It is the divine “being” in all tenses, really beyond shape and form but encompassing everything.
For specific archetypes, our primal creative gods and goddesses, androgynous in nature, can be seen here in Kether. Tiamat, dragoness goddess of the primordial waters, can be seen as both a Binah and a Kether figure. The Irish Celtic Danu, and her cognates in Don and Modron, share similar attributes with both Binah and Kether as the source of creation. Chaos, the primordial voice from which Gaia and Uranus sprang in the Greek creation myth, can fill the place in the triad as Kether. In early versions of the Greek creation tale, Eros was a primal god, not just a god of sexual love and attraction, but the binding force responsible for the embrace between Gaia and Uranus, to bring life into this world. Eros in this primal form can be seen as the power of Kether.
Some of the more familiar and gender-specific gods have androgynous manifestations. There is an image of Zeus as many breasted, in his creator aspect. There is a bearded Aphrodite. Many of the creator gods, such as Ra, Ptah, and Thoth, created the universe alone. Using the Plutonian imagery, the lords of the Underworld—Hades, Pluto, Osiris, Pywll, Annwn—can be associated with Kether. Less common in ceremonial magick, but equally valid as Plutonian archetypes, are the queens of the dead—Persephone, Proserpina, Erishkigal, and Hel—though they share much in common with Binah, as do the lords with Chokmah.
The archangel associated with Kether is Metatron. The most unusual of all the archangels, he is considered the prince of archangels. Some descriptions have his own crown in Kether and the rest of his body stretching out through to Malkuth, as he acts as an intermediary on all planes. Other descriptions say he manifests as a small child, or a monstrous giant, with thirty-six wings and countless eyes. Out of all the angels, with the possible exception of Michael, Metatron is said to be closest to “God” as the creator.
The angelic order under the rule of Metatron is known as the Chaioth ha-Qadesh, or Holy Living Creatures. They are the highest of all the angelic orders, save the ruling archangels of the Qabalah, who exist on an entirely higher plane. The Holy Creatures are said to bear the “throne” of God in the heavens. In our secondary system of angelic lore, the highest choir of angels is known as the Seraphim. Not to be confused with the fiery serpents of more traditional Qabalistic lore, these angels are said to be at the throne of the Creator, burning with the bright and blinding light of creation and singing the song of the celestial spheres, chanting, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole Earth is full of His Glory.” These Seraphim are described as having six wings, with two covering their face, two covering their feet, and two for flying. Their vision is said to be so intense that even other divine beings fear to gaze upon them.
Vision of Kether
The vision of Kether is beyond description. It is not a vision, but the experience of Reunion with the Source, the divine source of creation. The magician becomes one with the magick of creation, and unites with the source of all that was, is, and ever shall be. We may have glimpses of this experience, as we touch the aspect of Kether in the lower spheres, but the vision of the true Kether is a merging with the source of all that is. Many would choose to never leave this place, while others still return, going through the cycle of creation and rebirth to climb the Tree of Life yet again.
At Kether’s level of consciousness, there is no obligation. There is no vice. There is no illusion. You are beyond all of it. The only virtue is the successful completion of the Great Work, and if you truly make it to Kether, you have fulfilled your divine will in all the lower sephiroth and truly have attained the Great Work, becoming one with the Philosopher’s Stone, the diamond of divinity, the primal fount from which all things flow.
Kether Magick
There are not a lot of magickal correspondences for Kether, as the primal Godhead. This sphere’s principle is union, so in effect, all things are part of Kether. Ritually, we have created some associations with forces that seem to be more helpful in connecting with Kether.
All the aces of the tarot are the “roots” of the four elements, Kether manifest in each of the four worlds. The four tools we have worked so hard to obtain for the four elemental degrees are the highest forms of the elements and are the links to Kether. Our reconsecrated ritual tools lead us back to Kether.
Another great alignment with Kether is the diamond, often used as a symbol for divinity itself, in plurality with its many facets, and in unity as a single object (OTOW, Chapter 5). Diamonds are one of the hardest substances on Earth, yet are formed from coal, mimicking the alchemical enlightenment process of transforming something dark into something clear and dazzling. None of the seven classic metals are used for Kether, though Pluto often has an alignment with chromium, carbon steel, and manganese. I also like the image of white gold, a more refined and purified form of gold, for Kether, as the yellow gold is associated with the lower octave of enlightenment, Tiphereth. In terms of herbs, few items are associated with Kether. Ambergris, an animal product coming from whales, is the traditional scent, though many use bay leaves instead, again having a strong corollary to Tiphereth, as bay is sacred to Apollo. I also think mistletoe is an appropriate herb, though it’s toxic and shouldn’t be used in incense or potions to be consumed. Mistletoe has Kether, Chokmah, and Chesed associations, but it was the most sacred herb of the Druids. Vanilla is a scent associated with Pluto that can be used ritually for Kether.
In terms of totems, all the highest-flying birds are associated with Kether, like the eagle, hawk, and falcon. Strangely, the swan, as a bird of divinity and great beauty as well as transformation, is a totem of Kether. One could see angels, as a race of “animal” in creation, like man and woman are the “animals” of Chokmah and Binah, being appropriate for Kether, for they are the closest beings that are not gods yet are aligned with the divine.
The geometry of Kether is quite simple—the single point or monad. It is the core of all things and the beginning of the creation process. The term monad will be familiar to students of John Dee’s work. Through a treatise called the Monas Hieroglyphica, or The Hieroglyphic Monad, he created an esoteric symbol and teaching based on the monad, which was divinely inspired and which he believed would revolutionize astronomy, mathematics, alchemy, mechanics, music, optics, and magick. Though we think of the monad as a single point, this version is an amalgam of several different esoteric astrological glyphs (Figure 75).
If any magick can be considered appropriate for the lessons of Kether, I think Enochian magick fits the bill. Though introduced in the early stages of the Golden Dawn training, it is not covered in detail until the Adeptus Minor rank. Enochian magick is another creation of John Dee, and his scrying partner, Edward Kelley. Though the history of Enochian magick and its founders would make an excellent modern-day thriller, few people outside of the more learned realms of the esoteric arts know of the existence of Enochian magick. Enochian is a complete language and alphabet as well as a magickal system. It is said to be the pure language spoken before the Fall—some speculate in the day of Atlantis. The system uses grids of letters to spell the names of various Enochian angels that can be summoned, along with a variety of ritual tools specialized for the Enochian workings. The language is used in the Supreme Ritual of the Pentagram and its variation, the Opening by Watchtower ritual. Unfortunately, a complete introduction to Enochian magick goes far beyond the lessons of this text. For those desiring to explore Enochian and the SRP, this book provides a strong foundation for going deeper into your high magick studies.
Kether Pathworkings
Now that we have explored all of the twenty-two paths of the Tree, it is time for you to touch the aspect of Kether that you are ready to experience. Exploring Kether, if you are successful in making contact with an aspect of it, doesn’t confer instant enlightenment. Seeking guidance on the Great Work, and experience in working with the entities of the Source, does not equate to attainment of the Great Work and a merging with the divine in totality. Through visionary pathworking, you can cross the Abyss, commune with the supernals and in Kether, and have a partial merging with the divine light that is the Crown. If your entire being were to merge, then you would cease to be here on the physical plane. We do not truly touch Kether in its highest and most exalted state, but that aspect of Kether in whatever lower sephira we are anchored in. If you are working through the realm of Tiphereth, you can reach the Kether aspect of Tiphereth, and that experience will help you master Tiphereth and move on to the next sephira. You will have a taste of Kether, like hearing a lower note on a piano gives you an idea of what the higher note is. You can almost imagine it. You will know it if you hear it, but for now, the lower note is in your normal range of hearing and you can safely work with it.
Kether Pathworking
1. Perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (Exercise 5) and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram (Exercise 20). Do any other ritual you feel is appropriate.
2. While in this space, call upon the divine forces of Kether. Burn your single white candle. Burn bay leaves upon charcoal to release a vibration corresponding to Kether.
Knock on your altar one time or ten times, to show that Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether. Vibrate the divine name of Kether, Eheieh. Call upon the Great Spirit and Archangel Metatron.
3. To count down into a meditative state, do exercise 1 through step 7 (page 76).
4. Let the familiar world around you fall away, as if the material reality you know is only a façade and beneath it lies the beautiful garden of the Goddess, a veritable paradise surrounding you. The land around you becomes a vast primordial garden, the garden of Malkuth, the familiar garden of the four paths.
5. Go to the heart of Malkuth, to the Temple of Malkuth. Decide what path you will be taking to Kether. I suggest either following the route of the Magician, sequentially up the Tree as we have learned, for a longer pathworking extending a basic “rising on the planes” experience into a detailed visionary journey, or taking the most direct route, up through the middle pillar, passing through Yesod and Tiphereth, and following the route of the Priestess across the Abyss to Kether.
6. Feel the call of the brilliant white sphere beyond the gray shadow of starlight in Chokmah and the dark cosmic night of Binah. Go to the source of both and feel the call of Kether. As with the other spheres, you might be tested before gaining entrance to the Great Central Sun of our universe, or you could be beyond such tests. Enter the pure white light of Kether.
7. There is nothing to distinguish you from Kether. You feel yourself in the white light, and you are the white light. The light is brilliant and dazzling, white yet multicolored like light reflected off a diamond or opal, shining with the potential of all colors and forms. You feel the whole Tree with you in Kether, and you realize you always have been here. A part of you has never left.
8. There is no temple. There is no structure. There are only the patterns of swirling light suggesting images and mesmerizing you. You feel the presence of Metatron, of the Great Spirit, of everything and everyone that ever has been, is, or will be here in Kether. Commune with Kether and the intelligences of Kether. Feel the loving connection, the power of both Eros and Chaos, surrounding you, for nothing is what you expected it would be. Ask to know the vision of the Reunion with the Source in a manner that is correct and for your highest good here and now.
9. When done, thank the Source and all beings who have communicated with you. Those in Kether do not offer you a gift or token, for the experience is the gift itself, and you always have been there, so when you are ready, your conscious awareness can return anytime. You have completed all the steps to get there.
10. Say your farewells, knowing that you are not really leaving, and go back the way you came unless you feel guided to return via a different pathway. Return to the garden of Malkuth. Know that Malkuth is in Kether and Kether is in Malkuth. One is simply the root, the other the seed, but both contain the entire Tree. Focus on the waking world you know, and feel it return around the garden.
11. To return to normal waking consciousness and end your journey, perform steps 15–17 from exercise 1 (page 78). You can close the temple by repeating the LBRP.
Kether Initiation
In our Qabalistic scheme, Kether is the tenth initiation, marking completion. It is the 10 = 1 ranking of Ipsissimus, usually translated to be the “very very self” or true self beyond all image and illusion of manifested creation. The Ipsissimus is beyond all understanding of those below this level, and is said to be incomprehensible to us. Here we have the images of the mad monks and crazy mystics, reaching enlightenment but completely beyond earthly concerns or traditional society. They are heading toward this final level of enlightenment. The Ipsissimus is the master of all forms of consciousness, because this initiate is merged with the Source. This is beyond even ascension from the physical body. This is ascension from individualization and identity, to know that your very very self is the same as the Creator. You integrate the mystery of being God/dess on all levels, and you enter into manifestation to create something new, to know yourself better, to experience separation and form.
Homework
• Do Exercise 30 and record your experiences in your Book of Shadows.
• Continue to practice the LBRP, LBRH, Middle Pillar, and Circulation of the Body of Light rituals, the traditional or personal versions.
Tips
• Fill in the Kether correspondences and colors on your own Tree of Life drawing. Contemplate them as you add them to the image. Start memorizing these correspondences.
• Review and reflect on all you have learned in this lesson.
• Prepare to make your own reality map, the full process of which will be outlined in the next and final lesson.