Thelemic Attributions of the Sephirot:

 Thelemic Attributions of the Sephirot:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

I have, for my own convenience decided to ascribe the Thelemic deities to their corresponding Sephirot on the Tree of Life. I feel that for myself, the Thoth Tarot by Crowley is ample for the Paths and it is entirely logical to assume that he himself attributed Greek deities to the paths and the Egyptian Gods to the Sephirot, one example is Liber Resh vel Helios, as Helios in this adoration is clearly the God attributed to the path of Resh (The Sun) whose office is to drag the sun across the horizon. So, if I am in a later essay going to ascribe the Gods to the paths, I will make them Greek, for convenience-sake. The bastardization of these pantheons is by no means new to Magick or a result of my own laziness, as Thelema is not the first Grecian-Egyptian system. When these correspondences have been completed, I hope that it may serve as an appropriate elucidation of the cosmology of Thelema and the means by which it serves the Path of Return as a way of attainment, for those who are just beginning to contemplate the many Gods found within the Thelemic praxis. The following essay is then my own valiant attempt to keep Jesus out of Thelema and place the Goddess back on her pedestal where she belongs, for a new generation of seekers and perhaps even finders.

The Foundation of the Tree of Life:

In Thelema we have Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit as our most important Deities and these are associated with the Three Grades mentioned in the Book of the Law, the Hermit (Nuit), The Lover (Ra-hoor-Khuit) and the Man of Earth (Hadit). These grades are then attributed not to the Sephiroth but to the three triads on the Tree of Life. The Supernal Triad, the Ethical Triad and the Astral Triad. Hadit is the flame in every heart of man and in the center of every star, he is first enlivened after the first initiation, when the aspirant has successfully equilibrated the elements and is associated to Malkuth, however qabalistically speaking, he must then also be in Kether as having attained to the unity. This is the reason for the term Man of Earth, this grade is entered into in Yesod as equilibrating the elements is the work done in Malkuth and the requisite for attaining the grade, following that it is reached upon entering the next sephirah.

The next grade is The Lover and this is associated with Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Tiphareth, this is the Grade of someone who has attained knowledge and conversation. The requisite, obviously for this grade, is the conscious union between an Adept and his Angel, hence he is called The Lover. I am not the lover of every object of my affection and may only become that if she feels the same and we are united in love. Therefore, The Great work is the nurturing of the relationship and the eventual fruit produced from the relationship, between an Adept and his Angel.

Finally, there is the Hermit and this Grade is linked to the supernal Triad, something about which most of us could only speculate, but as Hadit is life and the giver of life, knowledge of him is also the knowledge of death and so, for me this means that full realization leads to complete annihilation of self and expanding into pure consciousness (the Body of Nuit). Frater Achad stated that he experienced the Supernal Grades almost simultaneously, so it would seem that once one reaches the Supernal Triad, he is experiencing this triplicity as a single grade, until finally he is plunged back down the tree and reconstituted in one of the lower worlds. Crowley said that after his attainment he was plunged into Jupiter and Achad into Malkuth. The Hermit as an archetype in a sense represents one who has attained wholeness and has no need for validation from the outside world, he has found what we are all searching for and is complete, this may be the reason that the grade is called the Hermit. As Nietzsche says, “To live alone one must be a beast or a God”, God then sums up the symbolism of this grade. It is within this grade that complete union with Nuit is achieved, Nuit’s proper place is Ain-Soph but she manifests in Kether as being united with Hadit, it is their union that symbolizes the pure potential of creation. Traditionally Kether is not a planetary sphere but is seen as a whirling spiral of creative energy wherein there are no opposites, from the above analogy the symbolism of Hadit and Nuit’s union is appropriate to convey the same idea in Thelemic terms.

The Astral Triad:

Starting at the bottom of the tree, Hadit is in Malkuth. The fact that Hadit is attributed to Malkuth is observed from the work that is done in this sphere. It is in this sphere that the aspirant acknowledges his place at the center of the universe by equilibrating the elements and emphasizing his own sovereignty four times a day with the adoration of the sun and the lesser pentagram ritual.

In Yesod we find Ahathoor, she is the consort of Ra (Horus) and in the Greek system, the Goddess attributed to this sphere is Artemis, who is the twin sister of Apollo, we can easily see the validity of this assertion when we consider that Yesod is reflected by Tiphareth and the opposite of the sun.

In Hod I have chosen to put Thoth, we can go with Anubis as he was worshipped as Hermes by the ancient Greeks, but that confuses things when Netzach needs a Goddess and who better than Thoth’s wife Maat, she was the Goddess of justice. Thoth is then attributed to the sphere of Mercury and Maat to the sphere of Venus. These correspondences intuitively give one the sense of grace, as being necessary for any further attainment. We may indeed ascribe Anubis to this sphere and whether it is Anubia or Thoth is up to the discretion of the magician. Both of these gods are mercurial and share a close connection with Maat and death. 

The Ethical Triad:

Tiphareth is tricky and has two faces, but Thelema solves this problem with Heru-Ra-Ha, who is the active and passive aspects of the sun God Horus. Ra-Hoor-Khuit is active and Hoor-Paar-Kraat is passive, in the Thelemic grade system Tiphareth involves two sides to one realization and these are summed up in the grades Adept Without and Within. The Adept Without is tasked with attaining knowledge and conversation by successfully performing the Abramelin ritual and once he has completed this task, he becomes an Adept Within and attains full realization of his new, elevated perspective. So, just from looking at the grade attributed to the Tiphareth, I would have to conclude that Heru-Ra-Ha is the appropriate deity for this sephirah. This is convenient as Ra-Hoor-Khuit is a martial deity and the next sephirah is of course Geburah, and is associated with Mars.

Heru-Ra-Ha’s dual nature is symbolic of the light that is reflected from the Supernal Triad into the Astral Triad via the Ethical Triad, this is not to say that the properties of this reflection are supernatural, although the jargon may seem to entail such an absurdity. It only means that the inspired work done by every adept inspires the world by presenting it with new Gnosis. And this is the reason that Ra-Hoor-Khuit’s position on the Tree of Life is Geburah, his struggle is to accomplish the Great Work and it is this work which brings forth fresh fever from the skies. The Adept’s work is inspired through union with the divine, in other words, communication with the Supernal realm, which could be called the Preternatural realm and this relationship is what inspires the lower, meaning that, the magician is in a certain sense, rewriting his communications with the divine into his own words.  

The Sphere of Chesed corresponds to Hoor, another name for Horus. Chesed is associated with Jupiter and the first sphere on the tree below the Abyss and the last sphere that we can formulate an understanding of. I have put Horus here for convenience. However, it must also be kept in mind that Horus is indeed the King of the Gods, just as Zeus, who also corresponds to the sphere of Jupiter, all these other names that I have associated with the Ethical Triad are but aspects of Horus, therefore it is logical that this name holds in it the full potential of all these parts, the Great Work thus having been accomplished. 

Next there is Babalon below the Abyss, she is the light that rains down from the Supernal Triad and is the Great Whore. Within this context, it does not mean that she is the itch in the crotch of the aspirant, although it does make for a useful metaphor. As the Shekinah she connects all opposites within the formative world and through her whorish nature awakens our higher aspirations. She becomes an especially attractive whore when K&C is attained and through her attraction, starts drawing the magician towards the Abyss, as if by momentum alone. She is thus the Divine Mind, her first manifestation is that of the Great Mother, where she corresponds to Binah and is the second after the unity, as Plotinus puts it. She is the Great Mother of creation and in her whoredom, she inspires us to traverse the path and realize our divinity.

Within Daath, we find Pan, the All-Devourer and the All-Begetter. For one who is approaching the Abyss he is the All-Devourer, one must give up everything to successfully Cross the Abyss, as one is completely annihilated and if successful will find himself in the City of the Pyramids, as nothing more than a pile of dust, where he is nursed back to life by his mother Babalon, during the night of Pan, hence he is the All-Devourer. However, from another point of view, he is the potential for creation, as the universe that is still a conglomeration of ideas, before it is formed and in this, he is the All-Begetter, almost like the creative spark of a new creation, holding within it all the potential of Kether.

Binah as stated is home to Babalon as the Great Mother and Consort of the Beast, the Beast is either known as Therion or Chaos and in Chokmah. They are the first opposites on the Tree of Life, created from the overflowing of Kether. Imagine Kether as a whirling mass of negative and positive energy, that eventually explodes into the primordial opposites known as male and female, or Shiva and Shakti, or light and dark and of course for Thelemites, Therion and Babalon? These opposites again unite and their reunion give birth to the Formative World, by conceiving a child known as Pan. Kether is where Hadit and Nuit are united, it is the source of all opposites and the entire universe as we understand it.

Thanks for reading, I hope it was accurate enough and that you enjoyed it.

“Love is the law, love under will.”