Isilion

Late last winter and early spring I did my best to systematize my understanding of Abulafia derived from Aryeh Kaplan’s “Sefer Yetzira” and “Meditation and Kabbalah” along with things I’ve found at places like this
http://learnkabbalah.com/basic_meditation_techniques/
I take very seriously Kaplan’s statement that he had been authorized by his masters to release what he knew, at least about the basic technique. Of course the secret is not in “knowing” but doing the exercise.

I use a very simple technique where I permute the the “five” vowels sounds with the letters of the Mame making very slight but distinct head motions. It takes about twenty-five to thirty minutes to work through it. It is much easier than one would think, actually. I incorporated it into an evening walk so that I started as I left the house, walked out and back so that I finished a block or to from home so I could then just enjoy the clarity. It requires concentration, but only gently. As I walked and recited the sounds silently I would ever so slightly bob my head, almost like someone with an iPod listening to a rhythmic song.

For a lazy instant after the last sound and movement I could see the Name everywhere, radiating out from within the trees and the patterns in the asphalt of the road and the grass and leaves and shadows.

I have been on hiatus in the heart-breaking world of politics; that phase has passed–at least as an all-consuming obsession.

I am returning to the long term trajectory of my life after an enlightening roller coaster ride.

Even though I took some introductory courses in economics in college, it was always boring to me, also, other than the very basic stuff like supply & demand and the law of diminishing returns, I didn’t really understand it. I was originally drawn to Ron Paul’s campaign because of his opposition to the war and his unwavering defense of civil liberties. His economic stuff was just more blah, blah, blah, until he started getting through to me with the idea that economics and monetary policy are fundamental to understanding both domestic and foreign policy and the political structures and processes at play in this country and around the world. Talking about those things without talking about economics is like trying to talk about music while ignoring the concept of rhythm; like trying to understand Magick without knowledge of Qabalah.

I’ve actually been aware of him for several years, and it has been an amazing education for me. Regardless of the outcome of this election–and between you, me and the Internet, I am less confident about that than I was six months ago–there are now thousands, if not millions, of people like me who are waking up to the principle of spontaneous order and the emergent properties of a free society. He has let the genie out of the bottle and it is not going back in.

As if something neglected had been going on behind the scene.

Three Mothers: Alef (א), Mem (מ) and Shin (ש).
In the Creation are Air, Water, Fire.
Heaven was created from Fire;
Earth was created from Water; and
Air from Spirit decides between them.
~ Sefer Yetzirah 3:3.

Among other things the Sepher Yetzirah groups the Hebrew letters by a simple but effective phonetic system based on how and where in the mouth the sounds are formed: in the throat, against the palate, tongue on the of the mouth, tongue against the teeth and with the lips. The first letters of each group–Aleph, Gimel, Daleth, Zain, Beth [ אגדזב ]–are pronounced ah-ga-dah-zah-bah. If you say it as a word, even silently, you can feel the progression from within your throat out to and through your lips. It works like a subtle mouth yoga if you say it repeatedly.

ah-ga-dah-zah-bah
ah-ga-dah-zah-bah
ah-ga-dah-zah-bah
ah-ga-dah-zah-bah
ah-ga-dah-zah-bah

It works best at a moderate pace, but you can play around with it, varying the speed. It gets more interesting if you ponder the symbolic meanings and association with the letters. Doing it backwards is an out-to-innish sort of thing. It doesn’t work that well with bah-zah-dah-ga-ah, but other combinations do.

If I figured right, given that there are four throat letters, four palate letters, five tongue to roof, five tongue to teeth and four lip letters, there are sixteen-hundred combinations. Quite enough to build a Golem if one goes in for that sort of thing. At any rate it is an interesting exercise in neurophysiology from the inside out.

I’m off Gian Mind in the morning… but it is mostly just to do yard work around my camp site for Drum ‘n Splash next week. I love summer.

These are various tools and techniques I’ve been using to twiddle around with Qabalistic manipulations.

I have discovered that you can produce Unicode Hebrew characters with OpenOffice by using the “Insert/Special Character” function on the menu bar. It brings up a keyboard template that has a “subset” drop down box. One of the subsets available with some font sets (I tend to use “Times New Roman) is “Basic Hebrew”. It will give you a template that allow you to select individual characters either singly or is sequence. When you have the one or ones you want and click on OK your selection will be inserted into the text. It’s a little tricky because it changes the text flow to right-to-left so when you try to edit the results the arrow keys work backwards and subsequent typing has an infuriating habit of going in front of rather than after what you previously typed. But only sometimes, usually when you don’t want it to. It gets easier with practice and you’ll have many opportunities to curse the universe and learn patience. MS Word will probably let you do the same thing, but I don’t have it so I can’t test it.

Once you have a string of Unicode Hebrew you can then copy and paste it into a couple of useful web sites I have found.

One of them is www.c2kb.com/gematria
This site allows you insert Hebrew text to generate the gematrical value and list other words with the same value. The results are also in Unicode Hebrew so you can then copy and paste them back into other documents or web sites. You can also input a number and it will list Hebrew words and phrases that correspond to it. Learning to manipulate the results here is also tricky because everything on the site is in Hebrew and the seemingly random text flow problems occur here as well. It is worth the effort though.

Another good site is milon.morfix.co.il
It allows you to paste Unicode Hebrew and generates English translations. You can also insert English words and get Hebrew translations. Those results are in pointed Hebrew which I currently don’t use. If you copy them back into the previous site you can then get the unpointed word. Yet more cursing and patience, but between the two sites you can get lots of good stuff and I suspect it is faster than trying to do the same with a bunch of big reference books, assuming you have access to them.

Another good site I’ve found is www.cvkimball.com/Tanach/Tanach.xml
There you will find the Tenach, the Hebrew Bible, available in Unicode Hebrew. You have the option of pointed or unpointed and everything is cut and pasteable. Very nice. If you’re like me you can just sit and stare at it. It’s very pretty. If you go to www.cvkimball.com/Tanach/Genesis.DH.xml and select Chapter 1, Simplified Layout, Consonants Content with DH off, you can feel the power of אין (Ain, Nothingness) radiating from your monitor. At least I can. Your mileage may very. You can also download the entire site as zip files and install it locally for use off line. A great resource.

Another good one is www.blueletterbible.org
This is essentially a searchable Bible joined with Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. The learning curve is kind of high, but with a little effort you can find all the occurrences of a given word in the Tenach and learn a bit about Hebrew usage. Two minuses are you can’t use Unicode Hebrew and the site has a decidedly Christian perspective, but it is still very useful and the folks who put it together deserve to be commended for their efforts.

Using all these sites in conjunction has allowed me to begin working on my own ספר ספירה (Sepher Sephiroth: Book of Enumerations). As Israel Regardie said of the Sepher Sephiroth contained in “777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley,” “There should be nothing fixed or rigid.” He notes it “can be supplemented by the explorations of each student, depending on his own judgment and integrity.” As he put it: “And that is as it should be.” I am of the opinion that this supplementation is not really optional, but that it is an obligation of any who truly aspire to the Great Work.