I think Im gonna bump this thread, all because I have a lot more to say on the tree of life than I already have.
Ive been discussing it with Parodites too, recently, and learned of the division of kabbalists into Lurian and Merkhabatic schools. The latter being the ancient school which is not theoretical primarily but occult, magickal, so centered around path working. I belong to this school, Ive gathered most of my knowledge in this way. And Im very proud of that. Im proud to be a practitioner. Im proud to have run the risks Ive ran, and survived.
The old Metkhabatic tale of warning was once told to me by a Jewish family member from Israel, when he was visiting our house in Amsterdam. Moshe, was his name. A powerful jovial man. I told him then, I was around 22, that I was studying and practicing Kabbalah and he looked admiringly and said be forewarned, in the Jewish faith it is not recommended that anyone practice his stuff until the age of 40. Then he told me the tale of the three rabbis who went and attempted to ride the Merkhaba. This means, they attempted to cross from Gevurah to Binah; to cross the Abyss, from the formative world to the Supernal triad. I.e. from the human, natural world to he eternal, the divine.
The tale tells that one of them went mad (burned through his mind) one of them died (burned through his heart) and one of them made it.
What happened to the first is what we would call, in modern days, psychosis. Several of my friends of long ago have suffered this fate. Guys who used ancient tools to cross from their temporal world to the Absolute. And just didn’t make it.
In any case I did make it. And for this reason I have the right to call myself a Merkhabatic Kabbalist.
I can do many things. But, because I am of the type that makes it across the abyss, I am supremely prudent. Ultra-vigilant. I only use this magick when it is absolutely required of me. When I need to protect, or serve. I do not use these means for selfish ends. Ive never had that inclination. Ive never really understood those who do have that inclination. It seems silly to me. Because… this is God. Why would you… play with that? Does that not lower you and your effort to know God? I am stern. I don’t fuck around. I learn, and I teach. And perhaps the day will come when I attack.
A few months after I turned forty, I suddenly had the irresistible and self-evident seeming impulse to make video lectures on the tree of life. The day on which this happened was the birth day of my once best-friend, Sander van der Horst, who plummeted into the abyss when he was 19. Ha, he rode the Merkhabah like a Texan rides a bull (and he was a Taurus) and it was a sight to behold. As was his death a veritable spectacle. He has stayed close with me ever since, perhaps the same thing happened to him and me as what happened with those dead Indians on dawns highway, who leapt into Morissons soul. Whatever did happen, I was given magickal powers right after his death. And it was on his birth day, in my 41st year on Earth, that I began my teaching.
On the other side of the tree, there is of course Maos a path. It runs fro Chesed to Chokmah. The two father-God spheres. This path is attributed the card of the High Priest. In Rome the high priest was called Pontifex - literally, bridge-builder. He who builds a bridge between the human and the divine.
Here is an interesting difference, to say the least; to cross per Chariot by the power of understanding consequences, or to cross by making a bridge, by some power of authority. What kind of authority could this be?
שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם