Theos-Talk Archives (January 1995 Message tl00278)

In message <950129165527_76400.1474_FHA55-1@CompuServe.COM>
theos-l@vnet.net writes:

> Dr. Bain:  "Later research has established that many of the GD/OTO
> attributions were and are incorrect."
>
> Gee, I wonder what the GD and OTO have to say about this
> interesting fact? Whose research?

Halevi's, my own, other UK occultists.  It is doubtful, I am
told, that any true GD organisation(s) survive, but that is only
one opinion.  It may be different for the OTO.  In this area the
writings of my friend and colleague R.A.Gilbert are of interest.
He has been published in the UK by Element books, and sells well
in the US I believe.  He not long since published a biography of
AE Waite, and actually possesses some of Waite's regalia, as well
as no small amount of Ms.  material from Crowley and other GD
sources.

If you are interested in source material, he can often obtain
rare and even extremely rare items.  He is not online, but I can
e-mail you his address privately if you are interested.

>
> Dr.  Bain: "Sepher Yetzirah makes it clear that there are 32
> Paths of Wisdom, and ten Sephiroth - ten and not nine, ten and
> not eleven."

I am only quoting it!

> Yes, there are 32 Paths, but the first 10 refer to going through
> the Sephiroth themselves, while the remaining 22 refer to the
> pathways connecting them.  Each of these 22 paths corresponds to
> a Hebrew letter

The reference to the first 10 relating to the Sephiroth is a GD
assumption which is not supported by Sepher Yetzirah.  The
numbers add up, that is all.  BTW, I do not want to quarrel over
any of this - anyone can do the same research, and can come up
with the same result.  When I began my studies, they still called
it "Occult Science."

> We have lots of maps for the same territory, folks, and they are
> not all the same.  Is the problem the territory or the maps?

You pays your money and you takes your choice!

> Dr.  Bain: "Path 25 does indeed have the attribute of this card,
> by whatever name, but sits in the center of the Greater Hod as
> Path 25 of the 32.  "
>
> Your phrase "sits in the center of the Greater Hod" leads me to
think that it is one of the paths going through the Sephirah
rather than a true path.  Anyway, I was using the GD/OTO map, and
stick by what I have said.  Your "proof" of where Path 25
"really" lies, is no better or worse than mine.  Sorry about
that.  Perhaps we can agree to disagree with all of these maps?

I didn't offer "proof." I did offer the results of research.  If
you are interested, then e-mail me - I am not out to "convert"
anyone, nor on any power trip, just following the adage "There is
no religion higher than truth."

>  Is there a Lesser Hod?

Yes.

> Dr.  Bain: "It equates with the function of the exorcist in the
> early church, the svaddisthana chakra, and the hindu mantra, VAM
> [see Ernest Wood: Yoga, pub.  in UK under the Pelican imprint]."
>
> To what does "it" refer? Hod? or Path 25? I have Wood's Yoga
> somewhere in my library, but have not read it in many years.
> Could you tell us what these correspondences have to do with Art
> or are you implying that your version of the Tree of Life has no
> real relevance?
>
>          Jerry S.

It refers to Path 25 and card 14.  The ref.  to Wood's Yoga was
mainly to show a source for the mantric attribution.  Crowley
made the association with Art.  Okay, he was entitled to his
view.  It isn't mine, but the subject came up under that heading,
and Path 25 and card 14 were in there.

Just for the record, my research indicates a clear link between
the Egyptian (as at Luxor) and the later Christian (as at
Glastonbury, which you will have heard of if you have read Dion
Fortune's writings - maybe even if you haven't; it was a hippy
haven in the sixties and seventies.

Stay cool.

AB