ROBERT AMBELAIN PRACTICAL KABBALAH INTRODUCTION to the study of Kabbalah, both mystical and practical, and to using its Traditions and Symbols with a view to Theurgy WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR Éléments d'Astrologie scientifique : Étoiles Fixes, Comètes et Éclipses ; Beetmale edit., Paris, 1936 (out of print). Traité d'Astrologie Ésotérique, t. Ier (Les Cycles), Adyar edit., 1937 (out of print). Éléments d'Astrologie scientifique : Lilith, second satellite de la Terre ;Niclaus edit., 1938 (out of print). Traité d'Astrologie Ésotérique, t. II (L'Onomancie), Adyar edit., 1938 (out of print). Dans l'Ombre des Cathédrales : Étude sur l'ésotérisme architectural et décoratif de Notre-Dame de Paris ; Adyar edit., 1939 (out of print). Adam dieu rouge : La Gnose des Ophites ; Niclaus edit., 1941 (out of print). Traité d'Astrologie Ésotérique, t. III (L'Astrologie lunaire), Niclaus edit., 1942 (out of print). Au pied des Menhirs : Essai sur le Celtisme ; Niclaus edit., 1945 (out of print). Le Martinisme contemporain et ses Origines, Niclaus edit., 1948 (out of print). La Talismanie pratique, Niclaus edit., 1950 (out of print). Les Tarots, comment apprendre à les manier, Niclaus edit., 1950 (out of print). Les Visions et les Rêves, Niclaus edit., 1953 (out of print). Le Dragon d'Or : Aspects occultes de la recherche des Trésors ; Niclaus edit., 1958 (out of print). La Magie sacrée d'Abramelin le Mage, d'après le manuscrit de l'Arsenal, Bussière edit., 1986. L'Alchimie Spirituelle (Technique de la Voie intérieure), La Diffusion Scientifique edit., 1961. Le Cristal Magique ou la Magie de Jehan Trithème, Bussière edit., 1988. L'Abbé Julio, sa vie, son œuvre, sa doctrine, La Diffusion Scientifique edit., 1962. Sacramentaire du Rose + Croix, La Diffusion Scientifique edit., 1964. Cérémonies et Rituels de la Maçonnerie Symbolique, Niclaus edit., 1957 (out of print). Jésus ou le mortel secret des Templiers, Robert Laffont edit., 1970. La vie secrète de saint Paul, Robert Laffont edit., 1971 (out of print). Les lourds secrets du Golgotha, Robert Laffont edit., 1974. Le Vampirisme, de la légende au réel, Robert Laffont edit., 1977. Cérémonies et rituels de la Maçonnerie symbolique, Robert Laffont, 1978. Crimes et secrets d'État : 1783-1830, Robert Laffont edit., 1980. Drames et secrets de l'Histoire : 1306-1643, Robert Laffont edit., 1981. Symbolisme et rituel de la Chasse à courre, Robert Laffont edit., 1981. Les Traditions celtiques, Dangles edit., 1981. La Chapelle des Damnés : 1650-1703, Fouquet le régicide, le complot des Protestants, la véritable affaire des poisons, Robert Laffont edit., 1982. L'Astrologie des interrogations, Robert Laffont edit., 1984. La Géomancie arabe, Robert Laffont, 1984. Le Fal-Nameh ou Livre du Sort, Bussière, 1985. La Franc-Maçonnerie oubliée, Robert Laffont, 1985. Capet, lève-toi... (Louis XVII), Robert Laffont, 1987. Le Secret de Bonaparte, Robert Laffont, 1989. NOTE: Most of the books listed as out of print have in fact been recently reprinted. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. – DOCTRINAL ELEMENTS..............................................................................................................4 PREFACE................................................................................................................................................6 I. — ORIGINS AND DEFINITION OF KABBALAH.........................................................................10 A. — Its Genesis................................................................................................................................10 B. — Its development: The Kabbalah and its different Schools.........................................................17 I. — Isaac the Blind......................................................................................................................18 II. — Ezra-Azriel..........................................................................................................................18 III. — Nachmanides.....................................................................................................................20 IV. — Eleazar of Worms..............................................................................................................23 V. — Abulafia...............................................................................................................................24 II — METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS...................................................................................................26 A. — The Sephiroth...........................................................................................................................26 B. — Ain Soph = The negative existence of God..............................................................................31 I. – Ain Soph Aur..........................................................................................................................31 II. – Ain Soph................................................................................................................................32 III. – Ain........................................................................................................................................32 C. — The Cineroth or “Paths”............................................................................................................37 D. — Texts in Action.........................................................................................................................44 III. —THE DIVINE “EXISTENCES”...................................................................................................46 1st) Aziluth..........................................................................................................................................46 2nd) Briah............................................................................................................................................57 3rd) Yetzirah........................................................................................................................................63 4th) Assiah...........................................................................................................................................64 5th) Tables of Correspondences..........................................................................................................65 6th) Being and Non-Being...................................................................................................................75 IV. — THE “QLIPPOTH”.....................................................................................................................76 The Tree of Death...............................................................................................................................76 3 I. – DOCTRINAL ELEMENTS \ 4 “There exists in the Soul a Principle superior to external Nature. For by this Principle we may surpass the Cosmos and the systems of this Universe. When the Soul raises itself up towards those natures superior to its own, it abandons this Cosmos to which it is temporarily linked. And through a mysterious magnetism, it is attracted to a Higher Plane with which it joins and identifies itself...” “Theurgy unites us so closely to the Divine Power generated by itself; it unites us so closely to all the creative activities of the Gods according to the capacity of each, that the Soul which has accomplished the sacred Rites is affirmed in their actions and understanding, and finds itself at last placed within the God-Creator Himself...” (Iamblicus : On The Mysteries, V, VI, VII). “Whomsoever works by Religion alone, without the aid of other virtues1, is absorbed and consumed by Divinity, and cannot live long. And whomsoever draws near without being purified draws down condemnation upon himself, and will be delivered up to the Evil Spirit...” (H. Cornelius Agrippa : Occult Philosophy, book III, IV). 1 From the Latin virtus : strength, influence. 5 PREFACE “All Wisdom comes from God, the Sovereign Lord”. (ECCLESIASTES, I-1) It seems that the Kabbalah is doomed never to be other than the manifestation of «mystery» itself! Indeed, no doctrine has been or is more misunderstood by the general public. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, as now, the most staggering silliness, the most unjustified reproach circulates about the subject1. For such a Jesuit Father of the seventeenth century, “the Kabbalah is only a Grimoire of Sorcery, whose author is a famous sorcerer, called Kabbalah”... For another, it was a “Magical treatise, analogous, though greater in improbability than the famous Jewish Grimoire called ‘Talmud’...” As P. Vulliaud amusingly notes in his work on the Kabbalah, it is “claimed that music is superior to the valve trumpet!” Nowadays it is still the same... During the five years that the men of the Vichy Government exercised their fanaticism of another time, books and manuscripts on the Kabbalah had the honor, along with those on Illuminism and Masonry, of being plundered from private libraries for the personal activity and interest of the officials... In another realm, it was the same. For the majority of German scholars of our age, specialists in the subject, it didn’t seem that the Kabbalah contained anything other than the art of drawing mystical anagrams from the official text of the Pentateuch, and so enrich the already long list of “Divine Names”. In reality, the Kabbalah is the traditional “Initiatory Path” of the Western Christian. As Swami Sidesvarananda recommended, the purely Asiatic method was not created for European man: despite its seductive appearance – and with only rare exceptions – it can only lead to a dead end. In fact the Kabbalah rests upon the exoteric Judeo-Christian tradition. It consists of metaphysics and philosophy, from which can be drawn a mystical way, which is applied and regulated through personal asceticism, consisting of Theurgy or Practical Kabbalah. The latter is divided into two sections. The first comprises a type of Western yoga, and this is the interior aspect of this practice. The second is of a ritualistic, ceremonial form; and this is the exterior aspect. Man being a microcosm, asceticism allows him to attain particular levels of consciousness, inaccessible to the ordinary man, so equating to an indisputable “initiatory realization”. Practical Kabbalah is thus to Mystical Kabbalah what realization is to elaboration. If the latter familiarizes the student with this formidable metaphysical whole which is 1 The word itself comes from the Hebrew Cabalah, signifying «tradition». 6 comprises, it is only intellectually so. Practical Kabbalah launches the Adept upon the «Direct Path», if he then knows how to triumph over the “Dragon of the Threshold” he will gain considerable advantage over the one who practices the “Inner Way” alone, since he will have established a close psychic contact with the Superior Planes. “True Philosophy”, Sir Bulwer Lytton tells us, “above all seeks to understand rather than to deny...”1 and the amateurs of Kabbalistic lectures and theses who recoil at the idea of applying their favorite doctrine are those inconsequential people who deliberately deprive themselves of the fruits of their endeavors. Let us also listen to the counsel of the wise Iamblichus2: “There exists in the Soul a Principle superior to external Nature. For by this Principle we may surpass the Cosmos and the systems of this Universe. When the Soul raises itself up towards those natures superior to its own, it abandons this Cosmos to which it is temporarily linked. And through a mysterious magnetism, it is attracted to a Higher Plane with which it joins and identifies itself...” The Hermeticist Van Helmont tells us almost the same thing: “An occult power, asleep since the Fall, is latent in Man. It can be reawakened by divine Grace, or indeed through the Art of Kabbalah...”3. Certainly, it is necessary to already be familiar with the didactic Kabbalah (metaphysical, theodicity, etc) before launching into the redoubtable operations of Practical Kabbalah. When the student of this Science has familiarized his spirit with the works of Philippe de Aquina, Reuchlin, Pico della Mirandola, Rosenroth, and Molitor, then, as Dr. Marc Haven said: “If he is called to the Spiritual Way, these pages will shine forth to him. But if he attacks these studies in vain ; if he has not ?broken in his mind on the Hebrew forms, read and assimilated the preparatory works which we have cited, and accustomed his soul to the mystical life...” The goal of the Art is thus, in practical terms, to put the Adept in psychic liaison with the Higher Planes and the Intelligences who live there; moreover, to act altruistically and occultly on his fellow man, to further the higher interest of the human Collectivity. The Knowledge in question (Theurgy) rests on handling the knowledge of the Mystical Kabbalah, and on its application. The principal means are Ceremonies, and the elements of these residing in the use of Pentacles, Invocations, and above all in appropriate “Divine Names”, true “words of power” without which no occult life will animate the pentacles and invocations. And if we do not try to justify the “magical” aspect of Practical Kabbalah, it is because we refuse to grant it this characteristic. Ceremonies of High Knowledge are religious ceremonies, of an extremely pure character, in a cultic form, in the same vein as those of the great official religions. The Kabbalist who burns his incense before the Pentacle where flames the Divine Tetragrammaton is not a different person to the Catholic priest standing in adoration before the monstrance or the lama before the image of the protecting deity. His soul-state is that of all mystics, and he has the right to the same respect as the monk of Solesmes or St. Wandrille, for, as Marc Haven tells us, “it is the destiny and the glorious characteristic of mystical doctrines to be elusive to the crowd and impenetrable to the learned; all incursions into its domain; all dissections, all explanations reveal nothing of their reality. Historians and critics remain at the 1 « Zanoni », p.135. 2 Iamblichus: « On the Mysteries », VII, 7. 3 J. B. Van Helmont : « Hortus Medicinæ ». Leyde, 1667. 7 doorway, examining the brambles or the sculptures which conceal it, scraping the floor before the closed sanctuary. And when they depart, believing that they have explored, described, and sufficiently profaned the sanctuary, the inviolate Temple guards its magic perfume and its profound secrets for the Children of Love, as pure as before their vain incursion into these regions which could never be theirs...”1. There remains a problem... Should we deliver up these pages to the general public? The fact is that there are no longer burning stakes and tortures which would justify continuing the silence of Adepts of olden times on the subject of the “Arcane iniquities”, and above all the fact that all theurgic work is impossible to accomplish without a knowledge of the two poles put into play: the divine one which provides our support, and the demonic one, against which we strive: so we have decided to publish all the essential keys to the system. This is why the Tree of Death is as detailed as the Tree of Life, and why the “demonic Names”, and the “Magical Images of the black Sephiroth are unveiled for the first time. But here we abjure the student of the High Knowledge never to act lightly. He is in the Universe of destructive and malefic “Forces” which one cannot unleash nor handle with impunity; and behind the “devils” and “demons” of legend, are concealed energetic and conscious “currents” whose powers put man’s on the level of insects... We have without sufficient preparation ourselves trodden the two Ways: and we have almost lost our life among the shadows of the Left-Hand Path... We again abjure the student reading this book to take care. There is a vertigo which seizes the semi- profane looking into the Abyss. It is always the same, and it has two names: Psychosis and Suicide... “Those who come to possess Divine Knowledge, will gleam with all the brightness of the heavens, so the Zohar tells us. But those who teach it to men according to the ways of Justice, shine like the stars for all Eternity...” Let us now, with the help of the Divine Instructors, follow these Ways of Equity, and never bear involuntary responsibility! * * * It remains for us to explain the layout of this work. When one gives into the care of a modeler the task of creating – at a suitable scale and as accurately as possible – a model of a monument, a ship, an industrial machine, etc, one doesn’t ask for a perfect reduction; one doesn’t impose upon him an unreasonable amount of minute detail; one only asks one thing – that the final outcome will be as perfect as the modeler can make it. But one doesn’t tell him that every detail must be expressed and realized exactly as in the original. If the “model” of a great ship functions in a basin of water as well as the real thing does on the ocean, it is of little import if the internal fixtures and fittings, or any installations which are invisible on the outside and have no function in the overall shape, have been created or not. 1 G. Marc Haven: Preface to the translation of the work of Jacques Gaffarel: “The profound mysteries of the Divine Kabbalah”, by Ben-Chesed. 8 In this Synthesized (and occult...) Resumé of one of the most prodigious philosophical systems generated by Man, it is the same1. Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin, Spinoza, Molitor, Drach, Rosenroth and others have differently envisaged, translated, and expounded upon the profound concepts of the Kabbalah. If, like these prodigious authors, we permit ourselves to pass over such-and-such sidebar or such- and-such detail, this is solely for the profit of the whole and its precision, in such a minuscule study as this. This book does not pretend to enter the Temple, but only to offer the keys... May he who applies this teaching, as the epigraph says above, so behold the Illumination he seeks as a recompense for the diligence of his efforts. As for him who only sees base and material uses, simple profit, low magic or stupid vanity here, may the ritual malediction of Leviticus fall upon him: “Thus sayeth the Lord: ‘I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass’”. (Leviticus: XXVI, 19). 1 The format of the work and the limits imposed by its publication have regrettably forced us to abridge the chapters somewhat. 9 I. — ORIGINS AND DEFINITION OF KABBALAH A. — Its Genesis It would be vain to suppose even for a moment that the Jewish religion before our times was characterized by an absolute monotheism on the one hand, and by a rigorous orthodoxy among the whole of its faithful on the other. If the early years of nascent Christianity presented an aspect of incessant swarming of sects and individual belief systems, each more strange than the other, then for the Jewish nation it was the reverse phenomenon which took place. At the time of the departure from Egypt, the cult of the God of Israel was a whole. No doubt remnants of more ancient and primitive cults (notably those of the Baalam, the Ephod, the Teraphim, etc.) still manifested themselves within families and clans, but as a private observance, and generally in secret. Then, with time came contact with foreign philosophies, the sojourn in Babylon (caused by the captivity and deportations of the population), study by its doctors, and the exchange of ideas with the intellectual and mystical portion of the Jewish people. Some lived and prospered in a completely official manner, and we know the principle of these sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Therapeutes. But this is to ignore the existence among the popular masses of more secretive schools, diverse sects, sometimes showing a spirit of opposition to the ‘official’ sects. If would indeed be a most grave historical error to imagine that Judaism formed a singe bloc, which has given birth to no theological, esoteric or heretical variation. We have seen that in his work on the formation of Christianity, Drews concluded that before the Christian era, there already existed among the Jews a representation of the Messiah, which would become that of Christianity. Later on, the disciples of Jesus rightly sought to present him as having united in his life all the circumstances which had been abundantly described by the Prophets, and did this in order to prove his legitimacy after he had accomplished his mission. Equally, we noted that Drews, in agreement with B. Smith, affirmed that alongside orthodox Judaism there existed in Israel, or at its borders, sects which had assembled the essential elements of the Christian legend – and this long before the birth of Christianity – around a god which they called Iesoushouah1. In this name, Drews found the name of Jesus, for the Hebraic orthography is identical. This fact is significant: it is the first trace of the existence of the Kabbalah, Iesoushouah being one of the “Divine Names” of the Sephira Geburah. What we glimpse in the doctrine of these sects puts them in rapport with a syncretistic religion, spread across all Western Asia, in the centuries preceding the Christian era, and which engendered numerous religious groups with specific tendencies. This was Mandeanism or Adonaism. 1 “God of Salvation” 10