PKT:Secret Trad#1 - Study Group

INIVEA

Thanks you 2 for clearing that up for me, wow, boy I was wrong, oops, I guess this is what happens when you don't go to bible school lol

Learned something new today :D
 

Teheuti

I guess this is what happens when you don't go to bible school lol
The concepts are found in some form in most spiritual and even philosophical perspectives (not necessarily religious), including Shamanism.
 

Abrac

Mary, your definition as the female face of the divine is spot on, imo.

Waite divides the Shekinah into two very broad categories, Sekinah above and Shekinah below, or Shekinah in manifestation. In Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, it's Shekinah in manifestation who helps, or leads, the initiate through the first four grades, at which point her guidance is no longer necessary. The Shekinah is one of Waite's more complicated doctrines imo; I still don't have it all sorted out. :)

In my best estimation, the High Priestess is Sekinah above (in transcendence) and the Empress is Shekinah in manifestation.
 

Teheuti

Mary, your definition as the female face of the divine is spot on, imo.

Waite divides the Shekinah into two very broad categories, Sekinah above and Shekinah below, or Shekinah in manifestation. In Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, it's Shekinah in manifestation who helps, or leads, the initiate through the first four grades, at which point her guidance is no longer necessary. The Shekinah is one of Waite's more complicated doctrines imo; I still don't have it all sorted out. :)

In my best estimation, the High Priestess is Sekinah above (in transcendence) and the Empress is Shekinah in manifestation.
Agreed. So would you say Spirit-Above and Soul-Below?
 

Abrac

I think it would just depend on how above and below are defined. If we use the Tree of Life as a template I'd say Soul is definitely below. In this tree diagram from Waite's Holy Kabbalah, you can see the influence of the Christ from Daath all the way to Malkuth. The heart center is in Tiphareth.

Waite wrote something in his FRC Philosophus ritual that I really like:

"But this union, which begins in YESOD and is so symbolized therein, is perfected in TIPHERETH, where the Lover and Beloved are no longer face to face, in simple union no longer, but in the condition that is called UNITAS, wherein there is no passage between subject and object, for all things that belong to love have been made one in the heart of love."

Waite doesn't always show his tender side but when he writes stuff like this you know he had to have one. :)
 

Teheuti

Waite doesn't always show his tender side but when he writes stuff like this you know he had to have one. :)
It's definitely there in his poetry.
 

Teheuti

"The Tarot and Secret Tradition" continued

11. "The spiritual side of Alchemy is set forth in the much stranger emblems of the Book of Lambspring, and of this I have already given a preliminary interpretation, to which the reader may be referred. [Occult Review, vol 8, 1908.]

12. "The tract contains the mystery of what is called the mystical or arch-natural elixir, being the marriage of the soul and the spirit in the body of the adept philospher and the transmutation of the body as the physical result of this marriage.

13. "I have never met with more curious intimations than in this one little work.

14. "It may be mentioned as a point of fact that both tracts are very much later in time than the latest date that could be assigned to the general distribution of Tarot cards in Europe by the most drastic form of criticism.

15. "They belong respectively to the end of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries."

http://genius.com/Arthur-edward-waite-the-hermetic-museum-vol-1-the-book-of-lambspring-annotated

The Occult Review article:
http://www.eso-garden.com/specials/the_pictorial_symbols_of_alchemy_by_ae_waite.pdf

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/lambtext.html

I will be traveling this weekend and may find it hard to check in. Feel free to post additional text from PKT (please continue numbering each sentence).
 

Abrac

11. The spiritual side of Alchemy is set forth in the much stranger emblems of the Book Of Lambspring, and of this I have already given a preliminary interpretation, to which the reader may be referred. (Footnote #2 See the Occult Review, vol. viii, 1908.)

**Mary has given a link to the OR article in her post #37 above.**

12. The tract contains the mystery of what is called the mystical or arch-natural elixir, being the marriage of the soul and the spirit in the body of the adept philosopher and the transmutation of the body as the physical result of this marriage.

13. I have never met with more curious intimations than in this one little work.

14. It may be mentioned as a point of fact that both tracts are very much later in time than the latest date that could be assigned to the general distribution of Tarot cards in Europe by the most drastic form of criticism.

15. They belong respectively to the end of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries.

16. As I am not drawing here on the font of imagination to refresh that of fact and experience, I do not suggest that the Tarot set the example of expressing Secret Doctrine in pictures and that it was followed by Hermetic writers; but it is noticeable that it is perhaps the earliest example of this art.

17. It is also the most catholic, because it is not, by attribution or otherwise, a derivative of any one school or literature of occultism; it is not of Alchemy or Kabalism or Astrology or Ceremonial Magic; but, as I have said, it is the presentation of universal ideas by means of universal types, and it is in the combination of these types —if anywhere—that it presents Secret Doctrine.

The original title of the Book of Lambspring was De Lapide Philosophico Triga Chemicum. Anyone know what this means exactly?
 

INIVEA

the Shekinah is, for Waite, the feminine face of the Divine, whom the Hierophant/Priest marries in the Inner Temple in the heart - but this is the male perspective.

What do you feel was Waite's understanding of the Shekinah?


Mary, your definition as the female face of the divine is spot on, imo.

Waite divides the Shekinah into two very broad categories, Sekinah above and Shekinah below, or Shekinah in manifestation. In Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, it's Shekinah in manifestation who helps, or leads, the initiate through the first four grades, at which point her guidance is no longer necessary. The Shekinah is one of Waite's more complicated doctrines imo; I still don't have it all sorted out. :)

In my best estimation, the High Priestess is Sekinah above (in transcendence) and the Empress is Shekinah in manifestation.

Okay I had to google Shekinah, for I had no clue what on earth this word is or means found these.

Wikipedia
Shekinah, Shechinah, Shechina, or Schechinah (Hebrew: שכינה‎; Arabic: السكينة‎), is the English transliteration of a Hebrew and Arabic noun meaning dwelling or settling, and denotes the dwelling or settling of the divine presence of God and His Glory.

Bible History

The Shekinah Glory

The Presence of the Lord would fill the holy of holies.
Exod 40:34-35 Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

The term Shekinah was many times used interchangeably with the word God. In the Jewish mind it always spoke of the fact that He "dwelt in" or "rested upon" those who merited His favor, whether an individual, a community, or the entire Jewish people.

Scholars have always seen a striking connection between the concept of the Shekinah and the idea of Logos "The Word" which Philo introduced into Jewish philosophical thinking. Of course a much greater emphasis was placed upon the word Logos when the apostle John introduced his gospel account of the life of Jesus with these suggestive words:

John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.


References from Wikipedia and Bible History.com

So now what do you think Waite was meaning? considering his Catholic/Christian back ground.
 

Abrac

Hey INIVEA. I thought this part is interesting: "Scholars have always seen a striking connection between the concept of the Shekinah and the idea of Logos "The Word" which Philo introduced into Jewish philosophical thinking."; and also the quote from John 1.

From what I've read of Waite up to this point, he equates the "Word" with the Son, or the Christ. In his description of the High Priestess, he says, "The scroll in her hands is inscribed with the word Tora, signifying the Greater Law, the Secret Law and the second sense of the Word." It appears therefore, the Son represents the outer sense of the Word and the High Priestess as Shekinah represents a Greater Law, that is, the hidden sense of the Law. At least that's what I'm taking away from it at this point. :)

What are your thoughts?