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Considerations leading to the reformulation
of “The Tree of Life” and Qabalah 31

by Timm Bielec

Main Consideration – Eastern Medicine has long researched the structure of the energy system of the human body. Over thousands of years involving the practice of medicine, healing arts, martial arts, and meditation, the system has more or less been confirmed as representing a “truth” about the energetic functions of the human body, including its structure. If a Qabalistic method of transcendence and illumination is to be employed, then the system will not be a true integration and transcendence if it does not completely and utterly embrace the physical body. If we are to truly accept the conception of man as a microcosm of the macrocosmic universe, then an attempt should be made to bring more congruence between the map of the energy body, and the Qabalistic “Tree of Life”.

Just over 6 years ago, at the beginning of this investigation, my personal study of “The
Tree of Life” and the Qabalistic method of programming the mind through intelligent and creative use of a correspondence system came from Israel Regardie’s classic text “A Garden of Pomegranates”. After learning the Hebrew Alphabet, and basic Qabalistic principles such as the diagram “The Tree of Life” itself, Tetragrammaton etc; I began a lengthy study of Aleister Crowley’s “The Book of Thoth”
“The Book of Thoth” left an indelible impression on my understanding of “The Tree of Life”, Qabalistic thought, The Tarot, and Crowley’s personal metaphysical and magickal belief system. The first time I read “The Book of Thoth”, I was intrigued by how difficult it was to wrap my brain around what was obviously a clear and concise explanation of “The Tree of Life” and Qabalah, through a study of the congruent system of “The Tarot”
Having no past understanding of Thelemic principles, and never having read “The Book of the Law”, I never the less persisted in my study of the text. The method was very straightforward: I read the book constantly; over and over again; for over a year. In that time, I also familiarized myself with “The Golden Dawn” as presented in Israel Regardie’s text of the same name, and of course “The Book of the Law”. As well, I familiarized myself with Crowley’s basic life events. My main concern, however, was “The Book of Thoth”. In addition to this, I was also deeply involved in my personal study of my own gross, subtle, and causal bodies through Yoga, Subtle Energy Training, Healing and Meditation i
n the Eastern Medicine paradigm.
As I studied, obsessed over, and trained my mind to think Qabalistically in terms of “The Tree of Life”, I began making changes to the diagram itself. Anyone familiar with studying correspondence systems, I assume from what I experienced through my personal study, is aware of how personal belief systems and life experiences actively and co-creatively generate the subsequent attributions which become your personal correspondence system. My training and integration of my bodies through energy training in the Eastern Medicine paradigm, as well as principles of energy circulation, literally forced me to make changes to the diagram. This was done because of evidence I was gathering about my microcosm; my physical body. My personal beliefs and ego-ic delusions of grandeur were a close second…
6 years after I began studying “The Tree of Life”, and Qabalistic thought, I finally feel I have arrived at a system that is complete enough to share with others. In the end, the final solution and result of 6 years of study and work, was right in front of me the whole time. Actually, it literally was me the whole time! I believe this is the result of any endeavor to gain more insight and understanding; self discovery. I will recreate the steps I took over 6 years to arrive at my final solution, one dilemma or “issue” at a time. I will write in a fast style, skipping over most of the “Qabalistic Proof’s”, and personal synchronicities and experiences that confirmed that I was heading in the right direction. The last thing I want is for the reader to get bogged down in my personal beliefs or experiences. However, to really understand the system, and its validity as a system, I feel it is necessary to guide you through the steps I took to create the end result. The other option is to flip straight to the end, “download” the correspondence system into your brain, and see what happens through its application in reality. This will be the only true test of the validity of the system. Programming your brain literally takes 100 days to create strong and stable neuro-pathways. You can read about it in less than an hour. (Half an hour if you read well).
One final note: All this material is most definitely personal and subjective. All results were arrived at through personal Thelemic Ritual practice, meditation on Qabalistic principle, and the above mentioned studies and experiences in Eastern Medicinal Esoteric Yoga and Taoist Philosophies. It is important to understand that the organization I was involved in through this time was a very modern integration of Taoist, Tantric, Vedantic and Buddhist philosophies. All this basically came together in a gigantic soup, brewed and stewed, and is only now ready for consumption. Please keep in mind the story begins when I was just out of my teen years, and the “realizations” of those days seem rather childish to me now, which I am of course grateful for. However, this does bring forth a study in self-consciousness, and fear of judgment, and I hope the reader will be patient, for the road truly ends in some very worthwhile and profound insights…which will with any amount of luck be considered childish once again within a few years.

The Uranus Doctrine

The basic non-congruence of Eastern Medicine and “The Tree of Life” is this: 7 Chakras (energy centers) in the energy body, and 10 sephiroth on “The Tree of Life” (plus one “non-sephiroth” – D’aath). This is further complicated by the planets in physical outer space. There are 9 planets, plus the sun and moon, for a total of 11 “planetary” attributions. The most generally accepted arrangement of planets to sephiroth that I am aware of, puts the planet Uranus in the position of D’aath on “The Tree of Life”. This makes a lot of sense, but it leaves two holes.

1.   The planets ascend up the tree beginning with Mercury in their natural order of ever-widening elliptical orbits, with the exception of Uranus, which appears on the tree before Saturn.
2.   This places Pluto in correspondence with Kether. (This wasn’t really a problem, until scientists did the right thing by ousting Pluto from its designation as a planet. At the beginning of my study, Pluto was still enjoying its planetary status.)

This set of attributions makes a whole lot of sense, but it’s not perfect, and that bothered me; a lot. In addition, this adds nothing to our goal of gaining more congruence between the Eastern Medicine conception of the energy body and the Qabalistic “Tree of Life”.    If we decide to use only the 7 original planets that were part of the tree when the original architects conceived of the diagram, then it at first seems we may find some congruence. This arrangement however would attribute the planet Saturn to the Sephiroth Kether, in other words, the top of your head! All that “weight” at the top of your head is a Qabalistic absurdity. And it doesn’t reflect our most current knowledge of what is “out there” in physical outer space.
This is a little bit of a mess, and I would not find a satisfactory solution to these considerations until the very end of our adventure. However, a step towards a solution, and the first mutation to “The Tree of Life” on our journey came to me as a result of thinking too hard about Aleister Crowley’s “infamous switch”. The infamous switch is my clever nickname for the result of the passage in “The Book of the Law” that ends “…tzaddi is not the star”.
The eye shape that gets created in the belt of the zodiac (please see The Book of Thoth is this doesn’t make any sense) when combined with The Golden Dawn’s own switching of the trumps of the tarot is what held significance for me. When this eye is interpreted as “The Eye of Horus”, it becomes congruent with the 6th chakra, or “3rd eye” in the human energy body.

“The Eye of Horus” as I understood it was the eye that “destroys positionality”. Before this destruction; or “realization”; occurs, the human mind will believe that there is a “real truth” to be found in the personality. A human mind at this level of growth will think that they are “right”, and be acting in their reality in either an ego-centric or ethno-centric fashion. Once the “Eye of Horus” or 6th Chakra is activated, the notion that, as in Einstein’s relativity theory, someone might actually be entitled to a different and even opposing point of view becomes acceptable and natural.
The first of my modifications to “The Tree of Life”, put this shape of an eye, with its loops on either end, between the 2nd and 3rd Sephiroth, namely Chokmah and Binah. The loops in the figure itself were actually surrounding the Sephiroth on either side of the eye. This satisfied me in a number of ways:

1.   The 6th Chakra was now represented on “The Tree of Life”, which was a step toward more congruence with the Eastern Medicine energy body.
2.   The belt of the zodiac itself, which had been sort of “flung off” the tree when Chokmah was attributed to Neptune, was restored to the tree as looping about Chokmah and Binah.
3.   Uranus, now being attributed to the 6th Chakra, was restored to its natural order in between Saturn and Neptune.
4.   Crowley’s ideas about the revolving and self-generating nature of Tetragrammaton could be used to interpret this addition to the tree in the following way: When the Daughter gets “set upon” the throne of the mother (attains to Binah: Understanding), then the “eld” of the father (Chokmah: Wisdom) is awakened. The resulting act of love/union (Venus/Daleth) creates the opening of the 3rd eye.

In addition, I changed the design of the planetary symbol representing Uranus. The original design was representative of the planets classic and original name “Herschel”. When I was investigating Uranus as Heaven (in Greek mythology), I learned that his inevitable fate was to have his genitals removed and thrown into the abyss by his own son Cronos. In some forms of the myth, the party in question actually swallows his genitals.   In addition, D’aath lost its significance as Uranus, and I wanted to represent D’aath as being still somewhat connected with the new position of Uranus on my version of the tree.
What the elders call “The Black Brothers”, are usually attributed to D’aath, and in my mind, they are the “ones that lost their marbles”. Further, in Crowley’s description of the tarot trump “The Tower” in “The Book of Thoth”, he references the “Eye of Horus” as being related to anal sex magick (the 11th degree of O.T.O.). One final consideration that led to the redesign of the planetary symbol, will take us right into the gutter, as we consider the common mispronunciation of the planet Uranus. When people say the name of the planet, it almost always sounds like they are saying “your anus”. The re-design is thus:

It is at once an eye, an anus, and comes equipped with the “detached genitals” or “lost marbles” which hang down into the abyss. On a personal note, which accept my apologies if the content is distasteful, but I think it’s worth it to make an important observation: I was experimenting with anal sexuality with my wife for the first time when all these “discoveries” were coming to light. I mention it as a point of interest as to how one’s reality becomes so tied up with the manifestation of “Qabalistic Truth”. I believe that this phenomenon so often experienced is a result of the neuro-plasticity of the brain itself. One final note, I usually inevitably come across some sort of humorous “gutter slang” as a final confirmation when pondering possible solutions for Qabalistic dilemma’s. There is something very pure, even zen, about the humor that arises when the enlightened sage calmly and comfortably breaks the silence of meditation with a fart!

Surprise

What I next considered was the path of Aleph, and in particular its attribution to air. Crowley describes this as “air as vacuum”. This really bothered my mind because a very similar situation occurs with the Hebrew letter Shin. Shin is at the same time attributed to Fire and Spirit. In the same way, Aleph as Vacuum is a very different consideration than Aleph as Air.
What I was considering would further complicate one of my “other” main issues with modern conceptions of “The Tree of Life”. That there should be letters which are made to do “double duty” seems to me like trying to force your foot into a shoe that doesn’t fit. You can get it in there, but it is going to be uncomfortable!
Regardless of my apprehension, I believed there was a sixth element being formulated, but not symbolized. When trying to find a name for this element, I felt it should share characteristics with the Tarot trump, The Fool. Suddenly “Bursting Upon” the scene, and also the feeling of “Wanton Innocence” should be expressed. I also felt it should be something that modern people are already aware of, without necessarily realizing they were formulating an “element” as a magician would understand it. It was around Christmas time that I finally hit upon a thoroughly satisfying solution. I called this element, Aleph as Vacuum, “The Element of Surprise”. The problem was that this also meant Aleph was doing double duty.
The situation now became that I had 6 elements being crammed into a system that was originally designed to hold 3. In addition, there were three planets (including Pluto), which had been discovered since the “original” design of “The Tree of Life”, had been developed. None of these new planets, even though they were attributed to the sephiroth, had paths in the Hebrew Alphabet all to themselves. This was a big mess in my mind that needed to be cleaned up.
What I decided is that the 3 original “mother” letters of the Hebrew Alphabet would take on the new role of the 3 “recently” discovered planets. All the six elements in this mutation would be “swept off” the tree to be dealt with later. I also realized that our humble planet earth (which I will call Terra to prevent confusion with elemental earth) was also without its own Hebrew letter. For the time being, I grouped Terra with the other six elements, and focused on the 3 Mother letters, and the 3 outer planets.
I had some ideas about which planet should go where, but a footnote in Crowley’s “The Book of Thoth” led me to a definitive solution. In his description of Aleph, under the section dealing with Zeus Arrhenothelus, we find written that “the earliest accounts relate the distribution of the three active elements as Dis (Pluto) to fire, Zeus (Jupiter) to air, and Poseidon (Neptune) to water”.
Pluto makes sense as shin, especially if we accept for the moment Pluto’s correspondence with Kether. As well, the “tip” of the yod of Tetragrammaton is also said to “reside” in Kether, and the tip of the yod is also Spirit before it manifests as Pentagrammaton. The element spirit was attributed (with fire) to shin before I swept it off the tree, so Pluto became associated with Shin.
Poseidon; or Neptune; in his office as Ruler of the sea seemed to fit quite nicely as Mem. This left Aleph open to be filled by Uranus. We will consider Aleph, and all its correspondences being either “diphues”; dual sexed; or sexless, without the organs necessary for procreation. We see this theme in many different ways when investigating Aleph in “The Book of Thoth”, even in terms of otherwise virile hero’s being restricted in their sexuality in the beginning of their lives. Remember, Heaven (Uranus) was relieved of his genitals which makes Uranus fit quite nicely on the path of Aleph. Once again using the gutter for final confirmation, we can consider the “vacuous” nature of the anus, as well as the biological fact that all humans (animals), whether male or female have an anus. As a final note of humor, not only can we be proud of being considered a Fool, but now we can also strive to be assholes as well!
That goal being accomplished, I needed to figure out what I was going to do with Terra and all the elements. Since, in my mutation of “The Tree of Life”, Uranus was placed in the 6th chakra, 3rd eye position, and D’aath was only inferred as a detached appendage of the 6th Chakra, it was left open for an attribution. Also, the 3rd chakra of the Eastern Medicine energy system of the body was the last chakra that hadn’t been considered yet. On “The tree of Life”, the 3rd chakra exists at the very important intersection of the Hebrew Letter paths Peh and Samech. There were two places on “The Tree Life” that could be filled with an attribution, but I had 7 symbols which needed to be attributed.
The answer came from Eastern Medicine’s theory of the energy body. There are the 7 chakras, which are internal energy centers, or vortexes. In addition to this, there are 4 external energy centers in the human body which are also considered to be very important. They exist in the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet. I decided that these would represent the 4 classic elements of fire, water, air, and earth. There was still a problem, they didn’t have Hebrew Letter attributions, and all the Hebrew Letters had been assigned to the planets and signs of the zodiac. This gave me a perfect opportunity to clean up another concern I had about the Qabalistic system itself.
Enter the final forms! There are 5 final forms. One of these, Mem final, is basically written as a small square. The square with its four corners being a symbol of manifested existence, I decided that this would be suitable to be assigned to Terra. The other 4 final forms would be attributed to the four classic elements. In this interpretation, the final forms need to be somewhat divorced from their sister Hebrew letters, which means their nature as “paths” needs to be completely written for the first time. At this point, I was still unsure of which final forms were attributed to each element, and which element was attributed to which external energy centers, but for the time being I let it sit and turned my attention to the 2 “non-classical” elements.
The 5th chakra, classically referred to as D’aath, and the 3rd chakra, the intersection of the paths Samech and Peh were the last two vortexes of energy, which were going to be filled by the two “non-classical” elements. Using the properties of the elements, derived from their past letter attributions, became the basis for their attribution to the remaining energy centers. The 3rd chakra being the intersection of the paths representing a fiery planet, and a fiery zodiac sign, became spirit due to its previous attribution to Shin. The 5th chakra, residing in the Vacuum of the abyss, as well as its previous associations with Uranus, added to the element itself being created from Aleph where Uranus was now finding a home, became the element of surprise.
The final stumbling block was that there were no more Hebrew letters to account for the new energy centers and elements. This led to the addition of letters to the magickal alphabet of this mutation. I had been engaged at this time in a study of quantum mechanics, and relativity theory. Also, how these two giants of physics were related to the psychology of the human mind, and how our thought itself patterns mathematical processes, or from another view, our mathematics patterns the way we think. It was very interesting that these principles, so “Qabalistic” in nature, were being discussed in a book completely unrelated to Qabalistic thought.
There were two mathematical expressions that I would add to the alphabet. Later, this addition will throw a light onto the Qabalah 31 operating system, which is the final discovery in our journey, and is the basis for the workability of the system itself. I mention it here because I am no mathematician, and the letters and mathematical values I gave at this time to the elements “spirit” and “surprise” were given purely on the basis of intuition. Spirit would be represented by the letter Pi (π), because of the idea that the element spirit has been inferred and used for a very long time, and so has the mathematical expression known as Pi. There is something very magickal about the idea that we get a ratio of infinite value when we try to turn a perfect circle into a square.
For the element Surprise, I used the more recent conception of the mathematical value represented by the letter “i”. The square root of negative one, which is the basis for imaginary numbers, is literally quite a surprising and mystical conception to be found in such a strict discipline as mathematics. But without the imaginary value, we would not have seen the creation of Relativity Theory, or Quantum Mechanics.
This mutation of the tree, while far off from our final result, I am still very proud of. It is a conception of “The Tree of Life” that includes the use of all the final forms of the Hebrew alphabet, and uses all the energy centers of the human body, internal and external. With the aid of a computer, I drew the main sephiroth and energy centers on top of an anatomically correct skeleton, and then filled in the paths. The result was that this mutation of the tree, took on a new and interesting form.

Elements and Meridians - A Union between East and West

The next step of this journey is where things get a little bit more interesting. I went about the task of resolving the elemental conception of the Eastern Medicine Paradigm, with the elemental conception of Hermetic and Qabalistic thought in terms of “The Tree of Life”. Once my understanding of the elements had been retooled, I then turned my attention to working out a satisfactory system of attributions, relating and assigning each of the 12 signs of the zodiac to the 12 meridians of the human body. We’ll begin by retooling our understanding of the pentagram.
What I feel is important, as I keep mentioning, is that the Eastern Medicine paradigm understands the elements in terms of health and the human body. If we can somehow align our conceptions of Hermetic and Qabalistic elemental theory, with the principles of energy circulation of the human body, we are working with a much deeper conception, and more true to life, of the elements. The first thing we’ll do is go over a brief understanding of how the Eastern Medicine Paradigm, and the subsequent pentagram, represents a model of control (called the constraining cycle), as well as a perfect representation of Tetragrammaton (called the generative cycle). We will need to understand Tetragrammaton as revolving, or self-generating, as Crowley conceived of it.
The Eastern Medicine Paradigm formulates 5 elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal.
The following interaction of these elements describes the generative cycle.

1.   Fire Generates Earth By Burning Wood. The ashes become part of the soil.
2.   Earth Generates Metal. We find polished Metals deep beneath the surface of the Earth.
3.   Metal Generates Water. The minerals inside of rocks “sweat” to create Water.
What is important here is the idea of a Rock, or stone, being the union of Earth and Metal.
4.   Water Generates Wood. And other things that burn, making possible Fire.

Using the following conversion table, we will gain a basic understanding of how the
Generative Cycle of the Eastern Medicine Paradigm is exactly the same as Tetragrammaton.

It’s important to understand that the correspondences are not exact. We are dealing with two totally different scales of measurement, as when we compare the temperature scales of Celsius and Fahrenheit. But the following table can be used to give us the basic understanding that we need.
We’ll begin with Hermetic Earth, and the Qabalistic Daughter, The Heh Final of Tetragrammaton. We can see by a glance at the table that we are starting with the Eastern Medicine Paradigm Metal. If we refer to the Eastern Medicine generative cycle, we see that Metal and Earth need to unite to create Water. In Qabalistic Terms we say, “The Heh final Daughter (Earth), must unite with Vau the Son (Air), so she can be “set upon” the throne of the Mother. There is an interesting Alchemical similarity in the phrase “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem”. The “hidden” stone in the “interior parts of the earth” is the same “sweating” stone in our Eastern Medicine Paradigm. After creating Water in the Eastern Medicine system, the Water generates Wood. In Qabalistic language: the daughter, having been set upon the throne of the Mother, “Awakens the Eld” of the all father. Hence “Wood”. (Once again the humor from the gutter confirms Qabalistic “truth”) Fire then burns wood as Passion burns up desire, giving birth to the Eastern Medicine Earth, Hermetic Air, and the Qabalistic Vau/Son of Tetragrammaton. The Son in turn creates the Heh final Daughter, Hermetic Earth, and the Eastern Medicine Metal. Thus, the Eastern Medicine generative cycle of the elements is Tetragrammaton.
Next, we’ll look at the Eastern Medicine Constraining Cycle. We’ll give the common Eastern Medicine axioms, as well as provide generic axioms using our conversion table from above to gain once again a simple understanding of the correlation. I will repeat that these correlations are being used as a basis of understanding only, the eastern and western conceptions express different aspects of a whole energy, just as Celsius and Fahrenheit are different ways of expressing the one concept of temperature.

Eastern Medicine – Wood Controls Earth – Trees sustain themselves by drawing nutrients from the soil.
Hermetic – Spirit Controls Air – As it is said “when the spirit moves you.

Eastern Medicine – Metal Controls Wood – As in taking an Axe, or chainsaw, to a tree.
Hermetic – Earth Controls Spirit – Through the use of Free Will, we cause spirit to indwell on (in) the earth.

Eastern Medicine/Hermetic – Water Controls Fire – The secret of firefighting for centuries.

Eastern Medicine – Fire Controls Metal – As in forging a sword.
Hermetic – Fire Controls Earth – The popular system of warfare.

Eastern Medicine – Earth Controls Water – Earth absorbs Water.
Hermetic – Air Controls Water – Use the air to fill your sails, use air pressure to pump water, use the air to fly over the oceans.

The hermetic pentagram formulated from the above principles looks like this:

Tetragrammaton flows in a clockwise direction around the outside, and the constraining/controlling cycle forms the pentagram in the middle of the circle. In ritual work, “Banishing” an element; for example Fire; is really a matter of “invoking” Water to Control Fire. So, to banish Fire, start and end the Pentagram with Water. When you want to invoke Fire, start and end the pentagram with Fire, passing its controlling element just before you complete the invocation. The emphasis is on invoking a controlled and balanced (integrated) manifestation of the element by using its controlling principle just before the element is invoked.
Later, because the two elemental systems have a very different emphasis, being two different systems of measurement, we will create a totally new scale of measure and rename the elements themselves. For now, we will use our new understanding to resolve the 12 meridians of the human energy body with the 12 sign of the western zodiac.
When we use Eastern Medicine Elemental theory to understand the meridians, a sixth element in the Eastern Medicine Paradigm is used. This element is called “Supplemental Fire”. The 12 meridians of the human body are each named by the internal organ that they govern. A Meridian is most easily thought about like a vein. Veins carry blood, and meridians carry energy. The energy circulation through these 12 meridians flows in a definite direction. The order is as follows: Lungs-Large Intestine- Stomach- Spleen- Heart- Small Intestine- Urinary Bladder- Kidneys- Pericardium- Triple Warmer- Gall Bladder- Liver- Lungs- etc. The 12 meridians are divided into 6 pairs, with each meridian of the pair representing the Yin and Yang aspect of its element respectively. To begin with, it was necessary to divide the 12 signs of the zodiac in a similar fashion.
At this point, something a little bit remarkable happened. I just arbitrarily went about dividing up the signs of the zodiac, figuring I would have weeks of tooling and retooling before I arrived at a satisfying solution. I divided them up in this way:

1.   I divided the signs into their Cardinal (beginning), Fixed (maintain), and Mutable (change) Categories. (3 groups of 4 signs, each sign in the group representing one of the 4 classical elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth)
2.   I decided the “mutable” signs were subject to “mutation”, and removed them from the current equation temporarily.
3.   The Cardinal signs became the “Yang” Meridians of their respective element, using the conversion table previously given in the section about the pentagram. (Aries became Yang Fire, Cancer became Yang Water, Libra became Yang Earth
(as in Eastern Medicine Earth), and Capricorn became Yang Metal)
4.   The fixed signs became the “Yin” Meridians of their respective element, in the same manner as the Yang Meridians
were assigned their zodiac attributions.
5.   The Mutation of the “Mutable” Signs began first by dividing the 4 signs into 2 pairs, 2 yang, and 2 yin meridians. Fire and Air (Gemini and Sagittarius), being the “male” elements were given to Yang. Water and Earth (Pisces and Virgo) were given to the Yin Meridians.
6.   Pisces and Sagittarius were given to Supplemental Fire, and Gemini and Virgo were given to Wood.

The following table makes all this clear. What is more important is the diagram that results when you draw the energy flow of the meridians in its proper order natural to the human body on the belt of the zodiac. (Without all that looping nonsense) When I saw this diagram, I knew I had scored a hole in one. In addition, there are some interesting and easily adaptable correspondences that can be derived when you look at the sign of the zodiac and its organ attribution. For example, Taurus is related to the Lung Meridian, the lungs being the physical organ surrounding the 4th chakra, or Tiphareth, and Taurus being the Hebrew letter Vau of Tetragrammaton (Tiphareth). Taurus being the Bull, which is sacred to Aleph, and the lungs being the organ of breathe etc. etc. Leo is attributed to the Heart Meridian, “the heart of a lion”;
this attribution makes easy intuitive sense.
The more knowledge one has about the function of the internal organs in terms of Eastern Medicine philosophy, the more light can actually be shown onto the nature of the signs of the zodiac, and their corresponding Tarot Trumps. One final interesting connection is Cancer as attributed to the Urinary Bladder meridian. The Urinary Bladder Meridian is very long, and hence, has exactly 69 acupressure points that lye
along the meridian line.

What I like about this figure and the pentagram given before, as I keep mentioning, is that they represent an investigated and verified reality of how energy is actually moving through your body, the microcosm. If the 12 signs of the zodiac can be represented by the human bodies meridian system, then we are one step closer to the ultimate goal: To throw away the design of “The Tree of Life” entirely; in favor of a verifiable map of what is actually going on in our bodies energy system; and then apply an intelligent and creative correspondence and attribution system as a method of Qabalistic thought.

Obsession 31

All of our symbols currently in use in this mutation number 29 in total. The number is dangerously and seductively close to 31. I theorized, and I remember reading something similar somewhere, that if we have 4 classic elements which are related to Tetragrammaton, might there be a “higher level”, or “unmanifest” Tetragrammaton? We have already seen that 2 of our classic elements have higher more spiritualized conceptions already built into their formulation when investigated in terms of the Hebrew Letters they were originally attributed to. I decided that this must be so, and that I have been reading way too much Crowley, because my Qabalistic system as it was manifesting to me, was coming in the form of a 31 symbol system of thought.
I jumped onto the computer (which was a big deal at the time, I had gotten rid of my internet connection for a few years as an “information detox”), and through Google (the new God, this one actually answers your questions) sent a request into the “collective consciousness”, “please tell me: What are the 4 most important mathematical values?” The response I got gave me what I wanted. The 4 values were the two that I was already using, π and the imaginary number i; and the two other values that came back were the golden mean, Psi (φ), and Euler’s Number, e. I am no mathematician. At the time this was going on, I had another part of my spiritual life calling me to its path. I had my 31 symbol Qabalah, and it needed some tooling and thinking to really work out the details. Unceremoniously, I split up Spirit and Surprise into Spirit Yin, and Spirit Yang, and Surprise Yin and Surprise Yang. I had the letters and the values of this “other” Tetragrammaton, but I put no more thought into any of it. I let the now 8 elements sit as they were, and abandoned the work to follow my heart on its Spiritual Adventure.
I really and truly let it all go, in true unattached spiritual fashion. You know what they say, “If you love something/one, set them/it free, if they/it returns to you, then it was meant to be”. 2 years later, I was listening to a lecture at a workshop I was staffing. I had staffed the workshop dozens of times before, and heard the lecture dozens of times before. I was completely unprepared or unaware that a lightning bolt was on its way down from heaven, about to strike me clear into the top of the head.
The lecturer was speaking,
“7 chakras plus 4 external energy centers, 12 meridians plus 8 extraordinary vessels…..”
Then it hit me. I hadn’t really considered the vessels before. I have no idea why. I knew about them, but research on them has only very recently become available in English, and people who are experienced in their functions and form are either very experienced Eastern Medicine practitioners, or Tai-Chi Masters. It was amazing; it was here the whole time. 7 internal centers + 4 External Centers + 12 Meridians + 8 Extraordinary Vessels = 31! In one moment of elementary mathematics, all my work came flooding back to me with a force I could not deny. The beast had been awakened within me.
It was at this time that I completely and utterly tossed away the classic drawing of the diagram “The Tree of Life”. The 7 chakras and the 4 external energy centers would be the sephiroth themselves and the path attributed with a Hebrew letter. The 12 major meridians would be the 12 Hebrew letters attributed to the 12 zodiac signs. The 8 extraordinary vessels would be the 8 elements, 4 of which were attributed to the final forms (with Mem final keeping its attribution as Terra), and the 4 new elements, the “other” Tetragrammaton, would be the 4 new letters each representing the 4 most important mathematical values as detailed by the “collective consciousness”, or Google (God).
I was a few weeks worth of thought away from creating a 31 symbol Qabalistic operating system that was completely congruent with the Eastern Medicine Map of the human energy body. The 12 meridians and zodiac signs were already finished, and the elements with their final forms and new letters of the magickal alphabet, was a mess I was willing to tackle second. So I began by arranging the attributions of the 11 major energy centers of the body, and the planetary bodies.
What I “knew” was that Mem final/Terra/Malkuth was attributed to the 1st chakra. Gimel/Luna/Yesod was attributed to the 2nd chakra. Resh/Sol/Tiphareth was attributed to the 4th chakra. I decided immediately that the energy centers in the soles of the feet would be given to Beth/Mercury/Hod and Daleth/Venus/Netzach. This was due to their being the lowest sephiroth on the tree with a left/right positioning off the middle pillar. The energy center in the left sole of the foot was Venus, and the energy center in right sole of the foot was Mercury. It made sense then that Peh/Mars/Geburah and Caph/Jupiter/Chesed would be given to the palms of the hand.
So, there were the 4 outer planets of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, and only 3 upper chakras. There was the 3rd chakra that still needed an attribution, which meant one of the planets was going to have to take a “fall”. But that was absurd. The planets should be attributed in ever widening elliptical orbits. Of course, the solution was simple. Pluto had been ousted from the ranks of planetary status over a year ago! Personally, I never considered that huge outcropping of the Quiper Belt with its odd orbit a planet anyway. This made perfect sense in terms of a lesson I had been learning over the past two years in my spiritual practice (which follows…).
What would happen to “Pluto” then? It was most certainly not Pluto anymore. I changed the meaning of the Planetary symbol for Pluto to mean simply “”Animus”. Animus is the Zeitgeist, or, “The Spirit of the Times”. This was starting to fit perfectly considering Shin’s previous association in my mutation with the 3rd chakra. The Tarot Trump “The Aeon” is a very similar conception. The previous name of the card was “The Last Judgment”, which is where my 2 year study had come in.
The thing about the 3rd chakra is it is like a kind of gateway between rational thought and judgment, and the pure heart and love of the 4th chakra. What I realized through my practice of opening my heart and showing and feeling compassion under any circumstances, is that the 3rd chakra is really “the abyss” and the home of D’aath and Choronzon as we know it. Judgment coming from the rationality will always prevent a true heart opening, a true solar divine realization. Judgment is a device of the ego, and until one has overcome the “need” to be “right”, and until one has overcome the “need” to judge others and reflect their own misgivings about themselves upon others, then the heart cannot be opened. I have experienced this. This is what I would consider one of the main doctrines of this system. In the old Qabalistic scheme and “grade structure”, I think many people were fooling themselves into “thinking” that they had crossed “the abyss”. However, many of these people demonstrably could not open their hearts and show real compassion and openness. Compassion under any all circumstances is the only true result of a real attainment of “knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel”. Everything else belongs in the lower realms with the ego. Thus, Shin/Animus/D’aath is the 3rd chakra. (ed.- In recent times, I have become increasingly convinced of the probability that we are living in a Binary solar system, in which case this symbol would become our celestial moon, the brown dwarf star that is gravitationally married to our sun; perhaps the Sumerian Nibiru. The binary model goes very far to explain the phenomenon of precession. This would also be congruent with my idea of “animus”, because precession is also the root of the vedantic Yuga cycle, or the rise and fall of the ages)
This leaves us wide open for an easy attribution of the outer planets to the upper chakras. Tau/Saturn/Binah is attributed to the 5th chakra where it has found a home in more than a few other systems of thought. Aleph/Uranus/Chokmah is attributed to the 6th chakra, where it has been since the beginning of all this madness. And the most interesting thing of all is that Mem/Neptune/Kether is attributed to the 7th chakra. Mem has taken the crown! I puzzled over this for a few days for the following reasons.
Mem as the tarot trump “the hanged man” has been associated with “The Redeemer”, and to put a Christ oriented symbol at the 7th chakra during a transition time of the earth when your average Christian thinks we are living in end times, is well, perhaps not the best thing to do if you’re actually considering spreading and propagating the system. However, as symbolic of the awakening of “Christ Consciousness”, it is exactly what the world needs right now. It is very intriguing that all this came out of an intense study of my own body and “The Book of Thoth”. (I was raised going to church every Sunday and saying grace before meals, but I wouldn’t call my upbringing religious. However, the whole ritual of going to church and listening to “program”; the monotone priest, the echoing ceilings, etc., can now be obviously seen as a underlying program in my Perception of “Form”.) Those two sources were really all that was used in the mutation that resulted in these attributions. Another interesting point is that Mem is in Kether, and Mem final is in Malkuth, which happened completely by accident, but expresses the ever important doctrine of Kether is in Malkuth, but after another manner. Also, the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet of the newly formed supernal triad, from the 7th chakra to the 5th chakra, spell out MAT.
I don’t believe these kinds of occurrences “prove” anything except that the means of thinking Qabalistically takes full advantage of the neuro-plasticity of the brain. And in the Jungian sense, the Qabalistic operating system of personal attributions and correspondences is doing nothing more than throwing the light of consciousness into the depths of the shadow. The result is a schematic that the brain finds pure enjoyment at looking at and thinking about, because the neuro-pathways themselves have taken on the shape of what is being looked at through constant reinforcement. If that schematic and diagram becomes a “true” and “real” representation of the universe, then the brain will make a perfect union with the manifested universe itself…in other words, enlightenment.
With these speculations in mind, we will enter into the last phase of the mutation, and work out the elemental attributions to the 8 extraordinary meridians. I truly saved the best for last.

The more I looked at this equation, the more beautiful and sublime I realized it was. This is what Crowley meant when he expressed the equation 0=2 (Which is equally well expressed as 1-1=0 ).

of course, and what that means is that there is a mathematical expression using 3 values in combination which equal the unmanifest, or -1. This is an expression of the Ain, Ain Soph, and Ain Soph Aur.

This was so much for me to handle, that I finally decided to work out the classical elemental attributions to the final forms, and the totality of the 8 elements to the extraordinary vessels. The extraordinary meridians are difficult to find research about, so the process is ongoing. In addition, it was at this time I realized I needed to conceive of and design a new scale of measurement to remove the difficulty of comparing the elemental conceptions of the Eastern Medicine Paradigm with the Hermetic Paradigm. I decided to very simply rename the 4 classic elements using the four-fold arrangement that science uses today. Fire becomes Energy, Water becomes Time, Air becomes Space, Earth becomes Matter. When I label them as Tarot Trumps, then I use their classical magical weapons to make the correlation more clear. The names of the trumps are as follows:

The Wand of Energy
The Cup of Time
The Sword of Space
The Disc of Matter

In terms of tetragrammaton, we can say this:
Space gives rise to Matter. The marriage/union of Space and Matter gives rise to Time.
Time allows Perception to gather Energy. The union of Energy and Time gives rise to (Creative) Space.
This leads us directly into the formulation of our 5th element, which I have called Perception, and its letter and mathematical value
is that of φ, the golden mean. Its “magical weapon” is Form, thus:

The Perception of Form

This element taking the place of Spirit/Wood that we had been using previously.

The Perception of Form is the lens with which the witness, or “great observer”, or emptiness, is actually watching and perceiving all forms as they arise. The witness is the openness that we truly are, moment by moment. It is also the true nature of all forms that are arising. The equation of this emptiness, or witness, is being expressed here as

.
The classical names are of course, as previously mentioned Ain, Ain Soph, and Ain Soph Aur. Reformulating these names is just completely meaningless. When talking about the unmanifest, you can’t stay anything because of the inherent dualism and form in any concept whatsoever. Since all Forms that come into being are inherently Energy, and Energy has 3 basic forms of light, sound and vibration; we can use these 3 basic forms to express the 3 fold emptiness that gives rise to all forms, to all Energy. Thus:

That which is perceiving Form, has no Forms. These are negative, unmanifest conceptions of Energy. They are congruent with the Buddhist conception of Nirvana, pure “is”-ness. In terms of Buddhism, the next great leap after Buddha’s realization was the idea that Nirvana is none other than Samsara, and Samsara is none other than Nirvana. This leads us to how our equation is an expression of the “non-dual” reality.
The Non-Dual is the “0” of the equation.

is nothingness, or emptiness. The “+” sign is symbolic of “Perception of Form”, and “1” is the totality of all forms that arise. In this case, “1” is representing Tetragrammaton. Thus the equation is symbolic of:

Emptiness perceives Form = Emptiness and Form are not two, and not 1.

We’ll finish this treatise by giving the attributions of the 8 elements to the 8 vessels, and then proceed at embarrassing ourselves with some Qabalistic math.

The letters and numbers represent concepts, and not their mathematical values.

The following is a correspondence table of all 31 symbols, their energy body correlations; their astrological attributions; and the renamed trumps. Note: In the end I decided all the switching that the Golden Dawn and Crowley engaged in, was really more simply resolved by changing the Trump names, but keeping the natural order of the Trump numbers, and the Hebrew Letters.

This is as before, but with the new scale of measurement (renamed elements), and a basic conception of their controlling/constraining cycles. (Note: Allowing the elements to be interpreted under their guise as Tetragrammaton, as in Qabalah, allows for the doctrine of “soul”, or “Holy Guardian Angel” to still be expressed. It as the same as in the old system; we rarely say “attaining to the union of air”.

Time Constrains Energy
Energy Constrains Matter
Matter Constrains Perception
Perception Constrains Space
Space Constrains Time

Space gives rise to Matter.
The marriage/union of Space and Matter gives rise to Time.
Time allows Perception to gather Energy.
The union of Energy and Time gives rise to Space.

This is as before, but with the new “scale of measurement” (renamed elements) inputted into the correspondence table.