From: rjb@milton.u.washington.edu (LeGrand Cinq-Mars)
Subject: Daath, correspondences, tentative historical account (very dry)
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 15:57:36 GMT


    There are a number of ways to go about trying 
to answer the question of how it happened that 
Daath is given IHVH ALHIM as a divine name, 
especially in connection with the Middle Pillar 
exercise.  One can answer from the point of view 
of practical experience, personal preference, or 
theory or theology.  We've seen some interesting 
statements along these lines in this discussion.

    I'd like to go at it slightly differently, 
just to use a so-far unused angle of vision:  the 
historical.  In other words, is it possible to 
trace what the sequence of events was?  And, since 
this medium doesn't really allow one to indulge in 
extensive flights of footnoted scholarship (with 
any hope, anyway, that anyone will read them), is 
it possible to do it briefly?  I'll try.  But 
it'll be dry.

    The canonical form of the Middle Pillar 
exercise appears first in works by Israel 
Regardie, though there are precursor tributaries, 
and a continuously widening delta of derivatives.  
Regardie specifically states that he worked up the 
exercise after reading _The Secret of the Golden 
Flower_ when it was translated from Wilhelm's 
German translation, and that Jung's introduction 
(with its comments about the meaning of 
circumambulation) had inspired him.  Regardie also 
(later) pointed out that the exercise as he 
described it had not been extant in the Stella 
Matutina or in the Golden Dawn, and that people 
who had copied it from him had been plagiarizing  
(if they actually had any familiarity with the 
GD/SM teachings) -- or else pretending to a 
knowledge of the GD/SM teachings that they 
actually did not have.  This isn't *quite* fair, 
but it is justifiable enough to use as a pointed 
remark.  Regardie's Middle Pillar exercise (the 
formulation of the Middle Pillar with activated 
Sephiroth, the circulation of breath and light in 
three (or four) patterns, the use of elemental 
attributions for the central Sephiroth and 
planetary attributions to modulate the circulated 
energies) is the first clear appearance in this 
literature of IHVH ALHIM as a divine name 
pertaining to Daath.  (There is a letter extant by 
WB Yeats, by the way, in which he is eagerly 
looking for the just-out Englished _Golden 
Flower_, which he says he and his fellow students 
have heard is really hot stuff.  Regardie then was 
not the only SM affiliate to take notice of the 
text.)

    The Middle Pillar work described in the Portal 
documents in the published versions of the GD 
material consists simply of formulating the Middle 
Pillar -- but no mention is made in those 
instructions of vibrating any divine name in Daath 
(described as "at the nape of the neck") -- or for 
that matter in Tiphareth [ an omission which 
complicates things a little, but enough other 
evidence exists so that I'll just note it as a 
problematic point and go on:  I don't think, 
though, that it was due to any reluctance about 
pronouncing IHVH].  Furthermore, Regardie stated 
(in _The Complete &c_) that his inability to find 
any pre-SM versions of this instructional paper 
led him to believe it had been developed in and by 
the SM (as indeed internal evidence would 
suggest). This speculation is supported by the 
older strata of GD material on the "vibratory 
formula of the Middle Pillar," and so on, which 
take a quite different approach.

    Furthermore, in none of the earlier GD 
material is Daath given as much place as it has 
later come to have.  It is given a set of color 
attributions in the four color scales, but those 
scales seem to come into circulation with the 
development of the Second Order (and some 
additional problematic points arise in connection 
with that).  It is not given any other 
attributions; it does not appear in Sephirotic 
tables (this is true also of the tables Crowley 
prints in 777).  In fact, there is some 
variability even within the GD material about 
names associated with various sephiroth.  Kether 
is associated with AHIH, but Chokmah is sometimes 
IHVH and sometimes IH; Binah is sometimes IHVH and 
sometimes IHVH ALHIM.  Binah, at any rate, is 
regarded as the receptacle and completion of the 
Supernals, and as thus having the most complete 
name.  This kind of variability is characteristic 
of Kabbalistic tradition in general, as a look at 
the _Zohar_, or at Kaplan's valiant attempt to 
synthesize commentaries on the Sepher Yetzirah_, 
will show.  It shows up in Mathers' (1887) 
_Kabbalah Unveiled_, which contains very 
interesting material on Daath.

    Some pressure toward finding for Daath a set 
of attributes must have come first with the use of 
the planetary hexagram, which put Saturn at the 
top, where Daath would be if the hexagram were 
placed on the Tree.  Thus Daath becomes the 
representative of all the Supernals (as 
represented by Binah), which in turn leads to a 
transvaluation of Saturn.  Some additional 
pressure to give Daath a name as well as a local 
habitation must have been generated with the 
development of the SM Middle Pillar exercise from 
the prior GD recommendation to practice 
formulating the three pillars in the aura.

    In general, the name affiliated with Daath was 
probably taken for some time as "a synthesis of 
the divine names of Chokmah and Binah," specifics 
left to the discretion of the practitioner, in 
line with Daath's quasi-existence as the resultant 
[not result] of the sexual union of Chokmah and 
Binah.  This might have given IH/IHVH, or 
IHVH/IHVH ALHIM, but certainly that pattern would 
suggest sooner or later simply assigning IH to 
Chokmah, IHVH to Binah, and IHVH ALHIM to Daath.  
This would have been further encouraged by the use 
of IHVH ALVH VDOTh as the name of Tiphareth, thus 
establishing another congenial sequence.

    With the general adoption of the full Regardie 
Middle Pillar exercise [and the latent content of 
Daath symbolism as adumbrated but never fully 
deployed in the Second Order], there was obvious 
reason to crystallize the attributions in the form 
that became known, for a few years, as the 
traditional attributions of the Western Esoteric 
Tradition.  A quick look into Fortune's _Mystical 
Qabalah_ did not convince me that she was aware of 
this usage, but Knight's _Practical Guide_ does 
admit it, while thrashing around a bit with 
alternative usages as well.  Butler, of course, 
uses it without hesitation.  It is not exactly a 
usage with a long tradition, but it it's one that 
did resolve a number of structural difficulties, 
and make the notion of Daath more accessible.

    Once this usage was adopted, however, it 
became natural for Daath to become more of a 
Sephirah in its own right.  As indeed it has.

    So that's an account of how it may have come 
about, and have come to be seen as a satisfactory 
way of doing things.  For those of you who have 
endured to the end, a program of rehydration is 
probably in order.  L'chayim.

    --LeGrand