Let us postulate that various schools or traditions of mystical thought possess a common element -- wisdom. This element, purporting superior insight into human and cosmic nature, is the result of research, experimentation, and revelation. Further, it claims something akin to objective truth. If these claims are even partially correct, then it is reasonable to expect a high incidence of agreement between the various schools.
Psychologists and mythologists have fairly well demonstrated a substratum of general agreement among nearly all magicko-gnostic systems, but the goal of this essay is to compare the particular agreements between the popular Chaldeo-Cabbalistic cosmographic device "The Tree of Life" and the lore of the Pictish Tradition of Witchcraft regarding its own conception of the Emanations of divinity.Observe the accompanying illustration of the Pictish "tree". This cosmograph, based on the oral lore of Witches, may be called "The Thorns of the Blood Rose" or "The Tree of the Desire to Come Into Being".
The design itself is not old and was not used as a teaching device before 1981 -- however, the concepts that inform the diagram are some of the most antique in Western thought. Further, it is constructed for easy comparison with the Cabbalistic "Tree of Life"
Let us now enter into that comparison.
Refer to the top of the diagram.Here the student will see a three-pointed crescent type figure. In the artistic language of the diagram, this corresponds to the flower of the Rose Tree.
The crescent is similar to the ancient pictogram that is ceremonially referred to as the "Moon of Hecate" by initiates of the Pictish Tradition.
In the Moon of Hecate, the upright element represents the clitoris or phallus and refers to the Witch doctrine that sexual ardor reflects an indwelling of the Gods. Throughout our examination of the Rose Tree , the student should bear in mind that the "stem" or central shaft contains an underlying spirito-sexual symbolism. This "Middle Way" is considered perfect, as it implies sexual union with the Goddess. This union is considered the ultimate in cosmic consciousness.
Observing the triple crescent atop the Tree, the student will find three numerical symbols, three exotic names, and three English titles. The three members are triune, hence the crescent is one symbol with three parts. Sometimes when speaking of this unified triad it is referred to as NDNS (pronounced so as to rhyme with "nothing is"). This upper trinity is comparable to the three "Supernals" at the top of the Cabbalistic Tree, but there is one important difference that is critical to the Pictish mystery system: Zero is the ultimate deity, One is "Her Son" (radiation), and Two is "His Queen". (In the Cabbalistic system One is the ultimate Crown, Two is His Wisdom as all-father, and Three is His Understanding as all-mother.)
If we are correct in supposing that wisdom schools contain wisdom, then it must surely be to our advantage to determine which of these two formulae is more accurate.
The premise of the Fairy Tradition is that the Witches' supreme goddess is indeed the supreme creator and sustainer of the universe in its every facet (rather than the God of Moses who rules the Cabbalists). The reasoning is simple; just as the mother is the origin of the child, so the environment is the mother of phenomena. The Goddess of the Witches is the original nothing and the final nothing , this last proving that She is literally the Ultimate. Hence, She is given the value and symbol of Zero. Because She is ultimate, She is placed at the top of the Tree. She is called SINIS SUGMATHI which is said to mean HERE IS (NAMED) THE FULL MEASURE. In order to behold herself, She devised light. This was the first and greatest chaos and also the first and greatest (if not the only) artifact. (Proving, as the Cabbalists agree, that above the Abyss that separates the Supernals from the rest of the Tree, Creation and Destruction are no longer two but one.)
This first art -- chaos/light/movement -- is the Great God of the Witches, the primary consort and son, identified with certain brilliant stars such as Sirius and Sol, with the planet Venus and the "Millpole" that connects the turning night-sky with the Earth. Among his emblems are the erect penis, the third "horn" or torch on the head of the Horned God , and the number/numeral 1. He is the principle of movement, the mythical Big Bang. The Goddess, through her magical power, is the motivation for his motion. This "motivation" is equated with the invisible cause of tumescence in men and women and with the religious instinct of adoration. He is called DISI ORANO, which is said to mean THE SKY CRANKING. He is mythologically related to the Cronos/Set/Baal constellation of divinity.
Having created the prime artiface, Light, Sugmathi was able to behold Herself. By comparing herself to the chaotic desire of Phenomena to know Environment, She conceived the illusory principle of Dichotomy. Through this new concept, the principle of Femininity appeared as herself perceived in relation to the God. As paramour of the God, She is equal Queen to his King. It is now that we may truly discern the God and Goddess of the Witches -- the archetypal Man and Woman, whose perfect love causes the universe. He is the god of the one penis, She is the Goddess of the two thighs or buttocks (symbolized by the glyph II) which contain or straddle the one penis. She is called ISI DIAMATI, which is said to mean "Here (sits) the Double (or split) Measure".
It will be noticed that measurement, comparison, or containment are the chief properties of the Goddess.
Now, let's examine the other stations on the Tree.
Triple NDNS, having conceived of energy and its reflex, now extends itself further into the illusory worlds of human experience.Conceiving of the remaining possibilities as a sort of bottomless well (the Well of Space or the Greater Sea), Sugmathi studies her reflection in the still waters. Between her and her reflection there is a perfect beam of regard which is represented in our diagram as the main (water or sap-bearing) stem or stalk. The stalk is composed of manifestations of the Goddess. Because of the careering course of the God (he keeps crossing the stalk at successive stations), She seems different at each encounter, having the qualities, respectively, of 0, 3 (Saturn), 6 (Sun), 9 (the Moon), these latter three equating with the conventional Wiccan Maiden/Mother/Crone trinity.
As worshipers of the Goddess, we try to stay as close to the main sap-bearing stalk as possible -- yet the Lila or passion-play of life and ego sends us this way and that so that we are impaled upon the thorns of the various "planetary" experiences.
Leaping madly out of NDNS, Chaos encounters the first limited (to our solar system) goddess, NIMWEN (called the Hand from the Lake). She limits him and prophesies death. The planetary attribution is Saturn -- representing the youth-cult memory of the Golden Age of Plenty and also Death, considered as a measurement or back-drop to Life. She promises him death but she also prophesies glory (cf. the Norse time-control systems). This chafes at his movement. Encountering this resistance he becomes violent and would prove that he is greater than prophecies or dooms. Thus he hurls himself away from the breast (or hand) and becomes the young warrior ARRO , identified with Horus and Mars and the number Five.
The reader now observes an apparent discrepancy as regards the number sequence and the path from One to Three to Five. Whereas the number-signs would now appear to begin a zig-zag pattern familiar to students of the Cabbalistic Tree (i.e., 2, 3, 4, 5 ...), the actual path of the Black Snake has "leaped" from One through Three to Five. In order to explain somewhat the significance of these features we must understand the implications of the two "Snakes" that appear on the diagram.
The Pictish Tradition holds that the god of motion and subjectivity (Time), after performing some leap equivalent to the Cabbalistic Abyss and thereby initiating the performance of Time and Realism, splintered like light through a prism. Although there are many hues, they early-on show a division into categories that art-theorists call "Hot" and "Cold" colors. This mystery is informed by the extremely archaic cultus of the two-faced god. His constellation includes such schizophrenic deities as Set-Har , Vulcain-Ares, the Janus, Cain-Abel, and Grave's Holly-Oak dyads. One of the ways in which the Pictish cult symbolizes the two-faced god is by a black snake drawn beside a red snake. The symbolism is similar to that of the Vodoun loa Damballa Wedo and Aida Wedo. The Pictish system uses several other symbols to illustrate this dyad, but the two snakes are here utilized for the familiarity they might find with students of Ceremonial Magick.On the diagram , the Black Snake is seen as issuing from DIS, Lord of Chaos. From there he follows the sequence of odd numbers 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. His effect is chaotic and the main cause is selfishness. He has burst into the world like a child into a candy store. His pleasure can easily cause grief. He is "cold" (absorbs energy) and wants his way, yet is far too busy to learn deceit or cruelty. When crossing the central stem, his egotism is modified by love of the Goddess. This swings him around from one side of the Tree to the other, revealing his growth in temper and wisdom as he continues to prismatize first as Mars (5), then Venus (7), then terrestrial Set (11). [Students of the popular Cabbalistic scheme will here (at the eleventh station) be surprised to encounter the "Double" or "Devil" that the Mosaics and Amonites thought could be removed from the ancient stellar mythos. Before the monotheistic recensionists turned God into a "one handed man" (Yod = 10 = a hand), it was understood that this world was under the equal rule of both faces of deity, as in the earliest Egyptian renditions of Set-Har (i.e. Yod + Yod = 10 + 10 reduces to 11).]
Also present on the diagram is a paler snake that should be colored red. He is in the attitude of leaving our world and ascending toward the Goddess Diamati.
The reader should understand that both snakes represent the same god. The color describes the "exothermic" or "endothermic" function at any one point. The "change of color" occurs within the Well of the Witching Hour and will te discussed presently. For now, the reader must understand that all functions on the diagram are constantly and simultaneously occuring. That is to say, sequential time is moot in discussion of the constant performance of all prismatized aspects of the God, i.e., he is at every phase at every moment in this meta-time. Only through attachment to illusion does he imagine himself to be caught on any specific Thorn.
The Red Snake is exothermic. He is peculiar to the even-numbered stations 4, 8, and 10. Whereas the Black Snake was self-centered to the point of imprudence, the Red Snake has the reverse character -- having been through the mysterious Thirteenth Initiation, he is filled with a religious adoration of the Goddess which often manifests as altruism and selflessness. In this cycle of gods we see the type of the common Right-Hand Path systems of attainment.
As the number 10, he manifests as the terrestrial CRAINONIS - "The Crown King" - official deity (what the Ceremonialists might call "Outer Head") of our world. He is recognizable in Cernunnos, Zeus, Osiris, the god of Protestant Xians , etc. By crossing the Goddess' 9th Station (MORGWEN = Mirror Mistress), he realizes that study of lore must take place if he is to prove worthy of his Queen. This path takes him to the 8th Station, GWYDONIS ("The White Head"), associated with the Hermes/Tahuti constellation of deity. Encountering the Goddess 6 (the Sun), greatest reflection of the Goddess on this side of the Flower, he studies jurisprudence. Through this lesson he becomes ATHO, 4, associated with Jupiter and King Arthur -- a pure emperor on a pure plane. When he relinquishes the last of his ego (returning the sword to the lake at the Saturnine station 3) his goal is achieved: he realizes that he has all this time been DISI and that he is forever in union with his goddess in NDNS.
The function of the Tree is fed by a mysterious bottomless "Well" of unexplored potential. This is a sort of ghost or shadow resultant from the creation of NDNS according to some implicit law of symmetry.The existence of this "Well" has been partially perceived by the new Cabbalists of the Left-Hand Path, led by Kenneth Grant and Soror Adnahadna, who have called it such names as "The Tree of Death" and "Universe B". The pseudonymous author of the greater NECRONOMICON is more correct when he borrows the Sumerian Absu -- The Abyss. In the realm of human activity, it is a function of the "Unconscious," both collective and individual. Within the depths of this Well are hidden the atavistic forces of radical evolution that seem so mysterious and savage, yet control so much of human experience. The powers of 12 and 13 were deleted (along with 11) by the Judaic recensionists of the Chaldean astro-spiritual science because they treat of the animal and unconscious powers of the body and mind. The techniques for interrogating this hidden knowledge were despised by the ancient Hebrew mystics, involving as they do formulae of sexuality and reversion of the "daytime" senses, which were forbidden by the strongest of Judaic tribal taboos.
Witchcraft, as a Sinister or Vama Marg form of Western practice and gnosis, has retained knowledge of this dark underworld wherefrom all magick is derived.
There is one entrance to the Well, i.e. MAGHU MER goddess of 12 midnite. The Black Snake, when crossing this frightful goddess of the uttermost north, must relinquish all selfish ego, performing a "mating" that involves "becoming" the Maghu Mer (with attendant rites of transvestism and passivity) and suffering "death". If this dangerous entrance to the underworld is performed correctly, the true soul of the protagonist is set free of death and shines as the Sun at Midnite in unison with Maghu. He may now pass even deeper.
At the uttermost depths the god encounters the station or goddess IS (#13, the Witching Hour) and undergoes the ultimate transformation of "rebirth" or re-consecration, becoming the exothermic Red Snake. To portray the nature of this experience, which is the perfect counterpart of the super-consciousness of the Flower, is impossible. It is the essence and crisis of the Great Work. It is the 13th hour not on the "clock," the place where, in the prototime, inanimate matter was animated and given access to infinity. It is the totality of the Houses of the Zodiac plus the "pole" connecting Heaven and Earth, and also the w/hole in which the pole is set -- true access to the Other World.
In the Pictish system of Witchcraft , Humanity and Time are symbolized and informed by the two-faced god of chaos, Light, or Motion. The Great Work of complete unity with the Creator/Environment is symbolized by the adventures of the god as he "seeks" or "loves" the various aspects of the Goddess. Experience is considered as a love-game illusion. Reality is considered as the ego-loss period of eternal mutual orgasm.
