LITTLE LECTURES ON MAGICK, PART 4: THE ENOCHIAN UNIVERSE

He symbolized the Fourth-Dimensional Universe in two dimensions as a square surrounded by 30 concentric circles (the 30 Æthyrs or Aires) whose radii increase in a geometrical proportion...The sides of the square are the four great watch-towers which are attributed to the elements. There is also a “black cross” (or “central tablet” according to the arrangement shewn)...

--Aleister Crowley, Liber Chanokh

LIKE THE TREE OF LIFE the Enochian Watchtowers are a conceptual model of existence.  This model consists of two main parts; one signifies the Earth and is a table made up of lettered squares, 25 columns by 27 rows.  The other signifies the Heavens, consisting of 30 concentric circles surrounding and enclosing this grid (see the diagram below). As we shall see, the Circles and the Squares are perfect reflections of one another.  Though at first glance this may not look anything like the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the two models in fact work very much the same way.

The Keys

The first things Dee and Kelley were given by the Angels were the Enochian Keys, dictated in both the Angelic language and English.  These consisted of 18 Keys meant to be used with the Watchtowers of Earth, and 30 Keys meant to be used with the Aethyrs of Heaven (though technically they were given only 48 Keys total, they were told there was a 49th being held back from them).

The Aethyrs

Next they were given were the 30 three-letter names of the Aethyrs.  These Aethyrs enclose each other like the layers of an onion, with the first Aethyr, LIL, being the outermost, and the thirtieth, TEX, being innermost and closest to the Material World.  Each Aethyr is ruled by 3 Governors, except TEX, which being closest to the Material World has 4.  The names of these Governors are all 7 letters long.  Along with each Governor's name, Dee and Kelley were given a Sigil for that name (see the accompanying picture for a sample).  The grand total of Governors was 91.

Dee was told little about these Aethyrs.  But as we shall see, much can be gleaned about them from the Watchtowers.

The Watchtowers

The lettered square at the heart of the circles is called "the Great Table." It represents the Material World, the Earth.  

The Great Table is composed of four smaller tables, and these correspond to the Four Elements (Air, Fire, Earth, and Water) as well as the Four Directions (East, South, North, and West).  Each of these is said to be a Watchtower, occupied by a Great King, his Seniors, and various angelic and demonic beings.  These Four Watchtowers stand guard over the material universe, and are responsible for maintaining and governing it.  The Watchtowers are connected by a central "Black Cross" of Spirit, the 5th Element or "quintessence."

Each Watchtower consists of 12 columns and 13 rows of letters, for a total of 156 letters per Watchtower.  Some of these letters are capital, some are lowercase, and two letters per Watchtower are backwards.  There are reasons for all of this.  Every Watchtower is further subdivided into four quadrants by another cross created by the 6th and 7th columns and the 7th row.  These quadrants are each made of 5 columns and 6 rows.  Again, there is nothing arbitrary in any of this.

Finally, each quadrant contains yet another cross, made by the 3rd column  and the 2nd row of that quadrant.  See the picture above for clarification.

The Black Cross holds only 4 names, but the left side and bottom of the cross mirror the names (see above).

The Angels instructed Dee and Kelley to letter the Great Table in English, rather than the "Angelic Script" of the Celestial tongue.  This is crucial, because the Angelic Script doesn't have capitals or lower case letters.  Kelley and Dee drew up the grid and lettered all several hundred squares from left to right, top to bottom, instructed to write capitals seemingly at random.  There seemed no rhyme or reason to the eight backwards letters either (shown above with an asterisk).  The Angels refused to explain, and it wasn't until years later--long after the sessions ended and Kelley was gone--that Dee finally cracked the code.  The mysterious capitals mark the initial letter of a Governor's name.  The names of the 91 Governors make up the letters on the Great Table, each one arranged in the shape of its Sigil, like interlocking puzzle pieces...  

The Watchtowers of Earth thus mirror the Heavens.  The same 91 Governors who define the Aethyrs define them.

The Governors in the Watchtowers

Each Watchtower, as it turns out, is made up of exactly 22 Governors.  As we shall see, this is vital.  The eight reversed letters, however, are a special case.  One of them, the "L," wraps "around" to the black cross to make a Governor name.  That leaves seven, PARAOAN, unaccounted for. When Dee questioned the Angels about PARAOAN, they were warned each letter of the name is a living fire and the final N is a vial of destruction.

Qabalistic  Correspondences 

When we examine the Enochian Model, it begins to resemble both the Tarot and the Tree of Life in fundamental ways.  Partly, this is because the same numbers are in play; 1-10, especially 3 and 7, along with 12 and 22 are all key.  The extremely significant Kabbalistic number 13 is also present (we touched on 13 in a broad sense--the 12 edges of the Cube plus the center--but it is very important in Hebrew gematria.  13 is the enumeration of Unity "AChD" and Love "AHVH." Together these make 26, "YHVH," suggesting the nature of God is Unity and Love).  

But the numbers are only part of the story.  Like the Tree of Life, the Enochian universe assumes both a spiritual and a physical dimension, the Heavens and the Earth.  Both Enochian and Qabalistic cosmologies postulate a spiritual hierarchy that governs the cosmos.  And both incorporate the idea of the Four Elements, the Seven Planets, the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, and the notion of Heaven as a Sphere and the Earth as a Cube.  All of this makes it easy to draw parallels between the Tree of Life, Tarot, and Enochian.

Consider the 30 Aethyrs.  In most schools of Qabalah, there is not one Tree of Life, there are actually four (one Tree for each of the Qabalistic worlds, see below).   This fits nicely with the Four Suits of the Tarot.  The Six of Wands, for example, is Six in the highest world of Atziluth.  The Six of Cups is Six in Briah, the Six of Swords is Six in Yetzirah, and the Six of Discs is Six in Assiah, the Material World.  The 30 Aethyrs, likewise, correspond to the Trees in Atziluth, Briah, and Yetzirah.  The first Aethyr, LIL, corresponds to  Kether in Atziluth, while the Thirtieth, TEX, corresponds to Malkuth in Yetzirah.  The Fourth Tree is actually hidden in the Watchtowers, which correspond to Assiah, the Material World (as we shall see, there are ten "choirs" of Angels in each Watchtower).  

These four Trees of Life also have 22 paths each, so theoretically there are four sets of Tarot Trumps, one each for the Fiery world of Atziluth, the Watery world of Briah, the Airy world of Yetzirah, and the Earthy world of Assiah.  In the Enochian system, there are 22 Governors in each of the Watchtowers, a direct parallel of this. 

Looking at the Watchtowers, each corresponds to a classical Element, and thus to  a Tarot Suit.  The Watchtower of the East and Air corresponds to Swords, the Watchtower of the West and Water to Cups, the Watchtower of the South and Fire to Wands, and the Watchtower of the North and Earth to Discs.  Each of these, as we have seen, is subdivided into Quadrants, and these correspond to the Court Cards.  The Quadrants of the Southern Watchtower, for example, relate to the Knight, Queen, Prince, and Princess of Wands.  And again, each Watchtower is home to 10 Choirs of Angels, each corresponding to one of the small cards.  The 22 Trumps are present in each as the 22 Governors.

In addition to the Watchtower associations above, each tower is itself the Ace, with each of the quadrants relating to a court card.  This fact, coupled with each tower being lettered by the names of 22 Governor (each relating to a Tarot Trump) means that the Great Table itself contains the whole of the Tarot in it.

The following tables have been prepared to demonstrate some of these correspondences.

LITTLE LECTURES ON MAGICK, PART 2: THE QABALAH AND THE TAROT

...Eliphas Levi declared that by arranging the Tarot cards according to a definite order man could discover all that is knowable concerning his God, his universe, and himself. When the ten numbers which pertain to the globes (Sephiroth) are combined with “22 letters relating to the channels, the resultant sum is 32--the number peculiar to the Qabbalistic Paths of Wisdom. These Paths...are analogous to the first 32 degrees of Freemasonry, which elevate the candidate to the dignity of a Prince of the Royal Secret. Qabbalists also consider it extremely significant that in the original Hebrew Scriptures the name of God should occur 32 times in the first chapter of Genesis...

Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Kabbalah is an esoteric discipline for reading, and discovering, hidden knowledge encoded in the Torah.  This is, at least, it's original purpose.  One of Kabbalah's methodologies is gematria, based on the fact that the Hebrew alphabet--as with the Greek, Roman, and many others--served as numerals as well as sounds.  This means that Hebrew words are themselves all values.  For Jewish mystics, shared values between words indicated deeper connections which demonstrate the hidden construction of the world.  The most common example is that the Tetragrammaton, YHVH, has a value of 26.  26 is also the value of ABHA and AChD, "Love" and "Unity," which the Kabbalists read as insight into God's nature.

To better investigate the hidden meanings of words, Hebrew Kabbalah embraced Pythagorean numerical mysticism, and this more than anything made the discipline attractive to those outside of Judaism.  Aside from gematria, Kabbalists constructed a diagram--based on Pythagorean concepts--called the Etz haChayim or "Tree of Life" after the one in Eden.  This was said to be a blueprint of Creation, showing not only the structure of the Universe and Man, but the mind of God.  Hermetic Kabbalists--commonly referred to as Qabalists to distinguish them from Judaic mystics--adopted gematria and the Tree of Life to build their model of the universe.

The Tree of Life is constructed from the Numbers we discussed in the last chapter.  0, 1-10, and 22 are the most essential.  The entire schema is an attempt to "Square the Circle," or unite Earth and Heaven.  For this reason its skeleton is based on 3 and 4. 

For starters, the Tree of Life is made of four overlapping circles.  These correspond to the letters of the Divine Name, YHVH.  Y is the letter of Fire, the Father, and Atziluth, the Divine Plane.  H is the letter of Water, the Mother, and Briah, the Archangelic Plane.  V is the letter of Air, the Son, and the Angelic Plane of Yetzirah.  The final H is the letter of Earth, the Daughter, and the Elemental Plane of Assiah.  Where these circles or Planes overlap, Ten Spheres or Sephiroth are formed.  These Sephiroth correspond exactly to the values of the Numbers we discussed in the last chapter, so that the highest sphere is "Unity" and the lowest is "Completion."

The four Planes or Worlds are meant to show the process of manifestation.  The best way to understand this is by example.

There is a coffee cup on the table in front of me.  It Atziluth, the highest plane, it isn't really a coffee cup...it's a swirling pattern of atomic particles beyond my senses.  This is the "Divine Fire" that forms the true substance of Creation.  But the next plane, Briah, is the Ideal plane of consciousness.  This is where my idea of "cupness" resides.  It is the repository of all such ideas.  In Yetzirah, Fire and Water (Father and Mother) come together to form Air, the Son.  In this plane my senses read impressions from the cup (its shape, it's color, it's texture) and uses these to marry the phenomena to one of the ideas in my head.  The final result of this process is Assiah, the material world, where the object is not atomic particles but is now--for me--a cup. A coffee cup.  From a Qabalistic view we are all the Creators, using the ideas in our head and our senses to manifest the entire world from Fire.

It is easy to see, at this point, how nicely the ten Numbers fit into this plan.  Where Ultimate Reality (Y) and Ideal Reality (H) meet we have the three numbers of Heaven, Unity, Division, and Space.  Where Ideal Reality (H) meets Sensual Reality (V), we have Matter, Time, and Individual Consciousness.  Sensual Reality (V) meets with Physical Life (H) to generate Individuality, Sensation, Learning, Creation, and Completion. 

Two more things must be noted. Above the Tree is what the Qabalists call Ain, or "Nothing" (the blue curve in the diagram).  The Tree of Life is understand to grow downwards, rooted in Heaven, from the concept of Zero.  It is best then to think of the first Sephiroth as the trunk of the Tree and the tenth as the summit.  Zero, then, exists above the Ideal Plane of Briah. We can have no conception of it.

Between the upper three Sephiroth and the lower seven (the 3 and 7 of Heaven and Earth) is a gap where no Sephiroth exists.  This is the Abyss, the gulf between Heaven and Earth caused (in mythology) by the Fall.  The Tenth sphere at the base of the Tree  replaces this gap.

Before we continue, please note that this arrangement creates three columns of Sephiroth, or "Pillars."  These grow down from and reflect the highest three Sephiroth of Heaven.  The right pillar grows from 2, and reflects Maleness and Force.  The left pillar grows from Space and reflect Femaleness and Form.  The middle pillar grows from Unity and reflects Consciousness.

So far we have seen how the basic framework of the Tree is based on the numbers of 3, 4, and 1-10.  But the number 22 is also crucial here.  As we noted, 22 comes from the three vectors of the Cube, the seven points of the Cube, and the twelves edges of the Cube.  As 3 and 7 are also Heaven and Earth, we see in 22 the sum total of creation.

Hebrew letters are themselves divided up this way.  There are three Mother Letters, seven Double Letters, and twelve Singles.  Since this is not a study in Hebrew, we needn't dwell on what that means.   What is important to us here is that Kabbalists believed the universe was something that Yahweh (YHVH) spoke into existence, using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet (again, simultaneously sounds and numbers).  Qabalists have a similar concept, in that the Mind creates the universe from numbers and letters as well.  The 3, 7, and 12 letters of the Hebrew alphabet thus form "paths" between the static Sephiroth.  They may be thought of as bridges or roads between the spheres, or conduits for the Divine Fire.  On the Tree of Life three are horizontal, seven are vertical, and twelve diagonal.  They correspond to the Elements (Fire, Water, and Air...Earth is the final Sephiroth at the base of the Tree), the Planets (Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), and the 12 signs of the Zodiac.

Taken together, this schema give us 32 categories of Creation.  This is again the Union of Heaven and Earth.  Think of One (Unity) doubling six times (the number of the Cube), 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32.  This is the also the number of times God is mentioned in Genesis.  Into these "slots" the Qabalist is encouraged to categorize all phenomena, turning the Tree of Life into an elaborate memory palace.

Let us take as our example the 6th Sephira, called "Tiphareth" (Individual Consciousness in our Pythagorean model).  We know 6 is the faces of the Cube, connecting it to Earth, but it is also the product of 1 and 2 and 3, the  numbers of Heaven.  So we can see it as a sort of mediator or bridge between Heaven and Earth.  This makes sense; looking at the Tree again it is positioned in the Middle Pillar between 9 (the Ego, or Lower Self) and 1 (Unity, the Divine).  Six is then the Word Made Flesh, the Christ described by John.  It is the link between God and Man.  We should not be surprised then that the Cube, flattened out, makes a Cross.

It's Hermetic planet is Sol, the  Sun.  Again, this works; the Sun is the Son.  But the Sun is also our local star, and thus a sort of personal god, a bridge between Earth and the Heavens.  And the Sun rises and sets; in ancient mythologies Sun gods die and are resurrected.  So we assign other deities here, such as Osiris, Ra, and Dionysus.  Solar associations also give us metals like gold, animals like the Phoenix, and gems like the yellow diamond.  The list goes on and on and on.  Apply the same to the 31 other categories and soon we have an entire conceptual model of the universe built up on our Tree.

The Tarot

An imprisoned person with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence.

Elphias Levi

The Tarot was not created as an esoteric tool; it was a deck of cards for gambling.  The Italian tarocchi and its French cousin, from whom we get the word tarot, was played with four suits and an extra set of Trump cards.  It began to transition from a card game to a divinatory device in the late 18th century.  Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Protestant Freemason, speculated the cards were actually of ancient Egyptian origin.  Elphias Levi later connected them to the Kabbalah.

Even if they were not made as a divinatory tool, they certainly seem made for it.  By chance (?) the cards are built along the exact same Pythagorean principles as the Tree of Life.  To wit, there are 4 suits that correspond exactly to the Four Qabalistic worlds, each with 4 Court Cards that perfectly mirror the formula of the Tetragrammaton (Father, Mother, Son, Daughter) and 10 lower cards that correspond to the Sephiroth or Pythagorean Decade.   The Trumps, with evocative titles and images like the Devil, Death, and the Sun, are 22 in number (like the letters of the Hebrew alphabet or the dimensions of the Cube).  Even better, of the 22 Trumps one, the Fool, is numbered "zero," leaving 21 others...3 sets of 7.  The Tarot couldn't have been better suited to Hermetic purposes if it had been designed by an initiate.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn made the Tarot central to its doctrines (alongside Qabalah and Enochian), and its most infamous graduate, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) made it a centerpiece of his teachings.  In The Book of Lies he wrote;

The Great Wheel of Samsara.

The Wheel of the Law.

The Wheel of the Taro.

The Wheel of the Heavens.

The Wheel of Life.

All these Wheels be one; yet of all these the Wheel of the TARO alone avails thee consciously.

Meditate long and broad and deep, 0 man, upon this Wheel, revolving it in thy mind!

Be this thy task, to see how each card springs necessarily from each other card, even in due order from The Fool unto The Ten of Coins.

Then, when thou know'st the Wheel of Destiny complete, may'st thou perceive THAT Will which moved it first. [There is no first or last.]

And lo! thou art past through the Abyss.

Towards the end of his life Crowley worked with British painter Lady Frieda Harris (1877-1962) to create what must be one of the definitive esoteric Tarots, the Thoth Deck.  His companion volume, the Book of Thoth, is a masterpiece.  In it, he takes the Golden Dawn's encyclopedic correspondences and associations and brings the new Thelemic formula of the New Aeon to them (see the next chapter).  His Tarot, on the Tree of Life, is as follows;

The meanings of the small cards derive directly from the Pythagorean Decade, filtered however though the Element or Plane of each suit.

Wands: Fire, Y-The Father,Will and Action

Cups: Water, H-The Mother, Emotion and Ideals

Swords: Air, V-The Son, Thought and Definition

Discs: Earth, H-The Daughter, Matter and Senses

Thus, the Two of Wands signifies Separation or Polarity in Will, whilst the Two of Swords is the same in Thought.  The Eight of Cups is Learning from an Emotional experience, while the Eight of Discs is learning from Material ones.

The Court Cards, then, show the manifestation of the Tetragrammaton in each World.  The Knights represent the Fiery element, the Queens are Aqueous, the Princes are Airy and the Princesses are Earthy.  So the Knight of Wands is the paternal, Fiery portion of Air.  The Queen of Discs is the Maternal, Aqueous portion of Earth. 

The 22 Trumps are somewhat more complex, deriving their meaning from the Element, Planet, or Zodiacal sign they are associated with (by way of the Hebrew alphabet).  To get the reader started, I provide here Crowley's short poetic descriptions of each from The Heart of the Master;

0. The Fool

Know Naught!

All ways are lawful to Innocence.

Pure folly is the Key to Initiation.

Silence breaks into Rapture.

Be neither man nor woman, but both in one.

Be silent, Babe in the Egg of Blue, that thou mayest grow to bear the Lance and Graal!

Wander alone, and sing! In the King's Palace his daughter awaits thee.

I. The Magus

The True Self is the meaning of the True Will: know Thyself through Thy Way!

Calculate well the Formula of Thy Way!

Create freely; absorb joyously; divide intently; consolidate completely.

Work thou, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, in and for Eternity.

II. The Priestess

Purity is to live only to the Highest; and the Highest is All: be thou as Artemis to Pan!

Read thou in the Book of the Law, and break through the veil of the Virgin!

III. The Empress

This is the Harmony of the Universe, that Love unites the Will to create with the Understanding of that Creation: understand thou thine own Will!

Love and let love! Rejoice in every shape of love, and get thy rapture and thy nourishment thereof!

IV. The Emperor

Pour water on thyself: thus shalt thou be a Fountain to the Universe.

Find thou thyself in every Star!

Achieve thou every possibility!

V. The Hierophant

Offer thyself Virgin to the Knowledge and Conversation of thine Holy Guardian Angel! All else is a snare.

Be thou athlete with the eight limbs of Yoga; for without these thou are not disciplined for any fight.

VI. The Lovers

The Oracle of the Gods is the Child-Voice of Love in thine own Soul! hear thou it!

Heed not the Siren-Voice of Sense, or the Phantom-Voice of Reason: rest in Simplicity, and listen to the Silence!

VII. The Chariot

The issue of the Vulture, Two-in-One, conveyed; this is the chariot of Power.

T R I N C : The last oracle!

VIII. Adjustment

Balance against each thought its exact opposite!

For the Marriage of these is the Annihilation of Illusion.

IX. The Hermit

Wander alone; bearing the Light and thy Staff!

And be the Light so bright that no man seeth thee!

Be not moved by aught without or within: keep Silence in all ways!

X. Fortune

Follow thy Fortune, careless where it lead thee!

The axle moveth not: attain thou that!

XI. Lust

Mitigate Energy with Love; but let Love devour all things.

Worship the name _______*, foursquare, mystic, wonderful, and the name of His House 418.

(This Name to be communicated to those worthy of that Initiation.)

XII. The Hanged Man

Let not the waters whereon thou journeyest wet thee! And, being come to shore, plant thou the Vine and rejoice without shame.

XIII. Death

The Universe is Change: every Change is the effect of an Act of Love; all Acts of Love contain Pure Joy. Die daily!

Death is the apex of one curve of the snake Life: behold all opposites as necessary complements, and rejoice!

XIV. Art

Pour thine all freely from the Vase in thy right hand, and lose no drop! Hath not thy left hand a vase?

Transmute all wholly into the Image of thy Will, bringing each to its true token of Perfection!

Dissolve the Pearl in the Wine-cup: drink, and make manifest the Virtue of that Pearl!

XV. The Devil

With thy right Eye create all for thyself, and with the left accept all that be created otherwise!

XVI. The Tower

Break down the fortress of thine Individual Self, that thy Truth may spring free from the ruins!

XVII. The Star

Use all thine energy to rule thy thought: burn up thy thought as the Phoenix!

XVIII. The Moon

Let the Illusion of the World pass over thee, unheeded, as thou goest from the Midnight to the Morning!

XIX. The Sun

Give forth thy light to all without doubt: the clouds and shadows are no matter for thee.

Make Speech and Silence, Energy and Stillness, twin forms of thy play!

XX. The Aeon

Be every Act an Act of Love and Worship!

Be every Act the Fiat of a God!

Be every Act a Source of radiant Glory!

XXI. The Universe

Treat time and all conditions of Event as Servants of thy Will, appointed to present the Universe to thee in the form of thy Plan.

And: blessing and worship to the prophet of the lovely Star!

THE ANGEL MOST HIGH, PART 2; The fourth article on the work of Andrew Chumbley

As I mentioned before, the word "occult" simply means "hidden," and the word "esoteric" means "inner" (its opposite is "exoteric," the outer appearance of things).  These definitions must always be kept in mind by those approaching literature of this kind.  The really great occultists, and I think Chumbley belongs in this category, write passages like Russian matryoshka dolls.  If you look at the surface of what is written, you are missing what is hidden inside.  You need to dig, dig again, and then dig some more.  The reasoning behind this sort of thing is not merely to encode it--something that was desperately necessary in the centuries when the Church had the power to execute those who questioned its doctrines--nor to keep it from the eyes of the 'profane.'  The fact is occultists are often trying to communicate something incommunicable, or more to the point, something that the reader must seek for himself.  Once more, the world of magic is a mirror, and in digging through a layers of a passage like this, the reader is looking deeper and deeper into himself.  You cannot simply be "told" any meaningful secret...it has to be discovered and earned.  My purpose is unpacking this 300-word passage of Chumbley's is not only to illuminate his philosophy, but to demonstrate to the reader the intricacy of this kind of work.

You cannot simply be "told" any meaningful secret...it has to be discovered and earned. 

And so Chumbley has given us a recycled version of the myth of Lucifer, simultaneously drawing us deeper and earlier to the Hebrew "fallen angel" myth that precedes the Christian retelling.  In doing so, he has tipped his Gnostic hand.  There are at least two deeper levels ahead, but we need to stop a minute and consider the meaning of what we have already discovered.  We need to dwell on "Gnostic" for a bit.

"Gnosticism" is an umbrella term for hundreds of sects, but what they all share is an approach to truth if not the same conclusions on what the "truth" is.  The Indian subcontinent, which gave rise to some of the richest philosophical and religious traditions in the world, often employs the word yoga when discussing spiritual practices.  This is not merely stretching and breathing exercises; in India it is synonymous with "religion."  In fact, the word yoga is connected to the English "yoke," both Sanskrit and English being descendants of a common Indo-European tongue.  They both mean the same thing; something that "joins" two things together.  This is exactly the meaning of "religion," from the Latin re ligio (to bind two things together; "ligature" comes from the same source).  

India recognizes many types of yoga, or religious approaches, three of the most common being bhakti yoga (joining yourself to the divine through love and faith), karma yoga (joining yourself to the divine through good works and proper conduct), and jnaya yoga (joining yourself to the divine through knowledge and direct experience).  Historically, the Christian Church in the west decided early on that bhakti was the official method of coming to God, with karma running second.  But Christianity has always been uncomfortable with "knowledge," a word again linguistically related to both the Sanskrit jnaya and the Greek gnosis through those same Indo-European roots.  It is a matter of historical record that the Church tried relentlessly to eradicate any knowledge that contradicted its teachings--the Renaissance only could occur after prolonged contact with Islamic civilization, which had preserved classical writings instead of destroying them.  The church discouraged seeking direct knowledge of the divine in favor of serving as the sanctioned intermediary between man and God.  The Gnostics, as their name implies, rebelled against this.  What joins all the various Gnostic sects is the doctrine of initiation, of discovery, of knowledge and personal experience as the road to truth.

Who the heck are these "Elder Gods" Chumbley is talking about?

We cannot blame the Church entirely for its discomfort with knowledge...it inherited this from the Hebrew priesthood it is modeled upon.  In retrospect it was probably Islam's lack of an institutionalized religious authority that left it more open to knowledge; there was no Islamic church or temple that needed a monopoly on knowledge to justify is existence.  Twice in the Hebrew myths connected to this passage we have seen God frown upon "leaks" in heaven's knowledge monopoly.  First in the passage's reference to Eden and the serpent (the fall of Man caused by eating the fruit of knowledge) and second in its reference to the fall of the Watchers in 1 Enoch (damned for teaching the arts and sciences to men).  Ironically, the Church seems to have inherited its "we have all the answers" mentality from the very priesthood that Christ accused of not having all the answers.  But the Gnostics were having none of it, and Chumbley is throwing his lot in with theirs.

Which brings us to the part where we must lift the next veil.

Who the heck are these "Elder Gods" Chumbley is talking about?

While many readers are familiar with the story of Lucifer and the that of the serpent in Eden, and careful readers of the Bible are aware of the Watchers and their dalliance with the daughters of men, this notion of gods existing before (G)od probably comes out of nowhere to them.  Well buckle those seat-belts gentle reader, this is where the real fun begins.  

Let's start with the most obvious.  I cannot say with absolute certainty, but I would be more than willing to wager, that Chumbley is sneaking in a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's fictional brood here.  Lovecraft--who was himself a materialist and atheist--wrote weird fiction and horror tales that often included the "Old Ones" or "Elder Gods."  These were vast and incomprehensible alien beings who reigned over the cosmos long before man evolved, and fell into decline before the first human civilizations appeared.  Now they are somehow locked "outside" of our universe, and much of his fiction deals with them trying to get back in.  These Elder Gods were purely fictitious, but--as we shall see--reflective of genuine mythological beings.  More importantly, they found their way into occultism around the mid-20th century.  Anton LaVey--who like modern Chaos Magicians viewed belief as a tool and all gods as symbols--published two rituals dedicated to these Elder Gods.  Several other occultists, most notably the anonymous "Simon" and more recently Donald Tyson, have published their own versions of the Necronomicon, a book Lovecraft invented detailing these Old Ones.  But the reason I am quite comfortable in linking Chumbley with them is that Chumbley was a member of Kenneth Grant's British offshoot of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis from 1993-1999.  While Grant is a fascinating figure in his own right, what matters here is that he wrote extensively about Lovecraft's prehistoric gods and included them in his magical teachings.  I have no doubt this is how Chumbley comes to incorporate them.

We need to remember the mask and the mirror, the lies that point to truth.  

Am I telling you that Chumbley is now talking about fictional entities in his occult teachings?  Yes, and no.  We need to remember the mask and the mirror, the lies that point to truth.  I spoke at length in my article on Qutub on the Qabalistic concept of zero, of nothingness, and the true nature of God (ultimate reality).  Basically, the "real" God is by definition ineffable and incomprehensible.  Anything less and it could not be God.  Yahweh, like all gods, is a human invention, an attempt for the sake of convenience to put a face and a name to that which is nameless and faceless.  Yahweh is thus no more real than Lovecraft's gods; but God being omniversal, these gods can tell us something true about God's nature just as surely as Yawheh can.  In fact, from the Gnostic point of view, the Elder Gods are closer to an accurate conception of God than Yawheh is because Lovecraft's deities are themselves incomprehensible.  By being outside our ability to understand, the Elder Gods are more reflective of real ultimate reality.  Further, the Gnostics believed that the "true" God existed outside of the universe, something we touched on in talking about the Azoetia.  For them, the universe was far too imperfect to be the handiwork of a perfect being, and thus ascribed Creation to the "Demiurge," a manifestation of the true God with delusions of grandeur.  In their conception, this tyrannical God manufactures the universe and traps humanity within it.  Having fashioned the cosmos and shut himself away from the True God, the Demiurge becomes the "jealous" god of the Old Testament, convincing himself he is the one and only god and setting himself up as a despot.  The Gnostic path was to escape our prison and return to the True God outside of it.  Chumbley is clearly merging Lovecraft's extra-dimensional deities with the Gnostic one.

Again, he has a sound reason for doing this, but before we get there a moment must be taken to scratch our heads over his cryptic "Those who are without number and yet are numbered as Eight."   The first half should be easy to understand by now; without number is 0, the Qabalistic conception of nothingness.  The Eight is a bit more problematic.  I will submit three points for your consideration.

It is possible that Chumbley is taking a page from Crowley's play book, and that this "Eight" is a sly reference to the "infinity" symbol (an 8 on its side).  Those who are without number and yet are infinite.

It is possible that Chumbley is nodding his head towards Chaos Magicians, another group he had close contact with (having written for the journal Chaos International).  Without getting distracted now--I plan on talking about Chaos Magic in a future entry--it is enough to say now that this school uses Chaos as a way to describe the same idea as the Qabalistic Zero, and that the unofficial but widely used Chaos symbol is an eight-pointed star.  We will come back to Chaos at the close of this entry, so keep it in mind.

Or it could be that he means the Qabalistic "Eight."  Qabalah is another topic that demands an essay (or a hundred essays) unto itself, but to summarize here Qabalah ascribes symbolic meaning to numbers, especially the first ten, which form spheres of experience on a diagram called The Tree of Life.  We have already discussed the meaning of zero, but to fully grasp what Chumbley is telling us we need to breeze through the next ten.  I will use a model created by Aleister Crowley, the elegant and succinct "Naples Arrangement," to summarize for you. 

After the infinite, indescribable perfection of Qabalistic nothingness, we arrive at One.  This is the mathematical point, or Qutub, again.  It is the "I" and the "eye," a mystery we will save for later.  The point is the first manifestation of nothingness, positive yet undefinable.  It has position but nothing else.  It is the number of the Demiurge, the god who thinks it is the first to exist and the source for the rest of the universe (ie numbers).  "With the conception of the Universe was the Beginning and the Fall of the One, the One that men have named falsely," Chumbley tells us.  One thinks it is the first, but Nothing was before it.

In short, if all the pairs of opposites in the cosmos are viewed from a distance, everything vanishes into zero.  Observer and observed, hot and cold, light and dark...all of the positive "n" plus the negative "n" balance out to 0

"At the side of the One there was the Secret One, the Angel Most High, Emissary of the Elder Gods."  Here is the number Two, who Chumbley identifies with the Elder Gods (Zero).  Why?  The answer again is Crowley, who attempted to reconcile the old mystical question of whether the universe was dualistic, monistic, or nihilistic with an elegant equation.  The "dualistic" universe is that wherein God creates the universe but stands outside of it.  The monistic universe, most famously seen in the Indian Advaita Vedanta school, postulates that "all is One" and separateness is illusion.  The nihilistic school is typified by early Buddhism, and says the nature of the universe is nothingness.  This is also the Qablastic position.  Crowley stood forward and said "2=o," that the universe appears dualistic and is simultaneously nihilistic.  In short, if all the pairs of opposites in the cosmos are viewed from a distance, everything vanishes into zero.  Observer and observed, hot and cold, light and dark...all of the positive "n" plus the negative "n" balance out to 0 (n + -n = 0).  It was a cornerstone of his system of Thelema.  "One" is leap-frogged over because it is not as perfect as Zero and cannot be defined without Two; "...position does not mean anything at all unless there is something else, some other position with which it can be compared.  One has to describe it.  The only way to do this is to have another Point, and that means one must invent the number Two..."  Here then is Chumbley's Angel Most High, the number Two that is secretly the true manifestation of Zero and the "Secret One" that the One needs to even exist.

Then comes Three, a number that is necessary for the universe to begin.  Two points makes a line, but we cannot even say how long that line is without a third coordinate to measure it.  Three gives us the first geometric shape, the Triangle (the circle belongs to Zero), it gives us the synthesis that reconciles thesis and antithesis.  It is the child of the Mother and Father.  

Four is the manifestation of Matter, a point defined by three coordinates, the birth of the Third Dimension.  The first Pythagorean solid, the three sided pyramid, now is possible.  Five introduces Motion, and therefore "time."  Six is said to be where the Point becomes conscious, able to define itself by position, direction, and form.  Now the next three are forms of experience drawn from Indian philosophy, Ananda, Chit, and Sat.  These are the things the conscious and manifested point experiences on its journey.  Ananda is "bliss" or "sensation," and is associated with Seven.  Sat is "being," the awareness of existence.  That is number 9.  But the number 8, which I skipped over briefly, is "Knowledge."  And this brings us back to Chumbley's "Those who are without number and yet are numbered as Eight" and the third possibility.  

Knowledge is the union of two points.  One point-event experiences another when they collide.  If it helps, think of "knowledge" in the Biblical sense.  But this is 2=o again.  In knowing each other, two points become one and difference is erased.  The third possibility is a very Gnostic one, and ties up our entire discussion neatly.  The Eight could be Chaos, it could be Infinity or it could be Knowledge, all of which are expressions of the Qabalistic Zero or how to attain the ultimate reality of the Qabalistic Zero.  My suspicion is that it is simultaneously all three.

Next, in the third and final essay on this simple three-hundred word passage, we will tie up the lose ends and pull back the final veil on this deceptively simple myth.