The Western Gate

I was interested in martial arts at the time, it may well have been by chance seeing a Bruce Lee film, probably ‘Enter the Dragon’, I would have been nine or ten.
It was soon after at a ‘jumble sale‘ when I came across an illustrated book detailing various forms of martial arts in photographs, the stall holder let me have it for free.
Soon after, I espied my eldest sister had a book, “Psychic Self Defence” by Dion Fortune. Now imagine that, not only adopting the physical stance of the martial arts but also the psychic and mental aptitude. It reminded me of Dr.Strange. and I liked that idea. So I purloined it.

This was my first, I guess, real book on the esoteric, the occult. Prior to this it had been dabbles in ghostly affairs, magazines and a fondness for the British Tv program ‘The Tomorrow People’.¹
Dion Fortune’s writing was quite archaic to me. Somewhat like Charles Dickens . It was scholarly in parts, pretentious in others, it offered the reader a feeling that this person, Dion, was well versed in the subject matter, and she let you know it.

A couple of things happened when I read that book.
Firstly, frustration, this came about from Dion’s content and was repeated in many of her other books. Nearly every page warned the reader that a certain subject could not be divulged, that certain lessons were taught elsewhere in other books and therefore she could not enter in those things here, and more annoyingly, “These secrets are not for the probationer but only for the initiate well versed in the secret operation.”
Then came the, ‘Epiphany’. She mentioned ‘The Qabalah’. I knew this, I convinced myself. I reasoned perhaps it was the word, Qabalah. Without a U after the Q, it was a rebellious word! it was a word that went against the teaching at school like words that didn’t have an “i before e” like deceive or deceit. I’m not sure why I thought I had come across this word, or indeed knowledge before, but it stuck with me, a yearning burning desire to reacquaint myself, even if by delusion alone, with this knowledge.
Despite constantly swerving knowledge Dion did mention that a certain ‘Aleister Crowley’, ‘dared’ to reveal sacred wisdom ! Now I remember before senior school I began reading Crowley. I believe the first book I managed to get out of the library was ‘Book of lies’ followed soon after by ‘The Book Of Thoth’.
I was smitten, and yes, knew, somehow, somewhere I had known this knowledge before. I didn’t wonder with fascination at that fact nor try to impress others. In fact I would not over all the following years disclose my path to anyone, I would not talk about it , this was easy as none of my peers or friends been involved with or have an interest in the Occult. I was on my own.

An occultist seeks knowledge. More accurately an occultist seeks knowledge behind
knowledge. An occultist will read, for example, the Bible then read the history behind the people that wrote it and analyse subsequent comparative beliefs. They will seek out all the material that was left out, the books removed by various popes, checking the different ways the books were translated.
Nothing to the occultist is accepted blindly. An occultist will question, asking “why?”
There is little to separate the occultist from the philosopher. The seeker from the thinker.

The path is one where we must stand objective. The more we dig, the greater the abyss seems to ensnare us. We cannot leave a stone unchecked. The more I sought, the more questions raised, at times, now perhaps into teens I questioned the material I was reading, I challenged it, I didn’t agree with some it… and sometimes despite the writing being revealed as fact, denied it and more importantly didn’t know why I disagreed with it..
Most of these questions were born from texts that did not explain fully a system, or contradicted another. They teased and drew me in, the promise of greater secrets, the certainty of accomplishment…but always tomorrow. Always… ‘Jam Tomorrow’.
Objective thinking is the seat upon which wisdom is founded. The consciousness of ‘God’ as we could understand it, is present in wisdom. There lies a problem. Can we be completely objective?
I heard it said, “What is wise for the Inuit is not necessarily perfect for the Aborigine and likewise, what suited the doctrine of the middle ages has no place for us in the 20th century?”

Somewhere, somehow I disagreed with the bastions of occult knowledge, the revealers of the great Hermetic Schools.

A quick study of western ‘magical’ tradition shows that most of it is based upon the Hebrew
mystical Qabalah. We find this referred to also in modern pagan and Wiccan texts, albeit diluted or restructured. Pick most books on ceremonial works or pseudo-pagan rites and eventually the Qabalah or the ‘Tree of Life’ will be referenced.
Most of this material is sourced from the ‘Western Tradition’.
This mostly formulated by hermetic orders from Victorian societies. These inner orders will
reference, though somewhat as a dismissive afterthought, further back to various manuscripts, until we get to the source;- The Zohar and its commentary The Sepher Yetzirah.
When we study this source material however, we find startling errors and disagreements
between the father of the western tradition and the sons and daughters that gave fruit to every mystical tradition handed to us that we have hitherto accepted, that we have sworn to guide us upon its path.
I have no idea, why when handed this ,map and a compass I reasoned the path was wrong, in my head I reasoned, things progress, things evolve… what was good for the middle ages is no longer et.al.
But something wasnt right, for me, something didnt click.

Upon the Tree of life there are 22 paths which connect ten emanations, of which father and son traditions agree. The modern western tradition says the first path from the highest emanation to the second is represented by the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet- Aleph.
This is logical thinking. The first is top, left to right.
However. The father of our tradition is quite explicit about Aleph’s place on the Tree. The Zohar and Sepher Yetzirah explain it.
The 22 letters are divided into 3 mother letters, 7 double letters and 12 elementals.
There are 3 horizontal paths, 7 vertical and 12 diagonal.
It does not take a genius to work out how these letters will be attributed to which paths.
Aleph, and two other letters, Mem and Shin are mother letters.
Our father source states clearly- Aleph is the mediating force that lies between Mem and Shin.
This state’s that Aleph’s correct path on the Tree is the middle horizontal path, between the two emanations known as Geburah and Chesed.
Can the first path be here? Is that logical for the western mind?
Apparently not, so the western tradition ignored the fountain and drank from their own well, after all… things evolve.
However, all the traditions that sprang from 19 and 20th century occult orders are in
difference to the source material from which they borrowed.
The question would be, if I use this system what is the correct attribution?
Our masters in today’s lodges simply say, the paths are subjective.
I remember, I’m sure and it may have been a brief sentence in Dion Fortune’s ‘Mystical Qabalah’, that she wrote there no paths between Malkuth and Hod/Netzach, yet the diagram used in the books clearly shows them?
When I first saw a diagram showing aleph between Geburah/Chesed, I knew, and lets say~For Me, this was correct, below the Abyss. The Fool stares into the Abyss and runs along its threshold carefree and without fear. Now although I still had an issue with some of the paths but this was the diagram that conflicted with the ‘evolved’ Western hermetic orders, and one in which, to a large extent, I use;-

^{.1The Tomorrow people~ A Tv program first aired in the Uk 1973, All incarnations of the show concerned the emergence of the next stage of human evolution (Homo novis) known colloquially as Tomorrow People. Born to human parents, an apparently normal child might at some point between childhood and late adolescence experience a process called ‘breaking out’ and develop special paranormal abilities. These abilities include psionic powers such as telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation. However, their psychological make-up prevents them from intentionally killing others.}