The Western Gate

Metatron’s Ladder
David Chaim Smith

NOTE: The feature artwork used on the banner of this post is NOT the work of David Chaim smith, it is a rubbish AI prompt.

I have eluded David Chaim Smith’s work, previous to this small volume I have only curiously browsed his works through the shelves of Watkins Bookshop, fascinated by the elaborate drawings, mainly Kabbalah influenced with a striking Mandala aura about them. I have not purchased before because in my stubborn and arms folded psyche I reason all these fancy drawings and word pictures and even worse the flow charts as loved by Human resources to display where and what is not efficient, well, to me, they are distractions, illusions, promises.
Truth be told it was only the title that caused me to cede and purchase.
Metatron known somewhat as the scribe of God (IHVH) and in esoteric circles muted, was the angel that taught Moses the Kabbalah and thereafter the miracles that Moses needed to perform, though this is not explicitly mentioned in any religious or texts, suffice to say, any wisdom or revelation comes via the intermediary source, of which, Metatron is seen/known as the scribe or revealer.

David Chaim Smiths work comes via a text~ The Thirteen Powers, itself born from the Kabbalistic mystical school known as the Iyyun circle, whose contemplation on all things, gave rise to the Books of Contemplation of which~ The Thirteen Powers is but a fruit.
Chaim Smith informs us, this work-Metatron’s Ladder, is an amalgamation of the Iyyun Circle’s literature and hermetic tradition, that ancient philosophy and mysticism are an ever mutable concern, that “Mysticism refuses to be frozen into orthodoxy and (c.f.) will break free of any prison it is confined to“. Basically this gives free reign to run roughshod over any work, and claim the right to dismantle and reassemble literature is because of evolution, progression and modernity. Nothing wrong with that per se.
If Metatron, the scribe, reveals via wisdom to a receiver some arcane and profane knowledge, do we , us, me, then have the right to adjust, alter, delete, cancel ? ” Knowledge is that by which we understand all things, it is the mind in equilibrium with this and that, whereas wisdom arrives at the heart, and it is not contemplated, but rests as a feather upon the soul.” ¹
Chaim Smith gives us a brief bibliography of the source material, British Museum (735, ff.44b-45a) and this itself translated by Dr.Mark Vernman in The Books of Contemplation (SUNY,1992) – I write this not so much as a foundation upon which Metatron’s Ladder is built, but alike the new churches built on previous pagan sacred sites, do we reconstruct, or re- imagine? and it is in the later, that Chaim Smiths work is built, because as we have already been ‘told’ … things change, progress.
Metatron’s Ladder is therefore a study and imagining of a translated work by (viz.) Dr.Mark Vernman of an archaic text from a body of people – the Circle of Iyyun. But, I’m not being dismissive here, after all, much hermetic wisdom and occult teachings all arrive at us in much the same way. All we believe is based on the assumption a translation is perfect, and it never is, and that the commentaries of that translation are objective and instil fact and illumination based on the peoples who wrote/gifted the original work.
Most of our knowledge is based therefore on Chinese whispers (apologies, I know its a quote that is not considered appropriate)

This doesn’t matter, wisdom is known by the heart, we cannot challenge it as we would with the mind over knowledge. I therefore submit and wander forth.

Metatron’s Ladder guides us through contemplation, the thirteen powers, on reflection and illumination. In order to do the book justice I would have, myself, to consider and debate each section, each quality, and that would therefore be longer than the book itself, and who wants to read a critical analysis of a commentary of a translation of an archaic contemplated text?
So practically, there is much in the writings just as there is in the poetic and obscure licence of Veda or the hefty and hair splitting details of Buddhist literature. There are of course, often, frowns, emulating Rodin’s The Thinker as we posit something or other that is thrown before us.
The c.86 pages, hardback edition, are all glossy, it’s a quick first read, and then a longer re-read to now assimilate the work.
Chaim Smith is know for his wonderful artwork, and there I must grumble. You need a magnifying glass to study them, if indeed we’re supposed to study them, perhaps they are just teasing show off flags. Luckily the print is very crisp and d.p.i manageable to make out the smaller details… to a point, but it does need a magnifying glass, zooming in to glossy paper with a phone that doesn’t focus well, smartphones hate focusing on shiny things.
The c.A5 size just doesn’t work for this, it should be A4 or even better A3.
There are clearer diagrams when damned flow chart type illustrations pop up, many in inverted colours, White on Black, they would not look out of place at some lecture theatre’s blackboard in a Victorian University institute, paraded over by a tweed jacketed boffin using a stiff pointy stick at each object and section.
Words and rhetoric and bombastic opulent descript’s flower the illustrations- viz ” Cascade of fixations released“, and its adjunct – “ Broken Streams of association cohered” – now these sort of phrases aren’t explained so much as contemplated over, though what’s wrong with saying, shift focus and its adjunct, bring together the dismantled, perhaps my alternatives would not be considered explicitly correct? An issue with translation or failure to understand the imagery? However, all this knowledge is from a translated source, in which case in small part or whole, the text becomes entirely subject to the authors style.
It reads alike a Buddhist tome, contemplating Nothingness, exacting each quality that makes up the manifest and thus we can negate them, until what is left, is only wisdom which resides not in the self but of itself. Another name for wisdom, would be that which we could call or imagine as, the scribe, for to view wisdom we need to have it channelled into us, once of course we have negated all the particulars of our critical and egotistical mind we can with a clear mind channel wisdom.
To chart the progress of this thinking, is only to distract and confuse. That is what Chaim Smiths work does, but, it is alluring and beautiful and challenging and certainly makes the mind think, even though the aim is to have the mind receive rather than analyse.
Metatron gives only to those that can receive, and they are only those that do not yearn or claw or seek to covet that wisdom.

Ok, I do have a slight curiosity upon Chaim Smiths work now, I might buy some his other stuff, but, yeah, the artwork needs to be seen, big size, A3 size. In fact just fill a book with the illustrations and I’ll buy it, leave out the text, I’ll fill in the gaps myself, and if I cant, if the images need explaining, then what’s the point?
curiouser and curiouser… and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

If what you see is blurry and hard to focus, how can you recognise anything? Smartphone hate trying to magnify or focus on shiny paper. Look how small that diagram is!

1/ Taken from personal journal- Devas Sublime: Vol2, I’m sure its a rehash of quote from somewhere or other. But it stands on its own volition.