A useful note for magically working with the 22 Letters of the Hebrew alphabet
A useful note for magically working with the 22 Letters of the Hebrew alphabet
“…. Written letters are like bodies, and the pronounced letters are spiritual and the mental letters are intellectual and the emanated letters are divine.”
From a letter written by R. Abraham Abulafia
quoted in Kabbalah: New Perspectives by Moshe Idel
This equates with the four forms of letters with the Four Worlds:
|
Letter form |
World |
|
Emanation |
Atziluth |
|
Mental (meditation) |
Briah |
|
Spoken |
Yetzirah |
|
Written |
Assiah |
So, how a letter is utilised determines at which level it manifests:
|
Letter form |
Level of manifestation |
|
Emanation |
[the preserve of G-d alone] |
|
Mental |
Intellectual |
|
Spoken |
Spiritual |
|
Written |
Physical |
Putting those levels in to the terminology of the Tree of Life, we have:
|
Letter form |
Level of manifestation |
|
Emanation |
Chokmah |
|
Mental |
Binah |
|
Spoken |
Chesed to Yesod |
|
Written |
Malkuth |
Thus, working at the level of Binah, requires the mental use of letters (i.e. meditation), but to bring about any change on the physical plane (Malkuth) we have to write them down.
Tags: Abulafia, kabbalah, magic, magick
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