Gematria - Sepher Sapphires Volume 1.pdf

We expect to find a very precise reflection and
inversion of this entity in the depths of the abyss
where the path becomes a tunnel transmitting
infernal influences. And this we do in fact find,
for 260 is also the number of -&, the 'con-
cealed' or 'hidden', and of W2, 'a priest', not of
the Light but of the Dark, for %2 means
'blackness', its root being the Egyptian Kam,
'black'. Although the 12' path is that of the
Magician or Magus, the black or hidden priest
should not be identified with the black magician,
but with the Black Brother.
This is the kala of the Sorcerers, the Monnim
(260) who transmit the light direct from beyond
Kether to Saturn via the formula of duality [Beth
and both being synonymous, implying duality].
Duality is expressed zoomorphically by the twin
serpents Od and Ob, and by the ape - the shadow
of the Magus who, according to tradition,
distorts and perverts the Word of the Magus thus
making a mockery of his work, as do the Black
Brothers with their formula of duality.
This is evidenced by the symbols of Baratchial:
two swords with inturned blades, suggesting
intense concentration on the ego as opposed to
the Self of All, flanking a ghostly face (mask)
surmounted by a crescent moon. The sigil is a
glyph of falsity and illusion reflected in the
current of duality that reveals the Shadow of
Thoth in the image of his ape or cynocephalus.
This doctrine is expressed in the second verse of
231: The lightnings increased and the Lord
Tahuti (i.e. Thoth) stood forth. The Voice came
from the Silence. Then the One ran and returned.
The One is Kether, and it returned to its own
power-zone because the vibration of this kala is
illusory and cannot transmit truth. Its vibration
duplicates that of the previous kala, thus creating
a mere simulacrum of the creative spirit.
The Black Brother is double tongued, as the
serpent, the magical power ascribed to the
obverse aspect of which this path is the tunnel, is
the Gift of Tongues, the Gift of Healing, and a
Knowledge of Sciences. The healing here
however is the healing of the ego, which merely
aggravates with illusion the disease of false
identity creating thereby a chain of endless
suffering. Likewise, the Sciences of which
knowledge is given are the sciences of darkness.
Yet it must not be supposed that these are
necessarily evil, it is merely that in the hands of a
Black Brother they necessarily tend to sterility
because directed towards the fulfillment of
wholly personal ambitions. The dark sciences of
this path contain the secrets of the kalas of the
void.
The witches and wizards of this tunnel speak
with 'voices' that are reflected into the aura of the
Adept by the mechanism of unnatural acoustics
associated with the mysterious ventriloquism of
Bath Kol, the Voice of the Oracle. The beth is
the house or womb of the supreme kala, and of
the source of that ventriloquism that was primal
in the myths of man, for the Word was endowed
with flesh and issued from the belly of the
mother. Here again the number of Baratchial,
260, corroborates the doctrine of this path of beth
for it is the number of f$?BID, 'pleasures',
'delights', and of 7'27, 'thy thighs', which
reveals the sexual nature of these pleasures.
The disease typical of this path is Ataxaphasia
which here refers specifically to disorders of the
faculty of speech, typified by the bestial
howlings; or cachinnations of the prehuman
creation and by that 'monstrous speech'
(mentioned in Liber 7) that thrills beyond the veil
of the void.
The dangers attendant upon the use of this kala
are extreme, yet the advantages that may be
gained would seem to outweigh them in that the
Adept is able to transcend the merely conceptual
transmission of imagery. He is thus able to
maneuver specific atavisms at a level deeper than
those he could penetrate as a Magus. This is
because the silence of the outer spaces, like the
music of the spheres, may be apprehended only
when the ape-like chattering of the Magician's
vehicle [his senses] has been subdued by contact
with the transcosmic forces that sweep through
this tunnel from the pathways of the Great Inane.
The latter is the Ain, or Void, the unwinking eye
which emits invisible rays that reify within the
innermost sanctuaries of the Adept's non-being.
He then becomes The Magus ofpower [The title
of the tarot trump equated with the obverse path]
in a true and totally different sense to that in
which this power has been understood in any
previous aeon. For that power (shakti) is primal
and does not exist apart from the shadow, the
solidification of which is the entified Magus
whose Word is but falsehood and glamour.
[Grant, 1994, pp. 162- 165.1