Mishkan ha-Echad

Thursday 20 August 2009

Grade Placement & the Minutum Mundum

There is a continuing lack of understanding regarding the placement of the grades upon the Tree of Life, particularly in terms of their elemental associations. I addressed some of the Golden Dawn reasoning behind the seemingly inconsistent placement of the Air grade of Theoricus in the watery Sephirah of Yesod (Luna) and the Water grade of Practicus in the airy grade of Hod (Mercury) in my article Reconciling An Elemental Inconsistency in Issue 6 of Hemetic Virtues. Here, however, I will highlight another aspect, which sheds light on the placement of the elements with the Sephiroth, or, conversely, sheds light on the choice of colours employed.

Let us skip Zelator for now, which is Earth and Malkuth, and focus on the three primary elements of Air, Water, and Fire (Yesod/ Theoricus, Hod/Practicus, and Netzach/Philosophus respectively). The Sephirah of Yesod is coloured violet (or purple) in the Queen Scale (the most commonly employed of the four Colour Scales). The colour of Air is yellow, which just happens to be the flashing colour of violet. Coincidence? Certainly not. The Sephirah of Hod is coloured orange in the Queen Scale, while the colour of Water is blue, its flashing colour. And then the Sephirah of Netzach is coloured green in the Queen Scale, while the the colour of Fire is red, its flashing colour.


But what about Malkuth? The colour of Earth is black, but the colours for Malkuth are citrine, olive, russet, and black. They're not the flashing colour, which is white. However, this is where one of the mysteries of Malkuth comes in. It's fairly common knowledge that Malkuth is in Kether and Kether is in Malkuth, thus making this earthy-coloured Malkuth the white-coloured Kether of another world. And thus do we have the flashing colours.


It does not end there, however, as the flashing colours are also present on the Tree itself, without the need to apply the elements. The flashing colour of Yesod can be found directly above it in Tiphareth. The flashing colour of Hod can be found diagonally across from it in Chesed. The flashing colour of Netzach can be found diagonally across from it in Geburah. And finally, the flashing colour of the black segment of Malkuth can be found directly above it in Kether.


Anyone with a cursory knowledge of art will notice something else in the above image. The colours of red, yellow, and blue are, of course, the primary colours, while the colours of orange, purple, and green are the secondary colours (made by mixing two of the primaries, such as red and yellow forming orange, blue and yellow forming green, and red and blue forming purple). What is not depicted in the above image is the tertiary colours, but they can be found on the Minutum Mundum diagram and the image displayed below. These are created by combing two of the secondary colours, so that russet is formed from orange and purple, olive is formed from green and purple, and citrine is formed from orange and green. The white of Kether is all colours, while the black segment of Malkuth is the absence of colour.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Hmmm, interesting thoughts. The sefirotic colors are derived through a pretty simply (and now outdated) use of color theory, through the mixing of pigments.

Now, eventually learn that all of the grades of the outer order are in Malkhut, and it is only in Portal that you actually step out of Malkhut and into Yesod. How do you think this plays out in your schema here?

The black portion more or less remains the same, representing Zelator. Theoricus would be represented by the citron portion, combining Netzach and Hod (fire and water = steam).

The other two seem a bit tricky. The Practicus grade goes to the olive portion, which is a combination of Netzach and Yesod, fire and air, which doesn't necessarily give us water (hot + dry + hot + hot + moist). Philosophus, which combines the colors of Hod and Yesod, is equally problematic (cool + moist + hot + moist). It would seem that these two are switched. Maybe, maybe not. Practicus and Philosophus are sometimes seen as the opposite side of the same coin. Perhaps this suggest that the seeds of one are hidden in the other.

There might even be a subtle alchemy here. Fire and Water obliterate one another in Theoricus, combine with their opposites in Practicus and Philosophus and are crowned with spirit in Portal (which was the original terminal grade, before the RR et AC was developed).

Random thoughts, anyway.

b'shalom
-Bro. BhDA

Unknown said...

Okay, one last thing on the colors of the sefirot. As I said before, they are based on basic color theory (with kind of the exception of Tiferet). The tree starts not with colors but tones, white, gray, black. The gray will be the root of blue and the black is actually black with red. This leads easily to the next triad or at least Chesed and Gevurah (Tiferet is a bit wonky, its colors seem to be based on the colors of the sky during sun rise/set, unless we posit that white is the root of yellow). The gray leads to blue, the black with red leads to red. Pretty simple. Then we have the next triad. These are the combination of either Chesed or Gevurah with the yellow of Tiferet. Yesod is the combination of the colors of Chesed and Geburah. You've covered Malkhut, so there that's pretty much it.

Leon1234 said...

You have an amazing blog. Full of great information, that I need to sift through! Thanks.

Jonathan said...

Nicely written, Dean.

Looks like Bro. BhDA had some good insights from the article. The color scales are a redundant language in GD to demonstrate relationships between energies on the TOL in a similar way to how Gematria is used to show relationships between concepts. When I use the term "redundant" I do so from the point of an engineer. Redundancies are necessary in a system to ensure completion of a goal by multiple approaches. Color is utilized as another way of exploring the GD version of Kabbalah.

What we are dealing with on the "Path of the Chameleon" is a language composed of 256 letters (128 colors plus their complements.)

Frater Yechidah said...

Ave Brother B.h.D.A.,

You make some good points. I wonder how the colours apply with the 3 Degrees structure. They may not apply at all to that.

I would put Practicus in the Russet section, since it is the combination of Hod and Yesod. I'd then put Philosophus in the olive section, as the combination of green of Netzach and Yesod, and finally Theoricus in the citrine part, as the combination of Hod and Netzach.

I like your thoughts on the tones as roots for the three primaries. It certainly makes sense for grey/blue and black-red/red, and white/yellow isn't too much of a stretch when we know that Kether is the root and source of Tiphareth's light. So I suppose the last image could technically be amended to include the above.

LVX,
Dean.

Frater Yechidah said...

Ave Leon,

Glad you like it.

LVX,
Dean.

Frater Yechidah said...

Ave Jonathan,

I don't know much about engineering, but I think I know what you mean. The colour system is redundant in that it is not exactly needed, since there are other methods in the GD system to explain these things. It is, however, an extra layer of depth to the system, and it has a remarkably strong effect on the psyche.

LVX,
Dean.

Unknown said...

I based the tertiary colors/grades on the obvious color connections, rather than the combination of sefirot leading into those colors. I don't know, off hand, if there was anything written about how the colors of Malkhut are associated with the elements. If there is, it would follow that the grades would be associated in a similar way. Either way we've talked about here seems to work.

As for relating colors to the 3 degree structure, I have no idea. The alchemical colors work fine, I think. It might work better with four phases than three, though. Neophyte being the black phase, Zelator-Philosophus the white phase, Portal the peacock's tail and Adeptus Minor the red phase.

You could possibly switch around Zelator-Philosophus with Portal. I'm not sure, off hand, which comes first in alchemy. Its not really my gig.

b'shalom
-Bro. BhDA

Frater Yechidah said...

Ave Brother B.h.D.A.,

Yes, your colours match better. Russet isn't the colour I'd employ for Water. It has a reddish tint to it, so potentially Philosophus could go there. The olive green could work with Water and Practicus, and the citrine yellow makes sense for Air/Theoricus. This would mean they cross over the opposing sides, which could fit well with the dual nature of them that you described, and also other structures of the Tree that cross back and forth.

As for alchemical colours, that could work, definitely. I'd probably put black for Malkuth/Outer Order, since that is mainly about putrefaction, etc. The white stage is next, I believe, and works well with Portal/Spirit, and then Red for Adeptus Minor in Tiphareth also works well. I've never seen the Peacock's Tail used as a stage itself, but more as a result, but then I'm far from an expert on alchemy. Perhaps Samuel can chime in here and give us his insight. I'd probably leave Neophyte uncoloured or include it as part of the 1st Degree (but then technically it's a probationary grade).

LVX,
Dean.

Support the Blog

If you enjoyed this content and would like to see more of it, or would like to buy me a cup of tea as a thank you, make a donation through Kerubim Press by clicking the button below.

Thank you! Your support and patronage is much appreciated!