Toward Ecosophy

"John Gilbert was an extraordinary tarot diviner and teacher, and this book draws on his knowledge and expertise to provide a clear and comprehensive outline of how to accurately and easily understand and read the cards.

"Beginning with an introduction on how tarot cards work, their symbology and divinatory meanings, this is the perfect starting point for anyone looking to understand these fascinating cards and glean a deeper understanding of the world.

"Gilbert also provides a selection of different tarot spreads, a discussion of tarot and astrology, as well as key tips on developing your intuition."

I would add to this that John specialized in a skill you'll rarely encounter in today's tarot circles: he was an expert at doing one-card readings. A client would ask him a question, he'd draw one card, and give them a clear, concise, and accurate answer. I've never known anyone who did that as well as he did, but some of his students came close, and he spends much of this book explaining just how to do it.

Interested?  You can preorder here in the United States and here anywhere else in the world.

Here's the blurb for The Tree of Spirit:

"A fascinating exploration of the symbolic foundations of the Western magical tradition.

"Using the Cabalistic Tree of Life and the tarot deck, this book takes the foundations of Western esoteric tradition as a basis and goes onward into the deep places of magical spirituality.

"Written by the influential American tarot teacher and occultist John Gilbert, it is enriched by insights drawn from modern Gnosticism, spiritual alchemy, neopagan nature worship, and ceremonial magic.

"This book offers a wise and practical path to awakening for the modern student of the mysteries."

The essays below are the fourth and fifth of a series of seven instructional papers on the Tree of Life, the basic glyph of Cosmic structure and process in the traditions inherited by the FHR. They were written by John Gilbert and is presented here with only minor editing. As I noted in introducing the earlier sections, it is irrelevant whether you believe or disbelieve in what follows. What matters is that you read these texts, think about them, understand them, and come to your own conclusions about the material covered in them.

A comment from last week may be worth repeating here. Whenever John wrote of Gnosticism he meant the teachings of the Universal Gnostic Church, the specific and rather idiosyncratic tradition of Gnostic spirituality he taught and lived. Other Gnostic traditions and teachings went in different directions, as you’d expect from a movement that focuses on personal experience of spiritual realities.

*   *   *   *   *

THE TREE OF LIFE
by John Gilbert

Part Four - Love, Power and Harmony

Spanning the Abyss is a path running down the right-hand side of the Tree of Life from Father God to Daughter God directly below. Also spanning the Abyss is a path running down the left-hand side of the Tree of Life from Mother God to Son God or God the Son directly below.

Father God is the Father Archetype and the Male Archetype.  Mother God is the Mother Archetype and the Female Archetype. Daughter God is the Daughter Archetype and the Maiden Archetype. Son God is the Son Archetype and the Knight or Young Man Archetype.

These archetypes each have many variations and definitions. An interesting exercise is to start a page in your journal for each of the five major archetypes we've already discussed. Then add other possible names and attributes for each over the course of several weeks or months.

For example, The Creator Archetype also includes such other archetypes as architect, artist, author, builder, designer, discoverer, founder, inventor, and producer. Any type of creative endeavor is a candidate for classification under the  master symbol of The Creator.

As we examine the Son and Daughter Archetypes we find two very interesting facts:

First, the only energy coming down the Tree of Life into Daughter comes from Father and the energy coming down into Son comes from Mother. The energy from above changes polarity as it crosses the Abyss. The Male gives birth to the Female and the Female gives birth to the Male.

Secondly, the only energy from the other "parent" comes through the first. Mother God sends energy across to Father God and that's the only female energy that goes down to Daughter God. Father God sends energy across to mother God and that's the only male energy that goes down to Son God. It's difficult to understand how the polarity can change in such an arrangement.

Daughter God is the fourth Sephirah on the Tree of Life and its Hebrew name is Chesed (Hess' - ed) which means Mercy. Mercy is also called Charity, Love and Unconditional Love. Mercy is the archetype of the loving daughter. But, remember Mercy is a reflection of the Father-Mother-Creator Archetype. So the Father-Mother-Creator Archetype contains the Loving Daughter.

Son God is the fifth Sephirah on the Tree of Life and its Hebrew name is Geburah which means Severity. Severity is also called Strength, Power, Trepidation, Chaos and Conflict. Pachad is another Hebrew name assigned to Son God. Pachad means Fear or Trepidation. All of these names are assigned to this sphere and the Son of God, the Son of the Goddess or the Widow's Son. (That's a long story in itself because the Black Widow is Binah, the Mother Archetype. She's also the Black Madonna.) Power is the archetype of the God of War and the warrior and this warring son is contained within and is a reflection of the Father-Mother-Creator Archetype.

There's one more Child of Deity, but this child is a very special child.  It receives energy from all of the first five Sephiroth. The Creator, Father, Mother, Daughter and Son all send energy down into the sixth Sephirah. It is literally the child of all the Sephiroth above it. This Child of Deity is on the Middle Pillar directly below The Creator but on a level further down the Tree than both Daughter and Son. It completes the second triangle on the Tree of Life, the triangle reflected from above, the triangle reflected across the Abyss.

The name of this Sephirah is Tiphereth (Tiff' - er - et) which means Beauty. Other names assigned to Beauty include Harmony, Balance, Son of God and Christ Consciousness or Krishna Center. It is the archetype for the Peacemaker, the Hanged God and the Sacrificed or Crucified King. It's also a direct reflection of the Father-Mother-Creator Archetype.

The sphere attributed to the Daughter Archetype is called Mercy, Charity, Love and Unconditional Love.  In the Order we usually refer to this sphere as Love, and by this we mean Unconditional Love.

The sphere attributed to the Son Archetype is called Severity, Strength, Fear, Trepidation, Anger, Sadness and Power among other things.  In the Order we usually refer to this sphere as Power and by this we mean to include the power of Anger, Fear and Sadness.  

The sphere attributed to Beauty or Harmony is also called Balance, Crucified or Sacrificed God, the Crucified or Sacrificed Archetype, Service, the Grandchildren, the Grandchildren Archetype and the Soul.  In the Order we usually refer to this sphere as Harmony though we see The Creator as our Spirit and this center of Harmony as our Soul.

These three spheres form a downward-facing triangle which is a reflection of the upward-facing triangle of the World of Air.  Each of the three spheres in this triangle are connected to each other.  The Creator is directly connected only to our Soul (Harmony).  Father is connected to both Daughter and Harmony.  Mother is connected to both Son and Harmony.  Everybody above is connected to the Grandchildren below.

This downward-facing triangle is a reflection of the upward-facing World of Air.  It is the Child of Air.  These three spheres in the lower triangle are reflections of the Archetypes.  They are the reflection of thoughts and ideas.

Reflect on your own thoughts for a moment.  You'll start to feel something.  This something can be reduced to love, happiness, peace, and joy or it can be fear, anger, sadness and indifference.  The reflection of our own thoughts and ideas are the emotions of our life.

As Above so Below.  As Below so Above.  The reflection of the thoughts and ideas in the World of Air Above the Abyss are the emotions of the World Below, the World of Water, the World of Emotions.

The World of Air is separated from the World of Water by the Great Abyss.  There is a great chasm between our thoughts and ideas and our emotions. There is a great chasm between thoughts and ideas and emotions in the Divine Mind.

In the World of Air the male and female, Father and Mother Archetypes are the opposite of each other.  You can't have one without the other.  The Creator participates in both the male and female and is more than the sum of both.

In the World of Water this concept of opposites is carried one step further.  Daughter is Mercy, Love, Charity and Unconditional Love.  Daughter is also the opposite of all these things.  She's Indifference, Apathy, Intolerance, and Unkindness.

Son is Anger, Fear, Sadness, Severity, Strength and Power.  He's also their opposites.  He's Joyful, Peaceful, Happy and Soft and his Strength and Power are used with Joy, Peace and Happiness.

It's in that place called Harmony where all these positive and negative emotions come together, where they become balanced.  Any expression of excessive positive or negative emotions is due to an imbalance in this area of our lives.

Here's the important secret taught by most mystery religions: Emotions are a product of our thoughts. We learn fear, anger, sadness, love and all our other emotions.  Our thoughts and attitudes control our emotions.

In our experience, the most difficult thing to accept about the Tree of Life is that our emotions are born in our thoughts and ideas, our attitudes and belief systems.  This concept blocked many of us from spiritual progress for several years.  The skeptic in us couldn't accept anything about our minds having control of our emotions.  Period.  As far as we were concerned, our emotions were out of control, and thinking about them didn't make them any better.

But if you stop to think about it, it's all very logical.

We think.  Because we think, we start to have feelings about our thoughts.  Our feelings affect our thinking and it goes round in a circle.  Our emotions feed our thoughts and our thoughts feed our emotions.  We can work ourselves up into a dither in no time at all.  We can also calm ourselves down and change our thinking.

If Unconditional Love is a decision, why do I instantly dislike certain people?  It's all based on our memory of past experiences.  Our memories store things based on the amount of emotion attached to those memories.  The more emotional the memory, the easier it is to remember and we remember it more vividly.  Since our memories are stored in our subconscious mind, we're not always aware we're reacting to something based on those memories.

The fact is we judge people based on our memories of that person, people who look, act or behave like that person, people who speak like that person, or people who subconsciously remind us of that person.  It doesn't matter who the person is, what matters is how we view that person based on our memory or past encounters with other people.  We instantly dislike certain people because they remind us of one or more negative attributes of other people in our memory.  We instantly like some people for the very same reasons.

Unconditional Love is a decision.  We choose to love somebody or not.  We choose to love something or not. We choose to love and we choose not to love.  We choose to be indifferent toward certain people or things.  We choose apathy over love.  We choose the level of our commitment.

Anger is a decision.  It may be conscious, subconscious or even unconscious, but it is a decision.  Conscious anger is often called "righteous anger."  We're entitled to feel angry and so we do.  Subconscious anger is a habit we've formed over time.  We've been angry in this situation before and here we are again.  Eventually our anger can become so automatic it's done on an unconscious level.  Our thoughts birth our anger.

Fear is a conscious, subconscious or unconscious decision.  We become anxious and our anxiety turns to fear.  We worry about what could happen and our worry becomes anxiety, and our anxiety becomes our fears.  If we expect the worst, we begin to worry that the worst will happen.  If we expect the best, we begin to worry that the best will happen.  Our thoughts birth our fears.

Sadness is a decision.  It's a conscious, subconscious or unconscious decision based on past memories collected by our senses of sight, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling and the emotions we decided to connect to that memory.

We are the parent of our emotions.  Our thoughts, ideas, attitudes and beliefs give birth to our emotions.  And we imbue our memories of people, places, things and events with these emotions.  We are the product of our entire lifetime of thinking, birthing and growing our emotions.  Study my emotions and you can understand my thinking, the thinking that gave birth to those emotions.

This is a very hard lesson to fully comprehend and understand.  We talk to people who have hormonal imbalances that cause them great depression.  Telling them they thought themselves into this depression is not a cure for their problem.  Drugs are not a cure for their problem.  The only cure is serious spiritual work and very few people are willing to invest the amount of time and energy to do spiritual work.  It's a commitment and commitments take energy, time and work.

Your assignment, should you choose to participate, is to ponder your emotions this week and see if you can trace them back to your own thoughts, ideas and attitudes in your distant past. 

*   *   *   *   *

THE TREE OF LIFE
by John Gilbert

Part Five - Paroketh

The Abyss separates the World of Air from the World of Water. It is the third veil on the Tree of Life. It is the third veil we must rend as we return to our Source from the World of Manifestation which is our physical universe. As we come down the Tree of Life we now reach the Second Veil. The Second Veil is called Paroketh which means Portal and it's the Portal through which we must travel to reach our Soul. It's also the Portal through which the first order member of the Golden Dawn must pass in order to become an Adept.

Paroketh is called the Veil of Illusion because what we see below this veil is an illusion. Reality is on the other side. Our soul resides in the true reality. Our ego and persona reside in the illusion of reality.  Paroketh is also called the Curtain of Fire which refers to the fact that the World of Fire is located beneath the World of Water on the Tree of Life. As we descend into matter we must cross this Curtain of Fire.

Additionally, Paroketh is called the Curtain of Water because as we ascend the Tree of Life from the World of Fire we're confronted by a Curtain of Water which we must part (like Moses at the Red Sea) to ascend further.

As we incarnate into this physical world, we move down the Tree of Life from our beginning in Awareness at the top of the Tree. We build our intentions and focus ourselves down to one primary purpose for incarnation in the World of Air - the first three spheres. In the teachings of the Order the body we inhabit here in the World of Air, the World of Archetypes is our Spirit. Our Spirit is our Higher Self, our own Holy Guardian Angel.  It's our Spirit that decides to incarnate and it's our Spirit that decides upon our purpose for incarnation. It's our Spirit which our Unmanifest Self builds in the World of Archetypes as the first step in our physical incarnation.

Since we cannot move across the Abyss in our Spirit, the Order teaches that our Spirit creates our second body, our Soul. Our Soul lives in the World of Water, the Creative World where we create the essence of what we will become in the physical reality. Our Soul is in constant communication with our Spirit. Our Spirit knows everything our Soul knows and experiences, just as our Unmanifest Self above the Tree of Life knows everything our Spirit knows and experiences. And, since our Unmanifest Self is a "Spark of Light in the Consciousness of the Unmanifest Creator," the One Source of All-That-Is knows everything our Unmanifest Self knows.

Our Soul decides how we'll express Unconditional Love and all our other emotions in our lives so we can reach the goal of achieving our purpose in the physical reality. It's in the World of Water where the blueprint for our emotional reactions to life are created. It's here we plan the relationships of our life. It's in this world where we attune our emotions to our life's purpose. We build an Emotional Body and that Emotional Body is our Soul. In various paradigms our Soul is also called our Etheric, Christ Body, Christ Consciousness, Conscience, Krishna Center, Krishna Consciousness and our True Self.

The next step in our descent down the Tree of Life is to cross the Veil of Illusion, the Curtain of Fire. Just as our Spirit builds a body to exist in the World of Water, so our Soul builds a body to exist in the World of Fire. This body is called our Astral Body or our Ego Body and it is our Ego and our Astral essence. Our Ego is the complex building block upon which our physical body, persona and personality are built. Our Ego resides in the World of Fire and it's in constant communication with our Soul.

It's important to realize not all Souls create an Ego and descend into the World of Fire. Not all Egos create a body and a persona and descend into the World of Matter, the World of Earth.  Likewise, not all Spirits create a Soul and descend into the World of Water and not all Unmanifest Selves descend into the World of Air. Those who remain in the World of Fire we call Ghosts. Those in the World of Water we refer to as Astral Beings, Spirit Guides or Animal Guides and we consider many to be Masters. Those who remain in the World of Air are Ascended Masters, Adepts and Great Souls.

The fact that you and I inhabit a physical vehicle means we decided to manifest for some purpose and we entered the World of Archetypes, World of Emotion, World of Desire and the World of Matter in that order. Our job is now to discover our original purpose and then accomplish those goals. That process is called "climbing or ascending the Tree of Life." It's also called evolution, alchemy, pathworking, and magic. This is just the opposite of our descent into matter which is called involution. 

The essay below is the first of a series of seven instructional papers on the Tree of Life, the basic glyph of Cosmic structure and process in the traditions inherited by the FHR. It was written by John Gilbert and is presented here with only minor editing. When he sent out these papers to students, John was always careful to remind them that he didn’t expect them or want them to believe the material presented in this, or any of his essays. Belief and disbelief are equally useless in occultism, or for that matter in the Gnostic spirituality John lived and taught. What matters is that you read these texts, think about them, understand them, and come to your own conclusions about the material covered in them.

It’s probably worth mentioning, given the current rhetoric around cultural appropriation, that the Native American deities mentioned in this essay are referenced because John had a significant number of Native American students, and consecrated two of them that I know of as Gnostic bishops. Some of his Native students asked him to include references to their ancestral traditions in his writings, and he was happy to do so. 

*  *  *  *  *

THE TREE OF LIFE

by John Gilbert

Part One - Awareness

The Book of Genesis begins with: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."  Three things are mentioned in this first sentence: God, heavens and earth.  In this article, we'll call this first God mentioned in the Western theology as Creator God or simply as The Creator for the sake of clarity.

This creation story is told in every commonly known religion.  The principle character in this story is called by many names (Ahura Mazda, Brahman, Ptah, and YHVH for example).  The other two characters are called male and female, heaven and earth, light and darkness, energy and form, and several other pairs of opposites.

This is the nature of the Tree of Life. One creates two who are opposite in nature and those two combine to form one balanced whole.  This is where we'll start our discussions since this is where Gnostics started to become separated from the other Western religions and spiritual paths.    Gnosticism is not so much a religion as it is a spiritual path.  It is this spiritual path which is disclosed by the Tree of Life.  This is the topic of our discussion.

If Creator God created the heavens and earth we know Creator God must have existed prior to this creation.  On this assumption alone man has tried to define Creator God for thousands of years. We're no closer to arriving at a perfect definition now than we were back then.

Our second assumption is Creator God created something Creator God knew and understood.  We all create things we know and understand.  We don't create things we don't know and we don't understand.  So what Creator God created was familiar to Creator God.

If Creator God knows all about each of us, because Creator God did create us, then Creator God knows more than all of us put together.  In fact, Creator God knows everything we know and Creator God knows more than we know.  Thus, because Creator God knows everything, Creator God has to be Omniscient.

If Creator God was all there was in the beginning, then there was only one thing Creator God could have used to create and that one thing was Him, Her, It, Creator God. Therefore everything that is created is within Creator God, and Creator God is within everything.  Creator God is both Omnipresent and Immanent.

If Creator God created us and all that is within Creator God, then all the power that is must exist within Creator God. Creator God is and must be Omnipotent.  Additionally, since Creator God created the heavens, and there is no end to the heavens, and those heavens are within Creator God, then Creator God must be Infinite.

If Creator God was in the beginning and Creator God is Infinite then it follows that Creator God is also Eternal and Ever-living.  So, we know Creator God is Eternal, Infinite, Omnipresent, Immanent, Omnipotent, Omniscient and Creator God created all that exists.  Everything is Creator God.  Creator God is everything.

If we assume Creator God created something He, She or It knew and understood, then it follows that the Law of Correspondence may be true.  That Law says: "That which is above is as that which is below; and that which is below is as that which is above."  In short, this law is: "As above, so below."

This gives us the opportunity to understand more about Creator God because the Law of Correspondence says we create in the same manner.  How do we create?

We create because we get the idea we can create, we think we can create so we set about creating.  We might intuit this idea, reason it out for ourselves, or receive it from some Higher Source.  This logic leads to several possible ways in which Creator God came to create all that exists.

One possibility is Creator God received the inspiration to create Heaven and Earth from a Higher Source.  In this case, we drop our consideration of this particular "Creator God" and go back to the Original Source above and beyond which there is no other Higher Source.  In other words, we disregard this possibility since we've already decided there is no Higher Source above the Creator God we're considering.

If Creator God reasoned it out or intuited the idea to create a physical universe, the first step in this process was to become aware such a creation was possible.  As above, so below.

To understand this process let's examine the life of a child.  The first thing a child does is cry.  Why?  The child has become aware of something and reacted to that something.  This is the story of a child's life: to become aware of something and react to it.  This is the story of life for most humans most of the time.  As we go through life, we become aware of many things and possibilities.  Once we become aware, we start to think and have feelings about the things in our awareness.

As below, so above.  Before Creator God could create anything, Creator God first needed to become aware of the possibility of creating anything.  Awareness is the first step of this or any other creation. 

On the Tree of Life, the topmost sphere is called Kether (pronounced ket' - er) or The Crown.  In the Tree of Life we're creating now, we'll call this sphere Awareness.  For our purposes, Kether, the Crown and Awareness are all the same thing.  What we know about one, we know about the other.

The Cabala teaches that Awareness is partially manifest and partially unmanifest.  It is partially of the world of creation and partially of the world above and beyond the creation.  Awareness is like that.  It's both partially in our consciousness and partially in our conscious mind.  We're aware, but we're only aware of what  we see, hear, smell, touch, taste or feel (intuit). 

The Creator created everything that ever was, is now or ever will be.  The first step in this creation process was the act of becoming aware it was possible to create.   Awareness precedes everything else.  It's the first step in thinking everything we think, feeling everything we feel, speaking everything we speak and doing everything we do.

According to the teaching of the Qabala, nine more steps are needed to actually manifest anything in the material plane.  But none of those steps will occur until and unless there is first Awareness of the possibility of creating something in our lives.

Awareness is the first step, the first of ten steps to manifestation.  Awareness is the first sphere on the Tree of Life, the first of ten spheres of manifestation.  Awareness is the first act of creation, it is the first creation from which all else flows.

According to the Big Bang Theory, in the beginning there was nothing.  At a point in this nothingness all the matter and energy that ever was, exists now and ever will be was created.  All this energy and all this matter were compressed into a single point, a single point in the Mind of The Creator.

The sheer power of all this energy being compressed into a single point caused it to explode in a Big Bang.  Matter and energy have been moving away from the explosion of this single point ever since.  Matter and energy will continue to speed away from this explosive beginning until the energy of that explosion has been expended.  Then, according to the Big Bang Theory, everything will reverse course and be pulled back to it's source in the Mind of the Creator.

Nobody knows for sure when the Big Bang occurred nor when it will collapse back on itself.  Scientists are looking back in time toward the center of the Universe with very powerful telescopes.  They say the Big Bang occurred about twelve billion years ago and that our Sun is about five billion years old.

These same scientists say the Universe is still expanding and it's not slowing down.  Not yet.  The best minds working on the Big Bang Theory guess the Universe will continue to expand for at least another ten to fifteen billion years.

To think it all began because Creator God became aware creation was possible.  As above, so below.  To think that all we are, have been and ever will be is so because you and I became aware we could create our own lives.  This Awareness was the first step in our own act of creation.

The Creator has been called many things.  In the tradition of the Universal Gnostic Church, The Creator is usually referred to as Creator God.  In Eastern traditions The Creator is called Brahman.  In Greek myth Gaia emerged from the Chaos and created the Earth and everything in it.  Thus The Creator can be considered to be Chaos though some call Gaia the Mother of All.

Tellus Mater was the Roman Goddess equivalent to Gaia and she, too, was born of the  Chaos.  In our discussions we'll consider Chaos to be The Creator in both Roman and Greek mythology.  The Creator of the Mesopotamians was the God El, the father of all man and creator of all things.  The Creator in Egyptian mythology was Atum the self-created, the Great He-She.  Memphis priests taught that Atum was the child of Ptah but this was apparently not a widespread belief.

In Irish Druidism the Creator is a goddess called Danu.  She is the Great Mother of  All that is and ever was. The name of The Creator in Norse mythology is lost to us.   Many consider The Creator to be Tiwaz but the stories seem to indicate Tiwaz was born of The Creator.

The North American Indians were not one faith or religion but many.  The Creator has as many names as there are tribal families.  The Pueblo Indians consider The Creator to be Awonawilona.  Awonawilona is The One Who Contains Everything.

The  Algonquin Nation called The Creator Kitchi Manitou and the name Manitou has been used by several tribes in describing The Creator.  Certain of the Pacific Coast Nations called this same God by the name Olelbis.  To the Pawnee Nation this God is Tirawa-Atius and to the Cherokee it's Kanati and Selu (father and mother) who created all that is.