The Kabbalistic Division of the Soul

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn drew heavily on the Kabbalistic work, ‘The Zohar’, in formulating the mystical framework underlying its initiatory system. 

Central to this framework, I believe, is the Kabbalistic division of the Soul as defined by that most esteemed of Kabbalists, Rabbi Isaac Luria.  Mathers had only recently translated and published his book on Knorr von Rosenroth’s ‘Kabbalah Denudata’, and this prior work on the Zohar must have had a direct and significant influence on the primary creator of the Order’s corpus.  

This theme of the division of the Soul as a core element was apparently not lost on Felkin, and he expanded the Kabbalistic framework Mathers initially developed with the revised Portal, and his higher grades above Adeptus Minor.

The principal divisions of the Soul, and how they particularly relate to the Outer Order’s symbolism, are briefly tabulated below and provides much food for thought:

Neschamah – Briah – Hierophant – White Pillar – Shin – Fire – Sulphur – High Priestess 

Ruach – Yetzirah – Hegemon – Middle Pillar – Aleph  – Air – Mercury – Temperance

Nephesh – Assiah – Hiereus – Black Pillar – Mem – Water – Salt – Universe

However, we learn that the Neschamah itself contains a trinity – Neschamah, Chiah and Yechidah.  This apparent conundrum (the one representing the three) presents a core tenet or mystery that is hinted at by the importance given by the Order to the Neschamah, the second Heh of IHVH, the Great Mother, Aima Elohim, and in an esoteric sense, HUA.

While the Neschamah does collectively represent the Supernal Triad of the Kether, Chokmah and Binah of the Soul, it is only viewed as such from below Daath.  Once above Daath the Neshamah  is associated with Aima and Binah; while Chiah has its roots in Chokmah and Abba; and that highest aspect of God emanating through Kether is Yechidah, symbolically the very tip of the Yod of Tetragrammaton that alone pierces the World of Atziluth.

So, the Soul actually has five divisions, and not three – Yechidah, Chiah, Neschamah, Ruach and Nephesh – and this division by five is possibly behind the number of Portal Officers and the diagram the ‘Order in Five Degrees’.  This schema can also be seen in more esoteric form in the diagram ‘Falling and Reflected Triangles’, and the 5=6 Flying Roll X covers the subject of the Kabbalistic Soul more explicitly.

While in Mathers’ Adeptus Minor ceremony the three Officers continue the symbolism of the tripartite division of the Soul, Felkin introduces, in his 6=5, the Shekinah as a fourth Officer (for “the trinity is always completed by and finds its realisation in the quaternary”).  Here, the Chief Adept and the Shekinah together can be seen to represent this dual aspect of the Neschamah – the Chief Adept as the compounded Neschamah as the highest aspect of the Soul when viewed from the Ruach and the Aspirant rising up the Tree; while the Shekinah is the differentiated Neschamah in its lowest station, as viewed from the Yechidah and the Higher Genius as it alights upon the Kether of Briah.

It is not until the 7=4 that ceremonially Yechidah, Chiah and Neschamah are fully revealed and differentiated in the Offices of Magus, King and Shekinah.  Absent is Ruach and the Nephesh which have been ceremonially transcended.

And of HUA – many Golden Dawn commentators ascribe this name to a transliteration of the Hebrew Heh Vau Aleph, and to Kether. They may well be right.  However, I have never seen HUA written in Hebrew in any original O. documents, and an alternative could have it as Heh Vau Heh.  This transliteration, also a triplicity of letters (suggesting Binah), contains exactly the last three letters of the name Yod Heh Vau Heh – and Mathers did note in his Kabbalah Unveiled in relation to the division of the Soul, “yod of the Ancient One is hidden and concealed.” 

The work then, of the Adept, is to discover and attract this Yod, and thus being united with Heh Vau Heh  (HUA) in Daath, they may finally exclaim – Eheieh!

Kasmillos.