CHAPTER 1

Mansions of the Soul

The projection of consciousness has always been an integral part of Hermeticteachings. From the Merkavah (Chariot) Riders and their journeys to the starryHekelot (Palaces) of the invisible world in primitive qabala, to the teachingsof the Corpus Hermeticum—"Think of a place and you are there" of the earlyChristian era—to the practice of Traveling in Spirit Visions undertaken by theadepts of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, it would appear that the desire to experience the invisibleworld while still living in the material is an overwhelming human desire.

While a wide variety of approaches has been formulated to assist the disciplesof these diverse schools, many of their techniques require an extensive amountof preparatory teachings, initiations, and ritual assistance. However, while theworld has changed, human beings still want to "know"—to experience forthemselves—and not just believe in the spiritual realms they were taught aboutas children—realms that have always been so slightly out of reach. Modern life,however, is much different than the life of our predecessors, even if ourinstinctual spiritual desires are the same. Time is divided into smaller andsmaller units, and people are expected to achieve ever more and more in thosemicrosections of time.

Many people say they have little time for spiritual studies, let alone todedicate to a specific discipline. Others say that many of the traditionalWestern disciplines are too abstract and difficult to understand, let aloneapply. Yet for those who have little or no knowledge of traditional tenth- totwelfth-century Merkavah doctrines, or no interest in learning the necessarysigns, symbols, and invocations for Golden Dawn-style techniques and their "spinoffs," yet who still want a Hermetic approach to their inner world, this book isthe solution. The material presented is simple, direct, and does not require anextensive amount of visualization or creative imaging.

The methods herein are especially suitable for those who would like to have an"out-of-body experience" but who lack either the necessary visualization skillsrequired for so many of the present techniques, or for those who have hadviolent experiences leaving their body and would like a gentler approach to theastral planes. The methods described in this treatise can be performed either byan experienced traveler or by a beginner with equal ease and similar results. Ifthe techniques in this book are practiced regularly there is every reason tobelieve that everyone will be able to achieve some level of conscious experienceof the invisible world. However, to accomplish this successfully andmeaningfully, it is important that we first understand why we have thisinstinctual need for spiritual experiences in the first place—what it is that weare after, and why do we want, and seemingly need, to go there.

Consciousness exists on several levels, and it is the work of the occultist (onewho practices esoteric methods) to experience all possible levels ofconsciousness, integrate them, and ultimately realize his or her oneness withthe source of Being. To assist in this task, a variety of models or paradigms,as they are often called in material and social sciences, are constructed out ofexperiences of those who have traveled the road before us. These models aresubject to a fair degree of change and even challenge as time goes on, but theyare effective and necessary tools to get us where we want to be. They are, ineffect, maps of consciousness, and like a road or topographical map, they arenot the territory itself. Maps help us understand where we are and what liesbefore, behind, and around us, but no amount of studying a map can substitutefor the experience of actually traveling the terrain. The map is a tool, not theterritory. This important fact is often lost on students of contemporary andmodern hermeticism, who come across extensive and detailed accounts of spiritualexperiences under such headings as traveling in Spirit Vision, Rising on thePlanes, astral projection, the Body of Light, pathworking, and skrying. To helpclarify the work outlined in this book, it is helpful to understand the basicqabalistic-Hermetic cosmology and physiology and the various methods used tointegrate them into a comprehensive and practical experience.

The Tree of Life and Levels of Being

The theoretical background behind the practices described herein are primarilyqabalistic, and it is applicable to either the traditional Tree of Life (GoldenDawn) or the Palaces outlined in the Sepher Zohar. In short, any systematicoutline of the interior body-world of humanity can be applied, as long as it hasconcise, easy-to-visualize symbols for the various planes of consciousness. Thisincludes the numerous cosmological images produced during the Renaissance,particularly those dealing with alchemy.

The working assumption behind contemporary and modern Hermetico-qabalisticpractices is that we as conscious beings originate in the Ain Soph Aur, orLimitless Mind of God. We incarnate through various stages of increasing densityand matter into the present world in order to gain the experiences that willallow us to go from potential beings to self-actualized or self-created beings.In our journey of development we take on characteristics and "bodies" of variousvibrations, and on our "return" we shed these bodies in exchange forincreasingly subtle bodies and worlds of Light.

These worlds are categorized in the Gnostic, qabalistic, hermetic, andalchemical texts under different names and numbers, but share the same essentialqualities and functions. That is, they go from the dense world of material earthto the subtle realms of Infinity, or the point of our origin, the Mind of theCreator.

Within our physical body we have various organs of psychic perception, calledpsycho-spiritual centers in modern Western esoteric nomenclature and chakras...