Divinity of Death - Chapter 1 - Death and God
God is many things to many people. For me, skipping ahead a bit, God has two primary faces. One is masculine and the other feminine. Both for me are linked to death. Neither is everything that death is. They also are more than death as well.
To begin, I am going to step outside of those faces and talk about God as I believe it is behind the faces we ascribe to it. These are just my opinions, and though I hope you learn something from my opinions, I am not infallible or some kind of new cult leader.
I come by my belief in God by proof. I suggest Aristotle as a good place to find evidence of the scientific reality of the existence divinity. To some people God is just a psychological construct and magick is just an active way to get at the parts of the brain that are either subconscious or dormant. I do not follow this school of thought. Truly I am a Deist and believe that God is a real, yet detached truth.
God is real, and as I indicated earlier, this leaves me open to being accused of being a little, okay, a lot crazy. God is beyond our comprehension in this reality. He can no more be known than the square root of Pi. God is unknowable. When I use the word “he,” you should also understand that I believe that God is neither male nor female, but English lacks a good neutral word. “It” to me implies something less personal than “he” or “she.” So he is beyond what we conceive as the universe. God does not follow the rules we understand as science. He is not good, evil, both, or neither. As I said, God is unknowable.
To those of you reading this with some kabalistic background, this should make sense to you. As I have said, my background is in ceremonial magick. God is the crown of heaven. In Hebrew the word for crown is Kether. As laid out in the book “The Sepher Yetzirah,” Kether is the abode of God, or more truthfully it is the pure state of Godhead.
In Kabala there are ten layers of existence called sephirah, and Kether is the highest. Some, including the “Sepher Yetzirah,” say that Kether is unattainable. I do not know. Obviously I am not united with God.
Underneath Kether is Chochmah, which is Hebrew for “wisdom,” and Binah is “understanding.” These three sephirah are called the Supernal Triad. They constitute the purest forms of God. Separating them from the other seven sephirah is something called Daath. It is the abyss. Daath is a Hebrew word for “knowledge.” As I said, you cannot know God.
In my opinion, anyone who wants to find God must go through Binah. This means you need to try to understand Him. I should say Her, because to magickal kabalists Binah is feminine. Binah, as with all existence under Kether, is just a face of God and not the totality of God. It is much closer to that true face than most.
The sephirah Binah has a variety of traditional attributions. Among them is the color black, the planet Saturn (though I personally think that Saturn is Daath), and the number three.
In many western cultures the color black is associated with death. This makes us think of death when looking at Binah, although in other cultures many other colors are associated with death. Black is important to our understanding of Binah, pun intended. Although in truth black is not a color, neither are white or grey, the colors of Kether and Chochmah. It is a shade. The other sephirah have colors associated with them. For the supernals it is one or another shade.
Binah is seen by many as being the combination of everything below Daath. I like that way of looking at Binah from beneath the abyss. It is a wonderful illusion to think that if you combine everything from Malkuth to Chesed you arrive at Binah. This untruth would go on to say that you have then found God when you have experienced everything in this reality. It is, as I have said, a nice idea, but false.
As I said earlier, the only true face of the totality of creation that is God resides in Kether. This residence of God includes things that are not in the known universe. Therefore Binah is not Kether, nor is the combination of everything before Binah. This sephirah is not the end of the journey.
Yes, black is the combination of all pigments, and it can be argued that Binah is the true representation of the lower Tree of Life as seen whole. The reason that I said that this was the view from beneath the abyss is simple. Kether is light and black is the absence of light. The real divine heavenly light is seen in Kether and is still present even in the grey of Chochmah. Binah is, and the other sephirah through Binah are, so far from that light that it is difficult to see. Does this mean that Binah is the absence of God? No, but it is not the fullness of God either. It is a beginning of awareness of God.
Binah is associated with death in that it is supposed that if you reach into Binah, the part of your soul that makes you whoever you are disappears into something else. If you move into Binah, who you are dies. It moves into that supernal triad. You really begin to get at being part of God.
In Binah something deeper than your body dies. If Binah truly is the physical universe, then of course you will no longer be able to exist here. Remember, after Daath the rules change. You and everything that is your universe as understood by you dies.
All of these lofty thoughts are all contained in the study of the planet Saturn. Although I myself see Daath as Saturn, I cannot help seeing that some lingering saturnine qualities can be found in Binah. The final death is in Binah.
Many can justifiably argue that death is Netzach, the sephirah of Venus. They point to one of the paths off of Netzach. In the Tarot, the death card is that path. The same people who argue that this path is the place of true death tell people that the death card seldom means real death, but is just the end of something. To bring those people into agreement with me, the solution is simple. Reincarnation is the truth for most people. If you have not explored the halls of the sephirah Tiphareth, then you will reincarnate. Death will be repeated over and over until you do. This death is the body, but “you” continue on.
The number three is also important when we examine Binah. Three is used in several associations with death, as you will see. Many death gods use the number as a sacred number. Gede is a good example. How many people do you know that say death comes in threes? What is meant by this is that three people you know will die at approximately the same time. I do not buy this one. If you said three people will die in the same week and it worked out, maybe. I have witnessed people go out of their way to find this to be true. They will say it after a couple people they know die, and then six months later someone else dies and they will say, “Well, there’s the third.” I think that is absurd.
I prefer to see the number three as again more connection to Binah and its connection to the physical realm. We do live in the third dimension. Science postulates several, but we live here in the third.
Numerically three is much easier than one or two for us to understand. One at this time is impossible for me really to get philosophically. You might question how by saying, “This is one apple.” Philosophically, one is everything that is. This is a big universe, and trying to see it as all together one thing is beyond me yet. I can believe in the existence of that oneness, but to try to imagine it is a different matter. Even to scientists who have a far greater concept of the universe have trouble with it.
Two seems as though it would be easier. The idea of you, the individual, and everything else is two things. It is assumed that you should be able to within reason understand yourself. If you can understand you, then everything else is the unknown. Really!! I have not even the first clue as to why I do some of the stupid things I do. Sometimes I get angry and do not even know why. So if I have to understand myself before understanding everything that is not me, then I am screwed.
I do not understand two. There are males and females, right? Until you factor in that some people are born with traits of both sexes or neither. What about transgender? Although these kinds of people are few, they throw a wrench in using sex to determine the idea of two.
What about science, can we get some help? Science knows everything, right? If you want to see a scientist’s head explode, ask them where the first atom came from. The real answer is they do not know. You might get one who will talk about this energy that comes in the form of lines and circles. This is something called string theory. Finally we have two things, circles and lines, to explain the universe -- except if you ask what is in the circle or between the lines. Sometimes you get the answer “nothing.” I think that the absence of existence might not be all that scientific. “Nothing” is not a good answer.
Hopefully I have made my point that two is difficult to get our heads around. How is three any easier? I certainly am not yet in Binah, at least the totality of Binah. Therefore I am not quite to the point where I can really fully understand Binah, but circles, lines, and the space in between begins to break down to something, someday, which I might, and science certainly will, be able to explain.
In Hinduism they conceive the universe using the concept of three gods. These gods are Brahma, the creator, Shiva, the destroyer, and Vishnu, the sustainer. I again can wrap my head around that to a degree. At least I have some hope to.
So what do all these numbers have to do with death? I needed to explain why three matters to Binah, which I stated was linked to death. Now finally I can get away for a moment from this Kabalistic mumbo jumbo and get into how Binah affects me personally and death specifically. In other words, I can get past what I know about Binah and dive into what I feel about it. After that you might be able to process why I love these gods of death.
Binah is the holy sephirah of understanding. This place is key to my being. It certainly is the home for many of the spirits I hold most dear. The first of these is Babalon the Beautiful, or if you please, The Mother of Abominations. Many of my readers at this point might be confused. I have been talking at length about God, love, and many nice things. How does my writing now turn to The Mother of Abominations, the Holy Whore?
Babalon is scorned by Christians and feared by many who call themselves Pagan. She is Binah and certainly is the gateway to it. The name Babalon as you see here spelled was recognized by Aleister Crowley in his work, “The Vision and the Voice.” This book is the description of his work with Enochian Aethyrs. These Aethyrs, or Airs, are similar to working up the Tree of Life. There are thirty levels of consciousness. Later in these workings, which I find to be some of Crowley’s best work, he receives information about a goddess he called Babylon and was later corrected in the spelling.
Babalon is much more important to me than she appears to have been for Crowley. In fact, if anyone until the last decade or so gave her any real attention, it was Jack Parsons. He was a Thelemite who in the 1960’s happened to literally have been a rocket scientist. It was his work that landed the United States on the moon.
Parsons performed an invocation with the help of a few others designed to invoke Babalon. His work has influenced me a lot and I suggest anything you can read by him. What likely influenced me the most was his poem, “The Birth of Babalon.” This poem stirs my heart even after hearing and reciting it many times. To read it follow this link-https://liberbabalon.gydja.com/birth.html
So the name Babalon and many of the attributes of this goddess are new. Her energy on the other hand is not. Inanna was her name in Sumer. It was Ishtar in Babylon. She was Isis in Egypt. Kali is the name for her in India. All of these goddesses and many more from the ancient world have her energy. They were not entirely her. They were not nearly Babalon.
My understanding of her is that she is manifest divinity. She is the world around us, the link to God that is all around us. From deep within the cities to the far untouched parts of the wilderness, all of it is her.
This all sounds great, but why did I use the titles “Mother of Abominations” and “Holy Whore”? The most important reason is that those titles are accurate. She is the mother of everything in this world. Many things in this world are abominations to someone. There are murders and rapes every day, just to name a few. War, disease, famine, is all over this world.
That is not the entire reason, though. In Revelations, in the Bible, it speaks about Babylon in relation to the Great Beast. Yes, it is spelled different. Many argue as well that it is actually talking about a city. She gets this title from the connection. This does bring me to how they are connected, though.
Crowley writes about there being different Aeons and believed there to have been three that humanity have experienced. The First was Matriarchal and really early in the history of the human race. I would go as far as saying that man barely was part of that Aeon. Crowley attributes Isis as the ruler of this time.
The second Aeon is Patriarchal and is ruled by Osiris. We know much more about this Aeon because it takes place in the rise of humanity and civilization as we know it. It follows the formula of the dying god. The focus in this Aeon was on science, the intellect, and everything else that man has been doing.
The final Aeon is that which Crowley believed he initiated in 1904 with the writing of his holy book called, “The Book of the Law.” This new Aeon is ruled by Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris. What the character of this Aeon will be remains to be seen. It is my belief as well that the Aeons overlap quite a lot and we are still feeling the influence of the previous Aeon.
As the first apparent mystical effect of this Aeon, there seems to be a bit of a rebalancing of energy. The goddess is rising again in power. It can be seen in many cultures and tendencies in the world. Here in the west we have seen the rise of the New Age movement, of Wicca with a focus on the divine feminine, and the worldwide adoration of Mary. In particular women are rising with the goddess out of the shadow of men. We see a particular kind of goddess taking hold of the thoughts on men and women alike. This goddess is strong, passionate, and she certainly is the Queen of Heaven. To many of us her name is Babalon.
I believe this rise was foretold early in the last Aeon. What St. John, as he wrote Revelations, was seeing was the world we live in. He saw the personification of this world and what he called Babylon and the Beast. His pious mind could not have seen our world in any other way. He was religious and zealous in the Aeon of Osiris. To his eyes our world could be nothing but evil.
The reason that Babalon was evil to him is simple. She is the enemy of his view of religion. His god is jealous, controlling, and makes contradictory commands that change from moment to moment. The Christian god that he believed in, and many others like him believe in still, has killed lots of people. In the Bible there are many murders by this god, and his followers have followed suit in the millions. His god claims lordship over all things, including man. Man to him seems to be just a plaything. The god that is all over the Bible is an almighty tyrant that has no respect for the liberty of man. Obviously I am not a Christian and am not all that fond of the religion. Just as an aside, I do not have ill will and actually love the god named Jesus. It is my belief that Jesus would not like many of his followers much either.
Babalon stands against these things. She has come into her strength in our time. Those Osirian Aeonic forces and energies are not about to give up easily. They certainly are beginning their death rattle, though. This makes this time dangerous for those of us who are already embracing the freedom of thought that the Aeon of Horus has to offer.
But still She is becoming more and more powerful. Liberty is stirring in the hearts of man as Horus takes his seat in the east. Babalon and that hawk-headed mystical lord will be victorious. People will be released from their self-imposed bondage. They will cast aside slavery and move towards a society based on voluntary cooperation and self-ownership. We will walk away from force and violence, whether that aggression comes from a person, spirit, or government.
All of this war cry of mine aside, Babalon is not the same as the gods of old. She is not a goddess of salvation. This goddess is not your or my hero. The Holy Whore is the lustful queen who calls all who will listen to free themselves.
Is Babalon dangerous? Many years ago I was friends with a woman who came to me with a similar question. She asked, “Is magick dangerous?” Her husband, who did not want her practicing magick, had told her that it was. I without pause both then and now answer both of those questions: Yes, absolutely, Magick and its Queen, Babalon, are the most dangerous things you can do. Madness sometimes befalls those who walk a magickal path. You can find your mistakes coming back to haunt you, literally. Looking at all of your demons both figuratively and actually is part of the magician’s path. Yes, Babalon is dangerous.
Why do I practice magick and seek out the Mother of Abominations? Binah, Babalon’s home, as I said before, is not God. It is the first step across the abyss to finding God, whether you see that God within or without. I have an unending need to unite myself and my soul with God.
Babalon is different than any other deity I have experienced or read about. She only expects one thing from you. Most gods want all sorts of things. Many of the spirits in this book want things. Babalon only wants one thing. She wants everything you are!
That’s right, everything you are. She does not want sacrifices, or food, incense, or anything like that, just you. The only way you can expect to embrace God is to lose who you are, because to unify with God, you have to be something more than you. You are less than God in your current state, and in order to join in Kether you have to be one -- yes, that unknowable one.
Ironically, the first thing you have to do to find Babalon after that journey across the abyss is to know yourself. As you climb through those seven lesser sephirah and paths connecting them, you little by little learn more about the universe and yourself. I will give a framework for doing this climbing the tree for death-based spirituality in the section on Erishkigal. For now, just grasp the idea that your spirit, mind, power, and ego grow and grow as you climb.
After you have gone through the seven sephirah, you are now facing the abyss, Daath. It is a perilous jump. This is the destruction of the Ego. Everything that “you” are must go. What you lose in the abyss is what makes you “you.” It is my belief that you are stripped down to your core being.
Many people who have attempted this jump have failed. They become entangled in their self-identity and the material world. You must be prepared to lose everything, even the things you like about yourself. Everything in your life will be gone. You may lose your job, your family, your reputation, and maybe even your freedom. All of this you have to be prepared to lose. You are jumping into the unknown and embracing a God that you have no proof exists.
Crowley calls those who attempt and fail “black brothers.” They align themselves with this world. I have heard of magicians going around accusing people of being black brothers. That is nonsense. To be a black brother, you have to be one hell of a magician. You have made it all the way to Daath. On top of that you had to have to courage to leap.
Black brothers in my opinion are few. Most of the time no one will know what they are because of their expertise in magick, coupled with the fact that surely they are not so stupid as to shout it from the rooftops and are smart enough to keep the clues to a minimum. These are spiritual people. They lie, cheat, and they tempt, but the tools of mysticism are at their command. Their desire to tempt you is the best clue that someone might be of that evil brotherhood. Their purpose is to work against anyone crossing the abyss successfully. They are the enemies of truth and freedom. In my opinion, a black brother is more likely to be in government rather than the local leader of the Satanic Church.
That being explained, let us assume that when you attempt the crossing over Daath you are successful. You have made it across the biggest test of your life. Your ego is gone. You are naked down to the truest energy of your being. Binah is before you.
It is black and dark. You float on an endless void. You find yourself in this blackness, unafraid and unknowing. You also are not finished. Out of the nothing, the image of a woman appears.
This woman has no interest in what you have done in the past. It matters not to her if you have done bad things or have been the pure picture of goodness. The feeling surrounding her is like love, but is something else. Lust is a quality in her energy as well, but it is different from the typical concept of carnal lust. She wants you like you have never been wanted before. You gaze at her and accept that she and you are one. There is no difference between the woman before you and yourself. The differences between all things, she, you, and the whole universe melt away.
From out of the nothingness that surrounds you emerges a cup. You might be wondering if she is offering you a drink. She is not, yet. When you have made it this far you will know what the cup is for. Many have tried to express this moment and the words always escape them. Symbolically you might explain it by plunging a dagger deeply into your heart. That is not what really happens. Some say that your blood is drained, every drop, into the cup. Recall that everything you are has been given up in the crossing of Daath. Whatever it is that you are really, that thing that transcends lifetimes, that deep true link to God, it goes into the cup. Whoever or whatever that is, is now gone from this universe entirely. It is now mixed with the blood/spirit of everyone else that has come this way. You are now Nemo, no man. This is where the ultimate journey to God begins. No Man may enter Kether. Now you are No Man.
I hope that this is a foundation on which you can understand my belief in and devotion to God. Also I have presented Babalon as that ultimate death that crowns the pathway to that same God. Through her it is my belief that certainly those following a path steeped in the grave can find inspiration. The Holy Whore greets all who come her way, but those of us who consider themselves the children of Death run into her cup with enthusiasm. She is the fullest expression of the totality of Death. Babalon is my God and will be until I meet Her and join those others who have tasted her wine.
One of the most interesting things about my Goddess is I feel Her reflected all over the world. She is the night sky. Deep in a misty graveyard, She is there. Far out into nature Her voice echoes. I find Her also at spring sunshine while enjoying my daughter’s birthday party, reflected there in the smile of such a wonderful girl. Most of all, She is the love of my wife and the pleasure we enjoy together. Babalon is the manifest Goddess who I call the Queen of Heaven.
I never thought that my religious life would be covered in death. At one time I even said of Christians that they focus too much of their attention on an afterlife and forget about the life they are living. What I have found for myself is that my life and spirit are fuller in the embrace of Death. Those of us who I call the children of Death are varied. My way is certainly not the same as many others. I do believe we sense each other, though. There is something different about us.
Some of us find that they need to announce their deathness to the world. They wear black all the time. Sometimes they dye their hair black. Many wear gothic clothing. Still others paint their fingernails black or wear necklaces with coffins or skulls on them. Myself, I look about as typical as the next person. If you met me at a store, chances are you would have no idea that Death is my best friend. Neither that person who dresses goth nor myself are right or wrong. Each of us expresses ourselves differently. Death has a pull on some people and I am one of them.
Let me be clear, Death is the cessation of life. It is not just recognizing changes in your life. To be a Death child is not to be “dark.” Death is when this life ends. Most of those who practice some form of active spirituality such as Wicca or Ceremonial Magick practice one form or another of life magick. It doesn’t matter if that life magick is focused on nature, the sun, war, animals, or whatever else; it still derives its energy from one form or another of life. Their energy is the force that binds humanity to the eternal turning of the wheel of life, ours is not.
It could be argued that death energy is just the final kind of life energy. That may be so, but it certainly feels different. This does not mean that we are better in any way. Many close friends of mine are not Death children. I must be honest, though, my wife, who I believe to be the greatest gift ever given to me, certainly is a Death child.
Death children do not have to work exclusively with Death. I don’t. I respect and love many spirits. I have also learned a lot from them. My heart is simply drawn to those spirits who live in the underworld or graveyards.
Do I practice black magick, or am I evil? No, at least I am not evil, nor do I practice what I would call black magick. Some Death children may curse people or work wickedness. I do not, and again, we are all different.
Do you kill to represent Death? Early on in my working with death magick I did a ritual killing of a chicken. I will get into the specifics of that later in the book. Since then I have not. I actually do not find the practice necessary. It is not that I have any problem with the practice, really. Meat is part of my diet, and the blessing of it for spiritual purposes is the only difference I see. Also, does it matter if a butcher kills the animal, or you do and offer it to the gods? I just do not find it to be a superior way of producing conversations with spirits.
I will never condone the killing of any human being. What gives anyone the right to take the experience of life away from another? Of course, I am not talking about self defense. History is full of the abomination of human sacrifice. Governments and religions have been murdering people since the beginning of human existence. Every human being owns himself. No one can take away your natural right to live, unless you yourself break natural law by trying to kill someone else. At that point you have forfeited that right.
Millions have been sacrificed to the God called the State. Mao, Stalin, and Hitler are just a few examples of the priests that have bloody knives for the almighty State. Religion does no better. Everyone knows the horrific practices of ancient Pagans all over the world. What people are less likely to recognize is Christianity’s human sacrifices. During the Inquisition, the Catholic clergy murdered thousands of mostly Jewish people in the name of their god. The Protestants are no better. The number Gerald Gardner gives for witches put to death in mainland Europe is nine million. So while my Wiccan friends are being accused of human sacrifice, the accuser’s likely religion actually is documented doing it. Human sacrifice has nothing to do with any modern spiritual practice.
To move to a better topic, how are those like myself, who find their spirit drawn to Death, different than any other magickal or mystical path? To be general, we simply are not scared by the trappings of death. In fact, we have a fondness for old things and death related items. We like old furniture, cloths, or art. Skulls, headstones, and coffins attract us. Ghosts do not scare us. We find ourselves soothed in the graveyard, even at night. These are just some of the surface differences.
We also tend to be different in temperament. We are not all somber. I am not. Many people say I am quite jovial. I and most Death children have strong personalities, though. We stand out even if some of us do it from the shadows. I think we are all just a little mad.
Are we dark? Sometimes I think, again, we tend to have more courage than some, which lets us look into things that are taboo, even outside of death. We are adventurous as well. I myself am not afraid to test the bounds of reality. Working with angels is amazing, but I also am not afraid to call up demons and devils. I am very close to Exu, who is an Afro/Brazilian spirit who most see as the Devil.
That begs the question, are you devil worshippers? Most of us are not. We are not in any particular religion. Many of us are Pagan. Some are even Christian. Still others are Deists or even Atheists. We simply feel the cold hand of Death on our shoulder.
The energy of death is just as dynamic as any other kind of energy. I see our energy as a bluish green mist that hangs on us. This energy is what causes us to be different. It can be felt. This is how we can tell that others are Death children. People who are not Death children can feel it as well. Many times they do not like it.
Are you vampires? I am neither a psychic vampire nor the blood-sucking kind. Some Death children are. We can be either. I think that the blood-drinking vampires are more likely to be Death children. Yes, these people do exist. They are not immortal, can be seen in mirrors, do not burst into flames in the sun, or have super powers. These vampires simply consume blood. It is not my cup of tea, but whatever works for them.
As for psychic vampires, they can be from any path or religion, including ours. They are more common than you might think. Have you ever met a person that left you feeling drained after spending any time with them? They were either a psychic vampire or just having a bad time and became one temporarily.
For psychic vampires that do not have death energy, we Death children are not pleasant. They drain life energy. We do not have life energy, we have death energy. When they pull in our energy, they are not adding to their life, they are pulling in death.
I personally experienced this with a nonmagickal psychic vampire I worked with years ago. He had the misfortune of working close to me for a couple of weeks. My coworkers had complained about him making them feel drained. Honestly, the guy was not very nice to be around. I try to be friendly with everyone, so I tried to buddy up to him one night. I could feel him sucking on my energy.
The next night my coworkers said that they felt better, and asked how I could stand working with him. I said that the man was lonely and awkward and explained that he was not very good in social situations. It is my belief that he was not aware of what he was doing. I also do not go around trying to find metaphysical causes for everything. Most of the time there is a mundane, psychological, or medical reason at work. I continued working with him.
A good way to explain my experience with him would be to say that it was like he had stuck a straw in me and took deep gulping sips. After a few days he became ill. His system ran off life like most people. He missed a few days of work. When he returned, he avoided me. He had noticed that when near me, he felt ill again. I know this because I got along very well with everyone, and when he told someone this, they told me. I realized that he was a psychic vampire. When he would linger too long with someone, I would strike up a conversation with them. This would stop him from feeding off of them. After a few weeks he withdrew and stopped annoying people. After about a month of working by himself, he changed and became less of a creep. He got better and stopped draining others. We never became friends, but he did eventually stop avoiding me.
How do you know if you are a child of Death? I cannot guarantee you are simply because you are reading this book. Spend time in a graveyard contemplating it. Meditate, or call up a death spirit. You might just have to go with your gut. I initially had no idea I was, nor did any of my friends. The realization that I was a child of Death began when Voodoo entered my life.
If you have not read the introduction to this book, follow this link-
https://steemit.com/magick/@marcus.pulis/divinity-of-death-introduction