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Who are you?
This seemingly trivial question contains a lifetime’s search. The modern world, with its focus on the materialistic, encourages us to take a rather shallow view of who we are. Our conscious, waking mind is assumed to be the source of our sense of self. Yet, a universal idea in all mystical and magical teachings is that we have an inner self. This is a deeper level of what is truly “us” and constitutes our essence. This inner self is linked with the creative heart of the Universe and its outer reflection is our outward personality. Psychology calls this outer self, “the ego”; an emotive word that conveys some of the negative power that this layer of our being can have over our lives.
The Magical Qabalah shows us that this outer self is just the first level of our true makeup. The techniques of the Tree of Life provide practical methods for getting to know where this outer layer ends and the inner ones begin. This does not mean that we will find the inner levels of ourselves fully developed and waiting to serve us, far from it. The once-shared consciousness that we brought into this world has been relegated to the hidden or unconscious since we were children. The result of this is that we lead lives that are full of hidden, unconscious forces.
To regain the dual consciousness that is our birthright requires more than just intellect. In fact, intellect is often the servant of just the outer part of ourselves and constrains the inner, unconscious realms to being “mere fantasy”. Pity the inner self, then; its surging emotional forces unable to contribute to the conscious lifetime in which it is virtually a prisoner.
Magic, a word derived from Magi, meaning wise ones, is a time-honoured set of techniques to engage and unite the twin halves of ourselves. Personal drama, ritual and exploration are used in a loving context to unfold a map of consciousness that is far more than just theory.
The symbolic map we use for these explorations of consciousness is called the Tree Of Life, a Qabalistic image that combines the cosmos and mankind’s place in it.
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