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Promethea and Esoteric Knowledge

22:20 / 16.03.06

Not long ago, a friend introduced me to "Promethea", a series of graphic novels (or comic books, as we used to call them) concerning the adventures of a post-modern teenage girl, in an altered version of present-day reality, who hooks into a hidden universe of magic through the power of story. I've seen discussions of various aspect of the series here so I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with it.

The thing I found most striking about the series is how wonderfully it explains the principles of Qabalah, Tarot and other esoteric subjects while having a whee of a time powing bad guys and going on immortal quests. It has provided me some new insights into the subject(s) and I'm thinking that it'd be a great addition to the body of teaching materials -- especially for Qabalah. Not a primer but perhaps after a student has committed the basics of the Sephiroth and their correspondences to memory and done some path working.

Thoughs?

Gendudehashadenough

23:16 / 16.03.06

Awesome books. I can't wait until I have cash flow to get book 5. I esspecially enjoyed the various stories within each of the spheres within the glyph.

I'd say that the books are a great primer, even for those who have zero knowledge about the system. I had read a book or two on the subject prior to reading the comics, but more than the explainations, the artwork was absolutely stunning. I've actually put up two posters from the single issue that came with a fold out poster. Again, the artwork, mannnnnn. Not of very thought out response, but maybe this should be moved to Comics... *chrp*

23:42 / 16.03.06

Seems like a Comics thread to me too.

Unless Woodsurfer wants to rephrase the summary to discuss magic as it pertains to the book in question, and its applications... whether or not the book serves as a beginner's guide to Kabbalah...

I know Promethea changed how I look at the universe and God. How myth and story and thought and everything adds up.

00:21 / 17.03.06

My intention for this is not a discussion of Promethea as a comic, art form or even as a story, but rather as a pathway to magickal thinking -- though I hardly think you can separate art and story from this endeavor.

As an example: In one of the early books, Promethea's mission -- or destiny -- is said to be the agent who brings about "the End of the World". In Qabalah-speak, "The World" is the 32nd Path that goes between the sphere of manifest reality (Malkuth) and the plane of dreams and stories (Yesod). What if the "apocalypse" envisioned by world religions for millennia was in fact, a breakdown of the barrier between what is real and what is imagined? If this were to happen, all we depend on as being "solid reality" would be in jeopardy. On the other hand, the world could become whatever we imagined it to be. This is implied in the Qabalistic texts. What if it were true?

01:04 / 17.03.06

It is true, and it's happening.

I came to Promethea knowing absolutely nothing about Kabbalah and came away from it feeling like I had a very good handle on the basic idea of it, enough to lend a lot of mnemonic resonance to further readings on the subject. I think Promethea is a *great* intro to magick, and also a phenomenal comic book that fully exploits the capabilities of the medium in a way that no comic book has done before.

My favorite issue is the one with the Tarot cards; the interplay between the different strands of the joke and the anagrams and the cards and the poetry and the art. Simply amazing.

12:05 / 17.03.06

I think Promethea is probably one of the best books on western trad magic written in the last 50 years. To an extent, I agree with Grant Morisson's criticism that it paints the Sephiroth as magical landscapes that special people get to visit by doing special things - as opposed to being the basic structural components of reality that we live every day. But considering all the balls that Moore does manage to keep in the air with it, and as an exegesis on the experiential reality of each sphere, I think it's a phenomenal work.

18:21 / 17.03.06

as magical landscapes that special people get to visit by doing special things

I'm interested in this. I never got that the spheres were anything other than variations on what was going on all the time, only sheared of each other... so that we learned individual emotional context was Netzach at work, sagaciousness was Geburah and such. How did you interpret it as being other?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:57 / 17.03.06

It's probably partly the frustration at being shown something unseen and not being able to actually see it for yourself, real time. All we get is Malkuth, Malkuth, Malkuth.

21:00 / 17.03.06

. . . as magical landscapes that special people get to visit by doing special things

Actually, Sophie and Barbara's travels through the spheres and paths are in the tradition of deeper Qabalistic learning through journeys on the inner planes. Check out "Shining Paths" by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki for a great example of this. Inner path-working connects our deeper self with knowledge not available through intellectual means. I don't know if you could accomplish this by having someone read parts of Promethea to you while in an Alpha state but it just might work. I can tell you from personal experience that the path-workings from "Shining Paths" definitely do work.

21:52 / 17.03.06

Let me clarify:

What do you mean, specifically, when you use the word "special" in your descriptions?

07:00 / 18.03.06

I loved the series and have turned the students in my qabalah class on to it as well.
Promethia has resonated with their curriculum and they've expressed that it helped them to better understand aspects of the tree of life. It was a novel way to introduce the idea of pathworking to them.

I will be curious to see the grimoire that Mr. Moore is rumored to be working on.

10:49 / 18.03.06

I was just paraphrasing Grant Morrison's criticisms of Promethea as a magical text. I remember reading an interview where he claimed that Moore's spin on the Quabala painted the Sephiroth as mystical dimensions that magicians can travel to using their special astral powers of magic - rather than the building blocks of our everyday experience. I think he was suggesting that this was an exclusionist way of portraying the Tree, making it the province of the select few magickey types, rather than something that is our universal experience.

I think it's a bit of a straw man argument really, because as you note, that whole section is just a fictionalised 'pathworking', which is a staple of western trad magic. It's also a good way of delivering very dense information in an engaging narrative - which I think was the point of the exercise. Just thought I'd raise the criticism to see what people thought. I can kind of see Morisson's point but I think its being more than a bit unfair and nit picking at the same time.

14:04 / 18.03.06

The poster that is issue 32 is as good as any magical text I've read, in content and context, form and substance. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I'm fully prepared to admit the superhero story suffers for the exposition, but AFAIAC that's the best way round to get it. I used the underground style map of the Tree to teach Tarot correspondences the other day, it's ideal. (if only Quantum could find the pic link grr)

15:23 / 18.03.06

Ooh, I would love to get a clean pic of that Tree of Life/Tube map.

17:55 / 18.03.06

I'm pretty sure you can find that image on John Coulthart's website. He's the dude wot designed it. Probably not hi-res, but it should do ya.

Am I right in thinking that Moore's the first to link the Abyss with pi? If so, that's simply brilliant. Or brilliantly simple.

20:59 / 18.03.06

Thanks Monk. Wow, there's a lot of cool stuff in there.

Speaking of Da'ath... in the issue where Sophie and Barbara visit the Abyss, there are two "lost" paths, the Beggar and the Fountain. Does anybody know of an origin for these, or is this just something out of Moore's head?

02:28 / 19.03.06

From BIROCO.com:
" I once had someone who is annotating Alan Moore's comic Promethea writing to me on an almost daily basis asking me questions about the various occult minutiae of Promethea. In the end I told him I'd ask Alan (right). So I asked Alan, 'What did you mean when you wrote about this qabalistic pathway called "The Fountain", there isn't a qabalistic fountain path, this guy who's annotating Promethea keeps emailing me asking me questions about it.' Alan looks at me: 'I made that shit up Joel…' Now you know the inner workings of creative talent, the deep significance embedded in each creative choice that some worker ant will later write a commentary on, annotating every detail with voluminous notes. I smiled: 'Now I understand why you aren't on email.' "

Also, a better (still not high-res) pic of the sepheroth/underground map.

12:37 / 19.03.06

As a matter of fact, monk, it was Melinda Gebbie who suggested pi for Da'ath. Moore mentioned that while he was sick, working on that issue, and asking aloud what "invisible" number comes between 3 and 4, Gebbie mentioned it in passing. Her answer seemed flip to him, and he was angry, but then calmed and realized she was on to something.

I really liked that story.

12:45 / 19.03.06

Beggar/Fountain

A while back, we had a bit of a creative debate over what paths would've linked a healthy Da'ath with the rest. In addition to The Fountain and The Beggar, I think the final result was The Altar path to Chokmah, and The Theif path to Geburah... I think The Virgin led to Tiphereth, but overlapped with High Priestess, so we stopped talking about it.

20:45 / 19.03.06

Posters and postcards of the Tree of Life/Tube Map are available at cafepress, here.

08:47 / 20.03.06

I'm dipping into Dion Fortune's "Mystic Qabala" at the moment, and while it doesn't really expound greatly on Daath, it does seem to portray the Invisible Sephiroth in different terms to a lot of other commentators. Rather than seeing it as a broken, damaged Sephiroth - something that should be there but has collapsed on itself causing an Abyss; it paints it as a fully functioning but invisible Sephiroth located within the Abyss. Therefore Daath is not synonymous with the Abyss, but rather something you find whilst you are traversing the Abyss. Quite a different concept really.

10:24 / 20.03.06

"The Mystical Qabala" is my touchstone for understanding Qabala -- it offers lucid explanations of so many of the principles. I believe this is the actual quote Gypsy Lantern refers to:

"The meaning of the word Kether, we have already noted, is Crown. Chokmah means Wisdom, and Binah means Understanding. But pendent to these two latter Sephiroth is a curious and mysterious third, which is never represented in the glyph of the Tree; this is the invisible Sephirah, Da'ath, Knowledge, and it is said to be formed out of the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah and is situated astride the Abyss. Crowley tells us that Da'ath is in another dimension to the other Sephiroth, and forms the apex of a pyramid of which Kether, Chokmah, and Binah form the three basal angles. To me, Da'ath presents the idea of realisation and consciousness."

She also says in another passage:

". . . The result is a triangular figure upon the glyph, and it is called the Triangle of the Three Supernals, or the First Trinity and is separated from the rest of the Sephiroth by the Abyss, which normal human consciousness cannot cross. Here are the tools of existence, hidden from our eyes."

I've noted in a lot of discussions of the Tree there seems to be a fascination with Da'ath -- primarily because it's hidden and unknowable, I believe. We have a great fascination for the things we're allowed only the smallest glimpse of and tend to built great structures out of merest conjecture. I guess these explorations provide us with a kind of dark mirror or perhaps indicate the presense of forces within us in the a fashion analogous to the discovery of Pluto -- by observing the other bodies it disturbed in it passage.

11:39 / 20.03.06

I found that when you understand Daath as the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah, it makes a lot more sense out of the "Yod He Vau He Elohim" bit of the Middle Pillar exercise. If you're thinking of Daath as this sinister, terrifying Abyssal concept, that can be slightly jarring when you're intonating its Godname at your throat centre. I always felt as if I was missing a trick somewhere when it came to visualising Daath within the body. The identification with the Abyss seemed out of place with the rest of the exercise. But if we look at Daath in the terms Dion Fortune suggests above, as an invisible conjunction of the Supernals, it makes perfect sense. And of course, the Godname "YHVH Elohim" relates perfectly to this concept of conjunction as it is a masculine name with a feminine plural ending.

14:56 / 20.03.06

I believe that "YHVH Elohim" actually is a masculine-gendered word (YHVH + El or Eloah) with a masculine plural ending (-im).

("-im" is generally a Hebrew masculine plural ending (e.g., yeladim (boys)), while "-ot" is generally a Hebrew feminine plural ending (e.g., yeladot (girls).)

Much more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elohim

15:02 / 20.03.06

Interesting, did Fortune get that bit wrong? Don't have it to hand, but I'm sure she talks about it having a feminine plural ending. Any ideas where that error came from?

15:16 / 20.03.06

The word "Eloah" ends in "-ah," and feminine words in Hebrew generally end in "-ah." However, as noted in Wikipedia, "Eloah"

ends in a furtivum vowel (i.e. short non-syllabic [a] element which is part of a lowering diphthong) followed by a breathily-pronounced final [h] consonant sound — while feminine Hebrew words which end in "ah" have a fully syllabic [a] vowel which is followed by a silent "h" letter (which changes to a [t] sound in the grammatical "construct state" construction, or if suffixes are added). The pronounced [h] (or he mappiq) of Eloah never alternates with a [t] consonant sound (the way that silent feminine "h" does), and the [a] "furtivum" element in Eloah is actually a late feature of masoretic pronunciation traditions, which wouldn't have existed in the pronunciation of Biblical times.

In other words, "Eloah" looks like a feminine Hebrew word, but really isn't because it's spelled and pronounced slightly differently. To a Cabalist like Fortune, who wasn't (as far as I know) a Hebrew speaker or Hebraist, it's an easy mistake to make.

Hell, I didn't know the gender of "Eloah" until I looked it up to be sure.

15:21 / 20.03.06

Whoops -- just looked at your question again.

If Fortune said that "YHVH Elohim" was a FEMININE term with a MASCULINE ending, I believe that's a common misconception in occultism, and it's explained by my post above.

But if she said that "YHVH Elohim" was a MASCULINE term with a FEMININE ending, I believe she's simply wrong. "-im" is pretty clearly a masculine ending.

15:27 / 20.03.06

It might well have been the other way around. Feminine term with a masculine ending. Can't remember. Either way, it scuppers part of the speculation around Daath.

rising and revolving

15:58 / 20.03.06

And of course, the Godname "YHVH Elohim" relates perfectly to this concept of conjunction as it is a masculine name with a feminine plural ending

True, but it's always seemed a bit clunky to me. It is the Godname of Binah, which seems a weird choice in order to represent the conjunction of Binah and Chokmah.

I understand the rationale Regardie gives for chosing this[1] - I'm just not convinced I agree. Among other things, I don't agree that Binah is closer to Daath than Chokmah - I feel that's almost exactly *not* the point, if you're going to view Daath as a conjunction.

What I like about the conjunction viewpoint, and what I find especially enlightening about looking at things that way, is that it allows one to see and feel Daath as the unknown and unknowable. Yet, the unknown and unknowable that contains a seed of the highest - one that is only avaliable through the combination of Wisdom and Understanding.

The forms of Wisdom and Understanding referred to here are (while I have only the slightest glimpses of them) sublime concepts, beyond rationality. That is, to me, one of the great lessons of Daath. There comes a point where to grasp wisdom you need to understand it - not explain it.

[1] Binah is "Closest" to Daath, so he borrows the Godname, it not having one of its own.

18:00 / 20.03.06

The Beggar features in one of the earliest Tarot decks the Mantegna deck. But it was nothing like it was described in Promethea. And the fountain was blatantly Moore's fancy.

BTW that linked article is a good read, criticising the Qabbalah/Trumps correspondence.