When you feel that you have a fairly firm mental hold on it, add another digit next to it. You can pick one at random, or select digits from a number that has meaning to you, like your telephone number. Remembering to keep the ‘2’ vivid, hold the second number next to it. When it is stabilised, add another number, and then another, and keep going until you can no longer hold the whole number simultaneously in your mind’s eye. At that point, start back from the first ‘2’, and try building back up.

During your first attempts, you may find that even the initial ‘2’ is wavering and difficult to keep hold of. That’s perfectly normal; visualisation is not something that many of us practice. Keep at it, and you’ll find that you quickly improve. When you can hold an entire ten-digit phone number steady for minutes at a time, expand your horizons a little. Imagine the surface of your mind’s eye really is a blackboard, complete with chalk dust and a wooden frame. Rub a number out and replace it with something else. Fill in the rest of the classroom that the blackboard is in. Finally populate it with attentive, polite, quiet little children.

If you can hold the image of an entire class – with individual children in specific places – and still retain the numbers you started with, then you’ve mastered visualisation. You can move on earlier though if you are impatient to give up visualisation training, but make sure you can at least envision the blackboard and the wall it is mounted on. This is likely to take several weeks.

You’ll find that visualisation is easier some days than others. Factors such as fatigue, when you last ate and even the moon’s phase may play a role. Look back over your notes and see what correspondences you can identify. As well as the critical benefits your meditations will receive from well-trained visualisatory ability, be aware that when you work with images in your mind’s eye, you are painting pictures with the very fabric of Yesod itself. It is the essence of everything that Yesod is.

The ninth sphere of the Tree of Life, Yesod (pronounced yeh-SODD) means ‘Foundation’, and it is the first sphere that Malkuth connects to, the place of interface between the state of just being and the wisdoms represented by the rest of the Tree. It is also known as Tzaddik, righteousness. Yesod is described as the ‘pure’ intelligence because it is the final product of the rest of the Tree, just prior to its ultimate embodiment into the chaos of the world through Malkuth.

To understand Yesod, it is necessary to look at its position on the Tree. It is often identified with the moon, and like the moon, it reflects the light of the sun/soul from its home in Sephira 6, Tiphareth, straight down to the earth/body in Malkuth. It is also connected to the Spheres of thought and feeling (Hod and Netzach, 7 and 8 respectively), but it lies below their level, close the unthinking instinct of Malkuth.

In other words, Yesod is the sphere of the unconscious. It integrates the past with the urgings and tendencies of the higher soul, and blends that material in with conscious thought and feeling, feeding the resultant material to the self. This is a realm of the imagination and the unconscious, of phantoms, dreams, legends and horrors. Self-awareness begins here, in the dim memories of past pains and glories, and the inherited needs of the soul.

The Cat in the Mirror

Yesod receives all of the urges and imaginings generated within Malkuth. It is a sphere of illusions and phantasms, as infinitely malleable as Malkuth is stubbornly inflexible. The past lives on here, in patterns cast by prior events and thoughts – not just individually, but collectively as well, for after all, we are all one. When you look into your mind’s eye and work with your imagination, you are manipulating the stuff of Yesod. When you dream, this is the sphere that you wander through. Yesod is a place of unbridled creativity, where anything can be brought into existence and given a chance to show itself. This is the realm of the psychic and the astral – a place of possibilities rather than truths.

Without the influence of Yesod, there would be no house for the influence of the past, no place for common understanding, no way for the light of the divine to touch the world. Formation takes place here; patterns filter down to Yesod from the rest of the Tree and are turned into blueprints by which Malkuth can bring them into manifestation. All that is and was lives on in Yesod’s reflections. This is the home of symbolism, hidden meanings and desires, and all manner of images and chimera.  It is the path by which the divine light of the soul is able to make itself manifest within the world, for if it shone directly onto Malkuth, that beauty of Tiphareth, the pure house of the soul, would sweep away our free will in a bright burst of divine love. Every soul yearns for completeness, for the return first to Tiphareth, and then up to Kether and unity with God. If that completion were enforced however, there would be no room for growth or understanding – it would be as if God had never Sundered himself in the first place.

So, by acting as a confused, misty mirror for the glories of the soul in Tiphareth – as well as the fires of the mind in Hod and the waves of emotion in Netzach – Yesod allows Malkuth, with all its imperfections, to remain in existence. Without it, the entire universe would be swept back up in the rapture that is Kether, oneness with God. Yesod is a dark, twisted mirror, but it has to be, because the light that it reflects is so intense.

Be aware though that like any other mirror, Yesod reflects both ways, and while it does distort the glory of the divine, it also purifies the physical. Illusions can not pass upwards out of Yesod. Further more, like a more conventional mirror, it brings the soul into the personality through the unconscious, but it can also show twisted aspects of the personality back to itself. Horrors and glories can be generated out of the twists in our own unconscious. Yesod is a dangerous sphere: a trap for illusions, both our own and others’, layered over the years. We need to learn to identify our own fantasies (both good and bad) before we can move through Yesod in safety. Many mystics have been trapped here by false wonders and terrors.

Are you able to tell the difference between a twisted reflection of your own fears and desires, and a true reflection of your divine will? Are you ready to look beyond the words and tricks of false prophets and see the beauty of God’s light? These are the challenges that you will need to rise to in order to master the many nodes of Yesod.

Yesod

In meditations, Yesod is normally visualised as a grassy hilltop clearing poking out of a vast forest of trees. The forest is full of hidden, distant activity. It is night, and the moon is overhead, its phase corresponding to the current physical one. The only colour is a dark indigo wash over the blacks, whites and greys of the scene – and even then, only when the moon is at least half full. Towards the centre of the clearing, a wide circle of stones surrounds a ring of pillars. Each stone is about a foot round, half white and half black. The pillars themselves come in pairs, one black and one white. At the top, exactly level with your face, each pair holds a round mirror. There are nine pairs, distributed evenly around the circle. As you stand at the centre and look into the mirrors, you see that each contains a different aspect of your personality; positively skewed, negatively skewed and undistorted versions of your childish ego, your restrictive, parental id, and your rational ‘true self’.

Yesod is variously associated with the colour indigo, mirrors, the sexual organs, lavender, violets, willow trees, incense, cats, vampires, the virtue of independence, burial mounds, employee rights and the moment of conception.

The tenth sphere, Malkuth (pronounced marl-KOOT) is the base of the Tree of Life, the lowest of all the Sephiroth. It is also known as Shekhinah, a term that refers to the female aspect of God – God the Mother, rather than the Father. As the Kingdom (or, perhaps more appropriately, ‘Queendom’) Malkuth represents the state of being. It is stability, the end result, physical embodiment – the very end of the act of creation. As such, it is associated with mundane physical reality, finished products and end results, the fruits of any act of creation.

Personal consciousness and the interaction of the senses with the physical universe all fall within the realm of Malkuth. Its planetary symbol is the Earth, but it is important to note that the sphere is not the physical universe itself. Solid matter – reality – is the product of all ten spheres and twenty-two paths, rather than just one. Malkuth then is not reality as such, but it is the portal through which reality is given form; the mother, rather than the child.

In terms of the soul’s journey and the development of the psyche, Malkuth is the realm of direct physical experience, the place where our senses interact with that which is real. Thought, emotion, memory and evocation have no place here – if you caress a piece of silk, Malkuth is the plain sensation of sheer softness, rather than any pleasure it evokes. It is sight and taste and feel, devoid of context or analysis, experience without meaning. There is nothing really self-aware about Malkuth; alone and uncombined with other spheres, is it bestial and purposeless. Pure Malkuth has no emotion or reason, no mind to speak of; just a certain amount of instinct and reflex. In Malkuth, existence happens from moment to moment, free of context or meaning. There is just physical sensation and the awareness of it. As such, it is very close to Greek concepts of Hades, the hellish domain of empty shells.

Malkuth: The Kingdom

This is not a bad thing, however. Without a solid, objective base for experience, there can be no reality. We all create our own meaning and significance internally for each event, and if we did not share a common base free of all assumptions, we could have no grounds for free-willed communication or existence. By remaining free of all emotion, thought and analysis, Malkuth ensures that it carries with it no assumptions. There is no built-in static to interfere with the way we create our view of reality. We have ultimate free will to determine our interactions with the world and each other – there is no dogma built in to Malkuth, no insistence on meanings or ethics or anything else. We are all individual, and by remaining entirely within the area of sensation, Malkuth allows us to share a world without compromising that individuality. For this reason, Malkuth is often referred to as the flower of the Tree of Life – we take the beauty from it that we seek.

On a more mystical level, Malkuth is the focus point for the rest of the forces of the Tree of Life. The Sephiroth express themselves into the world through Malkuth; it is a vital gateway, the first portal between the universe and the paths back to God – the gate to the orchard. Before the soul can start to seek its return to God, it first has to fully become separated, so Malkuth is the marker which denotes the point at which separation occurs – one has to pass beyond it before one can go back. As a balance point between physical matter and the energies of the spirit, it seethes with dynamic energies. Each Sephiroth is an infinity in it own right, and Malkuth is the infinity of boundless space speckled with tiny particles of matter.

Malkuth is often associated with the four classical elements of Greek philosophy: fire, air, water and earth. The elements themselves are further considered to represent energy, gasses, liquids and solids; power, will, intuition and strength; and destiny, spirit, life and inanimate matter. Malkuth is therefore usually depicted as the Cross of Equated Forces, divided into four equal quarters, coloured russet, citrine, olive and black. As the only sphere of the Tree grounded into physical reality, Malkuth is the only stable Sephira – changing it takes time and effort, due sacrifices to the inertia of causality.

The lessons that Malkuth asks us to learn are focussed on operating within the real world. We exist, as humans, in a sea of relationships that we share with other humans. Can we learn to apply the wisdoms we acquire in other areas of the Tree to our lives as social animals? Can we learn to cherish the senses and let go of the static that we associate with them? Can we appreciate moments of peace, beauty and love for what they are? These are the challenges of the sphere of Malkuth.

The Temple of Malkuth

When visualising Malkuth, it is usually depicted as a four-quartered Temple in an underground cavern. A long, rough tunnel some ten feet high winds its way through dark rock, lit by burning wooden torches. The tunnel is drafty, and the stone is damp, even wet in places, but the air is not cold. After a time, the tunnel leads to a set of stairs carved into the rock. They lead through a circular hole in the roof. Climbing the steps leads to the Temple of Equated Forces, a square cavern carved smoothly out of the rock and floored with sparkling sheets of marble. Each wall is covered by a curtain of shimmering silk. A stone altar stands in front of each curtain, holding a plain candle. Straight ahead from the point of entry – to the east – the curtain and candle are sky blue, and represent Raphael, the archangel of air. Behind, they are pure white, and represent Gabriel, archangel of water. To the right, they are bright red, and represent Michael, archangel of fire. Finally, to the left, they are a rich gold, and represent Uriel, archangel of earth.

In addition to its imagery, which represents its position as the foundation of the four elements that make up the world, Malkuth is also associated with the colour sky blue, gates, the human body, sandalwood, clover, oak trees, the magic circle, rabbits, gnomes, the virtue of discrimination, mother earth, organisational techniques and the moment of birth.

The Tree of Life from Wikimedia

By winding its way down from one Sephira to the next, God’s divine energy gains texture and meaning. Eventually, it is grounded into reality and takes its allotted form. The shards of the sundering become all the aspects of our physical world – inanimate matter, human consciousness, physical actions, even intangible ideas. The Tree can illustrate any and all of these end results, but as a foundation, it’s most useful to consider the Tree from the viewpoint of the creation of the universe. Just bear in mind that it encompasses all possibilities.

Before the existence of the Tree, there is just the infinity of God’s divine light. Nothing else exists. The light is not God Himself, but it is His essence. In accordance with God’s will and the sundering, the light becomes conscious. This is the first Sephira of the Tree – Kether, the Crown. Limitless light, Kether awakens to its own existence.

Despite its consciousness, Kether has no awareness. It is still undifferentiated – unity allows no externalisation. The second Sephira, Chokmah (Wisdom) forms in response to Kether’s unity. Chokmah is able to look back at Kether and perceive the wonder of the divine love. Two points provide the basis for a path, and the energy of the Sundering cascades down that path. Chokmah is both the source and recipient of that energy, and broadcasts it out joyfully in all directions.

A straight line allows polarity, but not meaningful motion. The energy flooding out from Chokmah travels an infinite distance – but the universe of expression is curved back on itself. Eventually the energy returns to the point it originated from, back at Chokmah, whilst still travelling in a straight line. The limitless light is filled with Chokmah’s energy, but the curve that the energy has been around describes an infinite blackness. This blackness becomes the third Sephira: Binah, Understanding, the Womb of God. With Binah’s formation, movement and space become meaningful. The new sphere receives Chokmah’s infinite energy, the mother to Chokmah’s fatherhood.

(BINAH) The Seas of Binah by *pathworking

Now that there are three points of reference in the limitless light, it is possible to begin to map out distance and direction. Binah organises the energy of Chokmah, and divides it into quanta – the individual shards. All are still part of the whole, and Binah’s oceans are very much still one, but there is also a sense that it is possible for subdivisions to exist. Having organised the divine energy, Binah emits it again, into the infinities it encompasses – a new direction. Finally the three dimensions of space are complete, and the real universe comes into being with the creation of the fourth sphere: Chesed, Mercy. In Chesed, the shards from Binah are clothed in all of the infinite variety of form that three dimensions of space allows for. Chesed is constant change and plenty without discrimination; perfect inclusiveness. Everything is welcome within Chesed, for there is no idea of shortage or foreignness.

The undiscriminating bounty of Chesed causes problems, however. Not everything is meant to exist; there is not enough room for infinite amounts of every possibility. That brings up the requirement for some hard decisions. The fifth Sephira is Geburah, Severity. In its infinite love, Geburah understands that some elements must be sacrificed to make way for others that are more appropriate, necessary or successful. That which is not needed is slashed away, so that the whole may take its most perfect form.

That perfect form is manifested in the sixth Sephira: Tiphareth, Beauty. This is the City of Gold, home of the soul. It is the pinnacle of refinement, but it still reflects the perfection and beauty of the divine in all its wisdom. Tiphareth does not yet have any impetus for action, and without action, there can be no exploration. The perfection of Tiphareth, perceiving the need for motion, gives birth to the seventh Sephira: Netzach, Victory. Netzach is an engine of energy and direction. It is powered by the limitless energy of divinity, and seeks restlessly to provide the motion than Tiphareth requires. This motion is both physical and spiritual, and gives rise to emotion, the force that drives the personality.

(TIPHARETH) The Golden City by meekel

Motion without direction however is self-defeating. To balance its energy, Netzach’s need seeks dispassionate intelligence – Hod, Glory, the eighth Sephira. In Hod, Netzach’s energy is analysed, examined and given purpose. This is the place of rational thought and scrutiny, where communication becomes possible because the personal mind is taking shape. Drawing on the power of Netzach to drive it, Hod pushes its energies down into Yesod, the Foundation, the ninth sphere. In Yesod, the glory of Tiphareth is reflected and mingled with the thought of Hod and the feeling of Netzach into a great melting pot of possibility. Splendours and nightmares exist here, in the realm of the imagination and unconscious. Yesod encompasses all that may be, all that was and all that can be envisaged.

(YESOD) Misty Forest by Freya Sensei (minor liberties taken)

Yesod is a murky and impure mirror, however. The true image of the divine can not be allowed to manifest purely in the universe, for it would be a beacon to all of the shards of God’s self, sweeping all individuality and free will away. For the Sundering to have meaning – for the shards of God to be able to experience – then the glory of Tiphareth must be hidden, at least a little. The manifest world cannot bear the light of God’s perfection. Therefore, Yesod provides a filter between the rest of the Tree and the final Sephira: Malkuth, the Kingdom.

In Malkuth, Hod and Netzach are able to reach down to organise the energies of the divine – and the bounty of Chesed and Binah – into the patterns that lie beneath reality. These patterns are slotted into place within Malkuth, which then works with the primal forces to bring the world of matter into being. By coming into existence, Malkuth creates the universe, and the purpose of the Tree is finally realised and completed.

This is the lightning-flash that creates the universe, the energy of God pouring down the Tree. As a spiritual pursuit, Kabbalism is about the individual climbing back up the Tree, along the sword-stroke path, to regain some unity with God.

According to the doctrine of the Sundering, a key tenet of Kabalistic thought, all of reality is an aspect of God’s divided self, seeking reunification with divinity, connected to itself at all levels. This is remarkably similar to recent theories of quantum mechanics, which suggest that every subatomic particle is connected to every other one, and that each part contains the whole – the ‘Holographic Universe’. Swap the names around, and science and the Kabbalah say the same thing: that all was one, and then it split and became the universe, but remained connected, and will one day return to being one again.

The Tree of Life shows how the spark of divinity became the substance of the universe, in Kabbalistic thought. It is the route from energy to matter, from God to Man. It is at the heart of each mote of existence, and so manifests time and again, in all areas, at all levels. Therefore, it is also a depiction of God Himself: “as above, so below”. Just as fractal mathematics show us that the shape of a leaf’s pores echoes the shape of the leaf – and also the shape of the branch, and even the shape of the tree – so the Tree of Life can be found on all scales of reality, from the universal to the most personal.

Don’t worry too much if this is tricky to grasp; the mystical and philosophical implications of the macrocosm and the microcosm are advanced, and difficult for the human mind to really get a hang of. We work by comparisons and dualities, so it is hard for us to make sense of a scheme which talks about universal unity. As a basic concept, it is enough to know that the Tree of Life represents and explains many different levels of reality, and that all are linked. It is the way the universe works, the route by which everything came into existence, and the template upon which everything is patterned.

Some notes on navigating the tree can be found here.

The first is the ‘proper’ route, through Jewish mysticism and teaching. It can give the best true understanding and appreciation of the Kabbalah as a system of mysticism, but it isn’t always easy to follow, even if you speak perfct Hebrew. The aim of traditional Kabbalah is to help you connect with and serve God, and its teachings are quite spiritually focussed.

If you wanted to start down this road, you’d probably want to start by reading the Torah. After that, the best introduction is “Derech HaShem: The Way of God”, written in the 18th century by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, and translated and annotated by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. It’s a beautiful introduction to what the Kabbalah is really about, and it introduces all of the concepts you’ll need to make sense of the more esoteric works. After that, you’d need to read the classic masterpieces of Kabbalistic study, such as “Sha’arey Orah: Gates of Light” by Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla, and the “Zohar”, by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, both of which have been translated into English.

Kabbalah Art 04 by Michalska1

A more common approach in the US and UK is to approach the Kabbalah as a system of occultism. There are a lot of books in this area, mine included. Many of them are very basic overviews, which always frustrated me when I was trying to investigate the subject back in my early 20s. One of the best is Israel Regardie’s “The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic”. It’s slightly dated, although the Llewellyn version edited and annotated by Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero is better.

Regardie was the father of modern western occultism, and “The Tree of Life” provides instruction and technique for a wide variety of ceremonial magical practices, all within the broad framework of the Kabbalah. It’s full of great material, but I should point out that the focus is split between Kabbalah itself and magical technique. Dion Fortune’s “Mystical Qabalah” is the other contender for top Western book. It’s smaller and more tightly focussed on the Kabbalah, so which you prefer would depend on how interested you were in general occult technique.

It’s worth pointing out at this point that traditional Kabbalah and occult Kabbalah are very different things, as different as life in a monastery is to a full Catholic mass. You could study both, but the one will not help you learn the other.

Kether by Ninth Raven

The third option is to learn by direct experience of the Tree of Life. The Sepiroth and Nativoth are open to pathworking, and it can be an incredible journey to explore them directly. In general, when pathworking the Tree, you should expect to spend q fair chunk of time getting to really know and understand each sphere, chatting to all the various inhabitants, seeking and/or asking for wisdom, exercises, teaching, hints on both getting further up the tree and on personal progression, &c. The paths generally take less time to understand, but they also need to be studied.

In this sort of practice, you need to start at Malkuth, and work your way up as you come to an understanding of each section. One thing to bear in mind here is that as you connect with each Sephiroth, you will intensify that sphere’s influence in your life. That can get quite uncomfortable when dealing with Geburah, and Binah sometimes — like a surgeon’s knife, their actions are always for the best, but they are not always gentle. You need to watch Yesod, too; it loves to use your flaws to deceive you.

Where this sort of exploration takes you, precisely, will depend on you as a person. It can be hard work, and there are some risks to any program of pathworking — self-delusion, obsession, and so on.  With that said though, this sort of exploration will give you an understanding that no amount of books or teachings ever can.

I often get asked about Kabbalah trainers, but unfortunately, I can’t point you to anyone useful. Traditional Kabbalah masters are modest and low-profile, and the majority are only interested in students who can read Hebrew. The current wave of pop-Kabbalah, unfortunately, is total crap. Some organisations are about as sane and helpful as the Scientologists.

John Dee was born in 1527 and educated at the Chantry School in Chelmsford. From there, he proceeded to Cambridge University and entered St. John’s College before transferring to Trinity College. In 1547, aged 20, he made his first journey to continental Europe, and spent some time discussing various matters with assorted people in the various Dutch universities. The next year he travelled to Europe again, to the University of Louvain in France, where he obtained his degree as a doctor.

Dr. John Dee

In 1551, Dee obtained an introduction to the Court of King Edward VI, to whom he had already dedicated two of his books. He returned to court in 1553, when Mary Tudor gained the throne. By this time he was known as an astrologer, and was invited to prepare the Queen’s natal horoscope for her. He also calculated a horoscope for a young Elizabeth, at that point still a princess.

Shortly after this time he began to experiment with magic. He quickly ended up in trouble, being arrested on the testimony of a man called George Ferrys, who accused Dee of cursing his children, killing one and blinding another. Other rumours accused Dee of trying to curse the Queen. His home was searched and he was brought to trial in front of the Secretary of State, but he was cleared of all charges. Astrology was a common fascination right throughout society at the time, and anyone with a skill at casting horoscopes was in high demand. Dee’s reputation ensured that his fame as an astrologer spread. He became quite a common figure at court.

Dee's scrying device, the 'Black Mirror'

When Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, her first commission for Dee was to name an auspicious day for her coronation. Shortly after she was crowned, she invited him to enter service in her retinue, and promised him a master’s position at St. Catherine’s Hospital. On one occasion when a wax effigy of the Queen was found lying in a prominent position outside a minor royal building with a large pin stuck through its chest, the general consensus was that someone was attempting to inflict disease or death upon the Queen. Dee was summoned, and his verdict was that it offered no danger to the Queen, which pleased her.

In 1570, Dee moved to the riverside London district of Mortlake, taking his library and research lab with him. The Queen occasionally stopped at his home to see his latest wonder or invention, and was said to be anxious that Dee become her official court astrologer. He was an active alchemist at this time, and his search for the Philosopher’s Stone may have had something to do with the Queen’s eagerness to recruit him. He is said to have held discussions about the transmutation of metals with her in Westminster.

In 1581, Dee met up with a would-be medium and alchemist named Edward Kelly, who convinced Dee of his abilities. Kelly claimed to have found a pair of caskets containing mysterious red and white powders with which he was able to turn base metals into gold. Dees diaries record Kelly using his powders to turn mercury into gold, and later pieces of brass, copper and other metal. This process is described as involving nothing more than adding Kelly’s powders to the metal and warming it a fire – with Kelly coming nowhere near the experiment.

Although Queen Elizabeth’s favour protected him to a certain extent, it was commonly said that Dee was a magician of dubious reputation. He openly practised the sorcerous art of divination, and held séances at which he claimed to raise spirits. His divination was conducted with the aid of an oval mirror of black obsidian, which he claimed could conjure an image of a person into thin air. The mirror itself can now be found in the British Museum in London.

An Enochian tablet

Dee’s magical legacy has earnt him a place of honour in modern occultism, too. In 1583, Dee and Kelly began a series of séance works with the black mirror. In this sequence of researches, Kelly entered a state of trance and worked with Dee to produce details of a special system of magic. This system, known now as Enochian magic, was based around the hierarchy of angels, their responsibilities, and their language, referred to as “Logaeth” (pronounced ‘Logah’). The Angelic spirits dictated several tables of letters to Kelly, along with instructions on how to use the tables to derive the names of all the various angelic spirits at all levels of authority. Specific words of Logaeth were dictated to Dee (“MRE”, pronounced ‘Emm-Ree’, meaning ‘with’, for example) , and letters were assigned numeric value, so that a word of a given numeric value was linked to all other words of the same value. This system of sorcery allowed for all manner of good spirits to be given sorcerous tasks to carry out on behalf of the wizard. Enochian magic is still practiced by thousands of people world-wide today, although they generally keep quiet about the results they get.

Dee and Kelly later travelled to Europe to raise funds to work on the large-scale transmutation of base metals into gold. Although Dee returned to England in 1588, Kelly did not – he was imprisoned on and off by the Emperor Rudolph of Prague, who wanted his secrets, and he died in 1595 after falling from a turret window whilst trying to escape. Queen Elizabeth, meanwhile, took pity on Dee’s poverty and appointed him warden of the Collegiate Church in Manchester. Accusations of wizardry continued to harass him however, and he had to defend himself further against accusations of devil worship and conjury. He presented a petition to the King on 5^th June 1604, begging for a trial and exoneration to clear his name from the slanders which followed it. Dee died peacefully in 1608, aged 81, and was buried in Mortlake church, near his long-time home.

Why not give it a try?

Goin' Underground Page 1

Goin' Underground Page 2

Goin' Underground Page 3

Goin' Underground Page 4

Goin' Underground Page 5

I’d love to know how you score…

How weird are you?

Many occultists, pagans, new-agers, geeks, physicists and little old men like to claim that they are weird, at least when faced with blantantly normal company. But how true is it? After all, there’s a lot more to being weird than just knowing some funky stuff.

To see if you actually capture the unhinged feeling of tentative lunacy that makes up geniune weirdness, just go through the following quiz question by question, keeping score. The more points you get, the stranger you are. Simple. If you don’t understand any of the questions, then you can assume that you scored a 0 for that question.

Please do comment to let me know how you you scored. One random commenter will receive a prize… :)

In the following quiz, select the lettered answer a) – f) that most closely corresponds with your actual feelings/attitude/life. You may occasionally be asked to make a choice in advance – do so before reading the answers for maximum effect. Each answer will score from 0 to 5 points, with a) being 0, f) being 5, and b) - e) being 1 – 4 points respectively. This is very intuitively obvious, if you think about it.

You know. c) is 3, yeah? Yeah.
You got it.
Trust me.

1.  MAKE A CHOICE – Select a number between 1 and 100 NOW!

You chose:

a) 2-4, 6, 9-16, 19-22, 24-41, 43-56 or  58-99
b) 1, 7, 69 or 100
c) 42
d) 23, 5, 17 or 18
e) 8
f) 57

2. I’m going to say “The Illuminatus! Trilogy” to you.

a) What is the Illuminatus! Trilogy?
b) Oh, that old Yarn by Wilson, right?
c) I read the Illuminatus! once. It was funny.
d) I’ve read the Illuminatus! many, many times. It contains the secrets of the universe, if you look hard enough.
e) I own a printed & bound copy of the Principia.
f) Say, have you heard the new Scooter album?

3. You’re walking down the street, dressed in your favourite clothes…

a) Businessmen look upon you as an equal
b) No-one pays much attention. Trendy young people snigger slightly.
c) Little children look slightly nervous at you.
d) Builders and labourers cross the road to avoid passing you.
e) A concerned citizen ‘phones the police, who send in a SWAT team to take you out. Ha! It does no better than the last three.
f) No-one pays much attention, until they try to seduce you. When they see your underwear, those who survive run away very, very fast, and do not talk to anyone about sex ever again. You *do* try not to sit down too much, though.

4. What do you think of Cthulhu?

a) Ummm… its a random string of unintelligble letters?
b) A monster from Lovecraft’s horror fiction.
c) It’s a tentacled blasphemy that sleeps imprisoned in a sunken island in the south pacific, waiting to rise again.
d) Ah yeah, he’s a fascinating magickal egregore, very useful for dream-based rituals.
e) Hng! Hng! Ia! Ia Cthulhu f’thagn! f-f-f-father! YOG SOTHOTH!!
f) Who? Look, do you want to buy this book or not?

5. How do you derive your regular income?

a) I work in an office. Why?
b) I get a grant.
c) I’m on welfare hand-outs.
d) I deal drugs in Times Square.
e) My father, who died some years ago, left me an inheritance that produces a modest monthly stipend. It isn’t fantastic, but it’s more than enough to keep my work going without ‘dipping into the capital’.
f) Money comes to me as and when I need it. The means varies from day to day – yesterday, I found N$3000 (Three Thousand Nigerian Dollars) hidden inside a cat.

6. Bob?

a) Jim?
b) Oh yeah, what do you call a disabled guy in a swimming pool, haha.
c) Haha! Slack! The Anti-Bob! Kill me! Frop! Hahaha!
d) … Yeah Baby! Watch me go! I’m the cosmic neutron gun! Throw my switch and watch me blast you into space! I ate the earth for breakfast, but it tasted crap so I spewed it back up again! Nothing can come close to me, because _I_COME_CLOSE_TO_IT_!! I…
e) That’ll be $5, please.
f) No.

7. MAKE A CHOICE! Select a number between 1 and 10 NOW!

You chose:

a) 1, 5, 7, 8, 10.
b) 3
c) 2
d) 9
e) 6
f) 4

8. Where, to your mind, do ‘Strange Phenomena’ start being strange?

a) Anything that science can’t explain easily.
b) Telepathy. That really wierds me.
c) A Rain of Live Frogs.
d) Crop Circles appearing in concrete.
e) Large demons appearing on live TV and ripping up a politician.
f) From the womb onwards.

9. What is Magick?

a) A pointless form of entertainment practiced by very gay men pretending very hard to be straight, and using tricks to suggest that they can lift up cars or make elephants vanish up their copious rectums.
b) Strange people in silly clothes doing pointless things to chickens.
c) Frazer’s Law of Sympathy and Law of Contagion.
d) The art of causing change in conformity with will.
e) All life is Magick.
f) Laughter.

10. Do you possess any psychic powers?

a) Loser!  St. Dawkins and the Ultra-Randi have proven that they are IMPOSSIBLE!
b) No, but I wish I did.
c) Well, I am very intuitive and in touch with my feminine nature…
d) I know who’s on the phone before I answer it.
e) Yes, I often get visions which later come true. Bookies hate me.
f) Yeehaw! I’ve nearly got the full set! All I need now is Full-contact Psychometry! Say.. you wouldn’t swap me for 2 Telepathys and a Clairvoyance, would you? I could throw in a Green Fingers, too…

11. Do you play Role-Playing Games?

a) Dungeons and Dragons leads to Satanism and suicide. I *way* too smart for that.
b) Oh boy, yes! I only stop playing Warcraft to go to the toilet once a week!
c) Yeah, sure, I’ve played some role-playing games. They’re an interesting exercise.
d) I read White Wolf(tm) Rulebooks, but I don’t actually play.
e) I write role-playing games professionally, as a matter of fact.
f) Play? Look friend, all my best magick was learnt from RPGs! Don’t believe me? Watch, then as I fireball your cat! ***WHOOOOOSSSSSSHH*** **WHUMP**  *MEEeeoooww……* MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

12. A typical thing that your parents would say to you is:

a) “Hello, dear, it’s your mother. When are you bringing the kids round to see us again? I hope you’re eating properly… I’ve been so tired recently.”
b) “TURN THAT DAMN NOISE DOWN!”
c) “Mph. Snrph. Wassup? Uh? Its 2am, forgodsake!”
d) told to you only by mediums, ‘cos they’re no longer alive.
e) “Its who??”
f) Zalgo. HEEEEEEEE COOOOOOOOOOOOMMMESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

13. Do you see auras?

a) See what?
b) No.
c) I tried once or twice, but no luck.
d) After 30 minutes naked, alone in a dark room…
e) Yes.
f) That depends. I had a real mean aura in hear once, it chewed up half the place, and I had to replace the sofa too. How much is it offering? Is it house-trained?

14. If you are going to program a computer, what language do you use?

a) Oh, I don’t program computers. I use Microsoft / own an iPhone.
b) Java
c) Python
d) Object-extended C++, with the help of some home-defined libraries.
e) I program in binary, actually.
f) COBOL.

15. Let us suppose that you have a long-lost great-aunt, who dies and leaves you something in her will. What would it be?

a) Ten Million Dollars.
b) A nice house, say 30-40K, some furniture.
c) A cat.
d) A crumbling old gothic mansion, miles from anywhere, served by a single elderly retainer, just as crumbly. As you drive through the obligatory little village to take possession, all the locals stare at you with a mixture of fear, hope and pity, but all you can think of is the wonderful party you’re going to have there at the next full moon with all your Sorority sisters from the Campus.
e) A mysterious old envelope, containing three sheets that look suspiciously like an ancient map…
f) A peculiar brass casket, sealed with wax and covered with odd heiroglyphs and symbols. Despite repeated urgings, you put it in the attic, unopened, and never touch it again. The matter is never mentioned again, save for a strange new addition to your will that your lawyer receives a short time later.

16. What did you last eat?

a) A nice pork chop, with some boiled potato and cabbage.
b) Lentil stew with wok-fried beansprouts and a glass of holistic carrot extract.
c) A portion of chips.
d) A pizza that was delivered to your door by a jumpy delivery guy.
e) Some wafers made of a mixture of your own blood, your dog’s  sexual fluids, burnt parchment and oatmeal bran.
f) Somalia.

17. Which work of Aleistair Crowley’s did you find most illuminating?

a) Who?
b) Oh, well, actually, I never read any of his stuff yet, but I will real soon.
c) Magick in Theory and in Practice
d) Diary of a Drug Fiend
e) The Book of The Law
f) The Book of Lies

18. What is your normal sexual position?

a) Ohh. Uhh. Um. My. Um. The missionary, I suppose.
b) On top.
c) In a train toilet.
d) In the middle.
e) Spread out on the altar with a candle up my ass.
f) Hanging by our feet from a street lamp, with our ears welded together and a pair of moroccan Baboons for light relief.

19. Do you have any pets?

a) Yes, a dog.
b) No.
c) Yes, a cat.
d) Yes, six japanese fighting fish, carefully segregated.
e) Weellll, sort of – I breed rabbits, goats and black cockerels. I do try not to get too attached to them, though.
f) Oh yes, yes indeed. He’d like to see my pets, Ras! Come, come, let me show you. Its much easier that way.

20. Which of the following phrases do you use most often?

a) “K3w1!”
b) “No thanks.”
c) “A beer, Charlie. Make it a cold one.”
d) “It must be the ACPI screwing your interrupts. Fire up Device Manager and you can kill it from there.”
e) “Ateh! Malkuth! Ve Gevurah! Ve Gedulah! Le Olahm!!”
f) “Oh, I’m sorry, was that _your_ child? Please, have her back. Good day. I beg your…? Well. Fuck you too, Madam.”

Now, add up your scores…

How did you do?

0 : Mmm. You’re normal. You’re so straight, you even think in lines. In fact, anyone this normal would have never bothered reading this post, so if you’re reading this, you’re either curious, stupid, or very, very silly. People this normal are usually axe-murderers, stamp collectors and tiger-rapists. Sometimes all at the same time.

1-20 : Well, you’ve heard the call of the strange out there, roaming the plains of life. You haven’t answered, but at least you didn’t assume it was indigestion. Be very careful – its all downhill from here!

21-40 : You’re fairly odd. Your normal friends describe you as weird, and you take it as a compliment. You probably wear black, so as to make a point and slightly worry the people who still remember World War I. You are likely to be interested in strange things, but you never seem to manage to get to grips with them.

41-60 : Definately a bit on the wild side. You are probably a student of paranormal matters. People who get to know you are often surprised that you aren’t as straight as they first thought. Your last girl/boyfriend was scared for 3 weeks after splitting with you, just in case. You intimidate petty authority figures, such as interviewers, bus conductors and moral rights campaigners.

61-80 : You are undoubtedly odd. You worry your family, and you no longer have any normal friends. When you go on holiday, you chose places like Transylvania, the Sonora desert, McMurdo Sound and the Amazonian rain-forest. You mutter and mumble to yourself in times of stress, and you try not to open your wardrobe too often, in case something comes through…

81-95 : You, my friend, are either several bats short of a belfry, or a dedicated, trained occultist. If there is a difference. Plants wither in your presence, children run away yelping, dogs run away yelping, even chicken run away yelping, for god’s sake. You live in a different world to the rest of the planet, and you like it there. Definately, unashamedly weird.

96-100 : You are so bizarre that I’m surprised you managed to read this quiz, let alone complete it. Talking to you is rather like trying to carry a basket of live turkies up the side of the Empire States Building in a gale – very hard, extremely dangerous, full of ‘gobble-gobble-gobble’ noises, and covered in feathers. The last time you stopped long enough to observe the rest of humanity,  someone slapped a parking fine on you. You wouldn’t know a tax  return unless it came up to you and introduced itself to you by clan. Most of them do.

Final note: I made the macros a few years ago, and I’ve lost track of where the original pics came from — ditto the illustrative images. Let me know if they’re yours and I’ll attribute/&c.