Veils of Negative Existence
(Revision as of 19:08, 8 Jun 2005)
Part of the Tree of Life series
WIthin the mystical system of the Qabalah, the three Veils of Negative Existence are called:
- Ain ("Light")
- Ain Soph ("Without Limit"), and
- Ain Soph Aur ("Limitless Light")
Within, or beyond, these Veils is everything that is not. In a sense, they represent pre-existance, the state of all things before they make their initial manifestation in Kether, the first Sephera, or sphere of existance. In 777, Crowley quotes Samuel Mathers:
- There are three qabalistical veils of the negative existence, and in themselves they formulate the hidden ideas of the Sephiroth not yet called into being, and they are concentrated in Kether, which in this sense is the Malkuth of the hidden ideas of the Sephiroth. ... [T]he limitless ocean of negative light does not proceed from a centre, for it is centreless, but it concentrates a centre, which is the number one of the Sephiroth, Kether, the Crown, the First Sephera; which therefore may be said to be the Malkuth or the number ten of the hidden Sephiroth. Thus "Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether."
Crowley explains each veil in his essay "Qabalistic Dogma":
- First is Nothing, or the Absence of Things, אין [Ain], which does not and cannot mean Negatively Existing (if such an Idea can be said to mean anything) ... Second is Without Limit אין סוף [Ain Soph] "i.e.", Infinite Space. This is the primal Dualism of Infinity; the infinitely small and the infinitely great. The Clash of these produces a finite positive Idea which happens to be Light, אור [Aur].
- This word [Aur] is most important. It symbolises the Universe immediately after Chaos, the confusion or Clash of the infinite Opposites. א [Aleph] is the Egg of Matter; ו [Yod] is Taurus, the Bull, or Energy-Motion; and ר [Resh] is the Sun, or organised and moving System of Orbs. The three Letters of [Ain] thus repeat the three Ideas.
External links
- The Temple of Soloman the King (http://64.227.194.192/library/libers/lib_0058.html)—Crowley's essay on the Qabalah
References
- Crowley, Aleister. (1982). 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings. York Beach, Me. : S. Weiser.
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