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Climbing the Tree of Life: A Manual of Practical Magickal Qabalah
Qabalah is a dynamic system of esoteric philosophy that underlies most of the modern magickal traditions. It explores the nature of divinity, the niverse, the human soul, creation, the function of life and a whole range of other philosophical and metaphysical subjects. The Qabalah offers the opportunity to follow a well-defined and multi-layered map of magickal ritual, consciousness expansion, self-integration and balance. Subjects covered in this book – The Development of the Qabalah through History – The Sephiroth, their symbols and temples – The Divisions of the Tree of Life, including the Pillars, Worlds and Triads – The Tetragrammaton or Unpronounceable Name of God – The Shekinah and the Divine Feminine in Qabalah – The Parts of the Human Soul and Qabalistic Doctrines on Reincarnation – Qabalistic Ritual and Ritual Techniques – Meditations on many aspects of the Tree of Life – Applying Qabalah in Daily Life.
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 28, 2021
A very useful and easy to read introduction to many of the basics of learning the Qabalah. The information is in a format that breaks the paragraphs up into small sections that helps to take in the in depth information easily. The chapters are also short enough to give the reader time to digest each section.
There are also useful meditations and ideas for using the information in a practical setting too.
There are also useful meditations and ideas for using the information in a practical setting too.
August 19, 2019
Content of this book is sorted quite brilliantly. Rankine's writings are very expressive and therefore easily understandable.
June 17, 2017
Recommended introduction to basic concepts of the Qabala (I write it this way since the author explicitly refers to the hermetic, occult branch and not the traditional form). Although I still prefer Kaplan's or Knight's introductions, the aspiring seeker will find a thorough overview including many citations from original sources and a set of practical instructions which will get you started climbing the tree. Although I feel you should have a good amount of meditation and visualisation work done till you start this out.
October 20, 2023
From the Inter-Zone-Amazone
Review Of Climbing The Tree Of Life
This is a valuable and useful practical guide to an arcane subject and I would recommend it to a wide readership. However a little constructive criticism may be helpful so that newcomers to the western esoteric tradition may not be inadvertently led astray by some of the contents.
Firstly, it is not invariably the case that every technique discussed is supported by a persuasive rationale.
For instance, it is not made clear in regard to the Tarot Contemplation Exercise why the suit of Discs (Earth) is to be placed on top of the suit of Wands (Fire) nor is there any explanation at least on first reading as to why the suit of Cups (Water) is placed to the left and the suit of Swords (Air) is placed to the right.
Resourceful readers may wish to speculate that they are meant to imagine themselves at the centre of an equilateral cross within a magic circle facing North and that could account for the attributions which otherwise seem to me to be rather arbitrary if not random.
Secondly, Mr. Rankine attributes Yesod to Elemental Water (See page, 130). It seems here that the author may be confusing the planetary correspondences with those of the sephiroth and he goes on to explain that is why the Elemental Archangels are also attributed to planets.
However, it is generally understood that there is much more to any given sephiroth than its planetary associations.
Furthermore, as the late and greatly missed occultist, Donald Michael Kraig, clarified years ago the Elemental Archangels are not the same entities as the Planetary Archangels just as in a typical Welsh village “Jones the Post” is not the same entity as “Jones the Butcher”.
This category error is not a matter to be lightly dismissed as merely a subjective preference on the part of a highly respected author because it would inevitably result in significant impediments to the practitioner’s training and development.
The difficulty is that this mistaken attribution flips the progress of the practitioner through the Elemental Grades on its head as shown below:
Grade Theoricus (Golden Dawn) 2=9 Yesod Air
Grade Zelator (Crowley) 2=9 Yesod Air
Grade Practicus 3=8 Hod Water
Grade Practicus (Crowley) 3=8 Hod Water
It is worth bearing in mind that even the iconoclastic Crowley – whose work the author is certainly familiar with – was content to continue to assign Yesod to Elemental Air specifying that mastery of pranayama and the astral plane were to be the chief achievements of that Grade.
Speaking of which within the single paragraph regarding pranayama (See page, 176) there is no mention of the important benefits of suspension of the breath after exhalation. Whole books have been written in respect of the complex procedures of pranayama which surely deserved at least a chapter to itself in the present work. Furthermore the goal which is proposed albeit gradually of achieving a ratio:
inhale 6 counts/ hold 24 counts/ exhale 12 counts
should have come with a very severe health warning. Put simply, an intensely prolonged retention of breath after inhalation needs to be practised extremely cautiously otherwise irreparable harm can result. Realistically anyone training outside of a hatha yoga ashram is likely to require several years to reach this ratio safely.
Even then the practitioner would have to prepare progressively to perform such a challenging ratio by means of:
1. Establishing the relationship between inhalation and exhalation without retention of the breath
2. From there the practitioner should build up the holding of the breath in successive steps
3. Having achieved the target ratio the practitioner should take some time to come down from there by virtue of further gradual stages.
I suspect I might be the ninety-fourth reviewer to remark that not only is the illustration of the Sign of the Enterer absent from the text but the actual technique is devoid of any meaningful discussion: there being rather more to its successful execution than a “stamp forward” (See page 248).
In excess of forty years of study I thought I had encountered every possible variation of the LBRP. that is until I came across the aberration presented in Chapter 43.
Here three of the anthropomorphic images of the Elemental Archangels are supposed to be envisaged within the magic circle and one outside of it is but this is such an irrational displacement of these potencies and such a radical departure from accepted custom and practice as well as logic that I wonder whether there has been a drastic typographical error?
And yet there is in truth much to commend in this book including many genuinely innovative insights and I am confident that a serious scholar of the occult such as Mr. Rankine will resolve any issues left over from the present work in his follow-up volume “Climbing The Tree Of Life Through The Twenty Two Paths Of Wisdom”. I would however spare a thought for the poor soul who is tasked with proof-reading it!
IM
Review Of Climbing The Tree Of Life
This is a valuable and useful practical guide to an arcane subject and I would recommend it to a wide readership. However a little constructive criticism may be helpful so that newcomers to the western esoteric tradition may not be inadvertently led astray by some of the contents.
Firstly, it is not invariably the case that every technique discussed is supported by a persuasive rationale.
For instance, it is not made clear in regard to the Tarot Contemplation Exercise why the suit of Discs (Earth) is to be placed on top of the suit of Wands (Fire) nor is there any explanation at least on first reading as to why the suit of Cups (Water) is placed to the left and the suit of Swords (Air) is placed to the right.
Resourceful readers may wish to speculate that they are meant to imagine themselves at the centre of an equilateral cross within a magic circle facing North and that could account for the attributions which otherwise seem to me to be rather arbitrary if not random.
Secondly, Mr. Rankine attributes Yesod to Elemental Water (See page, 130). It seems here that the author may be confusing the planetary correspondences with those of the sephiroth and he goes on to explain that is why the Elemental Archangels are also attributed to planets.
However, it is generally understood that there is much more to any given sephiroth than its planetary associations.
Furthermore, as the late and greatly missed occultist, Donald Michael Kraig, clarified years ago the Elemental Archangels are not the same entities as the Planetary Archangels just as in a typical Welsh village “Jones the Post” is not the same entity as “Jones the Butcher”.
This category error is not a matter to be lightly dismissed as merely a subjective preference on the part of a highly respected author because it would inevitably result in significant impediments to the practitioner’s training and development.
The difficulty is that this mistaken attribution flips the progress of the practitioner through the Elemental Grades on its head as shown below:
Grade Theoricus (Golden Dawn) 2=9 Yesod Air
Grade Zelator (Crowley) 2=9 Yesod Air
Grade Practicus 3=8 Hod Water
Grade Practicus (Crowley) 3=8 Hod Water
It is worth bearing in mind that even the iconoclastic Crowley – whose work the author is certainly familiar with – was content to continue to assign Yesod to Elemental Air specifying that mastery of pranayama and the astral plane were to be the chief achievements of that Grade.
Speaking of which within the single paragraph regarding pranayama (See page, 176) there is no mention of the important benefits of suspension of the breath after exhalation. Whole books have been written in respect of the complex procedures of pranayama which surely deserved at least a chapter to itself in the present work. Furthermore the goal which is proposed albeit gradually of achieving a ratio:
inhale 6 counts/ hold 24 counts/ exhale 12 counts
should have come with a very severe health warning. Put simply, an intensely prolonged retention of breath after inhalation needs to be practised extremely cautiously otherwise irreparable harm can result. Realistically anyone training outside of a hatha yoga ashram is likely to require several years to reach this ratio safely.
Even then the practitioner would have to prepare progressively to perform such a challenging ratio by means of:
1. Establishing the relationship between inhalation and exhalation without retention of the breath
2. From there the practitioner should build up the holding of the breath in successive steps
3. Having achieved the target ratio the practitioner should take some time to come down from there by virtue of further gradual stages.
I suspect I might be the ninety-fourth reviewer to remark that not only is the illustration of the Sign of the Enterer absent from the text but the actual technique is devoid of any meaningful discussion: there being rather more to its successful execution than a “stamp forward” (See page 248).
In excess of forty years of study I thought I had encountered every possible variation of the LBRP. that is until I came across the aberration presented in Chapter 43.
Here three of the anthropomorphic images of the Elemental Archangels are supposed to be envisaged within the magic circle and one outside of it is but this is such an irrational displacement of these potencies and such a radical departure from accepted custom and practice as well as logic that I wonder whether there has been a drastic typographical error?
And yet there is in truth much to commend in this book including many genuinely innovative insights and I am confident that a serious scholar of the occult such as Mr. Rankine will resolve any issues left over from the present work in his follow-up volume “Climbing The Tree Of Life Through The Twenty Two Paths Of Wisdom”. I would however spare a thought for the poor soul who is tasked with proof-reading it!
IM
August 21, 2024
Again, another stellar work from Rankine, who always makes such large ideas accessible
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews