Mystical Qabala
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type of activity, or force functioning through an organisation. All three Sephiroth in the Negative Pillar of the Tree have the word Elohim as part of the God name. Tetragrammaton Elohim in Binah; Elohim Gebor in Geburah; and Elohim Tzabaoth in Hod. 31. The word Tzabaoth means a host or army, and 50 we get the idea of the Divine Life manifesting in Hod by means of a host of forms ensouled with force, in contradistinction to the fluidic activity of Netzach. 32. The assignation of the mighty Archangel Michael to Hod again gives us food for thought. He is always represented as trampling upon a serpent and piercing it with a sword, and frequently holds in his hand a pair of balances, symbolic of equilibrium and expressive of the same idea as the Yetziratic words, "Mean of the Primordial." 33. The serpent upon which the great Archangel treads is primitive force, the phallic serpent of the Freudians; and this glyph teaches us that it is the restrictive "prudence" of Hod which "shortens" primitive force and prevents it from overflowing its boundaries. The Fall, be it remembered, is represented on the Tree by the Great Serpent with seven heads which overpasses the bounds set for it and raises its crowned heads even unto Daath. It is very interesting to observe the manner in which the symbols weave in and out of each other, and reinforce and interpret each other's significance and yield their fruits to Qabalistic contemplation. 34. The Order of Angels functioning in Hod are the Beni Elohim, the Sons of the Gods. Again we have the concept of the "God of Hosts" or armies. One of the most important concepts of arcane science concerns the working of the Creator through intermediaries. The uninitiated and profane conceive of God as working as the labourer works, who adds brick to brick with his hands, fashioning the edifice; but the initiated conceive of God as working as the Great Architect of the Universe, designing His plans on the plane of archetypes; to Whom come the overseers, the archangels, for their instructions, ~hese last directing the armies of humble toilers who add stone to stone according to the archetypal plan of the Most High. Whenever did the architect designing the edifice work upon it with his two unaided hands? Never, not even when the universe was abuilding. 35. The Mundane Chakra, as we have already noted, is Mercury, and its symbolism as Hermes-Thoth we have already considered. 36. The Spiritual Experience assigned to this Sephirah is the Vision of Splendour, which is the realisation of the glory of God manifesting in the created world. The initiate of Hod sees behind the appearance of created things and discerns their Creator, and in the realisation of the splendour of Nature as the garment of the Ineffable he receives his illumination and becomes a co-worker with the Great Artificer. It is this realisation of the spiritual forces manipulating all manifestations and appearances which is the key to the powers of Hod as wielded in the Magic of Light. It is by making himself a channel for these forces that the Master of White Magic brings order into the disorder of the Spheres