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Every word here is his. Nothing has been paraphrased, joined or improved. Each passage was cut out of the book it belongs to by reference, and each carries that book and the paragraph it came from, and, where he was speaking rather than writing, the name of the lecture. Anything on this page can be found again in the source.
This is the sixth book of the Tree of Life, the first on the left-hand pillar above the magic triangle, facing Chesed across the Ethic triangle. It is small because he says little about Geburah as a sphere, and it has not been filled out. What he does say is exact: “Geburah is Rigour, the Law, is the Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul.” “The Intimus is the Sephiroth Chesed; the Buddhi is the Sephiroth Geburah.” “Geburah is the Law of justice.” And he says what it becomes when it is turned upside down: “the qualities of Geburah are rigor, the Law; and inverted are tyranny, dictatorship.”
The first part places Geburah on the Tree and in us, gives its number, its card and its star, and shows its qualities kept, lost and inverted. The second is its world, which he corrects from Mars to the Sun: “therefore the Intuitional Buddhic world is completely Solar.” It gives his other name for that world, the world of intuition, with his exercise for reaching it, and ends where he entered it: “They received me and I entered victorious into the Solar Heaven, into the abode of the Potencies, into the buddhic or intuitional world.” Buddhi as a principle, the Spiritual Soul and her wedding with the Human Soul, is taught in full in The Human Soul.
The map
From Geburah on the Pillar of Severity, with its arcanum, its star and its inversion, to the buddhic world he calls solar, the world of intuition, and the Solar Heaven he entered. Tap a part to go to it.
The ten sephiroth from the Crown to the Kingdom, with Daath hidden between and the Kliphoth beneath. This work is Geburah, lit on the left-hand pillar, the Pillar of Severity, facing Chesed across the Ethic triangle. The books of the Tree go up it from the foot. Tap Geburah to read, or Tiphereth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod or Malkuth to open the books below.
Part One · 6 passages
Geburah is placed on the Tree: the fifth sephirah, after the abyss that follows the Logoic triangle, second in the Ethic triangle with Chesed and Tiphereth, and a sephirah of form on the left-hand pillar. In us it is the Buddhi, the vessel of alabaster in which the Intimus burns.
Fifth: Geburah, the world of the Soul-Consciousness; the region of severity and justice. Sixth: Tiphereth, the causal world; the realm of will, equilibrium, and beauty.
Esoteric Course of Kabbalah also in Tiphereth
After the Divine Triangle there is an abyss, and following this abyss, there is a second triangle made up of Chesed, the fourth Sephiroth, which corresponds to the Intimus, or Atman the Ineffable, speaking in Sanskrit terms. It continues with Geburah, the Rigor of the Law, the fifth Sephiroth, the Buddhi, the Divine Soul which is feminine. Then follows Tiphereth, the sixth Sephiroth, the Human Soul, which is masculine.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978 also in The Human Soul, Tiphereth
The first triangle is Logoic; Kether, Chochmah and Binah. The second triangle is Ethic; Chesed, Geburah and Tiphereth. The third triangle is Magic; Netzach, Hod and Jesod. Malchuth, the physical world, is a fallen Sephiroth.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978 also in Hod, Malkuth, Netzach, Tiphereth, Yesod
ASSIAH: Is the world of action, the world of matter. Three Sephiroth of form are to be found in the Pillar of Severity (Binah, Geburah, Hod).
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978 also in Hod, Netzach
7. The fifth is GEBURAH our Spiritual Soul, our Superlative Conscience, (the BUDDHI)
Manual of Practical Magic, 1954 also in The Human Soul
The Mother carries in her hand a precious lamp; that lamp is the Intimus which burns within the depths of our hearts. The Intimus is within a vessel of fine and transparent alabaster. That vessel is our own superlative consciousness, is our Buddhi. The Intimus is the Sephiroth Chesed; the Buddhi is the Sephiroth Geburah.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978 also in Whose Veil No Mortal Has Lifted, The Human Soul, Tiphereth
Part One · 4 passages
Its correspondences as he lists them in the Kabbalah course, the arcanum it shares with Netzach's number, the chapter of Tarot and Kabalah that opens on its name, and the left arm of a Mayan figure that shows it.
Geburah: Rigor; The fifth card of man. The High Priest or The Hierophant of the Tarot. Mars, the warrior of Aries.
Esoteric Course of Kabbalah
The Kabbalistic number of Netzah is the Arcane Seven, the Chariot of War of the Tarot, Expiation. Geburah is the Arcane Five, the justice of karma. Both Arcanes are different; yet, they complement each other.
Aztec Christic Magic, 1973 also in Netzach
Geburah is Rigour, the Law, is the Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul, the Valkyrie of whom that notable Spanish writer, Mario Roso de Luna speaks, is the beautiful Helen, etc.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978 also in The Human Soul
The left arm indicates Geburah. Everything is very well portrayed with the Hebraic Kabbalah. Geburah is the rigor of the Law; it is shown with meridian clarity.
The Mayan Mysteries, 1977
Part One · 2 passages
What becomes of those qualities when the sephirah is inverted, and what happens to anyone who keeps them without the virtues of the Gospel, or keeps the virtues without them.
The Kliphoth are the Sephiroth inverted, the Sephiroth in their negative aspect, the virtues inverted. For example the qualities of Geburah are rigor, the Law; and inverted are tyranny, dictatorship. A prostitute many times gives herself to men being charitable here we have the principle of the Sephiroth inverted. The charity of Chesed inverted can be indulgence of the crime.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978
Well, in the end, that Master –I repeat–, who made the mistake of underestimating the Christian qualities, or the virtues taught by the Gospel, and who only kept the characteristics of Geburah –the Rigor, the Law–, well, he failed to enter the Superior Order. I also know of many interesting cases: wonderful people, very sincere, very Christian, who only dedicated themselves, with exclusivity, to achieve the virtues of the Christian Gospel in themselves but underestimating completely the characteristics of Geburah. They ended up, usually, making bad use of the virtues, putting them out of place; and I already said, and I repeat it again, that a virtue, however good it may be, when it is out of place, it becomes pernicious, something bad.
The Fifth Gospel The Reason of Being of Objective Justice Lecture-Interview – Mexico City – 1975
Part Two · 2 passages
The world of this sphere is the sixth Aeon of Pistis Sophia. He corrects the old view that Geburah is only Martian: the Lion of the Law lives there, and the Masters of Karma judge from the consciousness it holds.
The Sixth Aeon is Geburah, the Buddhic or Intuitional World.
Pistis Sophia Unveiled, 1983 also in Tiphereth
Geburah, the Buddhi has been considered to be exclusively Martian; this is an error because in the world of the Spiritual Soul which is feminine, there is the Lion of the Law which is Solar. Thus in Geburah we find the rigour of the Law, but we also find the nobility of the Lion, therefore the Intuitional Buddhic world is completely Solar. Geburah is the Law of justice. The world of Geburah is based in justice. The Masters of Karma base themselves in the “Conscience” in order to judge in the Tribunal of Karma. The Masters of Karma are judges of Consciousness justice is beyond good and evil. When you reach the Light, you will know what Love is; and when one knows what Love is, one will know how to Love, and will understand that Conscious Love is Law. There is no value in doing good unless you know how to do it.
Tarot and Kabbalah, 1978 also in The Law of Karma, The Human Soul
Part Two · 4 passages
His other name for this world, in the chapter on the three steps of Initiation: the world of omniscience that the ego cannot enter, the cosmic theatre reduced to arithmetic, and the highest part of man. It opens with his exercise of meditating on a mathematical formula until the inner Being teaches what it holds.
A practice
The world of intuition is the world of mathematics. The student that wants to elevate himself to the world of intuition must be a mathematician or at least must have notions of arithmetic. Mathematical formulas grant us Intuitive Knowledge. The student must concentrate himself on a mathematical formula and profoundly meditate on it. Afterwards, he must empty the mind and make it completely blank, then simply wait for the Inner Being to teach the contained concept which is enclosed in the mathematical formula. For example: before Kepler publicly announced his famous principle that, “The square of the period of revolution of a planet varies directly as the distance from the sun cubed,” that formula already existed; it was contained in the solar system, even when the wise did not know it. The student can mentally concentrate himself on that formula. He must empty his mind, become drowsy. With his mind completely blank he must wait for his own inner Being to reveal to him all of the marvelous secrets which are contained in the formula of Kepler. The formula of Newton concerning universal gravity can also serve us in order to exercise ourselves in the Initiation. This formula is the following: “The force between two objects varies directly with each of the masses and inversely with the square of the distance between them.” If the student practices with tenacity and supreme patience, his own inner Being will teach or instruct him in the Great Work. Then he will study at the feet of the Master and he will elevate himself to Intuitive Knowledge.
Endocrinology and Criminology, 1957 also in Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition, The Science of Meditation
In the world of Intuition, we find only omniscience. The world of intuition is the world of the Being; it is the world of the Intimate. In this world, the “I,” the myself, the ego, cannot enter. The world of Intuition is the Universal Spirit of life.
Endocrinology and Criminology, 1957 also in Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition
In the world of Intuition, we see the great cosmic theater and we are the spectators. We attend the great drama of life. In the world of Intuition, the whole drama, which is represented in cosmic scenes, is reduced to terrible arithmetical operations. This is the amphitheater of cosmic science.
Endocrinology and Criminology, 1957 also in Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition
The highest part of man is the world of intuition and objective spiritual consciousness. In the world of intuition, the archetypes of all things in nature develop. Only those who have penetrated the world of objective intuition, only those who have reached the solemn heights of Noetic thought are truly awakened and illuminated. A true Turiya cannot dream. The Turiya, who has reached the heights of Noetic thought, never goes about saying so, never presumes to be wise; he is extremely simple and humble, pure and perfect.
The Perfect Matrimony, 1950 (ed. 1966) also in Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition
Part Two · 2 passages
The Initiation of Geburah in its place on the ladder of initiations up the Tree, and his own account of the fourth door opening on a solar mansion, and of entering the buddhic world.
One will have to perform the Initiation of Malkuth, that is, the Mysteries of the Abyss in oneself, completely. One will have to take the mysteries of Yesod, the mysteries of sex to complete perfection, to the elevated qualification. One will have to go through the Initiation of Hod –the Astral Body–. One will have to go through the Initiation of Netzach –the Mental Body–. One will have to go through the Initiation of Tiphereth for the Son of Man to be born in him, and to die and resurrect among the dead. One will also have to go through the Initiation of Geburah –the Superlative Consciousness of the Being–, and through the one of Chesed –the Being, or Microprosopos, the “Little Face”, or the King of Microcosmos–. Finally, he will have to go through the Initiation on the eighth day of Binah for the King to rise from his sepulcher and come into the world of form.
The Fifth Gospel Animic Involution or Intimate Revolution Third Chamber – Mexico City – April 1973 also in The Intimate Christ, Malkuth, Netzach, Tiphereth
"Open, Sesame!'', I shouted for the fourth time, and when the fourth door opened I crossed the threshold of a bright solar mansion... What I saw at the far end of the Sanctuary was something unusual and unwonted. Oh, Gods! There, sitting on their thrones, Osiris, Isis and Horus were waiting for me... I advanced towards them and prostrating myself I adored them. At that moment I felt their blessings in me. Three aspects of my Being, but derivative. Thus I understood it, and this deserves an explanation... One of our esoteric gnostic rituals says textually the following: << Osiris (the Arch-Hierophant and Arch-Magus, our particular, individual Monad), powerful emperor, answers the imploring son!... Isis (the unfolding of Osiris, the Mystical Duality, Devi Kundalini), dignified mother, answers the imploring son!... Horus (the Intimate Christ), answers the imploring pilgrim... >. They received me and I entered victorious into the Solar Heaven, into the abode of the Potencies, into the buddhic or intuitional world. Then I regained my place among those divine creatures, a glorious state of consciousness that I had lost in days of old.
The Three Mountains, 1972
How it was made. All fifty-two books in the library were searched for Geburah by name, and for its world by each of his names for it: the buddhic or intuitional world, the world of the Buddhi, and the Solar Heaven, which he glosses himself as the buddhic world. That found 34 candidates in 13 books. Each was read by two readers working apart, who agreed on 28 of them; a third reader, who did not see what either had decided, settled the 6 they did not. 18 paragraphs were judged printable; they make 17 passages. Then, at the editor’s word, his world of intuition was added: thirteen paragraphs that are one chapter in three translations (Endocrinology and Criminology, Tarot and Kabbalah, The Revolution of the Dialectic) and a line of The Perfect Matrimony. The chapter prints once, from the earliest book, as three passages, and the Matrimony as a fourth. 20 passages are printed here.
What was left out, and why. Most of the paragraphs not printed are a bare heading, a single cell of a table, or one name in a list of the sephiroth or the heavens. Others belong to other works and stay there: the liver as the organ of the five, the Devil card of the Tarot, the story of the Labour of Hercules that leads to the Solar Heaven. Buddhi as a principle, the Spiritual Soul, is taught in The Human Soul; where he says in the course of it that the Buddhi is Geburah, the passage is here.
Kept small, as ruled. The editor ruled on 25 September that Geburah prints small and stands on its own, neither widened nor folded into another book. One printable passage was not printed: in the list of the Tree in Tarot and Kabbalah the two-column page puts Chesed’s line between Geburah’s heading and its words, so they cannot be cut out as one passage, and the same teaching stands in full in the Geburah chapter of that book (numbers 7 and 8 here). 8 passages run over more than one paragraph, where his sentence or his account crosses the break. The one practice is his exercise for the world of intuition, meditating on a mathematical formula; for the sphere by its own name he gives none.
He does not always agree with himself, and nothing here smooths it over. The Kabbalah course gives Geburah Mars, the warrior of Aries; Tarot and Kabbalah calls that view an error and says its world is solar. The Kabbalah course calls it the world of the Soul-Consciousness, Pistis Sophia the sixth Aeon, and The Three Mountains the fourth heaven, the Heaven of the Sun. And the world of intuition, which Pistis Sophia and The Three Mountains give to Geburah as the buddhic or intuitional world, he also calls “the world of the Being; … the world of the Intimate”, which is Chesed’s name. Each stands in its own words, with its year.
What was done to his words. Nothing was paraphrased. The only changes are to the scanning and the setting: words broken at the end of a line and closed up against the corpus; 4 places the scanner damaged, given in their plain reading (superlative for superla tive, based in justice for based injustice, Microprosopos for Micropros- opos, and a recording mark of the editors removed); and, in two passages, the range moved to where his words on this sphere begin and end. Each change is recorded with its place in the book in the project notes.
15 passages also stand in a finished work, and each one is marked where it stands. An overlap is allowed wherever it is needed to get the teaching across, but it should always be visible to the reader.