With this book, David Goddard, has rendered the sometimes overwhelmingly intellectual and mysterious aspects of the Qabalah accessible to the sincere practitioner. The text gently guides the reader through the labyrinth of arcane teachings and symbols, vivifying the profound principles using engaging techniques of meditation and sacred ceremony. This book is an invaluable companion for genuine practitioners of the Western Mystery Tradition.
Tree of Sapphires: The Enlightened Qabalah by David Goddard (Weiser Books) offers a working ceremonial magickian a system of practical correspondences built on the syncretic traditions, modern, Renaissance, Jewish, Christian, hermetic, Islamic and humanist with the keys to unlocking the ancient and modern Western mystery traditions for applied ritual magick.
Avoiding heavy theory about Qabalah, Goddard offers exercises, meditations, and visualizations, as well as a prayer book to help readers gain a full understanding and experience of the Qabalah and its "Tree of Life," the root of all wisdom. He explains that the Qabalah is the root source of all Western mystery traditions-Kabbalist, Rosicrucian and Sufi-as well as the more modem, classic Western systems, such as the tarot, alchemy, angelology, and ritual magick.
This is an experiential guidebook that explores Qabalah - "the Yoga of the West" - as a methodical system of spiritual enlightenment, providing exercises, meditations, visualizations, and prayers so readers can experience Qabalah directly.
David Goddard is a Lineage-Holder and teacher of the Mystical Tradition of the West. He travels extensively, teaching internationally. His work enables others to experience directly their own divine consciousness, as well as to assist in healing the suffering of individuals and their communities. Goddard is the author of The Tower of Alchemy and Sacred Magic of the Angels. He lives in England.
Excerpt: I have often been asked: Is Qabalah a religion? It is not. Qabalah is a spiritual tradition. Religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Religion is a means to get to a certain state of knowing gnosis. Spirituality is the state you are in when you get there. A spiritual practitioner is one who has come to know the realities that religious scripture and imagery indicate-directly, if imperfectly. The knowledge is imperfect because it involves realities that transcend form and dualistic thinking.
This is very important to grasp. Religious image and scripture are metaphorical not literal; they need to be perceived wisely as poetic allegory, not as concrete fact. All religions, without exception, are time-fettered attempts to communicate with (and label) the inexpressible. Once you grasp this, you automatically move into a stance where you look for what you have in common with other religious expressions. If, however, you read your own religion as "prose" instead of as poetry, you automatically demonize others whose religious images conflict with your own deeply held beliefs.
We see this in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, where three world religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (all derived from Abraham)-cannot tolerate one another because they each have different names and myths for the same deity. In the 21st century, it is time we outgrew such things. Such views cannot help us realize the Transcendent Mystery for which the term "God" is a metaphor.
A realized spiritual practitioner can worship with other people in any setting-synagogue, church, mosque, temple, or grove-because they have learned to be conscious of the Divine in all places and in all beings. This is represented by the esoteric aphorism that teaches, "Mock not the name by which another knows God."
Skillfully applied, religion can be useful to spiritual practitioners by helping them communicate with others who use the same imagery or share the same associations. But we need not be bound by its practices. We choose it only because it is helpful. As with any tool, when it has done the job, we lay it aside. Or we may retain it for its inherent beauty, like a picture or a piece of music we personally find inspiring. The important thing is that we not impose our preferences on others or judge them by whether they like or dislike that picture or piece of music. Having "tasted" the One Reality, the truly spiritual person is no longer attached to religion, but rather sees it for what it is and continues forward to actualize that which religion can only suggest.
