15 Oct. 1997
Introduction
Since publication of the ORA Project’s Lucid Dreaming exercise in The Stone andCaduceus: The Hermetic Quarterly earlier this year, many people have written to tell of their experiences and the wonderful results they have obtained from regular practice of the technique. As a result, we are publishing this follow-up to the exercise so those who have been practicing for almost a year now may take their technique to the next level, and those readers who have been putting off incorporating the lucid dreaming material might be encouraged to begin.
This additional material is designed to show practitioners how they might achieve the following:
1. Increase dream content via the Hebrew Letters.
2. Create the “Magical Voice” or “Verbum” (Power of the Word)
Dreaming in Hebrew
A notebook is required for successful understanding of the Qabalistic or Alchemical Paths, as it reflects our personal experiences and makes concrete the volatile information we begin to receive from our inner self during receptive moments from our practices. This information is accumulated over time and must be made into a synthetic idea by each of us. If you are not keeping a notebook begin so immediately! Just as an exoteric teacher will discontinue instruction if their lessons go unheeded, so does our interior one. If you are serious about your inner growth, then keep a record of your interior contacts. This record will later develop into a series of inner teachings.
The Power of the Word
“In principa erat Verbum….” In the Beginning was the Word
John 1:1
Positive thinking in the single most important key to success on the esoteric path. In fact, we could almost call it, the “magic of Tiphareth”, in that thinking is by itself a magical (i.e. imaginative and magnetic) act. By focusing on the positive aspects of a given situation, no matter how despairing or hopeless it might appear, we can find a resolution that is in harmony with our inner growth.
This focusing on the positive doesn’t ignore the reality of negativity and evil in the world, but simply accepts it, and realizes that all things have a function, even if we are not conscious of them, and that by addressing the positive we can progress through along our life path.
By extending this inner attitude into the outer world, we begin to share it with others and mold a new life for ourself. This is principally done through the speech, or the power of the spoken word.
Speech is our principle form of creative energy in day to day life, sexual energy being our most fundamental form of creative impulse. These two expressions of energy are deeply connected to each other.
Through harmonic resonance, or sound, we can create conditions that are favorable or unfavorable to us. This can be on either an exoteric or esoteric level. By finding those sounds, or vibrations that we resonate to most harmoniously, we can create conditions favorable to us. Thus, our speech becomes a tool, albeit an expression, of our inner state.
The Name
We are encouraged to find a list of Hebrew names[1], such as in The Occult Philosophy by Agrippa, a list of Hebrew surnames, the Apostles,[2] etc., and to discover which one, or ones, resonate with us on an interior level. After having cleansed and rebalanced the energies of our environment, either through the Pentagram ritual or other means, and with the list before us, we are told the following:
“Recite in a low voice the Hebrew names that you chose, one at a time, and meditate a minute or two after each name. Several things can occur. We are only interested in two of them. One of the names provokes a heart resonance: it is your spiritual mystical name; one of them provokes a cerebral resonance: it is your material occult name.
Note the name, the date, the time, and the place of the revelation.
In either case, it is a rebirth and your astrological chart becomes the one of the moment of revelation. You and nobody else should interpret it. Look into the Sepher Yetzirah — and there only — for its real meaning….
You can incorporate these names into your mystical work of the descent of Mezla, either for the occult , spiritual or practical work without any negative Karmic repercussions.”[3]
However, many members have found it difficult to discover their inner name. We hope that the following information makes this discovery easier.
The Inner Name
Prepare yourself as usual for sleep, or even meditation. As you imagine the indigo sphere at the level of your throat, large and luminous, vibrate one of the names on your list. Pause for two or three minutes and await a response. If none comes, move on to the next name. It will help if you can visualize the Hebrew letters of the name moving forth from within, to the farthest reaches of the universe, pausing for a moment, and then returning to you as a creative vibration or force of some kind. If you are doing this prior to sleep, you may chose to do only one name a night for a period of twelve nights.
It will help as well, if you add an affirmation to your visualization. One that expresses your inner desire and intent of the experiment, that is, to realize your inner name of power. For example: “I call upon my Inner Name to reveal itself to me!” More will be said on the power of affirmations later in this article.
As for the “Inner Name” each possesses, bear in mind the following:
“Each being on Earth has an esoteric name, which starts at the time of entry into duality for the involutionary-evolutionary journey. Man receives a name which is in fact an image of the Eternal Vibration — his being. All men do not receive the same name but all names are equivalent, as a very function of the principles of Universal Justice….for each level or plane man will receive a new name. Knowing one or several of these names is an important part step for the student because the accurate vibration will create a profound resonance in him between the physical level and the inner level. The name vibrated corresponds to the inner level.
Warning: in no event whatsoever should you communicate your name(s) to anyone, should you discover them. … To communicate one’s esoteric name to someone else is a betrayal of the Inner Being and can stop the evolution for the duration of an incarnation. … each one of us has an esoteric name for each level of Creation. Pronouncing one of these words provokes a kind of invocation in our Inner Self at the level corresponding to the name. … If someone cannot find your inner names on his own, he doesn’t possess the wisdom to use them.”[4]
These names can be found by vibrating the Divine Names of each sepherothic level in a particular sequence. However, it is stated that this should only be done after the meditations on the polygons and/or planetary symbols. We state this again in reference to the Lucid Dreaming technique. You should only use it to search for your Inner Name, or to develop the Magical Voice, after you have performed it regularly for several months using the Elemental and Planetary symbols.
If your name is revealed to you in Hebrew, remember: Hebrew is read from right to left, and may need to be transliterated into Latin characters.
“…the vocalization of divine names is one of the most important elements of ritual magic… The result of the vibratory vocalization of the divine name is to achieve in the higher levels of Astral Light, to the limits of the world of Briah, a harmonic response of the first invoked then secondly evoked intelligence.”[5]
After having worked through the basic symbols of the Lucid Dreaming exercise, you can substitute Hebrew letters for the planetary signs. This will create a deeper resonance within you for not only the letters themselves, but also when they are combined into Divine Names.
Aleph — Or What Is A Glottal Stop Anyway?
When visualizing the letters, start simple: imagine them as blazing white against the ultra-violet, or indigo, background. Later on, imagine them in the King’s Color scale, or the colors used in the creation of the Hermetic Rosy+Cross. Over a period of two or three months, you can also begin to add the “Elemental” qualities of Fire (hot and dry/expansive-electric), Water (cold and wet/contracting-magnetic), Air (warm and moist), and Earth (cold and hard) associated with each letter.
By working with each letter this way, we can avoid the costly task of attempting to memorize all of the symbols at once. Instead, we slowly layer them over a period of several weeks or months, absorbing and synthesizing them in small doses. Thus, through personal experience we come to have an understanding of each letter and its associations, instead of through an exhaustive and at times confusing intellectual exercise.
Once again, your notebook will serve as your best friend and teacher in this world of inner exploration. Through it, you will chart your progress, and begin to see how the patterns of inner teaching develop and progress.
Later on, you may eventually add the vibration of each letter, either silent or spoken, so that you might discover for yourself the best resonance for when you intone divine names, combinations of letters, and other forms of sacred speech.
If you chose to vibrate each letter, remember that the sounds created should be deep, resonant, and cause a subtle, if not exhausting, vibration throughout your entire body. They should be imagined as being ‘inhaled’ and then spoken (or shouted) to the ends of the universe and returning again to you. This can also be done slowly and progressively, adding color and quality to each letter over time.
“The Word is the vehicle of the will and of thought. That is why magicians can utter words that may seem devoid of meaning. However, we can say that these words are energized by them because they know what to expect from their vocalizations. In addition, these words, through repetition, acquire a charge which still increase their power of action.”[6]
And:
“In addition, the magical theory considers that the vibrations triggered by the human voice have the power not only to fashion the plastic substance of the Astral Light into various forms according to frequency, amplitude, intensity and the resonance of the emission of the sound, but also to attract to our world the attention of various metaphysical entities.
…With regular practice we can rather quickly feel at will an intense tremor in the entire body under the impact of the vocalization of a single word. In addition, practice will allow the student to contain at will the vibratory effects to a specific part of his body.”[7]
Power of the Voice
The throat is directly connected to our power of speech, and creation. Through it we communicate to others, be they human, animal, or Divine. It is the quickest way to turn something into a reality in the material world, for sound itself is both transient and permanent. Once a word is spoken it is gone, yet its meaning, and effects remain forever. A word spoken can not be taken back.
Words ‘crystallize’ or make tangible our inner most thoughts. The more complex the thought, the more complex the word to describe it. These complexities act as ‘verbal DNA’ or programming, creating a series of visible and invisible conditions that become our life.
How often haven’t we said something in haste, jest, lust, or anger only wishing later that we could undo what was done?
If mortal speech is so powerful, then how much more potent is our speech when magically directed?
“Initiated man is a transformer of energy. A layman who pronounces a word disturbs the air of the physical world but his word has little resonance in the higher frequencies. On the other hand, the initiate has reestablished the links between the different levels of his consciousness, that is he reestablished contact with the various vibratory levels of the universe, and the more he advances on the initiatory path, the better the contacts between his various planes.
“Therefore, contrary to the layman, when the initiate talks, he disturbs the higher vibratory levels and if his word confirms to the original language he will then create the very thing designated by the word, through harmony, will radiate the vibrations which are the thing itself. Thus, it is easier to understand in Genesis of the Bible, the part where man named the animals; this means that he created them by pronouncing their true names. Moses, in the desert, pronounced the true name of water which gushed forth from the sands.”[8]
Silence
“If speech is silvery, then silence is golden” is an old proverb that is more true than many realize. By practicing silence we learn to conserve our energies and to direct them to other creative enterprises. How often haven’t you had a great idea and spent so much time talking about it to others that by the time you got around to do it your enthusiasm was gone? The once buoyant energy your felt had escaped through your lips and your were left literally feeling empty? This was later compounded later by questions from friends and enemies alike who heard of your project and asked you about it. Sheepishly you changed the subject or went out of your way to avoid further discussion of it. The seed energy, the initial passion, was wasted, (the verbal equivalent of masturbation) and nothing was born of it. This failure to produce then creates interior feelings of loss and embarrassment that must be removed before future developments can be made. This is the reason why so many creators, artists, writers, designers, and engineers hide their work from prying eyes. Reveal it for criticism and renovation only after it has successfully germinated into a viable product, plan, or design.[9]
Just as speaking of positive things often weakens their energy or power to materialize by directing our energy away from the ‘doing’ of the project (as well as opening ourselves up to the energy of those who might oppose us even unconsciously); constant talking of our problems only reinforces them and makes them stronger, more concrete.
It seems that those who succeed in an undertaking keep silent about it until it is manifest. Those who fail seemingly waste their energy in verbal outlets, or misery mongering.
With regards to karma, keep in mind the following:
“In order to neutralize and master “karma” — we could say our difficulties, our stumbling blocks — we should remember that Universal Justice is infallible. …
How can we participate in or be part of the solution? First of all, the most obvious thing is not to complicate our case and the first practice is silence. As a matter of fact, talking about our "problems” with the conscious or unconscious intention to complain about or justify our behavior certainly results in the prolongation of the situation even if the latter doesn’t get worse. … The less individuals know of your problem, the easier it it to resolve it, the easier it is to dissolve it. We should therefore avoid giving a fixed quality by crystallizing it.”[10]
The reverse of this is also true however. If voice can crystallize a condition, through judicious use of voice, we can realize conditions that are preferred by us. When combined with the above use of Hebrew letters and the powers they manifest, we can begin to direct our inner energies in any manner we see fit.
The power of affirmation, or auto-suggestion, can be united to this process of energizing the throat and medulla centers, to create a more potent technique. However, as with anything of an esoteric nature, the affirmations best used are ones created by each of us. Since each letter/planet symbol has several qualities the energies we seek to strengthen may be slightly different for each of us. Thus, research and review the nature of each letter and develop your affirmation from there.
The general rules of creating affirmations are the following:
1. Keep it positive and active.
2. State it in the first person possessive.
3. Keep it short.
4. Energize it with emotion, as you do the letters themselves.
For example, if one needs to reinforce the qualities of the Moon, the following affirmations could be used in conjunction with the Hebrew letter Beth.
“I am Beth! Master of Wisdom and Ignorance! Here me oh Universe and reveal to me the House of the Lord!”
“I am Beth, the Moon in its Glory! The powers of expansion and decline are obedient unto me.”
“The Moon in it fullness I am! Reveler of hidden Wisdom and the powers of right action.”
As you can see, each of the above affirmations is similar to the other in that it places the “I” in the active and possessive part of the statement, but each expresses a slightly different quality of the Beth-Lunar energy. Using the above as a model, consult the Sepher Yetzirah,[11] and develop several affirmations for each of the seven double letters.
Bal Shem
The Bal Shem, or Master of ‘the Name’ was one of the most remarkable aspect of Medieval and Renaissance Jewish qabala. For these Rabbis, nothing was impossible, and miracles are said to have been performed by them simply through the spoken expression of one or more of the Names of God. Their beliefs even continued, and were adopted by various folk traditions of Europe and North America.[12]
However, the pronunciation of Divine Names, letters, or any words of power, comes from several factors, including proper internalization of the sounds to be vibrated. The general method for their invocation is as follows:
“When vibrating divine names, the operator must first reach the highest possible notion of the idea of the white Divine Radiance of Kether, while keeping in his mind at the level of the highest aspirations. If this is not achieved it is dangerous to only vibrate with the forces of the Astral world, because the vibration draws to the operator a certain force, and the nature of this force depends very strongly on his state-of-mind.
The usual way to proceed is as follows: breathe in deeply and profusely and focus your attention on your heart, which corresponds to Tiphareth. (Having first meditated on your Kether, you will attempt to lower the white radiance to the innermost part of your heart before fixing your attention there).
Then formulate the letters of the selected name in white letters in your heart, feel them as if they were carved. Make sure to formulate these letters in a white luminous radiance and not silver-white. Then, while breathing out, pronounce the letters softly so that the sound vibrates inside your and imagine that the breath while leaving your body swells to fill the entire space. Pronounce the name as if your were emitting it throughout the entire Universe and that the sound could not stop before it had reached its ultimate limits.
Any practical successful occult work exhausts the operator or takes away some of his magnetism that is why if you want to realize work of some magnitude you must possess a perfect magnetic balance. Otherwise you would do more harm than good.”[13]
Conclusion
We hope that the above has proven useful to you in your search for inner resonance and outer harmony. The tools have been given and are yours to use. Only by using them over a period of time do they become an interior part of us, and ourselves capable of mastering them. The techniques described are among the simplest and most effective we know of for attaining inner resonance, and as stated several times, with little addition to your daily schedule as they are performed for a few minutes at night prior to sleep, and even if desired, for a minute or so in the morning upon awakening. Their purpose is to attune each of us to the specific qualities of the day — either through astrological symbols or Hebrew letters — or other archetypal qualities as expressed through the twelve simple and three mother letters of Hebrew.
As these forces become known to us on a simple and ‘one-to-one’ level, they will eventually combine into more complex ideas, and forces for the realization of those ideas. This will hopefully reveal to us the nature of the seven dual principles, the stages of energy density, and our interior name(s) so that we can better direct these forces within us.
All you need to do is close your eyes and dream. What can be more simple than that?
[1] PON Qabala Lessons 8 & 9.
[2]PON Qabala Lesson 13.
[3] PON Qabala Lesson 9, p.5.
[4] PON Fundamentals of Esoteric Knowledge Lesson 5, p. 5-6.
[5] PON Qabala Lesson 61, p. 4-5.
[6] PON Qabala Lesson 61, p. 1
[7] Ibid, p. 3.
[8] Ibid. p. 11.
[9] On a personal note, this writer can take any amount of criticism and editing after the initial product is finished, but will not even acknowledge a work is in progress until then.
[10] PON Fundamentals of Esoteric Knowledge Lesson 10, p. 3.
[11] PON Qabala Course Lessons 9-11. Please note, the various versions of the Sepher Yetzirah differ on the attributes. The Gra edition is the most common. See: Sepher Yetzirah — The Book of Creation , In Theory and Practice by Aryeh Kaplan for a comparison of the different editions. Also see Franz Bardon’s Key to the True Kabbalah for additional attributes of the Hebrew Letters. Please note however, that they must be transliterated back from phonetic German into Hebrew to be of use.
[12] For more information on the continuation of phonetic qabala in folk magical practices see: Pow-Wow, Psalms, and German Magical Folklore by Mark Stavish, M.A.
[13] PON Qabala Course Lesson 61, p.7. And, The Golden Dawn by Isreal Regardie. Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN. 1986. “The Vibratory Mode of Pronouncing Divine Names” P. 487
