"Observe a secret beyond secrets. It erupts from a blazing noon in Adam's mind."

"The Kabbalist brings new eyes to the world, eyes developed from reading behind, beneath, above, and beyond the text and commentary of the bible. The Kabbalist reader sees the text of the bible as if in literal cages - a cause of poignant heartbreak and a desire to set it free." (David Rosenberg "Dreams of Being Eaten Alive")

But what happens when you open the cages and let the wild things in there go free? Rosenberg's book does treat the matter of wild imagination with resepect and care (The title is clear enough about what might happen to the careless seeker of sacred knowledge). So let's explore what happened to the Kabbalah under Occult and Non-Jewish thinkers. The interesting thing, for me, is that a whole new Sephira was added at some point and accepted as a potent Symbol. In the original there are ten Sephiroth. A. E Waite (1857-1942) says that there is something quite strange lurking in the structure of things. "The conjunction of Chokma and Binah produced a quasi - emanation called Daath, knowledge, but it is not one of the Sephirot." ("The Holy Kabbalah"). This idea, possibly within the Order of the Golden Dawn, moves Crowley to develop it further to the "False Sephira". This is an Abyss of Reason in which one losses his or her sense of self only to become complete Binah - the female Sephira which recives the wisdom from the male Sephira of Chockmah. Benjamin Rowe writes that "The Binah revelation is understanding. That which is understood is: There is no end to the arising of mysteries within the field of the Beast. Each of them compounds the mystery of what came before, and non is accessible to solution. But the mysteries are very, very, beautiful for all their lack of purpose." ("The Beast and the Star.")

So what is this new, eleventh, Sephira? After seeing an engraving of eleven Sephirot in the Kabbalah Denudata (1677) by Christian Freiherr Knorr von Rosenroth I gussed it's the old Lion of Sfad, Rabbi Issac Luria working behind the scenes. And I was right! Now to the juicy and FUN part of research, to investigate further how this symbole traveled from Sfad to London and evolved into a rite of passage for modern magicians who wish to enter the city of pyramids.