MALKUTH

    Malkuth is the tenth and final Sephirah, the manifestation of form as the physical world and physical life. The physical world is comprised in the esoteric philosophy of the four elements: Air, Fire, Water and Earth – these are not necessarily the material substances but rather the conditions, which make their existence possible. They equate with the definitions of Physics: Air is gaseous when the atoms move freely, Water, when the atoms move over each other but are usually contained, and Earth when the atoms are rigid and normally unmovable. Fire is energy that may best be described as activity or creativity by the Divine Spark or earthly being and in the physical and world and Cosmos may be seen as all electrical, nuclear, stellar activity.

    Malkuth, situated on the central Pillar of Equilibrium on the Tree of Life, is the sphere of normal human consciousness as opposed to the psychic consciousness of Yesod and the superconsciousness of Tiphareth. It is the final outcome of the process of evolution begun at the top of the Tree in Kether. After the descent to manifestation in Malkuth, the process then spirals back up the Tree to Kether like a Serpent (the Serpent Wisdom – Kundalini in the Eastern Yoga systems), and beyond to dissolution back into the Solar Logos who absorbs and meditates on the whole experience before once again beginning another evolution but on a higher arc. Our own life is a miniature picture of this process and although small compared to the whole, each individual human unit is precious and vital to the completion of the evolutionary task of the Solar God.

    In the Yetziratic text, Malkuth has close associations with both Binah and Kether. Kether, we have already looked at. Binah is the Throne or spiritual principle of Form upon which Malkuth sits. This gives us the Magical Image of Malkuth, a young woman crowned and sitting on the throne. She is bright, fertile Isis compared to the dark sterile Mother image of Binah. Other God and Goddess forms all have their place in Malkuth although manifesting in many different ways and guises in history. This may be explained by the polarity, cultural and time-conditioned aspects of whichever civilisation is being looked at and also by whether the function of the visualised God/Goddess form is celestial or earthly.  

    The two particular vices of Malkuth are inertia and avarice. Inertia is a further development of solid and static characteristics of the sphere, which may lead to laziness or an inability to make decisions in life. On the other hand, this inertia may be useful in slowing us up a bit if we are speeding around, doing too much and wearing ourselves into the ground especially in this modern age of ours. Interestingly, if one casts one mind back in history to societies with clear class divisions, then inertia would obviously be more of a vice to the aristocracy and better educated who would also be more likely to studying and working with the Tree of Life and philosophising about the world.

    Avarice, I think speaks for itself. The world nowadays revolves around, money, stocks and shares and advertising geared towards making profit. It affects some people so that it makes wealth their prime motive for Life and diverts them away from the spiritual purpose of their lives ie the Spiritual Experience of Malkuth – the Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel (see below in next question). I would suggest that “enough is necessary” is a helpful adequate mantra to combat the feeling of wanting more wealth to the exclusion of all else in one’s life. The key is a balanced definition of enough being which includes not being ascetic, unless of course one is pretty sure that this part of one’s Spiritual Path!

    The spiritual virtue of Malkuth is discrimination. The mundane chakra of Malkuth is situated in the anus or feet depending on the system of Yoga one uses or one’s own subjective preference. However, the whole physical body is naturally particularly important in Malkuth so the way a normal healthy body relates to the physical world it is in is primarily through the five senses which are continually active and discriminating every second of our lives although they diminish during sleep and other circumstances (eg illness). Through these senses we experience the sensations of duality – pleasure/pain, like/dislike in varying degrees, note these differences and react to them.

    The symbols used in the Tarot portray the four elements of Malkuth; Swords are Air, the cutting intellectual and thinking power of the mind, Cups are Water, the feelings, emotions, instincts and passion for life, Pentacles are Earth, the material elements of life, money, goods, all solid objects and Wands are Fire, the active, doing, creative element in Life. These may also relate to the Lower Sephiroth; Air is Hod, Yesod is Water, Netzach is Fire and Malkuth is of course Earth. The whole may fluidly be used in meditation and with flexibility in mind insights may be gained.

    In practical ritual work, Malkuth is important in that it is the base in which one begins any magical work and a ritual ceremony will normally include the normal five senses to alter the consciousness in the direction one wishes it to go. The physical being is considered as the primary magical weapon with material objects and imaginary symbols purely extensions of oneself used as outlets for the power invoked.

    So our physical world of Malkuth is where we work out our Karma ie the sum of our total existence, past lives, present life and future lives, doing our best to learn from the experiences and obstacles that Life produces for us.

The Spiritual Experience of Malkuth

    The Spiritual Experience assigned to Malkuth is the “Vision of” or “Conversation with” the Holy Guardian Angel. This is not a vision as such but the main trend or purpose of our lives and involves the whole being, the lower personality as well as the Higher Self. This purpose is the part mapped out for us as individual Divine Sparks within the blueprint of the Divine Plan. As an example, my own overall purpose and experience is to continually search for the Truth, for inspiration wherever I can find it – although distractions and blind alleys also litter the my past. The purpose being the search itself and not particularly finding one answer and crying “Eureka”! As one gets older the distractions and blind alleys become less the more one focuses on the main trend and one of ways forward is to give oneself up to this trend. The purpose may materialise in many ways, guises and forms but these are just reflections, part of the Divine concept of one’s life. One can recognise it as something that will nudge one back onto the Path if one strays too far from it. It can materialise as the lucky escape in individual’s close experiences of death eg on TV there was an interview with someone who survived both the recent train crash and the Soho pub bombing or the person who miraculously survives earthquake despite being buried under rubble for days. I would perceive these definitely as an indication of the individual’s Holy Guardian Angel and that it was not the time for that particular individual to “give up the ghost”. Appositely, there are the meaningless tragedies where people lose their lives and which very often causes others to ask “why” and to question the existence of their God. These examples are in essence two sides of the same coin and if people understood this then they might not question their faith as much.

Quotes from Dion Fortune's "The Mystical Qabalah"

    The Serpent coiling upon the Paths represents the dawn of objective consciousness and is the symbol of initiation; by the Path whereon the initiates have gone, ahead of their time, evolution is beginning to go, taking with it the race as a whole.

    From the imaginative scientist who perceives to the philosophic scientist who interprets is but a step; and from the philosophical scientist, who interprets in terms of causation to the esoteric scientist who interprets in terms of purpose, and so links science to ethics, is but another step.When we consider the microcosmic Tree, the physical body is Malkuth; the etheric double is Yesod; the astromental body is Hod and Netzach; and the higher mind is Tiphareth

    The best magical weapon is the Magus himself, and all other contrivances are but a means to an end, the end being that exaltation and concentration of consciousness which makes a magus of an ordinary man.

    It is these Fiery Lives, these infinitesimal electrical charges, which are forever weaving backwards and forwards with tremendous activity in the background of matter and form its basis.

    It is the especial virtue of Malkuth, then, to act as a kind of cosmic filter, casting out the effete and preserving that which still retains its usefulness.

    The concept of avarice, though not so obvious upon the surface, soon yields its significance to investigation; for the over-retentiveness of avarice is a kind of spiritual costiveness, the exact opposite of the discrimination which rejects the excreta of life through the cosmic anus into the cosmic cesspool of the Qliphoth.

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