ENOCHIAN TEMPLES: THE LOWER TEMPLE

                           BY BENJAMIN ROWE

                 Copyright 1987, 1992 by Benjamin Rowe



                           THE LOWER TEMPLE

The previous sections dealt with the Temple primarily in its relation
to the macrocosmic world. The Servient squares were considered only in
their formation as the floor, and were largely ignored otherwise. But
they can also be grouped to form altars of the four Lesser Angles
within the Temple.

The Lesser Angles of the Tablets represent the microcosm within the
Enochian system. They reflect in miniature the symbolism of the Six
conjoined with the Four that is the keynote of each Tablet as a whole,
and can be thought of as expressing the lesser poles of Tiphereth-
Malkuth within the larger polarity of Kether-Malkuth expressed by the
entire Tablet.

To construct the altar of a Lesser Angle, each Servient square of the
Lesser Angle is assigned to a water-aspect cube measuring one unit on
each side. The four cubes for each row of Servient squares are grouped
into a larger square, in the same way as was done for the Kerubic
pillars in the original design. These larger squares are then stacked
on top of each other in the same order as in the Tablet. This produces
a shape two units square and four units high, the relative dimensions
of the standard double-cube altar of the universe.

When the Lesser Angle is to be dealt with as part of the larger 6-
and-4 pattern of the Temple, the altars can be placed either inside or
outside the Temple proper. In either case, they are placed on the
diagonal line extending from the center of the Temple through the
pillar of the Lesser Angle. When placed inside the Temple, they should
be positioned on the four central squares of their quarter. This puts
them directly under the Tiphereth square of the Sephirotic cross of
the Lesser Angle. When placed outside the Temple, they should be
positioned at a distance from the pillar equal to the pillar's dis-
tance from the center of the Temple. 

The altars are charged by first invoking the Sephirotic Angels of the
Lesser Angle and then invoking the Servient Angels, starting with the
bottom and working upwards. As the angels are invoked, the Sephirotic
cross in the ceiling of the Temple should be felt drawing power up out
of the earth through the altar. As the power reaches the top of the
altar, it should be seen welling upwards and outwards in a perpetual-
ly-unfolding lotus, or a peacock's tail, brilliant with light and
color. The energies should strive intensely upwards towards the cross,
and a corresponding pull downwards should be felt in the cross. The
attraction of the altar for the cross should be so intense that, if
the Kerubic pillars were not truly immovable, the two would crash
together.

Since each Lesser Angle is a microcosm, it can be used independently
of the rest of the Tablet. A study of Dee's model invocations and the
powers he attributes to the Lesser Angles indicates that all of the
truly "elemental" magick in the Enochian system lies in the use of the
Lesser Angles as free units, which is the magick of the Son and
Daughter. 

The altars for independent use are formed by starting with the basic
altar mentioned above. The Sephirotic cross is built of fire-aspect
cubes oriented with their empty faces as top and bottom, It is visual-
ized standing upright, with its four lowest cubes interpenetrating the
four cubes in each row of the altar. The six upper cubes project above
the top of the altar. The vertical edges of the vertical arm of the
cross will be aligned with the centers of the four columns of cubes
making up the altar. 

The Kerubic names appear as four fire-aspect cubes laid horizontally
and connected by their empty faces. This row of cubes is above the top
of the altar at a distance of four units. It should feel as if it is
held there by pressure from forces radiating upwards from the Sephiro-
tic cross.

To charge this second form of the altar, begin by invoking the Sephir-
otic names. As the names are vibrated, fire should be visualized
pouring down from infinity and filling the cross with light. Its
outline glows, and a fiery beam forms in the vertical arm, with lesser
beams projecting from the cubes of the horizontal arm. 

The Servient names are invoked next, starting at the bottom, and the
water-aspect cubes of each row should well up with force, in response
to the energies of the cross. Finally, the Kerubic name is invoked. It
rides upon the forces radiating up from the cross, and as its power
appears it first forms a star with four arms radiating horizontally,
with a distinctly metallic appearance. The Kerubic angel's power goes
outward and down from these arms, forming a transparent crystal shell
around the altar and cross.

When considered independently, the Lesser Angles each represent the
perfection or transubstantiation of matter by the force of the spirit.
The cross is the spirit, the altar is the base matter, and the kerub
is the transformed matter. Or it could be said that the altar is the
ore, the cross is the heat, and the Kerubs are the refined metals. In
another aspect, they represent the raising of the Daughter to the
Mother's seat by the influence of the Son. And in another aspect they
are the means by which the Six is anchored to the Four.

Innumerable occult symbols are full or partial correspondences to the
energy relations expressed in the Lesser Angles. The sword in the
stone, the cross on the mount, the Rose Cross, the Sacred Heart (in
its esoteric interpretations), the cup and dagger, the King Enthroned
and Crowned, and the transformation of IHVH into IHShVH are among the
more immediately relevant examples. Any of these, or many others,
would be suitable to rituals involving the Lesser Angles.

Excerpts from two dictations describe the initiatory symbolism of the
altars and lower Temple. The first was given by Atapa, Sephirotic
Angel of Fire of Water. The second was given by sources that did not
identify themselves.

          --------------------------------------------------
     [This section was preceded by a description of how the
     altars are formed. -- B.R.]

"Thus in each Tablet's Temple, there are four altars, one to each of
the sub-angles. From the top of each of these altars springs a foun-
tain of light, of sixteen streams, which shoot upwards in an inner
cluster of four streams, and an outer cluster of twelve. Thus is each
temple lit by four lamps of devotion."

"It should be obvious why I have been the one to reveal this to you, o
mage. For are not the forces of fire in water the forces of Mars, who
is of the Sixth Ray, called the Ray of Devotion, among the planets? 

"The two forms of the Servient squares, as first the floor and second
the altars of the temple, show the two aspects of the devotional
force. In its early stages, when god is still seen as an object
outside the self, it generates that form of devotion which will brook
no argument with its own way of seeing. Ye see this often in the
evangelical sects, who are specifically devoted to the development of
this force in the lowest types of man, those who are under the control
of their emotional natures. (Though those who like cheap thrills are
also attracted.)

"It also shows itself in the intense spirituality shown by most
persons in their teenage years, when they become concerned with the
larger meanings of things, but as yet lack the capacity to deal with
such issues in an intelligent manner. Devotion is the development of
the emotional capacity to its natural limits, and thus it shows itself
so strongly at that age when all recapitulate that stage of their
spiritual development.

"At the same time, this force is extremely combative in its lower
phases. It cares not for reason. It only cares for the object of
devotion, that that object not be sullied in the bearer-of-devotion's
perceptions. He must protect that object at any cost, and thus he (or
she) becomes angry, unreasoning, physically or emotionally violent
when it is threatened.

"Thus such types have their natural place in the world, although
ofttimes they are given far too much for their own good, simply
because they are so persistent in their devotion to their object of
worship. Recognize that such have their place, but that it is but one
stop on the path, and must be left again in order to pass on to true
gnosis.

"The focusing of the emotional nature onto a spiritual object, such as
Jesus, or Mohammed, or Big Daddy "God", or Mumbo-Jumbo God of the
Congo for that matter, causes the gathering of the lower forces, those
forces that control the uninitiated man, into a coordinated grouping.
As we have here gathered the squares of the floor of the temple, and
built of them an altar. Those gathered forces form the receptacle, the
urn or altar, the grail, into which the light of the consciousness of
the soul, the lower aspect of the Holy Guardian Angel, can enter. And
this altar expresses that light in all of its forces, so that they
rise upwards in streams as lamps for the temple.

"It is the fixity of the devotion that causes this change. For devo-
tion is the lowest of the aspects of Will, and therefore is it the
keynote of the worlds in which the uninitiated man lives. Eventually
this focus is so intense that it causes the light of the soul to be
drawn down, bringing with it the first true knowledge of the spirit.
The consciousness focused in the emotional body is raised up for a
time and absorbed into the consciousness of the soul, before returning
to its own plane. And the soul lights its way from there on until
their union, when the light of the greater sun, the light of the
Crown, takes its place in life completely. 

"The path from the lower to the middle aspect is one that seems to
take the man away from his soul for a while. The intellectual aspect
and the aspect of the integrated personality and its values must also
be developed, or the man will not be able to stay within the higher
worlds once he gets there. The lower bodies provide the seat or throne
for his conscious soul, and the seat must stand on all four legs, not
just the two of earth and air. 

"A warrior must have his armor complete. If he go to a tourney wearing
just his arm and leg armor, but with his head and breast bare, then he
can not expect but that he will fall when he meets the lion in com-
bat. Yet surely, ye say, the lion must overcome all eventually, so
better quickly than slowly. But see ye, if the prey be weak, and
easily conquered, and without meat upon its bones, then the lion might
not deign to consume it, but will spit it out and leave it for the
vultures and jackals. Just so with the man who dishonors his soul by
seeking to give it less than his whole being, fully developed, strong
in all its aspects.


     [Preceded by a summary of the Temple's structure as given
     earlier. The attribution of the paths to the Tree of Life
     mentioned below follow Achad's system. --B.R.]


In this current vision, we see the Temple as it relates to the per-
sonality in its uninitiated and initiated phases. This addition
completes the formation, and perfects the geometric symbolism of the
Temple.

The floor of the Temple is the personality in its uninitiated aspect.
Few are those who live entirely within the world whose energies are
the floor. Such are those who live entirely in terms of their sensa-
tions of the external world, never considering anything at all inside
themselves. They are the so-called "natural man". Most of the human
race is far beyond this condition, and are at least in the process of
building the altars out of the stone of the floor. 

When the natural man first begins to see beyond the facade of the
outward world, and to wonder at the origins and nature of the things
beyond it, his perceptions are vague, changing, like the airs of the
path of Aleph. He looks for something that is invisible to him. He
aspires, as most now do, to become more than he is in some fashion.
But he lacks the experience and judgment to know truth from falsity in
that realm, and so he attaches his aspirations to many an unworthy
object. Like the Fool, he is constantly in danger of falling over a
figurative cliff, since he cares not the form his aspiration takes,
but only that it have a form and become real to him.

This is as it should be. The act of aspiration itself is what is
important, not the object it is attached to. Aspiration begins to
sensitize him to his inner sensations, which lead him to a perception
of the emotional-astral planes, which are his first goal on the path.
He draws himself up out of the Earth, and into the Air, by his desire.

In the process, he draws up behind him his connections to his manifest
being. Slowly they re-assemble themselves into the basic form of the
altar, containing the same energies, but in a more concentrated form.
Like a clever juggler, he has thrown the elements of himself up into
the air, and caused them to land in a neat stack.

As he moves into the sphere of Yesod, he begins to understand the
nature of worship, of devotion to the ideal. He seeks to reflect the
ideal in himself, attaching it to himself by his devotion, in the path
of Luna. He expects the object to return his worship, to show the
power of Love in that object's particular form. He seeks to make
himself a vessel for that force, through the path of Cancer, and he
seeks to manifest that ideal in the world through the path of Daleth. 

The juggler continues to move the elements of the perceived self
around, looking for a form that fits the ideal. He continually com-
pares the ideas that come to him against the response to his worship
that he felt in Yesod. His ideas become closer and closer approxima-
tions of his feelings and religious experiences. As this happens, the
force of emotion supports them increasingly, until he becomes the
dogmatist, the priest. 

Finally, in Netzach, he perceives for the first time that all of his
dogma is not revealed truth, but merely the summation of his own
manifest nature. It is a very attractive idea to believe that the
integrated personality is the height of creation, and many decide to
stay in Netzach for extended periods. Thus Netzach is called False
Victory, triumph cut short. 

But if he does not stay, he perceives this reflection in the path of
Mem, by the light of Tiphereth pouring down into the astral nature. In
the path of Gemini, he perceives the inherent dualism of all intellec-
tual constructs, that all systems of ideas must end in either paradox,
infinite regressions, or tautologies. In the path of Leo he perceives
the soul behind the outward self in its fullness, and the manner in
which it enlivens the lower bodies and creates a projection of itself
in the values the personality has expressed.

He then uses the force of the path of Virgo to separate himself from
his own thinking, to weed out those thoughts that are not an expres-
sion of his soul. This is the path of doubt, by which the dualisms of
the intellect are overcome. The force of Libra, he uses to balance his
personal values against those of a more general nature, also seeking
to remove from those values anything that is not of the soul.

Through these two paths, and the received force of the soul in Mem, he
rises into Tiphereth and the middle triad of the Tree of Life, where
he becomes an adept. His path from this point on has already been
described in the previous instruction.

In the Temple, the altar of each sub-element is directly under the
Tiphereth square of that angle's Sephirotic Cross. The light of the
soul, the sun, as it is projected into the sub-element, draws the
forces of the lower being into alignment in the form of the altar. It
then draws out of each of those forces its spiritual essence, so that
the fountain of light springs up from the top of the altar. When fully
invoked in the Temple, each altar will give the sensation of unremitt-
ing upward striving, trying to pull down the forces above that form
the place of the gods in the temple. The forces of the gods will seem
to strive downward in response. But the pillars of the Temple hold
them in place, so that the Temple does not collapse from the force of
attraction.

                                 -oOo-