This article is the first of a series on English Qaballa.
When we think of Qabalah, if we know of it, the first thing we think of is the Tree of Life, a structural diagram with ten spheres connected by 22 paths. Those who study Qabalah know that the first sphere, which represents G-d, is not the beginning of the story — that there are three forms of ‘Negative Existence’ which precede the first sphere.
When we begin to study English Qaballa, we soon come to realize that the meaning of the word qaballa is truly ‘to receive.’ For the structure embedded in the English language is not necessarily the same as the structure embedded in the Hebrew language. We cannot simply start assigning terms to a structure which arose from the inherent nature of an unrelated alphabet and language. This structure must arise and emerge from the few basic elements we have at hand when we begin this exploration of our native language: the letters, the numbers, and the cipher.
Before we begin any journey, we must prepare for it. In the case of English Qaballa, we must first construct a numerical dictionary based on a cipher. While there are technically an infinite number of such ciphers and such dictionaries, each possibly describing one of an infinite number of worlds, we will get nowhere if we do not select a specific cipher and create a definitive dictionary in preparation for our journey.
The original notion of an English Qaballa was suggested in a text received in response to an invocation in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid by Aleister Crowley in 1904. The cipher embedded in this text was discovered by James Lees in England in 1976. I visited James in 1986 and he gave me the cipher. Given this unusual chain of events, I choose to use this cipher and the system which arises from it, which Lees called ‘English Qaballa.’
A=1 L=2 W=3 H=4 S=5 D=6 O=7 Z=8 K=9 V=10 G=11 R=12 C=13 N=14 Y=15 J=16 U=17 F=18 Q=19 B=20 M=21 X=22 I=23 T=24 E=25 P=26
Given a cipher, we must then create a dictionary based on whatever we consider to be our root text or texts. James Lees started by adding the words of the text received by Crowley in 1904, the Book of the Law. I do the same, then add the words from Nema Andahadna’s Liber Pennae Praenumbra. But one could just as easily start by adding all the words in all the works of Shakespeare or Tolkien, or the lyrics of Led Zeppelin or Rising Appalachia.
I’d like to note here that computer-generated dictionaries can only take us so far, as they do not induce the repatterning of consciousness necessary for deepening our understanding of our native tongue. Thus it is recommended that one’s dictionary be calculated and constructed by hand. For further information on the discovery and nature of EQ, please see Cath Thompson’s book, The Magickal Language of the Book of the Law (Hadean Press, 2016), which includes a numerical dictionary one can use while evaluating the usefulness of English Qaballa in one’s own life.
As in Hebrew Qabalah, we must start with what we don’t know. At the beginning, we don’t know anything — we know Nothing. The root word of negation in English is NO, which has a value of 21. This is three times seven, and seven is represented in EQ by the letter O. Thus NO = O O O, a symbol which echoes the three forms of Negative Existence hypothesized in Hebrew Qabalah.
Those three forms as expressed in English Qaballa are NO, NONE, and NOTHING. NO is pure negation, not being a reference to any thing which is being negated. And yet NO has the same value as ON, suggesting the 0 and 1 of binary mathematics. 21 is also the value of AKASHA, which means ‘space’ in traditional Indian cosmology. This correspondence is affirmed by the fact that SPACE = 70 = AKASHA-ECHO. Thus we see that akasha is the SPACE-BEHIND-SPACE = 232 = UNMANIFEST SPACE in our English Qaballa.
English Qaballa is a functional language. One function of the letter N is negation. In the word NONE, the thing being negated is ONE. One would think that we cannot understand N-ONE without understanding ONE, but the idea of a point as the center of space is sufficient to the task. If we have such a point, which implies the existence of the space of which the point is the center, and remove the point, then all we have left is space without a center. We are LOST IN SPACE, which sums to 145, a number to which we shall return shortly.
The value of NONE is 60. Sixty is one of the oldest historically significant numbers, having been chosen as the base of the Sumerian number system in the 3rd millennium BCE. Sexagesimal, also known as base 60, is a number system which is still used for measuring time and — in modified form — angles and both astronomic and geographic coordinates. Sixty is also the value of BODHI, which in Buddhism refers to the insight into Śūnyatā (the emptiness which in English we call NO) and the Buddha-nature or luminous mind from which it is inseparable. Sixty is also the value of MY LADY, affirming the usual representation of this principle of NONE in female form as the Great Mother Prajñāpāramitā or Yum Chenmo. In EQ this principle is embodied as the Goddess Nuit, the Egyptian goddess Infinite Stars and Infinite Space surmounting the Stele of Revealing (pictured).
Finally, the third form of Negative Existence is called NOTHING, which has a value of 97. The difference between NONE and NOTHING is 37, which is the value of LAKE and HELD. That is, NOTHING is a container which may hold SOMETHING = 134. But what thing? The value of THING is 76 = HE-RU-RA-HA, a form of TETRAGRAMMATON = 198 = SLEEPING PLACE. The image here is that of NOTHING as the sleeping place of Heru-ra-ha, a womb containing a child — a babe in an egg — about to be born as ONE in the process of the reversal of the negation of NONE. The number 97 is also the value of GREAT LADY, being MY LADY of NONE now great with child.
Further affirmation that we are on the right track is provided by the fact that MY LADY OF NONE = 145 = INNERMOST, INGATHERED, INVISIBLE, PRESENCE, and NEPTUNE, while NONE = 60 = the OCEAN, over which Neptune rules. Our GREAT LADY is thus none other than a feminine form of Neptune who embodies the principles of wisdom and the higher or divine form of love.
For completeness, NOTHINGNESS = 146 = BODHI TREE, DEEP MIND, FIRST LIGHT, and THE MOTHER. The Bodhi Tree is the outer form of Bodhi or N-ONE, the expression of Deep Mind and the First Light of Consciousness which is THE MOTHER OF ALL = 176 = EXISTENCE, the UNSPOKEN ABODE of HIEROPHANTIC INSTRUCTION.Thus we have the sequence AKASHA, MY LADY, and the GREAT LADY about to give birth to ONE, becoming THE MOTHER. The nature of ONE will be the subject of the next chapter in this series on English Qaballa.
May we quickly attain enlightenment in order to work ceaselessly for the liberation of all sentient beings.