Why Your Map is Wrong

Since I became a member of the magickal community, I have witnessed and participated in a lot of dialogue regarding which map of the astral universe is correct. Naturally, I have a leaning toward the qabala. I have participated in so much qabalistic magick that I think like a qabalist. That said, I have visited other places on the astral that seem much different. This has broadened my view.

Recently, I read a claim about the qabalistic universe as shown in the Tree of Life that said the that the universe just doesn’t work that way. When I travel from Fresno, CA to San Francisco Bay Area I take Highway 99 to the 152 to the I-5. Eventually, I wind up on Highway 80 to find myself in familiar territory. Sometimes, I take the 99 north to the city of Modesto and travel the 132 West to link up with I-5. Had I taken that route and found the road closed due to accident or construction, I would not claim that a person can’t take the 132 to the Bay Area or worse, say the Bay Area doesn’t exist.

If I define all of the non-mundane/non-consensus reality of the universe as the astral, I would have to conclude that the astral is a very big place indeed. For all practical purposes, the astral is infinite with possibilities and probabilities. Anyone’s description of a place on the astral is more likely to exist than not.

Jason Miller’s Hecate Course is highly recommended. His system allows one access to an astral world that is tangible. I walked along a path in the wilds. I saw an actual gorgon and, if memory serves, did so before gorgons were actually mentioned in the course. Hermes manifested so strongly that when he put his foot on my chair, I could feel the cushion compact just as if a person had done so. His system, is a key to that world.

If the Hecate course didn’t work for me, I would not be here saying that the astral reality he describes does not exist. I know this because I took his Strategic Sorcery course and bombed out. I just couldn’t function. And, I am not saying that the magick he teaches does not work. That technique didn’t work for me at the time.

Jason’s Hecate keys are mentally ritualistic with physical anchors. Qabala has its own keys to the worlds. I believe that reaching a certain mental state, even temporarily, that links with the path/sephira one is working is the secret key to the qabalistic spheres.  Reaching those compatible mental states require certain thoughts, actions or modes of thinking must be burned away. If the practitioner is not willing or able to burn away his or her own thoughts, behaviors and misunderstandings that block passage to the various sephiroth, that practitioner will not be admitted. That does not mean the spheres do not exist.

A lot of Qabala as taught is ritualized. I have done a lot of such ritual. I can think of very few times that the ritual alone helped me to get anywhere. At best, I was introduced to a spirit that helped.  The ritualization of qabala misdirected me for a long time. I now work much more mentally than ritualistically.

Even if the magician is able to do the deep internal work necessary, she still may not be admitted to the various locations on the tree. Perhaps, the qabala does not fit the person’s soul work, personality, way of thinking or something else in a person’s basic make up. Maybe one of the darker forces has attached and the powers that be will not let those be carried into those worlds. I am not a master of all keys. I do not know every reason someone may be barred. I do know that any given person being unable to enter an astral world does not mean that reality doesn’t exist.

There are an infinite number of places that exist on the astral. There are many places in the physical. Just because we live on Earth does not mean Jupiter does not exist. The manifestation of San Francisco does not disprove the existence of Paris. The standard three-tier view of the universe, the below, the earth-bound and the etheric does not preclude a space that one would be hard pressed to insert into the map. A world where beings use base-eight math, have eight fingers and has an orange tinge to it does not preclude a realm associated with the moon. Nor would such a place even hint that a realm that looks much like ancient Egypt is impossible on the astral.

If you have traveled on the astral and built any sort of map, extensive or preliminary, I have no doubt your map is correct as far as it goes. Your map is only wrong if its end excludes all other maps.