Path-working on the Qabalistic Tree of Life

"Path-working" is a comparatively new phenomenon in the Western Mystery Tradition, as it does not seem to have existed as an occult practice prior to the occult revival of the late nineteenth century. Yet nowadays it is an established practice amongst many schools of magical thought. Pat Zalewski reveals that it is part of the curriculum for a Theoricus Adeptus Minor of the Golden Dawn, it is described in the writings of Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, Melitta Denning and Osborne Phillips to name but a few.

Simply put, "Path-working" is the art of clairvoyantly investigating the Paths of the Tree of Life. Path-working as a technique seems to have developed from the clairvoyant practices of Adepts in the Stella Matutina - one of the off-shoots of the Golden Dawn:

However, one should not imagine that when, nowadays, different people in the Western Mystery Tradition refer to Path-working they mean exactly the same thing. For example, in the Aurum Solis, Path-working is a means of raising ones consciousness from a lower Sephirah, to a higher one. The actual Path-working consists of a "guided meditation": the leader or facilitator tells the Path-workers what to experience, rather than leaving it to their own imagination.

Dion Fortune, on the other hand, is in favour of such guided meditations up to a point, but advises that the leader of the session (the Hierophant) should leave spaces where the Path-workers can engage in silent reflection, and thereby come up with their own individual insights. She also recommends her own particular method for the "composition of place", i.e. the creation of the astral scene one experiences at the start of the vision.

It seems unlikely that what began as an obscure reference in a secret Magical order would have become a popular practice in the Western Mystery Tradition, had it not been assimilated into Analytical Psychology by C G Jung. Jung developed a technique called "Active Imagination", which is similar to Path-working in that it seems to be mightily similar to Clairvoyance:

Active Imagination does not make use of the Tree of Life, nor does it make use of the Tarot Trumps. Yet I believe there is a still a subtle connection. Firstly, Path-working does indeed rely on the Path-worker to "choose a dream, or some other fantasy-image, and concentrate on it" - it so happens that the fantasy-image in question is arbitrarily determined by the symbolism of the Tree of Life in general, and perhaps the appropriate Tarot Trump in particular. Moreover, the process of Path-working requires the Path-worker to recognise, just as in Active Imagination, that he is a character participating in the vision he is experiencing, not merely an observer, and certainly not its detached creator..... Read More ...