Make Me, Break Me, Re-make Me

Everything that exists consists of many lesser parts in a relationship to one another. In simple physical objects the relationships tend to be relatively static. In living beings the relationships are a dynamic homeostasis. Entities on magickal levels -- including those we call the personality and the soul or solar self -- are also complex systems in a dynamic balance.

Whenever a new source of activity or energy is introduced into a dynamic system, it produces a disruption of the existing patterns of balance. Some relationships are broken entirely; others are stretched out of shape and their action distorted. The connections between all parts of the system become looser and behave in strange ways until the new source is incorporated into the system.

We see this on every level of human experience. A new environment tends to make us anxious or puts us into a heightened state of alertness until we can define our relationship to it. An unusual object confuses our senses until we become familiar with it. Social interactions in a group change when a new member is admitted. And so on.

Initiatory magick is nothing more (and nothing less) than a constant, willed repetition of this process. The magician invokes some source of magickal energy, or some being(s) existing on a higher level of organization than himself. The response brings new contacts and energy into the complex system that is himself, producing a "mind-expanding" experience, stretching and breaking the habitual relationships between parts. Incorporation of these new contacts and energies into the system produces a new dynamic balance and a broader scope of perception. Certain levels of organization are relatively stable, and relatively common in group-experience; these we call "grades" of initiation.

In Achad's Tree of Life, the path of Mars connects Binah with Geburah. And the movement from the latter to the former provides the archetype of the process represented by this Part. Like any other energy, the entrance of Binah energy into the self produces a disruption and stretching of relationships. Since Binah is a transcendental power, it cannot be fully absorbed or integrated into a finite being. The integration must take place within the transcendent realm.

During the initial inflows of transcendent energy, and for some time afterwards, the finite self isn't capable of actually perceiving them. All it can perceive are the effects; a raising of awareness coupled with the "stretching" of itself to a point of near-dissolution. This is the experience of the False Sephira, Da'ath. (Source: The 91 Parts To The Earth)