Descriptions:
Video Description
Every day, a beginning Golden Dawn student is asked to do something that sounds almost impossible: meditate on a point. Not a dot on paper, but the mathematical idea of a point, something with a location and no size at all. In this video, Lyam Christopher walks through that first Neophyte exercise with the gentle curiosity of someone who loves the strange parts of the work. The point cannot be seen, only imagined, and the struggle to picture it becomes part of the lesson itself.
That little point turns out to be the whole story in a hidden form. He reaches back to a fourth-century thinker, Marius Victorinus, who described God as an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. In Kabbalah, the divine makes room for a universe, then places a single point in the darkness. That point is the first perspective, the first I am, the crown sphere called Kether. The same idea flows through Kabbalah, Magic & the Great Work of Self Transformation, where the grade meditations are assigned and the deeper meanings are left for the student to discover.
The invitation is surprisingly personal. Instead of staying lost in the head, you try on different places to see from: the feet, the heart, the hand, maybe the soft glow of the aura. The video points to the old practice of self-inquiry, simply asking, where am I in all of this? It can feel a little disorienting at first, and that is exactly the point. The wonder is that the person you think you are is only one borrowed vantage point among many, and the search itself begins to wake something larger.
Full Video Transcript
Okay, it’s time for another video. Today we’re going to be talking about the neophyte meditation, okay?
This is something in the Kabbalah Magic Book. It’s part of the curriculum. The neophyte,
every day as a part of his or her ritual practice, conducts the neophyte meditation.
And the neophyte meditation has directions. So essentially what you’re supposed to do is follow
directions. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about this meditation because apparently the way that
the directions are written is not clear. Okay. And I’m not sure why that is, but I think it
might have something to do with the difficulty of visualizing geometry. I’m not really sure.
Also, if you’re not familiar with classical education and the kind of education you’re
supposed to get when you are when you have a college degree or something like that um that
you’re maybe not familiar with the mindset of a scholar uh so we’re going to go into um what might
have been going on in the head of the person who wrote this the instructions for this meditation
okay the instructions begin with let the neophyte consider a point as defined in mathematics having
position but no magnitude at this point you should be hearkening back to your geometry lessons in
high school and as you might recall there are geometric entities that
basically have no volume a line for instance has no thickness okay so it
only has length okay and if you try to visual if you if you try to visualize a
line you can’t okay what you’re going to end up doing is substituting an image of
a string or a wire in its place and a string or a wire has thickness but
but at least that helps you see the line that you are visualizing in space.
Now the same thing goes for a point.
It has no depth, it has no thickness, it has no height, it has no width.
That’s what they mean by magnitude.
And as you might imagine, if you try to visualize a point, you can’t.
The best you can really do is substitute a dot in its place.
And the difficulty with visualizing an actual geometric point now becomes apparent
because a geometric point cannot be actualized.
It is only a position in space.
It cannot be manifest in space and time.
Maybe that’s the difficulty,
and maybe that difficulty should be explored
while you are attempting to meditate on the point.
And let him note the ideas to which this gives rise.
So as you’re having this challenge of visualizing a point,
notice what comes up what the things that frustrate you the things that you’re wondering about that
maybe you’re wondering why this meditation even exists at all so you want to note those ideas as
they come up what are they trying to get me to do okay or what myth are they trying to get me to
tune into what type of philosophy are they trying to evoke here with this meditation well there
there might actually be some old ideas that are sort of hidden behind this meditation and we can
talk about those concentrating his faculties on this as a focus let him realize the imminence
of the divine throughout nature and all her aspects so interesting isn’t that so uh if the
divine is imminent then the divine is within nature and as you might recall maybe if you’ve
got a little bit of education in the humanities, God or divinity is often regarded as both imminent
and transcendent. Imminent and transcendent, okay? So if the divine is transcendent, it’s utterly
beyond the physical realm. It cannot be accounted for or experienced in the physical realm. It’s
beyond space and time okay if it is imminent then it is present within space and time so well now
the tradition of kabbalah which uh which is the pretty much the bedrock of golden dawn system of
magic um will insist that the divine is both imminent and transcendent okay so that the divine
is both, and we will talk about that in just a bit. If that’s the case, well, if the divine is
beyond physical reality, how is it that the divine manages to enter physical reality? How is it within
physical reality? So probably what this neophyte meditation is referring back to is a quote from
marius victorinus victorinus victorianus uh fourth century um and he referred to god as an
infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere now there’s a
meditation for you okay and so whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere
okay so if you’re trying to see the center of this sphere well i suppose that would be a point
now wouldn’t it okay so what we are referring to is uh the transcendence of the divine becoming
imminence so the transcendent divine somehow becomes imminent and we’ll have to just explore
that a little bit all right so if you’re familiar with kabbalah as many of you are because you have
read dion fortune’s mystical kabbalah uh in order to create the universe um the divine had to make
room for it because before the universe before the universe existed there was nothing but uh pure
unmanifestation nothing existed okay so the divine was just like a perfect field of light let’s say
and um since there was nothing for that light to bounce off of nothing really existed not even the
light really because the light the light could not be perceived either because there was nothing for
it to you know bounce off of to reflect off of and once the light reflects off of something it’s like
oh there’s the light okay so nothing existed yet so in order to create the universe uh the divine
had to make a space for that universe to arise in and since the only thing that could be said to
exist per se is the divine okay um then um then the divine had to do something called simsum
which is a hebrew word but contracted uh there was a there was an opening that appeared in the
midst of the divine uh and the divinity still fills that space but somehow is hidden anywhere
within that space so in order to create the universe the divine had to create this dark
cavity of emptiness within itself and then in order to create the universe it injected a point
okay and the point is a spot from where i can see what’s going on inside this cavernous cavity
space whatever it is right and so that point is now a vantage point a perspective okay and um as
you as you very well know living in the world there are lots of different perspectives that
we can adopt okay there are lots of people around you there are lots of animals around you they all
have varying perspectives okay uh including uh if you have a a drone robot flying around it
has its own vantage point and its own perspective which it relays back to your video device okay so
um so there are many of these dots uh in manifestation in the universe many perspectives
from which to see things okay uh and the interesting thing is that the universe cannot
really be said to exist unless there is somebody occupying one of these vantage points and looking
perceiving sensing okay and forming a perspective right there right then and there okay would the
universe exist if nobody were here to see it all right so one of the symbols of kether the highest
sphere on the tree of life um is a zero with a one on top of it okay and kether being the first
sphere of the tree of life uh is number one sphere number one okay behind kether is the unmanifest
and so what’s happening with the highest sphere on the tree of life is that the first perspective
has now appeared okay and this perspective that has appeared in kether is the prototype for all
other perspectives that will arise in the universe so your unique vantage point as you
look outside your office window or or your unique vantage point as you consider someone else’s
philosophy okay that vantage point is being granted to you by the highest sphere on the
tree of life okay your individuality is a gift that comes from that highest sphere okay and
that’s why the divine name for Kether is E-ye-he-ye or I am. So the first appearance of
eminence of the divine within its creation appears in Kether as I am. And any sense of
individuality that you claim is borrowed from this singular I am. There is only really one
entity in the universe and that is the i am or the divine okay in in vedanta or advaita vedanta that
the tradition in india um the zero would be equated with brahman and the one could be
equated with atman and so the brahman is simply the reality as it actually is
pure reality behind all appearances then the atman is the appearance of the divine within
its own creation uh and so when it comes to people um there it might be easy to to view
your higher self as your atman let’s say and the and brahman that wouldn’t be god essentially okay
uh yes your higher self um is suspended forth from the atman phenomenon okay and the then brahman is
behind that right and supposedly in order to be enlightened this this one of i am needs to
disappear back into the zero of pure potentiality so the interesting thing now what we can do with
this anytime you are adopting a perspective in life you are then you should realize then you
are borrowing your individuality from the only individuality that actually exists within the
universe and that is the individuality granted by the highest sphere on the tree of life which
is Kether okay and so what you’ll notice is that during the various grades the Kabbalah
magic book assigns something called chakra breathing and so in the zolotograde which
corresponds to earth uh when you’re doing your breath work before ritual you imagine the body
is like a sponge or porous and as you breathe you breathe in through the pores of the skin and
and that air sinks deep into your uh the spongy recesses of your body okay and then that so the
energy and the uh the air and the energy it carries uh the energy now condenses down and
falls down into the muladhara chakra at the very bottom okay and then on for your out breath uh
then you that energy blasts out into the body as light just fills the entire body with light of
course then you breathe in again soaking in that energy through the pores of the skin letting it
seep deep into the body and then it sort of descends down to the muladhara chakra and then
on the out breath it radiates up up and out and fills the whole body with light creating a body
of light if you like okay and uh the same thing happens in the other grades and you’ll notice the
that the outer grades are elemental grades and so you’re kind of going up and down the chakra system
here so um these a lot of grade corresponds to earth and then after zelada there is the oricus
which corresponds to air and look at that you’re moving up to the heart because air corresponds
more or less to the heart center of the chakra system and so then you are then breathing um for
in the oricus you breathe in through the spongy body and that energy uh sinks in and congeals
on the heart and then on the out breath the there’s a radiating light out from the heart
that fills the whole body sort of like creating an astral double that’s made of light okay um and
of course then after that there is the practicus grade and that’s for water uh and then that would
be the at the second uh chakra swadhisthana okay and that’s where their light radiates out when
you’re doing your breath work and then manipura the manipura chakra is at the solar plexus and
that’s for fire and that’s for the philosophist grade okay what you are doing essentially is
entertaining the idea that you can have various perspectives within the body okay what normally
for a and the average westerner we identify with some kind of i am entity in the head okay
as teenagers start to become adults they might have they might experience their their selfhood
and their heart but eventually it tends to move up into the head okay not everybody but it tends
to move up into the head and so what the grade worker is then doing is getting you to identify
with other areas of the body you know what’s it like to be at the base of the spine and that
have that be my perspective okay or what’s it like to be in the heart center what’s it like
from that perspective okay and so the the um elemental correspondences are also very interesting
so the air is very free very open and that’s a free and open heart uh earth is very closed down
and somewhat rigid but also subject to change and corruption and that’s what’s down below at the base
of the spine apparently okay and the earth has a lot of potentiality too hence that green color
okay and of course there’s the fire element at the solar plexus and then the water element
on the second chakra there and so if you if you use your imagination now and visualize an
egg of light around this seated person here you can see that we have uh the the circle which is
everywhere and the center which is well the center which is everywhere and the circumference which is
nowhere how’s that okay so um you have that dot manifesting in various positions within the aura
and then you so you basically then have this idea again okay but now what you’re doing is
you’re playing around with where you place that dot or that perspective okay and uh and as you
can tell uh when you get beyond the outer order grades it’s going to move up and you’re going to
the the top three chakras are are um things that you might want to start working with okay after
After the five equals six grade, the curriculum that you come up with is up to you, okay?
Yeah, I do hear some people talk about, I’m working on the six equals five or seven equals
four grade material.
It’s like, that’s fine.
But really, by the time you reach five equals six, that’s where the higher self kicks in.
If you’re not making your own curriculum at that point, then I worry about you.
it’s like well in other words uh if you’re still just sticking with the program um that’s the
transition point that’s when you can let go of having to follow all the rules okay but you might
find it interesting to explore the since in the outer order grades you were exploring everything
up to the heart chakra and then of course uh after that then you can explore the throat chakra the
brow chakra and the crown chakra which more or less correspond to the supernal the top three
sphera it’s your oath all right let’s see now uh now we come to uh lord of the rings okay so the
ring itself is a is a symbol of this manifesting power okay so if you think of what a magic ring
is um it’s sort of a ritualized magic circle and when you put your finger in it it’s as though oh
i am now standing inside my circle you’re symbolically entering your magic circle it’s a
magic circle of protection or a magic circle of invisibility like tolkien’s one ring was a ring
of invisibility okay it’s a cloaking device uh so when the finger goes inside the ring then uh
then you are symbolically now protected by your shroud of concealment or your circle of protection
okay well uh now when it comes to seeking enlightenment using hermeticism then um what we
start to play with is this idea of the aura with various positions inside it, which you can then
adopt as perspectives, okay? And as you can see, this is the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the
Rings movies. And the designers of this sort of were playing around with that idea. They kind of
had a clue about this um so within the aura or within the the circle of protection within that
magic circle there is this manifesting black dot okay or black sliver sort of like a cat’s eye
pupil uh and this is the one that is now appearing on top of the zero so very interesting that the
ultimate evil in the lord of the rings trilogy is represented this way because this is essentially
a symbol for kether but of course we have to remember that there’s uh the divine has no
problems has nothing at all within it really okay uh but once uh it becomes imminent with it once
it once it enters into its imaginary universe that it creates inside itself then whatever it
experiences there is now subject to trouble okay so all the trouble begins at the top of the tree
of life okay um even though the kether is considered a very virtuous sphera uh it still
has all the potentiality for all of the tribulations that we experience in suffering
and things like that okay so in in a sense the i am energy of this manifesting uh black dot or
black slit uh or this black number one um that i am uh energy is also the energy of the ego
the ego borrows its individuality from kether models it after it but the ego of course is an
imposter okay it’s a it’s what they call a usurper it’s pretending to be the one true perspective
okay but it’s not okay and that’s where in other words sauron is attempting to be kether but he
gets it all wrong apparently okay so but i think the the designers of the eye of sauron from the
movies um it was pretty cool because when the ring is finally destroyed you can you what you
notice is that that slit in the center begins to sort of be get blurry and sort of starts to like
you know unravel and it starts to disintegrate and you can like almost see there’s like this
is saron uh in the center okay so saron being undone is that basically if you want to make
anything unmanifest you would take away both its circle and its point that duality gets snuffed out
then it ceases to exist okay so this i hope can now um give you lots of ideas for how to
play around with the neophyte meditation. You can see the neophyte meditation is getting you ready
for the idea of visualizing the aura and then visualizing various points from which you then
regard manifestation. It’s all part of what the Taoists call turning the light around,
okay? And it’s also part of the tradition of one-pointed meditation, okay? And the nice thing
about hermeticism is that it encourages you to adopt many different perspectives. That’s why we
have 10 spheroth on the tree of life. And of course, those spheroth on the tree of life also
have subspheroth inside them. There’s like unlimited number of potential perspectives that
you can adopt. Okay. And it can be very helpful for you to begin exploring that in the outer
order grades okay it is possible also it doesn’t have to be along the central channel you can also
identify with other energy centers in the body or any perspective spots in the body like maybe
what’s it what’s it like to view the universe from my hand what’s the perspective of my hand
okay what’s the perspective of my feet all right i think that’s all i have for you guys today
so once again the you might want to consider this is the symbol of the Sun
and they call the alchemical work like the great work of the great work is
essentially achieving the knowledge and conversation of your holy guardian angel
and the great work is often referred to as the work of the Sun okay now in the
alchemical great work you combine the Sun and moon together okay you have to
in mind that the this little symbol of the sun right here it already is combining those two
okay you really can’t perceive the sun without its impact on the space around it okay so as the sun
has impact on the space around it then you can now see the sun so the light is being radiated
radiated upon manifestation but you can’t see that light until it hits manifestation
and then it lights up manifestation and then oh there’s the light so in other words the light
of the sun cannot be seen unless it hits some kind of medium of manifestation which is the moon at
least in in alchemy it’s the moon okay um so it’s a very interesting way of looking at the aura too
because it’s like well um the aura doesn’t really exist unless i have a vantage point from which to
regard it okay and so um the interesting thing is that i don’t even exist unless i happen to be
adopting some kind of vantage point and where is my vantage point right now you could actually use
the neophyte meditation in an attempt to find where where is my perspective am i is it here
where it is for most people am i seeing things from my heart center am i seeing things from over
here like um uh to try to figure out where you are in your body this is what uh the vedanta
and advaita vedanta what they refer to as self self-inquiry it’s a type of meditation where you
simply keep trying to explore who and what you truly are and one of the easiest ways to do that
it’s like where am i in all this where is my that i am perspective and it can be a little
disturbing because you’ll notice that you actually have multiple things going on and the thoughts
that are arising in your head they’re not really yours the ego steps in later and says i thought
that that’s my thought but that’s it steps in after the thought has already risen and then we
don’t know where the thought actually came from there are all kinds of perspectives swarming
around inside your body and so this neophyte meditation is just the beginning okay and then
further in further grades then you simply start doing the the chakra breathing exercises and
exploring this idea of the point as perspective interesting thing too is if the point if a point
really has no magnitude then does god really exist or does he not exist or is the the nature
of his existence non-existence so you notice the ideas that can start to come out and um what is
existence exactly is it just apparentness so in other words there’s pure potentiality which
doesn’t exist yet but where is that where’s the pure potentiality and some people would say well
it’s behind that point somewhere beyond this symbol of the you know the point in the circle
anyway all right that’s all i have for you today i hope this helps you guys with the neophyte
meditation until next time
Source: Lyam Christopher