Energy and Its Consumers

We have already discussed, from the point of view of the Hermetic (and Kabbalistic) tradition, a human being, as a bearer of consciousness, has a complex structure that includes a set of bodies – supporting levels of consciousness and special psychophysical energies (or “lights”), formed as a result of the interaction of mind (resting in the body) with the environment it is aware of.

At the same time, it is important to understand that between all these levels of manifestation and activities there exist quite definite connections, which are of defining significance both for the existence of a person and for their interactions with other beings and processes.

In general, the human being, as a threefold manifestation of mind, is built according to the scheme of the “Great Arcanum,” which includes binary and ternary structures.

Thus, first of all one can speak of the binary body–mind, describing the mechanism of primary localization of the individual stream of consciousness by relying on a chain of systems of perception and reflection — bodies — reproduced in a succession of reincarnations.

Since the task of the emergence of this binary is the actualization of the potentials of consciousness through studying its reactions to certain interactions with the “environment,” the binary turns into a quaternary, including reflections of these interactions both in mind itself (“lights” or “levels of the soul”) and in its support (energies as the result of activity). It is clear that between the “lights of consciousness” and the “energies of bodies” there exists a direct analogous connection.

Thus arises the pentagrammatic scheme 4+1, where at the apex is the light of consciousness, transcending its manifested state (yehidah), which for its manifestation expresses itself in four “souls” and, accordingly, four energies. If we add the dyad of “dense” conductors, then we obtain the seven-part structure of the human being.

Consider it in more detail.

· The first level is material. It corresponds to the physical body “in itself” (khat or guf) as a set of “coarse elements.” This level would most accurately be called “meat” or “hardware,” implying its inertness and energetic poverty.

· The second level is etheric. Unfortunately, this word has been heavily profaned and vulgarized by pseudo-traditional teachings, as has the related concept “subtle-material,” however if one tries to get to its original meaning, then we are speaking, in fact, of a “physical field” arising as a result of the manifestation of mind’s activity through the body and acting as “free matter.” In other words, the etheric and “dense” levels are interdependent and define one another, with guf acting as the carrier of structure and the etheric body (kush-ha-guf) as the bearer of primary mobility and dynamic equilibrium.

This primary vitality then manifests as the light nefesh – the “lower” life force or, as they sometimes say, the “force of blood” (although it is inherent in both plants and lower animals) or the “red light.”

Nefesh and kush-ha guf thus make up the next level of interdependence, and, just as the body (guf) is the sphere of activity of ether (kush-ha-guf), the etheric body is the support for the manifestation of nefesh. At the same time, it is precisely the system etheric body + light of nefesh that becomes the “lower” support for mind, deprived of a “dense” conductor, forming the so-called “body of after-death.”

Two more important concepts associated with the “etheric” plane of manifestation of the human being are: 1) the idea of Ka – the “after-death double,” which is the bearer of a person’s individuality between incarnations and is built from the conductor of the next level – the “body of desires,” resting on the energy of nefesh, and 2) the idea of the “energy of victory” – hamingya – which is the “external” expression of nefesh as the ability to overcome the “pressure from the environment,” anti-entropic activity.

· At the level of “desires” (more precisely, aspirations), the environment of thelesmi, the corresponding conductor is formed – Eib (in modern times called the “astral” body), producing “the lower mental energy,” whose “passive” component manifests as the “energy of dignity,” dignitas, and the “active” one as the light ruach, everything we usually call a person’s “psyche.” At the level of bodily processes this energy manifests as libido – the psychophysical energy of desires.

It is precisely eib that is the bearer of the “primary experience” accumulated over the current incarnation, and it is precisely on its basis that the Body of the Interval is formed, undergoing the “posthumous judgment.”

· At the level of thoughts (more precisely, makings-sense), mind rests on the so-called “mental” body (and this totality of mind resting on the “body of meanings” is called ba – the “semantic soul”). Ba is an “meaningful ruach,” that is, part of the psyche which is capable of “understanding” information rather than merely operating it. The product of the interaction of mind with this body is the light neshamah, “meaningful experience” or what is usually called the soul proper in the narrow sense of the word. The energy generated in the course of this meaning-making is baraka, “the energy of mastery,” or, in the processual aspect, the being’s Authority. At the same time, part of neshamah which relates to the “assimilated” experience of this incarnation is known as “neshamah proper” (or ren), the “Name,” and the part containing the experience of a series of incarnations is the “soul of the soul” (“neshamah le neshamah”), which couples an individual incarnation with the Monad or the light of Yehidah.

This semantic or logostic level of manifestation, in turn, can be considered from three positions or three “planes”:

– the level of makings-sense of the “external”, eidoses or khotemot, “directions” and “imprints” of experience,

– the level of “life as a vector,” the higher, purposeful vitality as a way of actualizing consciousness, and

–  the level of self-determination, awareness of one’s own individuality and identity.

The last two levels, due to their importance, are often considered as independent manifestations: “higher life” and “higher awareness,” manifesting, respectively, in the lights Chayah and Yehidah (among the fae – Sheruf), and in the energies Vod and  Nus. Accordingly, integrals, complexes of interactions of mind and its bearers at these levels are known as Ea and Akh.

However, each type of energy has not only its source, but also its consumer, and the human being, acting as a grandiose generator and transformer of energy, is at the same time a “resource base” for numerous consumers.

It is perfectly obvious that the body, guf, is a source of nourishment both for biological parasites and symbionts living in it during life, and for saprotrophs after death.

The energies of the etheric body are similarly consumed by ibburs and larvae during life, and utilized by gallu after death (and if the gallu are slow — then also by lower elementaries of the Interval).

The energies of desires are the food of demons, a resource both for the beings of the Edge and for the predators of the abyss.

The higher life energy is exploited by Archons and closes the energetic cycle of the Interworld. At the same time, as we have noted more than once, the Archons regard nefesh and chayah as two forms of one energy, and therefore they “design” the worlds as an instrument of their mutual transformation.

And finally, the energy of awareness is consumed by the supreme predator – Baphomet, who completes the great cycle, “discharges” nus and deprives pneuma of tone, and returns it again to the world Ocean of primary life.

And while a person lives in “automatic mode,” all their energies by default are included in the horizontal scheme of the “farm of worlds”: they circulate between predators and operators and return to the ocean of primary potency, without increasing one’s own level of awareness. But this same seven-part structure provides the key to a different outcome. Conscious recognition of the levels — from “meaty” resource-ness to the Logos foundation — as well as their cleansing, strengthening, vertical integration and final transformation allow the energy channels to be reconfigured. Chayah ceases to be the prey of the Archons, libido — raw material for the gatekeepers, and the fire of life — fuel for the Fomorians. In a “worked-through” form, all currents turn toward ascent, helping the mind transcend the matrix of mutual consumption. The task of human liberation or transfiguration cannot be reduced merely to “fighting demons” or “cleansing” the body; what is required is a radical change of the very paradigm of existence — an exit from that architecture within which energy inevitably goes to external consumers. Only awareness of one’s inner structures, the rewriting of desires, mastery of semantic currents, and refusal of automatic reactions allow a person to become not raw material but a subject, not fodder but an alchemist returning transformed energy to its Source. In this lies the central Hermetic task: not only to survive in the energetic system of the universe, but also to transform it — starting with oneself. Thus a person can return to oneself one’s rightful place in the universe and turn from a “battery” for the cosmos into a subject of cosmic alchemy, into a point where the circle of mutual transformations of energies is open and, as a spiral, ascends back to its primordial Source, becoming from a dream — the Dreamer.