The Hexagram is a Lamp
Hello friends! A part of my daily ritual involves visualizing the Hexagram, which symbolizes my Holy Guardian Angel. One way to think about this correspondence is to think of the triangle that points up as the Magician striving to reach up and touch the consciousness of my HGA while it reaches down to get in contact with me. No doubt there are other interpretations.
Now, I often have trouble visualizing the Hexagram during my Practice. The Pentagrams and the Archangels, the Qabbalistic Cross: all of these are generally well visualized. But a steady vision of the Hexagram eludes me. It has on occasion come into sharp focus. But not consistently and often not at all.
I think about that a lot. Why does this particular symbol present itself so inconsistently? I think the place to start is developing an understanding of what it means.
My studies have taught me that the Hexagram is a symbol of one’s Holy Guardian Angel or HGA, amongst other meanings. The HGA is the highest expression of one’s total self. Under Hermetic tradition, the self consists of five parts: the body or Guph..the etheral or Nephesh…the astral or Ruach…the mental or Chian…and finally the spiritual or Yechidah. So one’s HGA can be seen as the highest, most refined aspects of one’s Yechidah.
Now, knowledge of and conversation with one’s HGA is an important, nay crucial, goal of a ritual Magician in the Western tradition. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn the name of mine, it came to me in the midst of a ritual one afternoon. I hope to see it someday. But my knowledge is far, far from complete and the conversation has been all too brief. So I have a lot of work to do.
In Magic, by seeking inwards one eventually pushes outwards. When one digs down deep, they climb to the very stars. To be clear, the goal is not to escape the Guph, leaving it behind like some sort of dirty article of clothing one slips out of. It is to realize that there is a bridge running through all five aspects of one’s self, from the most mundane physiological functions to the ineffable heights of spiritual experience.
This merging of the totality of one’s self is well represented by the Hexagram. The upwards pointing triangle, not coincidentally the symbol for Fire, guides us to the higher realms of reality. Simultaneously, the downward pointing triangle, the symbol for Water, speaks to the downward flow of Spirit, from on high into our mundane lives. All is connected. As above, so below. To grovel in the mundane is to deny the higher reaches. To exclusively focus on the ineffable is to deny one’s grounding in Olam Yesodoth, the World of the Four Elements.
Where the two meet, one can find the ritual Magician at work. Or at least that’s the goal; better perhaps to say the Magician is on a Journey to that place. A journey that according to some may take several lifetimes to accomplish.
So back to the inconsistent image of the Hexagram in my Practice. Why? Well, for one thing it’s because I’m not there yet. That destination lies ahead. But, simultaneously, the Hexagram lights my way, guiding me like a Lamp that flashes in and out of vision but always dances ahead along the Path. This is beautifully illustrated by the Trump IX The Hermit, who holds aloft a Lamp lit by a Hexagram that is both occluded and yet reveals the way ahead on the Hermit’s long journey.
