The Body and Its Symbolism: A Kabbalistic Approach

by Annick de Souzenelle, Christopher Chaplin (Translator), Tony James (Translator)

Overview

This intricate and profound exploration of Kabbalistic symbolism as applied to the human body is a classic in French esoteric circles. It is the life work of psychotherapist Annick de Souzenelle, whose tremendous depth of thought has been partially inspired by the depth psychology of C. G. Jung.

De Souzenelle incorporates the symbolism of the Hebrew language with biblical references and her understanding of Kabbalistic spirituality to present the Kabbalistic tree of life as a pattern of the human body in all its various parts and vital organs, from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head. Not only is hers an important work in the field, it also affords some flavor of the rich French esoteric tradition.

The Body and Its Symbolism will be sought after by advanced students of the Western esoteric traditions, especially Kabbalah.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780835631501
Publisher:	Quest Books
Publication date:	11/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Annick de Souzenelle is a nonagenarian who has worked as a nurse, a psychotherapist, a teacher, and a writer. She still writes and teaches seminars in France and in Italy. Her re-readings of the Bible, based on her deep knowledge of biblical Hebrew, shed new light on the Creation story in Genesis, the nature of the Feminine, and man’s fundamental vocation.

Read an Excerpt

The Body and Its Symbolism

A Kabbalistic Approach

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By Annick de Souzenelle

Quest Books

Copyright © 2000 Albin Michel-Paris
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8356-0932-6

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CHAPTER 1

The Mi and the Ma, or That Which Is Within and That Which Is Without

That which is above resembles that which is below, and that which is below resembles that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of one thing.

— The Emerald Tablet

HERMES TRISMEGISTUS — THE THRICE-GREATEST — SEALS A golden key in the Emerald Tablet. With this key, we will attempt to unlock the mystery of what appears essential to us as human beings, a mystery we are drawn to even when we do not attempt to grasp it, a mystery compelling us and, at the same time, eluding our powerless intellects.

Hitherto modern civilization has tried to unlock the world and its mysteries with the key of intellect. We look at the world the way a child looks at a toy when it wants to take it to pieces to find out how the mechanism works. Accordingly, we have placed the world, and man, as two objects different in kind, two distinct entities, believing the knower, the "one who knows" (man) and "the object to be known" (the world) to be irreducible to each other. And when "the object to be known" is dubbed "human sciences" (humanities and social sciences), it becomes clear that man has studied man without any idea about what set of instruments he could use in attempting to know himself. This is absurd.

Hermetic wisdom also says: "Know yourself, and you will know the universe and the gods." This second key invites us to regard man within the world and the world within man as two sides of the same coin, the same hidden reality. What joins them is their inner core.

In this respect, the within and the without are foreign to any spatial concept; they are just links to an "outer layer," the "skin," as in a fruit the skin covers the pulp, which leads to the kernel. Man can only apprehend his individual pulp and kernel by accessing other planes of reality without, however, leaving the realm of his familiar surroundings. Other wise the philosopher could well ask, as he has in the past, whether the world does not begin and end at the level of the skin ... and he will stray into the land of absurdity.

With a new level of consciousness, we may learn how to unlock new doors.

Is not the skin associated with "that which is below" and the kernel with "that which is above"? The divine Hermes distinguishes these, but does not separate them. When man, like Hermes, participates in what is "above," he distinguishes. Man, who is "below," separates and comes ultimately to deny the existence of what he has separated himself from. He then remains alone, kicking against the non-sense of his life. He thinks it is inhuman, whereas it is merely human, "human" designating the layer of skin that is separated from its kernel.

How can we restore the whole of the fruit? How do we reinsert the kernel within the pulp and revive the flesh beneath the skin? How do we enable that which is "below" to recover the image of that which is "above" and find again the path leading to its model?

The different myths of Creation that humanity has entertained in its traditional schools all allude to this "above" and this "below" resulting from a separation or distinction within an archetypal unity.

The Judeo-Christian tradition in particular describes Creation arising from such a distinction. The Hebrew word made up of the three letters bet, dalet, lamed (in Hebrew characters, from right to left, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), which we translate "to separate," really means "to distinguish." God distinguishes light from darkness, day from night, and later man from woman; but above all, God distinguishes within the primeval waters maiim, "the waters which are above the firmament," from "the waters which are below the firmament" (Genesis 1:6–7). These waters are called respectively, in the Hebraic tradition, the mi and the ma (which mean "who?" and "what?"). Mi and ma are linked through the "firmament" called shamaim ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) in Genesis 1:8 and commonly translated as "heaven," which, while separating the mi from the ma, paradoxically reunites them around the letter shin ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), a letter akin to what we call the "kernel" (see chapter 17, page 337).

Symbolically, we could say that mi contains the nonmanifested world of archetypal unity, and ma, the world of multiplicity, manifested in its different levels of reality. The root mi corresponds to the root ITLμITL in Greek, which forms words such as múo, "to close the mouth," "to be silent," and muéo, "to initiate" (into the mysteries) — words connected with the realm of archetypes. Every initiation is an introduction to the road connecting the manifested world to the realm of its corresponding archetypes. It is achieved in silence. The myth, mûthos, is the story chronicling the life of the archetypes (see chapter 2, page 9). The words BLDμBLDrmur, BLDμBLDte, mystery originate from the same root.

The root ma is the mother root of all words signifying a manifestation (such as man, manner, maternal, matrix, matter, etc.). Each element of the ma is the outer breath, that which has been exhaled by its corresponding element in the mi. The latter ceaselessly resounds throughout the former, which bears not only its image but its power. In this sense, the ma, in each of its elements, is symbolic of the mi. The symbol (from the Greek sumbállo: to throw together, to unite) links the ma to the mi. By comparison, dibállo (to throw apart, to separate) separates the two realms. The realm of ma then goes adrift, deprived of its authentic reference and true power.

The Hebrews call Elohim the "Man above," and Adam, the "Man below."

This Man above is the realm of mi; he expresses himself in the realm of ma. In his image, Adam — "the Man below" — garners the totality of ma containing, in its seed and in the promise of its fruit, the totality of mi. In this sense, man is the meeting point of the universe and of the gods. He is called "Microcosmos" (little universe) and "Microtheos" (little god) in traditional knowledge. He is the starting point of all vibrations, the center mirroring every resonance.

"Know yourself and you will know the gods and the universe." I believe that no complete study of man can be made if such injunctions are left out of account. Moreover, if these premises are true, we should find traces of a dialogue linking together man and God, Adam and Elohim, the ma and the mi. How could we conceive of the existence of a language capable of participating in both categories, human and divine, apparently transcending each other, irreducible to one another? It would seem impossible, yet the gods, whose imagination is far greater than ours, provide this language: every people in the world can find it hidden in their legends, in their myths, in their rites, and in their symbols. The psychiatrist Carl Jung exclaimed: "The Western world has lost its myths!"

Human myths are still at hand; our sacred heritage is immense, but we cannot decipher it; we have never really experienced its language, or, more to the point, we have debased its language to fit our banal day-to-day existence, instead of allowing it to raise us to new levels of consciousness. Thus, because we perceived myths as puerile, we have eliminated them from our science. And because science has now established itself as the only secure and accurate framework, we have eradicated the language of myth from the heart of life itself.

Craving and thirsting for something more, we either look to those places still able to provide this language or else we remain empty right next to our own riches, incapable of recognizing them, subject to mental sicknesses that are nothing but a case of spiritual rickets.

Jung was right to sound the alarm. We urgently need the tale, the legend, the myth, the ritual in our lives; we need to let ourselves be informed by them. Here lies the path to Knowledge.

Secular science never acknowledges the knower. Rather, it declares that the knower must remain "objective," meaning he must remain on the same footing as all other knowing "objects" on the level of their mutual experiential possibilities, of their common degree of consciousness.

In this respect, the knower is more or less intelligent, more or less equipped with more or less refined tools, but his experience is verifiable by all. Knowledge gained through higher levels of consciousness is also always experiential, but the experience is no longer common to all. It can be verified only by those with an equal degree of evolved consciousness.

In other words, this knowledge implies the evolution of the knower, the acquiring of ever-higher levels of consciousness. Knowledge is objective for those on the same level. On the other hand, its data are felt as subjective by those who have not broken free from the restraining categories of the ma world. The dualistic expression of objectivity/subjectivity pertains solely to these categories and betrays a knowledge that denies the "act of climbing up the ladder" or reaching to the "firmament" — raqiya hashamaim. At the top of this ladder, all dualism disappears in a surpassing of oneself. I will return to this point. Ultimately, God is absolute objectivity.

Whatever the level of ma at which the knower arrives, the elements of this ma always have an intrinsic objectivity in that they refer to their archetypes in the realm of mi. Deprived of this reference, they are "illusion," maya for the Hindus, hevel ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "vanity," "nothingness," also "Abel") for the Hebrews. They are said to be "subjective" by skeptics who have no consciousness of the world of mi and project onto others their own ignorance. But the experience of mi cut off from ma is also illusion. Mi and ma, although distinguished, are inseparable.

Let me emphasize that the quality of the knower that we are calling upon is the quality of his inner being, of his being reaching to his "inner core," which pertains to the world of mi. Only with this being can we approach the mystery of man — another facet of the Divine Mystery. I am speaking of a being who has dispensed with the "self," which is usually crystallized in the culture, the erudition, or the ethics of the exterior environment, has given up all intellectual intelligence, and enters a real life experience. Giving the object of his meditation all power of being, the knower, at some point in time, is seized by the known and becomes the object meditated on. Little by little, all distances between the known and the knower disappear.

The Hebrew verb "to know" is the verb that Moses uses to render carnal knowledge of man with woman.

Knowledge is a wedding, a union of the known and the knower.

Knowledge is love.

CHAPTER 2

Symbols and Myths: The Symbolic Dimension of the Hebrew Language

BEFORE MAKING THEM WORKING TOOLS FOR OUR MEDITATION, we need a clear understanding of what symbols and myths represent, especially those drawn from our own Judeo-Christian tradition or from the treasure chest of Greek mythology.

Symbols are the elements of our perceptible world, each signifying and imaging its archetypal correspondent "above": the signified. Thus the symbol carries in itself the power of the signified. They resonate in unison, sending out overtones reverberating from one to another, from the mi to the ma, on the same wavelength.

This simultaneity is closely linked to the law of synchronicity in Jung, based chiefly on the Chinese tradition, the Tao. He shows the correspondence existing between an archetype and the series of symbols drawn from it. This correspondence becomes clear with the emergence of several converging events in the perceptible, manifest world, which seem strange coincidences only to the unaware, who put them down to chance.

Chance is but a reality unrecognized, the reality of the ontological laws linking the archetypes with the manifest world.

I leave aside all phenomena described as metapsychological (or parapsychological) on which these laws throw light. "Science" will not be able to deny their existence much longer. How often have we not seen the same event (e.g., a major scientific discovery) happen in several countries at the same time? And what about the law of series, which all statisticians acknowledge even if it is not rationally explicable?

In a broader context, a similar kind of link could be made between:

Woman's reaffirmation of her role, which had already appeared in early Christian times, but was rapidly muffled;

The recent discovery of the personal and collective unconscious by the psychological sciences;

A reappraisal of sexuality, freeing it from its false moorings, even though it is not yet reconnected with its divine archetype; and

Man landing on the moon.

Of course, each of these events can be rationally explained, but their synchronicity falls under a law beyond the laws of the rational world.

Similarly,

Womanhood in the history of humanity;

The unconscious, as the obscure face of being, on the psychic level;

The urogenital area, on the physical level; and

The moon, the planet of night, on the cosmic level correspond to the same symbolic wavelength, whose archetype must be very active. This leads me to infer, on the basis of another law to be discussed later, that humanity is about to experience a new birth.

But before exploring this, let us look a bit more closely at symbols. We shall see, for instance, that the animal kingdom symbolizes man's vital energies (the bull, fecundity; the serpent, wisdom; the eagle, knowledge) whereas the vegetable kingdom symbolizes other kinds of energy (the rose, return to the One; the acacia, androgyny; the almond, immortality; see chapter 21).

In all traditions "stone" resonates on the same symbolic wavelength as "man." On this wavelength, between "stone" and "man," Christian tradition places "bread" and "flesh" (the Devil suggests that Christ change stones into bread; the Christian mysteries are built on the changing of bread into the body of Christ). Similarly, water, wine, and blood are on a common wavelength, which leads in turn to the Spirit: "And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood: and these three agree in one" (1 John 5:8).

However, like a coin, symbols have two faces: the serpent, symbol of wisdom, is also a symbol of the Devil; water, the purifying agent, also represents our passions; fire expresses love, but also hate. Gradually this sort of ambiguity will become more familiar. But it is up to each of us to unravel these symbols, their meaning, and their overtones and let them emerge into consciousness so that they can renew us, for such is their power.

Initiation rituals everywhere, from time immemorial, are a "symbol therapy" in the true sense of the word "therapy": "that which brings back harmony," a discipline entrusted in the past to priests and initiates alone.

Myths are also agents of renewed creation that, when activated, allow the entire power of primeval forms — archaí — to well up within us with the energy they had from the beginning. Myths (from the Greek mûthos, "fable") translate a higher reality that is not readily transmissible to our everyday mental plane without the aid of a subterfuge.

Just as a blueprint will give a sectional view of a volume, one could say that myths inscribe in the phenomenal world the world of primeval forms. I disagree with those authors who are unable to break loose from their time-space continuum and see in myth a story happening at the dawn of time. In reality myth is a metahistory, forever present.

Thus the book of Genesis is a perpetual present tense, even if, from its sixth chapter onward, history and metahistory are intertwined in a common narrative. Historical criticism will play a very secondary role in our study. We shall see, for example, the myth of the Deluge under various forms, but with an identical structure in almost every important traditional rendering.

Note that history, as a development of this metahistory in the manifest world, can be myth. Without this clue for reading events, we might lack an essential means of shedding light on our historical future. History finds its significance in myth, and at the same time, myth can be corroborated in history.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Body and Its Symbolism by Annick de Souzenelle. Copyright © 2000 Albin Michel-Paris. Excerpted by permission of Quest Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations,
Acknowledgments,
Foreword by Tony James,
Hebrew Alphabet, Numerical Correspondences, and Symbolism,
Hebrew Pronunciation and Transliteration Table,
Note on Biblical Translations and References,
Glossary of Words Used in Particular Senses,
1. The Mi and the Ma, or That Which Is Within and That Which Is Without,
2. Symbols and Myths: The Symbolic Dimension of the Hebrew Language,
3. From the Sword to the Tree of Life: On Good and Evil,
4. From the Tree of Life to the Sefirotic Tree,
5. From the Sefirotic Tree to the Pattern of the Body,
6. The Two Sides of the Body; the Spinal Column,
7. Malkhut I: The Feet,
8. Malkhut II,
9. Yesod, Sexuality, and Circumcision,
10. The Hod-Netsa?-Yesod Triangle, or the Urogenital Plexus,
11. Going through the Gate of Men,
12. After the Passage through the Gate of Men: The Life of the Body in the Rectangle Formed by Din-?esed-Hod-Netsa?,
13. The Great Work: Wedding Mother Earth, or the Nigredo,
14. Passing through the Gate of the Gods: The Albedo,
15. Access to the Upper Triangle: Keter-Hokhmah-Binah; the Neck; the Seven Cervical Vertebrae and the Nine Angelic Hierarchies; the Thyroid; the Medulla Oblongata,
16. The Ear and the Tongue; Listening and the Word; the Red Phase of the Work,
17. The Teeth,
18. The Nose and Cheeks,
19. The Eyes,
20. The Skull,
21. The Mandorla,
Conclusion,
Thirty Years Later,
Appendix,
Notes,

Editorial Reviews

"This is one of the most important books in my life; it is a true gift to be able to read and relish Annick de Souzenelle's perspective on knowledge, and delight in her genius. Her contribution to our awakening is a true treasure." —Academy Award-Winning Actress Juliette Binoche

Reviews

"This is one of the most important books in my life; it is a true gift to be able to read and relish Annick de Souzenelle's perspective on knowledge, and delight in her genius. Her contribution to our awakening is a true treasure." —Academy Award-Winning Actress Juliette Binoche

"This book is clearly the result of a lifetime's reflection. The connections between traditions brought together by the kabbalistic model reveal an inherent ladder of order from the physical body to that of the Divine Adam Kadmon." —Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi, author, Adam and the Kabbalistic Tree

From the Publisher