Part 1

I entered a period of withdrawal from my magical workings. Life, as it often does during significant phases, enveloped me in its veils of farewells, mourning, and wandering between worlds. It was no coincidence that upon my return to the sacred grove, it was Clematis that manifested in my path—a plant long associated with threshold magic.

This cunning climber operates as a natural sigil in the landscape, its tendrils unfurling like ethereal threads of a spirit's lariat, often imperceptible until the white bell-flowers whisper their incantation upon the wind. In the grimoires of folk magic, Clematis is recorded as a plant of tricksters, of cunning and protection against malevolent entities. It possesses the dual power to both bind and release, to conceal and reveal, to entice the practitioner toward pathways previously hidden from perception. Magical chronicles speak of those who crossed its domain and suddenly found themselves earthbound, as if an unseen guardian had pulled them into contemplative trance.

Standing amidst its woven lattice, I received its communication—not merely through the mundane rustling of leaves, but through the language of memory, of time collapsed and expanding simultaneously. Later, researching the historical correspondences of this ruin, I discovered the settlement's origins date to the Hellenistic period, approximately second century BCE.

Layer upon layer of magical resonance—beneath the verdant growth once stood a Jewish ritual bath, a mikveh, alongside remnants of a church with a mosaic potentially consecrated to John the Baptist. This subterranean temple was later transmuted into burial chambers, and finally into a network of concealment caves during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

The magical currents run deep at this site. Not only does Clematis establish its presence here; Mandragora, too, has chosen this ground for manifestation, but that working shall be documented on the coming part. What remains now is a nexus where past and present intertwine with the roots of these plant allies, each carrying whispers of forgotten incantations, awaiting rediscovery by those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

 Part 2

After Clematis had transmitted its aerial wisdom, I found myself drawn once more to Ḥorbat Beit Bad (the ruin of the olive press). Known in Arabic as Umm er Rus ('Mother of the Summits'), this Roman-Byzantine site rests in the Judean mountains overlooking the Elah valley. The Arabic designation evokes the archetypal 'high place' of ritual significance. The location's history of antiquities theft aligns perfectly with traditions claiming the most potent mandragora is that which springs from the coagulated semen or urine of an executed criminal.

Westward of the clearing, where the earth descends into a pit lined with fallen stones, I perceived his presence. The leaves arranged close to the soil, crowned with flowers of royal purple, a patient, watchful presence of a plant whose very name is said to invoke both communion and wonder in the beholder. The pit beneath opened downward, its entrance a pathway of stone once deliberately carved but now half-concealed by root systems.

Before completing my approach, I recognized that proper ritual protocol demanded deeper connection. The ancient mikveh surfaced in my magical consciousness. In this sacred operation, the unclothed body serves simultaneously as primordial vessel and as profane inversion, the material world stripped of social constructs. I knelt at the threshold, tracing a perfect circle with a bone implement found on the approach path leading to this Homunculus. I exposed my generative organs to his earth while invoking the presiding spirit, tracing the circle with libation. The remaining liquid was offered into the pit.

This root required no forceful extraction. Its power resides not in possession but in the descent required to encounter it. Mandragora, embodying both human and chthonic morphology, functions as an atavistic vessel. its anthropomorphic structure bridging the primordial well of ancient imagery with the transformative power of the Sabbatic current. To truly perceive the mandrake is to witness the intersection of root and spirit, corpus and daemon. In this context, the mandrake assumes its most potent aspect, not merely as an object of sorcerous manipulation but as a living hieroglyph.

 PART 3

"What is required in our work is dry water that does not wet the hands, cold fire that does not burn, liquid earth that flows like mercury. These are in fact one thing with three forms, and this is the great secret of our work."

Nicolas Flamel - "Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques."

The image that manifested through visual mediation at the olive press ruin has undergone alchemical transformation through a series of operations. Each phase of this process embodies the classical alchemical stages as described by the old alchemists and especially in the text of Nicolas Flamel - "Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques." The inspiration and quotations drawn from his work illuminate not merely the physical color transmutations in the Great Work, but the internal metamorphosis that parallels the ensoulment of an image through natural substances.

1. Nigredo (The Blackening)

For the first operation, known as the Raven's Head, wherein primordial chaos manifests as blackness, I harvested black resin from a pine standing sentinel in the ancient grove, combining it with soil from its root system. This mixture was applied ritually to darken the faces and framework of the figures, allowing the blackening to define the initial phase of the working.

"When the matter becomes black, know that you are on the true path. For this blackness contains within it all colors, invisibly, as the darkness of night contains the light of day within itself. The blacker your matter becomes, rejoice, for soon it will become white."

2. Albedo (The Whitening)

Once the blackness had fulfilled its purpose, the Queen emerges in her lunar vestments. I overlaid selected portions of the darkened areas with bone powder collected from the ruins. The calcified white emerged from the darkness like the first light of dawn breaking across the horizon. This transmutation represents purification and the crystallization of insight following dissolution. This is the white elixir, capable of transforming base metals into silver.

"When you achieve this perfect whiteness, do not hasten to proceed to the red work. Many a worker has been content to stop at this stage, having achieved the white elixir."

3. Rubedo (The Reddening)

For this culminating phase, as the rose blooms forth from the white lily, I applied a red tincture harvested during the previous full moon. This unified the masculine and feminine principles, as the red phase embodies the combined powers of Sol and Luna. The crimson manifestation signifies the completion of fixation—the process whereby volatile spirit becomes permanently bound within the material body.

"There are four principal colors in our work, each symbolizing a different essence and quality. Black is the earth, the foundation of all. White is the water, which purifies and separates. Red is the fire, which strengthens and fixes. And yellow is the air, which unites and completes. When the work reaches perfection, all four elements unite in perfect harmony, thus creating the quintessence, the fifth essence which transcends the elements themselves."

The Gate of Exile: Part 4

During my last visit to Horvat Beit HaBad, I focused on the drawing that was beginning to take shape under my hand. four figures cloaked in robes, standing in a cave. This image can resonates with one of the profound traditions in Jewish mysticism – the Merkavah tradition.

The Merkavah (Chariot) mysticism represents the earliest form of Jewish mystical practice, flourishing approximately between the 1st century BCE and the 10th century CE. It takes its name from the vision of the merkavah described in the first chapter of Ezekiel, where Ezekiel witnesses a vision of a throne-chariot supported by four mythic creatures. This text became the foundation for an entire mystical system focused on the ascent to the divine realm.

As Gershom Scholem writes in "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism," the Merkavah texts describe a perilous mystical journey through seven heavenly "hekhalot" (palaces or halls), each guarded by hostile angels who demand secret names and seals from the mystic. The goal of this spiritual ascent was to stand before the Throne of Glory and behold the divine majesty – a direct experiential knowledge that transcended intellectual understanding.

The core texts of this tradition, collectively known as the Hekhalot literature, include "Hekhalot Rabbati" (The Greater Palaces), "Hekhalot Zutarti" (The Lesser Palaces), "Ma'aseh Merkavah" (The Work of the Chariot), and "Shi'ur Komah" (The Measure of the Body). These works detail elaborate rituals, including fasting, specific body postures, repetitive recitation of divine names, and visualization techniques designed to induce altered states of consciousness.

Central to the Merkavah experience is the famous Talmudic account of the "four who entered Pardes" (Hagigah 14b): Rabbi Akiva, Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, and Elisha ben Abuya (later called "Acher" or "Other"). Of these four, only Akiva "entered in peace and departed in peace." Ben Azzai died, Ben Zoma went mad, and Elisha ben Abuya who became the other one. This tale underscores the cautionary associated with mystical practices, where the unprepared mind risked destruction upon encountering other reality’s.

Another key concept in Merkavah mysticism is "hashmal" – a mysterious substance or state described in Ezekiel's vision, often translated as "electrum" or "amber," but interpreted in mystical literature as a form of divine fire or energy.

The connection between Merkavah mysticism and later Kabbalistic developments can be traced through several crucial texts. Sefer ha-Razim (The Book of Secrets), dating to the 3rd or 4th century CE, shares much with Merkavah literature while incorporating practical magical elements. Like the Hekhalot texts, it describes a cosmos arranged in seven firmaments, each with its angelic host. This seven-tiered structure directly influenced the development of later Kabbalistic cosmology and preserved many Merkavah elements during the transition period.

The concept of "descenders of the Merkavah" (yordei merkavah) transformed over centuries into various meditative and visionary practices. The 13th-century ecstatic Kabbala of Abraham Abulafia, for instance, preserves many Merkavah techniques of name recitation and visualization while adapting them to a new theological framework more focused on the individual's mystical union with the higher self.

Sefer ha-Zohar (Book of Splendor), which emerged in 13th century Spain, became the central text of Kabbalah and reinterpreted many Merkavah concepts. Particularly in sections like Heikhalot (Palaces), the Zohar directly adapts the seven heavenly halls of Merkavah literature into a framework for mystical ascent through the divine palaces. As Isaiah Tishby demonstrates in "The Wisdom of the Zohar," while the text shifted focus from the ascent experience central to Merkavah mysticism, it preserved many of its cosmological structures and theurgical practices.

By the time Isaac Luria developed his revolutionary system in 16th century Safed, these earlier traditions had been synthesized and transformed, but the structural elements remained remarkably consistent. Luria's innovation was to address the fundamental religious crisis of his time – the trauma of the Spanish expulsion and the question of exile. As Moshe Idel notes in "Kabbalah: New Perspectives," while the Lurianic system focused more on cosmic processes than personal ascent, it preserved many elements from the Merkavah tradition. The concept of divine light contained in vessels, the shattering of these vessels (shevirat ha-kelim), and the subsequent exile of divine sparks all echo the earlier Merkavah themes of ascent, otherness, and transformation.

This Lurianic Kabbalah, with its Merkavah roots still discernible, became a profound influence on modern Western magical currents. Kenneth Grant's Typhonian Tradition represents one of the most significant adaptations of these concepts in contemporary occultism. Grant recognized that the ancient Jewish mystical framework offered not just theological concepts but practical templates for magical transformation. In works like "Nightside of Eden" and "Outer Gateways," Grant reinterpreted the Lurianic concept of klipot (husks or shells that entrap divine light) as pathways to otherworldly consciousness, which he called the "tunnels of Set."

What makes the descenders of the Merkavah tradition vital for modern magical practice is its understanding of otherworldly consciousness. In our contemporary search for direct mystical experience, it might provide a system that acknowledges both the potential for transcendence and the very real risks of psychological disintegration.

The story of the four who entered the Pardes serves as more than just cautionary tale – it's a practical framework for understanding the varieties of mystical experience and their effects on consciousness. Each figure represents a different potential outcome of the mystical journey: complete integration (Rabbi Akiva), overwhelming dissolution of ego (Ben Azzai), psychological fracture (Ben Zoma), and conscious rejection or disillusionment (Elisha ben Abuya). By recognizing these patterns we can better navigate our own explorations of consciousness,while understanding the signs of both productive integration and dangerous dissolution.

NEW EMBLEM: Four cloaked figures stand in the depths of a cave, serpents of living flame coiling above their heads, casting shadows upon walls marked with seals of blood. Their faces remain hidden in darkness while their hands, illuminated by an unseen source, reveal palms inscribed with names that cannot be spoken.