From bounce@tfs.necronomi.com Fri Sep 22 09:35:03 1995
Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id JAA01739 for <tyagi@HouseofKaos.Abyss.com>; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 09:35:03 -0700
Received: from tfs.necronomi.com (tfs.necronomi.com [199.173.32.230]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id JAA22916 for <tyagi@HouseofKaos.Abyss.com>; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 09:34:56 -0700
Received: from [199.173.32.226] by tfs.necronomi.com
 with SMTP (Apple Internet Mail Server 1.0); Fri, 22 Sep 1995 12:36:36 -0500
From: "Clifford Hartleigh Low"  <Cthulhu@TFS.Necronomi.com>
To: Succubus-l@tfs.necronomi.com
Reply-To: Succubus-l@tfs.necronomi.com
Errors-To: bounce@tfs.necronomi.com
Precedence: bulk
Subject: Re: Xastur
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 12:36:36 -0500
Message-ID: <1400349100-5732311@tfs.necronomi.com>
Status: RO

In message <199509221503.LAA04649@asylum.apocalypse.org>  writes:
> Lillyth93 - thank you!  Xastur sounds fascinating - I must make
> contact with Her.
> 
> Next question - I have no Ceremonial background whatsoever.  What
> is the qlipoth?

Klifot is hebrew for "shells"; referring to the broken shards of incomplete and 
imperfect universes which were shattered before the beginning of time. 
Kabbalists believe that when the Sephirot, the emanations of God which formed 
this universe, was formed, it was originally created with perfect balance 
between gentleness and severity. Since they naturally opposed each other, a 
tug-of-war commenced which strained the entire structure of the Tree of Life, so
that the majority of the lower half exploded into fragments. This was called 
Shevira, the breaking. The cosmos was restructured so that in order for it to be
firm, severity would be given slight dominance over gentle qualities- this 
reforming was called Tikkun. According to Jewish Kabbalists, the universe of the
Tikkun is the one where we now exist. The Klifot are analogous to Maya, the 
hallucination we call mundane existence.

Over the years, probably due to the influence of Christian Kabbalah, the Klifot 
evolved into a counter-Sephirot, where each of the ten divine qualities were 
perverted. From this came the perspective that the Klifot were entities 
analogous to demons, who also represented evil qualities.

Modern Ceremonial Magicians have worked with the latter two approaches in depth.

In the third perspective I describe, Lilith is considered a Klifot.

-CHL





+--------[ Clifford Hartleigh Low ]---------+------------------------+
| Email: cthulhu@tfs.necronomi.com          | admin@necronomi.com    |
|        cthulhu@necronomi.com              | familiar@intac.com     |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------+
| Finger/Talk: Cthulhu@lilith.necronomi.com | * TAINTED BUT HUNGRY * |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------+


