Sephiroth
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Origin 1270 to 1300
Netzach means Victory, the seventh Sephirah, at the foot of the Pillar of Mercy on the right side of the Tree of Life. Its divine name is YHVH Tzabaoth, 'Lord of Hosts', its archangel is Haniel, and its angelic order is the Elohim, the Gods; its planet is Venus, ruler of love and beauty. It is the sphere of the instincts and passions, of desire, art, and the enduring force of feeling.
As a sphere of experience Netzach governs emotion, love, nature, imagination, and the arts: the drives that move us before thought weighs in. It is the natural partner and opposite of Hod, intellect, and the two must be balanced, for feeling without reason runs to indulgence and reason without feeling runs to cold sterility. It is symbolized by the number seven, the rose, the girdle, and the emerald, and it holds the raw creative and emotional energy that seeks expression in beauty and desire.
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Origins
Origin Period1270 to 1300 1Tradition: Zoharic Kabbalah Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account1888 to 1900 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Origin Period200 to 600 CE 1Tradition: Sefer Yetzirah, where the ten sefirot are first enumerated Origin PeriodNetzach appears among the Sefer Yetzirah's original ten Sephiroth of Nothingness, a text Scholem places between the second and sixth century CE and which survives in recensions that do not agree in every particular. 1 Origin PeriodNetzach's place in the now-standard system of ten Sephiroth, with the specific divine name, archangel and planetary associations recorded on this page, crystallizes in the Zoharic literature that Scholem locates in Castile between 1270 and 1300. 1 Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own accountThe Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, fixed Netzach's place within its own ceremonial correspondence system by 1900, the scheme this atlas follows for Netzach's Golden Dawn associations. 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Place of OriginSefer Yetzirah tradition, late-antique Near East 1 Place of OriginSefirotic system developed in Provence and Castile 1 Place of OriginWestern correspondences added in London 1 Attributions
Ruling PlanetSourced to the subject's own accountVenus 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Divine NameSourced to the subject's own accountYHVH Tzabaoth 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn IncenseSourced to the subject's own accountBenzoin, Rose and Red Sandalwood 3Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn GemstoneSourced to the subject's own accountEmerald 3Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn PlantSourced to the subject's own accountRose 3Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Queen Scale ColourSourced to the subject's own accountEmerald 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Tree of Life PillarSourced to the subject's own account Identity
Also Known As Learn More
Netzach, Victory
Netzach, Victory or eternity, is the seventh sefirah, the lowest of the right-hand Pillar of Mercy, and the sphere of the emotions, desire, and the instinctual and creative forces of the soul. It expresses the enduring, driving energy of feeling and attraction, love, longing, the impulse toward beauty and art, and stands paired with Hod opposite it, the two together governing the passional and mental sides of human nature below the harmonising centre of Tiphareth.
The Hebrew netzach carries senses both of victory and of endurance or perpetuity, the persistence of the vital urge. Its divine name is YHVH Tzabaoth, the Lord of Hosts. In the Kabbalistic reading of the Tree as a map of the soul, Netzach is the seat of the emotions and desires, the creative and artistic drives, held in balance with the intellectual analysis of Hod. The sefirah belongs to the doctrine of the ten emanations named in the Sefer Yetzirah and unfolded through the medieval and early-modern Kabbalah, where the lower seven sefirot are read as the qualities active in the created world and in the human person.
Sources The ZoharTraditionally attributed to Moses de Leon with Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation in Theory and PracticeAryeh Kaplan
Netzach and the Western Correspondences
Netzach is assigned the planet Venus, and the attribution fits its character closely: Venus, the classical planet of love, beauty, art and desire, is the natural planetary counterpart of the sefirah of the emotions, attraction and the creative urge. In the Golden Dawn correspondences of 1888 and in Liber 777, Netzach's colour is green, the colour long associated with Venus, and it corresponds to the four Sevens of the tarot suits.
The Venusian pairing makes Netzach the seat of feeling, longing and the arts, and in the psychological readings favoured by twentieth-century Western esotericists it governs the emotional and instinctual life as against the rational faculty seated in Hod. As throughout the Tree, the sefirah Netzach, its name YHVH Tzabaoth, and its role in the divine and psychic economy are Jewish Kabbalah, developed over more than a millennium, whereas the mapping onto Venus, a tarot rank and a magical colour scale is Hermetic Qabalah, the Victorian Western adaptation. The one tradition contemplates the divine attributes; the other tabulates them for ritual correspondence.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Haniel is set over Netzach, the sphere of Victory and of Venus, presiding over love, beauty, art and the victory won through feeling rather than through force.
The notation 4=7 sets Philosophus on Netzach, the seventh sephirah.
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