Wanderer's Tree

One original goal for Landcraft was to create an alternative Ceremonial Magic system, allowing you to sub out Kabbalah from other texts but still use them. Landcraft is not derived from the Kabbalah (its derived from too much Tolkien, prog rock and cheap 1970s childrens television), but has enough in common to be an effective substitute for most New Age purposes (a conceptual map of the universe, with spheres and paths joining them, each with substantial correspondences, and you start at the first one and travel towards the last one)

I ignored Kabbalah for a few years while doing my work because Landcraft took on its own identity, and they clearly didn't fit (Kabbalah expresses Jewish mysticism which this has little in common with, except in the ways any two faiths will overlap and rhyme).

Then they suddenly did - well enough, at least, to fulfil that goal of being a thing you could sub in (say, if you wanted to use Liber 777 or the Cicero's Self Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition). I'm going to write a longer thing on this, but the key point is this is for former-non-Jewish-Kabbalists to swap into Landcraft, rather than a way to bring that correspondence into this system inappropriately.

The Stellar is roughly analogous to Kether; and the Solar, roughly analogous to Tiphareth AND Malkuth. The purple sphere is Yesod, roughly analogous to the Lunar. You will see, therefore, that the bottom part of the Tree of Life has been smushed upwards. This is a new diagram: you can translate Tree of Life content into it adequately, but something else comes out. Its more us: its dynamic, its far more interlocking. This is not a brimming cup that overflows downwards and where we aspire upwards in turn - it's fluid, circular, there is not clearly one right way to travel, it has no one vantage point or destination. Not all the colours of the paths are finalised yet. Some are unfinished, and many are incorrect.

I keep drawing new symbols because each one communicates something slightly different. There are some insights on this diagram which I like more than any other. This includes the juxtaposition of the Lightbringer [Geburah] and Sun King [Chesed]; the central position of the Lunar [Yesod] 'powering up' all the middle parts of the journey; the additional space for more colours of light deriving from the Solar

(there's more Solar spirits and attributions than any other kind because humans are self-interested by nature, and so in our history and culture we are disproportionately interested in Powers who are interested in us. Lunar and Stellar spirits, by contrast, tend to be mysterious, tabooed, unrecorded, glimpsed only in part, approached only rarely and in great need).

I like the hidden pentagrams, the unicursal mood to the center, and having a tentative planetary attribution. And it feels like it's in three dimensions too.

The Solar point here is centered on the human heart and solar plexus. Therefore, this diagram surrounds you, like a sphere, rather than being a column-ladder (although it can be a column too - just one which goes both above and below you).

Don't expect this to work exactly like the Tree of Life does. Ultimately, what it expresses is Landcraft. It doesn't exactly replicate the symbolism or underlying spiritual vantage point of New-Age-Kabbalah, so don't try looking for the angel Sandaphalon or the encounter with Radiant Consciousness. In other words, if what you really want to do is New-Age-Kabbalah then...just do that. This is a viable replacement for The Kind of Purposes the tree holds in ceremonial magic for people who do NOT want to do Kabbalah.

Travelling these paths are going to take you to some quite different places. In the usual Middle Pillar and QC, you begin by pulling holy golden light down through you from an outside place. In Landcraft, the assumption is that light is already within you: humans have a deep connection to the Solar, always. Reaching outward takes you towards the Stellar.

There are four 'new' paths; and three paths which each represent doubled original paths. So, in total, this diagram has a 33rd path (the original tree has 22).

When working with this diagram, the paths represent their concepts in Landcraft, NOT Kabbalah. If you're looking at another text and there's a conflict of meaning, always go with what's right for Landcraft. I've not done the work of looking at a Kabbalah path reference and explaining how that relates to Landcraft because, IMO, that's dipping too far into 'making it like Kabbalah' instead of making a new thing which has its own logic. If this diagram remains current in my work, at some point I'll derive its own meanings for each path. I'm not sure how much work I want to put in explaining this in full, given the aforementioned 'this is a translation guidebook', but here's a summary of my thinking:

• Black - Kepher(ish) - the Stellar
• Green - Chockmah(ish) - the warm and wet land, the fen, primordial swamp
• Grim blue - Binah(ish) - Landmother, the sea, the weather
• Red - Netzach(ish) - Changeling, enchantment
• Midnight blue - Hod(ish) - the Loremaster, reflective wisdom and retreat
• Purple - Yesod(ish) - the Lunar, dreaming and imagination, the subconscious
• Yellow - Geburah(ish) - the Lightbringer, warrior,avenger and renewer
• (unfinished) - Chesed(ish) - the Sun King, a peaceful kingdom
• Brassmustard - Malkuth(ish) & Tiphareth(ish) - the Solar, harmony, the mundane, and sacrificed gods