From the meta magick perspective, the mainstream Tree of Life is like a show sword, with three built-in breaking points such that it will snap if ever used to deliver a powerful blow - or alternatively like a circuit with three low-tolerance fuses that will blow if any serious current is ever run through it.
I have discussed this extensively elsewhere - see the weeks of the World, Devil, and Chariot. The breakpoints are positions where the algorithm that governs the layout of the path numberings has been disregarded or switched, such that the mainstream positions of the Devil, Temperance, The Chariot, The Lovers, The Hierophant and the Emperor are weak.
The principle of proximity (PP), when applied, gives us an alternate system that turns out to be more satisfying.
So breifly, then here are the breakpoints, and the benefits of their correction by means of the PP.
The Devil and Temperance in the unproximized tree position alchemy as the access point of the conscious and unconscious, and the Devil - or entropy - as the mediator between awareness and intelligence. This supports the old "bully your demons" model of relating to shadow. By putting the Devil in the Middle pillar, it encourages genuine shadow work and alchemical transmutation, and by setting temperance between Tipareth and Hod it emphasizes the design elements of the alchemical craft - not to mention the angle of the path matches both the arrow of Sagittarius, and the stream of water that flows between the cups in the RWS depiction.
The Lovers and The Chariot in the mainstream tree show dialectic as the key to bridging understanding with awareness (as in a Socratic model) and technology applied to battle and conquest as the key purpose of engineering. In the proximized tree, the dialectic - or principle of argument loses its ontological status and becomes a way of dispute or debate, while the concept of experimental design becomes the main bridge between understanding and awareness. This corrects the tacit, question-begging idealism of the Platonic/Socratic position in favor of an experimental science approach from Tipareth to Binah.
The Emperor and the Hierophant in the unproximized Tree positions the Emperor as role-model for consciousness (wisdom running towards awareness), and the Hierophant as chief civil servant (wisdom running towards structure), whereas the proximized tree installs the Emperor/king as a civil servant, and positions the Scholar and guardian of the Humanities as the bridge between wisdom and awareness.
These adjustments of the dynamics of the tree result in a philosophy that holds that: a) shadow is to be alchemically processed and integrated, not dominated, defeated or controlled, b) that the key to understanding the universe is through true scientific experiment, and c) the key to wisdom is through the knowledge of arts and literature.
The key value here is that true, methodologically agnostic science holds up one pillar of our reality, and that literary mythopoesis holds up the other, and that the two intertwine like the snakes around the caduceus, as measure and memory.
This is the Teaching of the Meta-Magickal philosophy. Artscience.
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