Binah

Understanding

The Third Intelligence is called the Sanctifying Intelligence, the Foundation of Primordial Wisdom; it is also called the Creator of Faith, and its roots are in Amen. It is the parent of faith, whence faith emanates.
The 3rd Path, the Sanctifying Intelligence: The 32 Paths of Wisdom, trans. Westcott

Correspondences

Number: 3 of the ten
Meaning: Understanding
Pillar: Pillar of Severity (the black, passive pillar, Boaz)
Triad: Supernal Triad
World: Briah, the Creative World (the Supernal Mother)
Divine name (Atziluth): YHVH Elohim יהוה אלהים
the Lord God, the name used in the second creation account of Genesis
Archangel (Briah): Tzaphkiel צפקיאל
the Beholder of God, the contemplation of God
Angelic choir (Yetzirah): Aralim אראלים
the Thrones, or the Strong and Mighty Ones
Mundane chakra (Assiah): Shabbathai שבתאי
Saturn, the sphere of rest
Colours: King: Crimson · Queen: Black · Prince: Dark brown · Princess: Grey, flecked pink
Magical image: A mature woman, a matron
Spiritual experience: The Vision of Sorrow
Virtue: Silence
Vice: Avarice
Titles: Ama, the dark sterile mother; Aima, the bright fertile mother; Khorsia, the Throne; Marah, the Great Sea; the Mother of Form; the Superior Mother
Symbols: The yoni; the kteis; the vesica piscis; the cup or chalice; the outer robe of concealment
Tarot: The four Threes, and the four Queens
In the body: The right side of the face (777)
Part of the soul: Neshamah, the higher soul, the aspiration to understand
Grade: Magister Templi 8°=3□
Qliphoth: Satariel, the concealers, who hide the face of God; arch-demon(s): Lucifuge Rofocale
Gods (777): Egyptian: Isis, Nephthys (as dark mother), Maut · Greek: Cybele, Demeter, Rhea, Hera · Roman: Juno, Cybele, Saturn, Hecate · Hindu: Bhavani, Prana
Precious stone: Star sapphire; pearl
Plant: Cypress; opium poppy
Animal: Woman
Perfume: Myrrh; civet
Magical weapon: The yoni; the outer robe of concealment

In Jewish Kabbalah

Binah is Imma, the Mother, the palace in which the seed of Chokhmah is gestated into the seven lower sephiroth, her “children”, the seven days of creation. The Zohar calls her the Upper Shekhinah, the World to Come (Olam ha-Ba), and Teshuvah, Return: all things return to the mother at the end. She is the Jubilee, and the tradition of the Fifty Gates of Understanding, of which Moses was given forty-nine, belongs to her. The final Heh of the divine name is her daughter in Malkuth; she herself is the first Heh.

In the Golden Dawn and Thelema

The Golden Dawn makes Binah the head of the Pillar of Severity and the sphere of Saturn: form, limitation and time, without which force cannot act. Crowley identifies her with Babalon, the Scarlet Woman, and with the City of the Pyramids, where the Adept who has crossed the Abyss becomes “a little pile of dust” and a Master of the Temple. In The Vision and the Voice the Master of the Temple has given up every drop of blood into Babalon’s cup. The Threes of the Thoth deck (Virtue, Abundance, Sorrow, Works) show the first stable form of each element.

Dion Fortune

Fortune calls Binah both Ama and Aima, the dark sterile mother and the bright fertile mother, since form both imprisons force and makes life possible. Her experience is the Vision of Sorrow because to be born into form is to be bound and to die; Fortune links this to the Mater Dolorosa and to the Great Sea, Marah, which also means bitterness. Silence is her virtue because understanding receives before it speaks; avarice is her vice, the urge of form to hold on.

The Supernal Triad and the Abyss

Kether, Chokmah and Binah form the Supernal Triad, separated from the rest of the Tree by the Abyss, where Daath stands. The Golden Dawn taught that the lower seven sephiroth are the seven days and the seven “kings of Edom”, the unbalanced worlds which perished, and that only the Supernals are wholly beyond the Fall.

In the Tarot

Each sephirah rules the four small cards of its number. From two to ten, each card is also one of the 36 decans of the zodiac, ruled by a planet in a sign, following the Golden Dawn’s Book T.

Card	Thoth title	Book T title	Decan
3 of Wands	Virtue	Lord of Established Strength	Sun in Aries
3 of Cups	Abundance	Lord of Abundance	Mercury in Cancer
3 of Swords	Sorrow	Lord of Sorrow	Saturn in Libra
3 of Disks	Works	Lord of Material Works	Mars in Capricorn

The four Queens also belong here: the watery, receptive part. In the Waite deck: Queen of Wands, Queen of Cups, Queen of Swords, Queen of Pentacles.

Paths from Binah

Read further

Binah on Wikipediaoverview of the Jewish and Hermetic sources
Sepher Yetzirah and the 32 Paths of WisdomW. Wynn Westcott, trans., 1887
The Kabbalah UnveiledS. L. MacGregor Mathers, from Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata, 1887
Liber 777 RevisedAleister Crowley, 1909/1955
The Book of ThothAleister Crowley, 1944
The Golden DawnIsrael Regardie, ed., 1937–40
A Garden of PomegranatesIsrael Regardie, 1932
The Mystical QabalahDion Fortune, 1935
The Pictorial Key to the TarotA. E. Waite, 1910
The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the AgesPaul Foster Case, 1947
A Practical Guide to Qabalistic SymbolismGareth Knight, 1965

Also in the background throughout: Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (1974) and Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941), for the Jewish tradition as historians understand it; Aryeh Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah (1990); Kenneth Grant, Nightside of Eden (1977), for the Qliphoth; Robert Wang, The Qabalistic Tarot (1983).