Not Quite Poseur, But...

"I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner." -- Aleister Crowley

Anyone who has taken upper level college mathematics knows the truth of this statement intimately. Case in point, Real Analysis... the proofs are only feasible if you actually understand why they work, or at least half understand. Memorization is not learning. I've seen so many trite posters of this that I cannot even be bothered to repeat any, except to summarize the popular phrase (with teachers, at least) that if you cannot teach something back you have not truly learned it at all. He who cannot tutor what he was taught has not learned a damn thing.

The Qaballah presents a huge amount of material to learn. But it must be learned, not memorized. Take Crowley's Liber 777, for example. Therein lies correspondences between everything on the Tree of Life. It is an example of what will eventually end up in your head (although I shudder to think of how it would be represented... certainly not a table... maybe an infinitely dimensional array... wow, my head just exploded), through your making of connections throughout the span of your lifetime(s). However, to memorize this table and hope to apply it is sheer folly. You must understand why the connections hold before you can use them properly.

In a ritual, the goal is to choose the attrapments of the Temple with care so that everything lies in accordance with everything else, which of course, lies in accordance with the goal. If you are doing a ritual to attain deeper inner peace, for example, one might choose the color white, pick symbols that represent the element of Spirit, and things that associate with YHVShH, for example. One would not seek inner calm by surrounding oneself with symbols of Red, of Mars or Saturn, for example. Everything must be in agreement. These things are felt out with experience. This is where book learning does not help a damn. You must do things for yourself. It is the greatest temptation of a Qaballist to simply turn scholar and scribe, which is fine if that is your goal. But to be a Qaballist means doing.