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Tunnels of Set
Linda Falorio
Linda Falorio along with Fred Fowler have "succeeded in reifying paintings of all 22 of the Tunnels of Set" as described by Crowley in Liber 231 and by Kenneth Grant in Nightside of Eden. Linda has a Master's Degree in clinical psychology from the University of Miami. She says that she has "become very interested in the evolutionary/planetary task of bringing the repressed, primitive dark energies of consciousness back into conscious awareness as a means of rebalancing on both microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. This interest, as a therapist and sorcerer-magician has led inevitably to my involvement in The Nightside Project of Kenneth Grant's OTO. This is a group of artists interested in producing Tarot Trumps of the `backside of the Tree of Life' . . .."
"Over the past six years, working with my partner, Fred Fowler, we have succeeded in reifying paintings of all 22 of these "Tunnels of Set." (The only artist of the group to have so far done so.) We have them available as sets of photo reproductions (3"x5" and 5"x7"), with a fifty page chap book I have written describing the energies, pitfalls, powers and promises of each of these tunnels beneath the Tree as we experienced them in our extensive explorations." Upon seeing the paintings, Kenneth Grant said of them "I am truly astonished by the subtlety and complexity of these designs. Arrayed before me, as they flash triumphantly from the lucent depths . . . You are indeed a High Priestess of Typhon—and a methodical one at that!"
This article is an overview of much of Linda Falorio's work. Linda says that if there is "sufficient interest," she might be willing to write a series of articles covering the 22 tunnels of Set. I hope we see more from Linda Falorio. If you have any comments about the Tunnels of Set, or if you wish to see more on this obscure subject. Please let us know. —JR
When first introduced to the concept of the dark side of the Tree of Life, I was skeptical. I'm only interested in positive magick! I said, as many have since said to me. Yet I read Kenneth Grant's wonderful Nightside of Eden, with keen interest. In it he elaborates upon Aleister Crowley's Liber CCXXXI, "The Genii of the 22 Scales of the Serpent and of the Qliphoth." "A network of dream cells in the subconscious mind," the "backside" of the Tree of Life—the Nightside of consciousness, as opposed to Dayside reality.
At Mr. Grant's suggestion, I began working on paintings of 22 images of the Tunnels of Set—aligned with the 22 Major Arcana of the traditional Tarot. Each image opens a gate into unexplored territory in the psyche. Each provides entrance to the darkness of our natures, darkness of instincts, to our heritage of power drawn from the bowels of the Earth. I call them The Shadow Tarot.
The method of producing the images was to paint the ancient magickal sigil of the corresponding qliphoth of each path, then immerse in the energies released for weeks or months via meditation and tantra. Rather than ascending by way of Malkuth as in the exploration of the Dayside paths by Golden Dawn techniques, one explores the underlying tunnels by projecting consciousness through Daath. This "gateway of the manifestation of non-manifestation" is the entrance to the Nightside of the Tree of Life.
The Tunnels of Set are far from being negative or dark in any pejorative sense. After years of working with the concepts and energies connected with these rather beautiful labyrinthine tunnels, I have come to realize that, though largely unacknowledged and culturally repressed, this shadow side of deep instinctual life remains for us a source of tremendous vital power. When owned as the most relevant, alive, truly whole/holy parts of ourselves, these most basic, dark life energies can be wonderfully daimonic. They can transform us into vibrant, creative, fully actualized human beings. It is only when they are denied, cut-off, repulsed, or repressed that their darkness can become demonic—twisting, exploding destructively into our consciousness and swamping ego-rationality in mass psychoses. We see this in war, the burning times, the holocaust and in the small daily horrors that assault us. The evolution of individual human consciousness into enlightened planetary consciousness, the very survival of our life web, depends upon our positively integrating and readmitting these potentially explosive/corrosive energies into our consciousness.
Do not undertake work in this shadow-realm lightly. It is inadvisable to dive into these immense inner geographies until the magician's Dayside consciousness has become fully integrated so that the ego-boundaries of the self are strong. The shadow energies are instincts and emotions dating from that remote time when all manner of magickal being existed on Earth and humans held daily discourse with Ereshkigal's dark realm. Hers is the realm of the Ancient Ones, filled with terror and power. She is the Goddess without a Face, the Faceless one, the Bearer of the Blood, the dark repository of those mass primordial instincts ever lurking behind our ego-generated illusions of individual humanity.
Emerging from the psyche disguised as archetypal dreams and fantastic nightmares, our gods and demons are deep memories from that time when humans directly understood those great cosmological interdimensional Beings who are the essence of the Universe. The awing comprehension rolled like a tidal wave across humanity's young mind and newly developed sense of self-awareness. It stunned human consciousness into retreat from mysteries too great to contain within the nascent psyche.
The breakdown of the bicameral mind (isolation of right brain/left brain function) has allowed technology and civilization to develop, but the Gods no longer speak to us as they once did. Long ago we locked the gates against this knowledge of a vast universe whose Intelligence cares little for our warm mammalian concerns.
Consciousness turned inward; it retreated to worship of the safe distant stars. Sacred sites were so perfectly aligned that they could single out a single star. The Zodiac sprang into being as the universal template of the Soul. Culture/consciousness continued to evolve and the focus shifted. The stars became but points of light embedded in the dome of Sky that covered Mother Earth. Woman was celebrated as the source of life, the inheritance of blood reaching back through the matriarchal line to the very dawn of Man. The Moon reckoned the sacred calendar and the principal deities were feminine. The Great Goddess in Her myriad aspects was reverenced above all.
Patriarchal solar phallic consciousness developed as a necessary balance/evolutionary step beyond the matriarchal realm and relative savageness of lunar/feminine forms. Sun cults arose: of Mithras and Ra, the cults of the Dying Gods of Dionysus, Bran, Osiris, Heracles and Jesus. Inheritance passed through the father's line. Great states arose. Solar-phallic consciousness became exalted above instinctual lunar/feminine forms. Nature was tamed and exploited; the Feminine in all her forms was subdued. The Earth-based instinctual life became a sacrifice to the soulless greed of blind technology.
In the dialectic of balance, the pendulum once more has swung and consciousness has moved up the evolutionary spiral. Our survival as a civilized race capable of reaching heights of psychic/spiritual transcendence and awareness depends upon our moving beyond mass instinctual consciousness rooted in the tribe, the clan, and the holy blood/Sangraal. We spiral back to reclaim the dark potent forces that form the vital core of our potentialities as humans. Seeming to recapitulate the older feminine right brain forms, we are actually in the process of creating a higher order synthesis. Through redefining these primitive energies of consciousness, we will be able to access and use the primordial power coiled within our DNA to bring about willed mutation of the species to fully conscious, individual participation and identification with Gaia.
We begin to integrate these archaic atavisms (the world of the Nightside of the Tree, the Shadow) with emerging outlines of who or what we might accomplish by treading the Path of the Shaman into the Earth—the Tunnels of Set. Thus are our bones replaced with bones of gold, bones of silver, bones of steel. | 
