Duncan Fleming 22/08/2026

The Palm Tree of Deborah, written in the mid-sixteenth century, is a short book by the Kabbalah teacher Moses Cordovero. He was a prolific writer, and his massive treatise on Kabbalah, Pardes Rimonim, or The Orchard of Pomegranates, runs to several volumes in the English edition I have (Providence University). As far as I am aware, publication of this particular translation was never completed. I have four volumes of it, comprising parts 1-12, which are still very interesting, and I have made copious notes.

My edition of The Palm Tree of Deborah was translated from the Hebrew, with an introduction and notes, by Louis Jacobs, and was first published by Vallentine, Mitchell and Co. in 1960. Cordovero clearly liked tree and fruit names for his books. In some ways, it is a very fresh and clear book. In others, it is very alien.

At the beginning, there is an analysis of the secret qualities of the human body. Various parts are godlike and embody a positive attribute. Like the Zohar, which presents anthropomorphic parts of God, including the beard and nostrils, each of which holds a particular quality, the body forms a functional, organic whole in which all the parts work together, like the Tree of Life. In The Palm Tree of Deborah, this is mirrored in the microcosm of the human body. By recognising these qualities in our own bodies, assuming, of course, that the body in question is male, we encounter the principle of ‘as above, so below’. Cordovero is good at systematising and clearly setting out what is implicit in the Zohar.

The main part of the book systematically examines how a person can cultivate the positive qualities of the ten Sephirot of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. All these sections are framed around the question: How should a person train themselves to acquire the qualities of a particular Sephirah?

To connect with Keter, the Crown, one must cultivate humility and overcome pride. Cordovero’s three balms against pride come remarkably close to self-hatred: self-abasement, disgust at one’s eating and excrement, and learning to welcome harsh criticism from others. This is tough. There is a tendency in traditional Kabbalah, as in many mystical traditions, towards a love-hate relationship with one’s own creaturehood. On the one hand, the body was made by God, so it should be sanctified. On the other, it has repellent inclinations that need to be whipped into shape. The body, the mind, and the general inclination of human nature are not considered acceptable in themselves. They need to be sanctified and corrected. This is more than sin in the sense of getting things wrong and making mistakes. It is a suspicion that our basic nature is inherently corrupt.

In the later Western esoteric tradition, obedience and humility are presented as virtues of Chesed, or Loving Kindness, as antidotes to the vices of excess – Bigotry, Gluttony, Hypocrisy, and Tyranny. However, this attribution also makes sense in the context of overcoming self-pride arising from identification with the middle pillar.

For Cordovero, the positive attributes of Chokhmah, or Wisdom, are acquired through appreciation of all created things. Even animals to be slaughtered for food deserve a clean blade and an easy death. There is no repugnant animal. Coming immediately after the section on self-abasement, this is jarring.

Binah, or Understanding, is acquired through repentance. Binah sanctifies judgement, elevating it beyond simple retribution. When we mend our ways, punishment is mitigated and removed. This is the secret of the Jubilee, when debts are written off, and of the fiftieth gate.

‘Do not think there is no hope for you because you belong to the evil side. This is false. Behold, if you do well you can root yourself in the secret of Repentance, removing yourself to that place, according to the secret of the good that is rooted there. For the root of every Supernal bitterness is sweet and he could have entered by way of the root to become good.’ (p. 88)

For Cordovero, we are to acquire the quality of Chesed, or Lovingkindness, through an attitude of service and acts of benevolence. This is straightforward.

Cordovero says that to connect with the positive attributes of Gevurah, or Strength, the evil inclination must not be excited. It should be bound and tied down so that it is not incited to any bodily act. However, a man is allowed to have a nice house and nice things for his wife’s sake, provided they are not for his own gratification but to adorn the Shekhinah.

The quality of Tiferet, or Beauty, is found in the study of the Torah, but one must be careful not to become proud because of the Torah’s words. If a teacher proudly exalts himself over his pupils, Beauty raises itself above Netzach and Hod (Victory and Glory), since they are the pupils of Beauty. If the teacher is kindly disposed towards them, blessings can flow from Beauty into these two Sephirot.

I take this to mean that Tiferet can bring harmony and balance to the emotions and intellect. It is the opposite of an aloof sense of being a pure soul, somehow above ordinary human qualities. It overcomes the schism created by spiritual pride. Rather than trying to remove itself from these apparently lower inclinations, the soul meets them on their own level and becomes a teacher to them.

Cordovero goes on to say that the same applies to feeling superior to a beggar, which causes Beauty to raise itself above Foundation and prevents its influence from flowing into Foundation. Finally, raising oneself above others because of one’s knowledge of the Torah cuts Beauty off from Malkut, or Kingdom. A person should instead be pleasantly disposed towards all creatures and behave civilly towards them. If he calls them asses, he brings them down into the shells, the Klippot.

Netzach, Hod, and Yesod (Victory, Glory and Foundation) are treated together in The Palm Tree of Deborah. A person should provide sustenance, teaching, and material help to students of the Torah. They should not disparage or weaken them, but give them aid and support. They should also be prepared to learn from everyone and everything. The Torah cannot be learned from a single teacher alone. Be a pupil of all.

In the context of connecting with the positive attributes of Yesod, or Foundation, one must also guard against thoughts that lead to sin and avoid speaking obscenely. This passage emphasises sexual chastity, including the instruction that a man should not have an erection unless it is for sex with his wife in a sanctified setting. The utmost care must be taken to guard against sexual imaginings. Interestingly, a symbolic name for Foundation is given as ‘Peace’, I suspect in the sense of freedom from turmoil and anguish, by trusting in the sustenance of the Foundation, rather than from any illusion of security.

To acquire the quality of Malkhut, or Kingdom, Cordovero says a person should behave constantly as a beggar standing before the Creator in supplication. They should consider none of their possessions truly their own and regard themselves as exiled because the Shekhinah (Holy Presence) is exiled. They should deliberately separate themselves from house and home, undergo privations, fear the Great King, and behave in such a way that the Shekhinah cleaves to them. In fact, Cordovero and his group, as we understand it, would go on devotional sojourns away from their families and routinely dress in white and travel together to welcome in the Shekhinah on the Sabbath evening.

And so – there is some very useful content in The Palm Tree of Deborah. Cordovero presents a traditional theurgic approach: by emulating the positive qualities of the Divine, we can cleave to and draw closer to the Divine. For me, the most useful and resonant aspect is his method of connecting with the Sephirot of the Supernal Triad – Crown, Wisdom and Understanding – because these are often treated as purely metaphysical properties in the Western esoteric tradition, with less emphasis on how we can connect with them, since they are beyond ordinary human Knowledge (Da’at). At the same time, the very intimacy of Cordovero’s advice highlights the stark contrast between his worldview and our modern attitude towards the body and creaturehood. His attitude can seem body-hating and troubling from a modern perspective, whereas, for all our sins, we tend to have a greater acceptance of our bodily nature and are less disgusted by our physicality. There is much here to think about, and I recommend reading The Palm Tree of Deborah if you come across a copy.

Duncan Fleming 8/8/2026

Beyond luxuriating in pleasant fragrances, certain aromatic resins, herbs, oils, and other ingredients are traditionally associated with aspects of the Divine. Incense burned on charcoal can purify space, evoke particular energies, and improve focus during ritual. Our sense of smell evokes deep memories and can more readily bring us back to a previous state of consciousness, especially when the same scents are used repeatedly in a particular context.

Good Sephirotic incense blends are hard to find. Trevor Jones made excellent incense, sold in Glastonbury, and Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Leeds also produced interesting Sephirotic blends – perhaps they still do. Towards the end of the twentieth century, I was advised to write to the reclusive Margaret Bruce, who had largely retired but was still supplying her remarkable incense by post to existing customers. I bought several of her ‘Qabalah’ blends, which I used for many years in personal practice and group work. (See The Magick and Mystery of Maurice/Margaret Bruce by for a fantastic account of her life and work.)

Margaret Bruce ‘Qabalah’ incense

What is remarkable is that these incense blends retained both their fragrance and their potency for decades. Margaret Bruce extolled the virtue of leaving her incense to steep for several years, on the basis that incense blends, like whisky or wine, improved with age. Sadly, when she died, her recipes appear to have been lost to the mists of time. I have concluded, with independent advice, that her blends were exceptionally complex and could not be reproduced in practice.

Like the ashes of the Red Heifer, once they are gone, they are gone forever. So the only thing to do was start again from first principles. In much the same way that it is usually better to make your own magical tools, even if they are not as slick or professionally finished as something bought off the shelf, they benefit from having been crafted by you. The process of making them is a magical act of will in itself, and I think the same is true of incense.

Crafting your own incense for ritual use does require careful observation, patience, and plenty of trial and error. It is as much a practical craft as a symbolic one, and understanding how aromatic materials behave in real-world conditions is essential to using them effectively.

A word of warning about traditional correspondences. Biblical, Agrippa, and Crowley’s 777, etc., all provide useful hints, but they shouldn’t always be taken as definitive recipes. Sometimes the exact botanical or animal product referred to is uncertain. Sometimes it may no longer exist, or only a particular plant strain produces the aromatic extract originally intended.

Take Dittany of Crete, for example, traditionally associated with the Sephirah Malkuth. It is an aromatic herb, but when burned it just smells like a bonfire. It’s pretty much unusable in incense, except in the tiniest pinch, simply out of respect for the correspondence. It does, though, produce a great deal of thick smoke, and there may be some association with making spirits visible in the rising plumes. Personally, I think that connection is tenuous, as there are other, much better-smelling substances that produce just as much smoke.

More Dittany of Crete than I will ever need

When I first started making incense, I accumulated quite a collection of books. They were a useful starting point, but I would take many of the published recipes for Sephirotic incense with a huge pinch of salt. Some books contain hundreds of formulas, and one has to wonder whether the author has really spent time testing each one. It is all too easy to throw together an incense by following correspondences that make sense on paper, but does it actually smell good? I have tried some that were theoretically right but, in practice, were really horrible.

There’s also a temptation to think that the rarer and more exotic the ingredients, the more profound the result will be, which I don’t think is true. Every ingredient has a cost, not just financial. Frankincense, myrrh, and other resins are the dried tears of wounded trees, sometimes sourced from war-torn regions. The quality of ingredients varies enormously, though there can be a certain amount of snobbery, as though only one impossibly rare variety will do. It is also worth remembering that some aromatic substances simply do not agree with everyone. Not necessarily because of full allergies, but because of unusual physical reactions. They might make some people sneeze or make their eyes sore. That is not what we want during group work.

Some traditional incenses also use animal products such as ambergris, produced by sperm whales, and musk. I once accidentally bought a small amount of castoreum for a recipe before discovering it comes from beavers’ scent glands. It is certainly very pungent and adds a persistent animal note to a blend, but I won’t be buying it again.

Asafoetida is another interesting ingredient. On its own, it smells repugnant, but in tiny quantities it seems to work like MSG in cooking, adding a punch that brings out the other ingredients. Traditionally, it is associated with dispelling unwanted or unredeemed spirits, and you can tell why when you use too much.

Finding ingredients is so much easier now than when I first began, thanks to internet shopping, although there is still no substitute for buying them in person if you can. Being able to see and smell the raw materials before buying them tells you a great deal. My favourite place remains Star Child in Glastonbury, which consistently stocks good-quality raw ingredients. I have used their individual ingredients for years, although I have much less experience with their pre-mixed incense blends.

I’m particularly interested in Sephirotic incense, since Kabbalah is central to my working tradition. They are not exactly the same as the planetary correspondences associated with the Sephiroth, although there is some overlap. I have been working towards creating a set of Sephirotic incense recipes, and this is what I have learned.

The aromatic gum forms the foundation. Essential oils, herbs, spices, or seeds may be included, but the main body of the incense will usually consist of one of the principal resins: frankincense, myrrh, opoponax, and so on. In practice, there is often surprisingly little essential oil or herb in the finished blend.

Incense blend

Like a liquid perfume, blended incense benefits from having top, middle, and base notes. The brighter top notes usually come from essential oils, but they also disappear first when heated. As a general rule, the longer a blend is left to mature, the more thoroughly the oils combine with the other ingredients and the more gradually they are released, rather than simply burning off in the first few seconds. You can also, to some extent, control how quickly the incense burns by adjusting the size of the resin pieces and degree of grinding for other ingredients. Crushing them more finely with a pestle and mortar increases the combustible surface area and alters both how the fragrance develops and how quickly it burns.

Whenever I make a new blend, I prepare very small test batches, no more than a teaspoon in total, and burn them on a single charcoal disc. I take notes, adjust the proportions, and try again. It sometimes takes half a dozen attempts, or more, before I arrive at something practical, pleasing, and genuinely evocative of the Sphere it is intended to represent.

There is also the more complex question of how the individual Sephirotic incenses work when combined together. Ideally, they should harmonise when used in pairs or triads. I want them to chime together like different instruments in a piece of music, complementing rather than competing with one another. No single fragrance should dominate the others.

I am by no means an expert. I can only share what basic practical experience has taught me. Use your hands and your nose, and experiment – a lot. Trust your senses and your intuition. Keep a notebook and fill it with observations, however strange they may seem. Record what ingredients smell like when they burn, because this is often very different from how they smell at room temperature. Sometimes the most wonderfully fragrant materials become acrid on charcoal, while ingredients that hardly smell at all before burning become quite extraordinary. Adapt and keep refining. Incense making is much more an art than a science. Use your incense as often as you can in ritual. It will gradually become associated with particular states of consciousness, and years later a familiar fragrance can transport you straight back to where you were before.