Harab Serapel
“The Ravens of Dispersion” · “The Scattering Ravens”
The name is Mathers' form; the Hebrew and the gloss are the 777 form, A'arab Zaraq
Shadow of Netzach · Ruled by Baal
Netzach, “Victory,” is the seventh Sephirah, the sphere of emotion, instinct, the creative impulse and desire. It is linked with Venus and with the force that moves artists, lovers, all who make anything out of inner necessity, and it is the thirst for embodiment, the unstoppable will to form, love in its most primary sense.
Harab Serapel is the scattering of that creative force: ravens that build no nests because they carry off whatever they find. Here the creative impulse loses the possibility of completion, since beginnings crumble and desires fly off in different directions before they can take shape. Where Netzach concentrates desire, Harab Serapel disperses it, inevitably.
Correspondences
| Hebrew name | עֹרֵב זָרָק |
| Translation | The Ravens of Dispersion; the Scattering Ravens |
| Variant name | Harab Serapel — “the Ravens of Death” (The Kabbalah Unveiled, 1887, Plate IV; gives no vocalised Hebrew) |
| Shadow of | Netzach (Victory, Eternity) |
| Ruling demon | Baal |
| Number | 7 as the scattering of what might have gathered |
| Quality | Dispersion of creative force, the decay of desire, the impossibility of completion |
The nature of Harab Serapel
The raven imagery is precise here. The raven is known for intelligence and destructiveness: a bird that builds nothing but knows how to wreck and carry off. The flock of ravens in the Qlipha's name is not decorative detail. It functions as a literal description of its purpose: multiplicity, motion, the scattering of what might have become one.
This shell carries two names, which come from two different systems, and Mathers, in The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887, Plate IV), calls the seventh Qlipha Harab Serapel, rendering it “the Ravens of Death,” though he gives no vocalised Hebrew. Crowley's 777 gives A'arab Zaraq, עֹרֵב זָרָק, “the Ravens of Dispersion,” while the Sephirah stays the same, Netzach, and the ruler stays the same, Baal.
Baal, “Lord” in the Semitic languages, figures in the Old Testament as the chief rival of Yahweh for Israel's loyalty, his cult built on orgiastic rites, the riot of desire without restriction, intensity without direction. The kabbalistic reading is clean: when Netzach is pushed to its limit, it becomes self-consumption, not the victory of desire.
The demonic ruler
Baal (בַּעַל) literally means “lord,” “owner”: a common word that became a name. In the Lemegeton Baal occupies first place in the hierarchy, since he is the first of the 72 spirits, a king commanding 66 legions. Weyer's description gives him three heads, a toad, a man, and a cat, that speak simultaneously in hoarse voices. This is dispersion in the very image, because it offers three forms at once, three voices without synthesis, and no single unity. His chief power is to make the one who summons him invisible, so that disappearance replaces manifestation, and scattering replaces concentration. Harab Serapel in one symbol. → See the catalogue of rulers