The fourfold breath is one of the most simple yet effective techniques of the Golden Dawn and is still in regular use in post Golden Dawn magick.

The use of breathwork in ritual is a common practice, and the breath holds an esoteric significance beyond the use of concentration on one stimuli during meditative practices.

As well as this being a description of the fourfold breath as a technique it is a treatment of the breath as life force. If we take the language of the Western tradition the force which permeates the universe is called the Divine Light or LVX. But we find a correlation between these the LVX idea and the breath. Eliphas Levi, the exoteric origin of many of the ideas of LVX in the modern world has said the Light is the first physical manifestation of the Divine Breath.

In the Eastern tradition we meet another word to describe this, being the word Prana which literally translates as breath. How does one define this Prana force? Prana is conceptualised as the universal life force which is given local habitation- this is to say the life force in the physical. Prana is a dynamic, moving force. In the Eastern tradition the control of the divine breath is achieved through breathwork or Pranayama.

One point of correlation between the Eastern and Western tradition is the belief the life force (LVX/ Prana) can be manipulated by use of the body as a temple. The yoga of the East and of the West are admittedly quite different, but the results are much the same.

The Yogi uses certain methods of Eastern yoga to activate the prana in different life centres in the body.

Many Western esotericists either warn of the dangers of the techniques of Yoga, or present versions of these techniques duely altered to be made suitable to the Western vehicle. This can be seen in the first book of Aleister Crowley’s Book 4.

The breath is also connected with sound and the Divine word. Scripture speaks of Moses being great of words. The term words in Greek is Logoi, and speaks not of words in a mundane sense, but as the power of sound forms. Here we find the divine names of Hebrew and the vibratory formula as used in Western Esotericism as an example, and indeed Moses was said to have parted the Dead Sea by correctly speaking and pronouncing the Tetragrammaton.

If one is to translate the Hebrew word “Ruach” it translates as “life-breath”, a term familiar to anyone familiar with the Qabalah as the objective thinking principle in human life. When this is placed on the tree of life the Ruach is centred in Tipereth, the area of the heart, but also physically of the lungs. For the sake of my own work as placed in the Western tradition, when referring to the LVX as a breathing force I have come to call it by this name.

We also see this breath symbolism in the Latin Spiritus and the Greek Pneuma which also mean breath or spirit.

The breath is an important concept as seen above, but this speaks only to it as the pervading spirit force. The prana/ LVX force is one which each man and woman has the inherent ability to work with and command. A growing knowledge of the life forces as shown on the qabalistic tree, or some other system of classification, and an active work with this through its movement in ritualism and mental activity and disciplines is the work of Western esotericism.

The fourfold breath is one method of getting in touch with this life force and its rhythms through the microcosmic breath and its effect on our physical and etheric vehicles.