Well, gentle reader, as usual, what "everyone knows" is complete and utter crap. There is such a Game, and while the powers it provides are often less than awe-inspiring (I, who have played it longer than almost anyone, have only been able to levitate small fish, somewhat less than reliably), steady play does seem to benefit both spiritual health and mystical well being.
The Game is called Kabbilliards, and you hold in your hands the most complete, accurate, timely, and in-depth (which is to say quite simply the finest) guide to its play ever written. St. What’s-Her-Face (current Acting Practical Head of the OTISian Commission on Esoteric Gaming)1 has done a truly top notch job of distilling the game down to its basic elements, and rendering in plain English much of the complex and esoteric theory which informs and influences the Game and has been so instrumental in the design and construction of its rules. The Saint has done the Otisian Commission on Esoteric Gaming, and the world, a great service with the publication of this manual, which it is my pleasure to introduce.
The only element missing from the Saint’s otherwise excellent pamphlet is a short history of the O.C.E.G., an oversight I will, with your kind patience, now rectify.
The O.C.E.G. was formed in 1888, during the height of the OuijaTM board craze, which was then sweeping most of the mid-Atlantic states, Southern New England, and, inexplicably, Oslo. The Founding Brothers initially devoted their efforts to the study of occult undercurrents in "board games and Popular Sport," but after the Great Schism it was decreed acceptable to investigate the occult aspects of card games, bocce and carnival rides.2 The publication of Brother Richards’s (later Practical Head Richards’s) seminal work, Pitchers, Partners, and King Makers: Occult Significances in Baseball, Tiddlywinks, and Checkers, marked the start of the organization’s acceptance by the worldwide academic community, although it was not until the release of the more practical Lower Your Golf Handicaps by Demonic Invocation that an O.C.E.G. publication achieved widespread popularity (16 weeks on the Cleveland Plain Dealer best-seller list). The Charter of 1923 instituted the O.C.E.G.’s current organizational structure, regional lodges answering to a worldwide governing body led by four Heads, Practical, Ceremonial, Diplomatic, and Academic.
So without further ado, on to the Game itself. We of the faith like to say that Kabbilliards takes just minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master. Of course, that’s the copyrighted catch phrase for Othello TM, so we don’t use it much.
Pope Jeoffe I
Pontiff, Intergalactic House of Fruitcakes
and Ceremonial Head, OTISian Committee on Esoteric Gaming
The Kabbalah describes a system called the Tree of Life, consisting of a hierarchy of 10 emanations known as sefirot (singular sefira) (Figure 1). Read downwards, they describe the stages of Divine Creation; read upwards, they describe the stages and pathways of the Adept in his or her quest for mystical union with the Ineffable.Although the Hebrew word sefira is apparently unrelated to the Greek word which has come down to English speakers as "sphere," the sefirot are, in Kabbalistic diagrams, invariably represented as circles or spheres. Just as the Tarot deck has been shown to correspond with Kabbalistic patterns among the sefirot and the traditional pathways between them, so are the many modern games of billiards apparently a corruption of their Kabbalistic roots. The Otisian Commission on Esoteric Gaming has endeavored to reclaim the Kabbalistic tradition within the body of billiard play.
Although the best-known of modern pocket billiard games, Eight-Ball, involves fifteen numbered and colored balls (plus the unnumbered and uncolored cue ball), other modern billiard games use various subsets of the full rack of fifteen. (The symbolic meaning of the triangular rack is beyond the scope of this document.) Along these lines, Kabbalistic Billiards (also referred to as "Kabbilliards") uses balls numbered 1—11 plus the cue ball.
Balls 1—10 correspond with the sefirot Kether through Malkuth, in traditional order, top to bottom and right to left. This ordering follows Wang.3 (It should be noted that the popular versions of the Sepher Yetzirah4 allude to the ten sefirot but do not name them. Detailed theory on each sefira and the twenty-two paths is found in other documents.5) Table 1 shows that the coloration of the modern billiard balls indicates, despite some corruption, a clear correspondence with Atziluth, the archetypal world and the realm of pure spirit.
| Number | Sefira | Assiah | Yetzirah | Briah | Atziluth | Billiard Balls (standard) |
| 1 | Kether | White, flecked gold | White brilliance | White brilliance | Brilliance | Yellow |
| 2 | Chokmah | White, flecked red, blue, yellow | Blue pearl grey, like mother-of-pearl | Grey | Pure soft blue | Blue |
| 3 | Binah | Grey, flecked pink | Dark brown | Black | Crimson | Red |
| 4 | Chesed | Deep azure, flecked yellow | Deep purple | Blue | Deep violet | Purple |
| 5 | Gevurah | Red, flecked black | Bright scarlet | Scarlet red | Orange | Orange |
| 6 | Teferet | Gold amber | Rich salmon | Yellow (gold) | Clear pink rose | Green |
| 7 | Netzach | Olive, flecked gold | Bright yellow-green | Emerald | Amber | Brown |
| 8 | Hod | Yellowish brown, flecked white | Red-russet | Orange | Violet purple | Black |
| 9 | Yesod | Citrine, flecked azure | Very dark purple | Violet | Indigo | Yellow striped |
| 10 | Malkuth | Black rayed with yellow | As Queen Scale [sic], but flecked with gold | Citrine, olive, russet, black | Yellow | Blue striped |
Table 1. Chart of the colors of the sefirot, plus colors of the corresponding billiard balls. Numbering scheme and sefirot colors for the four spheres of creation after Robert Wang, Qabalistic Tarot. Of note is that the colors he uses for the sefirot in his main text come from Briah, while the colors he uses for the twenty-two paths (not included in this table) are from Atziluth (see Figure 1). The similarities between the sefirot colors under Atziluth and the colors of the modern billiard balls are too striking to be coincidence. Note that the colors for Yesod and Malkuth have been reversed. The reason for the extreme discrepancy for Teferet is unknown, although it is worth noting that the colors are apparently complementary.
As in Eight-Ball, the players must never hit any of the numbered balls directly with the cue stick; they must hit the unnumbered and uncolored cue ball with the cue stick in such as way as to hit the numbered balls and drive them into the pockets. (This reflects how the adept, prior to achieving Unity with the One, can only perceive the Divine in mediated form.) Traditional technique for handling the cue stick is recommended, as is traditional courtesy (with exceptions noted below) when playing in groups or in public places. If a player pockets the cue ball (or sends it vaulting over the edge of the table), it is termed a scratch, as in Eight-Ball, but incurs special penalties as described below.
To begin play, Balls 1—10 should be arranged as shown in Figure 2. Ball #11 is omitted in this opening arrangement; its placement is discussed under First scratch, below. The topmost ball, #1, representing the sefira Kether, is placed on one of the white dots on the table. The cue ball is placed on the other dot. The bottommost ball, #10, representing the sefira Malkuth, is to be placed no closer to the cue ball than two-thirds of the way from Kether, and the other balls arranged accordingly. None of the balls are to be arranged so as to kiss (touch) one another.
In the unlikely event that the break pockets one of the numbered balls, the first player may shoot again (see Play after the break). In the somewhat more likely (considering how the Commission members play) event that the break results in a scratch, the rules for First scratch are applied.
Where on the table the pocketed numbered ball is returned to play is determined by anyone other than the next player to shoot. If there are more than two players, this should also be someone other than the player who scratched. If there are more than three players, any otherwise unresolved dispute over who possesses the honor of returning the pocketed ball to play is settled by arm-wrestling, preferably on the bar rather than the pool table.
The rule of returning to play a numbered ball pocketed on a scratch includes the #11 ball. The player who scratches on a shot which pockets the #11 ball before all other numbered balls are pocketed, ends his or her current turn and loses his or her next turn, but continues in the game, because the #11 ball returns to play. The player who scratches on a shot which pockets the #11 ball as the last ball does not end the game; the player ends the current turn and loses the next, but continues in the game, and the #11 ball is returned to play.
During play, extra points should be noted for special kinds of shots. One point will be awarded for shots of Great Effort. Two points will be awarded for shots which are particularly disastrous. Four points (recalling that the sacred number of OTIS is four) will be awarded for shots which are downright apocalyptic.
A player who has pocketed all of the balls on the Middle Pillar (#1, Kether, #6, Teferet, #9, Yesod, and #10, Malkuth – note that #11, Daath, is omitted) gets twelve points. This reflects the twelve Simple letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each of which possesses only one pronunciation.
Any raw score that is divisible by 3 gets 3 bonus points, while any raw score divisible by 7 gets 7 bonus points. Any raw score divisible by 12 gets 12 bonus points, but not also the 3 bonus points for being divisible by 3. Any raw score divisible by 22 gets 22 bonus points. Thus are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet grouped and totaled in Sepher Yetzirah.7
Any raw score that is divisible by 4 gets 4 bonus points, for each of the four spheres of creation, Atziluth (Yod), Briah (Heh), Yetzirah (Vav), and Assiah (Heh). Recall that four is the sacred number of OTIS.
Any raw score that is divisible by 5 gets 5 bonus points. Note that the face value of balls #1—10 add up to 55, which is divisible both by 5 and by 11 (the value of Daath). Balls #1—11 add up to 66.
Relax. Have fun. It's only a game.
2. The forgotten work of the Coney Island enclave deserves attention.
3. Wang, Robert, The Qabalistic Tarot. Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, Maine, 1983.
4. Anonymous, trans. by Rev. Isidor Kalisch, Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Creation). L.H. Frank & Co, New York, NY, 1877. Chapter I, Sections 2-9.
5. What, you think I've read the entire Zohar myself? My Hebrew ain't that good. Damned if I know where this stuff comes from originally. Numerous modern secondary sources, however, tend to agree regarding the sefirot. They could, of course, all be wrong. Goyische kopf.
6. Steinberg, Samuel, Living Language Conversation Manual: Hebrew. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1958. pp. 5-6. Note that other sources may disagree on the total number of vowels, such as including yod as a vowel. Moreover, more vowels may be created by combining the basic ones.
7. Seph. Yetz., Chapters II-V.
8. Potter, Stephen, The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship, or, The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating. Henry Holt & Co., New York, NY. (circa 1948).