Chapter 7

Seven seems to have been the sacred numberpar excellenceamong all civilized nations of antiquity. Why? This query has never been satisfactorily answered. Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their [exoteric] religion. That it was the number of numbers for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can be no doubt. Pythagoras ... calls it the“Vehicle of life,”containing body and soul, since it is formed of a quaternary, that is:Wisdom and Intellect; and a Trinity, oractionandmatter. The Emperor Julian, inMatremand inOratio,62expresses himself thus:“Were I to touch upon the initiation into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bacchized respecting theseven-rayedgod, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists.”63And who that is acquainted with thePurânas, theBook of the Dead, theZendavesta, the Assyrian Tiles, and finally theBible, and has observed the constant occurrence of the number seven in these records of people from the remotest times upwards unconnected and so far apart, can regard as a coincidence the following fact, given by the same explorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of the prevalence of seven as a mystic number, among the inhabitants of the“Western Continent”of America, he adds that it is not less remarkable. For:It frequently occurs in thePopul-Vuh. We find it besides in theseven familiessaid by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage namedVotan, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In theseven caves64from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported[pg 039]to have emerged. In theseven citiesof Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza.... In theseven Antilles; in theseven heroeswho, we are told, escaped the Deluge.Heroes, moreover, whose number is found the same in every Deluge story—from the seven Rishis who were saved with Vaivasvata Manu, down to Noah's ark, into which beasts, fowls, and living creatures were taken by“sevens.”Thus we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings. In China, 1, 3, 5, 7, are called“celestial numbers”in the canonical“Book of Changes”—Yi King, ortransformation, as in“evolution.”The explanation of it becomes evident when one examines the ancient Symbols: all these are based upon and start from the figures given from the Archaic Manuscript in the Proem of Volume I. [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom], the symbol of evolution and fall into generation or Matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures or paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephiroth, and the Egyptian Tau. Examine the Mexican MS. (Add. MSS.Brit. Mus. 9789)65; you will find it in a tree whose trunk is covered withtenfruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one on each side of it, while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot horizontally to the right and left, thus forming a perfect Τ (Tau), the ends of the two branches, moreover, each bearing a triple bunch, with a bird—the bird of immortality, Âtmâ or the Divine Spirit—sitting between the two, and thus making theseventh. This represents the same idea as the Sephirothal Tree,tenin all, yet, when separated from its upper triad, leavingseven. These are the celestial fruits, the ten, or [Symbol: circle with“i”inside], 10, born out of the two invisible male and female seeds, making up the 12, or the Dodecahedron of the Universe. The mystic system contains the ·, the central point; the 3, or [symbol: triangle]; the 5, [symbol: 5-point star]; and the 7, or [symbol: triangle in square]; or again [symbol: 6-point star]; the triangle in the square and the synthesizing point in the interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all inMan. Therefore he is the mystic square—in his metaphysical aspect—the Tetraktys; and becomes the Cube on the creative plane. His symbol is the cube unfolded66and 6 becoming 7, or the [Symbol: cross], 3 crossways (the female) and 4 vertically; and this is man, the culmination of the deity on earth, whose body is the cross of flesh,on,through, andinwhich he is ever crucifying and[pg 040]putting to death the divine Logos, or hisHigher Self. Says every Philosophy and Cosmogony:The universe hath a Ruler [Rulers collectively] set over it, which is called theWord(Logos); the fabricating Spirit is its Queen: which two are the First Power after theOne.These are the Spirit and Nature, which two form our Illusory Universe. The two inseparables remain in theUniverse of Ideasso long as it lasts, and then merge back into Parabrahman, the One ever changeless.“The Spirit, whose essence is eternal, one and self-existent,”emanates a pure ethereal Light—a dual light not perceptible to the elementary senses—according to thePurânas, theBible, theSepher Yetzirah, the Greek and Latin Hymns, theBook of Hermes, the ChaldæanBook of Numbers, the Esotericism of Lao-tse, and everywhere else. In the Kabalah, which explains the secret meaning ofGenesis, this Light is the Dual-Man, or the Androgyne (rather Sexless) Angels, whose generic name is Adam Kadmon. It is they who complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine, but far lower Beings, who solidify the body with clay, or the“dust of the ground”—an allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution and moretrue.The author of theSource of Measuressays that the foundation of the Kabalah and of all its mystic books is made to rest upon thetenSephiroth; which is a fundamental truth. He shows these Ten Sephiroth or the 10 Numbers as follows:Illustration: Circle with numbers 2 through 9, and vertical line through itThe circle is thenaught; its vertical diameter line is the first or primalOne[the Word or Logos], from which spring the 2, the 3, and so on to 9, the limit of the digits. The 10 is the first Divine Manifestation,67which contains every possible power of exact expression of proportion—the sacredJod. By this Cabbalah we are taught that these Sephiroth were thenumbersor emanations of the heavenly Light (20612 to 6561), they were the 10 Words, DBRIM, 41224, the light of which they were the flux was the Heavenly man, the Adam-KDM (the 144-144); and the Light, by the New Testament or Covenant (41224) created God; just as by the Old Testament God (Alhim, 31415) creates Light (20612 to 6561).68[pg 041]Now there are three kinds of Light in Occultism, as in the Kabalah. (1) The Abstract and Absolute Light, which is Darkness; (2) The Light of the Manifested-Unmanifested, called by some the Logos: and (3) The latter Light reflected in the Dhyân Chohans, the minor Logoi—the Elohim, collectively—who, in their turn, shed it on the objective Universe. But in the Kabalah—reëdited and carefully adjusted to fit the Christian tenets by the Kabalists of the thirteenth century—the three Lights are described as: (1) The clear and penetrating, that of Jehovah; (2) reflected light; and (3) lightin the abstract.This Light, abstractly taken, (in a metaphysical or symbolical sense) is Alhim (Elohim, God), while the clear penetrating Light is Jehovah. The light of Alhim belongs to the world in general, in its allness and general fulness, but the light of Jehovah is that pertaining to the chiefest production, man, whom this light penetrated to and made.69The author of theSource of Measurespertinently refers the reader to Inman'sAncient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, ii. 648. There, an engraving ofThevesica piscis, Mary, and the female emblem, copied from a Rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary, which was printed at Venice, 1542,and therefore, as Inman remarks,“with a licence from the Inquisition, and consequently orthodox,”will show the reader what the Latin Church understood by this“penetrating power of light and its effects.”How sadly disfigured—applied as they were to the grossest anthropomorphic conceptions—have, under Christian interpretation, become the noblest and grandest, as the most exalted, ideas of Deity of the Eastern Philosophy!The Occultists in the East call this Light Daiviprakriti, and in the West the Light of Christos. It is the Light of the Logos, the direct reflection of the ever Unknowable on the plane of Universal Manifestation. But here is the interpretation thereof given by the modern Christians from the Kabalah. As declared by the author just cited;To the fulness of the world in general with its chiefest content, man, the term Elohim-Jehovah applies. In extracts from Sohar, the Rev. Dr. Cassell [a Kabalist], to prove that the Cabbalah sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, among other things says:“Jehovah is Elohim (Alhim)”... Bythreesteps God, (Alhim) and Jehovah become the same, and though separated, each and together they are of the same One.70Similarly, Vishnu becomes the Sun, the visible symbol of the Impersonal[pg 042]Deity. Vishnu is described as“striding through the seven regions of the Universe inthree steps.”But with the Hindûs this is anexotericaccount, a surface tenet and an allegory, while the Kabalists give it out as the Esoteric and final meaning. But to proceed:Now Light, as shown, is 20612 to 6561, as the proper enunciation of the integral and numerical relation of diameter to circumference of a circle. God (Alhim, that is, 31415 to One, a modified form of the above) is the reduction of this, so as to obtain a standard unitOne, as the basis, in general, of all calculation and all mensuration. But for the production of animal life, and for especialtime measure, or the lunar year, that influence which causes conception and embryotic development, the numbers of the Jehovah measure (the“man even Jehovah”measure), viz., 113 to 355, have to be specialized.71But this last ratio is but a modified form of Light, or 20612 to 6561, as api value, being only a variation of the same (that is 20612 to 6561 is 31415 to one, and 355 to 113 is 31415 or Alhim or God), and in such a manner that one can be made to flow into and be derived from the other:—and these are the three steps by which theUnityand sameness can be shown of the Divine names. That is, the two are but variations of the same ratio, viz., that ofpi. The object of this comment is to show the same symbolic measuring use for the Cabbalah, as taught, with that of the Three Covenants of theBible, and with that of Masonry as just noticed.First, then, the Sephiroth are described asLight, that is, they themselves are a function of, indeed, the same as, the manifestation of the Ain Soph; and they are so from the fact that“Light”represents the ratio 20612 to 6561, as part of the“Words,”DBRIM, 41224, or, as to the Word, Dabar, 206 (= 10 cubits).“Light”is so much the burden of the Cabbalah as to explaining the Sephiroth, that the most famous book on the Cabbalah is calledSohar, or“Light.”In this we find expressions of this kind:“The infinite was entirely unknown and diffused no light before the luminous point violently broke through into vision.”“When He first assumed the form (of the crown, or the first Sephira), He caused 9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a bright light in all directions:”—that is, these 9 with his one (which was the origin, as above, of the 9), together, made the 10, that is [Symbol: circle with vertical line through it], or [Symbol: circle with“x”inside], or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), orJod—and these numbers were“the Light.”Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhim, 31415 to one) was that Light (20612 to 6561) by which (Light) all things were made.72In theSepher Yetzirah, or“Number of Creation,”the whole process of evolution is given out in numbers. In its“thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”the number 3 is repeated four times, and the number 4 five times. Therefore, the Wisdom of God is contained in numbers (Sephrim or Sephiroth), for Sepher (or S-ph-r when unvowelled) means“to cipher.”And therefore, also, we find Plato stating that the Deity“geometrizes”in fabricating the Universe.[pg 043]The Kabalistic book, theSepher Yetzirah, opens with a statement of the hidden wisdom of Alhim in Sephrim,i.e., the Elohim in the Sephiroth.In thirty and two paths, hidden wisdom, established Jah, IHVH, Tzabaoth, Elohi of Israel, Alhim of Life, El of Grace and Mercy—exalted uplifted Dweller on high, and King of Everlasting, and His name—Holy! in Three Sephrim, viz.:B—S'ph-r, V—S'ph-r, V—Siph-o-r.Mr. Ralston Skinner goes on to say:This comment sets forth the“hidden wisdom”of the original text by hidden wisdom, that is, by the use of words carrying a special set of numbers and a special phraseology, which will set forth the very explanatory system which we find to fit so accurately in the Hebrew Bible.... In setting forth his scheme, to enforce it, and to finish out his detailed exposition in a general postulate,—viz., the one word“Sephrim”(Sephiroth), of the Number Jezirah, the author explains the separation of this word in the three subordinate ones, a play upon a common word,s-ph-r, or number.The prince Al-Chazari73says to the Rabbi:“I wish now that thou wouldest impart to me some of the chiefest or leading principles ofNatural Philosophy, which, as thou sayest, were in former times worked out by them (the ancient wise ones);”—to which the Rabbi makes answer:“To such principles appertains the Number of Creation of our race-father Abraham”that is Abram and Abraham, or numbers 41224 and 41252. He then says that this book of number treats of teaching the“Alhim-ness andOne-ness through (DBRIM)”viz., the numbers of the word“Words.”That is, it teaches the use of the ratio 31415 to One, through 41224, which last, in the description of the Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two parts by thetwotables of stone, on which these DBRIM, or 41224, were written or engraved—or 20612 × 2. He then comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of them to make the comment,“andAlhim(31415 to One) said let there be Light (20612 to 6561).”The words as given in the text are:ספר ספר סיפורand the Rabbi, in commenting upon them, says:“It teaches theAlhim-ness (31415) andOne-ness (the diameter to Alhim), through Words (DBRIM = 41224), by which on the one side there is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and on the other a final harmonic tendency toOne-ness”(which, as everyone knows, is the mathematical function ofpiof the schools, which measures, weighs, and numbers the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the final oneness of the Uni-verse)“through Words. Their final accord perfects itself in thatOne-ness that ordains them, and which consists inספר ספר ספור”that is, the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves thejod, ori, out of one of the words, whereas afterwards he restores it again. If we take the values of those subordinate[pg 044]words, we find them to be 340, 340 and 346;—together these are 1026, and the division of the general word into these has been to produce these numbers—which by T'mura may be changed in various ways, for various purposes.74The reader is asked to turn to Stanza IV of Volume I, Shloka 3 and Commentary,75to find that the 3, 4, (7), and the thrice seven, or 1065, the number of Jehovah, is the number of the 21 Prajâpati mentioned in theMahâbhârata, or the three Sephrim (words in ciphers or figures). And this comparison between the Creative Powers of Archaic Philosophy and the anthropomorphic Creator ofexotericJudaism (since theEsotericismof the Jews shows its identity with the Secret Doctrine) will lead the student to perceive and discover that, in truth, Jehovah is but a“lunar”and“generation”God. It is a fact well known to every conscientious student of the Kabalah, that the deeper he dives into it, the more he feels convinced that unless the Kabalah—or what is left of it—is read by the light of the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy, its study leads only to the discovery that, on the lines traced by exoteric Judaism and Christianity, the monotheism of both is nothing more exalted than ancient Astrolatry, now vindicated by modern Astronomy. The Kabalists never cease to repeat that Primal Intelligence can never be understood. It cannot be comprehended, nor can it be located, therefore it has to remain nameless and negative. Hence the Ain Suph—the“Unknowable”and“Unnameable”—as It could not be made manifest, was imagined as emanating Manifesting Powers. It is then with its Emanations alone that human intellect has to, and can, deal. Christian theology, having rejected the doctrine of Emanations and replaced them with direct, conscious Creations of Angels and the rest out ofnothing, now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supernaturalism, or Miracle, and Materialism. Anextra-cosmic God is fatal to Philosophy: anintra-cosmic Deity—i.e., Spirit and Matter inseparable from each other—is a philosophical necessity. Separate them and that which is left is a gross superstition under a mask of emotionalism. But why“geometrize,”as Plato has it, why represent these Emanations under the form of an immense arithmetical table? The question is well answered by the author just cited, who says:Mental perception, to become physical perception, must have the cosmic principle ofLight:—and, by this, our mental circle must become visible through light; or, for its complete manifestation, the circle must be that of physical visibility, or Light itself.[pg 045]Such conceptions, thus formulated, became the ground-work of the philosophy of the Divine manifesting in the universe.76This is Philosophy. It is otherwise when we find the Rabbi inAl-Chazarisaying that:Under s'ph-r is to be understood—calculationandweighingof the created bodies. For thecalculation, by means of which a body must be constructed in harmony or symmetry, by which it must be in construction rightly arranged and made to correspond to the object in design, consists at last innumber,extension,mass,weight;—co-ordinate relation of movements, then harmony of music, must consist altogetherby number, that is s'ph-r.... By Sippor (s'phor) is to be understood the words of Alhim (206—1 of 31415 to one), whereunto joins or adapts itself the design to the frame or form of construction; for example—it was said“Let Light be.”The work became as thewordswere spoken, that is, as the numbers of the work came forth.77This ismaterializingthespiritualwithout scruple. But the Kabalah was not always so well adapted to anthropo-monotheistic conceptions. Compare this with any of the six schools of India. For instance in Kapila's Sânkhya Philosophy, unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what he is; and the Spirit latent in Matter must be awakened to life and consciousness gradually. The Monad has to pass through its mineral, vegetable and animal forms, before the Light of the Logos is awakened in the animal man. Therefore, till then, the latter cannot be referred to as“man,”but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in ever-changing forms.Evolution, notCreation, by means ofWordsis recognized in the Philosophies of the East, even in their exoteric records.Ex oriente lux.Even the name of the first man in the MosaicBiblehad its origin in India, Professor Max Müller's negation notwithstanding. The Jews got their Adam from Chaldæa; and Adam-Adami is a compound word and therefore a manifold symbol, and proves the Occult dogmas.This is no place for philological disquisitions. But the reader may be reminded that the wordsAdandAdimean in Sanskrit the“first”; in Aramæan,“one”(Ad-ad, the“only one”); in Assyrian,“Father,”whenceAk-ador“father-creator.”78And once the statement is found[pg 046]correct, it becomes rather difficult to confine Adam to the MosaicBiblealone, and to see therein simply a Jewish name.There is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of the Gods in their Theogonies, the Alpha and the Omega of the records of that symbolical science, as given to the world by the half-initiated writers, Brâhmanical and Biblical. Yet there could be no such confusion made by the earliest nations, the descendants and pupils of the Divine Instructors; for both the attributes and the genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical symbols, the“Gods”being the life and animating“soul-principle”of the various regions of the Universe. Nowhere and by no people was speculation allowed to rangebeyondthosemanifestedGods. The boundless and infinite Unity remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man's thought, untouched by fruitless speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief conception of its diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical expansion, or dilatation, and contraction. In the Universe, with all its incalculable myriads of Systems and Worlds disappearing and reäppearing in eternity, the anthropomorphized Powers, or Gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with their Bodies. As ourCatechismsays:“The Breath returning to the Eternal Bosom which exhales and inhales them.”Ideal Nature, the Abstract Space in which everything in the Universe is mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of the procreative power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira, and the Sophia of the Gnostics, and Isis, the Virgin Mother of Horus. In every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the“Creative”Deity, there is a Superior Deity, a Planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher,overandaround,withinandwithout, there is the Unknowable and theUnknown, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations.It thus becomes easy to account for the reason why Adam-Adami is found in the Chaldæan scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In AssyrianAdis the“father,”and in AramæanAdis“one,”andAd-adthe“only one,”whileAkis in Assyrian“creator.”Thus[pg 047]Ad-am-ak-ad-monbecame Adam-Kadmon in the Kabalah (Zohar), meaning as it did, the“One (Son) of the divine Father, or the Creator,”for the wordsamandommeant at one time in nearly every language thedivine, or thedeity. Thus Adam-Kadmon and Adam-Adami came to mean“The first Emanation of the Father-Mother or Divine Nature,”and literally the“first Divine One.”And it is easy to see thatAd-Argat (or Aster't, the Syrian Goddess, the consort ofAd-on, the Lord God of Syria or the Jewish Adonai), and Venus, Isis, Ister, Mylitta, Eve, etc., are identical with the Aditi and Vâch of the Hindûs. They are all the“Mothers of all living”and“of the Gods.”On the other hand—cosmically and astronomically—all the male Gods became at first“Sun-Gods,”then, theologically, the“Suns of Righteousness,”and the Logoi, all symbolized by the Sun.79They are all Protogonoi—First-born—and Mikroprosopoi. With the Jews Adam-Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz, or the Adonis of the Greeks—“the Onewith, andofhis Father”—the“Father”becoming during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Karneios,80for instance, who was the“Sun-born”; Osiris, Ormazd, and so on, were all followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into, still more earthly types: such as Prometheus, the crucified of Mount Kajbee, Hercules, and so many others, Sun-Gods and Heroes, until all of them came to have no better significance than phallic symbols.In theZoharit is said:

And who that is acquainted with thePurânas, theBook of the Dead, theZendavesta, the Assyrian Tiles, and finally theBible, and has observed the constant occurrence of the number seven in these records of people from the remotest times upwards unconnected and so far apart, can regard as a coincidence the following fact, given by the same explorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of the prevalence of seven as a mystic number, among the inhabitants of the“Western Continent”of America, he adds that it is not less remarkable. For:

It frequently occurs in thePopul-Vuh. We find it besides in theseven familiessaid by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage namedVotan, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In theseven caves64from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported[pg 039]to have emerged. In theseven citiesof Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza.... In theseven Antilles; in theseven heroeswho, we are told, escaped the Deluge.

Heroes, moreover, whose number is found the same in every Deluge story—from the seven Rishis who were saved with Vaivasvata Manu, down to Noah's ark, into which beasts, fowls, and living creatures were taken by“sevens.”Thus we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings. In China, 1, 3, 5, 7, are called“celestial numbers”in the canonical“Book of Changes”—Yi King, ortransformation, as in“evolution.”

The explanation of it becomes evident when one examines the ancient Symbols: all these are based upon and start from the figures given from the Archaic Manuscript in the Proem of Volume I. [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom], the symbol of evolution and fall into generation or Matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures or paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephiroth, and the Egyptian Tau. Examine the Mexican MS. (Add. MSS.Brit. Mus. 9789)65; you will find it in a tree whose trunk is covered withtenfruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one on each side of it, while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot horizontally to the right and left, thus forming a perfect Τ (Tau), the ends of the two branches, moreover, each bearing a triple bunch, with a bird—the bird of immortality, Âtmâ or the Divine Spirit—sitting between the two, and thus making theseventh. This represents the same idea as the Sephirothal Tree,tenin all, yet, when separated from its upper triad, leavingseven. These are the celestial fruits, the ten, or [Symbol: circle with“i”inside], 10, born out of the two invisible male and female seeds, making up the 12, or the Dodecahedron of the Universe. The mystic system contains the ·, the central point; the 3, or [symbol: triangle]; the 5, [symbol: 5-point star]; and the 7, or [symbol: triangle in square]; or again [symbol: 6-point star]; the triangle in the square and the synthesizing point in the interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all inMan. Therefore he is the mystic square—in his metaphysical aspect—the Tetraktys; and becomes the Cube on the creative plane. His symbol is the cube unfolded66and 6 becoming 7, or the [Symbol: cross], 3 crossways (the female) and 4 vertically; and this is man, the culmination of the deity on earth, whose body is the cross of flesh,on,through, andinwhich he is ever crucifying and[pg 040]putting to death the divine Logos, or hisHigher Self. Says every Philosophy and Cosmogony:

The universe hath a Ruler [Rulers collectively] set over it, which is called theWord(Logos); the fabricating Spirit is its Queen: which two are the First Power after theOne.

These are the Spirit and Nature, which two form our Illusory Universe. The two inseparables remain in theUniverse of Ideasso long as it lasts, and then merge back into Parabrahman, the One ever changeless.“The Spirit, whose essence is eternal, one and self-existent,”emanates a pure ethereal Light—a dual light not perceptible to the elementary senses—according to thePurânas, theBible, theSepher Yetzirah, the Greek and Latin Hymns, theBook of Hermes, the ChaldæanBook of Numbers, the Esotericism of Lao-tse, and everywhere else. In the Kabalah, which explains the secret meaning ofGenesis, this Light is the Dual-Man, or the Androgyne (rather Sexless) Angels, whose generic name is Adam Kadmon. It is they who complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine, but far lower Beings, who solidify the body with clay, or the“dust of the ground”—an allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution and moretrue.

The author of theSource of Measuressays that the foundation of the Kabalah and of all its mystic books is made to rest upon thetenSephiroth; which is a fundamental truth. He shows these Ten Sephiroth or the 10 Numbers as follows:

Illustration: Circle with numbers 2 through 9, and vertical line through it

The circle is thenaught; its vertical diameter line is the first or primalOne[the Word or Logos], from which spring the 2, the 3, and so on to 9, the limit of the digits. The 10 is the first Divine Manifestation,67which contains every possible power of exact expression of proportion—the sacredJod. By this Cabbalah we are taught that these Sephiroth were thenumbersor emanations of the heavenly Light (20612 to 6561), they were the 10 Words, DBRIM, 41224, the light of which they were the flux was the Heavenly man, the Adam-KDM (the 144-144); and the Light, by the New Testament or Covenant (41224) created God; just as by the Old Testament God (Alhim, 31415) creates Light (20612 to 6561).68

Now there are three kinds of Light in Occultism, as in the Kabalah. (1) The Abstract and Absolute Light, which is Darkness; (2) The Light of the Manifested-Unmanifested, called by some the Logos: and (3) The latter Light reflected in the Dhyân Chohans, the minor Logoi—the Elohim, collectively—who, in their turn, shed it on the objective Universe. But in the Kabalah—reëdited and carefully adjusted to fit the Christian tenets by the Kabalists of the thirteenth century—the three Lights are described as: (1) The clear and penetrating, that of Jehovah; (2) reflected light; and (3) lightin the abstract.

This Light, abstractly taken, (in a metaphysical or symbolical sense) is Alhim (Elohim, God), while the clear penetrating Light is Jehovah. The light of Alhim belongs to the world in general, in its allness and general fulness, but the light of Jehovah is that pertaining to the chiefest production, man, whom this light penetrated to and made.69

The author of theSource of Measurespertinently refers the reader to Inman'sAncient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, ii. 648. There, an engraving of

Thevesica piscis, Mary, and the female emblem, copied from a Rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary, which was printed at Venice, 1542,

and therefore, as Inman remarks,“with a licence from the Inquisition, and consequently orthodox,”will show the reader what the Latin Church understood by this“penetrating power of light and its effects.”How sadly disfigured—applied as they were to the grossest anthropomorphic conceptions—have, under Christian interpretation, become the noblest and grandest, as the most exalted, ideas of Deity of the Eastern Philosophy!

The Occultists in the East call this Light Daiviprakriti, and in the West the Light of Christos. It is the Light of the Logos, the direct reflection of the ever Unknowable on the plane of Universal Manifestation. But here is the interpretation thereof given by the modern Christians from the Kabalah. As declared by the author just cited;

To the fulness of the world in general with its chiefest content, man, the term Elohim-Jehovah applies. In extracts from Sohar, the Rev. Dr. Cassell [a Kabalist], to prove that the Cabbalah sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, among other things says:“Jehovah is Elohim (Alhim)”... Bythreesteps God, (Alhim) and Jehovah become the same, and though separated, each and together they are of the same One.70

Similarly, Vishnu becomes the Sun, the visible symbol of the Impersonal[pg 042]Deity. Vishnu is described as“striding through the seven regions of the Universe inthree steps.”But with the Hindûs this is anexotericaccount, a surface tenet and an allegory, while the Kabalists give it out as the Esoteric and final meaning. But to proceed:

Now Light, as shown, is 20612 to 6561, as the proper enunciation of the integral and numerical relation of diameter to circumference of a circle. God (Alhim, that is, 31415 to One, a modified form of the above) is the reduction of this, so as to obtain a standard unitOne, as the basis, in general, of all calculation and all mensuration. But for the production of animal life, and for especialtime measure, or the lunar year, that influence which causes conception and embryotic development, the numbers of the Jehovah measure (the“man even Jehovah”measure), viz., 113 to 355, have to be specialized.71But this last ratio is but a modified form of Light, or 20612 to 6561, as api value, being only a variation of the same (that is 20612 to 6561 is 31415 to one, and 355 to 113 is 31415 or Alhim or God), and in such a manner that one can be made to flow into and be derived from the other:—and these are the three steps by which theUnityand sameness can be shown of the Divine names. That is, the two are but variations of the same ratio, viz., that ofpi. The object of this comment is to show the same symbolic measuring use for the Cabbalah, as taught, with that of the Three Covenants of theBible, and with that of Masonry as just noticed.First, then, the Sephiroth are described asLight, that is, they themselves are a function of, indeed, the same as, the manifestation of the Ain Soph; and they are so from the fact that“Light”represents the ratio 20612 to 6561, as part of the“Words,”DBRIM, 41224, or, as to the Word, Dabar, 206 (= 10 cubits).“Light”is so much the burden of the Cabbalah as to explaining the Sephiroth, that the most famous book on the Cabbalah is calledSohar, or“Light.”In this we find expressions of this kind:“The infinite was entirely unknown and diffused no light before the luminous point violently broke through into vision.”“When He first assumed the form (of the crown, or the first Sephira), He caused 9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a bright light in all directions:”—that is, these 9 with his one (which was the origin, as above, of the 9), together, made the 10, that is [Symbol: circle with vertical line through it], or [Symbol: circle with“x”inside], or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), orJod—and these numbers were“the Light.”Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhim, 31415 to one) was that Light (20612 to 6561) by which (Light) all things were made.72

First, then, the Sephiroth are described asLight, that is, they themselves are a function of, indeed, the same as, the manifestation of the Ain Soph; and they are so from the fact that“Light”represents the ratio 20612 to 6561, as part of the“Words,”DBRIM, 41224, or, as to the Word, Dabar, 206 (= 10 cubits).“Light”is so much the burden of the Cabbalah as to explaining the Sephiroth, that the most famous book on the Cabbalah is calledSohar, or“Light.”In this we find expressions of this kind:“The infinite was entirely unknown and diffused no light before the luminous point violently broke through into vision.”“When He first assumed the form (of the crown, or the first Sephira), He caused 9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a bright light in all directions:”—that is, these 9 with his one (which was the origin, as above, of the 9), together, made the 10, that is [Symbol: circle with vertical line through it], or [Symbol: circle with“x”inside], or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), orJod—and these numbers were“the Light.”Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhim, 31415 to one) was that Light (20612 to 6561) by which (Light) all things were made.72

In theSepher Yetzirah, or“Number of Creation,”the whole process of evolution is given out in numbers. In its“thirty-two Paths of Wisdom”the number 3 is repeated four times, and the number 4 five times. Therefore, the Wisdom of God is contained in numbers (Sephrim or Sephiroth), for Sepher (or S-ph-r when unvowelled) means“to cipher.”And therefore, also, we find Plato stating that the Deity“geometrizes”in fabricating the Universe.

The Kabalistic book, theSepher Yetzirah, opens with a statement of the hidden wisdom of Alhim in Sephrim,i.e., the Elohim in the Sephiroth.

In thirty and two paths, hidden wisdom, established Jah, IHVH, Tzabaoth, Elohi of Israel, Alhim of Life, El of Grace and Mercy—exalted uplifted Dweller on high, and King of Everlasting, and His name—Holy! in Three Sephrim, viz.:B—S'ph-r, V—S'ph-r, V—Siph-o-r.

B—S'ph-r, V—S'ph-r, V—Siph-o-r.

Mr. Ralston Skinner goes on to say:

This comment sets forth the“hidden wisdom”of the original text by hidden wisdom, that is, by the use of words carrying a special set of numbers and a special phraseology, which will set forth the very explanatory system which we find to fit so accurately in the Hebrew Bible.... In setting forth his scheme, to enforce it, and to finish out his detailed exposition in a general postulate,—viz., the one word“Sephrim”(Sephiroth), of the Number Jezirah, the author explains the separation of this word in the three subordinate ones, a play upon a common word,s-ph-r, or number.The prince Al-Chazari73says to the Rabbi:“I wish now that thou wouldest impart to me some of the chiefest or leading principles ofNatural Philosophy, which, as thou sayest, were in former times worked out by them (the ancient wise ones);”—to which the Rabbi makes answer:“To such principles appertains the Number of Creation of our race-father Abraham”that is Abram and Abraham, or numbers 41224 and 41252. He then says that this book of number treats of teaching the“Alhim-ness andOne-ness through (DBRIM)”viz., the numbers of the word“Words.”That is, it teaches the use of the ratio 31415 to One, through 41224, which last, in the description of the Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two parts by thetwotables of stone, on which these DBRIM, or 41224, were written or engraved—or 20612 × 2. He then comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of them to make the comment,“andAlhim(31415 to One) said let there be Light (20612 to 6561).”The words as given in the text are:ספר ספר סיפורand the Rabbi, in commenting upon them, says:“It teaches theAlhim-ness (31415) andOne-ness (the diameter to Alhim), through Words (DBRIM = 41224), by which on the one side there is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and on the other a final harmonic tendency toOne-ness”(which, as everyone knows, is the mathematical function ofpiof the schools, which measures, weighs, and numbers the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the final oneness of the Uni-verse)“through Words. Their final accord perfects itself in thatOne-ness that ordains them, and which consists inספר ספר ספור”that is, the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves thejod, ori, out of one of the words, whereas afterwards he restores it again. If we take the values of those subordinate[pg 044]words, we find them to be 340, 340 and 346;—together these are 1026, and the division of the general word into these has been to produce these numbers—which by T'mura may be changed in various ways, for various purposes.74

The prince Al-Chazari73says to the Rabbi:“I wish now that thou wouldest impart to me some of the chiefest or leading principles ofNatural Philosophy, which, as thou sayest, were in former times worked out by them (the ancient wise ones);”—to which the Rabbi makes answer:“To such principles appertains the Number of Creation of our race-father Abraham”that is Abram and Abraham, or numbers 41224 and 41252. He then says that this book of number treats of teaching the“Alhim-ness andOne-ness through (DBRIM)”viz., the numbers of the word“Words.”That is, it teaches the use of the ratio 31415 to One, through 41224, which last, in the description of the Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two parts by thetwotables of stone, on which these DBRIM, or 41224, were written or engraved—or 20612 × 2. He then comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of them to make the comment,“andAlhim(31415 to One) said let there be Light (20612 to 6561).”

The words as given in the text are:

ספר ספר סיפור

and the Rabbi, in commenting upon them, says:“It teaches theAlhim-ness (31415) andOne-ness (the diameter to Alhim), through Words (DBRIM = 41224), by which on the one side there is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and on the other a final harmonic tendency toOne-ness”(which, as everyone knows, is the mathematical function ofpiof the schools, which measures, weighs, and numbers the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the final oneness of the Uni-verse)“through Words. Their final accord perfects itself in thatOne-ness that ordains them, and which consists in

ספר ספר ספור”

that is, the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves thejod, ori, out of one of the words, whereas afterwards he restores it again. If we take the values of those subordinate[pg 044]words, we find them to be 340, 340 and 346;—together these are 1026, and the division of the general word into these has been to produce these numbers—which by T'mura may be changed in various ways, for various purposes.74

The reader is asked to turn to Stanza IV of Volume I, Shloka 3 and Commentary,75to find that the 3, 4, (7), and the thrice seven, or 1065, the number of Jehovah, is the number of the 21 Prajâpati mentioned in theMahâbhârata, or the three Sephrim (words in ciphers or figures). And this comparison between the Creative Powers of Archaic Philosophy and the anthropomorphic Creator ofexotericJudaism (since theEsotericismof the Jews shows its identity with the Secret Doctrine) will lead the student to perceive and discover that, in truth, Jehovah is but a“lunar”and“generation”God. It is a fact well known to every conscientious student of the Kabalah, that the deeper he dives into it, the more he feels convinced that unless the Kabalah—or what is left of it—is read by the light of the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy, its study leads only to the discovery that, on the lines traced by exoteric Judaism and Christianity, the monotheism of both is nothing more exalted than ancient Astrolatry, now vindicated by modern Astronomy. The Kabalists never cease to repeat that Primal Intelligence can never be understood. It cannot be comprehended, nor can it be located, therefore it has to remain nameless and negative. Hence the Ain Suph—the“Unknowable”and“Unnameable”—as It could not be made manifest, was imagined as emanating Manifesting Powers. It is then with its Emanations alone that human intellect has to, and can, deal. Christian theology, having rejected the doctrine of Emanations and replaced them with direct, conscious Creations of Angels and the rest out ofnothing, now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supernaturalism, or Miracle, and Materialism. Anextra-cosmic God is fatal to Philosophy: anintra-cosmic Deity—i.e., Spirit and Matter inseparable from each other—is a philosophical necessity. Separate them and that which is left is a gross superstition under a mask of emotionalism. But why“geometrize,”as Plato has it, why represent these Emanations under the form of an immense arithmetical table? The question is well answered by the author just cited, who says:

Mental perception, to become physical perception, must have the cosmic principle ofLight:—and, by this, our mental circle must become visible through light; or, for its complete manifestation, the circle must be that of physical visibility, or Light itself.[pg 045]Such conceptions, thus formulated, became the ground-work of the philosophy of the Divine manifesting in the universe.76

Such conceptions, thus formulated, became the ground-work of the philosophy of the Divine manifesting in the universe.76

This is Philosophy. It is otherwise when we find the Rabbi inAl-Chazarisaying that:

Under s'ph-r is to be understood—calculationandweighingof the created bodies. For thecalculation, by means of which a body must be constructed in harmony or symmetry, by which it must be in construction rightly arranged and made to correspond to the object in design, consists at last innumber,extension,mass,weight;—co-ordinate relation of movements, then harmony of music, must consist altogetherby number, that is s'ph-r.... By Sippor (s'phor) is to be understood the words of Alhim (206—1 of 31415 to one), whereunto joins or adapts itself the design to the frame or form of construction; for example—it was said“Let Light be.”The work became as thewordswere spoken, that is, as the numbers of the work came forth.77

This ismaterializingthespiritualwithout scruple. But the Kabalah was not always so well adapted to anthropo-monotheistic conceptions. Compare this with any of the six schools of India. For instance in Kapila's Sânkhya Philosophy, unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what he is; and the Spirit latent in Matter must be awakened to life and consciousness gradually. The Monad has to pass through its mineral, vegetable and animal forms, before the Light of the Logos is awakened in the animal man. Therefore, till then, the latter cannot be referred to as“man,”but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in ever-changing forms.Evolution, notCreation, by means ofWordsis recognized in the Philosophies of the East, even in their exoteric records.Ex oriente lux.Even the name of the first man in the MosaicBiblehad its origin in India, Professor Max Müller's negation notwithstanding. The Jews got their Adam from Chaldæa; and Adam-Adami is a compound word and therefore a manifold symbol, and proves the Occult dogmas.

This is no place for philological disquisitions. But the reader may be reminded that the wordsAdandAdimean in Sanskrit the“first”; in Aramæan,“one”(Ad-ad, the“only one”); in Assyrian,“Father,”whenceAk-ador“father-creator.”78And once the statement is found[pg 046]correct, it becomes rather difficult to confine Adam to the MosaicBiblealone, and to see therein simply a Jewish name.

There is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of the Gods in their Theogonies, the Alpha and the Omega of the records of that symbolical science, as given to the world by the half-initiated writers, Brâhmanical and Biblical. Yet there could be no such confusion made by the earliest nations, the descendants and pupils of the Divine Instructors; for both the attributes and the genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical symbols, the“Gods”being the life and animating“soul-principle”of the various regions of the Universe. Nowhere and by no people was speculation allowed to rangebeyondthosemanifestedGods. The boundless and infinite Unity remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man's thought, untouched by fruitless speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief conception of its diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical expansion, or dilatation, and contraction. In the Universe, with all its incalculable myriads of Systems and Worlds disappearing and reäppearing in eternity, the anthropomorphized Powers, or Gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with their Bodies. As ourCatechismsays:

“The Breath returning to the Eternal Bosom which exhales and inhales them.”

Ideal Nature, the Abstract Space in which everything in the Universe is mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of the procreative power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira, and the Sophia of the Gnostics, and Isis, the Virgin Mother of Horus. In every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the“Creative”Deity, there is a Superior Deity, a Planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher,overandaround,withinandwithout, there is the Unknowable and theUnknown, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations.

It thus becomes easy to account for the reason why Adam-Adami is found in the Chaldæan scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In AssyrianAdis the“father,”and in AramæanAdis“one,”andAd-adthe“only one,”whileAkis in Assyrian“creator.”Thus[pg 047]Ad-am-ak-ad-monbecame Adam-Kadmon in the Kabalah (Zohar), meaning as it did, the“One (Son) of the divine Father, or the Creator,”for the wordsamandommeant at one time in nearly every language thedivine, or thedeity. Thus Adam-Kadmon and Adam-Adami came to mean“The first Emanation of the Father-Mother or Divine Nature,”and literally the“first Divine One.”And it is easy to see thatAd-Argat (or Aster't, the Syrian Goddess, the consort ofAd-on, the Lord God of Syria or the Jewish Adonai), and Venus, Isis, Ister, Mylitta, Eve, etc., are identical with the Aditi and Vâch of the Hindûs. They are all the“Mothers of all living”and“of the Gods.”On the other hand—cosmically and astronomically—all the male Gods became at first“Sun-Gods,”then, theologically, the“Suns of Righteousness,”and the Logoi, all symbolized by the Sun.79They are all Protogonoi—First-born—and Mikroprosopoi. With the Jews Adam-Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz, or the Adonis of the Greeks—“the Onewith, andofhis Father”—the“Father”becoming during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Karneios,80for instance, who was the“Sun-born”; Osiris, Ormazd, and so on, were all followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into, still more earthly types: such as Prometheus, the crucified of Mount Kajbee, Hercules, and so many others, Sun-Gods and Heroes, until all of them came to have no better significance than phallic symbols.

In theZoharit is said:

Back to Index Next