Part 68 (2/2)

The Kabalah alone consecrates the alliance of the Universal Reason and the Divine Word; it establishes, by the counterpoises of two forces apparently opposite, the eternal balance of being; it alone reconciles Reason with Faith, Power with Liberty, Science with Mystery; it has the keys of the Present, the Past, and the Future.

The Bible, with all the allegories it contains, expresses, in an incomplete and veiled manner only, the religious science of the Hebrews.

The doctrine of Moses and the Prophets, identical at bottom with that of the ancient Egyptians, also had its outward meaning and its veils. The Hebrew books were written only to recall to memory the traditions; and they were written in Symbols unintelligible to the Profane. The Pentateuch and the prophetic poems were merely elementary books of doctrine, morals, or liturgy; and the true secret and traditional philosophy was only written afterward, under veils still less transparent. Thus was a second Bible born, unknown to, or rather uncomprehended by, the Christians; a collection, _they_ say, of monstrous absurdities; a monument, the adept says, wherein is everything that the genius of philosophy and that of religion have ever formed or imagined of the sublime; a treasure surrounded by thorns; a diamond concealed in a rough dark stone.

One is filled with admiration, on penetrating into the Sanctuary of the Kabalah, at seeing a doctrine so logical, so simple, and at the same time so absolute. The necessary union of ideas and signs, the consecration of the most fundamental realities by the primitive characters; the Trinity of Words, Letters, and Numbers; a philosophy simple as the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Word; theorems more complete and luminous than those of Pythagoras; a theology summed up by counting on one's fingers; an Infinite which can be held in the hollow of an infant's hand; ten ciphers, and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a circle,--these are all the elements of the Kabalah. These are the elementary principles of the written Word, reflection of that spoken Word that created the world!

This is the doctrine of the Kabalah, with which you will no doubt seek to make yourself acquainted, as to the Creation.

The Absolute Deity, with the Kabalists, has no name. The terms applied to Him are ??? ???, AOR PASOT, the Most Simple [or Pure] Light, ”called ??? ???, AYEN SOPI, or INFINITE, before any Emanation. For then there was no s.p.a.ce or vacant place, but all was infinite Light.”

Before the Deity created any Ideal, any limited and intelligible Nature, or any form whatever, He was alone, and without form or similitude, and there could be no cognition or comprehension of Him in any wise. He was without Idea or Figure, and it is forbidden to form any Idea or Figure of Him, neither by the letter He (?), nor by the letter Yod (?), though these are contained in the Holy Name; nor by any other letter or point in the world.

But after He created this Idea [this limited and existing-in-intellection Nature, which the ten Numerations, SEPHIROTH or Rays are], of the Medium, the First Man ADAM KADMON, He descended therein, that, by means of this Idea, He might be called by the name TETRAGRAMMATON; that created things might have cognition of Him, in His own likeness.

When the Infinite G.o.d willed to emit what were to flow forth, He contracted Himself in the centre of His light, in such manner that most intense light should recede to a certain circ.u.mference, and on all sides upon itself. And this is the first contraction, and termed ????, _Tsemsum_.

??? ?????, ADAM KADMON, the Primal or First Man, is the first Aziluthic emanant from the Infinite Light, immitted into the evacuated s.p.a.ce, and from which, afterward, all the other degrees and systems had their beginnings. It is called the Adam prior to all the first. In it are imparted ten spherical numerations; and thereafter issued forth the rectilinear figure of a man in his sephirothic decade, as it were the diameter of the said circles; as it were the axis of these spheres, reaching from their highest point to their lowest; and from it depend all the systems.

But now, as the Infinite Light would be too excellent and great to be borne and endured, except through the medium of this Adam Kadmon, its most Secret Nature preventing this, its illuminating light had again to emanate in streams out of itself, by certain apertures, as it were, like windows, and which are termed the ears, eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

The light proceeding from this Adam Kadmon is indeed but one; but in proportion to its remoteness from the place of out-flowing, and to the grades of its descent, it is more dense.

From the word ???, ATSIL, to emanate or flow forth, comes the word ??????, ATSILOTH or Aziluth, Emanation, or the System of Emanants. When the primal s.p.a.ce was evacuated, the surrounding Light of the Infinite, and the Light immitted into the void, did not touch each other; but the Light of the Infinite flowed into that void through a line or certain slender ca.n.a.l; and that Light is the Emanative and emitting Principle, or the out-flow and origin of Emanation: but the Light within the void is the emanant subordinate; and the two cohere only by means of the aforesaid line.

Aziluth means specifically and princ.i.p.ally the first system of the four Olamoth [?????], worlds or systems; which is thence called the Aziluthic World.

The ten Sephiroth of the general Aziluthic system are ten Nekudoth or Points.

?????, AINSOPH, AENSOPH, or AYENSOPH, is the t.i.tle of the Cause of Causes, its meaning being ”_endless_” because there is no limit to Its loftiness, and nothing can comprehend it. Sometimes, also, the name is applied to KETHER, or the CROWN, the first emanation, because that is the Throne of the Infinite, that is, its first and highest Seat, than which none is higher, and because Ainsoph resides and is concealed therein: hence it rejoices in the same name.

Before that anything was, says the _Emech Hammelech_, He, of His mere will, proposed to Himself to make worlds ... but at that time there was no vacant s.p.a.ce for worlds; but all s.p.a.ce was filled with the light of His Substance, which He had with fixed limits placed in the centre of Himself, and of the parts whereof, and wherein, He was thereafter to effect a folding together.

What then did the Lord of the Will, that most perfectly free Agent, do?

By His own estimation, He measured off within His own Substance the width and length of a circular s.p.a.ce to be made vacant, and wherein might be posited the worlds aforesaid; and of that Light which was included within the circle so measured, He compressed and folded over a certain portion ... and that Light He lifted higher up, and so a place was left unoccupied by the Primal Light.

But yet was not this s.p.a.ce left altogether empty of that Light; for the vestiges of the Primal Light still remained in the place where Itself had been; and they did not recede therefrom.

Before the Emanations out-flowed, and created things were created, the Supreme Light was infinitely extended, and filled the whole _Where_: nothing _was_, except that extended light, called AOR H' AINSOPH, the Light of the non-finite.

When it came into the mind of the Extended to will to make worlds, and by forth-flowing to utter Emanations, and to emit as Light the perfection of His active powers, and of His aspects and attributes, which was the impelling cause of the creation of worlds; then that Light, in some measure compressed, receded in every direction from a particular central point, and on all sides of it drew back, and so a certain vacuum was left, called void s.p.a.ce, its circ.u.mference everywhere equidistant from that point which was exactly in the centre of the s.p.a.ce ... a certain void place and s.p.a.ce left in Mid-Infinite: a certain _Where_ was thereby const.i.tuted wherein Emanations might BE, and the Created, the Fas.h.i.+oned and the Fabricated.

This world of the _garmenting_,--this circular vacant s.p.a.ce, with the vestiges of the withdrawn light of the Infinite yet remaining, is the inmost garment, nearest to His substance; and to it belongs the name AOR PENAI-AL, _Light of the Countenance of G.o.d_.

An inters.p.a.ce surrounds this great circle, established _between_ the light of the _very_ substance, surrounding the circle on its outside, and the substance contained _within_ the circle. This is called SPLENDOR EXCELSES, in contradistinction to Simple Splendor.

This light ”of the vestige of the garment,” is said to be, relatively to that of the vestige of the substance, like a point in the centre of a circle. This light, a point in the centre of the Great Light, is called Auir, Ether, or s.p.a.ce.

This Ether is somewhat more gross than the Light--not so Subtle--_though not perceptible by the Senses_--is termed the Primal Ether--extends everywhere; Philosophers call it _the Soul of the World._

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