Part 71 (2/2)

_i.e._, Stability and

Permanency of things.

?????: Malakoth: Dominion: Supremacy and absolute control of the Divine Will in all things, domain of the Ideal; then the realization of this Idea in forms.

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.

The human unity is made complete by the right and left. The primitive man was of both s.e.xes.

The Divinity, one in its essence, has two essential conditions as fundamental bases of its existence--Necessity and Liberty.

The laws of the Supreme Reason necessitate and regulate liberty in G.o.d, Who is necessarily reasonable and wise.

Knowledge supposes the binary. An object known is indispensable to the being that knows.

The binary is the generator of Society and the law. It is also the number of the _gnosis_, a word adopted in lieu of _Science_, and expressing only the idea of cognizance by intuition. It is Unity, multiplying itself by itself to create; and therefore it is that the Sacred Symbols make Eve issue from the very chest of Adam.

Adam is the human Tetragram, which is summed up in the mysterious Yod of the Kabalah, image of the Kabalistic Phallus. Add to this Yod [?], the ternary name of Eve, and you form the name of Jehova, the _Divine_ Tetragram, the transcendent Kabalistic and magical word:

Thus it is that Unity, complete in the fecundity of the Ternary, forms, with it, the Quaternary, which is the key of all numbers, movements, and forms.

The Square, turning upon itself, produces the circle equal to itself, and the circular movement of four equal angles turning around one point, is the quadrature of the circle.

The Binary serves as a measure for Unity; and the relation of equality between the Above and the Below, forms with them the Ternary.

To us, Creation is Mechanism: to the Ancients it was Generation. The world-producing egg figures in all cosmogonies; and modern science has discovered that all animal production is oviparous. From this idea of generation came the reverence everywhere paid the image of generative power, which formed the Stauros of the Gnostics, and the philosophical Cross of the Masons.

_Aleph_ is the man; _Beth_ is the woman. _One_ is the Principle; _two_ is the Word. A. is the Active; B. is the Pa.s.sive. Unity is Boaz, and the Binary is Jachin.

The two columns, Boaz and Jachin, explain in the Kabalah all the mysteries of natural, political, and religious antagonism.

Woman is man's creation; and universal creation is the female of the First Principle. When the Principle of Existence made Himself Creator, He produced by emanation an ideal Yod; and to make room for it in the plenitude of the uncreated Light, He had to hollow out a pit of shadow, equal to the dimension determined by His creative desire; and attributed by Him to the ideal Yod of radiating Light.

The nature of the Active Principle is to diffuse: of the Pa.s.sive Principle, to collect and make fruitful.

Creation is the habitation of the Creator-Word. To create, the Generative Power and Productive Capacity must unite, the Binary become Unity again by the conjunction. The WORD is the First-BEGOTTEN, not the first _created_ Son of G.o.d.

SANCTA SANCTIS, we repeat again; the Holy things to the Holy, and to him who is so, the mysteries of the Kabalah will be holy. Seek and ye shall find, say the Scriptures: knock and it shall be opened unto you. If you desire to find and to gain admission to the Sanctuary, we have said enough to show you the way. If you do not, it is useless for us to say more, as it has been useless to say so much.

The Hermetic philosophers also drew their doctrines from the Kabalah; and more particularly from the Treatise _Beth Alohim_ or _Domus Dei_, known as the _Pneumatica Kabalistica_, of Rabbi Abraham Cohen Irira, and the Treatise _De Revolutionibus Animarum_ of Rabbi Jitz-chak Lorja.

This philosophy was concealed by the Alchemists under their Symbols, and in the jargon of a rude Chemistry,--a jargon incomprehensible and absurd except to the Initiates; but the key to which is within your reach; and the philosophy, it may be, worth studying. The labors of the human intellect are always interesting and instructive.

To be always rich, always young, and never to die: such has been in all times the dream of the Alchemists.

To change into gold, lead, mercury, and all the other metals; to possess the universal medicine and elixir of life; such is the problem to be resolved, in order to accomplish this desire and realize this dream.

Like all the Mysteries of Magism, the Secrets of ”the Great Work” have a threefold signification; they are religious, philosophical, and natural.

The philosophal gold, in religion, is the Absolute and Supreme Reason: in philosophy, it is the Truth; in visible nature, the Sun; in the subterranean and mineral world, the most perfect and pure gold.

It is for this that the pursuit of the Great Work is called the Search for the Absolute; and the work itself, the work of the Sun.

All the masters of the Science admit that it is impossible to attain the material results, unless there are found in the two higher Degrees all the a.n.a.logies of the universal medicine and of the philosophal stone.

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