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"The great doctrines of the Theoretical Kabalah," says Ginsburg, "are
mainly designed to solve the problems of (a) the nature of the Supreme
Being, (b) the creation of the Universe and of our world, (c)
the creation of angels and man, (d) the destiny of the world and of
men, and (e) the import of the revealed law."
The Kabalah confirms the following Old Testament declarations: the Unity of
God, His incorporeal form (Deut. chap. iv., v. 15.); eternity, immutability,
perfection and goodness; the origin of the world at God's will, the government
of the Universe, and the creation of man after the image of God. It seeks to
explain by Emanations the transition from the Infinite to the finite, the multitude
of forms from a unity; the production of matter from spiritual intelligence;
and the relations existing between Creator and creature. In this theosophy,--ex
nihil nihilo fit; spirit and matter are the opposite poles of one existence:
and as nothing comes from nothing, so nothing is annihilated.
The following seven Kabalistic ideals are of the greatest interest to students
of the origin and destiny of the world and mankind.
(1) That God, the Holy One, the Supreme Incomprehensible One, the AIN SUPh,
the Greek apeiros, (Zohar iii. 283) was not the direct Creator
of the World; but that all things have proceeded from the Primordial Source
in successive Emanations, each one less excellent than the preceding, so that
the universe is ‘God Manifested,’ and the last and remotest production
is matter, a privation of perfection.
(2) That all we perceive or know of, is formed on the Sephirotic type.
(3) That human souls were pre-existent in an upper world before the origin
of this present world.
(4) That human souls before incarnation dwell now in an Upper Hall, or Treasury
where the decision is made as to what earth body each soul or ego shall enter.
(5) That every soul after earth life or lives must at length be so purified
as to be re-absorbed into the Infinite God.
(6) That one human life is seldom sufficient; that two earth lives are necessary
for almost all to pass; and that if failure result in the second life, a third
life is passed linked with a stronger soul who draws the sinner upward into
purity: this is a form of the scheme of Re-incarnation, Transmigration of souls,
or Metempsychosis.
(7) That when all the pre-existent Souls who have been incarnated here have
arrived at perfection, the Evil Angels are also to be raised, and all lives
will be merged into The Deity by the Kiss of Love from the Mouth of the Holy
One, and the Manifested Universe shall be no more, until again vivified by
the Divine FIAT.
It has been suggested by some learned authors that these Kabalistic ideas resemble
those of the Alexandrian philosophy and of the Gnostics, embodying notions
derived from the Pythagoreans, the Platonists and from Indian Brahmanism and
Buddhism.
Let us more fully consider the conceptions of the Divinity. Isaac Myer writes
:--God may be regarded from four points of view; as the Eternal One, or AIN
SUP, Ain Suph; as AHIH, Aheie, I am; as IHVH, Who was, is and will be; and
as ALHIM, Elohim, God in Nature, called Adonai or Lord.
In the English Old Testament the word IHVH is translated Lord, and Elohim by
God: Boutell calls Jah a contraction of Jehovah.
The Jehovah of the Old Testament,--as a tribal Deity of personal characteristics,
demonstrating His power and glory to a chosen people; oppressing other nations
to do them service, and choosing as His special envoys and representatives
men whom our civilisation would have condemned as not high enough for Spiritual
power, is not represented in the Hebrew Secret Doctrine.
The Kabalah, indeed, is full of Jehovah, IHVH, the Divine Four-Lettered Name,
the Tetragrammaton, but it is as the Name of a group of Divine Conceptions,
of Emanations from a central Spiritual Light whose presence alone is postulated;
from Absolute God there is a series of Emanations extending downward to reach
Jehovah, Who is the Divine One of Binah, the Supernal Mother; other stages
of Emanation lead to The Elohim, the group of Holy Spiritual attributes, associated
with the Sixth Sephira, the Sun of Tiphareth.
After another manner, Jehovah is the group of the Emanations from the Deific
source, called the Ten Sephiroth, "The Voices from Heaven." These
Ten Sephiroth, of which the First is a condensation of the Supernal Glory from
the Ain Suph Aour, the Boundless Light, appear as a Rainbow of the Divinity
in a First World, or highest plane above human conception, that of Atziluth;
by successive reflections, diminishing in brightness, a plane is reached which
is conceivable by man, as of the purity of his highest spiritual vision. The
grouping of the Ten Divine Qualities, upon this plane, into a Divine Tetrad,
is symbolised by Yod Heh Vau Heh, the Tetragrammaton, the Kabalistic Jehovah,
not the Yahveh of the exoteric books, but the original of that God, whose reflections
of a nation's patron is formulated in the Old Testament: it is "The Ineffable
Name," never pronounced, its true sound is lost, and the Jew replaces
it by Adonai, ADNI; it is unpronounceable because its real vowels are unknown;
it ceased to be spoken before the vowel points were introduced. (Note;--there
are no extant Hebrew works with vowel points earlier than the tenth century.--A.
E. WAITE.)
We find that the Kabalah contemplates a period when Chaos existed, a period
of repose and absence of manifestation, when the Negative reigned supreme:
this is the Pralaya of the Hindoos. From passivity there proceeded action by
Emanations, and Manifested Deity arose. From Ain, repose, the Negative, proceeded
Ain Suph, the No-Bound, the Limitless, the Omnipresence of the Unknowable;
still condensing into manifestation through Emanation, there appears the Ain
Suph Aur, "The Boundless Light," which coalescing on a point appears
as Kether, the Crown of Manifestation. Thence follow the Sephiroth, the Holy
Voices, upon the Highest World; they concentrate into a divine conception,
a stage of Spiritual existence which man attempts to grasp, and by defining,
to limit, bound and describe, and so creates for his worship a Divine personality,
his God; and the Jew named Him, --Jehovah.
By gradual stages of development, each farther from the source, there arise
the powers and forces which have received the names of Archangels, Angels,
Planetary Spirits, and the guardians of man; still farther from God, we obtain
the human Souls, which are as Sparks of Light, struck off from the insupportable
Light of Divinity, which have been formulated into Egoity to pass through a
long series of changes and experiences by which they make the circuit of a
Universe; they endure every stage of existence, of separation from the Divine
fountain, to be at last once more indrawn to the Godhead, The Father, whence
they emerged upon a pilgrimage; they follow a regular succession of evolution
and involution, even as the Divine passes ever along in successive periods
of outbreathing and inbreathing, of Manifestation and of Repose.
Of Divine Repose, or Chaos, the human intellect can form no conception, and
only the highly spiritual man can conceive any of the sublime and exalted stages
of Manifestation. To the worldly man such notions are but dreams, and any attempt
to formulate them leads only to suspicions of one's sanity. To the metaphysician
these ideals supply a theme of intense interest; to the theosophist they supply
an illustration drawn from a foreign source of the Spiritual traditions of
a long-past age, which lead one to accept the suggestion that these Spiritual
conceptions are supplied from time to time by a Great Mind of another stage
of existence from our own. Perhaps they are remnants of the faiths and wisdom
of a long-vanished era, which had seen the life-history of races more spiritual
than our own and more open to converse with the Holy Ones of higher Spiritual
planes. Spiritual wisdom can only be attained by the man, or earthly being
who becomes able to reach up to the sphere above; a Spiritual Being above us
cannot reach down and help those who do not so purify themselves that they
may be fit to rise up to the higher planes of existence.
The chief difficulty of the beginner as a student of the Kabalah, is to conquer
the impressions of the reality and materiality of so-called matter.
The Kabalah teaches that one must entirely relinquish the apparent knowledge
of matter as an entity apart from Spirit. The assertion that matter exists,
and is an entity entirely different from Spirit, and that Spirit--the God of
Spirits--created it, must be denied, and the notion must be torn out by the
roots before progress can be made. If matter exists, it is something, and must
have come from something; but Spirit is not a thing, and creative Spirit, the
highest Spiritual conception, could not make matter, the lowest thing, out
of nothing: hence it is not made, and hence there is no matter. All is Spirit
and conception. Ex nihilo nihil fit. All that does exist can only
have come from Spirit, from Divine Essence. That Being should arise from non-being
is impossible. That matter should create itself is absurd; matter cannot proceed
from Spirit; the two words mean that the two ideas are entirely apart; then
matter cannot exist. Hence it follows that what we call matter is but an aspect,
a conception, an illusion, a mode of motion, a delusion of our physical senses.
Apart from the Kabalah, the same truth has been recognised by a few exceptional
Christians and Philosophers. What is commonly known as the "Ideal Theory" was
promulgated 140 years ago by Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland; it is nearly
identical with the Kabalistic doctrine of all things being but Emanations from
a Divine source, and matter but an aspect. Other philosophers have discussed
the same theory in the controversy of Nominalism versus Realism: does
anything exist except in name? Is there any substratum below the name of anything?
Need we postulate any such basis? All is Spirit,--says the Kabalah,--and this
is eternal, uncreated; intellectual and sentient on our plane; inhering are
life and motion; It is self-existing, with succesive waves of action and passivity.
This Spirit is the true Deity, or Infinite Being, the "Ain Suph," the
Cause of all causes, and of all effects. All emanates from "That," and
is in "That." The Universe is an immanent offspring of the Divine,
which is manifested in a million forms of differentiation. The Universe is
yet distinct from God, even as an effect is distinct from a cause; yet it is
not apart from Deity, it is not a transient effect, it is immanent in the Cause.
It is God made manifest to Man. Matter is our conception alone; it represents
the aspect of the lowest manifestation of Spirit, or Spirit is the highest
manifestation of matter. Spirit is the only substance. "Matter," says
a Kabalist, "is the mere residuum of emanation, but little above non-entity." The
Hindoo philosopher called matter a Maya, a delusion.
As already remarked the Supreme Being of the Kabalah is found to be demonstrated
in more than one aspect. At one time the Inconceivable Eternal Power proceeding
by successive Emanations into a more and more humanly conceivable existence,
formulating His attributes into conceptions of Wisdom, Beauty, Power, Mercy
and Governance; exhibiting these attributes first in a supernal universality
beyond the ken of all spirits, angels and men, the First Word of Atziluth;
then formulating a reflection of the same exalted essences on the plane of
the Pure Spirits also inconceivable to man, the Second Word of Briah. Again
is the reflection repeated, and the Divine Essence in its group of exalted
attributes is cognisable to the Angelic Powers, the Third or Yetziratic World;
and then finally the Divine abstractions of the Sacred Ten Sephiroth are by
a last Emanation still more restricted and condensed than the latter, and are
rendered conceivable by the Human intellect; for man exists in the Fourth World
of Assiah in the shadow of the Tenth Sephira--the Malkuth, or Kingdom of the
World of Shells or material objects. Small wonder then at the slightness of
the ideal man can form of the Divine.
At other times we find the metaphysical abstract laid aside, and all the wealth
of Oriental imagery lavished on the description of God; imagery although grouped
and clustered around the emblem of an exalted humanity, yet so inflated, so
extravagantly magnified, that the Heavenly man is lost sight of in the grandeur
and tenuity of the word painting of the Divine portrait. Divine anthropomorphism
it may be, but an anthropomorphism so tenuous by means of its grandeur, that
the human elements affording the bases of the analogy quite disappear in the
Heavenly Man of their divine reveries.
Permit me to afford to you an example of one sublime, deific dream:--
"In this conformation He is known; He is the Eternal of the Eternal ones;
the Ancient of the Ancient ones; the Concealed of the Concealed ones; in His
symbols He is knowable although He is unknowable. White are His garments, and
His appearance is as a Face, vast and terrible in its vastness. Upon a throne
of flaming brilliance is He seated, so that he may direct its flashing Rays.
Into many thousand worlds the brightness of His face is extended, and from
the Light of this brightness the just shall receive worlds of joy and reward
in the existence to come. Within His skull exist daily a thousand myriads of
worlds; all draw their existence from Him, and by Him are upheld. From that
Head distilleth a Dew, and from that Dew which floweth down upon the worlds,
are the dead raised up in the lives and on the worlds to come."
The God of the Kabalah is "Infinite Existence": He cannot be defined
as the "Assemblage of Lives," nor is he truly the "totality
of his attributes." Yet without deeming all lives to be of Him, and His
attributes to be universal, He cannot be known by man. He existed before He
caused the Emanations of H is essence to be demonstrated, He was before all
that exists is, before all lives on our plane, or the plane above, or the World
of pure Spirits, or the Inconceivable existence; but then He resembled nothing
we can conceive, and was Ain Suph, and in the highest abstraction Ain,
alone, Negative Existence. Yet before the manifest became demonstrated, all
existence was in him; the Known pre-existed in the Unknown, Who is
the "Ancient of Days."
But it is not this dream-like aspect of poetic phantasy exhibited in the Kabalah
that I can further bring to your notice. Let us return to the Philosophic view
of the attributes of Deity, which is the keynote of the whole of the doctrine.
The primary human conception of God is then the Passive state of Negative Existence
AIN--not active; from this the mind of man passes to conceive of AIN SUPh,
of God as the Boundless, the Unlimited, Undifferentiated, Illimitable One;
and the third stage is AIN SUPh AUR--Boundless Light, Universal Light--"Let
there be Light" was formulated, and "There was Light." The Passive
has put on Activity; the Conscious God has awaked. Let us now endeavour to
conceive of the concentration of this effulgence, let us formulate a gathering
together of the rays of this illumination into a Crown of glorified radiance,
and we recognise KTR, Kether, the Crown, the First Sephira, First Emanation
of Incomprehensible Deity, the first conceivable attribute of immanent manifested
Godhead: also named ADM OILAH, Adam Oilah, The Heavenly Man, and Autik Yomin,
The Ancient of days. The devout Rabbi bows his head and adores the sublime
conception. He is represented in the Hebrew Old Testament by the Divine Name
AHIH, Aheieh, "I am " (Exodus iii. v. 4).
The conscious God having arisen in His energy, there follow immediately two
further Emanations, the Trio shining in the symbol of a radiant triangle. ChKMH,
Chokmah, Wisdom, The King, with the Divine Name IH, Jah is the Second Sephira;
BINH, Binah, Understanding, The Queen, and the Divine Name IHVH Jehovah is
the Third Sephira,--the Supernal Triad" is demonstrated.
Then follow GDULH, Gedulah, also called CHSD, Chesed, Mercy, with the Divine
Name AL, El; and its contrast GBURH, Geburah, Severity, also called Pachad,
Fear, with the Divine Name ALH, Eloah; and the reflected triangle is completed
by the Sixth Sephira, the Sun, named TPART, Tiphareth, or Beauty, with the
name ALHIM Elohim; considered as a triangle of reflection with the apex below.
The third triangle may be considered as a second reflection with the apex below;
it is formed of the seventh, eighth, and ninth Sephiroth; NTzCh, Netzach, Firmness
or Victory, with the name Jehovah Sabaoth; HUD, Hod or Hud, Splendour, with
the name Elohim Sabaoth; and ISUD, Yesod, Foundation, with the name AL ChAI,
El Chai.
Finally, all these ideals are resumed in a single form, the Tenth Sephira,
MLKUT, Malkuth, the Shekinah, the Kingdom, also sometimes called Tzedek, Righteousness.
The whole Decad form "Adam Kadmon," "The Archetypal Man," and
the wondrous OTz ChIIM, "Tree of Life." In the ancient figures of
Adam Kadmon we see Kether, the Crown, over the forehead; Chokmah and Binah
are the two halves of the thinking brain; Gedulah and Geburah are the organs
of action, the right and left upper limbs; Tiphareth is the heart and the vital
organs of the chest; Netzach and Hud are the lower limbs right and left; Jesod
refers to the digestive and reproductive organs and abdomen; and lastly Malkuth
is compared to the feet as a basis or foundation of man upon this earth or
lowest plane: see the plate of The Adam Kadmon, Archetypal Man, or The First
Adam.
These Triads were looked upon as formed of a Principle of Union and a male
and female potency, and thus a Balance, MTQLA, Methequela, exists.
Almost as old as the Kabalistic doctrine of the Sephiroth, the Intelligences,
or Emanations, are the peculiar forms in which they were represented in diagrams
which resume all Kabalistic ideas, and are emblems of these views on every
subject. Every Deific conception can be thus demonstrated, and also the constitution
of the Angelic Hosts, the principles of Man's Nature, the group of Planetary
Bodies, the Metallic elements, the Zigzag flash of the Lightning and the composition
of the sacred Tetragrammaton, the Mystical Jehovah, IHVH, Yod, Heh, Vau, Heh,
numbering 26. See Plates I., II., III., IV., V., and VI. This Decad of Deific
Emanations is to be conceived as first formulated on the Divine First plane
of Atziluth, which is entirely beyond our ken; to be reproduced on the Second
plane of pure Spirit, Briah; to exist in the same Decad form in the world of
Yetzirah, the Third or Formative plane; and finally to be sufficiently condensed
as to be cognizable by the human intellect on the Fourth plane of Assiah, on
which we seem to exist. From our point of view we may regard the "Tree
of Life" as a type of many divine processes and forms of manifestation,
but these are symbols we use to classify our ideals, and we must not debase
the divine Emanations by asserting these views of the Sephiroth are real, but
only as conceivable by humanity.
For example, the Kabalah demonstrates the grouping of the Ten Sephiroth into
Three Pillars; the Pillar of Mercy, the Pillar of Severity, and the Pillar
of Mildness between them: these may also be associated with the Three Mother
Letters, A, M, Sh; Aleph, Mem and Shin. Then again by two horizontal lines
we may form three groups and consider these Sephiroth to become types of the
Three divisions of Man's Nature, the Intellectual, Moral, and Sensuous (neglecting
Malkuth, the material body), thus connecting the Kabalah with Mental and Moral
Philosophy and Ethics. By three lines again we consider the Sephiroth to be
divisible into Four Planes., upon each of which I have already said you must
conceive the whole Ten Sephiroth to be immanent. By a series of Six lines we
group them into Seven planes referable to the worlds of the Seven Planetary
powers, thus connecting the Kabalah with Astrology. (W. Gorn Old has recently
published a volume called "Kabalistic Astrology.")
To each Sephira were allotted in Briah an especial Archangel, and in Yetzirah
an army of Angels; these connect the Kabalah with Talismanic Magic. There is
also a close relation between the old Kabalistic theology and Alchymy; each
Sephira of Assiah becomes the allegoric emblem of one of the metals: and there
is a special Rabbinic volume named "Asch Metzareph" entirely concerned
with Alchymy; its name in English meaning is "Cleansing Fires." (My
English translation can be obtained.) A. E. Waite in his work on the Kabalah
states that Rabbi Azariel ben Menachem in his "Commentary on the Sephiroth" allots
a particular colour to each one, but these do not agree with the colours given
in the Zohar, where we find Kether called colourless, Tiphareth purple, and
Malkuth sapphire-blue.
These Ten Sephiroth are thought of as being connected together by "Paths," Twenty-two
in number, shown on the Diagram; they are numbered by means of the letters
of the Hebrew Alphabet, each of which being equally a letter and a number.
The 22 Trumps of the pack of Tarot cards (Tarocchi) are also related to these
Paths. The 22 Paths, added to the 10 Sephiroth form the famous "Thirty-two
Ways" by which Wisdom descends by successive stages upon Man, and may
enable him to mount to the Source of Wisdom by passing successively upward
through these 32 Paths. This process of mental Abstraction was the Rabbinic
form of what the Hindoo knows as Yoga, or the Union of the human with the Divine,
by contemplation and absorption of the mind in a mystical reverie.
Frequently quoted Kabalistic words are: Arikh Anpin, Makroprosopos, the Vast
Countenance which is a title of Kether the Crown, Deity Supreme; Zauir Anpin,
Mikroprosopos, the Lesser Countenance is the Central Sun, Tiphereth, a conception
that has something in common with that of the Christian Christ, the Son of
God. (The former was represented by a face in profile, the latter by the full
face. M. Mathers). Binah is the Supernal Mother, Aima. Malkuth is the Inferior
Mother, the Bride of the Mikroprosopos. Daath or Knowledge is the union of
Chokmah and Binah, of wisdom and understanding. Merkabah was the Chariot Throne
of God of the vision of Ezekiel mentioned in his chapters i. and x.; it rested
on wheels and was carried by Four Cherubim, the Sacred Animal Forms, which
resembled the Man, Lion, Bull and Eagle, which were related to the Four quarters
of the World, and to Four types of humanity.
The Four Letters Yod, Hè, Vau, Hè, or as we say IHVH, of the
name we call Jehovah, are allotted and distributed by the Kabalistic doctrine
among the Sephiroth in a peculiar manner, forming the mysterious conception
of the Tetragrammaton, that awful name of Divine Majesty which might never
be uttered by the common people, and whose true pronunciation has been for
many centuries confessedly lost to the Jews and has never been known to the
Christians. (See diagram.)
The views of the Kabalists on Cosmogony are not easy to explain, but as before
said the Supreme Boundless God, the "Ain Suph" was not the direct
Creator of the World, nor was the world made out of nothing.
The highest Trinity of "The Crown, King and Queen" having arisen
by Divine Emanation, its powers descended and expanded into the Seven Lower
Sephiroth, and produced the Universe in their own image, a decad of forces,
as a whole constituting the ADM QDMUN Adam Quadmun, or Adam Kadmon, the Primordial
or Archetypal Man; the world produced is the existing Universe of which we
have cognizance. The universe is called the "Garment of God": this
lower world is a copy of the Divine World, everything here has its prototype
above. (Zohar ii. 20.)
Some Kabalistic treatises speak of earlier worlds created before the conjunction
of the Divine King and Queen; these perished in the void; these lost worlds
are referred to in Genesis 36, v. 31-40, as "The Kings of Edom who reigned
before Israel," they are said to have perished one after the other; these
worlds were convulsed and were no more known.
Having considered the Divine Emanations, and the origin of the Universe, I
must refer to the spiritual beings of the Four Worlds. In the First purest
and highest World of Atziluth there dwell only the Primary Ten Sephiroth of
the Adam Oilah or Archetype, perfect and immutable.
In the Second World of Briah reside the Archangels headed by "Metatron" related
to Kether, in solemn grandeur; He is the garment of Al Shaddai, the
visible manifestation of God; the Number of both is 314 (Zohar iii. 231a).
The word Metatron meant "The Great Teacher." It has a curious resemblance
to the Greek words met thronon, beside or beneath the throne of God;
but this derivation is fanciful. He rules the other Archangels of the Universe,
who govern in their courses all the heavenly bodies, and the evolutions of
the dwellers on them: He is, according to the Kabalists, the efficient God
of our Earth,--the Greek Demiourgos. The other Arch-Angels are according to
Macgregor Mathers, Ratziel, Tzaphkiel, Tzadquiel, Kamael, Michael, Haniel,
Raphael, Gabriel, and Sandalphon.
In the Third World of Yetzirah are the Ten hosts of Angelic beings, a separate
class for each Sephira; they are intelligent incorporeal beings, clothed in
a garment of light, and are set over the several heavenly bodies, the planets,
over the elemental forces, and over seasons, times, etc.; they are the officers
of the great Arch-Angels. The Hosts of Angels of the Sephiroth are Chaioth
ha kodesh, Auphanim, Arelim, Chashmalim, Seraphim, Melakim, Elohim, Beni Elohim,
Cherubim, and tenthly the Ishim who are the Beatified Souls of men and women.
The Fourth World of Assiah is filled with the lowest beings, the Evil Demons,
Kliphoth or Qliphoth, the cortices or shells, and with all so-called
material objects, and to this world belong men, the Egos or Souls imprisoned
in earthly human bodies. This world also has its ten grades, each one more
far from the higher forces and forms, each one more dark and impure. First
come THU, Tohu, the Formless; and BHU, Bohu, the Void, thirdly ChShK, the Darkness,
of the early universe, and from these our world was developed and now exists;
then come seven hells, whose dwellers are evil beings representing all human
sins; their rulers are Samael or Satan the angel of death, and Lilith, the
Asheth Zenunim, the Woman of whoredom, and this pair of demons are also called "The
Beast," see Zohar ii. 255; Samael had also an incommunicable name, which
was IHVH reversed; for Demon est Deus inversus.
The whole universe only became complete with the creation of Man, called the
Microcosm, the Earthly Adam; a copy of "The Archetypal Man" after
another manner; he has principles and faculties and forms comparable to all
the Sephiroth and Worlds, although his material body dwells on the Assiatic
plane.
From God, the Angels and the World, let us pass to consider more fully what
the Kabalah teaches about Man, the human Soul or Ego.
It has already been explained that the Doctrine of Emanation postulates successive
stages of the manifestation of the Supreme Spirit, which may be regarded as
existing on separate planes. Now the Ten Sephiroth condense their energy into
a formulated Four-parted group of Three Spiritual planes, and a plane of so-called
Objectivity, or of Matter. These Ten Sephiroth, and the planes, each contribute
an essence which in their totality, in ever-varying proportion, constitutes
Man. At his origin there was formulated what the scientists might call "Archetypal
Man," and what the Kabalists named Adam Kadmon, ADM QDMUN. Primeval Man,
the Greek protogonos. Successive stages of beings of this type pass
along the ages through a descending scale, offering the individual every variety
of experience, and then along an ascending scale of re-development until human
perfection is attained, and ultimate reunion with the Divine is the result
of the purified Soul having completed its pilgrimage.
Before we consider Man in his present state we must note the views of the Kabalah
upon Man in his primal state.
Man was the final Word of Creation, he was a rèsumè of
all forms, and so transcended the angels in his faculties. The first man had
no fleshy body, no material envelope: Adam and Eve were clothed only in ethereal
forms, and were not subject to appetites or passions, they dwelled in Light
in the GN OiDN, Garden of Aidin, of Eden, of pleasant peace (Zohar ii. 229b).
The man and the woman before their descent to this world were as one,--androgynous;
at incarnation they were separated into sexes. The first human pair broke the
first commandment, they sinned and were doomed to a complete descent into matter;
the Lord God made them "coats of skin," He gave them material bodies,
and with these came the need of food, and the passions required to bring forth
a succession of earthly bodies.
Yet man is still the copy of God on earth; his form is related to the Tetragrammaton
of Jehovah IHVH, for in a diagram, Yod is as the head, Heh the arms, Vau the
body, and the final Heh the lower limbs: (see Zohar ii. 42a). The first pair
were tempted by Samael, the allegorical Personality of the lower tendencies,
which give the craving to experience earth life and take a part in its continuous
changes of force and form. They did what they knew would imperil their purely
psychic existence, they sank fully into material forms, they took on the grossness
of Malkuth, and so were separated from the Sephirotic Tree, from the Higher
Potencies, which have no taint of matter. All matter is ever changing its form,
and so their bodies must be changed; their bodies died, and so must the bodies
of all incarnated Egos; at death the personality passes away to a rest, and
then to a further experience of life, or to a sphere of punishment, or to a
realm of bliss.
In their earthly forms they brought forth bodies like their own, and God sent
down other souls to dwell in them, to experience earth life, its sins and sufferings;
and to pass a probation by which they also might fall, but yet may rise to
regain a share of man's lost estate and finally to rise up through the Sephiroth
to a reunion with the Divine Essence.
Remember that the Sephirotic Crown was First, then came Chokmah, a masculine
Potency, and then Binah, a feminine one; from their union arose the created
universe of angels, men and earth: but 'as above so below,' so we have in Genesis
a Man formed, then succeeds a Woman, and from them all others.
In the " Commentary on the Creation of Genesis," still allegorical
like Genesis itself, it is stated :--"There is in Heaven a treasury called
GUP, Guph, and all the Souls which were created in the beginning,
and hereafter to come into this world, The Holy One placed therein: out of
this treasury The Holy One furnishes children in the womb with Souls."
A further commentary in symbolic language narrates how The Holy One perceiving
a child's body to be in formation, sends for a suitable Ego to inhabit it.
"The Holy One, blessed be He, beckons to an Angel who is set over the
disembodied souls, and says to him, 'Bring me such a soul': and this is being
always done since the world began; the soul appears before the Holy One and
worships in His presence, to whom the Eternal One says :-- ‘Betake thyself
to this form.' Instantly the soul excuses himself, saying, 'Oh Governor of
the World, I am satisfied with the world in which I have been so long: if it
please Thee, do not force me into this foul body, for I am a Spirit.' The Holy
One, blessed be He, answers: 'The world I am about to send thee into is needed
for thee, it is to pass down through it that I formed thee from myself.' And
so the soul is forced to incarnate and sink into the world where matter will
imprison him, where he must suffer, but where he may overcome and from whence
he must rise again. The Zohar adds the statement: "and whatever the man
learns and displays on earth life, he knew before his incarnation."
This is a parallel doctrine to the Buddhist scheme of Re-incarnation with Karma
as God--eternal law, relentlessly compelling the individual Ego to a new earth
life.
Christian Ginsburg states that a "Transmigration of Souls" was the
belief of the Pharisees in the time of Josephus; and this dogma was held by
many Jews up to the ninth century of our era. The Caraite Jews have accepted
it ever since the seventh century. St. Jerome says it was a doctrine of the
early Christian Church taught only to a select few believers, and Origen was
of opinion that without transmigration, the incidents of the struggle between
Esau and Jacob before birth, Genesis 25, v. 22, and the reference to Jeremiah
in the mother's womb could not be explained, Jer. i. 5.
The Kabalah then teaches that the Egos have come out from the Spirit Fountain,
suffer incarnation again and again until experience and perfection have been
attained, and ultimately rejoin the Divine Source: Zohar i. 145, 168; ii. 97.
Now what is it that dwells for a time in this 'Coat of Skin," as Genesis
in chapter 3, v. 21, calls it, this so-called material body? It is a Divine
Spark, composed of several elements derived from the symbolic Four Parts of
Jehovah, and from Three Worlds, and these are seated in the Fourth World of
Effects, the Material Universe. Now it is no doubt true that in the several
Kabalistic schools, the numbers and names of these Essences vary, but the basal
idea remains the same: just in a similar way the principles of Man's constitution,
as stated in different Hindoo books, also vary, but the root idea is the same
in them all.
The Human Principles may be stated as Three in a fourth--the body; or as Five,
recognising Astral form and material body; or as Seven, subdividing the divine
principle; or as Ten, comparable to the Sephiroth. To explain these fully would
take a long essay and would require many Hebrew abstruse words, a difficulty
to those who are unused to them: two systems will suffice as an illustration.
From Yod, the Je of Jehovah, comes the highest over-shadowing of the
Divine, comparable to the Âtmâ of the Indian philosophies. From
Hè, the ho of Jehovah, comes Neshamah, the Buddhi of the Hindoos, the
spiritual soul. From Vau, the v of Jehovah, comes Ruach, the Manas of the Hindoos,
Intellect and Mind. From the final Hè, the ah of Jehovah, is derived
Nephesh, the Kâma of the Hindoos, the appetites and passions. These are
all implanted in the Astral shell, which moulds the physical body, the instrument
which acts upon material objects.
The Human Soul is again conceived of as distributed through several distinct
forms of conscious manifestation related to the "Ten Sephiroth":
the several Kabalistic treatises give several groupings, which are all relevant
one to the other, the most usual one being a triple division, into Nephesh,
the passions referred to Malkuth; Ruach, the Mind, Reason, and Intellect referred
to the group of Six Sephiroth lying around the Sun of Tiphereth; and Neshamah,
the spiritual aspirations associated with the Supernal Triangle of the Queen,
King and Crown.
These Human principles function upon Four Worlds,--Divine, Moral, Intellectual
and Emotional respectively: and either of these essences may dominate a man,
and they do, in fact, exist in constantly varying proportions. The highest
principle overshadows the others, and the central ones may reach up to the
higher; or by neglect of opportunities, or by vicious actions, may fall lower
and lower, so as to approximate to the seeming matter of the body. As the Neshamah
draws one to Spiritual excellence, so the Nephesh leads down to physical enjoyment.
In another form of symbolism the Kabalist tells us a man has two companions,
or guides; one on the right, Yetzer ha Tob, to good acts, he is from the higher
Sephiroth; and one on the left, Yetzer ha Ra, encouraging the appetites and
passions, temptations to evil, is an agent of Samael and of The Beast. Man
is in a very unfortunate position according to the Zohar 95 b, for it is there
said that the Evil Angel joins him at birth, but the Good Angel only at the
age of 13 years.
As to Death, as we have already learned, the man's Ego or Soul, unless the
life has been superexcellent, has to be re-born in another form, but at death,
as all religions agree, great changes occur. According to the Kabalah, the
visible material body, the Guph, decays, and the Animal aspect of
the soul, the Nephesh, only gradually fades away from it: the Ruach,
the Human aspect, passes away from the Assiatic plane, and the Neshamah,
the spiritual soul, returns to the Treasury of Heaven, to the Gan Oidin,
or of Paradise, perfected to a Spiritual world beyond the plain of re-births.
The "Sepher jareh chattaim" says that a man is judged in the same
hour in which he dies; for the Shekinah, a Presence of the Divine One, comes
near him, with three Angels, of whom the chief is Dumah, the Angel of Silence:
if the soul is condemned, Dumah takes it to Gai-Hinnom, or hell, for a period
of punishment before the next incarnation; if approved, the Soul passes to
an Oidin or Heaven. In the end of the present manifestation of the Universe,
all souls will have become perfected by suffering, have been blessed in Paradise,
and will be in reunion with the God from Whom they came forth.
The Kabalistic theory of man's constitution, origin and destiny is very different
from the modern Christian view, but differs from the Indian schemes more in
manner of presentation than in principle, and these two may be fitly studied
side by side and each will illuminate the other. There is, indeed, no sharp
line of cleavage between the Western mystic doctrines, the Kabalism of the
Middle Ages related to the Egyptian Hermeticism, and the Indian Esoteric Theosophy.
They differ in language nomenclature, and in the imagery employed in the effort
to represent spiritual ideas to mankind; but there is no sufficient reason
for any condemnation of either school by any other. The world of intellectual
culture is wide enough for both to exist side by side, and the mere fact that
they are philosophic Systems in any way comprehensible to men is evidence that
either can be composed of pure and unveiled truth, for we are still only able
to see as in a glass darkly, and must make much further progress before we
can hope to see God face to face and know Him as He is.
We must be content to progress, as students have ever done, by stages of development;
in each grade the primal truths are re-stated in a different form; they are
revealed or re-veiled in language and symbolism suitable to the learner's own
mental condition; hence the need of a teacher, of a guide who has traversed
the path, and who can recognise by personal communion the stage which each
pupil has attained. There is no royal or easy path to high attainment in Mysticism.
Unwearied effort, combined with purity of life, is of vital importance. The
human intellect can only appreciate and assimilate that which the mind's eye
can at any time perceive. The process cannot be forced. Mystic lore cannot
be stolen. If any learner did appropriate the knowledge of a Grade beyond him
it would be to him but folly, disappointment and darkness.
Students have often been offered a doctrine, or assertion, or explanation,
which their intellect has rejected as absurd, or as sheer superstition; which
same dogma they have later in life assimilated with every feeling of esteem.
Occultism in this resembles Freemasonry; we are either admitted to the hidden
knowledge, or we are not; and if we are not admitted, we never believe any
secret of its ritual even if it be offered to us. The secrets of Occultism
are like Freemasonry; in truth they are to some extent the secrets that Freemasonry
has lost. They are of their very nature inviolable; for they can only be attained
by personal progress; they might be plainly told to the outsider, and not be
understood by him. For if anyone has been able to divine and to grasp such
a secret, he will not tell it even to his dearest friend; for the simple reason
that if his friend is unable to divine it for himself, its communication in
mere words would not confer the hidden knowledge upon him.
The whole Kabalistic theories are of a nature similar to the secrets of Freemasonry;
there was much doctrine that was never written nor printed: these works often
describe imagery which seems folly, and contain doctrines that at first seem
absurd; yet they enshrine the highly spiritual teachings which I have shortly
outlined. The mere reading of these volumes is of little avail; the spiritual
eye needs to be opened to see spiritual things; and the great Kabalists of
old did not cast pearls of wisdom before the ignorant or the vicious, nor suffer
the unclean to enter the Temple of Wisdom. The serious student must make strenuous
efforts to attain to the higher life of the True Occultism, then perchance
in a distant future, a record of temptations avoided, and of a life of self-sacrifice
may serve as Signs and Pass Words to secure admission to the Palace of the
Great King.
An Introduction To The Study Of The Kabbalah Part 1
An Introduction To The Study Of The Kabbalah Part 2
| Authors
Details: By William Wynn Westcott (NOTE: This work was based on a series of lectures by Westcott which were
published in London in 1910 by J.M. Watkins.) |
|
