"The LIGHT," says the Book _Omschim_, or Introduction to the Kabala, "Supremest of all things, and most Lofty, and Limitless, and styled INFINITE, can be attained unto by no cogitation or speculation; and its VERY SELF is evidently withdrawn and removed beyond all intellection. It WAS, before all things whatever, produced, created, formed, and made by Emanation; and in it was neither Time, Head, or Beginning; since it always existed, and remains forever, without commencement or end."
"Before the Emanations flowed forth, and created things were created, the Supreme Light was infinitely extended, and filled the whole WHERE; so that with reference to Light no vacuum could be affirmed, nor any unoccupied s.p.a.ce; but the ALL was filled with that Light of the Infinite, thus extended, whereto in every regard was no end, inasmuch as nothing was, except that extended Light, which, with a certain single and simple equality, was everywhere like unto itself."
AINSOPH is called _Light_, says the Introduction to the Sohar, because it is impossible to express it by any other word.
To conceive of G.o.d as an actuality, and not as a mere non-substance or name, which involved non-_existence_, the Kabala, like the Egyptians, imagined Him to be "a most occult Light," AUR; not our material and visible Light, but the Substance out of which Light flows, the _fire_, as relative to its heat and flame. Of this Light or Ether, the Sun was to the Tsabeans the only manifestation or out-shining, and as such it was worshipped, and not as the type of dominion and power. G.o.d was the _Phos Noeton_, the Light cognisable only by the Intellect, the Light-Principle, the Light-Ether, from which souls emanate, and to which they return.
Light, Fire, and Flame, with the Phnicians, were the sons of Kronos.
They are the Trinity in the Chaldaean Oracles, the AOR of the Deity, manifested in _flame_, that issues out of the invisible _Fire_.
In the first three Persian Amshaspands, Lords of LIGHT, FIRE, and SPLENDOR, we recognize the AOR, ZOHAR, and ZAYO, _Light, Splendor_, and _Brightness_, of the Kabalah. The first of these is termed AOR MUPALA, _Wonderful_ or _Hidden_ Light, unrevealed, undisplayed--which is KETHER, the first Emanation or _Sephirah_, the _Will_ of Deity: the second is NESTAR, _Concealed_--which is HAKEMAH, the second _Sephirah_, or the Intellectual Potence of the Deity: and the third is METANOTSATS, _coruscating_--which is BINAH, the third _Sephirah_, or the intellectual _producing_ capacity. In other words, they are THE VERY SUBSTANCE of light, _in_ the Deity: _Fire_, which is that light, limited and furnished with attributes, so that it _can_ be revealed, but yet remains unrevealed, and its _splendor_ or out-shining, or the _light_ that goes out from the fire.
Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines; and may in time come to understand the Hermetic philosophers, the Alchemists, all the Anti-papal Thinkers of the Middle Ages, and Emanuel Swedenborg.
The Hansavati Rich, a celebrated Sanscrit Stanza, says: "He is Hansa (the Sun), dwelling in light; Vasu, the atmosphere dwelling in the firmament; the invoker of the G.o.ds (Agni), dwelling on the altar (_i.e._, the altar fire); the guest (of the worshipper), dwelling in the house (the domestic fire); the dweller amongst men (as consciousness); the dweller in the most excellent orb, (the Sun); the dweller in truth; the dweller in the sky (the air); born in the waters, in the rays of light, in the verity (of manifestation), in the Eastern mountains; the Truth (itself)."
"In the beginning," says a Sanscrit hymn, "arose the Source of golden light. _He was the only born Lord of all that is_. He established the earth and the sky. Who is the G.o.d to Whom we shall offer our sacrifice?"
"He who gives life, He who gives strength; Whose blessing all the bright G.o.ds desire; _Whose shadow is immortality; Whose shadow is death_; Who is the G.o.d, etc?"
"He through Whom the sky is bright and the earth for us; He through Whom the Heaven was established, nay, the highest Heaven; He who measured out the light in the air; Who is the G.o.d, etc?"
"He to Whom the Heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up trembling inwardly; He over Whom the rising sun shines forth; Who is the G.o.d, etc?"
"Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He Who is the only life of the bright G.o.ds; Who is the G.o.d, etc?"
The WORD of G.o.d, said the Indian philosophy, is the universal and invisible Light, cognizable by the senses, that emits its blaze in the Sun, Moon, Planets, and other Stars. Philo calls it the "Universal Light," which loses a portion of its purity and splendor in descending from the intellectual to the sensible world, manifesting itself outwardly from, the Deity; and the Kabalah represents that only so much of the Infinite Light flowed into the circular void prepared for creation within the Infinite Light and Wisdom, as could pa.s.s by a ca.n.a.l like a line or thread. The Sephiroth, emanating from the Deity, were the rays of His splendor.
The Chaldaean Oracles said: "The intellect of the Generator, stirred to action, out-spoke, forming within itself, by intellection, universals of every possible form and fashion, which issued out, flowing forth from the One Source ... For Deity, impersonated as Dominion, before fabricating the manifold Universe, posited an intellected and unchangeable universal, the impression of the form whereof goes forth through the Universe; and that Universe, formed and fashioned accordingly, becomes visibly beautified in infinitely varying types and forms, the Source and fountain whereof is one.... Intellectual conceptions and forms from the Generative source, succeeding each other, considered in relation to ever-progressing Time, and intimately partaking of THE PRIMAL ETHER or FIRE; but yet all these Universals and Primal Types and Ideas flowed forth from, and are part of, the first Source of the Generative Power, perfect in itself."
The Chaldeans termed the Supreme Deity ARAOR, Father of Light. From Him was supposed to flow the light above the world, which illuminates the heavenly regions. This Light or Fire was considered as the Symbol of the Divine Essence, extending itself to inferior spiritual natures. Hence the Chaldean oracles say: "The Father took from Himself, and did not confine His proper fire within His intellectual potency:" ... "All things are begotten from one Fire."
The Tsabeans-held that all inferior spiritual beings were emanations from the Supreme Deity; and therefore Proclus says: "The progression of the G.o.ds is one and continuous, proceeding downward from the intelligible and latent unities, and terminating in the last part.i.tion of the Divine cause."
It is impossible to speak clearly of the Divinity. Whoever attempts to express His attributes by the help of abstractions, confines himself to negatives, and at once loses sight of his ideas, in wandering through a wilderness of words. To heap Superlatives on Superlatives, and call Him _best, wisest, greatest_, is but to exaggerate qualities which are found in man. That there exists one only G.o.d, and that He is a Perfect and Beneficent Being, Reason legitimately teaches us; but of the Divine _Nature_, of the _Substance_ of the Deity, of the manner of His Existence, or of the mode of creation of His Universe, the human mind is inadequate to form any just conception. We can affix no clear ideas to Omnipotence, Omniscience, Infinity or Eternity; and we have no more right to attribute intelligence to Him, than any other mental quality of ourselves, extended indefinitely; or than we have to attribute our senses to Him, and our bodily organs, as the Hebrew writings do.
We satisfy ourselves with negativing in the Deity everything that const.i.tutes existence, so far as we are capable of conceiving of existence. Thus He becomes to us logically nothing, _Non-Ens_. The Ancients saw no difference between that and Atheism, and sought to conceive of Him as something real. It is a necessity of Human Nature.
The theological idea, or rather non-idea, of the Deity, is not shared or appreciated by the unlearned. To them G.o.d will always be The Father Who is in Heaven, a Monarch on His Throne, a Being with human feelings and human sympathies, angry at their misdeeds, lenient if they repent, accessible to their supplications. It is the Humanity, far more than the Divinity, of Christ, that makes the ma.s.s of Christians worship Him, far more than they do the Father.
"The Light of the Substance of The Infinite," is the Kabalistic expression. Christ was, according to Saint John, "the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world"; and "that Light was the life of men." "The Light shone in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
The ancient ideas in respect to Light were perhaps quite as correct as our own. It does not appear that they ascribed to Light any of the qualities of matter. But modern Science defines it to be a flood of particles of _matter_, flowing or shot out from the Sun and Stars, and moving through s.p.a.ce to come to us. On the theories of mechanism and force, what force of attraction here or repulsion at the Sun or at the most distant Star could draw or drive these impalpable, weightless, infinitely minute particles, appreciably by the Sense of Sight alone, so far through s.p.a.ce? What has become of the immense aggregate of particles that have reached the earth since the creation? Have they increased its bulk? Why cannot chemistry detect and a.n.a.lyze them? If matter, why can they travel only in right lines?
No characteristic of matter belongs to Light, or Heat, or flame, or to Galvanism, Electricity, and Magnetism. The electric spark is light, and so is that produced by the flint, when it cuts off particles of steel.
Iron, melted or heated, radiates light; and insects, infusoria, and decayed wood emit it. Heat is produced by friction and by pressure; to explain which, Science tells us of _latent_ Caloric, thus representing it to us as existing without its only known distinctive quality. What quality of matter enables lightning, blazing from the Heavens, to rend the oak? What quality of matter enables it to make the circuit of the earth in a score of seconds?
Profoundly ignorant of the nature of these mighty agents of Divine Power, we conceal our ignorance by words that have no meaning; and we might well be asked _why_ Light may not be an effluence from the Deity, as has been agreed by all the religions of all the Ages of the World.
All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah and return to it: everything scientific and grand in the religious dreams of all the illuminati, Jacob Bhme, Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, and others, is borrowed from the Kabalah; all the Masonic a.s.sociations owe to it their Secrets and their Symbols.
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 Fashioned 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._