The Book of Concealed Mystery (Siphra Dtzenioutha) · 4 of 9 · tr. S.L. MacGregor Mathers
1d
5; "And thou shalt place upon me thine hand:" KPKH, Khephakha .
(Where this word KPKH, if it be written according to the usual p.
100 custom KPK, Khephakh , yieldeth the number 120.
But now by adding the paragogic H of the female, there is given the number 125, on account of the five severities.) ["This decad is increased into ten thousand by the paths joined with the four letters of the Tetragrammaton " --i.e.
, the paths are the Sephiroth = the numbers from one to ten; and they are said to be joined with the four letters by multiplying the decad to the fourth power, or 10 4 .
Hence for I, the first letter, we have 10 x 1 = 10; for H, the second letter, we have 10 x 10= 100: for V.
the third letter, 10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000; and for H, the fourth letter, 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 10,000.
In the Shemitic languages, a paragogic letter is one which is added to a word to give it additional emphasis.] 17, "There were giants in the earth," Gen.
vi.
4.
(If this word HIV, Hayu , is considered, which also is a form of the often varied name, it taketh its rise from the kingdom.) This is that which is written, Gen.
ii.
10: "And thence is it divided, and is in four heads." (Where is understood the end of that emanation which the separated universe followeth.
Nevertheless) from the place where the body is divided, they are called those trees (or, as the Mantuan Codex correcteth the passage: Where the garden is divided, and the seven inferior emanations are understood; where then it divideth the universe into the inferior worlds and provideth a habitation for the shells or spirits of matter).
Hence it is written: "And from hence is it divided." ["The shells" = elemental spirits.
The Qabalah always calls the evil elemental spirits of matter "shells."] 18.
They were in the earth in those days, but not in the following time, until Joshua came.
(That is, they are applicable unto the path of the bride, which also is called the land of Canaan, wherein Joshua found the giants.
For the word NPILIM, Nephilim , occurreth not fully, except when it is used in the incident of the spies, Num.
xiii.
33.) p.
101 19.
And the sons of the Elohim are guarded (nor is mention made of a similar case) until Solomon came and joined himself with the daughters of men; like as it is written, Eccles.
ii.
8: VThONVGVTh, Ve-Thonogoth "And the delights of the sons of men," &c.
Where (in the feminine gender) he calleth the word ThONVGVTh, Thonogoth , and not (as elsewhere in the masculine gender) ThONVGIM, Thonogim , "sons of Adam;" so that it is intimated in an occult manner that the latter (the sons of the Elohim) are of those other spirits who are not contained under the supernal wisdom; concerning which it is written, 1 Kings v.
12: "And the Lord gave wisdom unto Solomon." (Concerning these matters, further see the "Treatise of the Revolutions)." ["The Treatise of the Revolutions" is not published in this volume.] 20.
Also it is written, ibid .
iv.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage describes how the universe is divided into inferior worlds and how the 'garden is divided' to provide habitation for shells, presenting a narrative of cosmic origin and differentiation.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
[auto] The reference to Sephiroth as paths and numbers implies a structured hierarchy of divine emanations.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage traces a directional descent from the divine source through emanations into the separated universe and inferior worlds, describing the staged process of spirit descending into matter.
The 'shells' or 'husks' of Kabbalistic doctrine — the obverse, unbalanced counterpart that each Sephira throws off during its own emanation, going off by itself to form its own shadow-sphere in Chaos, the Habitations of Hell, personified as Qlippothic demons (the 'Obscene Ones,' the 'Disputers') mirroring the Archangels of the corresponding Sephira. Distinct from kenoma (the Gnostic void outside the pleroma generally, one undifferentiated realm of deficiency, not this specific one-shadow-per-Sephira structure) and archons (Gnostic planetary rulers governing matter directly, not an unbalanced-emanation byproduct).
The passage explicitly identifies 'shells or spirits of matter' as the Qabalah's term for evil elemental spirits, directly naming the Qliphoth as the shadow-sphere of the inferior emanations.
The 1 Enoch narrative in which a class of originally-good angelic beings (the Watchers) descends, mates with women, and teaches forbidden arts — the substrate that Gnostic archons inherits and inverts: archons are born malevolent, the Watchers fall through transgression.
The passage discusses the sons of the Elohim, giants, and Nephilim in a context similar to the 1 Enoch narrative.