"Ten is the Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united," says Hermes.
"For number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from matter (chaos, feminine); the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity" ( Book of the Keys ) .
By the means of the Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabala, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Kosmos and its mysteries" (Rabbi Yogel).
The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most sacred of all.
** The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim.
It came to the Jews from Chaldaea.
See "Hebrew Metrology" in the Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No.
141.
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mathematical formulae to express it.
This set of figures must have the same meaning, since the 1 : 314,159, and then again 1 : 3 : 1,415,927 are worked out in the secret calculations to express the various cycles and ages of the "first born," or 311,040,000,000,000 with fractions, and yield the same 13,415 by a process we are not concerned with at present.
And it may be shown that Mr.
Ralston Skinner, author of The Source of Measures , reads the Hebrew word Alhim in the same number values, by omitting, as said, the ciphers and by permutation -- 13,514: since (a) is 1 : (l) is 3 (or 30); (h) is 5; (i) 1 for 10; and (m) is 4 (40), and anagrammatically -- 31,415 as explained by him.
Thus, while in the metaphysical world, the circle with the one central Point in it has no number, and is called Anupadaka (parentless and numberless) -- viz., it can fall under no calculation, -- in the manifested world the mundane Egg or Circle is circumscribed within the groups called the Line, the Triangle, the Pentacle, the second Line and the Cube (or 13514); and when the Point having generated a Line, thus becomes a diameter which stands for the androgynous Logos, then the figures become 31415, or a triangle, a line, a cube, the second line, and a pentacle.
"When the Son separates from the Mother he becomes the Father," the diameter standing for Nature, or the feminine principle.
Therefore it is said: "In the world of being, the one Point fructifies the Line -- the Virgin Matrix of Kosmos (the egg-shaped zero) -- and the immaculate Mother gives birth to the form that combines all forms." Prajapati is called the first procreating male, and "his Mother's husband."* This gives the key-note to all the later divine sons from immaculate mothers.
It is greatly corroborated by the significant fact that Anna (the name of the Mother of the Virgin Mary) now represented by the Roman Catholic church as having given birth to her daughter in an immaculate way ("Mary conceived without sin"), is derived from the Chaldean Ana, heaven, or Astral Light, Anima Mundi; whence Anaitia, Devi-durga, the wife of Siva, is also called Annapurna, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * We find the same expression in Egypt.
Mout signifies, for one thing, "Mother," and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of that country.
"She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of the principle titles of the god being "the husband of his mother." The goddess Mout, or Mut, is addressed as "our lady," the "queen of Heaven" and of "the Earth," thus "sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc." (Maspero).
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and Kanya, the Virgin; "Uma-Kanya" being her esoteric name, and meaning the "Virgin of light," Astral Light in one of its multitudinous aspects.
( c ) The Devas, Pitris, Rishis; the Suras and the Asuras; the Daityas and Adityas; the Danavas and Gandharvas, etc., etc., have all their synonyms in our Secret Doctrine, as well as in the Kabala and the Hebrew Angelology; but it is useless to give their ancient names, as it would only create confusion.
Many of these may be also found now, even in the Christian hierarchy of divine and celestial powers.
All those Thrones and Dominions, Virtues and Principalities, Cherubs, Seraphs and demons, the various denizens of the Sidereal World, are the modern copies of archaic prototypes.
The very symbolism in their names, when transliterated and arranged in Greek and Latin, are sufficient to show it, as will be proved in several cases further on.
The "Sacred Animals" are found in the Bible as well as in the Kabala, and they have their meaning (a very profound one, too) on the page of the origins of Life.
In the Sepher Jezirah it is stated that "God engraved in the Holy Four the throne of his glory, the Ophanim (Wheels or the World-Spheres), the Seraphim,* the Sacred Animals, and the ministering angels, and from these three (the Air, Water, and Fire or Ether) he formed his habitation." Thus was the world made "through three Seraphim -- Sepher, Saphar, and Sipur," or "through Number, Numbers, and Numbered." With the astronomical key these "Sacred Animals" become the signs of the Zodiac.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * This is the literal translation from the IXth and Xth Sections: "Ten numbers without what?
One: the spirit of the living God .
.
.
.
who liveth in eternities!
Voice and Spirit and Word, and this is the Holy Spirit.
Two: Spirit out of Spirit.
He designed and hewed therewith twenty-two letters of foundation, three Mothers and seven double and Twelve single, and one spirit out of them.
Three: Water out of spirit; he designed and hewed with them the barren and the void, mud and earth.
He designed them as a flowerbed, hewed them as a wall, covered them as a paving.
Four: Fire out of water.
Divine archetypal beings or eternal attributes dwelling within the Pleroma, often arranged in male-female syzygies.
The passage enumerates multiple classes of divine archetypal beings (Devas, Pitris, Rishis, Suras, Asuras, Daityas, Adityas, Danavas, Gandharvas) and their Christian equivalents (Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Principalities, Cherubs, Seraphs) as archaic prototypes of a structured divine population.
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
Astral Light is explicitly named as the Chaldean Ana (heaven, Anima Mundi) and as the 'Virgin of light' in one of its multitudinous aspects (Uma-Kanya), functioning as a universal medium.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage systematically maps Hindu, Kabbalistic, Christian, Egyptian, and Chaldean systems onto each other, asserting that modern hierarchies are 'copies of archaic prototypes' and that the same numerical values (13,514/31,415) encode the same cosmic truths across traditions.
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 is centrally a cosmogonic narrative: the Point fructifies the Line (the egg-shaped zero), the immaculate Mother gives birth to the form combining all forms, Prajapati is the first procreating male, and the Sepher Jezirah describes creation through the Holy Four (Air, Water, Fire/Ether) and three Seraphim (Number, Numbers, Numbered).
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.
The passage describes a cascade from the undivided Point (Anupadaka) through geometric forms (Line, Triangle, Pentacle, Cube) and lists hierarchical populations of divine beings (Devas, Pitris, Rishis, Suras, Asuras, and the Christian hierarchy of Thrones, Dominions, Cherubs, Seraphs).
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
The masculine-feminine generative principle is a structural feature throughout: 'When the Son separates from the Mother he becomes the Father,' the 'androgynous Logos,' the 'Virgin Matrix of Kosmos,' the feminine principle (Nature), and the 'immaculate Mother.'
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage references 'secret calculations' the author is 'not concerned with at present,' the 'Secret Doctrine' itself, and the esoteric interpretation of biblical and Kabbalistic texts, implying an inner meaning concealed within outer forms.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage contrasts the 'metaphysical world' with the 'manifested world' and describes the 'Sidereal World' populated by various celestial hierarchies as a non-physical dimension interpenetrating ordinary reality.
The twenty-two Hebrew letters as the building blocks through which God creates and sustains all existence.
The Sepher Jezirah footnote explicitly states God 'designed and hewed therewith twenty-two letters of foundation, three Mothers and seven double and Twelve single, and one spirit out of them.'
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The diameter is explicitly identified as standing for the 'androgynous Logos,' the mediating principle between the Point (transcendent source) and the manifested world of geometric forms.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The Point is explicitly described as Anupadaka — 'parentless and numberless' — falling under no calculation, which is the absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity flows.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The entire passage is structured around sacred numbers (1, 10, 6, 5, 13,514, 31,415, 1065/21) as the underlying structure of divine reality, with mathematical formulae expressing cosmic cycles and anagrammatical permutations revealing the same values across traditions.
Combining, transposing, or cycling through letters or names as a meditative or theurgical technique.
The Temura (anagrammatical method of the Kabala) is explicitly named, and the passage demonstrates permuting the letters of Alhim to yield 13,514 and 31,415 as a theurgical technique for accessing cosmic knowledge.
Divine names or formulas that carry ontological power, used in prayer, liturgy, or magical practice.
The passage demonstrates that divine names (Elohim/Alhim, Ana, Anaitia, Mout, Prajapati) carry ontological power encoded in their letter values, and that permuting these names reveals the same cosmic numbers.
The ten attributes or emanations through which the Ein Sof (Infinite) reveals itself and creates the universe in Kabbalistic theology.
The Kabbalistic method (Temura), the sacred number 10, the Sepher Jezirah quotation, and the reference to 'ten numbers' and 'twenty-two letters of foundation, three Mothers and seven double and twelve single' all point to the Sephirotic system.