[But Nephesh , the "breath of [[first column continued on next page]] [[second column]] Say the Theosophists: -- E SOTERIC P NEUMATICS.
1.
Ditto, for it is Atma-Buddhi- Manas.
2.
Ditto.* 3.
Spiritual Soul.
4.
Mediator between Spirit and its Man, the Seat of Reason, the Mind, in man.
5.
Correct.
6.
Too uselessly apocalyptic.
Why not say that the astral reflects the good as well as the bad man; man, who is ever tending to the upper triangle, or else disappears with the Quaternary.
7.
Ditto, the earthly image.
------- O CCULT P NEUMATICS.
As given by the Occultists.
1.
Manas is immortal, because after every new incarnation it adds to Atma-Buddhi something of itself, and [[second column continued on next page]] [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Eliphas Levi has, whether purposely or otherwise, confused the numbers: with us his No.
2 is No.
1.
(Spirit); and by making of Nephesch both the plastic mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality only six principles, because he repeats the first two.
** Esotericism teaches the same.
But Manas is not Nephesch; nor is the latter the astral, but the 4th principle, if also the 2nd prana , for Nephesch is the "breath of life" in man, as in beast or insect, of physical, material life, which has no spirituality in it.
[[Vol.
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[[first column continued from last page]] life," is a misnomer and a useless puzzle to the student.] 2.
Ruach progresses by the evolution of ideas (!
?).
3.
Neschamah is progressive without oblivion and destruction.
4.
The soul has three dwellings.
5.
These dwellings are: the plane of the mortals: the Superior Eden; and the Inferior Eden.
6.
The image (man) is a sphinx that offers the riddle of birth.
7.
The fatal image (the astral) endows Nephesch with its aptitudes; but Ruach is able to substitute for this (vitiated) Nephesch the image [[first column continued on next page]] [[second column continued from last page]] thus, assimilating itself to the Monad, shares its immortality.
2.
Buddhi becomes conscious by the accretions it gets from Manas after every new incarnation and the death of man.
3.
Atma neither progresses, forgets, nor remembers.
It does not belong to this plane: it is but the ray of light eternal which shines upon and through the darkness of matter -- when the latter is willing.
4.
The Soul (collectively, as the upper Triad) lives on three planes, besides its fourth, the terrestrial sphere; and it exists eternally on the highest of the three.
5.
These dwellings are: Earth for the physical man, or the animal Soul; Kama-loka (Hades, the Limbo) for the disembodied man, or his Shell; Devachan for the higher Triad.
6.
Correct.
7.
The astral through Kama (desire) is ever drawing Manas down into the sphere of material passions and desires.
But if the better man [[second column continued on next page]] [[Vol.
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[[first column continued from last page]] conquered in accordance with the inspirations of Neschamah.
------- [[second column continued from last page]] or Manas tries to escape the fatal attraction and turns its aspirations to Atma -- Spirit -- then Buddhi (Ruach) conquers, and carries Manas with it to the realm of eternal Spirit.
------- It is very evident that the French Kabalist either did not know sufficiently the real tenet, or distorted it to suit himself and his object.
Thus he says again, treating upon the same subject, and we, Occultists, answer the late Kabalist and his admirers: -- [[first column]] 1.
The body is the mould of Nephesch; Nephesch the mould of Ruach; Ruach the mould of the garments of Neschamah.
2.
Light (the Soul) personifies in clothing itself (with a body); and personality endures only when the garment is perfect.
3.
The angels aspire to become men; a perfect man, a man-god is above all the angels.
4.
Every 14,000 years the soul rejuvenates and rests in the jubilean sleep of oblivion.
[[second column]] 1.
The body follows the whims, good or bad, of Manas; Manas tries to follow the light of Buddhi, but often fails.
Buddhi is the mould of the "garments" of Atma, because Atma is no body, or shape, or anything, and because Buddhi is its vehicle only figuratively.
2 .
The Monad becomes a personal ego when it incarnates; and something remains of that personality through Manas, when the latter is perfect enough to assimilate Buddhi.
3.
Correct.
4.
Within a period, "a great age" or a day of Brahrna, 14 Manus reign; after which comes Pralaya when all the Souls rest in Nirvana.
(Souls = Egos).
[[Vol.
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Such are the distorted copies of the esoteric doctrine in the Kabala.
But see also "The Primeval Manus of Humanity" in Book II.
To return to Stanza VII.
( b ) The well-known Kabalistic aphorism runs: -- "A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast; the beast, a man; a man a spirit; and the spirit a god." The "spark" animates all the kingdoms in turn before it enters into and informs divine man, between whom and his predecessor, animal man, there is all the difference in the world.
Genesis begins its anthropology at the wrong end (evidently for a blind) and lands nowhere.* Had it begun as it ought, one would have found in it, first, the celestial Logos, the "Heavenly Man," which evolves as a Compound Unit of Logoi, out of whom after their pralayic sleep -- a sleep that gathers the cyphers scattered on the Mayavic plane into One, as the separate globules of quicksilver on a plate blend into one mass -- the Logoi appear in their totality as the first "male and female" or Adam Kadmon, the "Fiat Lux" of the Bible, as we have already seen.
But this transformation did not take place on our Earth, nor on any material plane, but in the Spacial Depths of the first differentiation of the eternal Root-matter.
On our nascent globe things proceed differently.
The Monad or Jiva, as said in "Isis Unveiled," vol.
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 Kabbalistic principles onto Esoteric ones (Nephesh=4th principle, Ruach=Buddhi, Neschamah=Atma), demonstrating structural correspondence between systems.
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 narrates the origin of the Logoi from pralayic sleep, their appearance as Adam Kadmon, and the differentiation of the eternal Root-matter into the nascent globe's evolution.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
Atma is 'the ray of light eternal which shines upon and through the darkness of matter — when the latter is willing,' suggesting the divine's radical transcendence and conditional accessibility.
Fragments of divine light or spirit trapped inside material bodies, awaiting liberation and return to their source.
The passage explicitly references 'the spark' that animates all kingdoms in turn and enters into divine man, a fragment of the divine trapped in successive material forms.
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 maps a clear hierarchical cascade of principles (Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the upper Triad, the Quaternary) and the 'spark' descending through kingdoms in turn.
The deeper aspect of the individual's own consciousness aligned with divine or spiritual truth, distinct from the ego or everyday personality — a locus of guidance and identity that can speak with its own recognisable 'voice' in moments of crisis, carrying memory or knowledge the ordinary self lacks. Distinct from inner_light (a static luminous quality or spark, not an alternate seat of identity and agency) and kingdom_within (the claim that the divine realm generally is present inside the individual, not this specific personal higher consciousness).
The upper Triad (Atma-Buddhi-Manas) functions as a deeper aspect of the individual's consciousness aligned with spiritual truth, distinct from the lower egoic principles.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The passage explicitly describes the Monad becoming a personal ego 'when it incarnates' and discusses the process of successive incarnations as discrete descents into bounded form.
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 describes non-physical planes (Kama-loka/Hades, Devachan, the astral) as real dimensions through which the soul passes and that affect embodied life.
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 'spark' animating all kingdoms in turn before entering divine man, and the Monad's descent into successive forms, describe a directional staged process of spirit unfolding into matter.
The persistent form or image of a human being that exists from birth to death, distinct from the impermanent physical matter.
The 'astral' or 'earthly image' that endows Nephesh with aptitudes and persists as the 'Shell' in Kama-loka corresponds to the persistent subtle form distinct from physical matter.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The human being is presented as containing all cosmic principles in miniature (the seven principles, the upper Triad), and the 'spark' that animates all kingdoms is the same principle that informs divine man.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The passage explicitly names 'the Monad or Jiva' as the first principle and discusses how Manas assimilates itself to the Monad to share its immortality.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
Manas assimilating itself to the Monad to share its immortality, and Buddhi carrying Manas to the realm of eternal Spirit, describe the merging of the individual with the divine.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The passage describes Manas turning its aspirations to Atma-Spirit, with Buddhi carrying it 'to the realm of eternal Spirit' — a clear reversal of the descent back to origin.
The passage explicitly describes the soul adding to Atma-Buddhi 'after every new incarnation' and the death of man, confirming transmigration across multiple lives.
A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.
The passage describes the soul's staged upward journey: Manas turning to Atma, Buddhi conquering, and carrying Manas 'to the realm of eternal Spirit' through successive planes.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The Kabalistic aphorism 'a man a spirit; and the spirit a god' and the claim that 'a perfect man, a man-god is above all the angels' explicitly describe progressive transformation into the divine.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
The passage is structured around the division of the human being into multiple principles (spirit, soul, body), with the upper Triad (Atma-Buddhi-Manas) contrasted against lower principles.