This "First-Born," however, was only the aggregate of the Host of the "Builders," the first constructive Forces, who are called in ancient Cosmogonies the Ancients (born of the Deep, or Chaos) and the "First Point." He is the Tetragrammaton, so-called, at the head of the Seven lower Sephiroth.
This was the belief of the Chaldees.
"These Chaldeans," writes Philo, the Jew, speaking very flippantly of the first instructors of his ancestors, "were of opinion that the Kosmos, among the things that exist (?) is a single point, either being itself God (Theos) or that in it is God, comprehending the soul of all things." (See his " Migration of Abraham ," 32 .
) Chaos-Theos-Kosmos are but the three aspects of their synthesis -- SPACE.
One can never hope to solve the mystery of this Tetraktis by holding to the dead-letter even of the old philosophies, as now extant.
But, even in these CHAOS-THEOS-KOSMOS = SPACE, are identified in all Eternity, as the One Unknown Space, the last word about which will, perhaps, never be known before our seventh Round.
Nevertheless, the allegories and metaphysical symbols about the primeval and perfect CUBE, are remarkable even in the exoteric Puranas.
There, also, Brahma is the Theos , evolving out of Chaos , or the great "Deep," the waters, over which Spirit = SPACE, personified by ayana -- the Spirit moving over the face of the future boundless Kosmos -- is silently hovering, in the first hour of re-awakening.
It is also Vishnu, sleeping on Ananta-Sesha, the great Serpent of Eternity, of which Western theology, ignorant of the Kabala, the only key that opens the secrets of the Bible, has made -- the Devil.
It is the first triangle or the Pythagorean triad , the "God of the three Aspects," before it is transformed through its perfect quadrature of the infinite Circle into the "four-faced Brahma." "Of him who is and yet is not, from the not-being, Eternal Cause, is born the Being-Purusha," says Manu, the legislator.
In Isis Unveiled , it is said that: -- "In the Egyptian mythology, Kneph, the Eternal Unrevealed God, is represented by a snake emblem of Eternity encircling a water urn, with its head hovering over the waters, which it incubates with its breath.
In this case the serpent is the Agathodaemon, the good spirit: in its opposite aspect, it is the Kakodaemon -- the bad one.
In the Scandinavian Eddas , the honey dew, the fruit of the gods and of the creative busy Yggdrasill (bees), falls during the hours of night, when the atmosphere is impregnated with humidity; and in the Northern mythologies, as the passive principle of creation, it typifies the [[Vol.
1, Page]] 345 THE BIRTH OF MIND.
creation of the universe out of water; this dew is the astral light in one of its combinations, and possesses creative as well as destructive properties.
In the Chaldean legend of Berosus, Oannes or Dagon, the man-fish, instructing the people, shows the infant world created out of water , and all beings originating from this prima materia.
Moses teaches that only earth and water can bring a living soul: and we read in the Scriptures that herbs could not grow until the Eternal caused it to rain upon earth.
In the Mexican Popol-Vuh , man is created out of mud or clay ( terre glaise ), taken from under the water.
Brahma creates the great Muni (or first man) seated on his lotus, only after having called into being spirits who thus enjoyed over mortals a priority of existence, and he creates him out of water , air and earth.
Alchemists claim that the primordial or pre-Adamic earth, when reduced to its first substance, is in its second stage of transformation like clear water, the first being the alkahest proper.
This primordial substance is said to contain within itself the essence of all that goes to make up man; it has not only all the elements of his physical being, but even the "breath of life" itself in a latent state, ready to be awakened.
This it derives from the "incubation" of the "Spirit of God" upon the face of the waters -- CHAOS: in fact, this substance is chaos itself.
From this it was that Paracelsus claimed to be able to make his "homunculi;" and this is why Thales, the great natural philosopher, maintained that water was the principle of all things in nature.* .
.
.
Job says, in chap.
xxvi.
5, that "dead things are formed from under the waters, and inhabitants thereof." In the original text, instead of "dead things," it is written dead Rephaim (giants or mighty primitive men), from whom "Evolution" may one day trace our present race." "In the primordial state of the creation," says Polier's Mythologie des Indous , "the rudimental universe, submerged in water, reposed in the bosom of Vishnu.
Sprung from this chaos and darkness, Brahma, the architect of the world, poised on a lotus-leaf, floated (moved) upon the waters, unable to discern anything but water and darkness." Perceiving such a dismal state of things, Brahma soliloquises in consternation: "Who am I?
Whence came I?" Then he hears a voice:** "Direct your thoughts to Bhagavat." Brahma, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon the lotus in an attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal, who, pleased with this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness and opens his understanding.
"After this Brahma issues from the universal egg (infinite chaos) as light , for his understanding is now opened, and he sets himself to work: he moves on the eternal waters, with the spirit of God within himself; and in his capacity of mover of the waters he is Vishnu, or Narayana.
" This is [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * With the Greeks, the "River-gods," all of them the Sons of the primeval ocean (Chaos in its masculine aspect), were the respective ancestors of the Hellenic races.
For them the O CEAN was the father of the Gods; and thus they had anticipated in this connection the theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle (Metaph.
I., 3, 5).
** The "Spirit," or hidden voice of the Mantras , the active manifestation of the latent Force, or occult potency.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 346 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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 the same cosmogonic principle (creation from water/chaos by a divine spirit) across Chaldean, Egyptian, Hindu, Norse, Mexican, Biblical, and alchemical traditions, demonstrating the Hermetic axiom that the same structure is reflected at every cultural scale.
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 entire passage is a comparative cosmogonic survey, tracing the origin of the universe from primordial Chaos/water/Space through Brahma, Vishnu, the Serpent, the First Point, and the First-Born across Chaldean, Egyptian, Hindu, Norse, Mexican, Biblical, and alchemical traditions.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The passage repeatedly emphasizes the unknowability of the ultimate principle: 'the One Unknown Space, the last word about which will, perhaps, never be known before our seventh Round,' and Kneph is explicitly 'the Eternal Unrevealed God.'
The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.
The identification of Chaos, Theos, and Kosmos as a single synthesis (SPACE) and the 'First Point' as the undivided origin affirm that the ultimate principle has no parts or composite attributes.
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 presents a clear cascade from the One (SPACE) through the First-Born/Builders, the Tetragrammaton at the head of the Seven lower Sephiroth, and Brahma evolving out of Chaos, each level deriving from the one above.
A historical or mythical chain of transmission for secret wisdom from master to disciple across time and cultures — the credential of the teaching, not merely its content. Distinct from oral_tradition (the spoken-not-written modality of transmission, which a lineage may or may not use) and hidden_sayings (the concealment-for-readiness of a teaching's meaning, independent of who transmitted it or in what unbroken chain).
The passage presents a universal chain of transmission across Chaldean, Egyptian, Hindu, Norse, Mexican, and Biblical traditions, implying a single esoteric wisdom transmitted through all civilizations.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage references Kabala as 'the only key that opens the secrets of the Bible' and frames the entire cosmogonic teaching as esoteric knowledge accessible only through allegorical and metaphysical symbols.
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 describes the cosmos unfolding as a directional descent from the unconditioned 'One Unknown Space' through Spirit hovering over waters, through Brahma evolving from Chaos, through the creation of the Muni from water/air/earth, and down to man from mud — a staged process of spirit descending into matter.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The 'Spirit = SPACE, personified by ayana — the Spirit moving over the face of the future boundless Kosmos' functions as the divine ordering/creative principle through which the universe is brought into being, mediating between the transcendent One and the material world.
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 primordial substance 'contains within itself the essence of all that goes to make up man' and has 'all the elements of his physical being, but even the breath of life itself in a latent state,' making the human a microcosmic image of the cosmic whole.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The passage's central thesis is that Chaos-Theos-Kosmos are 'the three aspects of their synthesis — SPACE,' identified as 'the One Unknown Space,' and the Kosmos is 'a single point' that is or contains God — a direct articulation of the absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity flows.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The passage invokes the Tetraktis, the Pythagorean triad, the Seven lower Sephiroth, the four-faced Brahma, and the transformation from triangle to quadrature as the mathematical-structural keys to understanding cosmic origin.
The ten attributes or emanations through which the Ein Sof (Infinite) reveals itself and creates the universe in Kabbalistic theology.
The passage explicitly references 'the Seven lower Sephiroth' with the Tetragrammaton 'at the head' of them, directly invoking the Kabbalistic emanation attributes.
The doctrine that the one Godhead or first principle subsists as three co-equal aspects or persons rather than a bare unity — the Christian Father/Son/Holy Ghost invoked in the recurring liturgical formula 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but structurally the same pattern as the Egyptian Amen/Ptah/Osiris, the Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Siva, and the Kabbalistic Chochmah/Binah/Kether triads that esoteric writers explicitly map onto it as instances of one universal law. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about internal plurality) and divine_simplicity (God as having no parts or divisions at all) in asserting a definite three-aspected differentiation within a single divine essence.
The passage identifies the 'first triangle or the Pythagorean triad, the God of the three Aspects' (Chaos-Theos-Kosmos) as the fundamental three-aspected structure before its quadrature into the four-faced Brahma, explicitly mapping a triadic divine structure.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The equation 'CHAOS-THEOS-KOSMOS = SPACE' and the identification of all three as 'the One Unknown Space' assert that all existence is ultimately one undivided reality.