exoteric, of course, yet in its main idea as identical as possible with the Egyptian cosmogony, which shows in its opening sentences Athtor,* or Mother Night (which represents illimitable darkness), as the primeval element which covered the infinite abyss, animated by water and the universal spirit of the Eternal, dwelling alone in Chaos.
Similarly in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the creation opens with the spirit of God and his creative emanation -- another Deity.** The Zohar teaches that it is the primordial elements -- the trinity of Fire, Air and Water -- the four cardinal points, and all the Forces of Nature, which form collectively the V OICE of the W ILL Memrab , or the "Word," the Logos of the Absolute Silent ALL.
"The indivisible point, limitless and unknowable" spreads itself over the endless space, and thus forms a veil (the Mulaprakriti of Parabraham) which conceals this Absolute point.
( Vide infra ) .
In the cosmogonies of all the nations it is the "Architects" synthesized by Demiurgos (in the Bible the "Elohim"), who fashion Kosmos out of Chaos, and who are the collective Theos , "male-female," Spirit and matter.
"By a series ( yom ) of foundations ( hasoth ) the Alhim caused earth and heaven to be" (Gen.
ii., 4).
In the Bible it is first Alhim , then Jahva-Alhim, and finally Jehovah --after the separation of the sexes in chapter iv.
of Genesis.
It is noticeable that nowhere, except in the later, the last Cosmogonies of our Fifth race, is the ineffable and unutterable N AME*** -- the symbol of the Unknown Deity, which was used only in the M YSTERIES -- used in connection with the "Creation" of the Universe.
It is the "Movers," the "Runners," the theoi (from [[ theein ]], "to run"), who do the work of formation, the "Messengers" of the manvantaric law, who have now become in Christianity the "messengers" (malachim); and it seems the same in Hinduism or early Brahmanism.
For it is not Brahma who creates in the Rig Veda , but the Prajapati, the "Lords of Being," who are the Rishis; the word Rishi (according to Professor Mahadeo Kunte) being connected with the word to move, to lead on, applied to them in their terrestrial character, when, as Patriarchs, they lead their hosts on the Seven Rivers.
Moreover, the very word "God" in the singular, embracing all the gods -- or theos from theoi -- came to the "superior" civilized nations from a strange source, one entirely and as pre-eminently phallic as the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Orthography of the "Archaic Dictionary." ** We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish one, now explained kabalistically.
*** It is "unutterable" for the simple reason that it is non-existent.
It never was a name , nor any word at all, but an Idea that could not be expressed.
A substitute was created for it in the century preceding our era.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 347 THE MYSTIC ELEMENTS.
sincere, open-spoken lingham of India.
The attempt to derive God from the Anglo-Saxon synonym "good" is an abandoned idea, for in no other language, in all of which the term varies more or less, from the Persian Khoda down to the Latin Deus , has an instance been found of a name of God being derived from the attribute of Goodness.
To the Latin races it comes from the Aryan Dyaus (the Day); to the Slavonian, from the Greek Bacchus ( Bagh-bog ); and to the Saxon races directly from the Hebrew Yodh or Jod.
The latter is , the number-letter 10, male and female, and Jod the phallic hook: -- hence the Saxon Godh , the Germanic Gott , and the English God.
This symbolic term may be said to represent the Creator of physical "Humanity," on the terrestrial plane; but surely it had nothing to do with the formation or "Creation" of Spirit, gods, or Kosmos!
Chaos-Theos-Kosmos, the triple deity, is all in all.
Therefore, it is said to be male and female, good and evil, positive and negative: the whole series of contrasted qualities.
When latent (in pralaya) it is incognizable and becomes the unknowable Deity.
It can be known only in its active functions; hence as matter-Force and living Spirit , the correlations and outcome, or the expression, on the visible plane, of the ultimate and ever-to-be unknown UNITY.
In its turn this triple unit is the producer of the four primary "Elements,"* which are known in our visible terrestrial nature as the seven (so far the five ) Elements, each divisible into forty-nine (or seven times seven) sub-elements, with about seventy of which Chemistry is acquainted.
Every Cosmical Element such as Fire, Air, Water, Earth, partaking of the qualities and defects of their Primaries, are in their nature Good and Evil, Force (or Spirit) and Matter, etc., etc.; and each, therefore, is at one and the same time Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and Reaction.
( See Section XIV.
, " The Four Elements.
") They are ever and constantly forming matter under the never-ceasing impulse of the O NE Element (the incognizable ), represented in the world of phenomena by 'AEther, or "the immortal gods who give birth and life to all." In "the Philosophical writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol" (translated in Mr.
Isaac Myer's Kabbalah , just published) it is said on the structure of the Universe, "R.
Yehudah began, it is written: -- 'Elohim said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.' Come, see, at the time that the Holy.
.
.
.
created the World, He [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was square , representing the four cardinal points and the four Elements, as Josephus tells his readers ( Antiq.
1 , viii ch.
, xxii.
) It is the idea taken from the pyramids in Egypt and in Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars, the Genii, or Angels have their abodes in the four respective points (See § xiv.; " The Four Elements.
") [[Vol.
1, Page]] 348 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
created 7 heavens above, 7 earths below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7 years, 7 times, and 7,000 years that the world has been.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The ultimate Deity is consistently described by negation: 'unknowable,' 'incognizable,' 'ineffable and unutterable,' 'non-existent' as a name, 'the Absolute Silent ALL'—a sustained via negativa.
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 draws structural parallels between Egyptian, Jewish, Hindu, and Greek cosmogonies, implying that the same cosmic architecture is legible 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 cosmos in Egyptian, Jewish, Zoharic, Hindu, and Greek traditions.
A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.
The 'Architects synthesized by Demiurgos (in the Bible the Elohim)' who fashion Kosmos out of Chaos are explicitly a secondary creator distinct from the supreme unknowable Deity.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The Absolute point is concealed by the Mulaprakriti veil; the Deity is 'ever-to-be unknown' and 'incognizable' in its latent state, emphasizing radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge.
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 explicitly maps a cascading hierarchy from the Absolute point through the Mulaprakriti veil, the triple deity (Chaos-Theos-Kosmos), the four primary Elements, the seven Elements, and down to 49 sub-elements.
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 posits an unseen dimension—the 'Absolute Silent ALL,' the incognizable ONE Element, the Mulaprakriti veil—that underlies and interpenetrates the visible phenomenal world.
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 the directional descent from the incognizable UNITY through the veil, the triple deity, and the elements down to the visible plane, describing the staged process of spirit expressing itself as matter.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The passage explicitly identifies the Memrab as 'the Word, the Logos of the Absolute Silent ALL,' mediating between the unknowable source and the manifested cosmos.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The passage assigns cosmological significance to numbers: four primary Elements, seven (five) Elements, 49 sub-elements, the number-letter 10 (Yodh), and Ibn Gebirol's series of sevens (7 heavens, 7 earths, 7 seas, 7 days, etc.).
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The passage repeatedly asserts that all elements are simultaneously 'Good and Evil, Force and Matter, Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and Reaction,' expressing the doctrine that apparent opposites are two degrees of the same reality.
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 'triple deity' Chaos-Theos-Kosmos, the Zoharic 'trinity of Fire, Air and Water,' and the progression Alhim → Jahva-Alhim → Jehovah all express a three-aspected differentiation within a single divine essence.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The passage culminates in 'the ultimate and ever-to-be unknown UNITY' from which all correlations and expressions on the visible plane derive, asserting a single underlying reality.