Page 84 (part 2)

As each Persian Dev is chained to his planet (see Origen's Copy of the Chart), so each Hindu Deva (a "Lord") has its allotted portion, a world, a planet, a nation or a race. Plurality of worlds implies plurality of gods. We believe in the former, and may recognize, but will never worship, the latter. ( Vide Part III ., "On Chains of Worlds and their Plurality.") It has been repeatedly stated in this work that every religious and philosophical symbol had seven meanings attached to it, each pertaining to its legitimate plane of thought, i.e. , either purely metaphysical or astronomical; psychic or physiological, etc., etc. These seven meanings and their applications are hard enough to learn when taken by themselves; but the interpretation and the right comprehension of them become tenfold more puzzling, when, instead of being correlated, or made to flow consecutively out of and to follow each other, each, or any one of these meanings is accepted as the one and sole explanation of the whole symbolical idea. An instance may be given, as it admirably illustrates the statement. Here are two interpretations given by two learned Kabalists and scholars, of one and the same verse in Exodus, xxxiii, 18-23. Moses beseeches the Lord to show him his "glory." Evidently it is not the crude dead letter phraseology as found in the Bible that is to be accepted. There are seven meanings in the Kabala, of which we may give two as interpreted by the said two scholars. One of them quotes, while explaining: "Thou canst not see my face . . . I will put thee in the cleft of the rock . . . cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And then I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my a'hoor, my back; . . " and tells us in a gloss, "That is, I will show you 'My back,' i.e. , my visible universe, my lower manifestations, but, as a man still in the flesh, thou canst not [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * With the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth (Hermes), who was chief of the Seven ( Vide "Book of the Dead"). Their names are given by Origen, as Adonai (of the Sun) Iao (of the Moon), Eloi (Jupiter) , Sabao (Mars) , Orai (Venus), Astapkoi (Mercury), and, finally, Ildabaoth (Saturn). [[Vol. 2, Page]] 539 A GROTESQUE VERSE EXPLAINED. see my invisible nature. So proceeds the Qabbalah." This is correct, and is the cosmo-metaphysical explanation. And now speaks the other Kabalist, giving the numerical meaning. As it involves a good many suggestive ideas, and is far more fully given, we may allow it more space. This synopsis is from an unpublished MS ., and explains more fully what was given in § XVII , "The Holy of Holies," page 467. The numbers of the name Moses are those of " I AM THAT I AM," so that the names Moses and Jehovah are at one in numerical harmony. The word Moses is and the sum of the values of its letters is 345; Jehovah -- the genius par excellence of the lunar year -- assumes the value of 543, or the reverse of 345. . . . In the third chapter of Exodus, in the 13th and 14th verses, it is said: And Moses said . . . Behold when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? and God said unto Moses -- "I am that I am." The Hebrew words for this expression are ahiye asher ahiye, and in the value of the sums of their letters stand thus:-- . . . This being his (God's) name, the sum of the values composing it are 21, 501, 21 are 543, or simply a use of the simple digit numbers in the name of Moses . . . but now so ordered that the name of 345 is reversed, and reads 543. . . . So that when Moses asks "Let me see Thy face or glory," the other rightly and truly replies "Thou canst not see my face" . . . but thou shalt see me behind -- (the true sense, though not the precise words); because the comer and the behind of 543 is the face of 345 -- "for check and to keep a strict use of a set of numbers to develop certain grand results, for the object of which they are specifically employed." "In other uses," adds the learned Kabalist, "of the number they saw each other face to face. It is strange that if we add 345 to 543 we have 888, which was the gnostic Kabalistic value of the name Christ, who was Jehoshua or Joshua. And so also the division of the 24 hours of the day gives three eights as quotient. . . . The chief end of all this system of number checks was to preserve in perpetuity the exact value of the Lunar year in the natural measure of days." This is the astronomical and numerical meaning in the secret theogony of sidereo-cosmical gods invented by the Chaldeo-Hebrews, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The Qabbalah, by Isaac Myer. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 540 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. and two meanings out of seven. The other five would astonish the Christians still more. The series of OEdipuses who have endeavoured to interpret the riddle of the Sphinx, is long indeed. For many ages she has been devouring the brightest and the noblest intellects of Christendom; but now the Sphinx is conquered. In the great intellectual struggle which has ended in the complete victory of the OEdipuses of Symbolism, it is not the Sphinx, however, who, burning with the shame of defeat, has had to bury herself in the sea, but verily the many-sided symbol, named Jehovah, whom Christians -- the civilized nations -- have accepted for their God. The latter has collapsed under the too close analysis, and is -- drowned. Symbologists have discovered with dismay that their adopted deity was only a mask for many other gods, an Euhemerized extinct planet, at best, the genius of the Moon and Saturn with the Jews, of the Sun and Jupiter, with early Christians; that the Trinity was, in truth, only an astronomical triad -- unless they accepted the more abstract and metaphysical meanings given to it by the Gentiles -- composed of the Sun (the Father), and the two planets Mercury (the Son) and Venus (the Holy Ghost , Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom, Love and Truth, and Lucifer, as Christ, the bright and morning Star; vide "Revelation," ch. xxii., 15).