For: -- "The quaternary of the intellectual world (the world of Mahat ) is T'Agathon, Nous, Psyche, Hyle; while that of the sensible world (of matter), which is properly what Pythagoras meant by the word Kosmos -- is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.
The four elements are called by the name of rizomata, the roots or principles of all mixed bodies, " i.e., the lower Tetraktis is the root of illusion of the world of matter; and this is the tetragrammaton of the Jews, and the "mysterious deity," over which the modern Kabalists make such a fuss!
"Thus number four forms the arithmetical mean between the monad and the heptad, as this contains all powers, both of the productive and produced numbers; for this of all numbers under ten, is made of a certain number; the duad doubled makes a tetrad, and the tetrad doubled or unfolded makes the hebdomad (the septenary).
Two multiplied into itself produces four; and retorted into itself makes the first cube.
This first cube is a fertile number, the ground of multitude and variety, constituted of two and four (depending on the monad, the seventh ) .
Thus the two principles of temporal things, the pyramis and [[Vol.
2, Page]] 600 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
cube, form and matter, flow from one fountain, the tetragon (on earth) the monad (in heaven) .
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" (See Reuchlin, " Cabala " 1 , ii.).
Here Reuchlin, the great authority on the Kabala, shows the cube to be matter, whereas the pyramid or the triad is "form." With the Hermesians the number four becomes the symbol of truth only when amplified into a cube, which, unfolded, makes seven, as symbolizing the male and female elements and the element of L IFE.* Some students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line, which is male, becoming ( vide infra ) in the cross a four-partitioned line -- four being a female number, while the horizontal (the line of matter) becomes three-divisioned.
But this is easy of explanation.
Since the middle face of the cube unfolded is common to both the vertical and the horizontal bar, or double-line, it becomes neutral ground so to say, and belongs to neither.
The spirit line remains triadic, and the matter line two-fold -- two being an even and therefore a female number also.
Moreover, according to Theon, the Pythagoreans who gave the name of Harmony to the Tetraktis, "because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia" -- were of opinion that "the division of the canon of the monochord was made by the tetraktis in the duad, triad, and tetrad; for it comprehends a sesquitertia, a sesquialtera, a double, a triple, and a quadruple proportion, the section of which is 27." "In the ancient musical notation, the tetrachord consisted of three degrees or intervals, and four terms of sounds called by the Greeks diatessaron, and by us a fourth." Moreover, the quaternary though an even, therefore a female ("infernal") number, varied according to its form.
This is shown by Stanley (in Pythag.
p.
61).
The 4 was called by the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * In the " Hebrew Egyptian Mystery, the Source of Measures, " the Author shows (on p.
50) that the figure of the cube unfolded in connection with the circle .
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"becomes .
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a cross proper, or of the tau form, and the attachment of the circle to this last gives the ansated cross of the Egyptians .
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while there are but 6 faces to a cube, the representation of the cross as the cube unfolded, as to the cross-bars, displays one face of the cube as common to two bars, counted as belonging to either .
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( i.e.
, once counted horizontally, and once vertically) .
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4 for the upright and 3 for the cross bar making seven in all," -- 4 for the upright, and 3 for the -- adding -- "Here we have the famous 4, and 3, and 7." Esoteric philosophy explains that four is the symbol of the Universe in its potential state, or chaotic matter, and that it requires Spirit to permeate it actively, i.e.
, the primordial abstract triangle has to quit its one dimensional quality and spread across that matter, thus forming a manifested basis on the three dimensional space, in order that the Universe should manifest intelligibly.
This is achieved by the cube unfolded.
Hence the ansated cross as the symbol of man, generation and life.
In Egypt ank signified soul, life and blood.
It is the ensouled, living man, the Septenary.
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 601 THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.
Pythagoreans the Key-Keeper of Nature; but in union with the 3, which made it seven, it became the most perfect and harmonious number -- nature herself.
The four was "the Masculine of Feminine Form," when forming the Cross; and Seven is "the Master of the Moon," for this planet is forced to alter her appearance every seven days.
It is on number seven that Pythagoras composed his doctrine on the Harmony and Music of the Spheres, calling "a tone" the distance of the Moon from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun l 1/2 tones; from the Sun to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter 1/2 a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn 1/2 a tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones -- the diapason harmony.
All the melody of nature is in those seven tones, and therefore is called "the Voice of Nature." Plutarch explains ( de Plac.
Phil., p.
878) that the Achaean Greeks regarded the tetrad as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible created things.
With the brothers of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the Cross, or Cube unfolded, formed the subject of a disquisition in one of the theosophic degrees of Peuret, and was treated according to the fundamental principles of light and darkness, or good and evil.
"The intelligible world proceeds out of the divine mind (or unit) after this manner.
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's core structure is the mapping of the intellectual world (T'Agathon, Nous, Psyche, Hyle) onto the sensible world (Fire, Air, Water, Earth), and the monad (in heaven) corresponding to the tetragon (on earth) — a textbook 'as above, so below' correspondence.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The 'Music of the Spheres' passage describes seven tones binding the planetary distances into a single harmonic diapason, with 'all the melody of nature' residing in those tones — a doctrine of hidden affinity binding cosmic parts into one resonant whole.
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 describes how the universe manifests: 'the primordial abstract triangle has to quit its one dimensional quality and spread across that matter, thus forming a manifested basis on the three dimensional space, in order that the Universe should manifest intelligibly.'
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 passage explicitly assigns masculine and feminine qualities to numbers (odd=masculine, even=feminine), discusses the 'male and female elements,' the 'Masculine of Feminine Form' of the cross, and the vertical line as male becoming four-partitioned (female) — making gender a structural feature of the numerological system.
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 ansated cross is identified as 'the symbol of man, generation and life' and 'the ensouled, living man, the Septenary,' explicitly mapping the cosmic numerological structure onto the human being.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The monad is a central structural element, described as the 'first principle' in heaven from which all multiplicity flows, the arithmetical mean's upper bound, and the source alongside the tetragon from which form and matter flow.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The entire passage is an extended exposition of the mystical significance of numbers 2, 3, 4, and 7 — their arithmetic relationships, their symbolic valences (male/female, form/matter, truth/illusion), and their role as the underlying structure of divine and cosmic reality.
The Hermetic doctrine that nothing rests — matter, energy, mind, and spirit are a single continuum differing only in rate of vibration, from the grossest matter to the least material spirit. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (affinity resonating BETWEEN separate things) in being a claim about what constitutes any one thing in the first place, and from magical_equilibrium (Lévi's operational balancing technique, which presupposes some vibration doctrine rather than stating this general principle).
The passage frames cosmic structure in terms of musical tones and intervals (sesquitertia, sesquialtera, double, triple, quadruple proportions) and the seven-tone diapason of the spheres, treating vibration as the medium through which cosmic order is expressed.