The older faiths knew this, but popular Christianity, which has no roots in tradition, has forgotten it.
Protestant Christianity threw away its occult aspect at the Reformation.
All the pagan pantheons have gross aspects of divinities as well as etherial ones.
We need to search the refuse-heap of history for the lost parts of our own tradition if our faith is to be complete, and the most profitable line of search is in the Qabalah and the Gnostic literature.
The literature of the Gnosis has been largely destroyed by systematic persecution, but in the Qabalah there is still left us a complete system.
The Jews, being strictly monotheistic, did not speak of gods, but they recognised a hierarchy of angels and archangels which is the equivalent of the pagan pantheons.
It is through these etherial messengers that the All-Father formed the worlds.
Let us consider once more the Qabalistic doctrine of the Qlippoth, for it has an intimate bearing upon the problem of insanity.
The doctrine of the Ten Holy Sephiroth, arranged in their correct pattern to form the Tree of Life, is invaluable in enabling us to conceive the Invisible.
The First Sephira is concentrated out of the Unmanifest, the Point within the Circle.
This emanates the Second, which in its turn emanates the Third.
As soon as one has emanated another, these two are said to be equilibrated; but when emanation is in process, there is a period of unbalanced force.
This, as it were, goes off by itself in the Cosmos and establishes a sphere of its own, unconnected with the Cosmic system.
Consequently, each sphere of the Cosmos has its counterpart in Chaos, in miniature, it is true, but nevertheless potent and functional.
Each sphere, in the course of its evolution, builds up an Oversoul which is called by different names in different systems.
In the Qabalistic system we call them the Archangels, the Spirits before the Throne.
The Sphere of the Sun is represented by Raphael, the Sphere of the Moon by Gabriel.
The Obverse Sephiroth, or Qlippoth, build up in exactly the same way.
In the Habitations of Hell these two are known as the Disputers and the Obscene Ones, whose names sufficiently indicate their characters.
The Sphere of the Sun is also the point of manifestation of the Messiah or Saviour upon earth.
The Prince of Peace has His obverse in the Disputers.
Who that has had the Vision Beautiful does not know the reaction that follows it, and the need of wisdom, self-control and patience to deal with the forces that are released not only in the soul but in the environment?
It is for this reason that periods of purgation and discipline precede all revelations.
We must keep the vigil before we can sit at the feast.
Consciousness, released from the Sphere of Earth, rises straight upwards to the Sphere of the Moon.
This is the negative, feminine, receptive, psychic sphere.
From thence it passes onwards to the Sphere of the Sun.
This is the positive, masculine sphere of the higher consciousness, the vision of the seer as distinguished from the psychic.
Upon either hand the path is flanked by the Spheres of Hermetic Wisdom and Elemental Beauty.
These Spheres, which have to do with the grades of initiation, need not concern us in the present pages.
We shall only have to do with the Sphere of the Moon, Luna, the Mistress of the Luna-tic.
Now Luna was represented by the ancients under diverse forms as Diana the chaste huntress, symbol of sublimation, and Hecate, patroness of witchcraft and childbirth.
We have already noted that the Qlippoth of the Sphere of Luna are called the Obscene Ones.
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 text maps cosmic spheres (Sun, Moon) to levels of human consciousness and mental states.
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 text describes how the All-Father formed the worlds through etherial messengers and emanation.
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The passage states that periods of purgation and discipline must precede revelations.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
The text links the Sphere of the Moon to lunacy and discusses the reaction following spiritual vision.
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 details the emanation process from the Unmanifest through the Sephiroth and describes the hierarchy of angels and archangels.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The Qlippoth are described as unbalanced forces that go off by themselves, representing a lack of cosmic equilibrium.
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 spheres are explicitly characterized by masculine (Sun) and feminine (Moon) 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 Sphere of the Sun is identified as the point of manifestation of the Messiah or Saviour upon earth.
The ritual admission of an individual into esoteric knowledge or a sacred order through a formal rite of passage — testing, ordeal, or ceremony — marking a definite before/after threshold in the initiate's status and access. Distinct from hidden_sayings (the doctrine being concealed, not the rite of admission to it) and esoteric_lineage (the historical chain of transmission across generations, not a single individual's admission).
The passage mentions Spheres that have to do with the grades of initiation.
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 outlines the descent of emanation and the complementary ascent of consciousness.
The balance of two contrary forces as the structural law of cosmos and operation — Lévi's equilibrium, expressed in Kabbalah by the senary: the will of God in its first cause, liberty in man, mathematical equilibrium in matter; the twofold vibration required to direct the Astral Light safely.
The passage discusses equilibrated versus unbalanced force during the process of emanation.
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.
Human consciousness is described as rising through the same spheres that structure the cosmos.
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 defines the Sun as positive/masculine and the Moon as negative/feminine, establishing a structural duality.
The rule of the stars and planetary powers over mortal destiny — the astrological governors whose spheres bind souls to birth, error, and death; in Sethian gnosis the 'error of the stars' that the savior exposes, and from which the incorruptible generation alone is free. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of universal affinity) in being a bondage-to-powers claim, and from archons (the rulers as personal beings) in concerning the astral machinery itself.
The Sphere of the Moon is explicitly linked to mental disturbance and lunacy.