Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogonyc

The dot was called God, as being the supreme individualization of the Universal Essence. Concerning this the Zohar says: "When the concealed of the Concealed wished to reveal Himself He first made a single point: the Infinite was entirely unknown, and diffused no light before this luminous point violently broke through into vision." The name of this point is I AM, called by the Hebrews Eheieh . The Qabbalists gave many names to this dot. On this subject Christian D. Ginsberg writes, in substance: The dot is called the first crown, because it occupies the highest position. It is called the aged, because it is the first emanation. It is called the primordial or smooth point. It is called the white head, the Long Face --Macroprosophus--and the inscrutable height, because it controls and governs all the other emanations. THE HEBREW TRIAD. The Qabbalists used the letter ש , Shin, to signify the trinity of the first three Sephiroth. The central circle slightly above the other two is the first Sephira--Kether, the White Head, the Crown. The other two circles represent Chochmah, the Father, and Binah, the Mother. From the union of the Divine Father and the Divine Mother are produced the worlds and the generations of living things. The three flame-like points of the letter ש have long been used to conceal this Creative Triad of the Qabbalists. *** When the white shining point had appeared, it was called Kether , which means the Crown , and out of it radiated nine great globes, which arranged themselves in the form of a tree. These nine together with the first crown constituted the first system of Sephiroth . These ten were the first limitation of ten abstract points within the nature of AIN SOPH Itself. The power of AIN SOPH did not descend into these globes but rather was reflected upon them as the light of the sun is reflected upon the earth and planets. These ten globes were called the shining sapphires , and it is believed by many Rabbins that the word sapphire is the basis of the word Sephira (the singular of Sephiroth). The great area which had been privated by the withdrawal of AIN SOPH into the central point, Kether , was now filled by four concentric globes called worlds, or spheres, and the light of the ten Sephiroth was reflected down through each of these in turn. This resulted in the establishment of four symbolical trees, each hearing the reflections of the ten Sephirothic globes. The 40 spheres of creation out of AIN SOPH are divided into four great world chains, as follows: A 1 to A 10, Atziluth , the Boundless World of Divine Names. B 1 to B 10, Briah , the Archangelic World of Creations. C 1 to C 10, Yetzirah , the Hierarchal World of Formations. D 1 to D 10, Assiah , the Elemental World of Substances. Each of these worlds has ten powers, or spheres--a parent globe and nine others which conic out of it as emanations, each globe born out of the one preceding. On the plane of Atziluth (A 1 to A 10), the highest and most divine of all the created worlds, the unmanifested AIN SOPH established His first point or dot in the Divine Sea--the three spheres of X. This dot--A 1--contains all creation within it, but in this first divine and uncontaminated state the dot, or first manifested. God, was not considered as a personality by the Qabbalists but rather as a divine establishment or foundation.