The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) · 303 of 530
The Tree of the Sephirothe
*** The Lesser Face is properly symbolized by the six-pointed star or interlaced triangles of Zion and also by the six faces of the cube.
It represents the directions north, east, south, west, up, and down, and also the first six days of Creation.
In his list of the parts of the Microprosophus, MacGregor-Mathers includes Binah as the first and superior part of the Lesser Adam , thus making his constitution septenary.
If Microprosophus be considered as sexpartite, then his globes (Sephiroth) are analogous to the six days of Creation, and the tenth globe, Malchuth, to the Sabbath of rest.
(5) The Bride of Microprosophus is Malchuth--the epitome of the Sephiroth, its quaternary constitution being composed of blendings of the four elements.
This is the divine Eve that is taken out of the side of Microprosophus and combines the potencies of the entire Qabbalistic Tree in one sphere, which may be termed man.
According to the mysteries of the Sephiroth, the order of the Creation, or the Divine Lightning Flash which zigzags through the four worlds according to the order of the divine emanations, is thus described: From AIN SOPH, the Nothing and All, the Eternal and Unconditioned Potency, issues Macroprosophus , the Long Face , of whom it is written, "Within His skull exist daily thirteen thousand myriads of worlds which draw their existence from Him and by Him are upheld." (See The Greater Holy Assembly.) Macroprosophus , the directionalized will of AIN SOPH, corresponding to Kether, the Crown of the Sephiroth, gives birth out of Himself to the nine lesser spheres of which He is the sum and the overbrooding cause.
The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, by the various combinations of which the laws of the universe are established, constitute the scepter of Macroprosophus which He wields from His flaming throne in the Atziluthic World.
From this eternal and ancient androgyne--Kether--come forth Chochmah, the great Father, and Binah, the great Mother.
These two are usually referred to as Abba and Aima respectively--the first male and the first female, the prototypes of sex.
These correspond to the first two letters of the sacred name, Jehovah, יהוה, IHVH .
The Father is the י, or I , and the Mother is the ה, or H .
Abba and Aima symbolize the creative activities of the universe, and are established in the creative world of Briah.
In the Sepher ha Zohar it is written, "And therefore are all things established in the equality of male and female; for were it not so, how could they subsist?
This beginning is the Father of all things; the Father of all Fathers; and both are mutually bound together, and the one path shineth into the other--Chochmah, Wisdom, as the Father; Binah, Understanding, as the Mother." There is a difference of opinion concerning certain of the relationships of the parts of the first triad.
Some Qabbalists, including Ibn Gebirol, consider Kether as the Father, Binah as the Mother, and Chochmah as the Son.
In this later arrangement, Wisdom, which is the attribute of the Son, becomes the creator of the lower spheres.
The symbol of Binah is the dove, a proper emblem for the brooding maternal instinct of the Universal Mother.
Because of the close similarity of their creative triad to the Christian Trinity, the later Qabbalists rearranged the first three Sephiroth and added a mysterious point called Daath --a hypothetical eleventh Sephira.
Themes
◆Anthropomorphismtheology
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The text extensively describes divine attributes using human imagery such as 'Long Face', 'skull', 'father', 'mother', and 'son'.
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 links the six directions of Creation with the six faces of the cube and the six days of Creation.
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 outlines a descending chain from AIN SOPH to Macroprosophus, Chochmah, Binah, and the Sephiroth.
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 text identifies Malchuth as 'the divine Eve that is taken out of the side of Microprosophus and combines the potencies of the entire Qabbalistic Tree in one sphere, which may be termed man.'