The Tree of the Sephirothg

Thomas Maurice reproduces the above engraving, which is modification of the elaborate tree on the preceding page. The Sephiroth are here superimposed, decreasing in size as they decrease in power and dignity. Thus, the Crown is the greatest and the all-inclusive, and the Kingdom--which represents the physical universe--is the smallest and of least importance. *** The four globes upon the central column reveal the function of the creative power in the various worlds. In the first world the creative power is Will --the one Divine Cause; in the second world, the hypothetical Daath --the Word coming forth from the Divine Thought; in the third world, Tiphereth--the Sun, or focal point between God and Nature; in the fourth world it is twofold, being the positive and negative poles of the reproductive system, of which Jesod is the male and Malchuth the female. In Kircher's Sephirothic Tree it should be especially noted that the ornaments of the Tabernacle appear in the various parts of the diagram. These indicate a direct relationship between the sacred House of God and the universe--a relationship which must always be considered as existing between the Deity through whose activity the world is produced and the world itself, which must be the house or vehicle of that Deity. Could the modern scientific world but sense the true profundity of these philosophical deductions of the ancients, it would realize that those who fabricated the structure of the Qabbalah possessed a knowledge of the celestial plan comparable in every respect with that of the modern savant. The Tetragrammaton , or the four-lettered Name of God, written thus יהוה, is pronounce Jehovah. The first letter is י, Yod , the Germ, the Life, the Flame, the Cause, the One, and the most fundamental of the Jewish phallic emblems. Its numerical value is 10, and it is to be considered as the 1 containing the 10. In the Qabbalah it is declared that the a Yod is in reality three Yods , of which the first is the beginning , the second is the center , and the third is the end . Its throne is the Sephira Chochmah (according to Ibn Gebirol, Kether), from which it goes forth to impregnate Binah, which is the first ה, He . The result of this union is Tiphereth, which is the ו Vau , whose power is 6 and which symbolizes the six members of the Lesser Adam . The final ה, He , is Malchuth, the Inferior Mother , partaking in part of the potencies of the Divine Mother , the first He . By placing the four letters of the Tetragrammaton in a vertical column, a figure closely resembling the human body is produced, with Yod for the head, the first He for the arms and shoulders, Vau for the trunk of the body, and the final He for the hips and legs. If the Hebrew letters be exchanged for their English equivalents, the form is not materially changed or the analogy altered. It is also extremely significant that by inserting the letter ש, Shin , in the middle of the name Jehovah , the word Jehoshua , or Jesus , is formed thus: יהשוה In the Qabbalistic Mysteries, according to Éliphas Lévi, the name Jehovah is occasionally written by connecting together 24 dots--the 24 powers before the throne--and it is believed that the name of the Power of Evil is the sign of Jehovah reversed or inverted.